I got to watch my students give presentations about their favorite traditions in La Palma, and several of them chose Día de los Indianos, which is the Monday of Carnaval. I learned a lot!
My students told me that they celebrate Día de los Indianos by dressing up in white in the morning, walking around the crowded streets of Santa Cruz, and then eating lunch with their families. They also have fun throwing talcum powder at each other!
On Día de los Indianos, I dressed up in white and had lunch at a friend's house. We sang and ate good food, and people told stories about what the party is like in normal years. Everyone I have met in La Palma— my casera (landlady), the other teachers, my students, and my friends— has wanted to tell me about how special Día de los Indianos is to them. Even though I could not experience what it is usually like, perhaps I was able to gain an even deeper understanding of how much the tradition means to people here.
Día de los Indianos celebrates the migration of people between the Canaries and the Americas, especailly Cuba and Venezuela. "Indianos" means people who moved to the Americas and then moved back to the Canary Islands. From the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, many Canarians moved to the Americas seeking economic opportunities, and some people moved back to the Canaries after earning money there.
