The United States’ Latinx Heritage Month is celebrated from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15. This year, Karolina Marquez-Gil ’17, co-leader of Grinnell’s Student Organization of Latinxs known as SOL, is helping to organize the College’s celebration.
“The whole point of Latinx Heritage Month is just to promote awareness of Latinx culture throughout the United States so that people could actually celebrate their identity,” Marquez-Gil said.
SOL has already begun holding events and plans to end the month by hosting their annual festival celebrating various Latinx cultures. Last Friday, SOL started off the month with a Karaoke event. Other events include a panel on the Colombia peace accord.
“George Lopez — not the comedian — was actually involved in making that deal and is coming to speak,” Marquez-Gil said.
In addition, this Saturday, SOL is hosting a retreat to Des Moines to attend the Latino Festival, which is, according to Marquez-Gil, “the biggest ethnic festival in Iowa.”
SOL plans to end the month by hosting their annual Latin American Heritage Festival celebrating various Latinx cultures. The festival will take place around the Nov. 5.
“What we are trying to do with this festival is have different showcases from different cultures in Latin America, so a Brazilian group is hopefully coming to perform Capoeira [a form of Brazilian martial arts], and Samba [a Brazilian music and dance style], and we will have Salvadorian food instead of Mexican food — to change it up from last year.”
Marquez emphasized the open, welcoming nature of the group and their passion for generating awareness of Latinx culture, as well as the issues surrounding the culture. She stated that the group has grown from seven members in 2007 to more than 30 members this year.
SOL was founded in 1998. Since then, meetings have consisted of discussions about both personal issues and broader global events in members’ home countries. Many Grinnellians are unaware of some of the events occurring in some Latinx countries, so SOL assigns research to its members to help feed the discussion.
“SOL used to stand for the Student Organization of Latinos and Latinas, but this year we changed it to the Student Organization of Latinx to be more inclusive,” Marquez-Gil said. “During our meetings, we just sit together and talk about things that affect us on campus as Latinx, whether they are things that have been told to us or things that happened to us in class discussions.”
SOL has a familial atmosphere, according to Marquez-Gil, and she stressed that non-Latinx students are welcome to attend its meetings and events.
“I guess people always have this idea that SOL is just for Latinx [students], but it isn’t. We all speak English at the meeting, even though we do make side jokes in Spanish. It’s good to have allies on campus,” she said. “We maybe aren’t in all the same friend groups outside SOL, but when we are together, we all say jokes, and it is a very comfortable space.”
