The Catholic Latinx Celebrates the Indian Holi Festival

I don’t recall exactly when I first learned about the Indian festival of Holi, but I probably paid attention to it more within the last few years. Honestly, I would have never known anything about this cultural celebration had it not been for random Eventbrite announcements I saw when I scrolled on the website looking for something else.

In 2024, I received a direct notification announcing an upcoming celebration of Holi in Washington, D.C.

It came from the Dupont Circle Business Improvement District, a nonprofit dedicated to managing the public spaces within the Dupont Circle neighborhood in northwest Washington, D.C. For some reason, I wasn’t able to attend that year. I tried again in 2025 and invited my daughter to go with me. We were all set to go and then it turned out that the timing of the event conflicted with our plans.

In 2026, I was resolved to attend Holi and I wanted to turn it into a family affair. It had now become a small dream for me to see all four of us engage in the colorful powder throwing—a cultural Indian practice so unlike anything I was accustomed to and one in which I was thrilled to do with my family.

Really, the practice of immersing my girls in culture and religions outside of our own was something I began doing immediately after each was born. In my own upbringing, I was born and raised to two Colombian-born parents who were staunch Catholics. The first half of my life was limited to one religion, one culture, as there really wasn’t a whole lot of diversity in my life until I got to college.

Everything changed after college when I moved to Washington, D.C. to go to law school. It is as if the earth itself had opened up to me revealing inner truths of beauty that had been hidden from my plain eyesight my entire life. All of a sudden, I was thrust into a diverse universe of Muslims, Buddhists, a thriving Asian culture in northern Virginia, and a plethora of people from beautiful countries I knew nothing about—Lithuania, Nigeria, Afghanistan, to name a few. The Washington, DC metropolitan area became my new oyster and I was determined to explore its richness and share my findings with my daughters.

Despite the fact that three of us were Latinx and one of us was Italian-American, the appeal of the Indian culture was undeniable. We wanted to partake in the community practice of throwing colored powder as we had seen it many times but didn’t know what it would be like in real life.

During the week, I had reserved my free tickets to Holi through Eventbrite and also pre-purchased the powder that we’d use later on that day to gleefully throw upon ourselves and others. Each day that passed, my excitement grew bigger. I was so excited to achieve a small dream I had built up in my mind a few years back.

Finally, the day came and it was time to go. Thinking the parking would be tight at this popular event, we chose to park at the metro and take the train all the way to Dupont Circle. Bad idea. No sooner had we boarded the metro than we ended up single tracking for one stop until the train became out of service. Well, that delay cost us nearly two hours of valuable Holi entertainment.

By the time we finally arrived at Dupont Circle, we were already two hours late. We had missed the announcements and most of the DJ spinning popular Indian songs and Bollywood-inspired music. Honestly, I felt physically tired, but the same second I got off the metro and climbed the gigantic escalator to go to the street level, seeing people on the opposite side of the escalator drenched in colored powder spruced me up a bit.

As we neared the street level, I began hearing the pulsating sounds of the DJ—something I found to be truly amazing since the music was much louder than I expected. It also carried over well to the top of the metro! The fire began creeping into me. I was already in the spirit of Holi even before I received the colored powder.

We walked over quickly and I went right to the Dupont Circle BID tent to get our colored powder. Within less than five minutes, I turned the camera on and let my daughters have their way with the powder. Being that these were organic, environmentally friendly, nonstaining powders from PurColour, I wasn’t afraid at all. In fact, all of us were excited to do this.

We had already seen how every person already had a ton of colored powder thrown on them. It was all over the pavement and in the surrounding trees and objects. It was loads of fun. Though we showed up late to the party, we were excited to get started!

In a matter of seconds, my daughters had smeared themselves, their dad, and me, all with fun, vibrant colors. All of us became artist palettes ready to share our colors with the world! Once painted, we snaked our way through the crowd to get closer to the stage. None of us recognized any of the music, but it was so joyful and electric and vibrating. It got us all into the groove.

The crowd that day was a healthy mix of young, old, babies, and people from all cultures and walks of life. No one cared that we weren’t Indian. No one cared that we couldn’t sing any of the songs. No one cared that we weren’t dancing or doing what everyone else was doing.

This was a true community movement that—for the first time since the ominous date of January 20, 2025—felt peaceful and liberating at the same time. It was not us versus them. It wasn’t one culture pitted against another. And I must say, I was impressed that neither ICE nor the National Guard were present. Without a trace of the political venom that had enveloped Washington, D.C. and the United States at large, Holi felt like the most warm, hospitable community event we could have possibly attended.

Even my daughter astutely noted the same things I did. She noticed the stark difference in how the Indians treated us versus what the news always displays. The news is always filled with rage and violence towards non-white groups. Holi was vastly different. It felt holy—as if God (and Buddha) had put their protected hands around the festival and granted all attendees an afternoon of sincerity, peace, joy, and community collaboration.

I am thrilled we had a chance to go.