2025 Afro-Latinx Festival at the Museum of Latin American Art
The Museum of Latin American Art celebrated the rich culture, music, and art of the Afro-Latinx community. The free, family festival was held on Sunday, February 16, 2025.
By Ricky Richardson | Contributing Writer
(Long Beach, CA) The Museum of Latin American Art celebrated the rich culture, music, and art of the Afro-Latinx community. The free, family festival was held on Sunday, February 16, 2025.
This exciting annual festival brought together a diverse, multicultural crowd of local residents and visitors to enjoy educational, engaging, and entertainment programming.
MOLAA’s Afro-Latinx Festival and educational series celebrated the cultural diversity of the Americas and the African influence in Latin America! MOLAA’s Afro-Latinx Festival highlights the importance of the African legacy in Latin America through food, art workshops, live performances, Afro-Latinx businesses, and a live DJ performance.
The festival’s main stage was located in MOLAA’s Gumbiner Sculpture Garden. DJ ILL MECA (Angie Fuentez) complemented the festivities with an eclectic soundtrack of spicy, contagious sounds and infectious rhythms of the diaspora.
EnamorARTE Arts & Dance (Fall in Love with Art, A Passion Project, and Arts & Dance). The group was founded by Frida Moses. The group is a fusion of Afro-Latin fusion of dance styles- cumbia, salsa, cha, cha, cha, and samba. These dances are a cross-section of different cultures. There were many opportunities for audience participation in between performances.
Darielle Williams, Photo by Ricky Richardson
Darielle Williams, a Drum Aerialist, spoke with Crystal Sepúlveda about her career, how she got started as an aerialist, and who inspired her. Darielle Williams’s performances were dazzling and mesmerizing.
Los Cambalache (the exchange) is a son jarocho group from East Los Angeles that plays a style of music that originated in the Gulf of Mexico. The group consists of Cesar Castro- Musical director, vocals, Requinto and Quijada, “Chuy” Sandoval- vocals, jarana segundo and pander, Xochi Flores- vocals, jarana tercera, and Zapateado and Juan “El Unico” Perez on bass. Los Cambalache thoroughly entertained the crowd with a captivating, festive, and joyous set of son jarocho. They performed an hour-long set to the delight of the guests.
Bloco Obini Queen is an all-female drum ensemble. They capped off the day with an exhilarating, high octane set of drumming and rhythms of Brazil. The crowd and I loved every moment!
At some point, people had to work up an appetite. The festival featured a food booth offering an array of delightful cuisine. The Quesadilla Calling, Acai Smoothies and Juices, Mestico, The Banana Pudding Lady, Zook’s Kitchen Kulcha Flava’s (Afro & Caribbean Garifuna Cuisine), and Fresh Off the Yacht served up the treats.
Guests and their families engaged in free workshops, arts and crafts, and artist demonstrations and were able to browse in the artisan village.
The intersection of cultural diversity and tradition was celebrated at the Museum of Latin American Art during the annual Afro-Latinx Festival.
The Museum of Latin American Art is located at 628 Alamitos Avenue in Long Beach. The Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) is the only museum in the United States fully dedicated to modern and contemporary Latin American and Latino art.
For more information and to plan your visit, check out MOLAA’s website https://www.molaa.org or call (562) 437-1689. Stay tuned and in the know about upcoming events by subscribing to MOLAA’s newsletter.
