For the past 35 years the Latino community in Washington,D.C. has been coming together for their annual Fiesta D.C. Last Sunday, I found myself in the midst of it all. Hundreds of people from Columbia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico and any spanish speaking country you can think of filled Mt.Pleasant street.
There were three things at the Fiesta that I think make the world go round: food,music and dance. There was also un disfile ( a parade) which had a folklore theme and featured 30 countries. It was amazing to see so many different cultures come under one umbrella.
Sidenote: As a Spanish minor a lot of my time at Howard has been spent studying and understanding the culture of different Afro-Latino peoples.
I ran into the vice chair of Fiesta D.C. Ronald Roebuck who is afro-puertorriqueño (I was excited to find this out.). Roebuck, who is the man speaking Spanish in the audio slide show that I made, told me that there a lot of Afro-latinos in D.C. but it is often hard to distinguish them because they blend in with African Americans.
For Roebuck, Fiesta D.C. is a day for Latino people to come together and celebrate their culture. It also gives them a chance to share their culture with others.
People also used the Fiesta to get their side hustles on. I stopped to get some fruit from a family who had spent the days leading up to the Fiesta picking up sandías (watermelon), mangos, y piñas (pineapples).
The Fiesta was a good time and a chance for me to flex my Spanish speaking skills. Let The Root know if there are any cool cultural gatherings around your way.
-EBONI FARMER
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