MS Coast city celebrates growing Hispanic community that’s shaping business, schools
When Lazaro Rovira heard the City of Pascagoula wanted to bring back the Festival Hispano, he nearly started crying.
“It really makes us feel welcomed, appreciated and part of the community,” he said. “We don’t always feel that way. So when the city reaches out and does this, it really means a lot to us. When they they started putting it together, I could have cried of how happy I was. It means that much to us.”
Rovira — the owner of Rovira Realty and a Miami native who has lived on the Coast since 2014 — had helped launch the celebration in 2015. But after several successful events, it lapsed. This year, the new mayoral administration reached out to Rovira to revive it for Hispanic Heritage Month, which spans Sept. 15 to Oct. 15.
Their planning and outreach to Pascagoula’s Hispanic-owned businesses came to fruition Friday night, when hundreds of people flocked to a temporarily pedestrians-only block downtown for food, music and shopping.
Katarina Scott, Pascagoula public information officer, said organizers are not aware of another Coast city that sponsors a similar celebration of and for its Hispanic community, though Latin Festivals not sponsored by cities have taken place at the Coliseum and on the Biloxi Town Green for years.
A growing community in Pascagoula, MS Gulf Coast
The festival is another indication of the growth of Hispanic community on the Coast, and especially in Pascagoula. The 2020 census showed that in Jackson County, the Hispanic population grew by 57% from 2010 to last year, one of the highest rates in the state. In the state overall, the Hispanic community grew 32%.
Scott said the city has seen particular growth among Hispanic-owned businesses.
“Some of the best food that you’ll eat is in east Pascagoula,” she said. ”It’s really shaped kind of that area of our businesses. We wanted to celebrate the contributions that they make to our community.”
In 2015, a city spokeswoman told the Sun Herald Hispanic business owners had sparked “some real revitalization” in east Pascagoula.
Many of the festival attendees Friday night said they work at Ingalls Shipbuilding, which had a table staffed by Spanish-speakers for people interested in learning about jobs at the state’s largest manufacturing employer. Members of the company’s Hispanic Outreach Leadership Association (HOLA) also attended the festival.
When Jennifer Goodwin-Nelson, 34, was growing up in town, she was one of the few kids she knew with a Hispanic parent: Her mom emigrated from Honduras with her family in 1982 and settled on the Coast. Today, about 20% of students in the Pascagoula-Gautier School District are Hispanic.
A chance to share
Across from the stage, Lupita Gutierrez manned two tables selling Mary Kay cosmetics and handmade beaded necklaces and earrings from the Mexican states of Chiapas and Nayarit. Her family came here eight years ago from Georgia, but she’s originally from a small town in the Mexican state Guerrero.
“In Mexico, it’s everything colorful,” she said, gesturing toward jewelry in shades of orange, red and blue. “That’s what I’m representing here.”
On stage, singer Vilmarie Mendez from the band Zona Libre called out Hispanic nationalities. Mendez said she and her bandmates are Puerto Rican, but since they got their start five years ago, they’ve always played music from all over Latin America, which is why they chose their name. Zona Libre translates to Free Zone.
Mendez shouted out countries one by one: Guatemala, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Honduras and Cuba. Puerto Rico got the biggest cheer.
When she called out Mexico, Gutierrez waved her arms in the air and smiled.
Nadia Torres stood in line waiting to buy chicharron and yucca from the food truck Chimi El Torito. In Cuba, she was a doctor, but the pay was terrible. Here, she is a pipefitter.
“I’m working, I’ve got everything like you— I’m a citizen,” she said. “And my kids too. We live well.”
Torres sipped a Blue Hawaiian out of a custom-made cup printed with the Cuban flag, the country’s National Capitol Building, the national bird, the tocororo, and her name in curving red letters. Her husband, Felix Cruz, carried a similar cup printed with the flag of his home country, Puerto Rico.
Gutierrez’s daughter, 17-year-old Naomi, split pinchos and empanadas with her boyfriend, Dilan Skinner. The couple met in high school band, where Naomi played the clarinet and Dilan the trumpet. They’d spent the evening walking around, helping Gutierrez at her table, and bumping in to people from school. As Naomi handled ordering in Spanish, Dilan joked that after a year of dating she had taught him nothing of the language.
Linnette Sanchez attended the festival with her employer, Mecham Law Firm, which specializes in immigration law. Her family moved to the Coast from Puerto Rico six years ago when her husband got a job at Ingalls.
They chose to live in Gautier in part because she was impressed by the Pascagoula-Gautier School District’s programs for English language learners, like her daughter. The district has the second-highest English Learner population in the state, at 12.5% of students.
Sanchez said the Coast reminds her of her home in eastern Puerto Rico.
“People here are very much like our hometown,” she said. “Very welcoming, looking out for each other.”
This story was originally published September 25, 2021 at 2:16 PM.
