Bethel Cel­e­brates Na­tional His­panic Her­itage Month

MISHAWAKA–– This year, Bethel put on sev­eral events to cel­e­brate Na­tional His­panic Her­itage Month (NHHM). NHHM takes place from Sept. 15 through Oct. 15, rather than dur­ing a sin­gle month of the year, be­cause most in­de­pen­dence days of His­panic coun­tries fall within that time frame.

Ac­cord­ing to Anna Letens, the stu­dent en­gage­ment co­or­di­na­tor, Bethel hopes to con­tinue hav­ing cel­e­bra­tion ac­tiv­i­ties through­out the en­tire month in fu­ture years. This year, the ac­tiv­i­ties pri­mar­ily took place all in one week­end to des­ig­nate full fo­cus. With a shorter time to cel­e­brate, it can be done with more qual­ity. How­ever, for the en­tire month, there are flags and art­work rep­re­sented in the lower hall­way of the aca­d­e­mic cen­ter near the stu­dent life of­fices. 

“Maybe one day we will be able to cel­e­brate it for a full month,” Letens said. 

Robert Or­tiz, res­i­dent di­rec­tor and stu­dent co­or­di­na­tor for the Di­ver­sity, Eq­uity and In­clu­sion (DE&I) coun­cil, said that they did it in a short time pe­riod so they could do it well.

Or­tiz’s first year on staff, there was no cel­e­bra­tion for NHHM, so he took ini­tia­tive in get­ting it started, as he felt pas­sion­ately about it. 

“Since then, it has be­come some­thing every­body is fo­cus­ing on,” Or­tiz said.

 All of this was achieved through the ef­forts of the DE&I coun­cil, through the stu­dents on the board and through the co­op­er­a­tion and par­tic­i­pa­tion of every­one on cam­pus. Or­tiz said that the goal is to make sure every­thing is rep­re­sented, cel­e­brated and ad­dressed on cam­pus.

This year, ac­tiv­i­ties for NHHM in­cluded a spe­cial Fri­day morn­ing chapel on Oct. 1. Staff from the Mir­a­cle Cen­ter, lo­cated in Chicago, came to do a spe­cial per­for­mance, high­light­ing His­panic cul­ture. That evening there were danc­ing lessons, fol­lowed by live mu­sic in the Din­ing Com­mons from a swing danc­ing Chicago-based band. To close the week­end, there was a show­ing of the mu­si­cal, “In the Heights” in the Egle Lounge. Ac­cord­ing to Or­tiz, there was a good turnout and par­tic­i­pa­tion from stu­dents.

The goal of NHHM is to cel­e­brate dif­fer­ent cul­tures and ed­u­cate stu­dents who do not know much about other cul­tures rep­re­sented on cam­pus.

“The goal is to high­light some amaz­ing cul­tures in the world [that] are also rep­re­sented on our cam­pus,” Letens said. “Our pop­u­la­tion shows those num­bers.” 

Or­tiz also said that this is a great chance for stu­dents to learn about their peers.

“It’s an op­por­tu­nity for the stu­dents to ex­pe­ri­ence a cul­ture of an­other,” Or­tiz said. “It gives us a chance and op­por­tu­nity to ex­plain who we are. It opens up com­mu­ni­ca­tion for peo­ple to ask why.”