On the second Sunday in August, Providence becomes the epicenter of a global celebration.  Music spills out over the crowd; colorful floats and traditional costumes move down the parade route. The smell of Dominican food fills the air as families, friends and neighbors gather to celebrate Dominican culture, Latino heritage, and their shared sense belonging.  

Now in its 39th year, the Dominican Festival & Parade of Rhode Island is one of the state’s most anticipated cultural celebrations. Organized by the non-profit Quisqueya in Action (QIA), the parade’s roots can be traced back to the Cepeda sisters, Margarita and Marilyn, and their childhood friends. This Hispanic Heritage Month, Papitto Opportunity Connection is proud to support and celebrate QIA’s impact and the many contributions our Latino neighbors.  

“My sister, Margarita Cepeda, started Quisqueya in Action at the age of 16 with a group of young leaders to promote our culture, our history and the language of the Dominican Republic,” said Marilyn, who now leads the organization following Margarita’s storied tenure.  

The Cepeda sisters immigrated from the Dominican Republic with a deep vision for shaping Dominican culture in Providence. They valued keeping the culture alive, one that’s especially easy to lose for kids who have never set foot on the island their parents and ancestors call home.   

In 1987, with a small group of friends, Margarita organized the first “Fiesta de Restauración Dominicana” at Rhodes-on-the-Pawtuxet in Cranston, drawing roughly 500 people to the folkloric celebration. Early festivals were funded through fundraising events and local sponsors, such as car washes, ‘pastelito’ sales, and door-to-door promotion on Broad Street before becoming a recognized nonprofit. 

A group of young people and a community willing to come together turned the idea into a legacy. Today, over 90 organizations and crowds of upwards of 30,000 people, from Providence and beyond, gather for a carnival style parade that leads to a daylong festival at Roger Williams’ Temple to Music.  

For QIA, cultural preservation has meant giving people, especially young people, the opportunity to know their culture, participate in it, and eventually carry it forward themselves. 

“Culture survives when people choose to carry it forward,” Marilyn said. “That can happen through music, dance, food, language, history, family stories and community gatherings.”

That philosophy shows up in the people who run the festival itself. Marilyn described a community bond that runs deep and generational, noting that many of today’s organizers grew up together in the festival and are now raising their own children within it.

That spirit of continuity carries through the organization’s youth programs, including the Broad Street Initiative, which teaches young people about economic development, neighborhood beautification, and environmental stewardship. QIA also hosts a College Awareness and Preparation Program, and its signature youth folklore dance group passes cultural traditions on to the next generation. The festival itself sustains this work, with proceeds going directly toward funding these programs.  

“Children and teenagers learn traditional Dominican dances, including merengue típico and bachata, and perform at community celebrations and cultural events. They are not simply entertaining an audience. They are learning,” said Marilyn.  

That idea that culture survives when it’s carried forward was on full display at this year’s festival when headliners Zulinka y Miguel performed a deeply moving tribute to their father, merengue legend Rubby Pérez. Perez died tragically last year, in the Jet Set nightclub roof collapse in Santo Domingo. In his honor, Providence Mayor Brett Smiley joined members of the Perez family to posthumously award him the key to the city.  

For Huascar Beato, a longtime QIA member and the nonprofit’s vice president, that work is personal.  

“My hope for the future is to pass this love that I have for this organization to the next generation, because we’re not going to be here forever,” said Beato. “I just keep hoping to see my community continuing to participate and all Latinos and Hisapnic communities come together for this festival.”  

Nearly four decades after a teenager and her friends organized a festival for 500 people in Cranston, that hope has become a homecoming for tens of thousands. It’s proof that Dominican heritage, and the diaspora that carries it, is alive and well in Providence. 

Visit QIA’s website

CREDIT: CARMEN S. PHOTOGRAPHY / QIA

CREDIT: CARMEN S. PHOTOGRAPHY / QIA