Hispanic Heritage Month occurs every year from September 15th to October 15th.  Hispanic Heritage Month was created in 1968 and seeks to celebrate the histories, cultures and contributions of American citizens whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central and South America.

For the first time, through the leadership of Nicole Morillo (CSA’s Middle School Spanish Teacher), members across different departments at Christina Seix Academy came together to brainstorm ideas for celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month. In a school where 34% of our students and families identify as Latino / Hispanic, we know it is very important to not only celebrate our students’ heritage, but to also provide continuous opportunities to learn about about their heritage as well.

Throughout the month, we had Spanish speaking families across different grades visit their child’s classroom to read a book to the class in Spanish. All classrooms also participated in our first ever Guerra De Las Puertas: each classroom was assigned a country and students, parents, and teachers came together to celebrate an aspect of that country’s culture. We also had several visitors come to the Middle School as well. Members of historically Latino fraternity Lambda Theta Phi and sorority Lambda Theta Alpha spoke to our 4th and 5th graders about the power of community and finding a support group. Mr. Pelaez, father of Jezrael Pelaez, who runs  a family owned Tae Kwon Do school, gave a keynote speech and spoke of the positive contributions of Latinos in our community.

The closing event for the month was our first ever parent-child dance. Students worked for several weeks on honing their salsa skills with Byron Avila (Associate Director of Technology and Innovation) and Valentina Rodriguez (Lead Residential Life Educator) leading up to the dance. Students got to showcase their hard work and practice on Friday, September 29th with families, faculty, staff and our founder Christina Seix cheering them on. As a community, we danced the afternoon away and enjoyed some empanadas, churros, and other traditional Latin dishes provided by Chef Salvatore Riccobono and his culinary team. This month was the epitome of a community effort; support from faculty, staff, leadership, students and families resulted in a month full of fun, community celebrations, and sabor Latino!