The Marshalltown Area Chamber of Commerce is excited to announce the first bilingual tourism identity in the state of Iowa. The Chamber’s tourism identity will now be known as “Meet in Marshalltown” and “Nos Vemos en Marshalltown” to best reflect the diverse community located in the heart of the state.

The tourism identity will include a new website, social media channels, marketing efforts, along with other endeavors moving forward, and it will be launched on Sunday at the Festival Cultural at West End Park on 13th Street. The event will run from noon to 5 p.m. and feature food, dancing, music and fun.

Marshalltown’s tourism logo seeks to capture the beautiful diversity of Marshalltown, by resembling a piñata or papel picado, along with the black lines reflecting the central location of Marshalltown from Midwestern cities and major highways. The palette includes nine colors representing our manufacturing heritage, education, veterans, agriculture, art, indigenous and immigrant populations, rivers and trails.

“In a sea of sameness, Marshalltown is a true original. I believe our new identity reflects the holistic diversity of our community from language, culture, workforce opportunities, history, future, innovation, and collaboration. With over 50 languages/dialects reflected in our school district, we seek to add additional languages in the future,” Chamber Tourism Director Dylan Does said.

“Estamos muy emocionados para este nuevo capítulo de Marshalltown!” Marshalltown Tourism Advisory Member America Zaragoza added.

Does said the Chamber does not plan to hire an additional staff person at the present time to facilitate the effort, but he does have connections with bilingual volunteers who are willing to assist Spanish speakers who need their services.

“Really for us, (the goal) is to really celebrate the things that are already happening that may have been under our radar for a lot of years, but also to attract — if you think of events like Sabado de Gloria, the Latino rodeo on Easter weekend, brought in 2,000 people from every single state that connects (to) Iowa. You see different events like that are happening,” Does said. “Even in the tourism world, weddings, quinceaneras, things like that draw hotel stays, and really there is a wonderful market that is happening both in our Latino populations and our Anglo populations. But really, we’ve spent a lot of time celebrating our diversity but not always finding specific ways to do it practically.”

Marshalltown Tourism Information: For more information on “Nos Vemos en Marshalltown” and “Meet in Marshalltown,” contact Does or check out www.meetinmarshalltown.com or www.nosvemosenmarshalltown.com, which will go live Oct. 15.

According to Does, some events and promotions will show up on both sites, while some will be specific to either “Meet in Marshalltown” or “Nos Vemos en Marshalltown.” As he noted, “Nos Vemos en Marshalltown” is not a direct translation — it actually translates to “We’ll see you in Marshalltown” — but it’s an effort to reflect the cultural differences while celebrating the diversity of the community. He added that when he accepted the job earlier this year, his two biggest goals were to tell the story of his hometown and get an initiative like this off of the ground.

“We understand that Marshalltown is not just a two language community, so we thought this was the best place to start and we want to continue to grow and to be able to enhance that for our other communities as well, much like the library and the school district have done,” he said. “It seems that those two entities always lead the way when it comes to emerging communities.”

The Chamber website will remain www.marshalltown.org.