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A week ago today I was so excited I couldn’t sleep. The 9 board members were all busy at work some on site on Thursday morning at 7:00 am to help get the tents set up. This was my first “working” festival. By that I mean it was the first time I would be working behind the scenes as an organizer. What I didn’t know then is all the hard work that goes into planning and executing a 3 day event. So many little details that a person attending this festival fails to realize are in place. So many meetings held before hand to make sure the execution is flawless. I can honestly say that I believe we met our goals. These 9 hardworking souls literally breathed and lived the festival; many if not all working 17 hour days. And to them I want to say Congratulations… Your hard work is not unnoticed.

The performers were all great. Victor Manuelle was awesome; Rey Ruiz was also “fenomenal”. Plena Libre brought the house down and although I was not able to see them perform I did see pictures of one of our very own dancing on stage and one of our masters of ceremony singing with them. My favorite performers however, were Johnny O and Cynthia. Wow, they both gave an awesome show and just as I had previously written I went back to that time in my life when it was simple. I was not the only one however who remember every single lyric, I saw many people my age singing along. It was awesome!

The amateur performances were also fantastic. I saw a diverse age group of people performing for the crowd and I think our festival attendees truly enjoyed the performances. So much talent in Rochester, I am glad the Puerto Rican Festival was able to showcase some of it.

Now, let’s talk food. We had your Puerto Rican selections, but how awesome was it to see arepas with cheese. Arepas is a bread made of corn popular in Venezuela and Colombia. If you have never had these they are delicious. There were also several vendors with tropical smoothies and Italian ices. McDonalds was even on hand giving samples of their strawberry lemonade which to my surprise were also very good.

Overall I loved everything about the festival. Even though I literally would get home in pain (my poor feet) I knew that everyone around me was also enjoying themselves and I really believe that is what propelled me through the weekend. On Sunday when it was all over I was a little sad but happy to be finally heading home.

At around 12:00 am as I headed down Bay Street (after debriefing and cleaning up with board members after the festival) I saw the most disturbing thing. 5 police cars parked on Bay near First Street and several police officers in riot gear. Then I saw a line of cars with flags and several people on street corners (more than the regular few who are on these street corners). My first thought was panic. My second thought was anger. These young people in the streets weren’t doing anything out of the ordinary that I could see but the fact that they were congregated in groups gave the impression that they might have been up to something. My last thought was sadness because as hard as the board worked to educate and promote our message of Celebrating with Pride/Celebra con Orgullo, it was obvious that the message had not reached these young people.

So Monday arrives and as we head to the press conference we find out that 25 were arrested as a result of what the media calls “after festival activities.” Orlando our board president is happy to report that we had record attendance for our 3 day festival and that there were 0 arrests on site! Do you know how rare that is? That in a mass of 8,000 – 10,000 people on Sunday (or any day for that matter) not one person was arrested on the festival grounds??? That is a phenomenal feat. But the sad part about it is that it doesn’t get recognized as such. Instead the reporters asked how much money do we pay the police department (which by the way, one of our board members broke it down and it comes down to $0.87 per person) or if the additional funds spent on overtime for police was a wise way to spend tax payer money. I know that something must be done to control these young people and their actions but I am honestly stumped as how to do it. How to curb these activities on the Sunday night is something that I hope we as a community together can find a solution to. We need to have pride in ourselves and still respect others. Hanging out of cars and beeping horns is not an acceptable way to celebrate, and if we continue with these actions, I fear we may lose our precious festival.

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