'It brings comfort and pride': Latin festival celebrates culture, 'exponential' growth in Halifax

The LatinFax festival returns to Halifax. (Source: Latispanica Cultural Association)

When Eduardo Jaber and his wife Adriana Gutierrez opened their Mexican and Venezuelan restaurant in downtown Halifax in 2016, they originally catered to a Western palate, focusing on soups, sandwiches and wraps.

“We didn’t have a full Mexican-Venezuelan menu,” explains Jaber. “We were doubting that people would want to have Latin food every day. I didn’t think encapsulating only our culture would be a good business move.”

Turns out, there was an appetite in the city for Jaber and Gutierrez’s cuisine. Verano Food Purveyors on Hollis Street now exclusively serves Latin cuisine. On the menu is patacon, arepa, and empanadas, to name a few.

“Through the years, Halifax has demonstrated to us that there is a market, and there is an appreciation for our culture. We’re appreciated for who we are. It’s amazing, it feels really good.”

Latin and Hispanic growth

Jaber says he’s seen an “exponential” growth in the Halifax Regional Municipality’s Latin community.

“Absolutely, it’s remarkable, to say the least,” says Jaber. “So when we first arrived 10 years ago, we honestly were saddened by the challenge of finding our culture and community in the city. We met people from Latin America, but it wasn't like this strong body of Latin community.”

According to the 2021 census, 2,005 people living in the HRM reported Spanish as their mother tongue. That’s an increase of 630 people, or a jump of nearly 46 per cent, compared to the 2016 census.

It’s even more significant for the Portuguese language. The 2016 census found 385 people in the HRM who reported Portuguese as their mother tongue. That number jumped to 1,095 in 2021, and increase of 184 per cent.

The next census from Statistics Canada is scheduled for May 2026.

“I’m sure now it’s triple that, or even more,” says Denisse Molina, president of the Latispanica Cultural Association.

Molina moved to Canada from Ecuador in 2016. She completed a degree from St. Francis Xavier University before moving to Halifax in 2020.

“And I can say that from that short time perspective that I have, I've seen a significant growth in the Latin community. When you go shopping, you find more people speaking Spanish. It’s how connections start, usually because we recognize the language, and we start talking to each other. Going around the city, you can see more Latinos coming in,” Molina says.

LatinFax celebration

The growing community is also behind the expansion of LatinFax.

The Latispanica Cultural Association is hosting the festival on Saturday afternoon along the Halifax Waterfront. Molina says having an exclusively Latin festival demonstrates the rise of Spanish speakers in the HRM.

“It used to be on a much smaller scale at the Halifax Central Library,” explains Molina. “We filled the space with 400 attendees.”

In 2023, LatinFax moved from October to July, and took the festival outdoors.

“When we took it outdoors, we saw a significant growth of the festival,” adds Molina. “Moving it to the waterfront gave us good traffic of people, too, because it’s a very visual, very central, and very accessible space.”

The free, volunteer-driven festival will include performances from nine groups, and more than a dozen vendors. The association believes last year’s festival drew in more than 2,000 attendees.

Jaber will be participating in LatinFax as a vendor with his other food business, Hali Pops, which he also owns with his wife.

“It brings comfort and pride,” says Jaber. “To see that come to fruition in the city, and see more businesses offering part of our culture, it's kind of like a feeling of accomplishment, because when you know how much our culture can achieve and our people, and you see it happening somewhere where it wasn't happening before, it feels good.”

Molina hopes to see the celebration of Latin culture expand in the HRM, along with the festival.

“I think that everyone in the association is very happy, and proud,” she says. “We’re just planning to make it grow as the years go by.”

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