On Tuesday, the Hispanic organizations of Heramana y Hermano (H & H) and Sigma Iota Alpha (SIA) Hispanic/Latina sorority jointly hosted the “I Love Mi Gente” event to close off Hispanic Heritage month. 

The “I Love Mi Gente” event consisted of a panel of Hispanic/Latino students at A-State representing the H & H and SIA cohorts, with students Jade Garibayd and Luka Muñoz representing H & H, students Gaby Alonso and Cristal Martinez representing SIA, and panel moderator Henrry Perez from the H & H.

The panel included a series of questions that aimed to bring light to the cultural topics considered by the Hispanic and Latino community to be sensitive or go beyond the surface of the stereotypical or popular portrayal of the culture in society and the media. The student advocates that represented ‘I Love Mi Gente’ focused on bringing profound talk to hard conversations within the cultural community regarding the realities of Hispanic/Latino and immigrant culture. 

Garibayd, president of Hermana y Hermano and a junior finance major from Los Angeles, said bringing awareness to the outskirts of Hispanic/Latino culture to the broader community is important. 

“I hope the people who attend learn and get a better feeling on how our culture is, because I feel most people see it as a fun, colorful culture with a lot of fun traditions and events, but they don’t really see deep down how it is or how other people experience it, because not everything that happens within open doors happens within closed doors,” Garibayd said.

Another principal motivation of the “I Love Mi Gente” event was to address proper education, acknowledgement and reparation of hurtful stigmas within the Hispanic and Latino community and at A-State. The event panelists discussed the importance of addressing their struggles as being Hispanic or Latino in the United States, and the difficulties surrounding their identification with two different cultural identities.

Many of the panelists, identifying as Mexican-American, shared their experiences with cultural ostracization in their double identity. The speakers discussed their confrontation with being “too Mexican” or “too Hispanic” for American culture, whilst not being “Mexican enough” to identify as “a real Mexican.” 

Luka Muñoz, a sophomore international relations major and H & H affiliate, said a main concern of their parents is keeping them connected to their cultural background.

“My family was very scared of me becoming Americanized, so they kind of were like, ‘you are going to be Mexican,’” Muñoz said. “They were just like, ‘look, you might be living in America, but there’s the saying ‘mexicanos nacen donde nos de la chingada gana’, or ‘Mexicans are born wherever the fuck we want.’”

With the partnership of this event with the A-State Multicultural Center (MC), the presenting students were provided a safe space to express their views and distress among other Hispanic or interested student peers. 

Latika Johnson, director of the Multicultural Center, said the event situated the campus as inclusive and welcoming to everyone, regardless of background, culture and experiences.

“We’re all connected as Red Wolves, whether you’re a student, faculty member, staff member, administrator, alumnus, or even a community member,” Johnson stated. “To me, this is the essence of what it means to be a Red Wolf, we embody this throughout our work here in the Multicultural Center.”

Categories: News