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Parada Dominicana del Bronx (or "Bump N' Grind Baby")

Yesterday I went to the Bronx Dominican Day Parade on Grand Concourse. After working the whole weekend I was looking forward to getting out and shoot a little. I took the bus from Co-Op City to Grand Concourse and walked down the road up to were the parade started. I honestly was a little disapointed by the beginning since there haven't been that many people. They got more the further down we got but compared to the big parades on 5th Avenue in Manhattan it stayed rather quiet of course.

I sneaked into the parade again at a gate where the police officer didn't watch and walked all the way down to the Yankee Stadium. What I found most interesting about this parade was observing the young people again, probably between the age of 15 to 25, being out there on the prowl looking to meet girls and boys. As I once mentioned in my post about the 116th Street Festival the way teenagers act in these situations is different to teenagers in Austria. It's much more direct. I got the feeling that getting out there, watching girls or boys, dancing with them in a very intimate way is one of the main reasons for young people to go there. Like R. Kelly sings in one of his songs: "I don't see nothing wrong with a little Bump N' Grind". The hormones can lead to truly chaotic scenes where boys see girls standing on the side of the parade, they run there, start to shake and probably lift them over the fence to have space to dance.

Posted by Martin Fuchs on July 18, 2005 09:08 PM