Hispanic Heritage Month at Maryville College kicks off with Sept. 24 celebration
Sept. 19, 2024
Hispanic Heritage Month is recognized annually in the United States from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, and Aja Rodriguez ’04, director of Community & Belonging at Maryville College, has been working diligently on programming to ensure the Maryville College campus has ample opportunities to celebrate.
MC’s Center for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion plans to host four programs over the next several weeks focused on honoring Hispanic culture, as well as opportunities to learn about Latinx students and what their lives are like on campus.
The kickoff event will be a Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration held from 2-5 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 24, in the Bartlett Atrium and in Bartlett 101. Included in the festivities will be paper flower-making and Hispanic snacks, as well as educational activities.
In early October (date TBD), the community is invited to participate in Loteria, or Mexican Bingo. This event will be hosted in collaboration with the office of Student Involvement and Leadership Development and the Latinx Student Alliance. It will include prizes for Loteria winners as well as education from Rodriguez to help the crowd understand what Loteria is, the origin of the game, and why it is important to the Latinx community.
From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Oct. 9, an “Ofrenda How To” event will be held in Bartlett Hall Room 301. Attendees can learn about the significance of ofrendas — altars set up to honor deceased loved ones — as well as how to set one up themselves, and there will be an opportunity for participants to create a unique art piece to include in their own ofrendas.
Traditionally, ofrendas are not put up until Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), which is celebrated on Nov. 1. For this reason, the Hispanic Heritage Month celebrations will extend to Nov. 1, when, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., Community & Belonging staff will set up their own ofrenda and invite MC community members to contribute to it with the names of their own loved ones.
Rodriguez has led the charge on planning these programs, and she says she’s excited for the Latinx community to be represented on campus this month in a way that is more thoughtful and purposeful than what she experienced during her time as a student.
“I think it’s phenomenally important to see your culture on your campus,” Rodriguez said. “So often I think that schools, and specifically offices like this, may just try and check the boxes that they need to check, but I don’t want programs where we did them just because we needed to look a certain way. So there’s some real intentionality behind trying to make it more than just cultural tourism.”
Hispanic Heritage Month is a time to celebrate Hispanic culture and recognize Hispanic influence and achievements in the U.S., but it is also a time to acknowledge the hurt that the Latinx community has experienced, she added. Rodriguez hopes to ensure that aspect of the month isn’t forgotten in the midst of the fun. She plans to set up a place for Latinx students to write down offenses they have experienced, and the responses will be a visual representation of the problems that the community continues to face.
“That’s not to make people feel bad, but it’s to help us understand. This is a celebration, and we are 100% celebrating, but we’re also letting you know there are still problems, and these things still happen.”
Written by Julia Jeffress ’25