Celebrate Latine Heritage Month at La Fiesta del Pueblo This Sunday

The largest Latin American cultural festival in the Triangle, organized annually by local organization El Pueblo, will be held on Sunday, September 20. 

RALEIGH, N.C. — National Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated every year from September 15 to October 15. This year El Pueblo invites the community to celebrate at their annual festival and the Triangle’s largest and most diverse festival of Latin American culture, La Fiesta del Pueblo. This festival will be held on Sunday, September 20 from 12PM – 6PM on Fayetteville St. in downtown Raleigh. 

“Latine, or Hispanic, Heritage Month is a time to recognize, uplift, and celebrate the long history, contributions, and legacy of the Latin American community in the U.S. La Fiesta del Pueblo is how we celebrate this national month, locally.” said Veronica Aguilar, Communications Director at El Pueblo. “Latinos in NC have contributed enormously to the rich and unique culture of our state. This is our home and we’re excited to celebrate our culture in the heart of our state’s capital- downtown Raleigh.” 

The festival brings something new every year. This year, the organizers are excited to showcase new attractions for festival goers: a Unity Walk, Carolina Hurricanes hockey activity, and their headliner, Banda Maguey. 

The Unity Walk will be led by Ballet folclórico Orgullo y Alma Latina beginning at the 100 block of Fayetteville St. and ending at the entertainment stage of the festival in City Plaza. Members of the community will be invited to join the walk down Fayetteville St. during the festival. The walk is a way to show unity and strength in community. Festival attendees are encouraged to dress in traditional clothing, sports jerseys, and more representative of their country’s colors and culture.

Celebrating 30 years in the business, Banda Maguey will perform at La Fiesta del Pueblo. This band began its career in the state of Jalisco, in the town of Villa Corona. Today, it remains the best techno band in Mexico and the United States. Their album, “Exitos en vivo banda maguey,” featured a selection of the band’s greatest hits: “Eva Maria”, “Tumbando Caña”, “El Alacrán”, and more.

As a festival celebrating the Latin American heritage and culture of North Carolinians, La Fiesta del Pueblo will also showcase talent from local musical artists and dance performers on their stage at City Plaza. The following is a full schedule of events for the day: 

11:55 AM – Apertura / Opening

12:00 PM – Asociación Cultural Venezolana de NC (Dance Group)

12:15 PM – Ricardo y su Banda RH (Musical Artist)

1:00 PM – Asociación de Guatemaltecos Unidos de Carolina del Norte con Folclor Chapin (Dance Group)

1:15 PM – Letal Rock (Musical Artist)

2:00 PM – Ceremonia de Apertura / Opening Ceremony

2:20 PM – Ballet Folklórico Dominicano de Raleigh (Dance Group)

2:40 PM – Sueño Boliviano (Dance Group)

2:55 PM – Valery (Musical Artist)

3:25 PM – Takiri Folclor Latino (Dance Group)

3:45 PM – NC Brazilian Project (Dance Group)

4:00 PM – Sabrosura (Musical Artist)

4:40 PM – Caminata de la Unión empiezando en el bloque 100 de la calle Fayetteville y terminando en el escenario de City Plaza.  / Unity Walk starting at block 100, Fayetteville St. and ending at City Plaza Stage

4:40 PM – Ballet Folclórico Orgullo y Alma Latina (Dance Group)

5:00 PM – Banda Maguey (Musical Artist- Headliner)

6:00 PM – Fin del festival / End of show

La Fiesta del Pueblo is well known for providing a wide range of options for festival audiences to indulge in the flavors of Latin American cuisine. This year, the festival will have 17 food vendors throughout Fayetteville St. Audiences can expect to have a diverse offering of food options from across Latin America cuisine such as the Carribbean, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Venezuela, Honduras, and Argentina to name a few.

The festival will also have artisanal vendors and Latino/a visual artists selling their goods and arts to festival attendees. Nonprofit organizations and government agencies will also have booths to provide information, resources, and more at the festival.

To learn more about La Fiesta del Pueblo click here  

This program is funded in part by the City of Raleigh based on recommendations of the Raleigh Arts Commission.

The Spanish-language guide is available in print and digital formats and seeks to educate the Latino community and promote their participation in the electoral process in North Carolina.

Raleigh, NC, September 15, 2026 – On National Voter Registration Day, the non-profit organization El Pueblo announced the launch of its nonpartisan, Spanish-language, 2026 Voter Guide, in order to educate North Carolina’s Latino community about the November 3 midterm elections.

“As with every election cycle, El Pueblo has edited a nonpartisan voter guide made specifically for North Carolina’s Latino voters, with an engaging design and culturally accessible language,” said Eloy Tupayachi, El Pueblo’s Digital Strategy and Content Manager. “The goal is for our community to have the information they need to participate in this election.” 

The guide will be available to the public in print format starting this Sunday, September 20 from 12 to 6 pm at La Fiesta del Pueblo, the biggest Latin American festival in the state and organized each year by El Pueblo in downtown Raleigh.

This guide contains basic information on how to register and vote, the key electoral dates and the main races at the state level, with profiles and political positions of the main candidates.

In addition to the printed format, El Pueblo also makes an interactive digital guide available to voters in English and Spanish through its educational electoral portal VotemosNC.com.

“The personalized digital guide is a very easy-to-use tool where voters will be able to learn about all the candidates who will appear on their ballot, from their bios, political experience and their positions in areas such as the economy, public safety, immigration or health, among others,” said Tupayachi.

Through this digital tool, on their cell phone, computer or any device connected to the internet, voters only have to enter their address (which must be the same as the one they registered) to be able to see all the races and candidates that will appear on their ballot on November 3.

With these nonpartisan voter guides and its VotemosNC.com election webpage, El Pueblo seeks to promote Latino voter participation in the electoral process in North Carolina.

RALEIGH, NC.- The state House of Representatives voted today to override Governor Josh Stein’s veto and enact anti-immigrant legislation, SB153, into law which will require various state law enforcement agencies to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to track down and detain immigrants in North Carolina. 

Following the vote, 71 in favor and 47 against, the nonpartisan organization El Pueblo, which advocates for the rights of Latine immigrants in the state, issued the following public statement:  

“SB153 is a blatant anti-immigrant attack driven purely by political motives. This law will put various state law enforcement agencies, such as the Highway Patrol, at the service of the federal administration’s mass deportation campaign, rather than fulfilling their primary mission of protecting and serving the entire North Carolina community. 

This legislation has nothing to do with public safety; it merely seeks to persecute, terrorize, and criminalize immigrants, creating even more fear and uncertainty in a vulnerable community that has already been devastated by the cruel and abusive operations carried out in the state by the Border Patrol last November.

As we saw in our community survey last year, collaboration between local law enforcement agencies and ICE exacerbates the widespread fear in our communities, leading to a dangerous self-isolation among immigrants and their families, who not only avoid leaving their homes as much as possible but also refrain from seeking help or reporting crimes or abuses—which ultimately makes us all less safe. 

Here at El Pueblo, we condemn the decision by members of the House of Representatives who put their political interests ahead of the people of North Carolina, but we will continue to organize and empower the Latine immigrant community to stand up for themselves, make their voices heard, and hold those who have turned their backs on them today accountable.” 

RALEIGH, NC — More than 180 people from Wake County and surrounding areas graduated from El Pueblo’s Health Club, in partnership with the federal EFNEP program (Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program), which offers nutrition workshops aimed at improving families’ quality of life.

This initiative, which began in 2025, included informative talks on topics such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and mental health, as well as information about available services and food distribution support.

“Through the Health Club, El Pueblo seeks to close some of the gaps related to the barriers our Latino community faces in accessing prevention-focused healthcare and essential resources. In this first stage, our work alongside EFNEP has allowed us to advance the path toward education in health and wellness for a significant number of people,” said Karina Neyra, Community Development Director at El Pueblo. “In 2025, NC Cooperative Extension of NC State University gave us tremendous support for the impact achieved through this partnership.”

Nutrition Workshops

The Health Club began in February 2025 and was divided into three groups of around 60 people each. In every group, participants attended nutrition workshops over the course of six weeks. The final group graduated on May 16, 2026.

“In each session, we demonstrated that it is possible to prepare nutritious and healthy meals at a low cost. We also promoted choosing healthy options for a balanced diet, complemented by physical activity as the foundation for a healthier life,” said Hiliiana Patiño, EFNEP educator in Wake County.

More Community Resources

This year, due to the impact of immigration policies, El Pueblo decided to include a mental health session for program participants.

In most sessions, food distributions were also added with support from the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina and Latino-19, during participants’ free activity time.

“I had many health issues. I had prediabetes, high blood pressure, and after joining this group I learned things that helped me a lot. Since Latinos are not used to following a diet, this really helped me. I learned how to read labels and know whether a product is good for me or not,” said Lucía García, one of the Health Club participants.

Community Promoters

The work of El Pueblo’s community promoters has been fundamental in developing this initiative. They have been responsible for sharing information and resources and maintaining ongoing communication with participants. As part of their work, they have also taught participants how to monitor their blood pressure at home.

In what remains of 2026, El Pueblo’s Health Club will continue organizing activities to engage the 180 participants and follow up on the changes they have experienced, as well as other community needs.

RALEIGH, NC — Despite objections from nearly 15,000 people who submitted public comments, voting rights advocacy organizations, and evidence demonstrating the ineffectiveness of a federal database used to identify potential non-citizen voters, the North Carolina State Board of Elections approved a new rule in a 3–2 vote. The rule relies on that unreliable system to purge the voter rolls, putting thousands of eligible voters in the state at risk of losing access to the ballot.

The newly approved rules establish an inadequate, unjust, and insufficient process to determine the eligibility of voters flagged as potential “non-citizens” through the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system, which has been shown to be notably unreliable, as demonstrated by a 2017 audit conducted by the NCSBE itself and a 2016 national study by the Brennan Center for Justice.

The rules approved by the NCSBE are based on this unreliable information and place the burden on voters to prove their eligibility through a process that requires only a simple notification—available only in English—requiring those affected to attend a hearing and present proof of their citizenship under the threat of being removed from the voter rolls.

“Establishing these new rules based on an unreliable federal system in the middle of an election process could deprive eligible voters—particularly naturalized citizens of Latino origin—of their right to vote in North Carolina,” said Verónica Aguilar, Communications Director at El Pueblo. “This will ultimately undermine the integrity and transparency of our elections and disenfranchise the most vulnerable voters.”

The new rule will particularly impact naturalized Latino immigrants whose last names are misspelled; women whose last names change after marriage; and rural communities with fewer resources to obtain documentation.

Additionally, it creates new barriers to voting access, as it is estimated that 21 million Americans do not have a passport, naturalization certificate, or original birth certificate to prove their citizenship—and obtaining these documents can take months and be costly.

RALEIGH, NC.-  At the beginning of the early voting period for the primary elections in North Carolina, the non-partisan organization El Pueblo is making a bilingual and personalized digital guide available for Latine voters, in order to inform them about the candidates, races, and everything they need to know to participate in the 2026 electoral process.

This nonpartisan voter guide is freely available on the VotemosNC.com, the educational platform administered by El Pueblo and will allow voters to view the candidates and races that they will appear on their ballot in the March 3 primary election.

“The personalized digital guide is a very easy-to-use tool where voters will be able to learn about all the candidates who will appear on their ballot, from their biographical information, political experience, and their positions in areas such as the economy, public safety, immigration, or health, among others,” said Eloy Tupayachi, manager of Digital Content Strategy at El Pueblo and editor of VotemosNC.com.

To access this resource, voters must visit VotemosNC.com from any internet connected device and click on “2026 Voter Guide.”

Once they are in the guide, they only need to choose the language of their preference, enter their address (which must be the same as the one listed on their voter registration) and choose their party affiliation or, if they are independent, the party primaries in which they want to participate, in order to see their ballot.

“By simple and friendly navigation, through their mobile phones or other devices, voters will even be able to choose their preferred candidates and save all their options to print or email them. That way, they will be able to consult them when they go to vote,” Tupayachi explained.

In addition to this nonpartisan voter guide, El Pueblo promotes the participation of the Latine community in North Carolina’s electoral process through its online platform Votemos NC.com. This educational online hub includes information in Spanish and English about their voting rights, how to register to vote, how to locate their polling place and view their ballots, the key dates for the 2026 elections, and much more.

“The goal is to help members of our community who are eligible to vote to access all the information they need to participate in the 2026 elections in North Carolina,” said Veronica Aguilar, El Pueblo’s Director of Communications.

El Pueblo is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization based in Wake County that promotes civic engagement for the Latine community in North Carolina.

This digital voter guide was made possible thanks to a joint effort by several organizations that defend democracy and voters’ rights, of which El Pueblo is a partner.

RALEIGH, NC.- Following the news of the murder of Renee Nicole Good in Minnesota at the hand’s of ICE agents, the nonpartisan organization El Pueblo, which advocates for Latino immigrants in the state, issued the following public statement:

“El Pueblo condemns the horrific and violent murder of Renee Nicole Good in Minnesota by ICE agents Wednesday and the terror they continue to inflict on the American public. This horrific crime shows the level of violence and disregard for civil rights with which federal agents are acting to persecute immigrants across the country.  

This moment demands immediate action and accountability; we’re demanding of Congress an immediate and thorough investigation into operations carried out by ICE and DHS.  

Our state leaders must also pressure these agencies for answers and demanding accountability to prevent further victims and harm in the future.  

ICE has no place in our communities. Over the last year we’ve seen again and again how they have abused their power to terrorize and wreak havoc and violence in communities across the nation. Murdering a civilian in cold blood is the latest escalation in their campaign of terror, underscoring just how unchecked and dangerous ICE operations have become.  

We urge our leaders to take action and demand accountability, and we ask our community members to not stay silent. Use that anger, sadness, grief, fear, and more to demand better from our government and protect our vulnerable communities.

Our collective power lies in protecting one another and demanding justice.”

The organization El Pueblo condemns the inhumane and abusive actions carried out by federal immigration agents in the Charlotte area and stands in solidarity with the families of those detained and with the immigrant community in general.  

The arrests, which were recorded on video by neighbors, activists, and the media, show unacceptable brutality and a flagrant violation of the basic rights and dignity that all people deserve, regardless of their race, origin, or immigration status. 

Our immigrant neighbors are being targeted solely because of their appearance by federal agents acting undercover, heavily armed, and without warrants, which constitutes a flagrant and unpunished abuse of power that we strongly reject.  

We urge local authorities to defend the safety and rights of all people in North Carolina, regardless of their immigration status, and we reiterate our commitment to continue advocating for our community. 

We remind our community that right now, the most important thing we have is the power of a united community and knowledge of our rights! 

RALEIGH, NC.-  Wake Resiste, a network of local community organizations, has created a mutual aid fund to support individuals and families directly affected by recent operations by federal immigration agents in Wake County.

The fund will provide limited financial support to the families of those detained in these operations to help them through this time of crisis.

To facilitate this assistance, Wake Resiste has set up the phone line 919-400-8887 available to the community.

Families impacted in Wake County can call this number and leave a voicemail with their contact information so that Wake Resiste volunteers can return their call and assist them with the application process.

A Wake Resiste committee will evaluate all the applications to ensure the funds are disbursed as quickly as possible. 

“This mutual aid fund seeks to provide some relief to the families of victims of these abusive operations by federal immigration agents in Wake County, as well as to support them during these times of crisis,” said Martha Hernández, a member of the Wake Resiste steering committee.

To continue helping those affected by the immigration operations, Wake Resiste is accepting donations for the mutual aid fund through this website emancipatenc/donate  

Those who wish to donate directly to the mutual aid fund should check the Wake Resiste box when filling up the form.

“Now is the time to show our support and solidarity with our immigrant communities; a concrete way to do so is by contributing to the Wake Resiste mutual aid fund, which supports families who are currently facing trauma and urgent economic needs as a result of the abhorrent CBP/ICE raids,” Hernández said.

About Wake Resiste

Wake Resiste is a network of community organizations working to support individuals and families affected by immigration raids in Wake County. 

Wake Resiste steering committee is comprised of the Popular Action Committee, the Southeast Immigrant Rights Network (SEIRN), the Education Justice Alliance (EJA), and El Pueblo Inc.

Wake Resiste coordinates to respond effectively to a raid through community organizing, advocacy, communications, and humanitarian aid.

The nonpartisan organization El Pueblo, which advocates for Latino immigrants in the state, issued the following public statement:

“Federal immigration agents have no place in Raleigh. There is no emergency that warrants this level of terrorizing of our North Carolina communities. Workers, families, children, students, neighbors, businesses, all and more will be negatively impacted by the presence of immigration agents in our Raleigh community.

El Pueblo condemns the inhumane and abusive actions carried out by federal immigration agents in the Charlotte area and other areas of NC. We stand in solidarity with the families of those detained and with the immigrant community in general. We condemn the brutality and blatant disregard of basic rights and dignity that all people deserve.

Over this time, El Pueblo will continue to advocate for the Latine community and work to ensure they know their rights and feel prepared for any kind of immigration related emergency.

We are working with other organizations and grassroots groups to protect our communities together. We want to remind our community that they are not alone. We call for solidarity and action in defense of those who are victims of this campaign of terror orchestrated by this administration.”

The organization is encouraging members of the community to refer to their emergency perpardness guide, Familias Seguras, for information on what to do in case of an immigration-related emergency and to know their rights. This guide can be found here