Attleboro's second annual Harmony Fiesta to celebrate city's cultural differences

This Saturday, the second annual Harmony Fiesta will take place in Attleboro to celebrate the city’s cultural richness.

Located at Capron Park from noon to 6 p.m., the free admission celebration will feature more than 30 food and artisan vendors, seven diverse musical performances and activities including face painting and puppet shows.

The event is the brainchild of longtime Attleboro residents Christine and Walter Vivar who hope to unite people at a time of increasing political divisiveness.

“We want to bring the community together and learn from each other,” Christine told GBH News. “Just see that, there are differences but there are no differences. We’re all just trying to have family lives, just have fun and so that’s what we’re trying to do. Bring everyone together no matter what.”

The event will include performances from Guatemalan music group Marimba Sentimiento Chapin, Kekeli African Drum & Dance and Indian dance group Trinalaya.

Various local food vendors including Mici’s Kitchen, DQ Asados and Trio Delights will be there as well. Sponsors for the event include the Mass Cultural Council, the Attleboro Public Library and the Rotary Club of Attleboro.

The Vivars have been in Attleboro for decades — Christine moved to the city from Rhode Island when she was nine and Walter has been there since 1980 after being born and raised in Guatemala.

They both have not only called Attleboro home, but have worked in the community to make that home a better place.

Walter says that his commitment to Attleboro started during his time still in Guatemala. In Attleboro, he’s worked with the local Literacy Center to organize an educational program on helping people engage with local government.

“I’ve been like this all my life,” Walter said. “We have come all the way here ... to 2026, because of community.”

For Christine, community building runs in the family, saying her parents were instrumental in helping create the South Attleboro Girls Recreation Association for youth girl athletes in the city.

“I was always around people who were organizing and helping with the community,'' she said.

The Vivars says they came up with the idea to showcase their city’s diverse communities last year. They wanted to “bring people together and talk about [how] we are more similar than we’re not,” Walter said.

But in the months leading up to the event, stories of federal immigration agents making targeted arrests filled the headlines. They began to worry if such an event was in the best interest of the community.

“One of the things that is incumbent to any human, I think, is to act when things are rough,” Walter said. “This was a form of action for us to say we understand the community is afraid, we understand that to bring them out, if they come out, could be a risk.

“We understand all that, but at the same time we decided that [it] was the right move and we went ahead and did it.”

Christine said she too worried there would be low attendance, but decided to go forward anyway.

“If the 10 of us are there, we’re gonna have a lot of music and stuff, but we’re gonna do it. We’re gonna try to show people that you need to come out and hopefully they do.”

To their surprise, nearly 600 people showed up.

“Last year, people were dancing on the field, which I had never really seen before in Attleboro. So it was kind of cool,” Christine said. “A lot of people want to come back.”

Attleboro is defined by the state as Gateway City, a mid-size Massachusetts city with lower than average rates of college education and median income. It has an 11% foreign-born population, with the top countries of origin including Portugal, Guatemala and Haiti.

Attleboro was once called the “jewelry capital of the world” by Life Magazine but suffered over time amid structural economic shifts and regional disinvestment.

Amy Rhilinger, director of the Attleboro Public Library, said the celebration is especially important because the city has suffered from significant budget cuts that have resulted in fewer events.

“To have residents and the people that they’ve gathered together around them to put on their own event outside of the city’s personnel is phenomenal,” she said.

Rhilinger, who has been instrumental in the planning of the event, said national and local politics have drawn many people apart. She said an event like the Harmony Fiesta highlights how much everyone has in common.

The festivities are an opportunity to celebrate all the richness of Attleboro, she said, including the Hispanic, Indian, African and LGBTQ+ communities. The food and vendors on Saturday will reflect those groups.

“The intersectionality is like we’re all neighbors,” she said. “Let’s all work together in harmony and just have fun together because this is everybody’s city.”

The seeds of this story began with a conversation held at a listening session in Attleboro, part of a newsroom initiative to visit all 26 Gateway Cities, led by the GBH News Equity & Justice Unit. Have a story to tell? Reach out to us at equityandjustice@wgbh.org.