CARNAVAL, 2013—The 2013 San Francisco Carnaval will not be canceled. That was the announcement delivered during the March 19 community meeting at the Brava Theater. Despite financial troubles and a changing neighborhood, the City and Mission District made a communal effort to preserve the tradition.
The crowd of around 170, which filled the auditorium, cheered upon hearing the news. Many were parade contingents who have been diligently working for months on their floats, costumes and dances.
“We all have problems but we believe in milagros [miracles], right?” Roberto Hernandez asked the crowd. Hernandez, a former Carnaval leader, has returned to organize the event.
The sudden news that San Francisco Cultural Arts Traditions (SFCAT)—which has organized Carnaval since 2009—was facing a fiscal demise and had to cancel the 35th annual event celebrating Latin American Culture, came as a shock to many.
Joaquin Torres, director of the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Services, said that the City, including Mayor Ed Lee, is in full support.
“The biggest thing is the Grant For The Arts which totals $70,700—which is the largest amount The City provides to any cultural event,” he said. “We just had to make sure we had an organization in place where we could put those dollars to make sure we could get going.”
Within two weeks, Calle 24 Cultural Arts and Culture Corridor Consortium—an ad hoc committee, approved by the City to organize Carnaval—was formed. Members of the committee include individuals and organizations from the community.
While last year’s Carnaval cost an estimated $900,000, the new committee will have to organize May’s event for about $300,000. It decided that both the parade and festival had to be scaled back.
Details are still being worked out, but Hernandez said there will not be the seven large stages for the musicians and dancers as in the past. This year there will be tents on every corner with musicians representing various Latin American and Caribbean countries.
With only two months left to organize, he stressed the need to find additional funding and an army of volunteers to make up for the loss.
And while SFCAT’s troubles are now out of the bag, many questions remain unanswered: “Were permits secured?” “When was it known that funds were not available?” and “Did SFCAT continue to take registration fees from parade contingents and vendors, if they knew?”
Supervisor David Campos told the audience that he will be working with the City Controller’s Office on an investigation. “You cannot really move forward unless there is some kind of understanding of what happened,” Campos said. “We need that accountability but it’s an accountability that’s done with the assurance, that at the end of the day, we will not only be sure that we have Carnaval this year, but that we have a strong successful program moving forward.”
SFCAT’s fiscal demise is not the only challenge for Carvaval; neighborhood gentrification has become growing threat to the event.
“We cut the festival budget tremendously to be able to do the festival these two days and I’ll tell you why,” Hernandez told the crowd. “If we would not do the festival then these people on Harrison Street will never allow Carnaval to be held on the street again. We were there first and we have that right.”
Hernandez told El Tecolote that newer residents along the Harrison Street corridor—once a neglected industrial strip in the event’s earlier days and now heavily developed with hundreds of condos—have been increasingly organizing against the festival.
“They started getting lawyers and coming after us and making it real difficult by going to our hearings when we’re getting our permits, protesting and threatening us legally. So it’s been a fight,” he said.
Hernandez pointed out the bitter irony of the situation: It was early Carnaval and Mission community organizers who fought to get the City to clean up Harrison Street, putting in trees, repaving the road and other improvements.
With so little time, new organizers face an uphill battle, but like Hernandez told the crowd, he believes in milagros.
SF Carnaval 2013 — Festival: Saturday, May 25 and Sunday, May 26. Parade: Sunday, May 26
— Organizing Committee: Acción Latina; BRAVA Theater; Galería de la Raza; Loco Bloco; Lower 24th Street Merchants Association; Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts; Precita Eyes Muralists, Inc.; Dr. Bernie Gonzalez, Latin Rock, Inc.; Arturo Carrillo, artist; Roberto Hernandez, Latin Zone Productions; Sam Ruiz, Mission Neighborhood Centers, Inc.; Jose Carrasco, Good Samaritan Family Resource Center; Victor Castro, artist — To volunteer please contact: volunteer.csf2013@gmail.com