Government shutdown impacts Fiesta de Amistad 2025

By Louis Zylka

The 830 Times 

The Fiesta de Amistad celebrations brought the community together over the weekend, despite significant changes.

Fiesta De Amistad celebrates the friendship between Del Rio and Ciudad Acuña, Coah., Mexico., and its series of events are organized annually by the International Good Neighbor Council

(IGNC)—Del Rio. Various events take place throughout October.

Unfortunately, one of Fiesta’s most important events, the Abrazo Ceremony, was canceled on Friday. The ceremony was going to take place at the Amistad Dam, but Andrew Scarbo, current president of IGNC-Del Rio, said the recent government shutdown affected the Abrazo and other Fiesta-related events.

Despite the last-minute changes, Scarbo said the Abrazo was merely postponed and will still happen in November to continue the annual tradition. Scarbo said there is no planned date, but he mentioned how Mexico is “still in favor of coming over (to Del Rio) and doing (the Abrazo).”

“(Mexico) understands the situation. We want to let the public know that the tradition is still going to happen,” Scarbo said.

The government shutdown also affected the 65th annual Fiesta de Amistad parade. 20 government-related floats stepped down from attending this year’s parade. Although several organizations had to exclude themselves, the annual parade continued in downtown Del Rio with 60 entries.

The parade started on Ogden Street, continued down South Main Street and finished at Nicholson Street. This year’s parade theme was “Boot Scootin’,” a nod to country-western line dancing. The winners of the parade’s contest included Luceros Del Bravo for best local float, the Consulado de Mexico dance group for best out-of-town float, the Queen City Belles for best marching unit, the Del Rio Middle School/San Felipe Memorial Middle School band groups for best theme, the Matachines dance group for the exceptional merit category and the Tiny Town Texas group from Castroville, Texas, for the best vehicle category.

The Fiesta celebrations carried over to Greenwood Park with the Arts and Crafts Fair, which ended at 10 p.m. The fair also continued on Sunday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.

The fair had 20 vendors along with seven food trucks, seven bouncy castles, a bull-riding machine and a small train for kids to ride on. Two people even got married at the fair. Julio and Brandee Gonzalez spoke their vows and got married on Saturday afternoon.

Music was provided by local band La Calle 4, known for playing music from various genres. The band performed on Saturday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Juan Nunez, band member of Calle 4, said his year-old band performed at the Arts and Crafts Fair for the first time this year. He said his band is happy to be at the festivities and promote “live music.”

“Hopefully people enjoyed the scenery. It’s not about dancing (to the music), but about vibing to the festivities,” Nunez said.

Scarbo said they still had a good turnout for the Fiesta celebrations despite the government shutdown, adding, “We did the best that we possibly could.” He said the addition of live music helped the public enjoy the fair more.

There were many returning vendors at the fair. Charlie Medina was selling beef jerky, including flaming and Carolina Reaper-flavored jerky. Medina said he has been part of the fiesta celebrations for nine years.

Basilio Gutierrez, a vendor, said he has been selling toys at the Arts and Crafts Fair for 20 years and made friends with the other vendors during the Fiesta celebrations. Gutierrez said the fair is a great event and suggested that it take place at another location next year to help people with parking.