Bailey Thompson | News Editor

With festivities spanning 13 hours, the 28th Annual Nuestra Fiesta Latina was a day filled with celebration of Latin culture. Hosted by Western’s Multicultural Student Union, this event on May 17 had three main phases: the festival, the dinner and entertainment and the baile.

Overall, the goal of the event was simple.

“We strive to promote diversity and cultural awareness throughout the community and campus of Western Oregon University,” said Julissa Chacon Lopez, a sophomore and the freshman advocate for MSU.

To do so, the organization started their event with a festival in the Werner University Center Plaza. This event, which lasted from 11 a.m. -2 p.m., featured a quartet of musicians from Cuba and the United States called Son de Cuba. As this group played music from a variety of Latin genres, students could also enjoy some churros, get an airbrush tattoo, participate in a jalapeño eating contest and more.

Later in the evening, the party moved into the WUC for the next phase of the event: dinner and entertainment. This portion of Nuestra Fiesta Latina was themed for the Mexican state of Michoacán, a region with over four million people on the west coast of Mexico. To celebrate this area, all of the dancers were from Michoacán, monarch butterfly decorations adorned the room and the dinner that they served was also a specialty of Michoacán.

“We wanted to bring in our own culture from Mexico, and we wanted to bring food and music so people can feel a little bit closer to Mexico,” said Chacon Lopez. “So today we had corundas, which is a Michoacán tradition.” Along with this, guests also had the option of a couple of meats, rice and beans.

As guests began eating, they could enjoy live music from Mariachi Los Palmeros. Then, after they had finished, the Mexico en la Piel Dancers performed a number of routines as attendees continued to enjoy the bounty of food.

In between each of these dances, the two coordinators and emcees — Chacon Lopez and Jasmine Sosa, junior and social membership director for MSU — raffled off a number of piñatas and smaller prizes.

When reflecting on what it took to put this event together, Chacon Lopez recalled the many months of work that had gone into hosting such a large-scale program.

“It took since the beginning of the school year when we got an exec board … we separate the whole group into coordinating different events, and this was Jasmine and my event,” said Chacon Lopez. “So, we’ve been planning this since the middle of January.”

The final phase of the event took place an hour after the dinner had ended. The baile, or dance, was an opportunity for community members to let loose, dance and enjoy the musical tastes of DJ Sonido Kora. Back in the Pacific Room, the baile lasted until 1 a.m., a full 13 hours after the festival had begun. After a long day, Nuestra Fiesta Latina had concluded its festivities, but Chacon Lopez hoped that the impact would extend beyond the day.

“There’s a good amount of diversity on our campus, and a lot of them are Latinos and Hispanics,” said Chacon Lopez. “So, we just like to bring the community together as well as others. And it’s just a beautiful thing.”

Contact the author at howlnews@wou.edu

Photos by Bailey Thompson