Latinx RSOs on campus are gearing up in preparation for Hispanic Heritage Month, an annual 30-day celebration of Hispanic culture and history beginning Sept. 15.
This year’s theme, “Pioneers of Change: Shaping the Future Together,” signals a hopeful outlook for the upcoming school year for Hispanic and Latinx students on campus.
According to National Hispanic Heritage Month, the month was first observed in the U.S. as Hispanic Heritage Week starting in 1968, before expanding to a full 30 days in 1988.
The month is also commonly known as Latinx Heritage Month. While the terms are used interchangeably, Hispanic often denotes a person who comes from a Spanish-speaking country, while Latino/x denotes a person from Latin America, regardless of what language they speak.
“For Hispanic Heritage Month, that is what is recognized across the country, but here at La Casa, we really focus on calling it Latinx Heritage Month to center around Latinidad and what that means,” said Stephanie Cardoza-Cruz, interim director of La Casa Cultural Latina. “And for us, that is really focused on the entirety of the Latine diaspora and all the intersectionalities that (are) built into this month.”
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The month is structured around the independence days of several Latin American countries, namely Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, which all gained independence from Spain on Sept. 15, 1821.
“I’ve always loved that it kicks off with our Central American independence days on Sept. 15,” Cardoza-Cruz said. “Being Central American myself, that has always been a really fun kick-off.”
La Casa’s own theme for this year’s Latinx Heritage Month is “Movimientos,” which translates to “Movements.”
“It’s all about the different ways that movements have shaped Latinidad,” Cardoza-Cruz said. “And ‘Movements’ means so many different things.”
From the Latinx community’s social justice movements to the movements found in their music and art, Cardoza-Cruz argues that they all inspire Latinx identity.
“We also think about movements that have shaped our current state of immigration, we think about movements (in terms) of how our families have been reshaped and what that’s looked like,” Cardoza-Cruz said. “(It’s) the fact that those movements have really been able to inspire who we are.”
This upcoming Latinx Heritage Month, La Casa Cultural Latina has many events planned to showcase the diversity of Latinx people on campus.
“At La Casa, all month long, you’re going to catch us doing celebrations, but also really supporting our community events and taking a step back from need(ing) to always host, host, host, host,” Cardoza-Cruz said.
There will be educational and social events almost every day this month, coming up to about 38 in total. They will be available to view this Monday, Sept. 16 on La Casa’s website.
One event is El Grito, which translates to “The Cry.” It will be hosted on Sept. 20 by two Latino fraternities on campus, Lambda Theta Phi, Inc. and Phi Iota Alpha, Inc.
On the day of El Grito, hundreds of Latinx students gather on campus to celebrate Mexican Independence Day by eating food and enjoying a “tamborazo,” a live band that plays traditional Mexican music.
“It really is just a uniting experience and we’re just trying to let Latinos know, ‘Hey, you’re not alone. Yeah, you might be (at) a predominately white institution, (but) there is a family away from your actual family,’” said Carlos Correa, a member of Lambda Theta Phi, Inc.
According to University statistics on student enrollment, this year’s freshman class has the highest number of Hispanic students since the University began to record student race and ethnicity in 1968.
“The more representation we have, the better (Latinx students) will feel being on campus, surrounded by people who come from similar backgrounds as them,” said Kevin Andrade, a member of Lambda Theta Phi, Inc. “The more that they feel like they deserve to be here on campus, the more likely they are to succeed.”
Apart from the social aspect, the fraternity is also focused on breaking the barriers for Latinx students in academic spaces.
“While we are a social organization, at the end of the day we want our members to graduate and become influential men, businessmen, educators, anything they can think of,” Correa said.
Lambda Theta Phi, Inc. has a network of alumni in many different career fields who offer their help to current members of the fraternity. Additional programming provides financial resources, such as their annual “La Fuerza” scholarship, which is open to incoming freshmen and sophomores.
Another cultural RSO, the Latino Student Association, will be supporting The Taste of Latin America on Sept. 17, an event organized by student housing for Latinx Heritage Month. Various cuisines from different Latin American cultures will be shared with the public.
“When people think Latinos, they usually just think Mexicans and Mexican food, but there’s much more than that,” said Raul Guzman, president of LSA.
LSA plans to continue its traditional celebration of holidays later in the year like Día de los Muertos, meaning Day of the Dead, by putting up “ofrendas,” or altars, in different residence halls around campus. However, they’re receptive to new ideas from their general members.
“We’re always trying to pick up new things, keep growing the older things, making them better, learning from our mistakes and just bringing fresh ideas to the table to keep things interesting,” Guzman said.
Guzman said he has already decided they will try to incorporate new community-building activities into their schedule.
“We’re just going to try to do fun stuff like game nights and movie nights, just opportunities to get to know each other,” Guzman said. “We really want to emphasize that community within LSA.”
To close off the month of celebration, La Casa will be hosting a large closing ceremony on Oct. 15 called “El Movimiento Sigue,” which translates to “The Movement Continues.”
“Everything we do moving forward for this entire year … is going to be centered around movements — it’s going to be centered around the power that our students have and being able to amplify that,” Cardoza-Cruz said.
