Families and friends participate in this holiday tradition by purchasing tickets individually or pooling their money to purchase parts of a ticket. The average Spaniard spends 70 euros on tickets, known as “décimos,” and tickets can be sold months in advance. Since tickets can be quite expensive, it’s common for coworkers to join forces in hopes of sharing the wealth.

The draw is an elaborate event that lasts several hours. It is broadcast live on television and radio. The event takes place at the Teatro Real in Madrid, and schoolchildren are in charge of singing the winning numbers. It starts with smaller prizes until they reach the largest prize known as “El Gordo,” or the fat one.

Beyond the economic aspect, the Spanish Christmas Lottery serves as the start of the Christmas season. In short, the cultural importance and enduring popularity of this holiday tradition make it a uniquely Spanish experience that resonates far beyond the boundaries of the lottery itself.

In addition, Cascarones are popular in Mexican-American border towns during Easter. They may also be included in birthday celebrations as well as weddings during which the eggs are filled with rice instead of confetti. In San Antonio, Texas there is even a “Festival de Cascarones” held every April in which families gather and celebrate Hispanic Culture. 

Cascarones can be hidden and found, similar to other Easter eggs. Once found, they are smashed onto the head of someone. You can crush the egg in your hands and then rub it into your friend’s hair or gently break it over their head. They can also be used as a light flirtation between young single people! A Spanish legend says there was once a tradition of fathers cracking eggs over the head of any child who was misbehaving to show disappointment in them!

It is said that cascarones were first brought to Europe by Marco Polo from China. At this time, the eggs were filled with perfume and given as gifts. They eventually made their way to the Americas as there are accounts of cascarones at weddings and other celebrations in California in the early 19^thcentury. 

Easter Island is a Chilean island in the Pacific Ocean. It is located 3700 km or 2300 miles off the west coast of Chile, making it the most isolated inhabited island in the world. Since 1995 it has been a UNESCO world heritage site and much of the island is within a national park. The island has three names: Easter Island in English, La Isla de Pascua in Spanish and Rapa Nui in the local indigenous language. It is most famous for its giant stone statues which are called moai.

These statues are humanlike figures that were carved by local the indigenous people between the years 1250 and 1500. Most of them have large heads that represent almost half the size of the body and the faces are based on the ancestors of the indigenous people. They were carved from the volcanic ash found on the island. More than 900 of these statues are still located around the island, some in better condition than others. Creating them must have been a difficult task since they weigh an average of 12 tons each!  

Easter island has been inhabited by Polynesian people who arrived in canoes sometime in the early 1200s. They created a prosperous society for hundreds of years and supported thousands of people. The first European visitor to the island was the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen in 1722. As he discovered the island on Easter Sunday he named it Easter Island. In November of the same year, Spanish ships, under the command of Captain Don Felipe a González de Ahedo, made landfall on Easter Island. Unfortunately, many of the local people died of European diseases after first contact. Today the island has a population of approximately 8000 inhabitants and it has become a popular place for tourists looking for a unique experience.

Reggaeton is a popular style of Latin urban music that had its origins in Puerto Rico during the early 1990s. It was influenced by dancehall music and American hip-hop as well as Caribbean music. This type of music features both rapping and singing mainly in Spanish. Reggaeton features a special dembow rhythm beat first produced in Jamaica in the 1980s and the name itself is a combination of the word reggae (a type of music from Jamaica) and the suffix –tón which is used in Spanish to show something is bigger or greater. 

Reggaeton began in the poorer neighborhoods of San Juan, Puerto Rico and originally featured lyrics about the challenges facing young people in that area in the 1990s. It was an underground music that was often recorded in carports known as marquesinas and then distributed informally in the streets by way of cassette tapes. Many of these carports were located in social housing complexes but the cassettes were still of a good enough quality that within a short time youth of all social classes became fans.

Reggaeton and its associated hip-hop style of baggy clothing was banned in schools in the mid to late 1990s and was often suppressed by the police. However, this new music style began to become more popular as it was used in election campaigns by politicians to appeal to younger voters in the early 2000s. One of the earliest Reggaeton acts named Daddy Yankee even appeared in a 2006 Pepsi commercial. In the same year, Don Omar’s tune King of Kings was the highest ranked Reggaeton album on the US charts.

Reggaeton finally made a huge name for itself in 2017 when Luis Fonsi debuted Despacito featuring Daddy Yankee. The music video for this song reached over 1 billion views in under three months and became one of the best-selling Latin singles in US history. Today many young artists such as J Balvin and Maluma both from Colombia, as well as Ozuna, Farruko and Bad Baddy all from Puerto Rico are continuing to have great success in this genre consistently topping the Latin charts. 

They were the largest group of inhabitants on the islands of Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, Puerto Rico and the Bahamas. The Taíno were the first group to make contact with Christopher Columbus when he landed in the ‘New World’ on his famous voyage in 1492.  

At the time of the arrival of Columbus, there were five separate Taíno chiefdoms in Hispaniola each led by their own chief called a cacique. The Taíno name for Hispaniola was Ayiti, which translates as ‘land of high mountains.’ The Taíno language belongs to the Arawakan language family. Speakers of these languages are also found in Central and South America and indeed the ancestors of the Taíno are believed to have moved to the Caribbean from South America.

There were an estimated 2 to 3 million Taínos living in the Caribbean at the time of contact in 1492. Unfortunately, the Spaniards enslaved these indigenous populations and forced them to work on plantations and in mines. The harsh working conditions in combination with various European diseases such as smallpox to which they had no natural immunity, let to the deaths within 30 years of approximately 80% of the indigenous population of the islands. Those that survived often intermarried with first the Spanish colonists and the later the imported African slaves. This unique history has resulted in Caribbean people having a very mixed ancestry with recent DNA tests showing that most in habitants of Puerto Rico and Cuba feature 10% to 20% indigenous blood. 

La Malinche is known by various names including Malintzin and doña Marina. She was born around 1500 in the Yucatán peninsula. She had a difficult childhood and was sold into slavery to a group of Mayans after her father’s death. She was later given to yet another tribe as tribute. Through her circumstances she was forced to learn several indigenous languages. She also learned Spanish through her friendship with a Spanish priest while she was enslaved.

In March of 1519 she was given to Hernan Cortés along with approximately 20 other enslaved women as part of a declaration of peace. She was treated with respect by the conquistadors due to her beauty, mannerisms and fluency in the Spanish language. She stayed close to Cortés during an expedition they soon undertook as she was a valuable interpreter to him in his negotiations with Moctezuma, the then Aztec leader. She is often depicted at the side of Cortés in the images made of this fateful meeting. According to some records, La Malinche learned of a plan by the indigenous Cholula people to cooperate with the Aztecs to destroy the small Spanish army. She alerted Cortés and as such she is often viewed as a traitor to this day by some indigenous peoples. 

Cortés defeated Moctezuma in 1521 and the following year La Malinche gave birth to his son. From 1524 to 1526 Cortés once again used her services to quell a rebellion in Honduras. The details of her later life are not clear. La Malinche eventually married a Spanish hidalgo by the name of Juan Jaramillo and had a daughter with him who was raised by Jaramillo and his second wife after La Malinche’s death. Her son was raised primarily by the family of Hernán Cortés.

The war officially began on September 16, 1810 when Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a Catholic priest, sent out a battle cry known as the Grito de Dolores. This occurred in the small town of Dolores in central Mexico when the priest rang the bell of his church and gave out a call to arms.
The war against Spain lasted 11 years and Mexico finally gained its independence in 1821 with the signing of the Treaty of Córdoba allowing Mexico to become an independent constitutional monarchy. Today, Mexicans celebrate September 16 as Mexican Independence Day. It is a very patriotic holiday marked by parades, concerts, marching band and songs.

Colombia can be divided into five natural regions: the Andean mountains, the Pacific coast, the Caribbean coast, the Amazon rainforest and the plains or llanos. These regions have come to play a key role in the development of the various dance and music styles of Colombia.While many people around the world are familiar with famous Colombian pop artists such as Shakira and reggaeton stars such as Maluma, the traditional dances such as cumbia are also popular abroad. 

Perhaps the most popular folkloric dance is Cumbia. This dance dates back to the colonial period and is particularly popular on the Caribbean coast. Cumbia is accompanied by music that is played on drums, flutes and other percussion instruments. It has its roots in both the African and indigenous ancestry of this region. While dancing, the women wear long colorful skirts and they make a circle around the men who are also in traditional outfits including a sombrero which they take on and off during the dance. The men’s clothing often features a white ranch style outfit with a red scarf and the dance is often performed barefoot. 

Cinco de Mayo is a date that commemorates the Battle of Puebla, Mexico of 1862 in which the Mexican troops triumphed over the French army. 

To understand this date better it is necessary to understand a little of the history of Mexico.  In 1821 Mexico gained independence from Spain. However, the Mexican government had incurred large debts with France among other European countries during the wars of 1846-48 (with the United States) and 1860 (a civil war). Mexico could not pay its debts immediately and in response, the French government sent its troops to Mexico to establish its own monarchical government.  To reach the city of Mexico the troops had to pass through Puebla, a city two hours east of Mexico City. In Puebla, General Zaragoza and his Mexican troops managed to defeat the French army on May 5th giving rise to the name of this holiday. This was achieved even though the French were much more numerous.  Today Cinco de Mayo is celebrated with military parades called desfiles and a lot of food, songs and dancing. Many traditional Mexican dishes are also served such as tamales. People also wear traditional clothes and at night there are fireworks. In recent years, Cinco de Mayo has become very popular in the United States as a general celebration of democracy, patriotism and latin culture.