Committee plans to add new events to celebration

Students at UM will be given a chance to embrace and celebrate Miami’s cultural diversity with a twist.
Multicultural Student Affairs has organized various events to promote Hispanic Heritage Month and celebrate the contributions of Latin culture throughout the month of October.
“It always brings out such a great crowd because since people live here in Miami, they want to know more about the culture,” said sophomore Meghan Shephard, a member of the Hispanic Heritage Month committee. “This is a great way to get the students involved and to spread knowledge about Latino culture.”
The committee will continue its annual features, like Hispanic cuisine during Dorm Storm on Tuesday in the Mahoney/Pearson dining hall and Wednesday in the Hecht/Stanford dining hall.
“People are always going to the dining halls to get food anyway, so when they walk in they see this buffet line of Hispanic food,” Shephard said. “It is always very popular.”
Another staple event, Opening Ceremonies, will allow students to enjoy food and live performances held on the UC patio on Oct. 6.
In addition to these events, the Hispanic Heritage Month committee is introducing some new ones to their program.
“They have a new event ‘La Lengua,’” said Luz Paniagua, advisor of Multicultural Student Affairs. “There are different stations and at each station you learn something about the Spanish language. By the end, you should be able to say some sort of sentence [in Spanish]. They have a pronunciation station, a slang station and a pick-up line station.“
The last event, scheduled for Oct. 26, is “Feel the Ritmo,” where one can learn different Latin dance styles.
“We are trying to step outside of the boundary people would assume an event like this would have and reaching out more,” Shephard said.