MISSISSAUGA LATIN FESTIVAL
Mississauga Latin Festival is a multicultural annual event. Every summer, this three-day event showcases the music, food, art, dance, and performances from Latin America entertaining over 45,000 visitors per year. Our festival is produced by Canadian Latin Heritage a non-for-profit organization established by community volunteers with the mission to promote the Latin culture from past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations through cultural events where Latinos share, express, and appreciate their identity.
The Canadian Latin Heritage Association has played a very important role in producing the Mississauga Latin Festival, providing an outlet for the Latin American community to preserve its traditions and enjoy the historical legacy of its own heritage, with the primary goal of preserving their the language, music, food, folklore and cultural richness as well as to integrate them into Canadian culture.
Mississauga Latin Festival gratefully acknowledges the generosity of its Founding Government Partner, the Sponsors, and Media for their support.
HISTORY
The festival was founded in 2009 by Isabel Cuellar, a Colombian lawyer, who loves her roots and the Latin American culture and traditions. Isabel created the largest festival of Latin American culture in Mississauga, with a 3-day extravaganza featuring Latin America’s best cultural contributions to the city’s heritage.
In 2009, the festival started as an event to celebrate the Colombian Independence day, it was the “Colombia in Mississauga” event, but 5 years later, in 2015 Isabel re-named the event as the MISSISSAUGA LATIN FESTIVAL, to open it up and to allow the participation of artists, musicians, and vendors from other Latin American countries and in that way showcase not only Colombia but the Latin American countries in general.
With limited resources and a mountain of determination, the Mississauga Latin Festival has patiently gained the respect and support of government officials, as well as different organizations and institutions that are already established or are starting up.
Over the past 10 years many artists and a large number of volunteers, entrepreneurs, and officials have participated actively in the promotion and delivery of the Latin American Festival in the city of Mississauga. It is considered to be the largest of its kind in Ontario and attracts people from many other ethnic cultures from within Peel region GTA and other cities.
VALUES
- Diversity and Tolerance: We celebrate the diversity of our audience - different generations, different backgrounds, and different stories.
- Collaboration: we embrace the diverse thoughts and voices of our communities and work together to create an open and safe environment.
- Integrity: We encourage the fairness, trust, and transparency that are essential for rewarding interactions internally, within our communities, and with our artists and audiences.
- Excellence: we embody an unwavering commitment to greatness across our programming, staff, and collaborators.
- Above all, we respect each other.
Through consistently upholding these values, together we seek to build a positive, ambitious culture that is professionally rewarding and personally enjoyable.
OBJECTIVES
- To produce an annual cultural festival in the city of Mississauga that is festive, colourful, and friendly.
- To stimulate the cultural scene and contribute to local socio-economic development.
- To promote the development of cultural tourism and tourist customer retention in the city of Mississauga.
- To contribute to the openness and acceptance of other cultures in the city of Mississauga.
- To put together a unifying event promoting synergy between the various players involved.
- To facilitate integration and closer ties between the different local communities.
- To strengthen the identity and sense of belonging of the population.
- To encourage the discovery of new artists.
- To participate actively in regional development.
- To encourage interaction between the City of Mississauga and other regions.
