By: Maximo Legaspi 🇵🇭
Attendees at Hyattsville's Hispanic Heritage Month Summer Jam celebration watch as the dance group Larimar Folklore Dominicano performs at Driskell Park on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (Maximo Legaspi)
Sitting underneath the orange evening sky, Roberto Rodriguez enjoyed the warm weather with his family as Latin music filled the air around Driskell Park in Hyattsville on Friday.
To Rodriguez, who is originally from Mexico and lives in Riverdale, the local vendors and performers at the city’s yearly Hispanic Heritage Month celebration helped bring the community together.
“I think people find purpose in events like this, because you get connected to your community,” the Riverdale resident said.
A collaboration between the city of Hyattsville in their Summer Jam series of events, local businesses, artists, and other organizations, the celebration served to recognize the contributions of Hispanic-Americans across the country.
In Hyattsville, where over a third of the population is Hispanic, the community echoed Rodriguez’s sentiments.
Judith Abboud, a recent Hyattsville resident, expressed gratitude for living in a diverse area, adding that she “loves” the culture such celebrations bring.
Members of the dance group Larimar Folklore Dominicano perform their routine in front of audience members at Hyattsville's Hispanic Heritage Month Summer Jam celebration at Driskell Park on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (Maximo Legaspi)
“We’re blessed by living in a multicultural community,” Abboud said. “We need to take advantage of all of it.”
In a similar vein, Ari Smith thinks that it’s necessary for not only the community, but the city itself, to allow for and promote community ventures at public events.
“It’s really necessary…people wouldn’t have been able to, like, get permits by themselves…sell food by themselves,” Smith, who lives in College Park, said.
One of the local businesses present was Cocineros, a Latino restaurant based out of Hyattsville. Carlos Alvarado, the owner and founder of Cocineros, has pushed for the restaurant to be active in the community since its inception in 2021.
Similarly to Abboud, Alvarado feels that the diverse nature of the city allows for people of different cultural backgrounds to experience new things.
“We are very lucky here in the area,” Alvarado said. “You don’t have to go to Ethiopia or Thailand to eat something relatable.”
Events like these not only help others to learn about their neighbors, but to Alvarado, it also supports the community in a very tangible way. In his eyes, patronizing local businesses puts money back into the area through many ways, including aiding the people employed by those businesses and their families.
Alvarado has lived in the Washington D.C. area for 25 years after immigrating from El Salvador, and has seen it quickly grow. He encouraged newcomers to try out different aspects of the community, especially if it’s something that’s new to them.
“For example, [if] you have a pupuseria in your area…maybe it’s not your food,” Alvarado said, “but at least try to see what they sell and see what’s going on.”
Juan Carlos Hernandez, who sang alongside the vallenato band Parrandon Vallenato, found that people, regardless of their backgrounds, value the sharing of culture.
Originally from Colombia, Hernandez said he feels “appreciated” when people come out and listen to their music. To him, it shows that they enjoy his country’s customs and heritage.
“I grew up with that music, and now that I’ll be able to introduce this music to other cultures [it] makes me feel great,” said Hernandez.
During the band’s performance, Hernandez described how vallenato music came to be. Workers in the countryside of Colombia incorporated instruments from all over the world into their own folk music. The accordion from Germany, conga drums from Afro-Cubans and the güira from the Dominican Republic, all used in vallenato.
Looking out to the crowd, one could not help but to see a similar mix reflected in the attendees.
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