Noche Latina and the Year of Mystery

Two thousand ten is still new and uncertain. Will it contain romance? Luck? Good fortune? Health? Or at least better things than last year did?

These and other questions may be answered during Noche Latina’s New Year of Mystery, to be held in the Utah Pride Center’s rear parking lot on Jan. 29 at 7 p.m. Here, Tarot readers and palm readers will be on hand to provide, perhaps, an insight into the coming months. For those who simply want to get rid of last year’s less savory memories, the Center’s fire pit will be roaring and ready to accept scraps of paper containing, as Center HIV Prevention Coordinator and Noche Latina founder Lillian Rodriguez put it, “things they want to forget from 2009 so they can move forward into the future.”

“The whole premise is we don’t know what the future holds,” said Rodriguez of the event. “It’s about moving forward into the future.”

Noche Latina is the Center’s social and outreach program to Utah’s Latino/a community. The program, said Gonzales, began last October after Center leaders discussed how they could create “ways in which we can engage our Latino community in creating an event for them.” The group holds a special event each month. In October, for example, it held a celebration for the Day of the Dead, the Latin American observance of All Souls Night, or Halloween. In November, it sponsored a bilingual poetry slam, held, as all Noche Latina nights are, in Spanish and English.  

Refreshments for Year of Mystery, as at any Noche Latino event, will be provided, as will coffee from Café Marmalade, the Center’s in-house coffee shop and bistro. Noche Latino events are open to the public and held on the last Friday of each month. For more information, contact Lillian Rodriguez at 801-539-8800, ex. 23 or Lillian@utahpridecenter.org.