Santa Cruz Celebrates the Prickly Pear and Mexican Culture Sunday

The prickly pear, or cactus, called the nopal in Spanish, is so important to Mexicans in America that they will often use it to identify a fellow countryman.

A Mexican-American spotting another in a crowd will say, "He has the mark of the nopal," rather than, "He's from Mexico, too." It's like saying, "He's as American as apple pie."

On the Mexican flag, or bandera, the cactus is comparable to the American stars or stripes.

While it hasn't caught on in America, the nopal has a regular place on the Mexican table as a vegetable that can be served savory or sweet, grilled or mashed or mixed in with other vegetables for a salad, or in a tortilla, like an avocado.

On Sunday, Santa Cruz will celebrate its second “Festival del Nopal” downtown from noon to 6 p.m. at 224 Church St. It will include a contest to judge exotic nopales recipes. The festival starts right as the Wharf to Wharf race ends.

“It was an idea that occurred to me, to create some kind of fun family-oriented event that could help bring the community together and raise funds for the youth programs in Santa Cruz,” said city Councilman Tony Madrigal, the leading architect of this young event.

It will also feature Mexican-style food vendors, three dance troupes, a raffle, a festival queen and king competition and a clown show.

Two of the performers are Lorena Romero and Grupo Rivales.

All of the money collected in this event will also be used to help fund local low-income youth programs in sports and education.

People will also have the chance to learn about the nopal. An academic expert from UC Santa Cruz will carry out an educational lecture on the history of the nopal, with instructions on how to grow it and some of the nutritional values that it is believed to have.

“The nopal has medicinal purposes; it is good for digestion, diabetes, lowering blood sugar, lowering cholesterol, and has healing properties for the skin similar to aloe vera,” said Madrigal.

Other than showing the “guilt-free” attributes of nopales, the event is an effort to show off the unique attributes of the Latino community, said Nereida Robles, 47, who works with Santa Cruz city schools and is a volunteer organizer at the festival.

“It is important to maintain our traditions, and we want our traditions to remain with our children, such as our language and food," she said.

The festival joins other summer events such as the Greek festival, the Japanese festival and the Cabrillo music festival.

“We hope to contribute to the diversity of Santa Cruz County,” said Robles.