Fiestas Primavera cultural festival comes to Benicia

BENICIA —  Benicia will hold its first ever big celebration of Mexican and Hispanic culture this weekend, which will carry a message of tolerance and appreciation for people from all backgrounds, in part to counter the cultural impressions of the “La Migra” game popular with Benicia High School students. 

The free, day-long, family friendly festival will take place at Benicia City Park this Saturday and have live music, dance, fine art, food and activities for children. 

Former high school counselor Sheri Leigh, one of the event organizers, became concerned about the “La Migra” game played by Benicia high school students in 2023 after she retired from her job in Petaluma and started paying attention to the goings on in her own community. 

“La Migra” is Mexican slang for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In the game, high school seniors pose as ICE agents and chase younger and minority students, the “migrants,” and may shoot at them with pellet guns. If the students are caught they are “deported” to a remote location such as Lake Herman without a mobile phone, and left to find their way home alone.

“I'm thinking, okay, we’ve got to come up with some solutions,” Leigh said. She teamed up with  Mario Saucedo of the Solano AIDS Coalition to hold a Hispanic-themed event in Benicia. 

The festival will be headlined by songstress Ariel Marin and also feature the music of Uriel Soberano, Elizabeth Rodriguez Durán, Mariachi Monumental and the rap band Funk Monks.

There will also be dance performances by Ballet Folklorico Benicia, Ballet Folklorico Nekzayolin, Danza Azteca Calpulli Anahualt, and Los Diablos Oaxaqueños del Valle de Napa

A lowrider parade, delicious food, and a kid zone with a bouncy house, piñata and other traditional Mexican games, Catrina face painting and clowns, or payasos, will make the event fun for all ages.

Benicia Black Lives Matter member and owner of Ethnic Notions Gallery and Bookstore in Vallejo, Rozalind Sinnamon-Johnson, is curating an art and culture pavilion with books for sale and art by a number of prominent and diverse creators. Indigenous artist Jeffrey Gibson, Rose B. Simpson and Tony Gleaton, famous for his photographs of Africans in Mexico, are among those represented. 

A large “Where is your family from?” world map will hang in the pavilion, with pushpins people can use to mark where their ancestry originated.

A Miss Primavera Scholarship contest will add elegance and student involvement to the event. Four pageant winners will be crowned Queen, King, Duke, and Duchess of the event. Contestants will be judged on an original essay expressing their passion for equity, history, culture, and community, with a chance to win cash prizes.

Students and other speakers will take the main stage between performances. Vallejo’s Co-Poet Laureate Kathleen Herrmann will read poetry about refugees and immigration. 

Z Chavez will speak about his traumatic experience in 2022, when he and his biracial girlfriend were targeted by “La Migra” players, chased and shot with a pellet gun as they left an ice cream parlor in downtown Benicia. Chavez and his partner were unaware of the game and feared for their lives when his assailants chased them with their car, called them racial slurs and grazed Chavez’ face with what he thought was a real bullet.

Sinnamon-Johnson said that “La Migra” is an updated version of an older game called “Slave Catcher.” 

“A lot of people want to say that [La Migra is] fun. It's like a cops and robbers type thing, and it isn't,” Sinnamon-Johnson said. “Here you are, demonizing people who are risking their lives to come here to be exploited. That’s what it is.”

Sinnamon-Johnson said that mock slave auctions were held at Benicia High School during the 1980s. She said her nephew was shocked when he was invited to join the game by a white student holding a watermelon and wearing blackface and a multicolored Afro wig. 

Sinnamon-Johnson said that the Benicia Unified School District previously dismissed concerns about the “La Migra” game because, unlike the mock slave auctions, it happened outside of school hours and not on the school campus.

A casual attitude by law enforcement and the school district, and split opinions in the Benicia community allowed “La Migra” to be played unchecked until recently.

Benicia Unified School District Superintendent Damon Wright said that he cannot speak on the district’s stance before he was involved in the organization and said he has been sharing a letter condemning the game for the last year and a half. 

“Last year, the school district collaborated with the Benicia Police Department and the City of Benicia to discourage participation in the event,” Wright said. “Despite our efforts, adolescents from Benicia and surrounding communities engaged in this activity last year.”

Benicia police apprehended 20 players during the “La Migra” game in 2023. One was referred to the Solano County District Attorney’s Office on a battery charge for the use of a pellet gun. 

The festival’s organizers are coping with a curveball late in the game. Saucedo said he met with Benicia Vice Mayor Terry Scott three months before the festival and asked that the city waive fees and provide porta potties and garbage collection. Saucedo said that Scott was positive about the festival and he thought the fee waivers would be approved. 

But only a week before the festival, the group found out that no fee waivers or support from the city had been approved.

Sinnamon-Johnson said that the city of Benicia is very good at talking about how they support diversity, equity and inclusion. “But when it comes down to actually doing something tangible to show that they support diversity, equity and inclusion, the city is lacking, sorely lacking,” she said.

The event is now expected to cost around $30,000, and so far only $14,000 has been raised. Saucedo said he’s still excited about the event and expects it to be a big success.

The event has been widely promoted for several weeks in advance. Benicia schools have been distributing information and Benicia merchants were offered free floral window murals as a prelude to the festival to attract customers “and show where you stand on racism and bullying with a Fiestas Primavera flier.” 

But Leigh said that Fiestas Patrias is a beginning, not a sole solution and more youth activities are needed in Benicia. The city’s one skate park is difficult to access without a car. “We do not have any laser tag. We do not have any paintball,” she said. “So they're going to look for something else to do, and [La Migra] is what they've decided to do.”

“I'm trying to draw energy out of that and put it towards something positive. Wake up this community and say we're not going to tolerate this behavior from our children,” Leigh said. “We don't want our children growing up with this kind of hatred. We want our children growing up feeling safe. And feeling like everybody belongs.”