CASA’s Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration at Southwest Key

Dancers at Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration - Photo from CASA

Hispanic Heritage Month celebrates the vast culture and traditions of U.S residents who trace their roots to various countries such as Spain, Mexico and the Spanish-speaking nations of Central America, South America and the Caribbean. Last Saturday, CASA of Travis County held its First Annual Hispanic Heritage celebration for its youth and volunteers at Southwest Key’s Centro de Familia in East Austin. Volunteers  helped them connect with their own culture and educated them about other cultures. Children were introduced to the  environments of various Latin American countries.

Loteria at Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration - Photo from CASA

Food has often been the center point of family gatherings and events in the Latino culture. One former CASA youth came to share his own food heritage. Edwin is originally from Honduras and for the event he prepared baleadas, a traditional Honduran street food. Edwin filled these flour tortillas with refried black beans and mantequilla (a Honduran sour cream) and topped them with hot sauce for all the participants to try.

Participants were able to sample delicious traditional foods and were entertained by Southwest Key Ballet Folklorico adult and youth dancers with a beautiful live performance, elaborate costumes and loud ‘gritos’ or yells. One of the CASA youth even joined in the fun by sharing his own grito. Evelina Solis emceed and additional performances included Brazillian Forro music, Salsa and break dancing.

Cultural Display at Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration - Photo from CASA

Guests learned about Dia De Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) which is a holiday celebrated thru out Latin America. The holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died. It is particularly celebrated in Mexico, where it attains the quality of a National Holiday.  Participants did video blogging with Latinitas which is a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering young Latinas through media and technology.  They played games of Loteria, a Mexican game of chance, similar to Bingo, but using images on a deck of cards instead of plain numbers on ping pong balls.  There was a station to create ‘papel picado,’ and many other activities throughout the event. Southwest Key looks forward to future community events being held at El Centro De Familia.  

Click here for photos of the event.

-Angelica Noyola, Community Builder, Southwest Key Programs, anoyola@swkey.org

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