Fiestas Patrias is back. It aims to bring music, food and revitalization to downtown Fresno
This story is part of the Central Valley News Collaborative — a bilingual, community journalism project funded by the Central Valley Community Foundation and with technology and training support from Microsoft Corp. The collaboration includes The Fresno Bee, Valley Public Radio, Vida en el Valle, Radio Bilingüe and the Institute for Media & Public Trust at Fresno State.
For decades, thousands of people used to gather in downtown Fresno for Fiestas Patrias, a festival that started as a Mexican Independence Day celebration. The event brought food, live music and entertainment to the Fulton Mall, typically a business-only street.
The last festival was in 2018 — and the last time it included a parade was in 1999.
Now, city leaders are partnering with local organizations to bring back the celebration and parade this Saturday. The city of Fresno has adopted Fiestas Patrias as a city-sponsored festival that will be held annually, according to Fresno City Councilmember Miguel Arias.
By investing in Fiestas Patrias, the city is aiming to revitalize downtown while restoring restore an event beloved by the region’s Latino community, Arias said.
“Downtown Fresno cannot be revitalized without the Latino community,” Arias said. “We have been intentional to ensure that gentrification does not occur during the revitalization effort.”
Organizers are expecting anywhere between 10,000 to 30,000 people along the Fulton Mall this weekend, between Fiestas Patrias and Oktoberfest happening nearby in the Brewery District.
Efforts to revitalize downtown Fresno
Saturday’s festival will include El Grito — the reenactment of when Miguel Hidalgo called for Mexico’s independence. Along with the return of the parade — including charros and escaramuzas, or traditional Mexican horseback performers — there will also be art stations for kids to craft, family games, food trucks and restaurant outposts.
Organizers also scheduled live performances from local musicians and dancers representing different Latino cultures.
“Nowadays, too many of our Latino community have to depend on Disney to teach us our traditions with movies,” Arias said. “In Fresno, we are making an investment to have our community re-embrace our heritage and culture.”
The festival also serves another role. Community events like Fiestas Patrias support businesses in the city’s core, said Dora Westerlund, president and CEO of the Fresno Area Hispanic Foundation, which focuses on local entrepreneurship and helping small businesses thrive.
“I do believe that it is so important to have a thriving downtown, for us to have a good (economic) region and thriving city,” Westerlund said. “I am hoping that in the future this (downtown) would be an area where all communities meet to celebrate their different cultures and art.”
Jimmy Cerracchio, president and CEO of the Downtown Fresno Partnership, agreed.
He said the partnership aims to support community events – like food truck gatherings and art installations – that draw foot traffic to the area outside of weekday business hours, introduce Fresnans to downtown businesses and boost the local economy.
“They’re definitely helping downtown stay alive,” Cerracchio said. “They (gatherings) take a lot of manpower and a lot of work to pull them together, but the return is that it helps our businesses make money and stay open.”
Fresno is in an “interesting situation” where downtown doesn’t have a lot of residential space yet the neighborhood is in “an upwards swing,” Cerracchio said.
A recent study from UC Berkeley researched pandemic recovery trajectories in 62 North American cities, comparing the revitalization of downtown neighborhoods. Fresno ranked fourth overall, placing it among the top cities moving towards more active, revitalized downtowns.
What to expect at Fiestas Patrias 2022
The first Fiestas Patrias celebration was held in Fresno in 1941, a year before the Bracero Program started, exponentially growing the Latino communities in California, said Lilia Gonzáles Chávez, executive director of the Fresno Arts Council.
Decades later, Fiestas Patrias organizers started working to bring back the celebration to highlight Latino history in the city. But for that to happen, the organizing committee had to prove that the parade is part of the city’s history like the Veterans Day and Christmas parades are, Gonzáles Chávez said.
Evidence included a Vida en el Valle article that documented the existence of past parades and a 1941 photo of the first parade held for Fiestas Patrias.
Though Saturday’s festival will include El Grito, Fiestas Patrias is not exclusively a Mexican celebration anymore.
Along with Mexico, several other Latin American countries also celebrate their independence on Sept. 15 and Fiestas Patrias is celebrating those countries’ histories as well.
“The whole point of this festival is not just to celebrate the culture of our Latino community, but also to educate the broader community of the real history of Latin American culture,” Arias said.
Grammy-nominated Mexican ranchera singer Paquita la del Barrio and Pancho Barraza will perform in a joint concert on Saturday at 6:30 p.m. at Selland Arena to conclude the festivities.
Tickets are $40 on Ticketmaster but farmworkers and their families can get tickets for free. The organizing committee wants to recognize their hard work and resilience. Contractors and farmworkers can call David Preciado at 823-266-2235 for tickets.
Vehicle access on Fulton Street will be closed between Fresno and Inyo streets on Saturday as the event takes place, Arias said.
This story was originally published September 15, 2022 at 5:30 AM.