Tlalli Festival aims to showcase Indigenous communities of the Americas in Hamilton

Quique Escamilla remembers the tired faces of 14 Mexican migrant workers, a decade ago, as they returned one Sunday evening after a long day of work at a farm in Leamington, Ont. 

"I saw them coming into the house, beat up," Escamilla told CBC Hamilton. He had an idea.

Escamilla started playing El Rey by Jose Alfredo Jimenez, a very well-known ranchera song in Latin America. The exhaustion on their faces vanished, and cries of joy quickly filled the air in the small house.

"That's the joy of the music," said Escamilla.

This was the first of many times he performed for a group of migrant workers, planting the seed for what would become the Tlalli Festival.

Escamilla's festival is a celebration of Indigenous cultures of the Americas with music, dancing, food, and more.

The festival will take place on Saturday at Plan B Organic Farms in Hamilton starting at 11 a.m.

Showcasing Indigenous cultures across the Americas

Tlalli means Earth in Nahuatl, the Indigenous language of the Aztecs.

"I wouldn't call it Earth. I wouldn't call it Tierra [Earth in Spanish] because then we're still using colonizing [languages]," said Escamilla.

He chose Nahuatl over other Indigenous languages to honour the origin of the festival: Mexican migrant workers.

"I was being purposeful about connecting it to the language that these folks' ancestors, that worked the domestication of those products they're picking up today, spoke," he said.

The Aztecs and other Indigenous cultures of what is today South America are responsible for the domestication of many vegetables commonly used in modern cuisine, like tomatoes, potatoes, and corn.

As part of the festival's goal to honour the Earth, Escamilla has a zero-waste approach at serving food and running the event.

The festival is focused on showcasing Indigenous cultures from the Americas.

Indigenous artists with roots in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Canada, and more are set to perform at the festival on Saturday.

Entry to the festival is $85 on Saturday for the general public. Mexican migrant workers can enter the festival for free.

That includes Drew Gonsalves from Kobo Town, a Toronto-based band with roots in Trinidad and Tobago.

Gonsalves, who was born in Diego Martin, Trinidad and Tobago, told CBC Hamilton the band aims to "explore the roots and the traditions of Trinidadian and Caribbean music and apply all that wit and cleverness of that old storytelling music to the issues of our own time."

He said he's "never seen" anything like Tlalli before.

"I think it's a beautiful idea to connect people, particularly Indigenous people from across the Americas who have, even from far-flung parts of the continent and in many communities went through some of the same struggles," he said.

Gonsalves said it's particularly special for him to be performing a newish genre like calypso, while surrounded by ancient Indigenous traditions.

"Because of the history of Trinidad and Tobago, calypso music is maybe over 100 years old," he said.

"But for me, it's neat, it's like saying that, whatever its ancestry, calypso music is from here, it's from the Americas as well, it is something that was given birth here."

Food also a big part of the festival

Escamilla is originally from Tuxtla, previously called Coyatoc, Chiapas in Southern Mexico. He's a Toronto-based Mayan and Zapotecan musician and Juno Award winner for World Music Album of the Year.

His love of music started young while playing traditional Mexican folk songs for his family. El Rey was the first one.

But food also has a special place in his heart, and at the festival.

"I come from a family [of] food makers," said Escamilla.

"My great-grandmother was known in the old markets in Mexico … It remains in your genes."

The festival doesn't have food vendors. Instead, Escamilla himself curates the food that's served.

He's no chef, he said, but he does "love the history of artisanal food and flavours."

The festival is bringing in two chefs who specialize in Purepecha cuisine from Michoacan, Mexico and Mixtec cuisine from Puebla, Mexico.

'Let's not forget who brings food to our tables'

Escamilla said food is important for Indigenous communities, due to the thousands of years of caring for one another through sharing, but also for the festival as a way to bring the conversation back to migrant farm workers.

For him, growing up near Mexico's border with Guatemala, the topic of migrant struggles was always on his mind.

Inspired by the fight of Indigenous communities in Canada, he wanted the Indigenous workers from Mexico on Canadian lands to be celebrated.

He said workers already go through enough working long days, making little money they send back home.

"[Migrant workers] do it for 35 years, and [they] still do it the same way, at the same rate, same conditions, and then you're creating a generational problem and trauma in your family," he said.

"People say to me in interviews, 'my children hate me because I've been gone for 30 years, they only see me for two months [out of a year], I'm a stranger to them.'"

Escamilla said he wants migrant workers to remain the guest of honour at the festival.

"Let's not forget who brings the food to our tables," he said.