The Friends of Mitchell Park, Greenport NY

For the second year, Friends of Mitchell Park joined the Village of Greenport to support the One Greenport Cultural Festival. It took place in Mitchell Park on June 3, 2018, 1-4 PM, with a parade and bagpiper starting at 1PM from the gazebo on Main Street to Mitchell Park. 

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Here is an article by Maria Piedrabuena (in translation) that was published in RiverheadLOCAL En Español after the event, and some photos. See the original article (and even more photos)  here: 

Dozens of people gathered this Sunday at the Second Multicultural Festival 'One Greenport,' an event where the diversity of the city and the region was celebrated through music, dance, art and food.

"This is a very diverse community and we need to celebrate that," said Dinni Gordon, a member of the One Greenport organizing committee.

Although the day was sunny, because of the wind and unusual cold it attracted fewer visitors than last year, organizers said.

As in the previous year, the event featured the performance of the Guatemalan folk dance group Rabin Ajau-the daughter of the king in the Mayan language Q'eqchi- who, with their colorful costumes, performed a choreography of a traditional courtship dance.

The popular Spanish-speaking clown "Panquesito" this year brought another guest clown from New Jersey, "Cepillín," and together they told jokes, mocking each other and making the audience laugh.

The guitar duo Octavio and David - from Mexico and El Salvador - played and sang traditional romantic songs in Spanish, delighting young and old with their voices.

David Gamberg, the superintendent of the Greenport and Southold school district, joined the celebration, along with three local ninth-grade students, demonstrating his juggling talent.

"It is very important to celebrate diversity in Greenport, we must promote it and think we are stronger together" said Gamberg "It is a tremendous benefit to have such diversity in our community." 

Local students from primary and secondary school exhibited their works of art, focusing on multi-culturality of the region. Plaster masks with the flags of Mexico, El Salvador, and other Central and Latin American countries were intertwined with the flag of the United States as a symbol of the diversity of this area of ​​the North Fork.

Gordon explained that to promote the festival, the organizing committee collaborated with Lisa Baglivi, a high school art teacher in Greenport, and Brady Wilkins, the elementary art teacher. A contest was held for the creation of a poster for the festival. The winner was Carlos Chapetón, a high school senior headed for Suffolk County Community College.

Several Latino restaurants in the area, including the Tikal restaurant, offered free food, from "pupusas," tasty mashed fries with cheese and beans from El Salvador, to nachos with salsa and more.

The gospel group Just B 'Cus - whose members all live in different towns in the North Fork - concluded the event with several gospel religious songs.
"This is a perfect way to unite the different communities that exist in this area and that sometimes have no voice, we have to show that we are united," Kevin Ford, one of the group's singers, said.

Gordon agreed and added that wanting to integrate is important for all members of any community, especially in a city like Greenport.  "This is a small city, but it is unusual in the sense that it has many different communities, many different types of people ... that was true 100 years ago with different ethnicities and it is true again now and it is a wonderful thing that we should be celebrating and that's what we're doing today, " Gordon said.

Congress candidate Vivan Viloria-Fisher, who has Latino roots and speaks Spanish, also attended the event. "It's great to be here and see how the community celebrates," she said.

Republished with permission

One Greenport Cultural Festival 2018

Photo Credit for all photos: Karen Keating