A COVID-era tradition has only become more vibrant as the years have gone by.
On Monday, the Herricks Muslim Families organization held its sixth annual car parade to celebrate Eid, the Muslim holiday marking the end of Ramadan, a holy month characterized by fasting and prayer. Streamers, signs, and shouts of joy spilled out of a few dozen cars that followed a roughly 30-minute parade route, which started at Herricks High School.
The car parade is a form of celebration that started in 2020 as a way for families to connect and celebrate together while social distancing and allowing the larger community to become more aware of Muslim cultural tradition, according to Herricks Muslim Families member Eshika Kalam.
“It allows the children to be more familiar with their culture and for other children to be familiar with our cultural events,” Khan said. “It’s exciting for the kids to see,” she added, emphasizing that it provided them with a sense of connection during their holiday in the difficult period of the pandemic.
Though the pandemic is no longer raging like it was back then, the group’s children could not be more excited about the persistence of the car parade.
“Eid is the holiday after our fasting month, Ramadan,” Anila Khan, Herricks Muslim Families’ co-president, said. “Literally, kids are waiting the night before to spot the moon, and if they see the new moon, then they know Eid is here. So this is just the excitement that you see, that we finished our fasting month, our holy month, and now we get to celebrate with our families.”
“It’s a sense of pride in our community, a sense of pride in our Muslim identity, which is really wonderful,” Khan added.
As she spoke, over a dozen young kids enthusiastically played noise makers, blew bubbles, waved celebratory signs out car windows, and honked the horns of their parents’ cars as they pulled into Manhasset’s Ridder Pond Park.
Once arriving at the pond, the kids ran around the parking lot, grassy area, and playground smiling, laughing, and still holding their signs while their parents embraced each other with wishes of “Eid Mubarak,” a blessing for the holy day.
“We live in such a diverse community. As Herricks Muslim Families, one of our greatest missions is to spread awareness of our Muslim culture,” Khan said. “What better way to do that than to gather everyone together on our special holiday and to drive around our community and show such wonderful representation from our children, decorating the cars and spreading a little cheer in our families.”
