Latino Awareness Month highlights ‘Many Faces’

When Luz Burgos ’09, one of the six members of the Ajua Campos Board, finished finals last spring, she still had school-related tasks to complete—she began planning November’s 19th annual Latino Awareness Month as early as July.

Burgos started setting dates for the month’s annual events, such as Convocation, Expressiones de Latinos and El Dia de los Trabajadores, and contacting possible speakers, as they vary from year to year. She even arranged for the cast of “Platanos and Collard Greens”—a hit off-Broadway romantic comedic play about an interracial couple—to perform at the University on Friday, Nov. 14.

“You can’t book theatre companies when you come back to Wesleyan, because it’s too short notice for them,” she explained. “If they are touring around campuses they have to spread out their tour in a way that is feasible. You can’t expect planning to happen late September when SBC has just opened up.”

Once back on campus in the fall, five underclassmen expressed interest in assisting Burgos in planning the logistics for the month and joined the Board.

“We’re trying to establish a way so it doesn’t all fall on one person or two people,” Luz said.

The members of Ajua Campos then selected this year’s theme: “Embracing Our Culture: The Many Faces of Latinos.”

“You can never have enough [awareness],” said Bulaong Ramiz ’11, a co-chair for the month. “Latino culture is not one thing.”

Lesly Alvarado ’11, another co-chair, commented on the month’s emphasis on campus outreach.

“We want to promote awareness of Latinos on campus and promote diversity,” Alvarado said. “We are not an exclusive community. We are trying to open up and be a part of the Wesleyan community.”

But while the Board aims to present their events to the entire University community, they noted that often their events are under-attended by non-students of color. They design the month so that they can share Latino culture with everyone, not only with the Latino population.

“The goal [of the month] is to make others more familiar with Latino culture, not just the stereotypes,” Burgos said. “You can’t categorize and break it down to one identity. It’s for Wesleyan to learn more. It’s kind of disappointing to see not a lot of non-students of color turn out.”

In addition to representing the diversity within and across Latino cultures, the month’s events seek to explore what it means to be interracial or “brown,” and to feel in between cultural identities.

“We group people together in black and white, not the spectrum that includes so many other people,” Burgos said. “Like with sexuality, there’s a spectrum when it comes to cultures and races, and there’s no talk of that…just having an African American studies department and Latino studies department is not enough.”

As November is Native American Awareness Month, the Board also attempted to tie these themes together in bringing in a unique speaker: Bobby Gonzales, a Taino Puerto Rican, who will speak about his multicultural background and the United States as a multicultural society on Friday Nov. 21.

“November [is] Native American month nationally, which was one of the reasons we are having Bobby Gonzales, recognizing indigenity in Latino culture,” Burgos said.

Burgos also commented on the fact that despite the University’s nickname as “Diversity University,” much of this supposed diversity is actually celebrated through student, not university, work.

“People forget that ’Diversity University’ is created by these months,” she said. “It’s not the University, it’s the students. Students are not recognized enough.”

While there are many upcoming events and lectures, this weekend is especially packed, including tonight’s play of “Platanos and Collard Greens,” which will be held in Crowell Concert Hall.

On Saturday night, La Casa will host “Café Frida,” a showcase of student artwork, with Latino snacks. A panel on Sunday will discuss “What does it mean to be Latino (a)?” at 8 p.m. at Malcolm X House, and on Tuesday, Pulitzer Prize winning Dominican-American writer Junot Diaz will speak (time and location to be announced).

Latino Awareness Month will culminate on Dec. 6, with Noche de Gala, a formal dance for students, alumni and staff.