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Overview:
Organizers weighed canceling the Mexican cultural event in the light of rising ICE detentions and anti-immigrant rhetoric but ultimately decided it was important to keep the festival going.
When Argelia Garcia heard that the organizers of the Mexican cultural festival Noche Cultural were considering canceling this year’s event in Springfield’s Island Park, she urged them to keep going.
“We cannot hide what we are,” said Garcia, the owner and operator of the Mexican food and aguas frescas vendor Delicias Tiki Tiki, as translated by business partner Roberto Peralta. “We are going to show up, and whatever happens is going to happen. But you cannot hide yourself.”
Noche Cultural is the largest event of the year from the Springfield nonprofit Comunidad y Herencia Cultural, focused on celebrating Mexican heritage through cultural performance, largely focused toward an audience of Mexicans and other Latinos looking to connect with their culture.
But it celebrated its 10th anniversary at a difficult time for the Latino community, as ICE detentions and anti-immigrant rhetoric continues to rise across the country. Two other Oregon cultural events, in Madras and Bend, were canceled earlier this year over safety concerns of attendees being detained or deported.
Organizers Antonio Huerta and Jessica Mendoza said continuing this year’s festival, with its flurry of colorful folklórico dances, live music and culturally-specific activities like games of lotería, was vital.
“If we stop doing the event, that means that we are sort of agreeing to be silenced, to be undermined, to be quiet and to, in a sense, agree that our language and culture has no relevance within our communities,” Huerta said.
Connecting with heritage, and each other
Two young festival attendees, Italuvi and Kimmi, first performed in folklórico dances, then changed out of their dresses to watch the festival, still wearing the dramatic eyeshadow from the performance.
The two teenagers, who declined to share their last names, have been dancing for years with the Eugene-based folklórico dance academy Raíces de Oregón, under the tutelage of Eliborio Limón. Kimmi, 13, started with folklórico when she was 4 years old.
Both said folklórico was an important way for them to feel in touch with their heritage, which Italuvi expanded on.
“It’s a way of bringing happiness during tough times,” the 16-year-old said. “Just having fun with people that are of your culture really brings people together.”
Mendoza, a co-founder of Noche Cultural and the head of Eugene Arte Latino, echoed the sentiment of music and dance being entryways for gathering.
“As Latinos, our families, our community, and people who live around us in our community, we just want to live in a place where we can enjoy each other and learn from others as well,” she said. “I don’t know what will happen in the future, but in my point of view, as much as we can, we will continue trying to present these kinds of events, because we believe it helps.”
Serving a customer base that feels closer to home
From behind a fringe of multicolored picado banners, Garcia and her 14-year-old son Jonathan Gallegos, also a folklórico dancer, doled out aguas frescas to visitors stopping by Delicias Tiki Tiki.
Their tables were part of the food offerings lining a path of Island Park. Vendors slung tacos al pastor, quesadillas (and their trendy cousin quesabirrias), bolis (a kind of ice pop), and a rainbow of flavors of aguas frescas.
Delicias Tiki Tiki started during the pandemic, as Garcia started selling aguas frescas for money to send back home to family in Guerrero, Mexico. From there, she’s expanded the business to a regular market vendor presence around Eugene. Now, her dream is to pay for Gallegos’ college.
Garcia said that Noche Cultural is one of the only events where she’s selling to a majority of Mexican customers. That means more flavors of aguas frescas, 14 for this year’s event. (For the last two Noches Cultural she sold at, 10 and 12 flavors sold out well before the night was through.)
Signature flavors including tamarind and jamaica (dried hibiscus) are popular with Mexican customers, but less familiar to the crowd at the Lane County Farmers Market. Being able to serve people who know and love the same flavors she grew up with makes Noche Cultural one of her favorite events of the year.
“She really can sell what we love in Mexico, what we really cook for our people,” Peralta said.
Wanting people to feel safe
In an interview before the event, Huerta was unsure how many people would attend and expected a slightly dampened turnout amid fears of federal agents targeting a public gathering. (Previous years have attracted two to three thousand attendees throughout the event, which lasts from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m.) Attendance numbers for Saturday’s event were not immediately available.
To make people feel more secure in attending, Huerta hired security guards to monitor the entrance and park throughout the event in addition to welcoming the “Rainbow Guard,” a squad of pink-shirted volunteers who formed a circle around evangelical protesters at Eugene Pride last month.
Guadalupe Quinn, who first moved to Oregon from Mexico in 1978, said Noche Cultural was a chance to showcase heritage while also giving Latinos an opportunity to relax outside of the stressful national situation.
“It’s important for the community to see the value of Latinos,” said Quinn, who was tabling with the activist group Grupo Latino de Acción Directa of Lane County. “And also, for our community to know that people do care, that we’re not alone, and to find a moment to feel a bit more safe in community.”
This year’s event did not dwell on politics, and instead focused on the festivities. But Eduardo Cruz Torres, a co-founder of Huehca Omeyocan, a McMinnville-based group centered on preserving Mesoamerican culture through dance and music, commented on the challenges some faced in deciding to attend a large public gathering.
“Thank you all for being here,” he said to the crowd. “Thank you all for not being scared.”
