A performance by Los Angeles-based Las Cafeteras and two events focused on immigration anchor the College’s second annual celebration of Latino Heritage Month, with programming throughout October. While academic departments planned many of last year’s events, allowing for a larger overall budget, students took the lead this year, drawing primarily on Council on Student Organizations and the Special Programs and Events Committee funding.
La Alianza Latina treasurer Estefani Marin ’17, who helped organize the festivities, said students struggled to acquire enough funding for larger events with well-known speakers, such as last year’s keynote speech by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Junot Díaz.
Office of Pluralism and Leadership Latino advising intern Amaris de la Rosa-Moreno ’16 said dedicating a month to exploring Latino identity is especially important in light of the record number of Latino students in the Class of 2018, though she added that students should celebrate culture year-round.
About 8.4 percent of the freshman class is Latino or Latina, the largest representation in Dartmouth history.
Dartmouth began celebrating Latino Heritage Month, rather than Hispanic Heritage Month, last year.
“Latino is a term that comes from within the community and is embraced, whereas the term Hispanic is one assigned by the government, and can be seen as more of a label,” OPAL advisor to Latino students Rodrigo Ramirez said.
Marin and organizer Oscar Cornejo ’17, co-director of the Dartmouth Coalition For Immigration Reform, Equality and DREAMers, said they attended almost every event during the last year’s month-long celebration. As freshmen, the events helped make Dartmouth feel more like “home,” Marin said.
Cornejo said the month is one way students can honor their identities on campus.
“Back home we live our culture, we speak it, we eat it,” Cornejo said. “Here we have to celebrate it, but back home that’s not the case because you’re surrounded by it.”
Ramirez said the student, faculty and administrative organizers tried to include a balance of educational and celebratory events in the schedule. Planning began last May, during a meeting of the Latino Advisory Council, which meets monthly to discuss issues affecting the Latino community at Dartmouth.
The meeting served as a “sounding board” for ideas, Ramirez said, and student groups and individuals also planned events and applied for funding independently.
Cornejo said he hopes Latino Heritage Month is institutionalized and gains the same level of recognition from the College community as other celebrations of identity, like Black History Month.
Former La Alianza Latina president Yaritza Gonzalez ’15 said the events allow students to learn from Latino community leaders with whom they may not otherwise interact.
As a celebration of culture, Ramirez said, the month’s events are open to all members of the College community.
“Everyone has different identities that are important to them,” Ramirez said. “Having times where there is an institutionally concentrated level of celebration of those identities is a great way for people to feel appreciated.”
This year’s arts and music-heavy schedule highlights aspects of Latino culture, de la Rosa-Moreno said, adding that last year’s Junot Díaz talk was “the pinnacle of what we wish Latino heritage month can be like.”
The monthlong celebration opened last Friday with a talk on immigration reform by Angelica Salas, director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.
Other events include an Oct. 15 panel discussion on the intersection of undocumented and queer identities, two film screenings at the Hopkins Center and the 17th annual Noche Dorada, a semi-formal gathering hosted by La Unidad Latina, Lambda Upsilon Lambda fraternity that includes music and dance performances.
