{"id":7662,"date":"2025-07-22T21:14:18","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T21:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/?p=7662"},"modified":"2025-07-22T21:05:23","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T02:05:23","slug":"how-i-found-more-than-just-people-to-interview-at-my-first-fourth-of-july-parade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/07\/how-i-found-more-than-just-people-to-interview-at-my-first-fourth-of-july-parade\/","title":{"rendered":"My first Fourth of July parade"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I never celebrate the Fourth of July. At home in Puerto Rico, I get to choose: join the few people who celebrate the holiday, or go about my day like any other. I\u2019ve always been tempted to watch fireworks and eat hot dogs, but celebrating the day always felt disrespectful to my ancestors. (After all, Spain and then the U.S. turned my island into their territories.)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">When I heard cherubs would be covering Evanston\u2019s parade and saw the excitement on my peers\u2019 faces, I was annoyed. What could possibly be so special about this Independence Day? Fireworks? I see them on New Year\u2019s Eve. The food? Nothing my mom\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">arroz con habichuelas y chuleta<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> couldn&#8217;t beat. The colors? I have about 20 red, white and blue flags in my house \u2013 Puerto Rican ones.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">As I walked along Evanston\u2019s Central Street and saw hundreds of families lining the route, I realized it wasn&#8217;t the grilling hamburgers or loud, colorful explosions that made July Fourth so special. It was the community.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Still, something felt missing. I scanned the crowd, searching for something familiar. Then, I heard Spanish. My neck twisted so fast it cracked. The Mexican-American float, decked out in green, red and white flags, was passing me, and people on and off it were laughing like they belonged. Even while honoring their Latino roots, they celebrated America. If they could, why couldn\u2019t I?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was supposed to be looking for great paradegoers to interview. Mission accomplished. But more importantly, I found a sense of belonging. Nothing made me feel more at home than seeing so many different people come together to celebrate their country.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"b429121d-9e58-4e1c-a6db-7ad6b6c7e9a4\" style=\"z-index: 2147483647;position: relative;height: 0px;min-height: 0px;width: 0px;min-width: 0px;margin: 0px;padding: 0px;border: 0px\" data-gg-image-block-reason-modal-anchor=\"true\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Independence Day, I experienced a lively celebration that made me feel part of something bigger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":246,"featured_media":9296,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[457],"class_list":["post-7662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-experiences"],"acf":[],"authors":[{"term_id":457,"user_id":246,"is_guest":0,"slug":"saraortiz-torres","display_name":"Sara Ortiz Torres","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5f90c37a38cced62d76c6548cdd0a4b16a4960ebf1190e35341f9993dd5c6f65?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"Ortiz Torres","first_name":"Sara","job_title":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/246"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7662"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8907,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7662\/revisions\/8907"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7662"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=7662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}