An expanded Cultural Festival celebrating three local cultural groups occupied Altoona’s River Prairie Park from noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.
The free, family-friendly event featured various aspects of Latinx, Hmong and Black culture, including more than a dozen live music and dance performances. Food trucks provided ethnic specialties ranging from tacos to egg rolls along with ice cream from Ramones.
Law enforcement personnel estimated that more than 1,000 people came and went during the course of the afternoon. Others placed the total close to 2,000.
Activities geared to children included coloring, candy tasting and numerous opportunities to take a whack at pinatas.
There were also some 30 booths where vendors offered merchandise for sale and local organizations provided information about their activities.
Some background
Two prior festivals focused only on the Latinx/Hispanic community. The inaugural effort, a Summer Fiesta in 2018, was sponsored by JONAH’s Immigration Task Force and was held in the parking lot at Immanuel Lutheran Church.
In 2019, the event moved to River Prairie at the invitation of Altoona city officials, and continued to aim specifically at improving relationships between the Latinx community and area police departments.
Plans for a 2020 festival were shelved because of the COVID pandemic.
Dave Anderson, retired pastor at Immanuel Lutheran Church and a driving force in the event’s evolution, said the festival has grown from quarterly meetings that began about seven years ago between the Eau Claire Police Department and the Latinx communities.
Their purpose, he said, was “to build relationships and understanding.” These meetings ultimately resulted “in the first Summer Fiesta, with people and police sitting down and getting to know one another as human beings at a picnic.
“These dialogues continue today,” he said.
“Our operating assumption was that to build a beautiful diverse community, people need to talk to, get to know, learn about and appreciate their neighbors.” Anderson added.
Event Sponsorship
Sponsors for this year’s event included El Centro de Conexion, JONAH, the Eau Claire Area Hmong Mutual Assistance Association and Uniting Bridges.
Anderson said the organizers reached out to the local Korean and indigenous communities “but the timing wasn’t right for them to participate.”
The Altoona Islamic Center & Mosque was going to participate but the activity the group had planned – henna painting – involved “too much close personal contact as the delta variant infections were increasing,” he said.
All three groups have expressed interest in participating in next year’s festival, he said.
Photos below courtesy of Joyce Anderson:
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