Campus events at Rider mark Hispanic Heritage Month

Start your semester right by joining the Office of Multicultural Affairs and the Latin American Student Organization (LASO) in celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month from Sept. 15-Oct. 15. Learn about the Latino culture during different events hosted on the Lawrenceville campus.

Hispanic Heritage Month began as a weeklong celebration but was later extended to a month by President Ronald Reagan in 1988. Sept. 15 was chosen to start the celebration because it is the anniversary of the independence of five Central American countries: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua. Mexico and Chile followed by declaring independence on Sept. 16 and 18, respectively.

The Office of Multicultural Affairs and LASO want to bring awareness of the Hispanic-Latino culture to Rider University. “Hispanic Heritage Month and LASO are a representation of Rider’s largest ethnicity group sharing their traditions and customs," says Dr. Pamela Pruitt, director of Multicultural affairs. “It opens a new view and understanding of the Latino culture to Rider students, to enrich and diversify our beautiful campus and make it a home to every culture.”

The Office of Multicultural Affairs supports all of the University’s cultural-based organizations. It seeks to complement and support the Rider’s efforts to reach and foster the understanding and appreciation of different cultures and ways of life that are shared by diverse groups of people through programming, policies and best practices.

LASO President Alex Chinchilla is a first-generation college student and son of two immigrant parents from Costa Rica. "I came to Rider not knowing what to expect or what to do, but once I went to my first LASO meeting I found a place familiar to me but also new," he says. "The beautiful thing about the Latino culture is that it is traditions passed down through generations and vary by family and country, not race. As a brother of Lambda Theta Phi Latin fraternity, I follow our motto En La Union Esta La Fuerza, In Unity There is Strength. The Latino culture is just that a unity of different cultures coming together no matter one's creed or religion.”