Both VIVA Ottumwa and Latino Festival of Washington were called off this spring after worries of ICE showing up.
PERRY, Iowa — Earlier this year, both the Latino Festival of Washington and VIVA Ottumwa were canceled due to concerns of heightened immigration enforcement. Those fears were voiced both in their announcements and to Local 5 back in May.
However, ¡Viva Perry! Latino Festival ultimately decided to carry on this summer and held its annual celebration on Saturday after careful consideration.
“We definitely took our precautions,” said organizer Katlyn McCauley. “We made sure that our community was well informed, and we shared different posts on Facebook to let people know of ways that they were able to be conscientious of what’s going on.”
One reason McCauley and other coordinators decided to keep everything as normal was to continue providing resources and answering some of the community’s worries.
“Everybody deserves to have their moment of getting to enjoy their culture; getting to celebrate their heritage,” she added.
Attendee Daniel Hernandez has been living in Iowa for 2 1/2 years now, and he shared a message to those who are anxious about the state of immigration enforcement.
“With anything bad that happens, you know, we just got to band together and make sure that the families that are left are taken care of and looked after,” Hernandez said.
He said the majority of those who come to the United States have good intentions, and he believes there’s something many don’t realize about the Hispanic population.
“One thing that a lot of people don’t see about Hispanic people is that we are welcoming to other cultures,” he explained. “When Black people, white people, Asian people or whoever come around to these festivals, we want them here. We want to share what we have with them.”
