OCC makes Latin-themed festival a tradition

A Latin-themed festival thought up by OCC dance instructor Jose Costas as a way to bring Latinos to the Costa Mesa campus has become a college tradition.

Sunday will be the third consecutive year that the campus will host Festival Día de la Raza, which brings Latino musicians, artists and dancers to perform for a crowd of thousands in the quad.

“What is special about this year is that the school has decided to institutionalize this festival. The effort that we put in at the beginning is paying off because the school wants to have this every year,” Costas said.

Costas is flying in from New York, where he’s on sabbatical from OCC, to attend the event.

This isn’t the first event Costas has promoted to bring the local Latinos to the college.

He also created a program that brings students from Costa Mesa High School to campus to dance, said OCC spokeswoman Mary Roda.

“He’s done a lot of community events trying to bring Hispanics onto campus,” Roda said.

A native Puerto Rican who moved to New York when he was 24 years old to study dance at New York University, Costas thinks he’s in an ideal position to reach out to other people with Latino roots.

This year the festival will feature South American music and dance troop Iliniza, as well as popular acts from past years Mariachi Reyna de Los Angeles and Susie Hansen Latin Band.

The festival is free to the public and will take place in the college’s main quad from 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.

— Alan Blank