When I was a much younger woman, I worked for several years on skid row in Los Angeles for "Las Familias del Pueblo" (The families of the town). We worked to move families off of skid row. The
families were living in single room occupancy hotels with their children. The conditions were terrible; homeless people in the streets, gang members and drug dealers in the hallways.

One of my best memories was of Christmas time. We had a "Las Posadas" (Literally the Inn). We had a parade of all of the families through skid row. We had a creche (nacimiento) carried by a few men in front. We ceremonially asked through songs at several hotels if we could come in. (We were Mary and Joseph and 150 of their closest friends!) We had a Mariachi band, singers and dancers in our midst. Of course at each inn, the innkeeper said they had no room and we processed forward, still searching. As we went through skid row, windows popped open in the SRO hotels. Heads came out and waved and cheered and yelled out "Merry Christmas" or "Felīz navidad". We sang and traveled through the neighborhood. We ended up at our center with a large party. For those few minutes, there was peace on skid row.

These dancers for Cinco de Mayo brought me back to that time.