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Latino heritage celebrated in Youngstown
YOUNGSTOWN
As dancers whirled on stage, their skirts of green, pink, red and yellow seemed to shift like a kaleidoscope.
Music blared, and the crowd of more than 100 shifted to the sound Saturday night during Latino Heritage Night at Horizon Science Academy on the city’s South Side.
The dancers from the Spanish Evangelical Church on South Avenue were the favorite part of the night for 7-year-old Shayla Berger, a Horizon student.
“I like the dancers,” she said smiling. Berger had taken the stage earlier with Horizon’s kindergarten, first- and second-grade students singing a medley of songs in Spanish.
The school-sponsored cultural program is important to students and their families, said Christina Fernandez, Berger’s aunt.
“It gives them education about their roots,” Fernandez said.
She said her niece is of mixed race, black and Puerto Rican, and she should learn about all parts of her heritage.
About 16 percent of Horizon’s 312 students identify as Latino or Hispanic, and even more identify as mixed-race, said Marin s Ramos, who teaches Spanish and organized the event.
“We’re trying to create awareness of every culture,” she said, later opening the program by reminding the audience: “We are not alone in this world.”
Ramos worked with students after school, teaching them traditional dances from Latin America. She said she doesn’t just teach the steps but the story and symbolism behind them.
Sierra Stephens, a seventh-grader, was one of the students who performed Saturday, but she said her favorite part of Latino Heritage Night is hearing and speaking another language.
“It’s been fun leaning Spanish,” said Stephens, who was the school’s alternate competitor at the local Spanish language spelling bee last year.
This was the second Latino Heritage Night, which has become an annual event, said principal Hasan Akkaya.
The charter school had help from Youngstown State University, which connected school officials with performers such as the Chilean Folkloric Dance Group from New Castle, singing group Trio Riquena and Peruvian dancers, Akkaya said.
Maggie McClendon, YSU’s assistant director for diversity-recruitment and admissions, said the university does many outreach activities.
“I hope [students] take away a sense of pride and a learning about their background, and they can pay it forward and teach their children about being Latino,” she said.