Chapel Hill is home to a thriving Hispanic community, and from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, East celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month and all the members of this diverse group. The ECHO talked to different East students from across the Spanish-speaking world about their culture, celebrations and the issues facing their community (plus Shakira and chocolate-dipped churros).
Name: Camila Roque
Ethnicity: Mexican
How do you celebrate your heritage?
Before COVID-19 I went to festivals in Raleigh or Durham, where we would all just get together and have lots of food, music and dancing. And then separately we celebrate different holidays, like Three Kings Day and Cinco de Mayo.
How do you think East could better celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month?
In one of my Biomed classes, we did projects for Hispanic Heritage Month, and I thought that helped students learn more about it, as well as gain a deeper appreciation for our vibrancy.
Name: Ulcer “Eddy” Gerra
Ethnicity: Cuban
What are your concerns about using the term Hispanic to label your community?
There’s a huge difference between groups. A Cuban isn’t going to be similar to a Mexican or someone from Argentina—they’re all their own communities, and even within individual countries there are differences… so using one blanket term kind of erases their diversity.
How do you wish Hispanic Heritage was taught at East?
The same way all history is taught—it shouldn’t be, ‘Oh, now we’re going to celebrate Hispanic Heritage, then Black Heritage’… it should all be taught together.
Name: Ivonne Becerra-Morales
Ethnicity: Mexican
What does it mean to be Latina in Chapel Hill?
My family owns an ice cream shop, La Monarca Michoacana, and we’ll sometimes get contacted by programs specifically for Hispanic Heritage Month… Before COVID-19, we would take some of our popsicles and we didn’t charge anything, so people would be open about learning about our food and culture.
Thoughts on the Hispanic music playing in between classes?
I’m really proud of our school for having the people who played it—Jessie Mendoza Mateo and Michelle Osorio-Suarez. I’m also very impressed that they chose a variety of music from many different places.
Hispanic people are often stereotyped in the media. How would you like to change that?
There’s lots of things I would love to change about Hispanic stereotypes. We’re either viewed as very lazy or very hardworking, and so many people think that we come here and steal other people’s jobs, which is not even the case. I just feel like people should not be so close-minded about who we are and actually try to see who we really, really are, and why we’re here.
Main image courtesy of Carol M. Highsmith/Library of Congress; photos by Helen Katz/ECHO
