Montgomery County is once again celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, the national observance running Sept. 15 through Oct. 15 annually. What began as a congressional week-long recognition in 1968 and expanded to a full month in 1988 has grown into a season of local programming across the county, anchored this year by two milestone community events.
Festival de la Unidad
On Saturday, Sept. 19, Wheaton hosts the Festival de la Unidad from noon to 4 p.m., a free, all-ages community celebration featuring a live orchestra, family activities like piñatas and face painting, cultural dance performances from Wheaton High School students, and a closing “hora loca” dance celebration in the late afternoon. Local Latino-owned restaurants El Rey Chicken and Cuban’s Tacos will provide food.
The event’s new name reflects a deliberate shift from last year’s “Festival de la Herencia Hispana.” Organizer and Interim Director for the County Central Area Service Center, Naddia Clutte explained, this is a “year when the community is coming together and building strength,” which is why they chose to call it the Festival de la Unidad.
“Every culture, every country and every flag can come together to celebrate Hispanic culture as one,” Clutte said.
Organizers are encouraging attendees to bring flags representing their home countries.
A 15-Year sister City partnership
Another commemorative event happening Thursday, Oct. 1 is the Sister Cities Gala, celebrating 15 years of Montgomery County’s partnership with the Morazán department, a rural state in eastern El Salvador.
Montgomery County established its first-ever Sister City program in 2011 under County Executive Isiah “Ike” Leggett, who had pushed since 2009 to find the county its first international sister city.
Morazán was chosen in large part because Salvadorans make up roughly a third of the county’s foreign-born residents, many of whom trace their arrival in Montgomery County to displacement during El Salvador’s civil war in the 1980s.
The agreement was formally signed in Morazán’s capital city, San Francisco Gotera, in a ceremony attended by hundreds.
Glenda Hernández, member of the Latin American Advisory Group to the county executive office described the milestone with pride, saying the organization “is not only reflecting on what’s been accomplished over the past 15 years, but preparing for everything still to come in the next 15.”
The partnership has raised more than $75,000 for scholarships, most of which supports students in Morazán, alongside health-sector aid, including medical equipment and supplies.
Increasingly, Hernández said, those funds are also going toward scholarships for Salvadoran and Latino students within Montgomery County itself.
Hernández, who came to the U.S. from El Salvador at age nine and later became a teacher, said she has seen firsthand that local students and youth need that same kind of support, a recognition that has reshaped how the committee directs its fundraising.
