(Radio Iowa) – A celebration this Summer of all things Latino in southeast Iowa, is being called off after community members said they were scared about being detained at the event. The Latino Festival of Washington – which normally occurs in August – typically gathers around 300 people for a full day of live music, dancing, and vendors selling Mexican food and other goods. Sonia Leyva is president of Latinos for Washington, the nonprofit that puts the event together. She says they canceled the event to keep people safe.  “It’s a time where we feel that we can’t really celebrate our culture, because it’s like you bring that attention,” Leyva says. “The last thing we want is a family to get split apart, or something happen in our community.”

Latino Festival – City of Washington, IA (2021 File Photo)

Leyva says organizers began hearing that people were scared to go to the festival, given partnerships between state law enforcement officials and U.S. Immigration and Customs and Enforcement.  “It’s a beautiful, wonderful event, and it just brings our community together, and it gives us an opportunity to share our beautiful culture with our community,” Leyva says. “It’s just a bummer that we can’t do that this year. It’s quite devastating, actually.”

Leyva says the nonprofit will continue to provide its U-S citizenship classes and high school scholarship programs and hopes to put on the festival next year.