The baseball diamond at what used to be known as Ron Tonkin Field became a dance floor Sunday for the 18th annual Latino Cultural Festival in Hillsboro.

Lupita Chavez, a 17-year-old student at Forest Grove High School, clutched six layers of fabric from the hoop skirt of the red quinceañera gown she was modeling for the Lucia Isabel Collection, a Hillsboro boutique, and stepped to the beat of the Mexican corrido filling the air.

“Dancing is such a big part of Spanish-speaking culture, and I am so happy I got to showcase it for the festival,” said Chavez.

The cultural festival at what’s now called Hillsboro Ballpark was put on by Unitus Community Credit Union and the Washington County Chamber of Commerce, which has expanded the annual festival from a showcase for small businesses to an all-day event for families, said Deanna Palm, president of the chamber.

“If you’re looking for insurance or real estate, we have people to help you with that,” she said. “If you want a place for your kids to play and color, there is a space for that. If you want to sit and just listen to great live music, we have that, too.”

The band performing live music was Hdistinta, a group of five current and former Hillsboro High School students who started playing small backyard gigs three years ago. On Sunday, they performed in front of a crowd of 8,000 festival attendees.

They enjoy playing a mix of contemporary and classical music like the “corrido,” a descriptive narrative — like a poem — put to music and typically told from the point of view of “el pueblo” or the working class, lead singer Jesus Hernandez said.

“Back in the day the corrido had more of a meaning, because it was a way to give a voice to the workers and peasants who had no way of expressing their problems,” Hernandez said. “This is the music most Mexicans listen to with our parents growing up, so I think that is why it’s so popular when we perform live.”

The festival also hosted a street soccer tournament that ran from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. The tournament drew around 40 teams from the Portland metro area and was the idea of Jaime Miranda, a chamber member and owner of M&M Marketplace, an indoor bazaar with over 80 independent merchants in downtown Hillsboro.

“We incorporated a parade, so the schools can get involved. Later we incorporated street soccer, so our Latin American youth can participate in sports,” Miranda said.

Mariana Monroy Gonzalez, a college student, came to the festival to enjoy live Cuban salsa and a Latin American cultural environment, she said. Monroy Gonzalez first learned about the event last year through an Instagram post and enjoyed it so much that she brought her friend Brenda Perez with her this year.

“The food here is a big deal along with the culture and environment,” Monroy Gonzalez said. “When I come back for the summer, I get to do fun things like this.”

— David Nuñez covers breaking news and public safety for The Oregonian/OregonLive. Reach him at 503-294-7607 or dnunez@oregonian.com.

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