Puente sponsored piñata making event honors Latinx heritage month

Puentistas honored their Latinx heritage with a Puente sponsored piñata making event, that invited members joined in creating their own piñatas by using balloons, colorful tissue paper, pipe cleaners, googly eyes, and construction paper.

On October 15th, at the LAC-campus in room T1200, ready-made Paper-mâché balloons were provided for Puente members who were encouraged to begin decorating them to their own liking.

In Latinx culture, piñatas are commonly used for celebrations like birthday parties or baptisms and are traditionally filled with candy, toys, fruit or peanuts.

Modern day piñatas are available in varying shapes and sizes, but can also be made into traps filled with flour and confetti.

Puente Counselor Vidal Vargas gave a presentation on the piñata which included information about the origin of where they came from and what uses they had.

“The origins of the piñata go back to the 13th century, it was observed in China by Marco Polo who was an explorer. The Chinese had figures of different animals and filled them with seeds then broke them celebrating the New Year, to bring them luck for the rest of the year,” said Vargas when introducing the piñata.

“Marco polo then brought it to Europe, first introduced in Italy then making its way to Spain. The origin of the word piñata comes from pignatta and means clay pot in Italian. It was changed to be a religious concept, which Spain called Piñata Sunday,” said Vargas.

The piñata also has origins within the Aztec culture. Celebrating the Aztec God of War, Huitzilopochtli, they would break a clay pot filled with colorful feathers and tiny treasures as an offering. The Mayans played a game blindfolded as they hit a suspended clay pot by a string.

First year Puente students, Giselle Flores and Darlin Ramos attended the event to honor what the piñata represents in their own cultures.

“It’s a thing of our culture like at every birthday party we always have a piñata, it symbolizes our culture and ethnicity,” said Flores on the piñata’s importance.

Ramos shared how she enjoys the piñata as something in both their heritages. 

“No matter where you are, something we have in common is the piñata so its like unity between two cultures,” said Ramos about the piñata being present across many Latinx cultures.

The Puente-Sponsored piñata making event ended with Vargas bringing the members outside to partake in hitting a Frida Kahlo inspired piñata filled with candy for attendees to try and break through to get to the candy filled center.