30th Annual Festival Latino aims to 'highlight' Latino community at Penn

This week, the Penn community will get a taste of more than just Latin food, as Penn students will have access to a week of immersion into Latino culture.

Sunday night marked the beginning of the 30th annual Festival Latino, a week-long celebration of Latino culture and heritage. The Latino Coalition launched this year’s festival with a kick-off ceremony of food and spoken word artists known as “Sancocho.”

MEChA, Penn’s Chicano cultural group, is also celebrating its 40th anniversary this week, while La Vida Magazine and Cipactli, Penn’s Latino honor society, are celebrating their 10th anniversaries.

The Latino Coalition chose the theme of “Dejando Huellas,” or “Leaving our Mark,” for this year’s festival “because we wanted to show Penn what the Latino community does — what our legacy and accomplishments are because we definitely feel underrepresented,” said College sophomore and Vice President of External Affairs for the Puerto Rican Undergraduate Student Association Natalia Llado. “We want to highlight the Latino community at Penn.”

Latino Coalition Chair and Wharton and College junior Angel Contrera said this theme is “particularly relevant” this year, given recent activism among Penn’s Latino community.

In particular this week, Llado said she is looking forward to the Festival Latino downtown, which is sponsored by Onda Latina, PRUSA and Wharton Latino. Contrera agreed, “as it will be a celebration of Latin music and will highlight the culinary differences in the cuisines across the Latino community.”

“We are not defined as one race,” Contrera said of Penn’s Latino community in general. “One of the points I’ve always tried to make is that there isn’t one Latino community — despite our differences and diversity, we come together because we share similar goals.”

Each day this week will feature an event hosted by various Latino Coalition constituent groups. Festival Latino includes a wide range of events, “but they all include food,” Llado added.

“Many of the events are centered around food because it’s a big part of college culture, but also a large aspect of Latino culture — everyone gets together and enjoys each other’s company while eating delicious Latino food,” she said.

College junior and Vice Chair of the Latino Coalition Karla Rivera noted that this year’s festival is different from last year’s in that “we’re trying to incorporate different aspects of life at Penn to make Festival Latino more versatile so that it can attract more people from outside the community.”

“One of the main obstacles in previous years has been that people who are not part of the Latino community would hesitate to come to our events, so we’re trying to break down these barriers and make the festival more inclusive of the Penn community,” Rivera added.

For Latino Coalition Programming Chair and College freshman Claudia Acha, who came across the Latino Coalition at the Student Activities Fair during New Student Orientation, this week has special meaning.

Acha is looking forward to celebrating her culture and seeing months of planning finally come together this week.

“I found this community very welcoming and it definitely helped with my transition into college,” she added.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.