The first Latin party I remember going to with friends was a neighborhood barbecue. As the afternoon wore on I think I might have seen or met or sat with several hundred people. It seemed that everyone I met was a relative of someone else there. And I think they were. The party seemed to grow and grow and was not fraught with any of the typical party stagnation or formulation of clicks and groups and older and younger sectioning off. It was all about family. The more generations that arrived the more the party grew. Everyone’s family was there, and they would call more family and more family would show up. It was typical Latin party for my hometown in Texas, and as I attended more and more over the years, the Latin party was my favorite kind of invitation. All I needed to hear was that one of my Latin friends had a cousin that was having a party and the Latin party had begun. I knew I’d be in for a great time.

That first Latin party started in an empty block in my old neighborhood. I went with a friend of mine. A few picnic tables were set up and some barbecue was smoking as we got a beer from one of many coolers and had a seat at the table with a red checkered cloth on top. A couple of people sat down with us, cousins of someone with lots of tattoos, quiet, polite. Prison tattoos obviously, but gentlemen at the family party. A stage drove in on the back of a flatbed truck and more coolers were brought out. Some amplifiers were plugged in and more barbecue started smoking. Another truck or two showed up loaded with kids and some older women also, several generations together, and some large wonderful smelling cookpots were brought out and another table was set up for more food. A procession of young males filed past where the older women had seated themselves in lawn chairs and behind the long tables filled with food, and as they filed past the women courtesies were paid before the plates were filled.

The young children danced in and out between the legs of the chattering and laughing adults, and chased each other around the tables and in and out of the trees while young mothers and fathers chased them down, wiped their scruffy clothes, and lots of hugging and kissing took place all around. At Latin parties it is very hard to tell whose kids are whose because everyone is family.

More people would show up in trucks and cars as the afternoon wore on. Music would be played and young men would test their musical skills on the instruments as the radio played. And more food would get eaten, more beer would be passed around, more coolers would show up, and plates would be emptied, courtesies would be paid, as the older women sat behind the long tables filled with food as young men would file by again and again to fill their plates. Talk was of family and who had children, who needed to have a spouse found and who might be eligible, how much more time could they stay single, the disgrace of losing your spouse, and what is she thinking getting on in years with no husband, she has to have at least one child! Everyone must have at least one child, I heard again and again. That party was all about family, about just being together as friends, and I cherished those invitations my entire youth.

The Latin party is my favorite kind of party. There’s nothing like a couple hundred people, all extended family, welcoming all the neighborhood and their friends, and their additional families to come together as one. The Latin party is all about family, so if you want to have a great time at a Latin party, bring family and you will fit right in.