Raíces Latinas Foundation leaders discuss how Boise’s largest Latino cultural festival is growing beyond music and food into year-round cultural, civic and community infrastructure.
What remains after the music stops, the food vendors close and the stage comes down?
For Ivan Castillo and Liz Correa, that may be the most important question surrounding Latino Fest Boise 2026.
The free cultural festival returns to Cecil D. Andrus Memorial Park in downtown Boise on Saturday, September 5, 2026, with a Latin parade, live music, traditional dance, food, family activities and headliner La Sonora Show. Organizers describe it as Idaho’s largest Latino cultural festival.
But Ivan and Liz are not simply producing a larger party.
As founding board directors of Raíces Latinas Foundation, they are helping build an organization designed to preserve culture, connect communities and extend the festival’s energy into education, civic engagement, the arts and future opportunity.
That larger mission is at the center of their conversation with Gordie Tamayo on The Gordie Tamayo Show.
The Core Question
How can one day of cultural celebration become lasting infrastructure for belonging, representation and opportunity?
The question carries growing relevance across Idaho. Current U.S. Census Bureau estimates place Hispanic or Latino residents at 14.8% of the state’s population; nearly one in seven Idahoans.
Latino Fest makes that presence visible.
Raíces Latinas is being built to help make it durable.
About This Episode
In this episode of The Gordie Tamayo Show, Gordie Tamayo, Chief Digital Architect at Boise Beat and founder of Digital Unicorn, sits down with Ivan Castillo and Liz Correa, founding board directors of Raíces Latinas Foundation, to discuss the evolution of Latino Fest Boise and the community infrastructure taking shape around it.
Ivan is a custom builder, real estate investor and board chair of the Idaho Commission on Hispanic Affairs. Liz is an accountant who works with small-business owners and serves as one of the behind-the-scenes architects helping turn the festival’s vision into coordinated action.
Together, they discuss cultural memory, relationships, representation and why the foundation’s work must continue when there is no crowd or stage.
Three themes shape the conversation:
- Latino Fest is more than entertainment. Music, food and dance create accessible entry points into deeper conversations about culture, history, civic participation and belonging.
- Relationships matter more than transactions. Ivan and Liz see trust and collaboration as the foundation for stronger businesses, organizations and communities.
- Latino Idahoans should tell their own stories. Raíces Latinas creates space to preserve the past, represent the diversity within Latin America and shape the community’s future.
PRESS PLAY — Watch or listen to the full interview below.
*** PRESS PLAY ***
From a Comeback to a Permanent Foundation
When Gordie spoke with Ivan ahead of Latino Fest Boise’s 2024 return, the central story was the comeback after a five-year absence.
Thousands filled the park for music, food and shared heritage. The Boise Beat’s post-event coverage captured the orgullo and energy surrounding A.B. Quintanilla and the Kumbia All Starz.
That successful return also raised a new question:
How do you build consistency around something the community clearly values?
Ivan explains that Latino Fest began through work involving the Mexican Consulate and Idaho Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Because the Chamber already carries a wide range of responsibilities, Raíces Latinas emerged as a way to give the festival sustained attention while developing its cultural and educational potential.
It is, as Ivan says, “way more than just the fiesta.”
Relationships, Education and the Work Behind the Scenes
Ivan’s most direct professional lesson is simple:
“Relationships, relationships, relationships.”
In construction and real estate, he works with subcontractors, lenders and partners whose success depends on trust and communication. He believes the same principle applies to community development. Stronger outcomes become possible when people know one another beyond a transaction.
Liz approaches the work through education, service and the realities faced by small-business owners. Her role reveals the unseen coordination behind a festival of this scale; finding performers, connecting communities and transforming individual contributions into one cohesive experience.
Raíces Latinas does not intend to duplicate organizations already providing scholarships, business support or community services. Ivan describes the opportunity differently: identify what already exists, strengthen those relationships and use Latino Fest’s visibility to amplify the broader ecosystem.
A Shared Latino Identity Without Losing the Differences
“Latino” may describe a shared identity, but it does not represent one culture.
Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Puerto Rico and the many countries of Central and South America each carry distinct food, music, dances and histories. Smaller communities in Idaho may not always have the numbers or connections needed to form a folklórico group, introduce a regional food concept or publicly share their traditions.
Liz sees Raíces Latinas becoming connective tissue; helping people find one another and create cultural expressions, businesses and relationships.
That mission becomes especially tangible when families attend Latino Fest. Liz recalls parents standing with their children at an interactive map and pointing to the countries where their families originated.
For those children, the festival does more than explain where their family came from.
It shows them that their roots belong in Idaho’s public story.
Remembering Who Dug the Well
Ivan and Liz also preview a panel at JUMP exploring the history and future of the Latino community in the Treasure Valley: what life was like decades ago, where the community stands today and what should come next.
The conversation produces one of the episode’s strongest images:
“Everybody drinks out of the water hose, but everybody seems to forget who dug the well.”
Progress does not begin with the people currently receiving attention. It rests on families, entrepreneurs, advocates and organizers who spent decades creating opportunities that later generations could inherit.
Remembering that history is inseparable from another priority Ivan identifies:
“We are telling our own story.”
Latino Fest and Raíces Latinas give Latino Idahoans a platform to describe their contributions and aspirations in their own voices—rather than being understood only through statistics, stereotypes or outside interpretation.
What to Know About Latino Fest Boise 2026
Latino Fest Boise 2026 takes place Saturday, September 5, at Cecil D. Andrus Memorial Park in downtown Boise. Admission is free and the festival is open to all ages.
- Latin Parade: 3:30 p.m.
- Festival: 4:00–10:00 p.m.
- Headliner: La Sonora Show
- Additional performers: Somos Fusión Latina, the Mawiza Chilean Folk Group and Folklore Macondo
- Experiences: Traditional dance, DJ battle, dance contest, cultural exhibits, food vendors, family fun zone and beer garden
- Official After-Party: 9:00 p.m. at Treefort Music Hall; 18+
The official 2026 lineup reflects the decision to celebrate the broader Latino community rather than feature only one country. Ivan describes cumbia as a unifying rhythm—music that crosses borders and invites everyone onto the same dance floor.
The official Latino Fest Boise After-Party continues at Treefort Music Hall with a Selena tribute by Fusión Latina, DJ Zola, DJ Fresh, salsa, cumbia, reggaetón and tacos.
Building Something That Outlasts the Weekend
Near the end of the interview, Gordie asks Ivan and Liz to look five years ahead.
What would need to happen for Latino Fest and Raíces Latinas to have changed more than one weekend?
Ivan envisions an influential nonprofit that strengthens other organizations while helping Latino Fest become one of the Northwest’s leading Latino cultural celebrations. Liz points to its growth from a few hundred early attendees to thousands in 2024 and imagines something larger still.
But attendance is only one measurement.
The deeper test is whether more people become connected, more cultures are represented, more organizations are strengthened and more children grow up knowing that their heritage belongs in Idaho’s future.
That is the larger story behind Latino Fest Boise 2026.
It is a celebration of roots.
And an investment in what those roots can still produce.
Episode Highlights
- Why Latino Fest Boise needed a dedicated, year-round organizational home
- How Raíces Latinas Foundation plans to support culture, education, arts and civic engagement
- How Ivan’s relationship-first philosophy and Liz’s behind-the-scenes work shape the festival
- Why the foundation wants to strengthen existing organizations rather than compete with them
- How different Latin American communities share their food, music and traditions
- Why food and music can reduce cultural distance
- The importance of remembering the people who “dug the well”
- Why telling their own story matters to Idaho’s Latino community
- What families can expect from the 2026 lineup
- Ivan and Liz’s five-year vision for the festival and Raíces Latinas Foundation
About Ivan Castillo and Liz Correa
Ivan Castillo is a founding board director of Raíces Latinas Foundation, board chair of the Idaho Commission on Hispanic Affairs, custom builder, real estate investor and longtime advocate for education, training and development within Idaho’s Hispanic and Latino communities.
Liz Correa is a founding board director of Raíces Latinas Foundation and an accountant who works with small-business owners. Known as one of the behind-the-scenes architects of Latino Fest Boise, she helps connect people, resources, cultural traditions and operational details to bring the larger community vision together.
