Guided Search: Arts and Culture, Central America/Carribean

From Philly.com -- Dia del Niño, meaning "day of the child," will be an international celebration of children through Latin culture on Saturday at the Please Touch Museum. Activities throughout the day include music, dance, theater. Throughout the day, children's singer Louie Miranda will perform folk songs in English and Spanish. Philadelphia Eagles cheerleaders and the football team's mascot, Swoop, will give a special presentation at noon. And TV network Telemundo will have a working television studio on-site where kids can go in front of the camera and report the weather in Spanish or English. They can later watch their weather-report performance online at www.holaciudad.com.

Scribe Video Center Producers’ Forums presents Niños de la Memoria, a documentary film by Philadelphia-based filmmaker, María Teresa Rodríguez. Ms. Rodríguez will be on hand to meet attendees beginning at 6 PM, in a pre-screening reception sponsored by Philadelphia Independent Film and Video Association. The 64-minute film, which tells the story of the search for hundreds of children who disappeared during the Salvadoran Civil War, screens at 7 PM. Following the screening, a panel of experts in human rights struggles and Salvadoran politics will discuss the film and answer audience questions.

The Free Library of Philadelphia is pleased to announce an Author Events series with writer, Julia Alvarez. Ms. Alvarez writes lyrical, politically insightful works that reveal her passion for people who shape history. Born in New York and raised until the age of 10 in the Dominican Republic, she artfully renders “the threshold experiences of the new immigrant, where the past is not yet a memory and the future remains an anxious dream” (New York Times Book Review). This event is sponsored by Al Día NewsMedia. Ticketsare $15 General Admission, $7 for students, and can be purchased online here. 

Join the Young Friends of the Penn Museum a night of tequila and Mayan history. The night starts with a specially-crafted Patrón cocktail in the Warden Garden followed by an exclusive, tutored tequila tasting that will explore the history and tradition of Patrón’s signature brand along with special Maya-themed appetizers. Don't forget to visit to the newly opened MAYA 2012: Lords of Time exhibition and explore the Maya’s time-ordered universe and the power wielded by their divine kings, the astounding “lords of time.”