Latinx House Launching New Festival in Aspen

A new festival is coming to Aspen in late August celebrating Latin culture with panels, talks, art exhibitions, live music, film screenings and food.

The inaugural Raizado Festival, produced by The Latinx House, will run Aug. 30-Sept. 1 at Aspen Meadows. The event has been designed by film producer Olga Segura and activist Monica Ramírez, co-founders of Latinx House, which uses a gender-neutral term for Latinos. The nonprofit, as Segura put it, ” was born out of the desire to create space for the Latinx community in places of cultural importance to celebrate our contributions to society and gather with like-minded allies.”

Rooted in the entertainment industry, where Ramírez is credited among the progenitors of the “Time’s Up” movement for gender equity in entertainment, Latinx House activations launched at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and have since convened at SXSW and the Academy Awards.

The Raizado Festival promises to bring together artists, creators, activists, and leaders to spotlight issues in the tradition of the Aspen Institute, which is unaffiliated with the event.

“Aspen is considered a place and space where the greatest leaders convene,” Ramírez said in an announcement. “The Latinx community is now taking our place among other leaders.”

The first announced participant in the festival is Carmen Rojas, president and CEO of the Marguerite Casey Foundation.

“The Latinx community is deeply rooted in the United States,” said Ramirez. “The festival is an acknowledgment and celebration of this fact. We will gather to affirm the pain and the losses that the Latinx community has suffered, while also lifting up the many meaningful contributions that our community has made and continues to make.”

Jose Garcia, interim director of the Ford Foundation’s Future of Workers initiative, which helps fund Latinx House, praised the festival as “a first of its kind opportunity to elevate the civic, social and economic disparities that disproportionately impact the Latinx community.”

This new addition to the summer event lineup in Aspen comes as the town’s festival season is expected to mostly return to its robust pre-pandemic schedule. Major festivals here start with the Food & Wine Classic (June 17-19) and concludes with the Jazz Aspen Snowmass Labor Day Experience (Sept. 2-4) with convenings clustered in-between including the Jazz Aspen June Experience (June 23-26) and the Aspen Institute’s Aspen Ideas: Health (June 22-25), Aspen Ideas Festival (June 25-July 1), Aspen Security Forum (July 19-22) and Aspen Action Forum (July 26-30) along with the Aspen Art Museum’s Aspen ArtWeek (Aug. 2-6) and more.

Latinx House leaders stressed the importance of creating a prominent place within that lineup in Aspen and on the national stage.

“There are millions of members of the Latinx community in the United States alone,” said Segura. “We need to be seen. We need to be heard. We need to be valued and supported by each other and our allies. We couldn’t be more excited to launch a Festival that will spotlight the cultural force in this country.”

atravers@aspentimes.com