Boston to immigrants: ‘You Belong Here’

City of Belonging Festival kicks off with banner unveiling

As Immigrant Heritage Month approaches in June, the city of Boston has a message for its immigrant residents: “You Belong Here.”

It’s a message at the center of more than a month of festivities planned as part of its “City of Belonging Festival,” launched last week.

The festival officially kicked off May 21 with the unveiling of “You Belong Here” banners in City Hall. The rest of the celebrations, running through June and July, will include city-organized events like a community concert, a yoga and dance party, and a panel featuring the perspectives of LGBTQ+ immigrants — which Monique Tú Nguyen, executive director of the Boston Mayor’s Office for Immigrant Advancement, said are “often untold stories of these immigrant community members.”

Throughout the celebrations, the Office of Immigrant Advancement social media will publish a “Stories of Belonging” comic series. And the office is sponsoring or endorsing at least 30 other events organized by community partners.

“There’s so many great things to look forward to in this period because it highlights different pockets of our communities,” she said.

That variety is intended to highlight the diverse immigrant populations that call Boston home. According to the United States Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, as of 2023, more than a quarter of the city’s population was born in another country.

Nguyen said she hopes the festival will be about breaking down barriers and showing immigrants that they belong in spaces across the city.

Emmanuel Oppong-Yeboah, Boston poet laureate, speaks at City Hall during the launch of the “City of Belonging” festival, May 21. PHOTO: ALEX JOACHIM

“The events that we have lined up are really designed for people to come and be in community without being concerned and wondering, ‘Do I belong here?’” she said. “Oftentimes, in the city of Boston, especially if you’re new here, it’s hard to make friends; it takes some time.”

But that goal goes the other way too, she said. With community-led events across the city through the festival, Nguyen said she hopes that all Bostonians, regardless of background, can become more comfortable and see more of their neighbors’ cultures.

So, the Boston Muslim Employee Resource Group’s Eid festival, which will be held at the Bruce C. Bolling Municipal Building in Nubian Square; a Turkish community concert, and a Vietnamese night market, while designed to support local immigrant populations, are also about amplifying and showcasing those cultures to others in the city as well.

“We wanted to be able to break down the barriers and silos in our communities, because it’s hard to other someone if you really know them,” Nguyen said.

The City of Belonging Festival comes at a time when the federal government has taken steps to restrict immigration and deport migrants across the country — that broader landscape, Nguyen said, is one of the reasons the city’s Office of Immigrant Advancement wanted to run this festival.

“At a time when immigrant communities face uncertainty across the nation, Boston is choosing connection, compassion and celebration,” said Mariangely Solis Cervera, Boston’s chief of equity and inclusion, in a statement. “The City of Belonging Festival reminds us that resilience grows stronger when we stand together, across cultures and languages.”

“You Belong Here” banners hang in Boston City Hall. PHOTO: ALEX JOACHIM

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has sought to remove temporary protected status for the 350,000 Venezuelans who rely on the designation — a move that was temporarily allowed by the Supreme Court, May 19, pending a decision by a lower appeals court.

A separate action, also before the Supreme Court, would end a separate measure called humanitarian parole, which shields migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela from deportation. The city of Boston co-led a coalition of cities, counties and elected officials that filed a brief in opposition to the attempt to revoke the protections, which impact 500,000 people.

On May 22, the Trump administration said it was barring Harvard University from enrolling international students — a measure the university filed suit against. A federal judge blocked the action, May 23.

All the while, United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been ramping up arrests in the Boston area.

“We wanted to make sure that people knew, no matter what’s happening on the federal level, everywhere else, that in the city of Boston, it’s where you belong,” Nguyen said.

The celebration is anchored around Immigrant Heritage Month, which is recognized in June, but Nguyen said she wanted the city’s festival to go beyond the one month, and to break out of the idea that to celebrate immigrant heritage is to independently and individually celebrate the cultural backgrounds of each group.

For Nguyen, uplifting immigrant heritage means uplifting “all of our histories.”

“In the city of Boston, everyone comes from somewhere at one point or another,” Nguyen said.

The Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Advancement will host its LGBTQ+ panel on May 29, from 4:30 to 7 p.m. on City Hall Plaza.

Its community concert will play June 12 at 6 p.m. on City Hall Plaza.

The yoga and dance party event will be held June 29, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on City Hall Plaza.