Photo Mabel Jimenez
Acción Latina and Talleres de Poesía invite the whole community to participate in the 2nd Annual of Flor y Canto Festival for Our Children, a neighborhood cultural festival celebrating Latino identity.
This event will bring literature to children’s lives, so that through reading and the enjoyment of poetry and the living word, it will open the doors to freedom and a life without violence .
The event will take place on Sept. 15 on Bartlett Street between 24th and 25th streets, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Latino community is expected to attend and enjoy this free outdoor festival, to support the family event that promotes reading among children.
There will be music, dance, arts and crafts, food and many activities for children.
The funds raised will go to the celebration of the Fourth Annual Festival of Children’s Poetry ‘Manyula’ held in El Salvador—referring to the 59-year-old elephant, an icon in El Salvador. The festival invites children from that country to discover a new world through literature.
The program will include the participation of children’s literature writers like Débora Simcovich, René Colato Laínez, Nina Serrano, Francisco X. Alarcón and Jorge Argueta; as well as San Francisco Poet Laureate Alejandro Murguia, and Jack Hirschman, member of the Revolutionary Poets Brigade .
MamaCoAtl, Francisco Herrera and Rico Pabón will provide musical performances, as well as folk groups and Aztec dancers. There Carbook from the San Francisco Public Library will also be present, which will provide attendees with books of all kinds and provide services such as processing of the library card.
“This will be a festival for the community, the party of the people, celebrating our culture,” said poet Jorge Argueta, coordinator of the event and recently awarded for his book “Guacamole.”
This festival will be a celebration that coincides with the commemoration of the independence of many countries in Latin America and, through poetry, will celebrate our culture, identity and independence, allowing our children to know who they are and where they come from .
“As a community we are facing a crisis, we are displaced from our spaces,” said Argueta. He believes that it is important that parents take their children to these events that give them tools to think about a better world: “reading gives wings to children, a child who reads is free and happy,” he added.
They many great efforts behind this festival that will welcome the big Latino family, to make it its own and endorse it with their presence to retake these spaces together and send the message that we are here, we are many and that our culture and roots are very deep.
For more information about this event visit https://www.facebook.com/FlorYCantoParaNuestrosNinosYNinas or call (415) 902 7754.
—Translation Alfonso Agirre