By Laia Meseguer Corbatón
The WIU Multicultural Center (MCC) hosted Café y Hablamos on September 29th, organized by Casa Latina. This activity is about having a safe place to talk in Spanish unashamedly and to learn by listening to others. Casa Latina provides coffee and sweets at this event.
Jose García, one of the promoters of this initiative, is from Waukegan but with Mexican roots. He is a graduate student at Casa Latina Culture Center. García is pursuing his master in Business Administration and his master in Public Safety Administration. His role at the Multicultural Center is to advise Amplify and The Latin American Students Organization (LASO), both organizations of the MCC.
Café y Hablamos consisted of a meeting of Spanish-speaking students, or just people with a desire to learn the language. Whatever it is the reason, they shared a calmed moment drinking coffee and eating cookies while they started knowing each other. The topic of this first encounter was “Conozcámonos.”(Let’s get to know each other). Shortly, this event will host Spanish professors from the Foreign Languages Department to teach the participants.
As García explained, this event started off as a simple initiative before this edition, but this time it comes to stay. This event will be held once a month at the Lounge 2 at the Multicultural Center. “We want to make sure that it is part of the Identity month, and the Leathernecks Heritage month”, said García.
Everyone is welcome at Café y Hablamos. “This is a space where, even if you don’t know any Spanish, you can come and learn it by listening to other people”, stated García.
García highlighted the next events that will take place at the MCC. El Baile: Flores, a dance night on Oct. 7th sponsored by LASO and the Tradición Latin Dance Team. There will be DJ, dance, music and food. García also underlined the Indigenous day, on Oct. 10th, a day to “embrace indigenous culture” sponsored by Casa Latina and Gamma Phi Omega. Finally, at the end of the Leathernecks Heritage month, the event Power to the Pueblo, with a dinner with African American and Latino American people.
