Festival Latinoamericano 2025

The annual Festival Latinoamericano was well-attended, and featured dancers. music, food trucks, local artists, and numerous civic and business organizations. Thanks go to Janeth Valenzuela and the Arlington County Parks and Recreation Department.

 From the Arlington County website: “The 2025 Festival Latinoamericano was held on Friday, October 3 at the Arlington Mill Community Center. Arlington County's Festival Latinoamericano is dedicated to celebrating the vibrant and diverse cultures that enrich our community. Our mission is to showcase the rich tapestry of Latin American art, food, and culture in Arlington County, providing a platform for local artists, chefs, and performers to share their talents and traditions with the public. By supporting small businesses and entrepreneurs, we aim to foster economic growth and community spirit. This free event is designed to be inclusive and educational, offering attendees of all backgrounds a chance to experience Hispanic Heritage firsthand.”

Photography by Lloyd Wolf.

Stumbling Stickers

Stumbling Stickers are being placed along Columbia Pike and other locations in Arlington County. They are memorial artworks positioned on sites where people in our community have been taken away by ICE agents. 

The Stumbling Stickers emerged from a moment of witness. 

 

In June 2025, Reverend Ashley Goff, pastor of the Arlington Presbyterian Church and artist Sushmita Mazumdar of Studio Pause attended a stumbling stone ceremony along Columbia Pike that honored the Check Brothers, who had been enslaved in what is now the East End of the Pike. These “stumbling stones” are part of a growing effort across Arlington to place physical markers on sidewalks where enslaved people once lived and labored, insisting on public memory in places where history has been paved over.

 

That local ritual traces its lineage even further back to Stolpersteine across Europe: brass blocks also set into sidewalks that mark where Jewish neighbors and others were taken by the Nazi regime. Each one says “this happened. And we remember.”

Being at the stumbling stone ceremony, Ashley and Sushmita couldn’t ignore the echo: If the Pike remembers those who were enslaved here, how do we remember those taken by ICE now in Arlington — when our Latino and Hispanic neighbors are living under constant threat of raids, detainment, and disappearance?

Unlike permanent stones, these stickers are intentionally temporary. Sushmita created the image, and Ashley crafted the language for a ritual read aloud as each sticker is placed. They go on sidewalks in Arlington where neighbors were taken by ICE—moments of state-enforced separation. Each sticker is an act of refusal, a spark of stubborn hope: a way of saying that silence will not erase these lives, and this Administration will not bury their stories. The stumbling stickers proclaim: harm was done here on this neighborhood block, and ICE does not get the last word. 

Prayer ritual read when placing a Stumbling Sticker.

 

“We are here to tell the truth.

To name harm that was done on this block.

To place a mark where someone was taken by ICE.

To remember what others would rather forget.

To build a community of memory, resistance, and care.

Across Arlington, stumbling stones mark the names and lives of those who were enslaved here –

A way of saying: this happened. And we remember.

Across Europe, Stolpersteine-

Stumbling stones- mark the places where Jewish 

Neighbors were taken by the Nazi regime.

We follow in that tradition of memory and resistance.

But we call these Stumbling Stickers – temporary marks for those taken by ICE.

Because this happened.

And we will not look away.

This sticker is temporary- and our witness is not.

Setting the intention.

We place the sticker not for spectacle, not to identify a home, but to say:

This happened here.

A person was taken. A family was harmed., Neighbors faced fear. 

We mark this place in mourning and protest – so this

story is not erased. So ICE does not get the last word.”

 

As of late September 2025, Stumbling Stickers have been placed at:

-The 800 block of S. Florida Street

-S. Greenbrier Street and 7th Road S.

-Columbia Pike and S. Frederick Street

-The 5000 block of Columbia Pike

-The 900 block of S. Buchanan Street

-Columbia Pike and S. Thomas Street

-18th Street S. and Walter Reed Drive

 

Some have been removed, some remain.

Photography by Lloyd Wolf.

Barcroft Elementary School Centennial Celebration

The Barcroft Elementary School Centennial celebration was held on September 19th, 2025. The school is the oldest continually-used education building in Arlington. The current facility dates from 1925, and grew out of a one-room schoolhouse nearby that dates from 1906. A human chain was formed by students, faculty, staff, neighbors, and parents to connect the two buildings to begin the festivities. 

Guest speakers included a member of the Arlington Historical Society dressed and posing as Doctor John Woolverton Barcroft, the school's namesake and major landowner and local civic figure in the 19th century, Principal Judy Apostolico-Buck, performances by the Wakefield High School marching band, the Barcroft School choir and musicians, displays of vintage cars, placing of a time capsule, and other celebratory moments.

Barcroft is a Title 1 school, and has one of the most welcoming and diverse populations in the area, about 500 strong in the 2024-2025 school year.

An article in ArlNow by Scott McCaffrey provides an interesting in-depth history of the school and much detail about the celebration and school population. 

The day was organized by Lucy Tschetter of the PTA and Janet Dorn, a teacher at the school. Thanks to them and all who made the day possible.

Photography by Lloyd Wolf.

"Dr. Barcroft"

Arlington Sheriff Jose Quiroz with Safety Patrol

Principal Judy Apostolico-Buck