The Dominican Festival of Rhode Island for the past 32 years has been organized by Quisqueya in Action (QIA), a nonprofit volunteer organization with a mission to preserve and promote the traditional cultural values of the Dominican community in Rhode Island.
Marilyn Cepeda – President – Quisqueya en Accion (00:02) The mission of Quisqueya en Accion is to preserve the art and culture of the Dominican Republic, and its language through education and community involvement. My name is Marilyn Cepeda, I am the president of Quisqueya en Accion Inc.
MC (00:17) We had a great event, a massive amount of people on Broad Street, they came out and they supported the organization and our Dominican community, the Latino community as a whole. Just to see those Dominican colors on Broad Street, was like, so inspirational for me. It was just like, so prideful, you know, to celebrate the art and culture of the Dominican Republic, and the contribution we as Americans make in the state of Rhode Island and the country as a whole.
MC (00:49) After we finished there, we came back here to the festival, the festival, we had about between 12 and 13,000 people. And honestly, under the excruciating weather, it was almost like 100 outside, I mean, to have the amount of people that we had here, the support from not just the Dominican community, from the Latino community as a whole, the Anglo community, the African American community.
MC (1:14) I know it means a lot to Rhode Island but I didn’t think that it meant that much, and I’m getting emotional, because we can’t forget our history. You know, our kids need to know where they come from, you know, we have a lot of Dominican Americans here, third generation, fourth generation, and they don’t know a lot about it, where their parents come from, they need to know where they come from, where their ancestors come from, because when you don’t know your history, you’re bound to make mistakes. So it’s important for us to, to preserve this, this event, the parade, the festival, even the different events that we organized during the year.
MC (1:56) I just want to thank so many people, so many people that made this a success this year, but I can’t thank enough the city of Providence, I am so proud to live in Rhode Island honestly, I would not live anywhere else. We had so much support from everyone. This would never have happened unless we had the support of the community as a whole the community at a local level and at the state level. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!
