Before professional athletes play for the 2026 World Cup, this year’s Carnaval Parade shut down 20 blocks of San Francisco’s Latino Cultural District in the Mission to celebrate “La Copa del Pueblo,” the People’s Cup.
The parade bottled the energy of a shared fútbol victory, be it on the pitch before a national audience or in on dusty field, city sidewalk or neighborhood park.
Like global sporting events, parades are big, impressive endeavors: Thousands of spectators cheered a herd of lowriders that introduced waves of tireless dancers, bands, and floats.
But true to this year’s theme, it was smaller moments of connection that left an impression: Performers fixed one another’s makeup, kids requested books from public library workers, and volunteers knelt down to redistribute candy projectiles that had fallen just out of reach of outstretched hands.
Each was a reminder that behind the glitter and feathers were artists, teachers, and families who’d worked very hard to make a regular day in their neighborhood a celebration for everyone.
This should be renamed Orgullo Latino because it has so little to do with Mardi Gras.
And whatever changes they made to the event this year, mobility through the North Mission was impossible in ways that it never had been before.