'Long Beach Does Not Hate Them:' Latino Civic Association Centers Community Ahead Of Three Kings Celebration

LONG BEACH, NY. — While millions of Americans are scrambling to finish their holiday shopping and wrapping ahead of Dec. 25, the Long Beach Latino Civic Association (LBLCA) has a different date on its mind, one known to celebrants as, “Little Christmas:” Three Kings Day, celebrated on Jan. 6, a crucial day of observance for Latino Catholics along the south shore and around the globe. LBLCA will be celebrating again in 2026 with its annual Holidays For Hope Fund, accepting toy donations around Long Beach and Island Park ahead of the special day.

“It's the day that's been designated as the Epiphany, and the day that the Wise Men came to Mary and Joseph to meet Baby Jesus and bring three gifts: Frankincense, Myrrh, and Gold,” LBLCA President Helen Dorado Alessi said of the holiday. “I think the recognition that baby Jesus and his family were refugees, and in a manger around farm animals, the donkey and sheep, harkens to a time when many of our families have been migrants or refugees, and there's a connection. There's a connection between the three wise men being kings, traveling and following the star that took them directly to the Holy Family, and that even in their poverty, even in their state of being refugees, there was this moment of pure love and adoration that transcends economic background.”

Dorado Alessi is one of the organizers of the toy drive and Jan. 6 celebration, which will take place at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Long Beach. LBLCA is accepting donations for the toy drive until Jan. 2 at the addresses listed below.

(Credit: Long Beach Latino Civic Association)

Once the toys have been collected and the celebration almost concluded, children in attendance get to be a part of a special moment, stepping up to the altar to select their own gifts. The celebration, the gift-selection and the community effort that makes it possible, Dorado Alessi said, make for a unique, beautiful experience.

“It’s a very moving experience, whereby children and their families gather to be part of a very sacred, or reflective moment, celebrating the holiday and the story of the Three Wise Men. And so there will be a service that includes a procession where the children wear costumes of the three kings, and Mary and Joseph, and they are part of the service. The pastor will invite the children to come forward in front of the church as the service takes place,” Dorado Alessi said. “There's singing, Christmas songs, religious songs, and the community gathers to honor our kids in a way, and we will have a group of students from the Honors Society of Long Beach High School who volunteer to help me and the staff put out all the toys that we do collect on the altar, and they're held in secret, because we put sheets over them so that the kids don't get distracted. But the kids know they're there. We partner with the Adult Learning Center, with the Housing Authority, with a variety of groups across Long Beach, MLK Center, other churches, to invite children and their families to the event…It's not a large church, but on January 6th, we fill the church.”

For Michael Cruz, co-founder and director of public relations at LBLCA, the Jan. 6 celebration and ones like it are an important cultural component to the community-building that LBLCA was founded for 29 years ago.

"We started the organization because there was a need in our community for representation of the Latino community, the schools, local government, school boards, and there was also a need in providing resources for community residents that were either coming in and not knowing what to do in terms of, you know, registering their children in the schools, understanding social systems. So we kind of decided, well, let's put together an organization that could be, an advocate an advocacy agency to help individuals in need," Cruz said. "Part of what we do, culturally, is Three Kings Day. Three Kings Day is a tradition throughout Latin American countries where people get together and they give, through the gift giving, and at the same time encourage people to understand the culture in their countries and why this is done."

For Judy Arroyo, a sergeant with the Long Beach Police Department since 2015, the opportunity to attend last year’s Three Kings celebration was a special one. Arroyo attended at the invitation of Dorado Alessi, alongside Long Beach’s police commissioner.

“It was beautiful. The church is a very small church. The father there conducted a ceremony, a small mass, and the local children, they reenacted the epiphany, so they were all dressed like the three kings, they had a setup and the front. There were young kids in the front holding the infant Jesus,” Arroyo said. “The families were all, mostly, I believe, Latinos. And I spoke with a few of them, and they were just beaming with pride to see their kids. And at the end, Helen and Michael Cruz had enormous amounts of gifts for the children, and the children lined up and were able to have their choice of gifts. They were so happy. Again, and it was nice to see the families, just really enjoying paying pride and watching their kids be able to celebrate the birth of Christ. I am Catholic, so it was just nice to see them comfortable. Helen had her older children. I guess they're all local high school kids, give out the toys. I really, I couldn't believe how many toys she had. She had so many toys ready to give to these kids. It was a really moving event to see just how she was able to put that together.”

Arroyo said she expects to attend again this year, and has discussed doing so with her commissioner. When asked about the importance of community-building events like the Three Kings Day celebration, Arroyo said it’s an important tradition to uphold.

“I think that's something that we should always celebrate. I think it is something that inspires [kids] to move forward, to say, ‘Hey, giving is a good thing because look what we're doing. We're receiving,'" Arroyo said. "And as the older kids were giving the toys, I feel like they felt that, that they were able to give, and it's not always about receiving, but as they gave, the pride that they had was obvious. You know, they were taking part in the celebration."

Dorado Alessi also told Patch that this year’s celebration feels a bit different, given the challenging year many Latino families have had politically in the United States.

“In truth, yesterday I was speaking to immigrants at the learning center. And I just teared up, because, being the daughter of immigrants, you just feel a certain empathy for people. Because, what a betrayal, to be told that we are a country of immigrants, we’re a city of immigrants, we have the Statue of Liberty, that means so much. And yet, right now, immigrants feel very unwanted, very scared, very [in] jeopardy,” Dorado Alessi said.

Despite the challenging political climate and the hard economic times that many families in Long Beach and Island Park are facing, Dorado Alessi said the mood among Long Beach Latino Civic Association members is indomitable and hopeful.

“I know one of the things that we stand for is hope. When somebody comes to Long Beach Latino, we want them to feel better. Our measurement of success is that we have helped a person so much so that they feel better than when they walked in, that they feel a sense of hope that they did not have before they walked in our doors. So at this event, it is a time of reflection, it is a time of prayer and I always pray for this country on January 6th,” Dorado Alessi said. “For our families, though, I don't know how they're going to afford toys this year. And so this is, for us, a way for the kids to feel a little powerful. Like, ‘I get to pick out my own presents. It's not mom and dad.’ You know, we'll put out all kinds, each kid walks away with pretty much three or four toys. It's not just one toy."

When asked how it feels to see the church packed to the brim with people eager to celebrate together, Cruz said it's a night that fills him with pride.

“I feel proud of the fact that we've been able to encourage and get these children and their parents to come to these events, and they and you see, their faces light up, and that's the beauty of it," Cruz said. "To just see their faces light up, and to see them smile and be happy. and say, ‘Wow, this is this is awesome.’ So it just makes me feel proud of what we're able to accomplish to help these children and their families.”

The goal, Dorado Alessi said, is to make families feel loved at a time when that might be a difficult feeling to achieve.

“We just do our best [to make] the families feel loved and lovely, you know? We want them to know that this community of Long Beach does not hate them, does not blame them, does not want to ostracize them,” Dorado Alessi said.