Here We Are: Stories of Identity, Memory and Belonging

Description

Welcoming Week 2026 As part of Latino Cultural Week, we invite you to join us for a community workshop centered on connection, remembrance, and reflection—a space to explore the stories we carry within us and the experiences that connect us. Through music and drumming, guided reflection, conversation, and writing, we will create an opportunity to pause and reconnect with ourselves. We will listen, reflect, and allow the music to invite memories, emotions, and stories that may not always have had a space to be expressed. Together, we will explore our experiences of migration, our roots, our identities, and what it means to create a sense of home and belonging here in Iowa. We will reflect on the things we have learned to keep silent, the burdens we have carried, and the messages that can make us feel as though we are not enough, that we do not belong, or that we must change who we are in order to fit in. We will also make space to remember and celebrate: What do you love about latinidad? What part of your roots fills you with pride? What story, memory, or tradition do you want to preserve and share? You do not need to be a writer or have any writing experience. You only need to bring your memories, your emotions, and your story. This will be a space to express what we carry, give words to what may have gone unspoken, reconnect with our roots, and celebrate who we are. Together, we can transform our experiences into words, our memories into connection, and our stories into a source of strength and belonging. Here we are. Here are our stories. Here is our voice. Your story deserves to be heard. OPEN TO THE PUBLIC