by Leah Budson
Various short videos concerning Hispanic heritage were shown E-block Wednesday, Oct. 15, as part of Hispanic Heritage Day, a new day that teachers in the World Language department organized to spread awareness about Hispanic heritage.
“The goal was to expose students to a broad variety of representations of the Hispanic world, and to ignite dialogue,” said Spanish teacher Cristina Schulze, one of the main organizers of the day.
“The videos were chosen with the goal of building bridges between cultures, starting a dialogue, and provide a space to rethink the Hispanic world in the U.S.,” she said.
One of the longer clips shown, entitled “Marca Peru,” told the story of a group of Peruvians who decided to travel to Peru, Nebraska. Throughout the clip, the Peruvians attempted to bring elements of Peruvian culture to the non-hispanic town. They cooked Peruvian food for the towns’ inhabitants, showed them traditional Peruvian dances, and more. One Peruvian man said at the start of the clip, “Peru, Nebraska has one problem—They are Peruvian, but they don’t know what it means to be Peruvian.”
A variety of other clips were shown. One video showed people of Hispanic heritage playing “La Bamba” in locations around the world, including Los Angeles and Piacita Olvera in the United States, Buenos Aires in Chile, Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Melbourne in Australia.
A preview for the movie “Latino Americas” was also shown. The quote, “there’s so much at stake for all Americans for how Latino Americans do,” finished the clip, reminding the audience of how important Latino Americans are to this country.