La Casa Hispana welcomes Hispanic Heritage Month
Written by Meghan Hoodhood, Oct 17, 2011, 0 Comments
Marking the start of Hispanic Heritage Month, La Casa Hispana, USFSP’s Spanish club, co-hosted its first event for the new society, culture and language department.
The event, which took place at the Campus Grind, offered homemade Hispanic food, a few words by professors and fellowship among club members.
The documentary “Breaking the Maya Code” was featured and provided by Maya script expert Gabrielle Vail, adjunct professor at USFSP.
“The intensity of the Mayan language was so unexpected, and really quite mind-blowing,” said Audra Hearne, junior anthropology major.
The society, culture and language department now combines the programs of anthropology, world languages, criminology and interdisciplinary social sciences. As one of the first events to encompass the new department, La Casa Hispana members represented a variety of majors at the event.
“There is a lot of overlap in student interests and you really can’t separate language and culture,” said Nora Gaunt, president of La Casa Hispana.
Although the club admits has been slightly disorganized in the past, this semester it is working to create an environment that will bring more people to its events, with hopes to be more involved in the community.
“We try to make our events relaxed and social with real substance so people have fun and get good information. Hispanic culture is immensely diverse and consists of a plethora of different subgroups and languages,” Gaunt said.
Future plans for events include playing board games in Spanish and holding a workshop with Vail for students to interactively work on decoding Mayan hieroglyphs on their own.
“We want to foster and peak interest in the students,” said Dana Parkinson, vice president of La Casa Hispana.
The club believes that taking learning outside the classroom relaxes students and opens up more opportunities for them to improve their knowledge of language. Jay Sokolovsky, anthropology professor and department chair, offered extra credit to his students for attending the event and watching the documentary.
“For getting jobs, one of the best things undergraduates can do is learn another language,” Sokolovsky said.
Students also want learning a language to be something that will translate into their everyday lives.
“Learning previous knowledge is important to sustain culture and a way of life,” said William Nicks, political science and psychology major.
Photos by Chris Campbell
