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PINE BLUFF — In the Michoacán state of Mexico, several towns including Cherán recently celebrated the feast day of their patron saint, St. Francis of Assisi, Oct. 4. Townspeople honored the saint with a weeklong festival with everything from Mass to fair rides.
On Oct. 10, a slice of Mexico came to St. Joseph Church in Pine Bluff. Hispanic parishioners primarily from Warren, Pine Bluff and Little Rock gathered for the fourth year for a Spanish Mass and a celebration at the local fairgrounds to honor St. Francis.
“In Mexico, every town has a saint they celebrate,” said Guillermo Acuchi, 30, who was one of several married men who put on this year’s event.
Every year, different men are chosen to help collect the money for the St. Francis celebration and their wives are asked to wear traditional dresses during the day’s festivities. According to the tradition, the women brought plates or baskets of fruit and wine to Father Siprianus Ola Rotok, SVD, pastor of St. Peter Church in Pine Bluff, as a thank-you for celebrating Mass.
“The most important thing is the Mass where we honor him on his day,” Acuchi said.
During the 1500s, Franciscan friars went to Mexico to evangelize using St. Francis of Assisi’s teachings. The celebration for St. Francis of Assisi in Cherán celebrates his kindness to the Mexican people.
“There are fair rides, music, famous bands who play. It’s a big thing,” said Yolanda Torres, 41, who moved with her family to Warren when she was just 7 years old from Cherán. “There’s arts and crafts they sell and smaller towns visit to celebrate. I used to love going on the rides and to the rodeo.”
While many might not think of St. Francis of Assisi, of Italian descent, as a saint celebrated in Mexico, Torres said every town in Mexico will put on some sort of festival to honor their patron saint.
“Every town has a saint they respect,” which means it goes beyond saints of merely Spanish descent, she said.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, families from Cherán migrated to Arkansas, primarily to Warren, to work in agriculture.
“There was not as much crime here,” Torres said. “They came here as tomato pickers, tree planters, mostly for farm work,” which still continues today.
Though Acuchi said it started with about 20 families with 30 or more in each family migrating to the area, Torres said it has grown into the thousands today.
Bringing the festival to Arkansas was an idea from Torres’ brother-in-law in 2012.
“It’s so they know the culture we have and the main thing is to honor St. Francis,” Torres said of families passing on the tradition to their children.
As the Banda La Chelera played with drums pounding and 4-year-old Eric Alejandre blowing away on his trumpet, the main participants processed into St. Joseph’s, led by the married men carrying a shrine to St. Francis with his statue inside. More than 100 people attended the Mass.
The statue was housed at the home of the Huerta family who served participants breakfast that included tamales and a traditional hot corn-based beverage called atole that morning, keeping with the tradition of Cherán.
“They start celebrating seven days before the Mass. The saint stays at one house every year and that family makes food for the whole town,” Torres said of the celebration in Mexico. “We have a parade and then at 5 a.m. they have a prayer procession for two hours on the way to the church.”
While the celebration is downsized in Arkansas, certain traditions are kept alive, like placing money on the statue of St. Francis as an offering and the women and young girls taking part in a traditional Mexican dance. After the Mass, participants and hundreds of others gathered at the Hestand Stadium Fairgrounds to eat pork, rice and pico de gallo, listen to music and dance.
Lizbeth Simon, clad in her traditional dress, was born in Arkansas and said it is her first year to take part in the tradition thanks to her fiancé, who was one of the men chosen to help.
“I like the food, the dancing and the music,” the 19-year-old Warren native said.
