Macon-Bibb County hosted its fourth-annual Hispanic Heritage Festival on Saturday, Oct. 18, bringing Latino culture to the heart of the city while the Hispanic community navigates heightened immigration enforcement and a tense political climate.
The event took place on Cherry Street Plaza and dozens of vendors, food trucks and community organizations lined each side of the block. As visitors meandered down Cherry Street, they could enjoy the afternoon’s lineup of traditional performances from Mexico, Colombia, Panama and the Caribbean.
“I came out here to support the Hispanic community,” said Wesleyan College senior Kourtney Joseph. “I was like, ‘I’d love to come, get my makeup done,’ so I could kind of represent the culture, learn a little bit more about it.”
Joseph, who takes Spanish classes at Mercer, said she spent the 2024-25 school year abroad in Chile, where she fell in love with Latino culture.
Kourtney Joseph, a senior at Wesleyan College, celebrated Latino culture with a traditional white dress and eccentric makeup that paid homage to “Día de los Muertos,” a Mexican holiday.
Westside High School’s band marched to the stage to open the event, drawing lines of people holding cell phones and cameras. After opening remarks from city officials, which were also translated in Spanish, the various music groups took over the remaining five hours.
Guests also celebrated “Día de los Muertos” – a holiday rooted in Aztec tradition – by bringing photos of deceased relatives to an “ofrenda,” or candle-lined altar on the plaza.
Organizers of the Macon-Bibb County Hispanic Heritage Festival placed an “ofrenda” in the center of Cherry Street Plaza, inviting attendees to place photos of deceased relatives.
Local and regional vendors set up stands to sell traditional dresses, souvenirs and handmade crafts. Behind a table filled with vibrant bags, blouses and jewelry stood Ken and Claudia Berck from Ringgold, Ga.
The couple met during a mission trip when Ken’s Georgia-based church partnered with Claudia’s in Monterrey, Mexico. Since founding Ayelet’s Mexican Style in 2015, they have travelled the Southeast, selling indigenous handmade crafts and clothing from families in southern Mexico.
“I know the people from Chiapas and Oaxaca,” Claudia said, sharing photos of groups of women and girls across generations handmaking the products together. “It’s what they live for,” she said.
Claudia said this is her first time at Macon’s festival, but business grows increasingly difficult with communities’ fears of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. “I have my friends, and yeah, they’re scared and worrying.”
She added that festivals have declined in attendance, and though the support for the events has not dwindled among the Latino community, “it’s not the same.”
Local tensions arise from the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office’s involvement in ICE’s 287(g) program, which allows local jail staff to perform limited immigration enforcement on behalf of the federal government. The program became mandatory for law enforcement agencies in Georgia when the General Assembly passed House Bill 1105, which Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law in May 2024.
Ricardo Avilar, of Colombia, sold hand-painted bottles and jars at Saturday’s Hispanic Heritage Festival, which was put on by Macon-Bibb County. Avilar said his sister, who still lives in Colombia, designs every piece herself.
“Some of our jail officers are trained and given authorization to serve detainer warrants. They don’t go out in the field, they don’t go out in the streets, they don’t go out looking for anybody,” Sheriff David Davis said. “It’s more of an administrative and bureaucratic function than anything.”
Despite recent raids such as ICE’s Sept. 4 arrests of about 475 people in Ellabell, Ga., Ken, the vendor, said, “We’ve been to so many festivals and have not seen any problems.”
“ICE has a job, but we want to make sure it is done in a proper way, in a humane way, and a way that does not create ill-will throughout the community,” Davis said.
While ICE’s presence has caused cancellations of similar events across the country, Macon’s festival continued through the early evening with hundreds of guests in attendance. Even with these numbers, Joseph said other Hispanic heritage events in Macon felt lack-luster.
“General knowledge of the Hispanic community and Hispanic culture, it’s all falling flat,”
Joseph, who is not of Hispanic descent, said. She urged Macon citizens to support the Latino community because without it, “things are only going to get worse for a lot of people.”
Nathaniel Jordan ’29 intends to major in Journalism at Mercer and hopes to work as an investigative journalist. His hobbies include poetry, photography and home cooking, and you can probably find him around Macon shopping or walking through local parks with his wife and son.