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LOCAL Tuesday 10 January 2023

The history of Aruba’s Carnaval

After 2 yearsm of absence, ing the first few steps into rade in Oranjestad, com-
Aruba’s wonderful Carna- the celebrations we know bining floats, steel bands
val season has finally be- and love today. and costumed mas play-
gun. The carnaval season ers. They also organized the
in Aruba is a unique op- In the following years, the first Carnival Queen Elec-
portunity to experience the Lago Oil Refinery started tion.
cultural diversity of the Is- to reach higher levels of
land with exciting parades, employment, with most of The custom of having two
breathtaking costumes and their recruits coming from organized grand parades
a joyous atmosphere to be Caribbean-English islands began in 1957, the first be-
shared with visitors and lo- like Trinidad, Jamaica ing in San Nicolas and the
cals alike. and British Guyana. These second in Oranjestad. After
English immigrants were 8 years, the calypso and
According to the Visit Aru- among the first to organize roadmarch became an in-
ba website, the first signs a parade in San Nicolas for tegral part of the carnival check back at Aruba to-
of the carnival celebra- the victory achieved dur- season when the calypso For more information about day’s publications and/
tions took place back in ing the second world war. competitions were intro- the schedule of Aruba’s or visitAruba’s carnival
1921, when many of the These were the immigrants duced. 69th Carnival, you can schedule.q
social clubs were hav- who enriched Aruba with
ing celebrations with cos- the Trinidadian style of car- The carnival we know now
tumes. These parties were naval. started during the fourth
mainly elite European-Style era, which started in the
balls and costumed par- The third era of the Aruban year 1966. This era saw the
ties made to celebrate Carnival began when the establishment of the Aru-
seasonal festivities. After a native Aruban and Eng- ban Carnival Foundation
few years, the Americans lish groups joined to plan and the establishment of
in San Nicolas who were the first public carnival the lighting parade.
working in the Lago Oil Re- that would be island wide.
finery introduced their own Hosted by the oldest social Today, our Carnival has
Euro-American style to the club of Aruba, the Tivoli so- grown into one of the larg-
festivities. These festivies cial club, the representa- est in the Caribbean with
were mainly taking place tives had meetings in order a month-long schedule of
around Halloween, Christ- to coordinate their efforts parades, queen elections
mas and Carnival, becom- towards a single grand pa- and activities.