‘Joining together as a community’: New England Latino Festival celebrates many traditions

SPRINGFIELD — The first New England Latino festival launched into its second day Saturday under sunny skies and puffy clouds, but no rain.

Festival organizer Juan Reyes Falcon, executive director of the Hispanic American Library, said the event brings together the different nationalities of the Hispanic world and highlights its differences and commonality.

“So, we have Salvadorans, and we have the Mexican community. We have the Brazilian community represented here and all the Latin communities,” he said. “This is the first multicultural event in the city of Springfield. We are celebrating just joining together as a community.”

Saturday’s entertainment kicked off with a dance presentation by Star Dancers’ Unity, based in Holyoke. Director Alexcelin Saldano said the routine selected for the festival brought in a wide variety of musical styles all within the Latin framework.

“We are an urban dance studio, we are very diverse, and we do not just salsa from Miami but we are doing our style of salsa from up here, called New York style,” he said. “We also branch out into different styles and cultures like merengue and bachata that come from different countries. Merengue comes from Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic, from that area. We do Latina hip hop, that’s more of a new genre of music that a lot of the younger kids like. Like Bad Bunny, that style.”

The cross-cultural flavor of the festival also included flavors of food as well. Thanks to interpretation help from M&T Bank Senior Relationship Banker Kenia Hernandez, Ecuadoran native Juan Bechar was able to say his Ecuadoran dishes are not completely different from Puerto Rican dishes or even Mexican, but the flavors he brings out make his country’s food different.

“It comes down to tradition in the way they make the food and the flavors,” Hernandez translated, “Oftentimes they glean from other countries, but it all comes together in their own special meal.”

When it comes to distinctly different Ecuadoran dishes, Bechar recommends malito.

“It is potatoes with special meat from the region. They barbecue the meat,” Hernandez said. “He doesn’t serve it here though. The meat comes from an indigenous animal that isn’t available here.”

Naishka Otero brought her Mexican and Puerto Rican fusion truck, called Mexirico on Wheels, to the festival.

“Basically, it was my mother’s idea,” Otero said. “She loves cooking different foods. We have never seen anything like this, so we decided to put the concept together.”

Otero said the truck’s biggest selling dish is Birra Tacos. The Mexican part of the meal consists of special barbecue meat.

“It is shredded beef with special spices, Mexican spices and chilis and peppers. Then we slow cook it for hours, and we make the tacos with the shredded meat and cilantro and mozzarella cheese,” she said. “And there is a little dipping sauce on the side.”

That all sounds pretty authentically Mexican. What is the Puerto Rican part of it?

“I’m the Puerto Rican part, “she laughed.

Mexirico on Wheels has proven so popular that the family is opening a brick-and-mortar restaurant on Main Street in the next month or so.

Maria’s Cakes offers pastries for most tastes, but owner Jonathan Duran sells some specific pastries from Puerto Rico.

“These are things you would find in just about any bakery in Puerto Rico,” Hernandez translated. “You have quesitos, which are a pastry stuffed with a certain kind of cream cheese. Guayaba is a very popular indigenous fruit from Puerto Rico, and it gives the guayaba pastry the authentic flavor of Puerto Rico.”

Frances Figueroa doesn’t mince any words when she talks about her Puerto Rican cooking on her truck “Iquisques.”

“We use food differently from anybody else,” she said. “The flavor is not the same. The spices are not the same. The Mexicans make their rice in a certain way that we don’t. We use a lot of herbs and spices versus theirs. They just steam their rice.”

Figueroa said that while some dishes are similar, the end result is very different.

“We have fried empanadas with beef and cheese,” she said. “There is chicken as well and we have seafood. Even the dough for the empanada is different. The texture is better.”

Omar Lopez isn’t at the festival to argue over the correct spice-to-herb ratio of his dishes. He said he is Latino but the food on his truck, The Snacc Shacc, isn’t.

“It’s street food,” he said. “Hamburgers and hot dogs and grinders. We felt we needed more variety of foods.”

Entertainment continued throughout the day with Los Nitidos, Jose Paulo, Marka Music, Los Gigantes de la Plena, Raquel y Su Nuevo Impacto Band and closing out the night, The Latin Heartbeat Orchestra, all performing under the direction of Master of Ceremonies, Raul Fernandez.

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