How Philadelphia's Festivals Preserve Diaspora Culture

Festivals are more than celebrations — they're living archives of culture, memory, and resistance. In this episode of Patterns of Our Diasporas, host Monica O. Montgomery sits down with three Philadelphia festival organizers to explore how community events preserve identity across generations.Gerardo Coronado of the Association of Mexican Business Owners (AEM) shares how Día de los Muertos and the Fiesta Futbolera Soccer Fest create space for Mexican traditions to take root and be embraced by the broader city. Erika Goslin, Executive Director of Taller Puertorriqueño, reflects on 50+ years of art, activism, and education — and how the Feria del Barrio stakes a joyful, defiant claim to El Barrio Latino de Philadelphia. Mabel Negrete, co-founder of Indigenous Peoples' Day Philadelphia, speaks to the profound complexity of uniting indigenous communities from across the Americas in a single celebration — one that educates, heals, and pushes back against erasure.Together, they wrestle with the words survival, sovereignty, and belonging — and what it means to organize a festival not just as a party, but as an act of resistance, a democratic gathering, and a gift to the next generation.