Halloween Experience in Sevilla

I didn’t expect to celebrate Halloween in Spain, especially with Spaniards, as it is a major holiday in the US brought by the Irish, and not a traditional holiday for Spain, but there I was, at a Botellón in the Alameda surrounded by hundreds of locals in costume. As expected, I found that Halloween is celebrated quite differently here, though this perhaps could be attributed to the fact that there aren't as many suburban parts of Sevilla where there are homes that provide an easy way to trick-or-treat. I saw that in general, more young children dress up than do adults and adolescents, which is largely the same in the US. However, I was surprised that the costumes worn by those who were adults or young adults, for both genders, were much scarier than the majority of costumes worn by the same age group in the US. In fact, as I was leaving my apartment building, there was a young-appearing man who was wearing a very creepy mask that covered the mouth and nose, who proceeded to chase me and my friend to scare us for entertainment until the point where we were screaming so loudly that my all of my neighbors in my apartment came outside to see what was going on. There was one older woman who was calmly staring at the ordeal as we continued to scream for the masked man to stop, and then after about 5 minutes when he stopped, she walked over to us, revealed that it was her 13 year old son and then had him apologize. I found it so bizarre that she didn't do anything whilst he was in the act, but I digress.

 Any who, in my experience, in the States there is a huge emphasis on “sexy” costumes for women and especially university students, but the “sexy” costumes I saw worn on halloween were worn by transgender and gay youths who I actually spoke to at the botellón (who told me of their sexual orientation without me asking, I wasn’t just assuming). This group I spoke to shared with me that a large majority of young adults who were dressed up at the alameda either identified as gay or transgender or were part of a group that is accepting of those individuals, which is both surprising and interesting. Overall, the night was a memorable cultural learning experience and it was fun to see how the American halloween culture is assimilated here and who is most influenced by it.