EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Fears of immigration raids are prompting communities across the U.S. to cancel or scale down Hispanic Heritage Month celebrations.
Organizers in Oregon called off the Latino Fest scheduled for September and moved a Mexican Independence celebration to an online-only format, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting. The Fiesta del Rio in Massachusetts was canceled due to a recent crackdown by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Everett.
“We know how much this event means to our city. It’s a celebration of culture, music, food and togetherness,” the City of Everett posted on social media. “But with recent ICE raids in our region, many of our friends and neighbors are feeling fear and uncertainty. It would not be right to hold a celebration when members of our community may not feel safe attending.”
In Chicago, where the Trump administration strongly hinted at stepped up immigration enforcement, organizers decided to call off El Grito Chicago two-day festival in Downtown.
“It was a painful decision, but holding El Grito Chicago at this time puts the safety of our community at stake, and that’s a risk we are unwilling to take,” organizers posted on the festival’s website.
But in El Paso, community leaders not only plan to go ahead with scheduled celebrations, but are strongly encouraging non-Hispanics to attend and get to know the culture and heritage of a population that has greatly contributed to the U.S. economy and innovation.
“Hispanics have contributed so much to our country that it’s just amazing when we hear the stereotypes (about) migrants and all those things that they talk about,” El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego told Border Report. “I think a lot of the hatred we have seen recently comes from lack of understanding who we are.
“Hispanic (Heritage) Month is more than (a party). It’s an opportunity to show the world our contribution as Hispanics and our openness. We want people to come here from all over the world and enjoy our culture and our language. That breaks a lot of barriers.”
The Mexican consulate in El Paso is hosting a Grito ceremony Saturday evening at the El Paso Convention Center.
When people of Mexican descent in the United States attend El Grito (a remembrance of a Catholic priest’s cry for independence from Spain in 1810) events, they’re not pledging allegiance to another country, but celebrating their culture and heritage, local leaders said.
People of Italian descent celebrate heritage and a religious feast in September in New York City; hundreds of thousands come out to see the Luna New Year Parade in Chinatown.
“My dad, nobody loved Mexico like he did, and nobody loved the United States like he did. That combination is what Hispanic (Heritage) Month is all about,” Samaniego said. “It doesn’t mean we love the United States less. It just means we have a culture that (inspires) us to be great Americans.”
Advocacy groups in El Paso have expressed plenty of fears of stepped up enforcement including in places that previous administrations made off-limits to ICE agents, such as schools, hospitals and churches. And though arrests at federal courthouses are regularly being reported by activists, El Paso so far has not seen widespread raids.
“A lot of things can be the seed here in El Paso for the rest of the country. The way we get along, the way we work with each other,” Samaniego said.
Mexican Consul General in El Paso Mauricio Ibarra Ponce de Leon said the U.S.-Mexico border is a unique region because the majority of the population shares culture, language and blood ties.
“Some 68 percent of El Pasoans have family in Juarez (Mexico) and vice versa. We share culture, heritage, we share morals,” Ibarra said Friday at the unveiling of two massive sculptures the government of Chihuahua, Mexico, brought to Downtown El Paso. “We share everything. We are the same community.”
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