(upbeat music) - Oaxaca en Utah shares Oaxaca's vibrant cultural heritage, offering diverse events and programs to keep traditions alive and thriving.

Founder and president Norma Carver is here to tell us about the upcoming La Guelaguetza.

Hello, ladies, welcome.

So Norma, tell us about what is La Guelaguetza?

- La Guelaguetza, it's a beautiful festival that happens once a year in Oaxaca and Oaxaca en Utah is trying to replicate that.

And it's just a festival where the eight regions come and they celebrate the culture, their dialects, textiles, colors, and the beautiful, you know, friendship that we have.

- Yeah, and the beautiful costumes, look at Gladys here.

So Gladys, why do you think it's important to bring this to Utah?

- Well, being a proud Oaxaqueña, we want to share and like preserve our beautiful heritage with the community of Utah as a way to honor our roots and to preserve the beautiful, vibrant culture.

- Ah, and you do, look at you.

And, okay, tell us what people can expect this year and tell us about Mona.

- Yes.

So we have our Monos de Calenda, which are huge puppets that we have in Oaxaca en Utah.

And this is a way to celebrate the diversity, ight?

Like the identity and all our roots.

And we're going to have the Arrieros from Oaxaca coming together and dance, gastronomists are going to be there, textiles, Alebrijes, and just, you know, the community is going to be there together.

- Everyone will be there together and we all get to see it.

- Yes.

- And as you said, the food.

You will have the food.

- Yes.

We're going to have tamales.

Today, we brought you tamales as well from, you know, from Oaxaca.

We're going to have tlayudas, which are beautiful and amazing yummy pizzas, we'll say.

From Oaxaca, we will have grasshoppers.

We will have a special guest from California coming to dance to La Guelaguetza.

So we are very excited about that.

- Ah, it's wonderful.

And talk about what you do year round.

- What do we do, Gladys?

(Mary and Gladys chuckle) We dance, we present, we do workshops.

What else do we do?

- Educational programs.

- Educational programs.

- All right.

Well, you do it all, and thank you so much for being here and bringing your culture.

Thank you.

- Thank you so much.

- Thank you.

- And if you'd like to know more about La Guelaguetza, coming up July 19th from noon to 10:00 PM at Heritage Park in Kaysville, Utah, go to oaxacaenutah.org.

I'm Mary Dickson, thanks for watching "Contact."

(upbeat music) - Local events, arts, culture.

It's what brings us together.

Hi, I'm Mary Dickson.

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