New Festival zone caters to Spanish speakers
By Audrey Kuo
April 24, 2009 12:27 a.m.
 In the interest of expanding the conversation about languages and literacy, the festival will feature the Hoy Cultural Neighborhood, an area catering to bilingual English and Spanish speakers.
The area, hosted in part by Hoy, the Spanish-language newspaper produced by the L.A. Times, will be located at the bottom of Janss Steps and will feature booths, music, performances and speakers aimed at those who speak Spanish.
Uriel Saenz, who works on events and marketing with the L.A. Times, said the neighborhood developed in response to enthusiastic support from the community.
“As we were developing the idea, we were thinking of a smaller scale, but because of the interest, we expanded,” he said. “The way it’s worked so far is when people started finding out about the event and the area, it created a lot of buzz, and now we have a lot of people lined up for next year.
The neighborhood will be a gathering point for the Festival of Books’ Spanish-speaking visitors, whose attendance has been high in the past. Saenz said that in previous years, there was no location for those attendees.
“They didn’t have the cultural impact at the festival,” he said, adding that the cluster of bilingual activities, speakers and events could create a sense of community, as well as reflect the rising Spanish-speaking population in Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles Unified School District has one of the highest Latino populations in the nation, and students from the district’s Middleton Elementary School will be performing on the neighborhood’s stage as part of the mariachi band Cielo Nuevo.
Saenz said the area is not meant to segregate the Spanish-speaking audience from the rest of the festival but to encourage those with a mixed-language background “to be fully bilingual, instead of the Spanglish scenario.”
“I grew up in a bilingual household, but just because my parents spoke Spanish doesn’t mean I didn’t speak English as well,” Saenz said of his own experiences. “And we’re introducing the parents who don’t necessarily speak English to the language.”
One of the panels presented on the Hoy Cultural Stage will address the importance of multilingual abilities. “Language and Literacy” will feature authors and a librarian discussing the process of learning English and the cultural impact of bilingual speakers.
Tom Miller, one of the authors speaking on the panel, which is scheduled for 3 p.m. Sunday, described bilingual issues as having an effect on “religion, politics, sports, language ““ every field there is.”
Miller’s own interest in the process of learning English developed after a stay in Cuba from 1990 to 1991. Miller fell in love with Regla, a Cuban woman, and married her in 1993. After watching her two sons adapt to life in the United States, Miller produced “How I Learned English,” a collection of 55 personal testimonies from Latinos who learned English as a second or third language.
“There’s so much baggage in learning English,” he said, including spiritual, religious and geographical issues. “Each individual has to unpack this baggage one piece at a time. There’s no injection, no pill for learning a language.”
The Hoy Cultural Neighborhood will straddle Spanish and English, incorporating guests such as library owner Ruben Martinez, who focuses on Spanish books, Spanish-speaking TV stations and radio personalities.
Saenz said he is optimistic the neighborhood will appeal to visitors regardless of their linguistic backgrounds. He said the growing Latino population in California will increase interest in learning about Hispanic cultures.
Along with the mariachi band and a folklorico dance show, the neighborhood will host an art gallery featuring Hispanic artists from across Latin America.
The Hoy Cultural Stage will also feature a “family fun performance” by Israel 4 Kids, sponsored by the Israeli consulate and a concert by the International Children’s Choir of Long Beach.
“It’s going to be truly cultural ““ a true cultural, diverse group,” Saenz said of the performances.
“It’s about unity and diversity,” he added, “about how we connect to other countries.”
