Raizado Fest centers Latinx talent and contributions in the US

Community was at the center of the festivities at the third annual Raizado Fest in Aspen, Colorado, over the weekend, a star-studded celebration of Latinx achievements, activism and advocacy.

"Raizado means deeply rooted, and just like these Aspen trees here on these grounds, we are deeply rooted in this community and in this country," festival founder Mónica Ramírez said to the crowd during opening remarks.

Raizado Fest, which kicked off last Thursday and wrapped up Sunday, featured appearances by prominent Latinx figures and cultural changemakers, including actor Diego Luna, actress Justina Machado, actor Wilmer Valderrama, chef Grace Ramirez, actress Annie Gonzalez and U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro.

The festival is an initiative of the collective The Latinx House and the civil rights group Justice for Migrant Women. The Latinx House, which was founded by Ramírez, Olga Segura and Alexandra Martinez Kondracke, provides support for Latinx people who make positive social, political and creative contributions in the country. During the weekend, Raizado Fest merged these distinct facets through live music, film screenings, cuisine experiences, panels and more.

Cultural trailblazers were also honored during the festival's 2023 Icon Awards. Sandra Cisneros, author of the classic Chicano fiction book "The House on Mango Street," was honored with the Culture Icon Award for her contributions to the field of literature. Interdisciplinary artist Favianna Rodriguez received the Truth Icon Award, and community organizer Cristina Jimenez received the Power Icon Award. This year, Raizado Fest created the inaugural Colorado Icon Award and recognized activist Rosemary Rodriguez, Executive Director of the nonprofit organization Together We Count.

Although Cisneros has won some of the most prestigious awards in the country, including the National Medal of Arts awarded by former President Barack Obama, Cisneros told ABC News that the cultural emphasis of Raizado's Icon Award made the honor significant for her.

"It's more meaningful to me now that I've witnessed and been here and seen the energy that everyone put together and that people came from all over the country and beyond, so just the fact of being celebrated by our own community, by our own activists, is very thrilling," Cisneros said.

ABC News Correspondent John Quiñones and ABC News Contributor María Elena Salinas were also in attendance as featured speakers during a special book reading and signing of "One Year in Uvalde: A Story of Hope and Resilience," a narrative that builds on the yearlong ABC News reporting in Uvalde, Texas after the deadly mass shooting at Robb Elementary School.

"One of the things that you're able to do when you're there that long is tell stories that normally wouldn't be told if you just got there and left a week later to go on to the next story," Salinas told the audience.

Quiñones and Salinas also discussed the ABC News documentary on Hulu, "Print it Black," winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary Feature at the Dallas International Film Festival. "Print it Black" chronicles the reporting of Uvalde's local newspaper Uvalde Leader-News, and its reporter, Kim Rubio, who lost her daughter, Lexi Rubio, in the mass shooting.

"What I remind myself on difficult stories like this -- the greater good is that millions of Americans are gonna see this and that maybe change will come," Quiñones said to the crowd at Raizado Fest.

Several independent films and documentaries screened at the festival, among them "Los Frikis," "De la Calle," "El Tesoro" and "State of Silence," the latter of which was executive produced by Luna and Gael García Bernal.

"There's a lot of sadness involved in this film, but it's also a film about resilience, hope and community," the "Andor" actor told ABC News.

Luna and "State of Silence" director Santiago Maza attended the screening to discuss their documentary about the killings of Mexican journalists and the threats against journalism.

"The issue is global. The stories we present in 'State of Silence' are not exclusive to Mexico," Luna said. "Democracies are in danger all around the world; there's no democratic elections without a free press."

These unique and educational experiences at Raizado Fest demonstrate the event's evolution since first being created in 2021 as a direct response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Raizado was born out of pain, Raizado was born out of a moment in time in our country's history in which many Latinx people were dying from COVID, including the migrant farmworkers, the community I come from," founder Ramírez said.

Ramírez said she was conscious of the pandemic's dire impact on Latinx essential workers and the mass loss of death, which afflicted the community in a "complete systemic failure." She felt compelled to shift the narrative about Latinx people and their critical contributions in the U.S.

"Raizado Fest is in honor of the many people who passed away during those early days of the pandemic," Ramírez said. "And it was our message to the world that we as a community are not throwaway people, we are not disposable people, and that we as a collective here, we are committed to doing everything in our power to make sure that a moment like that, a terrible, dark moment in our history, never occurs again."