Juneteenth commemorates the day the last enslaved African Americans learned they were free, more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
For Krystian Fernandez, Avila Beach local and organizer of the Juneteenth celebration at Locals Taproom, the holiday is both a celebration of freedom and an opportunity to bring culture and community together.
“Freedom, it means autonomy. It means progression. It means education, intellectualism, and creating new pathways for future generations to have the opportunities that a lot of people who look like me haven't had,” Fernandez said.
Fernandez recently moved to San Luis Obispo County from Los Angeles and said adjusting to life on the Central Coast has been a different experience.
“It's for sure been an adjustment… LA just has a lot more pockets,” she said. “There is just a lot more options and opportunities for things to get involved in, which we really don't have here.”
Advocacy group Catalyst California brings us data from Race Counts, a California project that tracks racial disparities in areas such as health, education and housing, which helps explain what Fernandez means.
“You look at Race Counts data for San Luis Obispo County specifically, we see that it's actually the 37th, most racially disparate county,” said Matt Trujillo, director of strategic initiatives at Catalyst California. “But the thing is, it's important to look beneath the surface there because while it's doing relatively well compared to other counties, that doesn't mean that inequities don't exist.”
Trujillo pointed to health insurance access as one area where disparities remain, “So it's always important to just go beneath the surface when you're looking at inequities.”
According to Race Counts and census data, Black residents make up about 1% of San Luis Obispo County's population. Fernandez said that can make it difficult to find opportunities to celebrate Black culture locally.
“So I know for me it's been a little bit of an adjustment,” she said. “It's like, oh, let's do these fun events, but we don't have that. So how can we bring a little bit of that here?”
Juneteenth Celebration at Locals Taproom
- Friday, June 19th
- 1 p.m. – 10 p.m.
- 90 San Miguel St., Avila Beach
Fernandez and Locals Taproom is inviting the whole community out to their Juneteenth celebration featuring line dancing, trivia, drinks and music.
Fernandez showed off a few of the records that will help set the tone for the celebration, including albums from Wu-Tang Clan, Gil Scott-Heron, Parliament-Funkadelic, Al Green and more.
“This is just a little bit of a sneak peek of what we're going to be playing. It's going to be more than that, but we really just want to have good vibes.”
As the nation prepares to celebrate Independence Day in the coming weeks, Fernandez hopes people will also take time to reflect on Juneteenth and its significance.
“I think now more than ever, Juneteenth is really important to celebrate with everything that we see going on in our country,” she said.
“Understanding history beyond what we learn, and what we already know, is really important…. And it's really important that we learn this, not to make anyone feel bad, but to really say, ‘hey, this was the reality of what was going on in our country,’ and learning this is going to continue to push us forward and not backwards.”
