Latino Heritage Month 2011

It has taken me more time than I am willing to admit to decide whether or not to do another Latino Blog Challenge. The problem is that I haven't been able to come up with 30 new topics. Not to mention that I am more busy this year as opposed to last year. What I do intend on doing is to post strictly on Latino Heritage related things during this month. This may not be a challenge, but I intend on writing about what I learned this month as well as the various things that are happening at Syracuse University.

First and foremost, I am facilitating four workshops on the PBS documentary Black in Latin America. This was a phenomenal documentary that aired last spring which brought to light many things. I posted a blog about Peru in particular. The workshops are basically viewing each episode and then having a conversation afterwards. I will pose some critical questions about each to engage the audience. The flyer above is something that I want to remember because I do not get a chance to do things like this very often.

I am happy that I do get this opportunity because last year I contributed to this month by being the keynote speaker at Utica and it should only be right that I do something at the very school I work for this year. But this is not the only thing that I am involved with this year. I have been working hard to promote Fiesta Latina coming up on September 23 with our featured guest, Frank Negron. I remember about 2 years ago he came up to a festival that the city of Syracuse was having and he rocked the place out. I had tweeted him if he would be interested ever coming back to play for the University and he said he would. That started the ball rolling in terms of trying to get the funds and the planning down. I am excited that he is performing at the Schine Student Center. He will be our biggest Salsa artist to date on this campus.

This year we have two commemorative speakers that I had the pleasure of selecting. The first is a very good friend of mine Carmen Mojica. She has guessed blogged here before and she currently has two books out. One is Hija de Mi Madre and the other is Odas de la Mujer de Miel. I would suggest everyone support her and her writings. I am looking forward to her lecture. The other woman is Michele Carlo, author of Fish out of Aqua. I read this book in March and it is fantastic, so much so that I needed her to talk about her experiences as a Latina growing in New York City. I will do a book review in the upcoming weeks.

Finally, I am beginning my Being Afro Latino Project. I announced this on my tumblr account. The first stage is looking for a few people who are willing to help with posting on the on that blog as well as on the twitter account. I have come to realize that two people (me and Bianca) cannot represent all Afro Latinos in our works. Opening it up to people is the best way to go. So the message is this: 

Are you interesting in being a contributor to the Being Afro Latino Project? We are looking for intelligent and willing volunteers to post various pictures and articles on the Latineg@s Tumblr account as well at the @BeingAfroLatino Twitter account. If you are interested leave us an inbox message stating why you think you would be a great asset to the team!

This will be a good month!