Cultural Fare

VENTURA — Crowned by a feathered Aztec headdress, Dennis Contreras stamped his feet, shook his leg like a rattle and opened his arms wide, as if welcoming crowds to Sunday’s Fiesta Day celebration at the Ventura County Fair.

Typically one of the fair’s most popular theme days, with about 30,000 visitors, Fiesta Day drew a steady stream of people as Mexican culture took the forefront--offering even more than the usual wealth of tacos, burritos and hot salsa.

Mariachi bands in ornately stitched dark suits wandered the grounds. Young girls took to the stage, shimmying and twirling in a cultural display of Mexican regional dances. Salsa music chimed through the afternoon warmth, starting more than one pair of shoulders to shaking on the crowded main drag.

And members of Nahui Ollin, Contreras’ Oxnard-based dance group, trumpeted a “call to harmony” on a conch shell, stamped their feet and beat on their drums, as their Aztec ancestors had thousands of years ago.

It was, Contreras said, a lesson for newcomers, and also for Chicanos who are unaware of their heritage.

“A lot of people haven’t seen this. We want to open their hearts and minds more,” said his mother, Dolores Contreras. “It’s cultural pride.”

Over the years, organizers have increasingly widened the spotlight on that pride. The popularity of Fiesta Day, begun in 1981, prompted the organizers to move it four years ago from the last day of the county fair to the first Sunday of the 12-day event.

The word “tradition” pops up often among the performers at Fiesta Day. And well it should.

The Contreras family’s ancestors have lived in this area for hundreds of years; their Chumash forefathers lived “right on this land,” Dennis Contreras said. The dances, which survived in secret through years of Spanish rule, span the generations. His 12-year-old son dances with the group, too.

The click-clack of rattles made from chachayotes nuts on their ankles and the thump of the huehuetl drums remind the troupe’s performers of the many generations that came before, and bring them closer to the creator, the dancers believe.

“It’s an obligation to our ancestors and our children,” said Dennis Contreras. “We keep it alive and preserve it.”

The same was true throughout the fairgrounds, as dancers and singers spoke of the need to preserve Latin American culture, teach others of it, and remind second- and third-generation Latinos of their homeland.

“Some people who don’t know our culture--or don’t know their own--don’t necessarily appreciate it,” said Rosina Lopez, who helps run Grupo Folklorico Cuicapan in Oxnard, a group of mostly young dancers who twirled and flounced their skirts in dances from various regions of Mexico. “They were born here, and they don’t know the traditions. They should.”

But even more, said some visitors, Fiesta Day was a chance to combine some of their favorite things: corn dogs and mariachi music, funnel cakes and salsa beats.

“It’s fantastic. I’m going to take my son to the games, and we’re going to get something to eat. Then, we’re going to go see the mariachis.” said Luis Alvarez of Oxnard, at the fair with his wife, Guillermina, and children Ronnie, 3, and Bernice, 1. “It’s all about community.”

You would have been hard-pressed to find anybody who disagreed Sunday--especially in a county where Latino influence is present in everything from music to food to street names. The spirit of Fiesta Day is a constant part of Ventura County life, said Oxnard resident Karen Mercer.

“I live in a city where half the names in the phone book are Hispanic,” she said. “I don’t think there could ever really be just one Fiesta Day.”