For the past 30 years, Fort Lewis College’s El Centro de Muchos Colores has organized the Fiesta on the Mesa, a celebration meant to kick off Hispanic Heritage Month.
The 2025 gathering, held Friday outside of the Student Union, highlighted many aspects of Latinx and Hispanic culture, from food to dance performances by Ballet Folkorico de Durango to music from Mariachi Amigos de Nuevo México that drifted across the mesa.
FLC Director of Belonging Kate Suazo said the event was something that allowed people of Hispanic or Latinx heritage to be themselves and celebrate their culture, while sharing it with the entire community.
“This work tied into our identity is always something that requires us to be authentic and honest,” Suazo said. “But something that I really love about being a Latina myself is that when we come together around food and music, everything else just kind of goes away and we just get to be in community together.”
To Shirena Trujillo Long, former El Centro coordinator and current Director of Diversity and Recruitment at outdoors nonprofit Conservation Legacy, the Fiesta on the Mesa is a great way to celebrate the diversity that makes FLC special. When she was a student at FLC, Trujillo Long said El Centro was a key part of making her feel welcome on campus, and that Fiesta on the Mesa was a fun way to bring people together.
“It started in 2005 and it was always important to have an event or some kind of anchor at the beginning of the year that brings people together,” Trujillo Long said. “I was in a place where, at that time, it was less than 10% of the student population that identified as Hispanic. So you can feel really alone or isolated. Like, ‘Wow, where am I? Where are my people?’”
Trujillo Long graduated from FLC in 2000, and through her college career, became president of El Centro before becoming the organization’s coordinator postgrad. She has seen it grow, she said, and watched as people in the club grew to become major sources for good in the community. Part of that, she said, is the continuation of Fiesta on the Mesa year after year.
“Being able to have a place where you could hang out with the club was amazing,” Trujillo Long said. “I was a club El Centro president, and seeing all the club members – all the younger students – they’re the club staff now.”
She said El Centro was not just for Hispanic or Latinx students, something that allowed the club to build community with people from all different backgrounds.
“It’s called El Centro de Muchas Colores – the center of many colors,” Trujillo Long said. “You don’t have to do a cultural litmus test to come in or to be part of the center.”
FLC spokesperson Nardy Bickel echoed that, stating that the college is proud to have the celebration and making it open to the entire school and broader Durango community. The music and dance performances were open to the general public, and the special food prepared in FLC’s dining hall for the event was free to FLC students and alumni, with a $10 fee for unaffiliated community members.
“It's just an amazing event to have to celebrate different cultures that are present in the college and community,” Bickel said. “So we think that’s very important, and that’s why we also open it to the community.”
sedmondson@durangoherald.com
In an earlier version of this story gave an incorrect number of years Fiesta on the Mesa has been celebrated.
