Dominican Republic Flag Raising Ceremony August 5th, 2026

Good afternoon everyone. I think we're gonna have to use this here too. Can you hear me? Good afternoon. Can you hear me here?

Or do you need this? Yes. Alright. No we don't like it. Good afternoon.

Providence, Rhode Island, La Capital, Del Estado De Rhode Island. To Providence, Rhode Island, the capital of the state of Rhode Island. As I like to say, the center of New England. And I know many of us will agree with that. It is truly a pleasure and an honor to welcome all of you.

My name is Juan Pichardo. I am the councilman for Ward 9 and also the president pro temp of the Providence City Council. Today, we welcome you to our great city council chambers along our friends. At this time, I would like to call my colleagues who are cohosts of this event that we honor not only the heritage that we have as Dominicans but also the diaspora of the immigrants who immigrated to The United States, but in particularly to the city of Providence and the state of Rhode Island, such as my mother, Evangelista Pichardo. She's not here with us, but she's also with me in my heart, along with my wife and my kids.

At this time, I would like to call my cohost Majority Leader Pedro Espinal and also Councilwoman Ana Vargas, will also bring you brief remarks, welcoming remarks.

Welcome everyone. It is such an honor and pleasure to be here today on this very special occasion. First, I'd like to acknowledge, we'd like to acknowledge our colleagues in government. Congressman Gabe Emil, good afternoon. Congressman, thank you for being here.

Mayor Brett Smiley, Council President Rachel Miller, our Lieutenant Governor Sabina Matos, as well as State Representative Grace Diaz, and our colleague, Councilwoman Shelly Peterson. Am I missing anyone, Pro Temp? And it's a pleasure to be along with Pro Temp Juan Picharo, well as Councilwoman Vargas.

We're gonna sing the national anthem. And just in case you need some extra help, it's in the program. Oh yeah, where's the American flag? Right over here.

Oh say can you see by the dawn's early light what so proudly we hailed at the twilight's glass leaving whose brass gripes in bright stars through the perilous bright. All the rampers we were were so gallantly streaming. And the rockets red glare, the burn bursting in air

That

was participatory. The next national anthem that we're going to sing Thank you very much. With us today, this has been a tradition for the Dominican community, especially for the young people that have grown up here coming up to the City Hall. And as we remember for the past fifty years, we've been coming to the City Hall to increase our voices and to be represented. I recall when we will also do it outside in the chamber and it was very rare to do this type of events here in our community.

And so with us today, we have executive director and president Marilyn Cepeda from Kiskellen Accion from the Dominican festival. We have our distinguished gentlemen, Mr. Dominguez from La Nueva Generacion Do Artiana. Aida Croson, a community leader for many, many decades from the colleges to now the Executive Director of Administration for the District Attorney, Peter Narona. And so I also recognize in the crowd many and I will announce in the coming minutes.

With that said, I also wanted to recognize our former Councilwoman Carmen Castillo for War IX. And at this time, making sure that we stay on track and honoring your time, honoring those who are elected during this time, during lunch, and hopefully we'll get you back to work because we take our responsibilities very serious, not just only us as elected officials but also you in the crowd who have joined us today. At this time, I would like to call to bring greetings our mayor, Brett P. Smiley.

Thank you, councilman, and good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to Providence City Hall. Councilman, thank you for acknowledging our colleagues in government. I also just wanna, add and welcome, member of our Providence School Board, miss Maria Mendoza. Thank you for your service to our students.

This is the precursor to one of the best weekends in Rhode Island with our Dominican Festival this weekend. And it gives us an opportunity to celebrate the incredible contributions of Dominican Americans that they've made here in the capital city. As you can tell, Dominican leaders are in every facet of life here in city government, in state government with our lieutenant governor, in positions in education and in business, we are all truly enriched by their contributions, by your contributions to our great city. And it is important to to say time and time again, the council president and I have been at a few of these, and I think we can never waste a moment to remind, the entire community that Providence is and will remain a welcoming community for all because here in Providence everyone is welcome and we see from generation to generation of immigrants how much this city has continued to evolve and grow, and strengthen because of your contributions, because of everyone's contributions here in Providence and so I look forward to celebrating with all of you this Sunday. I look forward to continuing throughout the year to lift up and celebrate the successes of the Dominican community and so I say

Many of you know that everyone has a very tight schedule. At this time, I also would like to recognize among us is our president of the city council, Rachel Miller. You. Thank

you. Thank you so much to our hosts here today, Councilors Espinal, Pichardo and Vargas. Thank you, Councilwoman Peterson, for joining us. It is always a pleasure and an honor to welcome this event to our City Council Chamber to celebrate the Dominican community here in Providence as we do, honestly, every day, The history and future, past and future, of Providence is so deeply entwined with the Dominican American community, and it's an honor to serve in a city that continues to make sure that the rights of all of us are recognized and honored, that to the best of our ability, we have our community stays together, unified and strong. There's no better way to mark that and to celebrate it than by starting this weekend at the festival and at the many events over the next ten days.

So thank you all for being here. I very much look forward to this weekend.

Thank you, Madam President. Next with us, we have our congressional member, Gabe Amel. Represents us in District 1, but for the entire state. Thank you.

Well, is great to be here. Look, I'll be very brief. This is one of the best ten days of the year here in the city of Providence and across the state. Am I right? Yes.

I would hope so because the impact, the contributions, the presence, and the rich traditions of our local Dominican community are is something that I value, something that I appreciate, and something I know that transcends and goes beyond the the the traditional communities, the traditional lines, and and and ensure that everybody feels that that they're a little bit Dominican during this this period. And certainly, I look forward to an amazing festival on Sunday. But beyond that, as you've heard from both the mayor and the council president and I know is is shared by all of my colleagues in government who are with me, that that we are stronger when we're together. And so I'm so grateful that we have had the the impact of the the Dominican community for several decades and for many more to come. I I wish everybody a great celebration, and, yeah, Viva La Republica Dominicana.

Thank you and thank your wonderful team and staff for supporting the community. I also wanted to recognize that with us are representatives from senator Jack Reed, but also our US senator Sheldon White house. And it just happened that they have some wonderful staff there. We have Linda Castro, who is the field director from representative from Gabe Amo, and also Kesandra Flores from Sheldon White House and Rafael Silva who are also happen to be Dominicanos. Azike, thank you for being present here.

Let people know that following this, we're gonna be going next door for an event.

Yes. At this time, I will call my colleague

Just just for the

Councilman Espinal to join me because and also Councilwoman Ana Vargas because the introduction that we're going to make is very significant for the leadership of the city of Providence. And and also the long process that it has taken for us to get here in this chamber. Historically, this is the first time that we have three Dominicans of Dominican heritage representing the city of Providence in our capital city. And before that, we had our first Dominican elected to the city council was Miguel Luna. May he rest in peace.

Secondly, we had our very own Savina Matos who who became the first woman to be elected in the city council here in the city of Providence, then becoming president of the city council. And today and today, we have her and introduce you, no stranger to our community, but as you're seeing this, whether it's livestream or YouTube, and for our history of the diaspora, of the Dominican, Dominican American, the importance of staying active, the importance to be able to have a voice in government. And with that said, we'd like to welcome to our podium, no stranger to this chamber, our very own lieutenant governor Sabina Matos.

Thank you, Joe. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for that kind introduction. It's truly my honor to be here, being back here at City Hall.

I know we have a short time, but I'm going to tell a brief story. I'm going to say it in Spanish and then in English. So I was sharing about the experience that I just had recently with this young person that I ran into and told me I met this person when I came to this country and she told me, look at you as Lieutenant Governor. We never thought we could do that because we never saw anyone that looked like us working for the state or working for the city. And that was a reminder for all of us that the work that we're doing right now is not about one individual person, it's about the collective work that we're doing to inspire the young girls that are here right now, the young people that are here to let them know that they also can do it.

So I'm a proud Dominican American, I'm proud of Celebrate My Heritage, but I know that what we do here is more than about us, it's about the future of our community. Thank you.

Thank you.

Excellent. I also wanted to recognize Shelley Peterson, Councilwoman in the City Of Providence. She had to step out also. And also among us is also Councilman Oscar Vargas. Thank you for joining us.

Part of this process and also us coming together just a week, a couple of days before the Dominican Festival as it's been a tradition for us to ask for the City Of Providence to raise our flag to initiate a least the pride in the Dominican community for a weekend. Last year, we had similar program but very small. Every year we're gonna increase it. This year, we're initiating the 10 and hopefully as the community grows, it could grow. But it's leading up to the whole from the fifth until the sixteenth because on the August 16 is the restoration of the independence of the Dominican Republic.

So between those days, those nine, ten days, there will be celebration, there will be a festival, there will be partying, there will be celebration, and also talks about the heritage of Dominican Republic but also of the diaspora. We all know that it's been a struggle. And we all know that we have the civic duties and also politics in our vein. Am I wrong?

No.

No. Because we're here. And with that said, I would like to introduce our own representative Grace Diaz who will bring us brief remarks but also share with us a very important date between now and August 16. Representative Grace Diaz.

And all the electoral officials that were here early, it was my pleasure to join everyone. We are inviting all of you to come and join us to celebrate Dominican heritage during the bill signing that authorized Rhode Island to have the first Dominican play, charity play, circulating a card play with the Dominican symbols. We are so proud that Rhode Island again is the home of the first thing happened with Dominican community in The United States. So Friday, 1630

Thank you, representative Grace Diaz. We'll continue. Just to remind everybody that we have a nice reception at the Alderman's Chamber with Picadera Don't leave because we have a nice bandeja. We call it a tray with all the favorites of the Dominican community for you to try. So stick around.

The next speaker that I would like to bring before us is Mr. Jose Dominguez to say a few words from the organization that Excellent, thank you. Just want to also really highlight the fact that there are many members in the audience who belong and also belong to other organizations. We thank you for being here. With that said, just wanted to reiterate the fact that we as a community, there's many of you here representing different organizations and businesses.

We thank you for your time, and we appreciate you. We know that these are the toughest time, but we also know that for thirty nine years, this year, we're gonna be celebrating this Sunday, August 9, the thirty ninth year of the Dominican Festival and Parade consecutively, one of the oldest festival of Dominican and Dominican Americans in The United States history. So therefore, next year is forty years, and that gives us the opportunity to plan for the whole eleven, ten months to ensure that we have a great fortieth anniversary. So with that said, I also just wanted to briefly bring my colleague back, councilman Pedro Espinal, who will introduce our keynote special speaker, and he will speak in Spanish to give us and remind us where we come from, why we're here, and perhaps the future of what we're writing is up to you. He's not gonna tell us what is the future, but he's gonna show us, and he's gonna share with us what some of that history is in about four minutes.

I don't know if he's gonna be able to do that. Thank you, pro temp. Yes. Great to be back with you.

For those who are going to see this in English or in Spanish, who have the subtitles so that way we get a little bit of that long history of one hundred and fifty three years of restoration from the final battle with Spain. And thanks to Mr. Adantadan, he's getting shorter, but please join us right there.