LINCOLN HEIGHTS : Festival to Highlight Latina Artistic Talent

Organizers of last year’s Expresiones de la Mujer, a festival of women’s music, poetry, comedy and film, plan to do it again next Sunday afternoon at Plaza de la Raza.

Last year’s event attracted so many people that the women from the National Latina Alliance, a nonprofit organization, said they felt obligated to hold it a second year.

“Last year we thought 250 might show up, but there were over 500, and that told us that there’s a desire to see Latina talent and that we have to keep providing it,” said organizer Evangeline N. Ordaz, a member of the poetry group Y Que Mas?

The program was designed to mirror and instill pride in a segment of the Latino community that Ordaz said rarely sees itself portrayed at all, let alone accurately, in the mass media.

“This is one way to give exposure to the talent that isn’t exhibited in the normal venues,” she said.

This year’s lineup includes two films, a performance art piece, poetry readings, music and comedy. Artist Patssi Valdez will design the set, and Gloria Romero, a professor of Chicano studies at Loyola Marymount, will be the host.

One of the films, by actress and playwright Evelina Fernandez, who starred in “American Me,” explores the long friendship between two elderly women. Originally a play, the film, “How Else Am I Supposed to Know I’m Still Alive,” stars Lupe Ontiveros.

Also appearing are Maria Elena Gaitan, who will perform “Chola con Cello”; poetry collective Y Que Mas?; folk rock group Goddess 13; comedienne Cha Cha Sandoval, and poet Gloria Alvarez.

The National Latina Alliance, with about 200 members, started two years ago with the goal of reaching out to the Chicana/Latina community through education and advocacy.

The four-hour program will be held outdoors beginning at noon in the Plaza de la Raza amphitheater in Lincoln Park, 3540 N. Mission Road. Admission is $5.