Latinx Student Union Celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month

With a stepped-up schedule of events from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, students are sharing their backgrounds and cultures with peers across campus. 

From an event sharing the food and cultures of different Latin American countries last week to dance lessons at the Johnson Fitness Center on Friday, Oct. 2, the Latinx Student Union has offered a variety of ways for Washington College students to engage with their members’ various heritages this month.

“We’re trying to do a bunch of activities to create community,” said LSU secretary Sofia Garcia ’28, who personally invited students in Hodson Hall to join  in worry doll making on Sept. 30 in the Egg. “Especially for Hispanic Heritage Month, we wanted to do a lot of different events.”

Worry dolls are a Guatemalan tradition and are given to children in a variety of sizes, according to LSU Co-President Daniela Amores Urrea ’28, whose family came from the Central American country. She had several growing up and says they’re a good fit for college students as well.

“It’s a little doll that you tell your worries to and put under your pillow,” Amores Urrea said. “It takes your worries away. It helps you with your anxiety and makes you more confident."

During the event, students used a variety of craft materials to create their own worry dolls while listening to music in a festive environment and talking with each other and LSU organizers.  

Taking breaks from making the dolls, Garcia, Amores Urrea, and Co-President Johan Cardenas-Nuñez '28 all mentioned the previous week’s event called “Mi Tierra” as a great example of their successful outreach.  

Members of the club set up tables in Hodson Hall to share information about the countries their families are from, highlighting the diversity that is sometimes overlooked when U.S. culture groups peoples under an expansive Hispanic or Latinx umbrella. Many students stopped to enjoy food and ask questions about the displays.

Cardenas-Nuñez, who is of Peruvian descent, noted that the differences among the cultures lend beauty to the collective Hispanic identity, and that certain common threads—such as the colors and textures shared by the Guatemalan worry dolls’ clothes and Peruvian textiles—speak to a shared indigenous heritage for people from Central and South America.  

Both Cardenas-Nuñez and Amores Urrea said that the events LSU holds during Hispanic Heritage Month and throughout the year are their way to preserve a community on the Washington College campus. Coming from Sterling, Virginia, and Montgomery County, Maryland, Cardenas-Nuñez and Amores Urrea attended high schools where the majority of students were Latinx, and while they sought out Washington College and the Eastern Shore in a conscious choice to be in a new environment and grow personally, coming to a predominantly white institution was still an adjustment.

“When I first came to this school, it was a culture shock for me. I felt out of place. I felt weird about it. I didn’t know what to do,” Cardenas-Nuñez said. But passing by a Latinx Student Union interest meeting their first year, they decided to stop in. “They made me feel at home. They gave me a sense of belonging. They gave me a sense of stability and a place at this college.”

The group served a similar role for Amores Urrea when she started at Washington, also feeling uncomfortable and left out.  

“LSU made me feel like I belong here and there is a place for me here,” she said. “That’s what we try to do with LSU. We try to create the community and the fun aspect so everybody can feel there is a place for them here.”

— Mark Jolly-Van Bodegraven