City Announces Latino Heritage Month Events

Calling Latinos the “roots and heart of Los Angeles,” Mayor Richard Riordan on Wednesday announced the city’s plans for the 21st annual observance of Latino Heritage Month.

Beginning Sept. 11 and continuing through October, the city’s celebration will include international jazz and film festivals, free concerts, a children’s art and essay competition, and a tango festival.

“What we have set out to do is develop the celebration as a destination-based event, to promote things that will bring people into the city,” said Deputy Mayor Rocky Delgadillo, the event’s chairman. “We are trying to make this into a well-known Latino celebration, not unlike the Mardi Gras in New Orleans.”

The theme of this year’s celebration is puentes, or bridges.

Delgadillo said the theme was selected to symbolize Latinos reaching out to the city’s other ethnic cultures, as well as the crossing of the actual bridges that separate much of the heavily Latino Eastside from other parts of the city.

The festival’s highlight will be the International Latino Film Festival, which is being produced by actor Edward James Olmos, and will run from Sept. 19 to Oct. 17 at the Universal Cineplex in Universal City.

Other events include a Latin jazz festival scheduled for Oct. 25-26 at the Greek Theatre, a children’s art and essay contest and free concerts in Griffith Park and San Pedro.

On Oct. 5 the city will host its first tango festival, a daylong event in Hollywood, Delgadillo said.

“We’re going to close down a street near Paramount Studios and turn the whole street into a dance floor,” he said.

For information on Latino Heritage Month events, call (562) 403-2694.