Philippines Independence Day Parade
www.pidci.org
Sunday, June 1
One of the city’s lesser known but most ebullient parades is that celebrating the Philippines’s independence from Spain, on June 12, 1898. New York’s parade is held the first Sunday in June because the second Sunday is reserved for the massive Puerto Rican Day Parade. What the Filipino parade lacks in relative size, however, it more than makes up for in variety, reflecting the richness of the sprawling Pacific Island nation, which includes 10 distinct ethnic groups, with Tagalog (26%), followed by Bisaya (14.3%), being most numerous. Though the Philippines is mostly Catholic, syncretism with indigenous beliefs is also common. Out of this rich stew of peoples and cultures—including American, because of our long military presence there—comes the fantastic costumery of the marchers on Madison Avenue, heavy on the red, white, blue, and yellow of the Philippines flag but including nearly every bright and shimmering color modern textile science can devise. This year’s Grand Marshals are the octogenarian physicians Dr. Angie Cruz-Quines and Dr. Emilio Quines Jr., whose love story—he a widower, she never married and turned 80 on their wedding day—was a heartwarming New York Times story. The parade’s attendant street fair, on 26th Street between Madison and Park, is also exceptional.
Puerto Rican Day Parade
Sunday, June 8
While the Puerto Rican Day Parade is just that—a single day—as all New Yorkers who live or work near a Puerto Rican neighborhood know, the excitement and flag displays begin weeks before. In Manhattan, the morning of the event is electric, as subway cars from uptown and downtown carry revelers of all ages toward the parade route, which makes its way north on Fifth Avenue from 44th to 79th streets. The theme for this year’s parade is “Plantando Bandera,” which organizers say reflects the Puerto Rican community’s “collective sentiment of pride in our presence, our contributions to society and dedication to honoring and maintaining our cultural heritage and tradition.” If, like many parade themes, this sounds a little generic, the event is anything but. Likewise, the design of this year’s logo, by artist Jorge Rafael Calderón, which brings together two iconic cultural symbols: the Puerto Rican flag superimposed on a ceiba tree, with the tree’s roots extending across a globe. Exceptionally conceived and executed, T-shirts and other swag featuring this image will be cherished for years to come. Recommended parade warm-up reading: Puerto Rican writer Luis Rafael Sánchez’s hilarious and astonishingly inventive San Juan-set novel, Macho Camacho’s Beat (1980).
Independence Day Parade
Friday, July 4
www.historiclowermanhattan.org
Quiet as it’s sometimes kept, there are Fourth of July parades in New York City, including a small but wondrous one that’s been organized by the Lower Manhattan Historical Association since 2015. The idea itself wasn’t new: Independence Parades were held in Manhattan for much of the 19th and 20th centuries but with patriotism withered by the malaise of Vietnam and Nixon, the tradition eroded in the 1970s. Happily revived, the current version begins in Battery Park, near where the city itself began as New Amsterdam, and continued to grow with immigration, with Castle Clinton, formerly known as Castle Garden, serving as US immigration processing depot from 1855 to 1890. Last year’s parade—which featured New York State Assemblyman Charles Fall, the son of immigrants from Guinea, West Africa, as Grand Marshal—included music and dance by the energetic, mostly Black teenagers of the Factor Marching Band; NYPD bagpipers; numerous marchers in vintage military uniforms; Chinese-American veterans from the Kimlau American Legion Post of Chinatown; and various others from kids to seniors. Together, everyone braved the heat and humidity to wend their way through the downtown canyons before ending up at Pier 17 for speeches, more music, and ecstatic rehydration.
NYC Pride Parade
Sunday, June 29
Formerly the Gay Pride Parade and still widely referred to as such, this iconic event is appreciable on many levels, all of them correct—it just depends on what you’re looking for. For most people, the affirmative joy and spectacle of the parade are plenty, and participants and spectators alike need only show up somewhere between Madison Square and the Stonewall Memorial at Christopher Street and Seventh Avenue and let the good times roll. For others, the stories behind the festivities have their own fascination. Reflective of the event’s evolution from “gay pride” to the broader LGBTQIA+ amalgam, three of this year’s five Grand Marshals are trans-identified. Also notable is this year’s theme, “Rise Up: Pride in Protest,” likely a reaction to the rival Reclaim Pride Parade, which extends its banner to the LGBTQIA2S+ communities and avowedly rejects “corporate sponsorship and police involvement.” However one views such internecine differences—or looks past them altogether in the spirit of total inclusion—a fantastic weekend is there for the taking. Find your tribe!
India Day Parade
Sunday, August 17
The last great Manhattan parade of the summer before attention turns to Labor Day’s West Indian Day Parade in Brooklyn is, appropriately enough, the India Day Parade. Sponsored by the Federation of Indian Associations, the event celebrates Indian Independence Day, whose historical date is Aug. 15, 1947: Bye-bye, Great Britain! This landmark will be commemorated by an Aug. 15 flag-raising on Broadway, between West 44th and 45th streets in Times Square; should one be in the area, it’s an event worth witnessing. While this year’s parade theme hadn’t been announced at press time, last year it was “One World, One Family,” a sentiment closely echoing that of PS 32 elementary school in Brooklyn, whose slogan is “One School, One Family.” Running south from East 38th Street to Madison Square Park, the parade will feature any number of Indian celebrities, politicians, and diplomats, as well as officers—and horses—from the NYPD Ceremonial Unit; proud members of the NYPD Desi Society, representing South Asian and Indo-Caribbean officers; and dozens upon dozens of floats, marching bands, and other performers. Meanwhile, the streets and sidewalks will be filled with an uncountable number of the saffron-orange, white, and green flags of India. At the parade’s end, more performers and food abound. As it is written in Sanskrit, ”Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah”: May all be happy.