For Natalie Aguilar, the best part of the day growing up was coming home from school in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and stepping into the kitchen. Born to Mexican parents on the Gulf Coast in the mid-2000s, Aguilar struggled to adjust to a school environment where she was expected to speak only English, and she often felt singled out and picked on by her teachers.
When she got home, however, her mom would always have a Mexican delicacy waiting for her on the table—whether it was pan-fried enmoladas (rolled-up corn tortillas coated in mole sauce) or red quesadillas prepared with achiote. Besides being delicious, the foods were a deep source of comfort, Aguilar recalled, reminding her of who she was and where she came from.
“I guess that’s why it’s such a core memory,” Aguilar told the Mississippi Free Press in an Oct. 2 interview. “It doesn’t matter what anybody tells me what I am or what I’m not outside of my house, because I know who I am inside my house.”
Now approaching 20 years old, Aguilar has watched Pascagoula’s Hispanic community grow in size and become more visible around town. That increased visibility is on full display at the Festival Hispano de Pascagoula—one of a growing number of Mississippi gatherings held in celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month.
“I’m so glad to see that it became such a big thing,” Aguilar said of the Pascagoula festival, where she and her mom sell homemade Mexican foods through their family business, Mexirico Catering. “A lot of kids need that representation nowadays.”
Hispanic Heritage Month celebrations are gaining traction around Mississippi, a state where a growing number of residents identify as Hispanic or Latino. Each year between Sept. 15 and Oct. 15, thousands of residents attend festivals from Jackson to the Gulf Coast to enjoy food, art, music and other cultural staples from Spain and Latin America.
While each festival has its own unique flavor and attractions, they all share a common goal, organizers told the Mississippi Free Press.
“For us, this is just an opportunity to celebrate the cultures, the traditions, and really the contributions of the Hispanic families that call Mississippi home,” said Sofia Gongora, a program coordinator at El Pueblo, which is hosting its annual Hispanic Heritage Festival in Morton, Mississippi, on Oct. 17. “We want everyone to feel welcome here, and I think (our festival) really reflects that spirit.”
Gaining Momentum
Hispanic Heritage Month festivities in the U.S. date back to the 1960s, when former President Lyndon Johnson designated a week in September to recognize Hispanic contributions to American culture and society. The celebrations were expanded to a month two decades later under former President Ronald Reagan, encompassing the independence anniversaries of eight Latin American countries.
Growing up in Pascagoula, Natalie Aguilar remembers attending local Hispanic Heritage Month gatherings with her family. The celebrations were much smaller back then, but Aguilar’s mom would still sell tamales and other homemade treats that she and Aguilar would prepare ahead of time.
“It just kind of became something that me and my mom bonded over,” Aguilar explained, noting that she and her mom have worked numerous festivals together over the years. “She said that as soon as I was able to talk and walk, I was in the kitchen with her.”
Today, Pascagoula’s Hispanic Heritage Month Festival brings together residents and vendors from across the Gulf Coast for a day of live music and dancing, arts and crafts, and—of course—food. This year’s festival, held at Pascagoula’s Beach Park on Sept. 19, attracted thousands of attendees and close to 70 vendors to the Jackson County town—a reflection of the area’s sizable Latino population and the event’s popularity along the coast.
“It just keeps growing and growing and growing,” said Olivia Randle, the executive director of Main Street Pascagoula, which runs the festival along with the city. Attendance in past years has reached around 5,000, she told the Mississippi Free Press, and she expects that number to be higher in the future.
Walking around Beach Park on festival day can feel like taking a tour through Central and South America, organizers say. Vendors representing countries from Colombia to the Dominican Republic set up shop around the park, the smells of their culinary offerings mingling with the folklórico music coming from the festival’s main stage. Puerto Rican band Zona Libre, based in Pascagoula, was one of the bands who performed at this year’s September celebration, which also featured face-painting, a play area for children, and performances from the local high-school marching band and various Latin American groups.
“At the end of the day, Hispanic heritage is not just one country or one tradition: It’s many different cultures, many different countries, and sometimes a lot of differences,” Lourdes Paniagua, an area real-estate agent who’s helped organize the festival for the last four years, told the Mississippi Free Press. “But coming together on this special day, bringing those differences together, and just sharing the time with each other … is awesome to experience.”
Beyond sharing Hispanic traditions with the wider Gulf Coast community, Paniagua says the festival serves an important role for local Hispanic youth, many of whom have never visited their parents’ home countries.
“That’s what means the most to me,” she concluded. “There’s something special about the younger generation seeing their culture being celebrated publicly so that they don’t forget where they come from.”
Bridging Divides
As Randle and Paniagua bask in the aftermath of another successful festival in Pascagoula, Hispanic Heritage Month celebrations continue around Mississippi. Roughly 180 miles from the coast, final preparations are underway for the fourth annual Hispanic Heritage Month Festival in Morton, Mississippi, a city whose Latino community has endured significant hardship in recent years.
El Pueblo, a community and legal aid organization with offices in Forest and Biloxi, Mississippi, is hosting the Saturday, Oct. 17, event.
Like its counterpart in Pascagoula, El Pueblo’s festival will feature an array of vendors from across the state, as well as musical performances and activities for children, event organizers say. There will also be a soccer tournament and a food-donation contest for participants ages 15 through 20, with winners recognized at a ceremony during the festival.
“They’re gathering food donations (ahead of the festival), and whoever can gather the most food donations is going to be crowned as a king or queen,” Sofia Gongora, El Pueblo’s program coordinator, explained. “We love to get the kids together for this sort of thing, and we just want them to feel proud of their heritage.”
Natalie Aguilar and her mom don’t plan on attending El Pueblo’s festival, but Aguilar said she was encouraged by the number of Hispanic Heritage Month events happening around Mississippi this year. At a time when government authorities are targeting and detaining Latino immigrants in record numbers, celebrations like those in Pascagoula and Morton can help promote solidarity and bridge differences between communities, she told the Mississippi Free Press.
“I think it really does help people come together,” she said, noting how heartening it was to see some members of Pascagoula’s Latino community gather in public for the first time in months. “It helps people realize that what other people say about others isn’t necessarily true, because you’re experiencing it firsthand.”
Looking toward the future, Aguilar is toying with the idea of opening her own Mexican bakery in Pascagoula. While she plans to spend some time away from the Gulf Coast, she knows she’ll always feel welcome in her hometown’s Latino community.
“My heart will always be back home in Pascagoula,” she said. “I know that no matter where I am, I can always come back here, and I’ll have a place to be.”
El Pueblo’s Hispanic Heritage Festival will take place on Saturday, Oct. 17, at Roosevelt State Park in Morton, Mississippi, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Attendance is free, though vendor prices will vary.
