Hispanic Heritage Month

Hispanic and Latinx Patriots share their cultural touchstones for Hispanic Heritage Month

Sarah Holland — Wed, 11 Oct 2023 22:50:26 +0000

Hispanic and Latinx Patriots share their cultural touchstones for Hispanic Heritage Month Sarah Holland Wed, 10/11/2023 - 18:50

National Hispanic Heritage Month, celebrated from September 15 through October 15 each year, recognizes the contributions and influence of Hispanic and Latinx Americans to United States history, culture, and achievements.

Mason enrolls and graduates the Mid-Atlantic region’s largest population of Hispanic and Latinx students, and we celebrate the varied and diverse contributions of our students every day through our 90% acceptance rate, an above-average graduation rate, and more than 400 student organizations.

Meet some of our students, faculty, and staff who represent the varied experience of Hispanic and Latinx Americans.

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Conoce la Universidad George Mason

Stories from our Hispanic and Latinx community

Hispanic and Latinx Patriots share their cultural touchstones for Hispanic Heritage Month
October 11, 2023
New Mason summer program shows high school students the value of a STEM degree
August 15, 2023
Film festival explores ‘the way of life’ in various Spanish-speaking countries
September 7, 2022
Mason teams with Dominion Energy, HACU for Summer Bridge Program
July 27, 2022
Hispanic Heritage Month: Faculty Spotlight
October 12, 2021

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Film festival explores ‘the way of life’ in various Spanish-speaking countries

Colleen Rich — Wed, 07 Sep 2022 17:12:48 +0000

Film festival explores ‘the way of life’ in various Spanish-speaking countries Colleen Rich Wed, 09/07/2022 - 13:12

In an effort to expose students to some of the social and political problems of the vast Spanish-speaking world, ��AV’s Department of Modern and Classical Languages is hosting a Spanish Film Festival that is free and open to the public.

The festival, ongoing through November 2 and coinciding with Spanish Heritage Month, features five films. Javier Avilés, assistant professor and the festival’s organizer, selected the films with the support of some of his colleagues in the department, and specifically the Spanish Program.

“I picked five films to help students better understand some of the challenges, the way of life, and the diversity within the Spanish-speaking world,” said Avilés, who is at Mason as a Spanish lecturer of the Spanish Agency of International Cooperation and Development (MAEC-AECID) under the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation

Avilés said he and the department selected films featuring a range of different places, such as Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Southern California, to reflect the growing diversity of Spanish-speaking students and professors at Mason.

“What excites me the most about this festival is the representation,” said Fabi Rosales, a freshman computer science major who was born in Puerto Rico and is half Mexican. “Anytime there's a movie that takes place in a Spanish-speaking country, the characters are usually either on vacation or it's a paradise. But we are more than our beaches. We are our own people with our own struggles and stories.”

Rosales said she plans to see all the films, but she’s most interested in two: “Adriana's Pact,” in which the director, Lissette Orozco, tells the story of her aunt who is accused of belonging to the secret police during Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship in Chile; and “Here and There,” written and directed by Antonio Méndez Esparza, about the return of a Mexican migrant to his hometown after working in the United States.

Thanks to the support of Pragda, a distributor for the newest Latin American, Spanish, and Latinx cinema, Avilés reviewed more than 100 films that he said would otherwise be difficult to obtain for viewing. It was important, he said, that the chosen films were those students could connect with and would prompt educational conversations.

For example, “Vicenta,” a film concerning the right to abortion in Argentina, was chosen in part because “it is a subject that is also in debate in American society right now,” Avilés said.

The other goal of the festival is to show students a different way of producing films as art.

“It’s very difficult to get access to these kinds of movies from other countries,” Avilés said. “This festival can give students a different perspective on cinema and how stories can be told.”

Noah White, a sophomore majoring in special education and minoring in Spanish, said he’s attending the festival to improve his Spanish language proficiency and be introduced to different cultures, but also to get a glimpse of different film techniques.

This festival was organized once before by Professors Esperanza Roman-Mendoza and Lisa Rabin in 2015. The contributions of Pragda, as well as SPAIN arts & culture, a program that promotes Spanish culture in the United States, have made this second Spanish Film Festival possible, Avilés said.

Some professors in Mason’s Spanish Program are offering their students extra credit for attending, Avilés said.

For more information about the festival, visit here.

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Hispanic Heritage Month: Faculty Spotlight

Andrew J Schappert — Tue, 12 Oct 2021 14:51:23 +0000

Hispanic Heritage Month: Faculty Spotlight Andrew J Schappert Tue, 10/12/2021 - 10:51

As we close out Hispanic Heritage Month, the College of Education and Human Development’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI) wants to honor the contributions of faculty members of Hispanic/Latinx heritage.

ODI recently sat down and interviewed Associate Professor Dr. Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera. Dr. Correa-Cabrera is a migrant and border scholar in the Schar School of Policy and Government. Correa-Cabrera was born and raised in Mexico, near Mexico City. She was inspired and influenced by her parents, both of whom pursued graduate degrees.

Correa-Cabrera: "I define myself as Mexican because I was born and raised in Mexico and what it means to be Mexican… I mean it’s a lot of things. We have in Mexico, a particular history, we have a particular culture. That you know manifests itself in having certain type of food, listening to certain songs, and we become excited when we remember our history, periods of time that have made us who we are but, at the same time, Mexico is a very diverse country. I was born in the State of Mexico, I was raised, most of my life in Mexico City. I studied in the United States for my doctorate and I have lived in the United States for the past 20 years. So that has also helped me to value the place where I come from—my country, my traditions, my food, my songs, my language."

When asked how her culture influenced her work, there was no hesitation in her responses. The very nature of her work is so interwoven in her personal experiences, painting a beautiful picture of how pride in heritage and her quest for shedding light on powerful issues was so impactful to her work. During her interview there was an energy that radiated as she shared with great passion the work that she does.

Correa-Cabrera: "Totally it has impacted my work completely. My areas of expertise are immigration in the United States, global migration, migration from the northern triangle to the U.S.-Mexico border. I consider myself as a border scholar. Always thinking about myself as somebody who is in the middle of the United States and Mexico, in this “third country” that is the U.S.-Mexico border, so my area of expertise is the U.S.-Mexico border and Mexico border relations and Mexican relations in general. The border is more than that, there were moments of fear, there were moments of anxiety, moments of sadness when you see a number of events taking place.

Border communities are in solidarity with the world in many ways. The border is a beautiful place. The border is a place of beautiful people; there in solidarity with those who need them the most. So, of the border communities, they are the ones that pay the highest price but do it very gladly. Though it's been an amazing journey along the border, an amazing journey to study immigration, and an amazing journey also because I understand it. I am Mexican and I am an American citizen now.”

When given the opportunity to reflect on their development Dr. Correa-Cabrera offered the following advice:

Correa-Cabrera: “To be more open, because I suffered a lot for not being open. It took me a while to adapt to new realities, the complexity of the culture in a third country—I talk about the borderlands as a third country—being more open about what this society lives through. Because you come from your own background, from your own traditions, from your own culture, from your own country, and you go somewhere else, and it takes time to adapt because you're closed [off], because you think that the place where you are from has taught you everything and you feel like a stranger at the beginning, so if I had advice to give myself when I was younger, I would say, just open your eyes, this is going to be fantastic.”

As the interview came to a close, one final question was asked—what advice would you give students and faculty of Hispanic/Latinx heritage?

Correa-Cabrera: “Compared to what previous generations had, we have a lot of opportunities. Even though we are underrepresented in many ways, even though there are some limitations of the system that put us in disadvantage, this is a time of opportunities, and we know the power we have. And we know that if we got here, it’s because we work harder than anybody else. It’s been difficult for Latinos in the United States to make a way in this society. Now, we are very powerful and we just have to understand that and we’ll fight for our rights, and this is the time to do it, and now there is more openness for inclusiveness, for diversity. You know different historical processes have happened very recently that have led to greater paths for diversity and inclusion that have happened in this country. So what I would tell everybody is we have to stop being fearful, we have to fight for our rights and now our voice matters more now than any other time.”

To learn more about Correa-Cabrera, please visit here and be sure to support her book publications.

Dr. Correa-Cabrera (Ph.D. in Political Science, The New School for Social Research) is an Associate Professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government, ��AV. Her areas of expertise are Mexico-U.S. relations, organized crime, immigration/migration, border security, social movements and human trafficking. She was the Principal Investigator of a research grant to study organized crime and trafficking in persons in Central America and along Mexico’s eastern migration routes, supported by the Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.

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Schar School News October 2021