SEL fiesta fundraiser donates to Amigos
by Jesús Jiménez
The Earlham community celebrated the Latino Festival carnival-style on Saturday with a delicious dinner in Comstock room at 5:30 and ended the night with a vibrant party at Furnas House, better known as Spanish House. The Sociedad de Estudiantes Latinos (SEL) put together the event in hopes of sharing the Hispanic and Latino-American culture with the Earlham community. The convenors of SEL are Visiting Instructor Maria Inés Cruz-Artieda, senior Janny Concha Urday Zaa and sophomore Anica Nishiyama.The benefits from Latin Fest go to Amigos, a community group that helps Latino-Americans and Spanish speakers from Richmond learn English and get settled into the community.
“Earlham students offer their services as tutors to help the Latino community in Richmond learn English,” explained Cruz-Artieda.
“Latin Fest has become a tradition at Earlham,” said Concha Urday Zaa. “We started about three years ago, and have been helping Amigos since. We have this festival every April. We are also open to helping other Richmond groups who need a hand.”
The theme for this year’s Latin Fest was Carnival.
Students form a line, waiting eagerly to sample delicious, authentic foods prepared by SEL members.
“We chose the Carnival theme because in our countries, the parties are usually colorful, musical and with lots of dancing,” said Cruz-Artieda. “We wanted to represent Latin culture, but without singling out a single country. Color, music and dancing are really important in parties from Latin countries.”
The delicious food included tamales, arroz, pollo rostizado and agua de horchata. Along with the delicious food, there was also an entertainment show from freshmen Ricardo Garciaherreros Quiñones and Nora Minerva.
“Ricardo had been giving Salsa dance lessons at Spanish house and he and Nora provided some entertainment with a dance of Merengue during dinner,” said Cruz-Artieda.
The entire festival is usually celebrated at Comstock, but this year the party took place in Spanish House. “We liked Spanish house better, because it seemed like a more family-type setting,” said Concha Urday Zaa. “It was great. We had all types of music: salsa, reggaeton, meringue and more. It was unfortunate, though, that the party ended so early at 1 a.m.!”
SEL consists of about 20 members, and encourages anybody who is interested to join.
“EC is a very diverse place, and SEL is a great way to share our culture with others,” said Concha Urday Zaa. “We welcome anyone who is interested in our culture or the language to join.”
SEL made an impressive $400 to donate to Amigos.
“We would like to thank everyone who was at the Latin festival and everyone who helped put it together,” added Concha Urday Zaa. “We hope that you all continue to help us and assist in our future events!”
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