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Frisco and Copper celebrate Hispanic culture this weekend

CAROLINA THIBAUDsummit daily news

SUMMIT COUNTY – As Summit County gets ready to party, organizers of the Copper Frisco Fiesta are working as hard as ever to offer an event bigger and better than last year’s. Until now, the celebration was only one day long. However, this year, because of the positive results this Hispanic festival had during its first two years, organizers have chosen to make it a three-day celebration from June 17-19.Yanitza Rivera from Puerto Rico has been involved in the organization of the Fiesta since the first one took place in 2003. She will be the chairperson for this year’s event. “For various reasons, we really needed to have an event like this. There is a growing number of Hispanic people living in Summit County, and we all miss our roots,” she said. “The Fiesta helps us feel more at home.”According to Rivera, the festival is an opportunity to show how many Latinos live in Summit County today and to demonstrate the differences within the Hispanic culture.”Being Mexican is not the same as being Cuban, Colombian or Argentine,” she said. “We are united by one same language, but that doesn’t mean we are all the same.”Parallel to the increase in the Hispanic population, the attendance to the festival has grown exponentially since the first Fiesta. Fifteen hundred people attended the festival in 2003, 2,500 in 2004 and 5,000 are expected for this year’s event. “People would ask us, ‘Why just one day?'” said Araceli Soto, one of the people in charge of the organization. “We were all so happy … dancing, eating, enjoying ourselves that we thought, ‘Why not make it a three-day event?'” The Copper Frisco Fiesta 2005 will kick off Friday with the Red Hot Chili Challenge in Copper and will continue Saturday with a soccer tournament organized by the High Country Soccer Association. Frisco will host the Fiesta at 11 a.m. Saturday when Main Street is flooded with colorful and festive entertainment, including Latino dancers, exhibitions, music, food and drinks.An added feature to this year’s festival is the concert at Copper. Four bands from different Latin American countries will play at the Village at Copper on Saturday afternoon starting at 5 p.m.


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