DeKalb County kicks off Hispanic Heritage Month with Porter Sanford exhibit

DeKalb County opened its Hispanic Heritage Month kickoff at the Porter Sanford center with an art exhibit, live guitar and community food offerings, county speakers said. "We should celebrate diversity and inclusion each and every day," the moderator said during opening remarks.

Event organizers highlighted art by Miguel Milo, a performance by Venezuelan guitarist Miguel Pena and food prepared by Amal Jabe as focal points of the month-long program. A presenter described the exhibit as a way to represent "Hispanic heritage" in South DeKalb and said the event is intended to be a community-wide celebration rather than a single proclamation.

Raines, DeKalb County's director for arts and cultural affairs, told attendees the exhibition was meant to strengthen ties with the Mexican consulate and DeKalb's large Spanish-speaking population. "As the director for arts and cultural affairs for DeKalb County, I felt like this was a really wonderful opportunity to not only connect with the Mexican consulate and with our Hispanic and Latino communities, but to really also bring all of the people who live in DeKalb County to really appreciate sort of the symbolism and the art and the imagery, the folklore that we associate with not just Mexico, but all of Latin America and Hispanic countries," Raines said.

Organizers said the exhibit will remain on view throughout the month and aims to introduce residents who may never have seen a local art exhibition to Latin American artistic traditions. The event combined visual art, music and food as part of a broader effort to highlight the cultural and civic contributions of Hispanic and Latino communities in Metro Atlanta and DeKalb County.