Las Posadas celebrated by college, community at Dickens of a Christmas

 

As students here on the Ripon College campus, chances are high you have heard of the Office of Community Engagement, a campus-wide center for community service and volunteerism with a strong emphasis on servant leadership. What exactly does "community engagement" mean, though? It has loosely been defined as the process of working collaboratively with and through groups of people affiliated by geographic proximity, special interest, or similar situations to address issues affecting the well-being of those people.

In an effort to be More Together, Ripon College seeks to engage students, faculty, and staff through events and activities that enrich and empower the community in which we live and work through communication, collaboration and the understanding that we all have something to learn from each other. A recent event that highlights this philosophy was the 4th Annual Las Posadas, a Latin American holiday tradition. Held this past Friday, Dec. 2, Las Posadas was a great example of the Ripon community and college campus working together to successfully host a culturally rich event that benefited the whole community.  

A communal reenactment of Mary and Joseph searching for a place for Jesus to be born, Las Posadas (which means The Lodgings) is a Mexican Christmas tradition that provides Ripon with cultural experience. 

In Mexico, Las Posadas is a religious celebration that typically lasts for a two week period leading up to Christmas Eve. Each of the nights, a party is held at a home in the neighborhood where the community socializes over food and drink with candies and fruit for the children. The guests, which include Mary and Joseph with a donkey, travel to a home and sing outside, requesting shelter. After letting the guests in, the celebration begins. Here in Ripon, the overall celebration is more of a sharing of culture rather than having the religious focus it does in Mexico and has been condensed into one night instead of many. Starting by Campus Cinema last Friday night, singers and participants, including Joseph and Mary, the Wiseman, and Angels, walked up Watson Street and caroled at various businesses. Eventually arriving at the VFW Hall at 404 Ransom Street, the celebration of food, drink, piñatas, and drink began. Both in Mexico and here in Ripon, Las Posadas is a highly anticipated event that brings the community together to celebrate cultural traditions.

Dulce Andrade, a sophomore here at Ripon College, is the coordinator for HOLA (Hispanic Outreach and Learning Assistance), a student-led program housed in the Office of Community Engagement. Andrade and the members of HOLA, the primary organizer of Las Posadas, worked with the campus and community to make this 4th annual event a reality. She says of Las Posadas, "it's about communities coming together and bringing people together . . . the focus is on the celebration and being exposed to something that is culturally relevant."

In addition to HOLA, Hablamos, Ripon College Office of Community Engagement, Ripon College WRPN, the Ripon Public Library, and Ripon Neighbors worked together to make this event possible; Holly and Ivy, Ocampo's restaurant, America, and the VFW were also involved in the success of this special evening of cultural celebration. Las Posadas provided an opportunity to engage the community in experiencing a cultural tradition and celebration while enjoying food, a piñata, music, catching up with old friends and making new connections.

An engaged community empowers through the participation and involvement by all its members. Las Posadas was one way to pull the Ripon community and campus together to celebrate cultural diversity. A high-functioning community is found to have active community engagement through wide involvement of its diverse citizens; however, community engagement does not intend to change or homogenize our varyingcultures but instead to celebrate our differences through sharing and service and by actively seeking to create a new understanding of the world together. 

Would you like to know more about HOLA or to get involved in planning for another community event?  Visit the Office of Community Engagement on the second floor of Harwood Union, at www.ripon.edu/oce or by emailing oce@ripon.edu.