EASTON, Pa. – A celebration kicked off in Easton on Monday to commemorate the Latino community and all its accomplishments.

The 9th Annual Pennsylvania Latino Convention, a two-day event, aims to connect the community and friends for professional development while building up future generations.

“You should be so proud of being bilingual and Latino,” Norman Bristol Colón, PALC Chair and Founder, said to a large crowd inside Easton’s State Theater Center for the Arts.

The event, encompassing the entire state, is now back in the Lehigh Valley for the third time, after first being held in Allentown and Bethlehem in previous years.

This year it’s in Easton.

“In the trifecta of the Lehigh Valley,” Bristol Colón said. “I feel excited, I feel rejuvenated, because we are doing this right here in the Lehigh Valley where the Latino community is growing so fast, and it’s growing so much.

Bristol Colón says the event is about giving props to prominent and emerging members of the Latino community.

“We are recognizing mayors that are under the age of 40 that happen to be Latino,” he said. “We are recognizing, you know, the entrepreneurs.”

It’s also about preparing up-and-comers for the future.

“We do this because we believe that the future is in your hands,” Bristol Colón said to the crowd.

The convention includes more than 20 workshops and seminars with opportunities for professional development, as well as making connections.

“I was born in Argentina, so I come from a family that, it’s always been about this,” Enzo Severino, First Commonwealth Market Manager, said. “Seeing this in my hometown is even more incredible. I didn’t even know that there was this many Latino professionals in or around the Easton area, so it’s really incredible.”

“It’s important because it brings leaders, it brings people from the community and people from all over Pennsylvania really, whether you are Latino or maybe just has a friend that’s Latino,” Estefania Alava, Highmark Blue Shield Senior Client Consultant, said. “I think it just brings people together with a common cause and that’s being together supporting each other, and just maybe learning from each other, really.”

Day two of the event kicks off Tuesday at 9 a.m. at State Theater in Easton. For more details, head to this link: https://linktr.ee/pennsylvaniaLatinoConvention