What is the historical significance of the New Iberia Spanish Festival?
New Iberia's roots began in 1779 when Spanish settlers, who were majority young men, chose to leave Spain for religious freedom. They came along the Bayou Teche and settled right here and founded New Iberia. Years later, French settlers came from nova scotia and settled here as well.
Chacelyn Peltier, the 2025 Spanish Festival Queen, spoke about the history and how we got here today. She said when the French came in, they had a lot of people including women.
'Who were the (Spanish) men hanging out with? The young French women. Then they had kids. Then who takes care of them? Who takes care of the family, the women. So, the Spanish language was very, very quickly eradicated in our in our area. That is how our Spanish heritage kind of got wiped and pushed to the side.' Peltier explained.
In 2009, New Iberia received a letter from Alhaurín De La Torre, Málaga, Spain where the Spanish settlers originally came from. They wanted New Iberia to be known as its sister city. In 2012, they wanted to visit New Iberia. With nothing to show for its Spanish roots, festival was born. Since then, years of traditions have come to New Iberia, like the church alley crochet ceiling.
Madison Verret, the 2025 Spanish Festival Deb Queen, said the crochet ceiling has been getting added to it every year for the past four years.
'We got it from our sister city in Spain, and they do it every summer. They made a wish that we would do it like New Iberia would do it, and we made that wish come true. Now we have been doing the crochet ceiling for four years.' Verret said.
Peltier said this festival is a significant part of New Iberia understanding its history and roots alive.
'If we stop, even if the sugarcane festival wouldn't happen anymore, we would still grow sugarcane. Those are still so, so important, but it's different in that fact that if we don't keep on living it, it will die away and go away again.' Peltier said.
New Iberia will be celebrating the Spanish Festival all weekend with Saturday's festivities going on all day and Sunday open until 5p.m.
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