Latinos in the Greater New Haven area can celebrate their Latinidad all weekend long at ¡Fiesta Latina!, the annual Hispanic Heritage Month celebration that combines cultural performances and educational engagement to empower the Hispanic community.
The Hispanic-led organization Junta for Progressive Action and the Yale Peabody Museum have partnered for about two decades now to put on the events for Fiesta Latina as a way of honoring the Hispanic community. This year, that mission is more important than ever, according to Sheridan Robles, Junta’s marketing and development manager.
“There is a cloud over our culture right now that's happening,” Robles said. “We want to make sure that people understand that there are positive aspects of the culture, and you're not just seeing the negativity consistently in the public eye.”
On Saturday, Sept. 27 and Sunday, Sept. 28, she said both institutions will be hosting free events for the public to dissipate that cloud and empower Latinos to be proud of their culture.
Block party with Junta for Progressive Action
From 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 27, Junta for Progressive Action will be taking over Bright Street with a family-friendly street festival.
“We are closing off Bright Street, which is right next to our two buildings on Grand Ave,” Robles said. “We have a lot of different vendors from our community that are coming out and selling different things from clothing to artwork to fun Spanish stickers and bags.”
The festival will also have food trucks selling everything from tacos to pizza, Robles said.
Bands will be performing live music throughout the day, Robles said. There will also be bomba dancers, demonstrating the Afro-Puerto Rican music and dance style in which the musicians follow the dancer’s lead for the beat of the music.
Parents can also expect different activities for their children from different community partners.
According to Robles, the Yale Peabody Museum will be bringing out Latin American relics for people to learn about, and the environmental non-profit Save the Sound will have a few kids activities on hand as well.
This year’s event is particularly significant for Junta, Robles said, because it’s an opportunity to reconnect with the community and communicate their new shift in focus moving forward.
“We have been sustaining the Fair Haven community through social services,” Robles said, an initiative that has been going on for over 50 years.
“We decided that we didn't want to just see our community be sustained, but we want to see them thrive,” Robles said. “Fiesta Latina is really big for us right now, because allowing kids and students to see that there is opportunity out here is something that we're very focused on right now.”
That involves a relaunch of their youth empowerment programs and a continued effort to promote educational and career development among Hispanic youth through the Peabody Museum.
“You have a lot of people in the Latin community that don't realize that there are doctors and scientists that are making it,” Robles said. “They don't understand that you can be in any profession and still have your culture behind you. You don't have to hide that.”
Culture and education at the Yale Peabody Museum
From 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 28, the Yale Peabody Museum will host a wide variety of Spanish-language curated exhibits, educational workshops and musical performances.
“Throughout the whole museum, there'll be hands-on activity stations from both our youth employees who are New Haven public high school students and Yale grad students from a variety of Latine student organizations that are bringing the research that they do to share with kids and families,” said Andrea Motto, the Assistant Director of Public Education and Outreach at the Yale Peabody Museum.
There will also be two Hispanic Yale neuroscientists giving presentations in Spanish about their field of study.
Dr. Daniel Colón-Ramos will be giving a talk at 1:00 p.m. about how our memories form through new discoveries found in neuroscience, including those among worms and glowing proteins.
At 2:30 p.m., Dr. Janitza L. Montalvo-Ortiz will be discussing molecular genetics, neuropsychiatric disorders and cutting edge bioinformatics tools.
“One of the family workshops will be about butterfly migration and how living things travel from place to place,” Motto said. “There'll be several of those butterfly workshops, and a few of the hands-on stations include some students from botany who will bring samples of different plastic plant specimens from South America.”
A group of students from the Yale Latino Medical Student Association will also be there to talk to kids about careers in medicine and what it means to go to medical school, Motto said.
Throughout the day, there will be musical performances as well. Motto said the performances include Proyecto Cimarron, a Puerto Rican Bomba group, the Spanish Community of Wallingford’s youth mariachi band and dance group, and the salsa band Orquesta Afinke.
Junta Pa’l Pueblo
Though the weekend of activities are free, Junta for Progressive Action is kicking off the Fiesta Latina events with a fundraiser on Wednesday, Sept. 24 at the Yale Peabody Museum.
“It's actually the first gala that Junta has done in five years,” Robles said.
The cocktail gala will be raising funds to support Junta’s youth empowerment programs and other family services.
According to Robles, it’s a fundraiser with a twist, because Junta is not only looking for donations; they’re looking for new friends.
“We call them amigos de junta,” Robles said. “We're just trying to grow a new community around taking care of the Hispanic community and giving back to the community in a way that everyone is proud of.”
The Junta Pa’l Pueblo cocktail gala runs from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 24 at the Peabody Museum. Tickets start at $85.
Learn More
The Fiesta Latina Street Festival with Junta for Progressive Action will be on Saturday, Sept. 27 from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. The event will take place on Bright Street by 169 Grand Ave, New Haven, CT. You can visit Junta’s website to RSVP.
The Fiesta Latina activities at the Yale Peabody Museum will take place on Sunday, Sept. 28 from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. The event will be at the museum at 170 Whitney Ave, New Haven, CT.
For community members who are worried about attending the events due to safety concerns because of recent federal immigration activity, Junta is working with local groups and local officials to ensure the safety of everyone on site, including the New Haven Immigrants Coalition.
