Honoring their culture

Like many Latinos in the area, the Vigil family remains steeped in their heritage.

It’s apparent in the Spanish they speak, the carne adobada and other dishes they cook, the cultural traditions they honor.

It’s especially evident in the music they play and the closeness of their family – the fact that Ricardo Vigil, 61, plays in a band along with three of his six grown children, his older brother, and a nephew.

So it’s no surprise that this family band – better known as Los Vigiles – will share their music and celebrate their ancestry during the Hispanic Heritage Celebration next Saturday at Riverside State Park.

Hundreds of people are expected at this inaugural event, which will showcase the diversity within the region’s growing Latino community. Organized by the Spokane Hispanic Business Professionals Association, the festival will feature musical performances, art exhibits that include traditional wax-and-paper flowers as well as pre-Columbian-style sculpture, delicious ethnic food and of course, lots of dancing.

“This event will recognize the depth and diversity of the Hispanic community,” said Victoria Gerdes, a member of the SHBPA, an organization that works year-round to provide scholarships for Hispanic students from the area. “We all feel very American, but at the same time, we also celebrate our different cultural and family backgrounds.”

Latinos are the largest and fastest-growing minority in Idaho and Washington, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

As of July 2005, Idaho was home to 129,880 residents of Hispanic heritage – about 9 percent of the state’s total population of 1,429,096. Washington had 551,371 Latino residents, which is about 8.7 percent of its population of 6,287,759 people. These estimates reflect an increase in Latino population of 27 percent in Idaho and nearly 25 percent in Washington in the past five years.

The growth is evident in the increasing number of Hispanic-owned businesses in the area, as well as Latinos who work in education, social services, health care and other fields. Membership in the Spokane Hispanic Business Professionals Association, which was founded 25 years ago, has grown to nearly 60, according to Gerdes, who also works in the marketing department of The Spokesman-Review.

While many Latinos in Eastern Washington come from Mexico, there are many others from Guatemala, El Salvador, Peru and other countries in Central and South America. Within each nation are various regions with their own particular cuisine, dialect and customs. To acknowledge this diversity, flags from 11 countries will be marched in a procession Saturday following a speech by Rodolfo Arevalo, president of Eastern Washington University.

Despite these slight differences, Hispanics in this region and throughout the country usually focus on their similarities – particularly the Spanish language, their Roman Catholic faith and the deep attachment among family members, relatives and friends.

“The fact that we have a family band shows our closeness,” said Vigil, who grew up in a family of 10 children, five of whom have moved to Spokane along with their spouses and children.

His band, Los Vigiles, often performs their own compositions – music that highlights the rhythms of rhumba and cumbia but with an Andalucian flamenco flair.

“The flamenco style is in our family’s roots,” explained Vigil, noting how his family traces its origins to a small town outside of Cordoba in southern Spain.

The first Vigil ventured into the Western Hemisphere in 1635, he said, although more recent generations of his family have lived in Santa Fe, N.M., a region infused with Hispanic culture. Born in southern Colorado, Ricardo Vigil grew up in Salt Lake City, where he played in a pop-funk-rock band for 15 years. In 1975, he moved to Spokane, where he and his wife, Jeanenne, raised six kids.

“When my children were born, I quit music to devote more time to my family,” he said. “Now, it’s so much better because the music involves my family.”