World-Class Latin Culture & Global Roots
DanceAfrica at BAM Celebrates Uganda, Unity, Peace, & Beauty
The West African Monsoon sprouts new crops in early June, so many West African and Diasporic traditions, including Yoruba New Year, celebrate this spiritual cleansing and rebirth of the agricultural cycle.
BAM’s DanceAfrica is NYC’s most traditional celebration. This year honors Uganda with an Ancestral Tribute, Community Day, Bazaar, Dance Classes, Dancing, Performances by Uganda’s Ndere Troupe, FilmAfrica, and beautiful art. More…
New York Latin Culture Brings NYC Together
BAAND Together Dance Festival Five Iconic NYC Dance Companies at Lincoln Center
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, Ballet Hispánico, Dance Theatre of Harlem, New York City Ballet
National Sawdust Latin Season 2026
Wyclef Jean, Felipe Lara / Talea Ensemble / Conrad Tao, Next Festival Andrea Casarrubios, Sonido Gallo Negro, Yasser Tejeda & Marcos J. López
In Shakespeare in the Park, Romeo & Juliet's Love Language is Spanish
An iconic love story with a message for us all
New York African Film Festival is "As the Stars Sow the Earth"
“Promised Sky,” “The Eyes of Ghana, “Dust to Dreams”
Drom World Music Night Club
FlamenKora, Nick Corredor’s La Herencia, Los Corners (Charly García Tribute), World Cup Music Fest
Loisaida Festival 2026 Celebrates Our AmeRícan Thing on Avenue C
John Benítez & Revolution Latin Jazz, Las Mariposas Galácticas, Grupo K’ndela, Batalá New York, Caridad “La Bruja” de la Luz, BombaYo
Toussaint L'Ouverture Led the Haitian Revolution
CAP-HAITIAN, Haiti 🇭🇹
“I am Large, I Contain Multitudes”
Walt Whitman, the poet of New York, in “Leaves of Grass” (1855)
Iroko “Kíko” Keith Widyolar
Founder, Editor, Cacique, Mayimbe, Oba, Bobo, Whateveryouare
¿KLK? I’m an American, a 20-year New Yorker who lives, loves, and works in the Latin world with my Afro-Indigenous Dominican Taíno family.
I build brands and businesses, but my life’s purpose is to bring people together through culture. Maferefún Eleguá.
I’ve been looking for the roots of Latin culture since 2006. They reach around the world, but the literal root has been right in front of me the entire time. It’s the yuca.
Raw yuca root is poisonous. Indigenous Amazonians developed the technology to make it safe to eat. There are no primitive humans, only people highly adapted to regional ecosystems.
Taíno brought yuca to the Caribbean because it’s nutritious and didn’t spoil on long sea voyages.
On the islands, Taíno developed advanced farming techniques and mass-produced casabe flatbread. Yuca was so important, they named the great father Yúcahu.
In the Caribbean, we still eat boiled yuca with garlic and oil, bitter orange sauce, and sauteed onions for any meal. It’s inexpensive, filling, and delicious.
The colonizers recognized yuca’s power and took it to Africa and Asia.
In Mother Afrika, it’s called “cassava,” “manioc” (French for the Brazilian Tupi-Guarani word “mandioca”) or “muhogo.” In West Africa it can be used to make fufu.
In the Pacific, yuca is called some version of “tapioca” or “manioka” and has become the main starch of the islands.
In Asia, yuca is often called “tapioca,” or “cassava.” It is used to make sweets, including the tapioca balls in your favorite Taiwanese Boba Tea.
My father’s Thailand is now one of the world’s major yuca producers. That’s where I first tasted it as a child.
I just figured out that those tapioca balls and the boiled yuca I now love are the same Amazonian Caribbean super food.
So come with me and Yúcahu. Let’s explore the Latin side of New York, la Ciudad del Encanto. Mwen sèvi Ginen. Adál was here. ¡Ay bendito!
¡WEPA! “E-le-le, le-le-le…” ¡Foforó Elegba! ¡Aché!