Orlando will see its first LatinoFest USA during this Hispanic Heritage Month.
The event is part of an annual nationwide series that highlights local Hispanic talent, culture, history, and services in each city.
Victor Luna is the director of LatinoFest USA and CEO of the company behind it. He says the event welcomes everyone.
Victor Luna:
Basically, this is a multicultural celebration for Hispanic Heritage Month as a combination of celebration information food, drinks, and a lot of local entertainment where we showcase a lot of local stuff. The great thing about this is that it's all free admission.
Nicole Darden Creston:
It's all free admission. So tell me why it was important for you to start doing these events. I see that you do them around the country. Is that right?
(video below courtesy of Victor Luna and LatinoFest USA with footage and production from Univision Hartford-Springfield)
Victor Luna:
Yeah, we originally started the first Dominican festival here in Connecticut with some partners. I went ahead and I went solo and then I created the Latino festival. The first one that we done was in Hartford, which is called the Hartford Latino Fest. And we've been hosting that for - it would have been nine years this year, but we had to put one on hold because of the pandemic. And we had to move it around a couple of times. But we have a location now. So that's how we came about that. I have a brother that lives in Orlando, he's been out there for the last 30 years. We talked about doing it in about five years ago before the pandemic, then when the pandemic kind of cooled down a little bit and industry was open, we decided to go ahead and move ahead with it for this year. So we're finally going to be here, Saturday, October 14. It is a free admission. And hopefully we'll get some people to come out and join. I mean, it says Latino, but it's basically for everybody. We hope to see you there live, and we'll get you on stage and introduce you to everybody. You know, I am a stranger and now we're friends. This is connecting, you know, as they say, put the work, in you get the results.
Nicole Darden Creston:
So what is it to you that is important that you would like people to take away or that you would like people to learn from this event?
Victor Luna:
It is a combination of quite a few things. One, obviously, that mixed cultural is not just for Puerto Ricans, you know, we have salsa, we have a cha-cha, we have mariachi, we have Latin jazz, we got freestyle, we got some urban, Latino, we have some DJs, we got some local hosts, we got some local radio hosts, that's the entertainment part of it. It is a combination of that, and then we also bring - outside the entertainment and food and drinks - is also the service providers. We have a lot of health, we have banks, we have credit unions, they're going to be there, present, and you know, giving free services to the community. There's a lot of stuff in our backyards and we don't even know about it. We don't even take advantage. So this is a platform where all of that is going to meet in one location. All that makes this unique.
Nicole Darden Creston:
Why is Hispanic Heritage Month important to you personally?
Victor Luna:
My parents are Puerto Rican, they're from Puerto Rico. I was born in New York. The majority of my blood is Spaniard, Portuguese, Puerto Rican, and a bunch of other, you know, Latino countries. So that's one of the main reasons that we want to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month. Hispanic Heritage Month is crazy, you know, starting September 15 to October 15. Kind of two half-months. So anything that we could do to get Latinos together, just to be part of that, we'll take it!
Nicole Darden Creston:
You know, I wondered about that, too. Why it was two halves of two months, September 15 to October 15. I learned that there were important dates in Hispanic and Latino American history that happened like September 15th, or 16th and also on October 14th or so, so they wanted to try and encapsulate those important historical dates.
Victor Luna:
Now that we're talking about it, all the listeners that are curious, they're gonna look it up and they're gonna ask a lot of questions and that's good because it's true. I mean, you know, it's part of our culture, it's part of our history. And we have to keep it going. I mean, I'm a grandparent, and I'm trying to get teach my kids and my grandkids that, you know, it's very important to celebrate, not just being Puerto Rican, but you know, Latino. We're all definitely a multicultural bloodline. We got to keep it going for, not just for us, but our generations to come.
