Students at Faith Christian Academy had the opportunity to explore a variety of cultures last week as they gathered for the annual Hispanic Heritage Festival at their school.
Each participating student had a display of either a Hispanic country or a prominent artist and spent weeks researching their assigned topic to share their knowledge with the rest of the school. Many cooked and brought authentic cuisine from their countries to share with the other students, offering tastes of the world in the festive event.
“Last year was my first year here and we’ve grown the festival since then,” Keila Vega, the Spanish and Art teacher at Faith Christian, said. “I’m from Puerto Rico and when I started here, the Hispanic Heritage Festival was one of the things they really spent a lot of time talking about. I teach third grade through 12th grade, but the ones presenting are sixth grade through 12th graders. They’ve worked really hard to learn everything they can about their country or artist and had to learn not just the background, but some of the language as well.”
Vega came to Faith Christian Academy following Hurricane Maria and Nicole Williams, head of school, said they were fortunate to be able to have her come on board.
Many of the students were able to look to their own family trees for inspiration on the project, drawing from their roots to add depth to the presentations. Guatemala, Columbia, Ecuador, Honduras, Cuba and countless other countries were on display and some of their greatest artists were represented for all to see.
“We hold this event every year because it’s important to us to represent the heritage and culture of all nations,” Williams said. “Our students all have so many different heritages that it just makes sense to make sure we take the time to learn about their history and expand our student’s knowledge.”
As grades were called one by one to come to the festival, the participating students gathered small crowds around their displays and laid out everything from the history to the background and culture of their countries. Some passed out rice and beans, others had milk-based drinks and some even brought soup to share.
Destiny Zamora, a 10th grader, presented on Panama. She said one of the coolest things she learned about the country was that it had a famous baseball player, Mariano Rivera, that played for the New York Yankees.
“I think the food and the traditions they have really were some of the most interesting things to learn about,” Zamora said. “I made sancocho (a stew) for people to try… I really like the festival because we get to learn about so many different cultures. I’m part Hispanic on my father’s side of the family, we’re descended from Spain, and I just love learning about all the different cultures.”
Na’Daniel F. Perez Torres presented on Puerto Rico. Though he had a wide berth of knowledge on the country, one of his favorite tidbits he picked up from his research was the fact that during the holidays, they celebrate the coming of the Three Wise Men and will leave hay or grass under the bed for their camels. He also was intrigued to learn more about the prevalence of boxing and baseball in the country.
“I find (the festival) pretty cool because you’re able to walk around and see and learn about the different cultures,” he said. “I made rice and beans and a lot of people have stopped by and said they loved it. It’s been a really good experience and I think people are learning a lot.”