Hispanic Heritage Month began its celebration on the West Windsor campus on Monday, September 16, 2019. The event to kick off the celebration was held in the Cafeteria that included free tastings of authentic Latin cuisine and a VIP guest speaker: Dr. Maria Montilla of the Latino Institute for Latino Studies and The Latino Leadership Alliance of NJ.
Students and staff gathered together at the opening ceremony to taste traditional food and listen to guest speaker Dr. Maria Montilla who began her speech by sharing some facts about the history of Hispanics in the United States.
According to Dr. Montilla, knowing the facts is necessary to understand that the history of Latinos in the United States began thousands of years ago, unlike the current attention on US Latinos may show due to presidential and other elections.
Dr. Montilla said, “it just seemed that Latinos just suddenly appeared in the United States, that they ‘just came yesterday,’ que cruzamos la frontera ayer. When in reality the history of Latinos in the United States began more than thousands of years ago.”
The evidence of that long history can be seen in our student population. Hispanics make up 20 percent of Mercer’s student body according to the college’s most recent institutional data from 2018 and Latinos are the third largest demographic in Mercer and all surrounding counties of Middlesex, Burlington and Somerset.
Vicente Erazu, a member of Mercer’s Hispanic Heritage Committee, Manager of MercerOnline and former student says, “Events like this are really important, especially for minority students so they can see that people are looking at them as far as them as students as far as introducing their culture, their experience to the whole body.”
The theme throughout Hispanic Heritage Month chosen by the Hispanic Heritage Committee is, “Community without borders.” All of the events are sponsored as a collaboration between the college’s Student Life and Leadership, the Student Government Association and the Hispanic Heritage Committee.
“That was the whole theme for this year’s event. Making sure that it wasn’t just catered to Latinos or Hispanics but for everyone to be involved and attend” says, Erazu.
Professor Daniel D’Arpa, coordinator of World Languages at Mercer and a member of the Committee explains the purpose of having events like these for students saying that the college wants to “bring something positive to [the Hispanic students], and for everybody else who needs to be educated in the value of Hispanic culture.”
According to www.hispanicheritagemonth.gov, the celebration first started as a week-long event in 1968; and is now a month-long celebration to honor Hispanic Americans’ heritage. The month celebration begins on the 15th of September because of the anniversary of four Central American countries’ Independence Day. It runs through October 15.
The idea of this month’s celebrations is to honor the history and celebrate the culture of ancestors originating from Spain, Mexico, Central and South America and the Carribean.
There will be Hispanic Heritage Month events happening at Mercer through October 15.
On October 2, Latin themed books will be on display in the WWC bookstore. On October 3, there will be Paint Night at the West Windsor campus as well as a Paint & Sip at the James Kerney Campus with a “Day of the Dead” or Dia de Los Muertos theme.
The closing ceremony for the celebration will occur on October 15. It will be held at the James Kerney Campus beginning at 11:30am. The final guest speaker will be Ms. Adriana Abizadeh, from the Latin American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc. The day ends at JKC with a concert held at Kerney Hall at 7pm.
