Students Create Community by Celebrating Heritage
By Rebecca Goldfine
“We were very intentional about making the Latin Heritage Month (LHM) collaborative, because this month can mean a lot of different things to different people,” said Carlos Hernandez Santiago ’27, copresident of the Latin American Students Organization (LASO).
“This is a special month for all of us,” added Melisa Vaca ’28, also a LASO copresident. “It was important we highlighted the traditions from all the different groups.”
In the end, the four-week campus program—September 15 to October 15—reflected the ideas and contributions from LASO, the Student Organization of Caribbean Alliance (SOCA), the Brazilian Student Association (BRASA), and Arianna Rodriguez, assistant director of the Center for Multicultural Life.
Together, they offered two festive kickoffs, talks, movie nights, a salsa dance class, and lots of food—including homemade quesitos and pastelillos de guayaba, fruity mocktails, açaí bowls, and Brazilian-style stroganoff.
Since coming to Bowdoin, Vaca said Latin Heritage Month has become more significant to her, each year growing more so. Growing up in the South Side of Chicago in a Latino neighborhood, she was immersed in these cultures. In that context, “you’re celebrating every day,” she said.
Brazilian students chartered a new group last year, the Brazilian Student Association, or BRASA. It’s part of an international organization that has college and university chapters around the world.
“As soon as I came to Bowdoin, I said, ‘We need this club,’” said Luiza Mariani Paiva Caldeira Brant ’29. Brant helped get BRASA up and running, and now serves as its president.
“The mission is to create this community of not just Brazilians, but also of people interested in Brazil— it's such a fascinating country,” she added.
Part of the group's regular programming is to hold a Portuguese table at Thorne, where faculty, staff, and students are welcome to have dinner together and speak their native language or practice an adopted one. Brant says the plan is to host a community table, too, to invite Portuguese speakers from beyond Bowdoin, including people from Brunswick’s Angolan immigrant community.
This fall, nine students also attended BRASA’s annual North American conference in Philadelphia. The conference offers opportunities to share research and to network, including with Brazilian companies, like banks and technology firms, looking to recruit Brazilian students.
“It was the first time we went,” Brant said. “We didn’t know what to expect, but we had so much fun. We bonded with Brazilians who go to Smith and Amherst. And Bowdoin had one of the biggest delegations there—it puts us on the map!”
Hernandez Santiago also said the month became more prominent for him when he arrived at Bowdoin from his Latino community in San Diego. Wanting to inject a bit of his own Mexican background into the mix of campus life, he said Latin Heritage Month—and the many events LASO holds throughout the year—helps cultivate a sense of home here for him and others.
Both Vaca and Hernandez Santiago said their work with LASO also reflects their interest in sharing their cultures with others.
“That is what I was focused on when I joined LASO, to plan events that allow students with Latino backgrounds to express their cultures and also allow us to invite others with non-Latino backgrounds to learn more,” Vaca said.
Rodriguez said that Latin Heritage Month events at Bowdoin tend to attract students from diverse backgrounds—though the student organizers said they’d be happy to see that number grow.
“A really cool thing about these events is they’re created by specific groups and for specific identity groups and cultural groups, but they’re open to all,” Rodriguez said. “And I feel students from a bunch of different backgrounds go.”
She added that Latin Heritage Month, which honors a huge part of the world and millions of people, at Bowdoin tends to bring “students together from different parts of campus into the room, where good things happen and friendships emerge.”
Among the many events held during the month, Hernandez Santiago singled out a visit from Sebastian Rea, an Ecuadorian filmmaker and screenwriter who grew up in Queens, New York.
“We brought him here as a voice that's really working to advocate for Latin culture and heritage through his work,” Hernandez Santiago said.
Rea, both in his talk and over a dinner with students, spoke about his upbringing, coming out as queer to his family, and how people with backgrounds like his are not often seen in mainstream media.
“He gave a lot of students hope,” Rodriguez said. “You might not be the majority or the most represented person in a space, you might even be the first ever in some spaces, but let that be the thing that guides and pushes you rather than stops you.”
Luiza Mariani Paiva Caldeira Brant ’29, president of BRASA, said her group's mission is to bring Brazil to Bowdoin. For the kickoff, they created a mini Festa de Junina, a June holiday to honor three Catholic saints while celebrating rural life and the harvest.
For another LHM event, BRASA partnered with the downtown business Bay Bowls, which is owned by a Brazilian couple, to hand out 100 free açaí bowls. They used the opportunity to talk to students about the importance of the Amazon fruit to Brazil. “There was a huge line, way over 100 people came,” Brant said.
SOCA held its own kickoff event, serving fancy mocktails. They had plans to watch a movie but in the end played games and chatted, Rodriguez said. “It was a great opportunity for upperclass students to meet first-years.”
Vaca said she loved every event from the month. “It's hard to choose just one! I feel really attached to all of them.” But she settled on naming the Cultural Showcase as her favorite. The final event of the month, and the first time LASO has offered one, the Showcase presented photography, paintings, drawings, poetry, music, and other artwork from students of Latin descent.
“I’ve wanted to do that since I got to Bowdoin,” Vaca said. “It was very much about demonstrating talent and expressing yourself.”
Vaca was also quick to point out the month does not conclude LASO, BRASA, or SOCA activity on campus—not even close. “One thing about us, we’re doing something year-round, there really is no break, we try to keep that culture alive,” she said.