Festival celebrates Latino heritage

By Justin Seward - Lethbridge Herald on July 11, 2023.

The Multicultural Centre was in a festive mood as the facility played host to its annual Latin Fest on Saturday.
“Latin Fest is a celebration of Latino culture,” said Anastasia Sereda, Southern Alberta Ethic Association executive director.
“It’s a celebration of the similarities that Latino culture shares but then also the differences. And there’s lots of food, performances, music, dancing, bands and children’s activities. So just a really good all-around event for the whole family.”
Latin dance lessons were new this year.
Sereda said lots of people with Latino backgrounds come to enjoy different cultural aspects of Latino culture including music, dance, socializing, while having a good time together and building community relationships.
“People can come and wear the colours of their flag and represent their country the way that they’d like and celebrate it together,” she said.
Foods were mostly from Central America, some South America and Mexico too.
Dances were Salvadorian, Colombian, Argentinian and there were many bands singing Latino songs.
Sereda said there are a lot of Latinos in Lethbridge.
“Lots of different cultural groups that are starting,” she said.
“We have different groups representing different cultures now. So we have several different ones already like Nicaraguan, Colombian, Argentinian, but we also have Honduras as well this year which we didn’t have before.”
People could enjoy the first ever after-party this year, too.

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