Viva festivities warm up Saturday

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By Mary Louise Speer | Saturday, September 6, 2008 10:07 PM CDT | () comments

Mariachi music greeted visitors attending the Viva Quad-Cities festival Saturday at Bass Street Landing Plaza in downtown Moline.

Viva Quad-Cities is an organization that celebrates Hispanic culture and the festival dates back to 1993. The organization awards scholarships each year with dollars raised through fundraising activities.

This year’s event featured music and dance, food, souvenirs and a college fair with representatives from area schools.

Mariachi is both “Mexican music (and) American, too,” said Mario Uribe, manager of the Nuevo Mariachi Jalisco band. The band hails from Chicago and most of the musicians are from the Mexican state of Jalisco.

Saturday’s performance is the second time the band appeared at the festival, but they have also played locally at weddings and other events in the Midwest. Instruments featured in mariachi music are bass, guitar, violins and trumpets. Uribe plays the biguela (stringed instrument), guitarra and guitarra basica.

“I was 6 years old when I (began) playing the little guitar,” said Uribe. His father and six brothers all played mariachi and today his nephews are continuing the family tradition.

The outfits worn by mariachi performers distinguish them from other singers, Uribe said. The costume, known as the “charro suit,” resembles clothing worn in old Mexico, he said. Performers wear waist-length jackets trimmed with silver or gold ornaments, white shirts and bow ties, pants that are very narrow and sombreros, he said.

The group played a mariachi version of “Roll out the Barrel” for listeners and other songs from “Jalisco, Jalisco,” to “Ojos Espanoles,” or Spanish Eyes, a favorite song, easily recognized by seniors, he said.

Cristian and Marisa Aleman of Rock Island spoke to visitors about the beginning of “Live It Fellowship” of Elim Covenant Church. “We’re trying to reach people like us who are American born, first generation,” Cristian Aleman said. “My wife and I speak both English and Spanish.”

The city desk can be contacted at (563) 383-2450 or newsroom@qctimes.com.

Viva Quad-Cities scholarships

Twenty students were awarded a total of $21,400 in scholarships at Saturday’s Viva Quad-Cities festival.

The recipients are students attending area colleges pursuing majors that include architecture, accounting, engineering, nursing and education.

The presentations wrapped up with a tearful, first-time presentation of a new scholarship in honor of Cristina Oroño Greene, an East Moline resident who died Jan. 1. She was chairman of Black Hawk College’s counseling department from 1996 to 2007.

Greene’s two children, Sharon Buckingham and Brian Greene, were present during the scholarship ceremony.

Greene “was a wonderful lady who was a friend to the Quad-Cities. In fact she was a founding member (mother, if you will) of Viva Quad-Cities,” president Luis Puentes said. “We lost her earlier this year and we are honored to present a scholarship in her name.”

— Mary Louise Speer