A Look at Latinos in our World

Neelam Canto-Lugo the “master of ceremonies”, introduced her husband Fernando Canto-Lugo, a professor at Yuba College, as the first speaker for the Crossing Borders, Building Bridges event that took place on October 11th at 12 noon in room 724, the home of these events. Hispanic Heritage was the topic that day, as the whole month of October is Hispanic Heritage month, and for once there were several speakers. As the first speaker Fernando Canto-Lugo, upon receiving some playful criticism from his wife, began the presentation by introducing the audience to Sor Juana. Sor Juana was a Mexican nun who was very interested in education and learning, both of which were off limits to women of her day, who were expected to either marry or become a nun. Sor Juana became a nun in fact so she could escape her suitors who sought her for her beauty and have time to study. While in her convent she studied language and several other subjects receiving criticism all the while because the people over her thought that a woman with a book was the ‘devils instrument’. Sor Juana defended herself by saying that God gave women a brain as well as men and so women as well as men should be educated so they too could be better Catholics/Christians to the benefit of all society. Fernando Canto-Lugo finished his part with this and to save time quickly introduced the next speaker, a fellow professor, Jose Ramon Munoz. Munoz also hurried his presentation but this is not to say that the event was ill received, in fact the applause between speakers was the loudest yet heard at such an event. Munoz spoke about Latinos in the U.S looking at the past present and future. From the past he said we owe much to Hispanics including the names of cities,such as San Francisco and states such as Colorado. Munoz also pointed out that much of our normal culture is dawn from Hispanic roots including pinatas, tortilla chips, and “West Side Story”. In the present Munoz showed that the U.S has the second most Latinos after Mexico and that approximately 50 million Latinos live in America. Turning to the future Munoz said how the Latino population of the U.S is very young in general and has only a 46% rate of high school graduation. Making the point especially relative Munoz said that of all the Latinos that do go to college 75% of them go to community college. Another problem Munoz addressed was that Latinos along with African Americans make up the largest percentage of those incarcerated. Munoz closed saying these are problems that need to be worked on and then introduced the third speaker,artist and writer, Magdalena Reveles. Reveles said from sharing her culture she gets her identity. She spoke about her parents who were immigrant field workers and about her inspirations for her work. She even read poetry about Hispanics to the audience and showed some of her art including a painting of her father. The last speaker was a Hispanic student artist named Lila Solorzano. She showed some of her artwork and joked that she’s stuck here at Yuba College because she’s “really bad at math”. She told the audience how she has her first art show in San Francisco and how she has done a Day of the Dead series.One of the painting she showed the audience was done for breast cancer awareness. After the speakers were done Neelam Canto-Lugo concluded the event by giving credit to her assistant Lori Arney.