Albright College’s interdisciplinary
Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies and the
Hispanic Center of Reading collaborated to present a festival
of events aimed at showcasing various aspects of Latino culture.
Hispanic Heritage Month, which ran from September 15 to October
15, was established in 1988 by Congress. September 15 marks
the anniversary of independence for five Hispanic countries
– Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Hondorus and Nicaragua.
Mexico achieved independence on September 16 and Chile on
September 18.
The festival featured music, film, theatre, a community discussion
and more while providing participants the opportunity to learn
about the rich Latino culture in the United States. The City
of Reading, Pa. itself has a Latino population of about 37
percent.
One of the highlights of the festival was a poetry reading
and workshop by internationally known poet, writer and Pushcart
Prize winner Jimmy Santiago Baca. He was a featured poet on
Bill Moyer’s PBS series, The Language of Life,
and recently released A Place to Stand, a memoir
of his childhood on farms in New Mexico, in orphanages and
detention centers, and years as a drug dealer.
Betsy Kiddy, director of the Center for Latin American &
Caribbean Studies, said collaborating with the Hispanic Center
of Reading to put together events for Hispanic Heritage Month
benefited everyone involved. She was especially pleased with
the Community Forum on bilingual education. "The forum
was so successful it will serve as a model that we can build
on in future years for open discussions on important issues
in the Latino community, the Albright community and the community-at-large."
The Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies recently
received a $120,000 Title IV grant that is being used to integrate
teaching about Latin America into a broader range of disciplines
in the College and to more fully integrate the Caribbean into
the interdisciplinary Latin American Studies Program.
The project supports the College’s strategic goal of
enhancing Albright’s unique strengths in interdisciplinary
education with innovative programs that expand opportunities
for students to think beyond traditional disciplinary approaches.
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"The
forum was so successful it will serve as a model that we
can build on in future years for open discussions on important
issues in the Latino community, the Albright community and
the community-at-large."
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