There are many things to do in Raleigh on a weekend — check out the latest release at the movie theater, visit restaurants and bars or head to the mall for some retail therapy — but during Hispanic Heritage Month, there is one event in particular that is definitely worth your Sunday. El Pueblo, Inc. is uniting all of Raleigh and the Triangle together to kick off the celebration in style, with La Fiesta del Pueblo on Sept. 27 from noon to 7 p.m. at Fayetteville Street.
Michelle Bermeo Betancourt, development coordinator of El Pueblo, Inc., said she has a passion for working with nonprofit organizations and for social justice. La Fiesta del Pueblo is exactly as it sounds: a fiesta, or a celebration, to enjoy Latino culture as well as Latino diversity, according to Betancourt.
“La Fiesta del Pueblo was put together by a group of people that was really, really passionate about this idea of celebrating Latino diversity,” Betancourt said. “People think it’s this homogenous culture, and it’s not; there’s so much diversity.”
La Fiesta is essentially a showcase — a live display of the vibrancy and flavor of Latin America and all of its many cultures — and it is a time for the Latino people of Raleigh and the Triangle area to share a piece of themselves and their backgrounds with the community in which they live.
“There are all these different performances from different Latino countries,” Betancourt said. “And you get to see how each culture approaches things like dance and art.”
And what better way to celebrate than a festival? There’s a little something for everyone to contribute, and a lot for everyone to enjoy. For those who are musically inclined, there will be musical performances on the main stage from groups such as Mala Fe, Movimientos de Samba and K-Da Uno.
“We’re always looking for new performers,” Betancourt said. “We try not to repeat or overlap, just so that everybody gets a chance at La Fiesta.”
For the artistic, there will be art booths including Mundo Latino Souvenirs and Atitlan Arts, and even Henna art and face painting. For those with culinary interests, there will be food vendors representing all parts of Latin America, such as the Cuban Latin Grill, L’Arepa (personally recommended by Betancourt) and Tacos y Pupusas Marina.
For every part of the festival, El Pueblo tries to bring in representatives from as many of the diverse cultures of Latin America as possible to highlight and celebrate their differences while encouraging a unified community.
“My favorite part of La Fiesta was probably the fact that it was a big festival, a celebration with a big Hispanic population,” said Paula Gordon, a senior studying Spanish and communication. “It was really nice to be able to experience a piece of Latino culture in the middle of Raleigh and to share that with my family.”
There is a lot more to La Fiesta del Pueblo than the entertainment, according to Gordon. El Pueblo, Inc. is dedicated to helping Latinos work toward social change through promoting awareness, ability and action. Creating a “piece of Latino culture in the middle of Raleigh” helps El Pueblo work toward its goal in more ways than one. Not only is it a way for the Latino population to reach out and share with the community, it is also a way for the community to reach out to the Latino population.
Along with all of the performances, art and food, there are a number of booths at the festival promoting nonprofit organizations government agencies.
“We have over 50 nonprofit organizations and government agencies that are participating so that you can see what kind of resources are available to you and how you can access them,” Betancourt said. “This is what we focus on.”
Some of the organizations El Pueblo, Inc. will represent at the festival this year include the Hispanic Linguistics Program from NC State, the NC Human Relations Commission, the NC Department of Labor and the Immersion for Spanish Language Acquisition. El Pueblo, Inc. will also have booths at the festival.
“We get a lot of our actual program participants involved in Fiesta with their own booth and do a lot of outreach with the stuff that they have learned,” Betancourt said. “They teach others in the community.”
La Fiesta is El Pueblo’s most well-known event.
“We start preparing for La Fiesta in January,” Betancourt said. “It’s when we start recruiting sponsors, organizing our registration forms and talk about how many people we can have at the festival this year in each category.”
However, El Pueblo, Inc. also works year-round for social justice in the areas of immigration policy reform; the civil rights of immigrants; equal access to life, liberty and protections under the law; access to higher education for undocumented students; and youth and community leadership programs.
“[La Fiesta] is our biggest fundraiser of the year,” Betancourt said. “The more you support La Fiesta, the more you support El Pueblo and our programs.”
If you’re interested in getting more involved, El Pueblo, Inc. welcomes volunteers for La Fiesta. You can register for any three-hour shift online at www.elpueblo.org underneath the tab “La Fiesta del Pueblo 2015.”
In the words of Betancourt: “We’re here, we’ve arrived, come get to know us!”
Thousands of people come out to Fiesta del Pueblo in Moore Square to celebrate and learn about latino culture every September. During the afternoon, there are dance performances, delicious food and informative booths throughout the festival. This year, the festival is on Sunday, Sept. 27.
