Fourth Street Live will be filled with the sounds of sizzling meats, tropical smells, the sounds of Tagalog and twirling dancers this weekend as people gather for the Philippines Independence Day Celebration.
“This is a very big time in the Philippines,” Joel Buno, executive director at the Asia Institute Crane House, said. “We do celebrate it with many festivals and in many regions, and I am so excited to bring it here to Louisville.”
The event is Saturday, June 14 from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Fourth Street Live.
The Asia Institute Crane House aims to uplift and celebrate Asian culture from across the continent.
Buno, who is Filipino, said the new event comes after a successful Filipino Heritage Month celebration in Oct. 2023.
“Which was great, but I was told by my comrades that October was a little too cold for our island blood, so we decided to move it to a warmer month,” Buno said.
One of the things he’s most excited about is all the Filipino food.
“I know that My Tindahan will be serving our favorite Filipino dessert, Halo-Halo, which means mix mix, which is an ice mixture,” Buno said.
Other Filipino flavors, ube, coconut and mango, will be featured throughout the celebration, including in signature cocktails.
Another large aspect of the event will be live performances.
There will be Dragon dancers, Filipino choirs singing traditional music in the Tagalog language, Filipino dance troupes and more.
“We've gathered some of the best talent here in Louisville with Filipino heritage, and seeing the lineup, you just see a tapestry of talent in different genres and art forms,” theater artist and event organizer Joy Lanceta Coronel said.
Lanceta Coronel’s family opened the second Filipino store in Louisville, Lanceta Trading Co.
They immigrated to the U.S. from the Philippines in the 1960s.
“Since then, we've had such a growing community here in Kentucky of Filipino immigrants, and it's become a little bit more compartmentalized,” Lanceta Coronel said. “So there is sort of this feeling of different generations sort of being in their own groups. And I think this would be a really great opportunity to sort of get the whole community together.”
Both Buno and Lanceta Coronel said events like the Philippines Independence Day Celebration are particularly important as attacks against immigrant communities increase.
“I just feel this is a need, no matter how big or small it is, to just showcase my beautiful brown Filipino brothers and sisters who do pay taxes and who do contribute to life here,” Buno said. “We are hard-working people, and I just want everyone to know that.”
For Lanceta Coronel, it’s just important that people have space to connect with those similar and different from themselves.
“On a human level, we were meant to live in community,” Lanceta Coronel said. “You see that reflected in all of the programming at Crane House and any really event or assembly where people are gathered together, there is a spirit there that just disproves any idea that we need to separate ourselves from others.”
