Happy Valley Latin Festival Returns to Downtown State College

State College will help celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month when it hosts the second annual Happy Valley Latin Festival on Saturday.

The free-admission festival will stretch from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Martin Luther King Jr. Plaza and the 100 block of South Fraser Street. Community members are invited to listen to live music and view traditional dance performances. Booths staffed by local vendors will offer themed foods, drinks and crafts.

This year’s festival theme hopes to convey, “Un idioma, un sentir, somos familia, al ritmo de un mismo son,” interpreted as, “A language, a feeling, we are family, to the rhythm of the same beat.”

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Event organizer Ady Martínez, the owner of Juana’s on South Fraser Street, says community events that celebrate Latin and Hispanic cultures are critically important.

“They allow us to preserve and promote the development and celebration of diversity,” Martínez said in a statement. “In this case, the Latin Festival works towards the understanding of all and for all in the community formed around the cultural heritage of Latin American traditions and arts.”

The festival is supported by the Downtown State College Improvement District and the Borough of State College.

For more information, follow the festival’s Facebook and Instagram pages.