Culture & Community | Dance | Fair Haven | Music | Arts & Culture | Arts & Anti-racism
Top: Miriam Magalis Cruz, former Miss Puerto Rico, dances to Movimiento Cultural Afro-Continental. Bottom: Elizaette Lopez and her son, Malachi. Lucy Gellman Photos.
The barril de bomba was a heartbeat, bringing the story of a downpour—un aguacero—to life. Onstage, sound wove from the drums to vocalists, the cuá to dancers’ increasingly fast feet. It gathered in the folds of Lissette Valle’s skirt, undulating as she moved. In the audience, a handful of kids joined in. As she listened, Elizaette Lopez picked up her son, Malachi, and began to bounce.
A vibrant, multilingual and mellifluous celebration of Fair Haven unfolded Saturday, as Fair Haven Day grew its footprint on Grand Avenue and in the parking lot beside Fair Haven School. For seven hours, over 1,500 attendees danced, sang, ate and chatted their way through one of the city’s main corridors, fêting a neighborhood that has for years been overlooked and under resourced.
This year, over a dozen community partners helped plan the event, including ARTE, Inc., the Mary Wade Home, Junta for Progressive Action, New Haven Free Public Library and the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, for which it marks the first of five neighborhood festivals. Alders Frankie Redente Jr., Caroline Smith, and Sarah Miller, all of whom have constituents in Fair Haven, also sat on the planning committee.
Top: Kiana Cintron and Frank Redente. Bottom: Artist and organizer Denisse Cruz-Contreras and Ruby Gonzalez Hernandez.
“It’s just a testament to what Fair Haven is all about,” said Redente, a lifelong Fair Havener who last year won an award for his community spirit (this year, the same award went to Miller). “We can all come together, work together despite our differences.”
From sold out tamale vendors to bilingual book stations, that sense of community defined the day. On one side of Grand Avenue, tents lined the street, drawing a steady stream of neighbors and families. At one, Aracelis Vazquez and Maria Hernandez introduced people to United By One, a nonprofit designed to teach people about Type One Diabetes and raise money for diabetes research.
“Within the community, you’re looking for people to connect and understand,” Vazquez said. A decade ago, her daughter Ciara was diagnosed with the condition, which can result in low insulin and dangerously high blood sugar levels. Back then, Ciara was just five. Now, she’s a 15-year-old star student and athlete at Hamden High.
Top: Maria Hernandez, Cesar Vazquez, Ciara Vazquez, Aracelis Vazquez and Alianys Ayala. Bottom: Steve Machesney, Max Collins and Bob Parker of Sail Haven. "For so long, New Haven was tied to the water, and it's been cut off for so long," said Machesney.
As a mom and an advocate, Vazquez said, she wants other young people to know that they can soar—especially if and when they keep their health in check. Part of that is spreading the word at events like Fair Haven Day, to show kids in the neighborhood that a chronic condition can’t stop them from achieving their goals.
“It feels amazing to be here, because I’m inspiring people my age, letting them know you can still follow your dreams,” Ciara said as she drifted over to the booth. Every day, diabetes affects her “physically, mentally, emotionally,” particularly during meal times and when she’s playing sports. She often finds herself explaining to other kids why she needs to inject herself with insulin. “You can still succeed and do what you love.”
Two tents over, bright sunflowers and chrysanthemums exploded on a raw canvas, honoring the late Lizzbeth Alemán-Popoca at a booth for Vivan Las Autónomas. An activist collective helmed by Vanesa Suarez and Nika Zarazvand, the group seeks to create “a world free of violence towards women and children,” including in New Haven and Connecticut.
Top: Nika Zarazvand and Vanesa Suarez. Bottom: Movimiento Cultural.
For over a year, members have led Justice 4 Roya, pressing for greater police accountability in the investigation of Roya Mohammadi’s disappearance and death in West Haven last year. Saturday, Suarez stressed the importance of freedom and safety in the kind of tight-knit and vibrant community that Fair Haven Day seeks to build.
“Every month, we read about at least one woman who was murdered,” Suarez said, adding that she is currently grieving 19-year-old Karizmah Johnson and her nine-month-old baby, Kylenn, both Wallingford residents who were found dead prior to a house fire earlier this year. “We should be dying of old age.”
Saturday, Fair Haven Day let her get the word out about an upcoming exhibition on freedom for women and girls, followed by an arts festival later this summer. As the wo spoke, Zarazvand held up a piece of embroidery that will be part of the coming exhibition, stopping to chat about the group’s mission as a new attendee drifted into the booth.
In the parking lot across the street, Movimiento Cultural Afro-Continental took the stage. On one end, Kevin Diaz gave a nod, and vocalists began to sway, conjuring the sound of el coqui as they sang. From where he sat, Samuel Diaz rose from his drum and began to move, arms outstretched as if he was flying. The percussion responded in time with his footfalls, a gentle back and forth that a listener could feel in their body.
Top: Alanna D. Herbert, Johanelyz Arroyo and Lysella Pujols. Bottom: ARTE's station for bag design.
On the stage and off, the urge to dance was contagious. Bowing to the primo, high schooler and former Miss Puerto Rico Miriam Magalis Cruz made her way to the center of the action, wrapped snugly in the blue, white and red of the Puerto Rican Flag. In front of her, Miss Puerto Rico Alanna D. Herbert slipped on a skirt and began to dance, beaming as Lysella Pujols and Johanelyz Arroyo joined in.
The last time the three shared a stage, they were competing with each other. Now, they let themselves soak in the hot spring sun.
That joy flitted from the stage to the tents, from the tents to several food trucks and back down the avenue. In the space behind the stage, a school parking lot had been transformed into a family-friendly resource fair, with activity stations that boasted bright art supplies and free books in at least three different languages. At a station for ARTE, Inc., Director Dave Greco looked on as dozens of kids cycled through, hard at work as they decorated canvas bags.
“I love it!” he said, gesturing to the young people making their way through the space. The neighborhood has long been close to his heart: ARTE hosts its Saturday Academy and after-school program at the Atwater Senior Center, less than half a mile from where the festivities unfolded. As if on cue, middle schooler Karla Chilel held up a newly decorated bag and stood up from the table.
Top: Nivia Mendez strikes up a conversation with Typhanie Williams and Kyle Pederson of Bench Haven. Bottom: Yadley Turner of Catholic Charities with an "affirmation wheel" that kids lined up to spin. The organization also offered an activity station where kids could make sensory bottles.
Around her, art bloomed from every direction. Tucked beside the Fair Haven Branch Library, Bench Haven’s Typhanie Williams and Kyle Pederson invited people to write their thoughts and well-wishes on a bench bound for Fair Haven School. The initiative, inspired by Zimbabwe’s friendship benches and now in its second year, is intended to fight the isolation and loneliness that may lead to depression, anxiety and suicidality.
“We’re really happy that people are using it and writing on it,” Williams said as three kids approached the bench, picked out markers and began to write. “It’s always a reminder that it’s bigger than us and people want to have these conversations.”
For Nivia Mendez, the activity was right on time. “I need to sit down,” she said, resting a bag on the ground as she leaned back and read a flurry of messages written on the bright orange paint. Growing up in Fair Haven, Mendez loved the neighborhood for its multicultural feel. So when she spotted the festival while taking her grandson to T Ball, it was a no brainer.
“I always feel like I’m home” when she comes to Fair Haven, she said. “It’s like one big melting pot.” 
Top: Mariachi! Bottom: Emmy Rosario, a student at Wilbur Cross and ECA who also lives in the neighborhood.
Several yards away, a circus performer completed his act, and cheers went up from a semicircle that had formed around him. An ice cream vendor rolled through the space, stopping as customers pulled out wads of cash for scoops of mango and coconut.
From the stage, a gentle drumbeat became louder, insistent, announcing that Proyecto Cimarrón had arrived. As the sound of bomba rolled across the lot, a knot of kids made their way toward the stage.
Back on Grand Avenue, UConn freshman Kiana Cintron called the day a sort of full-circle moment. Growing up in Fair Haven, Cintron learned to love the neighborhood through her mom, Junta for Progressive Action’s Cheila Serrano.
As Junta’s “first baby”—Serrano was pregnant with her when she started working there, and there is a newsletter commemorating her birth—the organization “was my second home” for over a decade. By the time she got to high school, volunteering was baked into her DNA.
“It’s just my natural,” she said. After volunteering on Fair Haven Day last year, she came back as a paid consultant. Watching the festival grow has been a point of pride, she said.
Top: Javier Villatoro, Mateo Cano Maria Puente. and Bottom: Damian Charlton and Mateo Cano.
Around her, the day had already brought in hundreds of people, and showed no sign of stopping. On stage, musicians from the Mariachi Academy of New England swayed through the space, a blur of bright color. As he walked the avenue, Fair Havener Emmy Rosario ducked in and out of vendor tents, still glowing from a performance of the Wilbur Cross High School marching band in that morning’s Mary Wade Parade.
He could hear music in every direction. Across from Key Foods, members of the Semilla Collective and Son Chaneques Rebeldes led an impromptu son jarocho workshop, bringing the musical traditions of Veracruz, Mexico to New Haven. As Javier Villatoro, Fatima Rojas and Mateo Cano held it down on jarana, Maria Puente cleared off a raised platform, and stepped up to provide the percussion.
Curious, Fair Havener Damian Charlton wandered over, picked up an instrument and joined in. He later said that joining in felt natural: he's musically inclined, and was excited to see a chance to play.
“We are doing this on the streets because we wanted it to be accessible to the people,” said Villatoro.
For more video, check out the Arts Council's Instagram at @newhavenarts.