The District is hosting its first-ever annual Afro Latino Fest this weekend, featuring musical performances, Latino vendors, and free activities like yoga.

The event at Malcolm X Park is being put on by the Mayor’s Office on Latino Affairs in honor of National Immigrant Heritage Month. It starts at 2 p.m. on Sunday, June 5.

“Our strongest asset as a city is our diversity and to build community through cultural events,” says Eduardo Perdomo, the interim director of MOLA. “We have been conducting more and more events to bring people together.”

The festival will open in the upper park with an exhibition from the long-standing drum circle, followed by a performance from the Experience Band, a local go-go group. Featured performers also include Garifuna singer Aurelio Martínez, Cuban jazz singer Daymé Arocena, Dominican guitarist Yasser Tejeda, and Cuban drummer Yissy García. There will also be community painting, and capoeira, a Brazilian martial art.

According to Perdomo, MOLA will also be honoring Afro Latino community members for their contributions to the District – including Antonio Montes, a former D.C. official and a long-time advocate for Afro Latinos, Aisha Court, a Spanish professor at Howard University who specializes in Afro-Latino identity, and Andolyn Medina, who was previously named Miss DC 2021.

“Latinos of color were not recognized as much as Latinos in general within our community,” Montes tells WAMU/DCist. “So I was surprised when this [event] came up.”

Organizers say they want the event to be a place where D.C. residents can celebrate the history, culture, and diversity within D.C.’s Latino and immigrant communities — especially because Afro Latinos are so routinely left out of mainstream conversations about Latinidad in the U.S., Perdomo says.

“There is not only one Latino community,” says Perdomo, who was born in the Dominican Republic. “We are many Latino communities within the District.”

As an Afro Latino, Perdomo says he’s proud to be celebrating the differences within Latino communities. He says it can also highlight similarities and strengthen community ties.

“People get this feeling of a sense of community, and can appreciate the difference in their neighbors,” he says,“when they see someone that doesn’t necessarily look like them but they enjoy their culture, their music, their food. It’s like a bridge that could easily bring people together.”

While Perdomo says the recognition is long overdue, Montes says he’s just happy that the work is being done to benefit the community.

“You don’t really look for recognition,” says Montes. “What’s important is what you try to do…that can benefit the community in general.”