Cerritos College Student Programing Board honors Hispanic Heritage Month by hosting La Feria Latina event outside the Performing Arts North Stage on Sept. 27.
At the booths, they had games and activities and were giving free food to anyone who attended and participated. They had aguas frescas, tamales and churros as well as other snacks and prizes you could win.
Clubs from the school were encouraged to volunteer at this event and offer resources to students and they were even allowed to bring family and friends.
Alejandro Beltran was running the booth for UndocuFalcons at this event, it’s a program run by Cerritos that supports undocumented and dreamer students.
“I think this event is really important to show how inclusive this college is, I was given the different under-representative groups a chance to be representative and have their own space for their celebration, so I think this is great for our diverse body of students,” said Beltran.
“I think it brings people together because it’s not only open to that specific group, but it provides a little bit of understanding of other people’s cultures and you can definitely feel welcomed even if you’re not from that specific group.”
This event started at 11 a.m. and people were able to stop by until 3 p.m. It was a nice event, people were dancing and they even had mariachis which grabbed many people’s attention, you could tell people were having fun and enjoying it.
With the music and dancing bringing people to check out the event, it was quickly getting packed and people seemed very entertained and joyful.
Hailey Rivera a student at Cerritos as well as Senator of ASCC Student Government said, “I feel like everyone can express their culture, especially Latin culture because we don’t really get expressed that much.”
“Most of us are Hispanics and they always think Hispanics are lazy but we’re really not, we’re the life of the party.”
Autumn Whetsell had a booth at this event where she was able to show and sell some of her crochet items, later she participated in dancing at the event.
“Mexican culture is a part of our lives, it’s a part of a lot of people’s lives here at Cerritos a lot of people here are Mexican American. We just really want to share the culture of Mexican dance and that culture with everyone.”
“It brings people together through music and dance there are so many people here already and everyone loves to communicate with one another and just talk and get to know one another.”
While walking by you can hear people laughing and see them smiling. Hispanic culture has never been about leaving people out but about coming together as one big community.
