Celebrations

Thousands of Orange County Latinos will gather this weekend to take part in Guadalupe Day festivities, commemorating a 461-year-old legend of the patron saint of Mexico. More than 1,500 people are expected at a Mass today honoring Our Lady of Guadalupe. The Most Rev. Norman F. McFarland, bishop of Orange, will preside during the noon Mass at St. Boniface Roman Catholic Church in Anaheim. Msgr. Jaime Soto, who heads the diocese's Hispanic Ministries, said that each Dec.

After years of holding separate Bay Area festivals to celebrate India's independence, organizers have decided to forget past gripes, save money and hold one big event this summer. Leaders of the three festivals of India -- held in Fremont, Santa Clara and Union City -- have joined forces. "We decided to put our personal differences aside. Will this last forever? No one can guarantee that.

Ducking into an Omaha Steaks store on Pico Boulevard in West Los Angeles, Laura Herrarte knew exactly what she needed for this week's Fourth of July celebration. "Hamburgers for the grandkids," Herrarte said. But then came the tough part. For nearly 30 minutes she sat at a display table as a store associate brought out different cuts of meat. She checked out the hamburger patties, inspected the fat content of the filet mignon and eyed the apple tartlets. Her 16 grandchildren, their parents and a few neighbors will be joining Herrarte for a potluck in Sylmar on the Fourth of July, which this year falls on a Wednesday.

Despite the biblical injunction that peace and goodwill should prevail as Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus, the holiday was marred in several parts of the world by deaths and injuries. In the Peruvian capital, Lima, nine young revelers died at a Christmas party early Friday when a teargas canister thrown into an overcrowded nightclub sparked a stampede, police said.

As a child, May Chin celebrated the lunar new year with several other families in her village of Kaiping in the Kwong Tung province of China. But nowadays, the Reseda resident marks the first day of the year and the first day of spring with her Chinese American friends at the Evergreen Senior Center in Northridge. Earlier this week, the close-knit group gathered at the center for a pre-holiday luncheon to celebrate 4698, the Year of the Dragon, which officially begins today.

What began in 1894 as a four-day-long "La Fiesta de Los Angeles," a celebration of its many cultures, isn't as venerable as New Orleans' Mardi Gras, but it has played an enduring if off-and-on role in the city's cultural life. And it endures now as Fiesta Broadway, which begins today, the 14th annual prelude to Cinco de Mayo celebrations of Latino culture.

Sir Edmund Hillary and a Sherpa from his 1953 expedition to Mt. Everest led hundreds of climbers and fans in a joyous procession through the streets here Tuesday as Nepal began celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of the conquest of the world's tallest mountain. Gyalzen Sherpa, 85, one of three surviving Sherpas from the first Everest expedition, climbed into a horse-drawn carriage with Hillary, 83, and his wife, June, and placed yellow scarves around their necks.

About 600,000 flag-waving, screaming fans jammed the Champs-Elysees yet again, this time to acclaim in person the heroes of France's 3-0 World Cup victory over Brazil. "What a day to be French! Champions of the world, at last," 28-year-old Christian Bourdieu said Monday after the French soccer squad passed by on an open-topped, double-decker bus. The Parisian avenue was so packed that the bus couldn't complete its route to the Arc de Triomphe and had to escape off a side street.

Seeka Wong Yang, 22, wore a delicate black velvet pantsuit, trimmed with hand-embroidered sashes flashing shades of bubble gum pink, lime green and deep violet. Her ornate dress, a 5-pound silver neckpiece and the dozens of coins that jingled from her neck signified that she was unmarried. On Friday, she joined scores of other young women and men, boys and girls in similar dress at the second annual Hmong New Year's Celebration at Rancho Santiago College in Santa Ana.

Teri Maldonado Parker celebrates Day of the Dead for deeply personal reasons. Though she is Mexican American, her husband was not. A Vietnam veteran, he committed suicide after suffering post-traumatic stress syndrome. And she lost their 3-month-old son on Nov. 2, 1972, to crib death. Four years ago, she decided to make an ofrenda, a personalized altar, for them both in her Santa Ana home. "Losing my son so close to the Day of the Dead really stuck with me," Parker said.