East Harlem's Loiza Festival turns 50 this year.
The festival celebrates Afro-Latino culture and heritage with music, food and dancing.
It's happening on 109th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues.
The festival started in 1967 to pay homage to residents' Afro-Boricua roots.
"It's just a big celebration with Bomba, with plano, with our culture, with our food," said Milteri Tucker Concepcion, executive director of Bombazo Dance Company Inc. "So being that we're not home to be able to celebrate with our people, being able to celebrate it here with the New York diaspora, it's rewarding. It's an honor and privilege to be here."
"We're actually celebrating this festival the same days that it's happening in Puerto Rico in the town of Loiza, which is again what we're celebrating. So it's the day of the children, the day of the women, the day of the men," said Melody Capote, deputy director of the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute. "And on the last day, which is tomorrow, they bring out the three saints that represent children, women and men."
The Festival wraps up tomorrow with a procession from St. Cecilia’s Catholic Church, where the saints are blessed.