The sixth annual Latino Culture Night will educate people with demonstrations of the various Latin American cultures Friday.
The event is organized every semester by Chicana/o Latina/o Graduate and Professional Student Association (CAMARADAS), said Maria Rosales-Soto, the organization’s public relations officer.
The theme this year is Latin America, and the goal is to show the WSU community the various Latin countries and cultures, she said. Everything at the event will be from Latin America, including dinner and cultural performances of singing and dancing, she said.
The evening will consist of 10 performances representing nine different Latin American countries, she said. There will be displays for the countries that are not represented by performances.
“There will be a surprise activity for people to learn about Latin America in a fun way,” she said, “with a raffle for the winner of the activity.”
Since 1970, CAMARADAS has provided a support system for Chicana/o Latina/o graduate and professional students that serves as a proactive agent in the community and provides a place for students to discuss issues that affect their unique educational, professional and personal issues, Rosales-Soto said.
“The Latino Culture Night is a cultural event that highlights the diversity within the Chicana/o, Latina/o community,” she said. “In addition, this event will produce a better educated, more racially sensitive and intellectually aware student body while reinforcing the values associated with
multiculturalism.”
CAMARADAS is hoping for a total of at least 350 students, faculty and community members to attend the event.
“A lot of (the performers) are international students from Central and South America that are a part of (CAMARADAS),” said Maria Morales, a student in the doctoral program for cultural studies and social thought in education.
This year’s Latino Culture Night is larger because last year the tickets quickly ran out, she said. About twice as many tickets were printed for this year due to the interest shown for the event last year, she said.
Students from the University of Idaho (UI) will also be performing at the Latino Culture Night, she said. UI puts on a similar event every year and one of the things CAMARADAS does is arrange for students at UI to perform for the WSU event and WSU students to perform for the UI event.
“There’s the idea that all Latinos are from Mexico,” she said. “That’s one of the points of the event, is to show that there’s not just one Latino culture but many Latino cultures.”
