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Pennsylvania Latinos use Hispanic Heritage Month to address pressing issues

Celebrations of the past are linked to engagement and visibility in the future.

  • Anthony Orozco
Wanda Holdren performing traditional Puerto Rican bomba at Centro Hispano Daniel Torres' annual gala in 2015.

 Courtesy of Wanda Holdren

Wanda Holdren performing traditional Puerto Rican bomba at Centro Hispano Daniel Torres' annual gala in 2015.

witf · Hispanic Heritage Month in south central Pennsylvania

(Reading) — Before Reading City Councilwoman and business owner Johanny Cepeda-Freytiz locked the doors of her restaurant Mi Casa Su Casa for the day, there was a sudden rush of action.

A group of influential Berks Latinos brainstormed and made phone calls to organizers, friends and artists. It was only a couple of days before the start of Hispanic Heritage Month and they pieced together a rough sketch of how the Latino-majority city could recognize the month in the era of the coronavirus.

“We’re just spitballing ideas, thoughts, concepts to celebrate the culture,” said Micheal Toledo, president of the Centro Hispano Daniel Torres. “Whether it’s music, whether it’s the arts, whether it’s engagement.”

Anthony Orozco / WITF

Organizers of virtual Hispanic Heritage Month events in Berks County meet Friday, Sept. 11, in a rush to plan how to recognize the month.

But more than music, food and dance, Cepeda said the group has ulterior motives for their planned virtual celebrations. To him, it’s about not only adapting to restrictions on public gatherings, but also addressing a critical moment for Latinos in Reading.

“It’s a big year, right — [U.S.] Census counting and voter registration,” Cepeda-Freytiz said. “So it’s a call to action in our community.”

They plan to host online events — around two each week — for the length of the month, which runs from Sept. 15 to Oct.15. The organizers have not published a calendar of events, and plan to present performances and events based on availability of performers and participants, Toledo said.

“This is very fluid,” Toledo said. “Again, depending on what is happening in our community and where we believe conversation needs to take place, we can pivot.”

Reading organizers kicked things off Tuesday night with a panel discussion between well-known Berks County Latinos to talk about what the month means to them and the things that make them proud of their heritage.

They also discussed issues surrounding being counted in the 2020 Census and engaging in the democratic process.

Centro Hispano Daniel Torres Facebook page.

Berks Latino community leaders discuss what Hispanic Heritage Month means to them and how to make a better future for local Latinos.

The group’s work comes at a time when focus on Latino participation in the census and in politics is at a high. Reading, which is around 67 percent Latino, has only around 54 percent self completion rate for the U.S. Census. City leaders have held caravans through the city and special census events, but completion has been slow.

In terms of civic engagement, Presidential candidate Joe Biden and President Donald Trump also turned their attention to Latino voters this week. Joe Biden played the Latin pop hit “Despacito” from his cell phone during a Hispanic Heritage Month event in the battleground state of Florida Tuesday. (Trump later tweeted an altered version of the clip, to make it falsely appear Biden played an anti-police song.) The Trump campaign’s Latinos for Trump launched messaging efforts this week in southwestern states, starting with an event Monday in Phoenix.

The virtual celebrations are only shadows of how Latinos in the region expressed themselves a year ago. In Berks County alone, there were several heritage month festivals, open mics and a massive Puerto Rican parade that packed thousands of people along Reading’s main thoroughfare.

Hispanic Heritage month events are hard to come by in Lehigh and Northampton counties this year. Latino-serving organizations such as Casa de Guadalupe in Allentown and the Hispanic Center Lehigh Valley were not aware of any in-person or virtual celebrations for their local Latino communities. There are around 124,000 Latinos in the two counties, according to census estimates.

In Lancaster, which is around 40 percent Latino, a number of well-established Latino attractions have been either canceled, made virtual, or rescheduled to next year.

The annual festival for San Juan Bautista Catholic Church in the city was adapted to limited in-person interactions and food sales, though that festival is not necessarily for Hispanic Heritage Month.

The Latin American Cultural Center of Lancaster will not be holding its annual Latin Music Fest this year due the complications and restrictions brought about by the coronavirus pandemic, according to the center’s board president, Annie Diaz.

Lancaster’s Latin American Alliance announced it is postponing its in-person festival until next year. The event usually fill’s Long Park with thousands of people.

Jaime Zabala, president of Lancaster’s Latin American Alliance, said hosting virtual events adds a unique challenge for a community that feeds off of human and physical connection.

“In general, the Latinos, they like to get together,” Zabala said. “Latinos by nature they like to be,  to say it in one way, one person on top of the other or one next to the other.”

The Latin American Alliance will present its live-streaming online events on Saturday evenings throughout the month, starting this week with a presentation on Latino gastronomy. Following weeks will feature demonstrations and discussions on Latino art and literature, folkloric dance and will end with salsa and bachata music.

The events will be aired on the organization’s Facebook and Youtube pages.

Zabala said for him, the month and his organization’s event is about crossing cultural barriers.

“We can get together, regardless of your nationality, regardless of your language, regardless of the color of your skin, regardless of your political affiliation, regardless of your religion, creed,” Zabala said. “You can forget all those things, and then enjoy around something that is sorry for repeating the work that is enjoyable, educational, uplifting and fun.”

Reading-based dance instructor Wanda Holdren was one of the first to spur organizers to put on events for the month. She and several of her dancers will be doing online dance challenges and live performances in public.

Courtesy of Wanda Holdren

Wanda Holdren performing traditional Puerto Rican bomba at Centro Hispano Daniel Torres’ annual gala in 2015.

For her, dance is not only entertainment, it is a connection to her ancestors and future generations. She said she didn’t want Hispanic Heritage Month to pass and having done nothing to share her culture.

“You know they say through the years the culture will disappear if we don’t educate the next generation, and I absolutely agree,” Holdren said. “Culture is part of who you are. When we lose that, we lose part of us.”

“And us as leaders, it is our job to keep that continued, to keep that alive,” she said.


Anthony Orozco is a fellow with Report for America, a national service program that places talented emerging journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered topics and communities.

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