Annual Festival Latino honors culture, heritage

Despite the chilly temperatures Saturday, hundreds of students gathered in Dunn Meadow to celebrate Festival Latino, an annual gathering of student and community Latino organizations, to honor Latino heritage and the contributions of the Latino community. \nUnder a cloudless sky, organizations like Lambda Upsilon Lambda, a multicultural fraternity, raised money by setting up a dunking booth and subjecting one of its brothers to cold water, for a good cause, of course. \nLambda Upsilon Lambda president Glen Batista said Festival Latino is one of the fraternity’s biggest events of the year. \n“It’s a good opportunity to show Latino culture to the campus and community,” Batista said. \nLambda Upsilon Lambda participates in several philanthropic events each year, coordinating with La Casa and several sororities to raise money for organizations, Batista said. \nAlso present were Kidspañol, a community group that offers Spanish classes to children and families, and Sigma Lambda Upsilon, a multicultural sorority promoting its involvement with Take Back the Night, a rally against sexual assault and domestic violence. \nSeveral performances by local Latino bands set the tone for the festival. Salsa and merengue band Orquestra Son, Caribbean-influenced Bembe and Latin rock group Descarga all took the stage to give the audience a taste of Latino musical culture. \nRepresentatives from IU’s Mathers Museum of World Cultures were also at Festival Latino, presenting games from Central and Latin America, as well as folk games from around the world. \nFamilies and students spent time constructing “fiesta flowers.” \nSophomore Kara Findley made a few flowers during the festival. \n“I was afraid that some booths wouldn’t get some participation, then I saw the big yellow flowers and jumped right in,” Findley said. “The whole idea with multicultural festivals is that it’s not just for people of that particular culture. They’re also for people who aren’t of that culture to understand and become involved with learning the traditions and ways.”