LaHSO celebrates Hispanic Heritage month

In July, the Latino and Hispanic Student Organization (LaHSO) executive board got together to plan events for Hispanic Heritage month from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15.

Rob Turner, USD chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, is the department chair of LaSHO.

Turner said LaSHO celebrates Hispanic Heritage month at USD because it is a national celebration and they want students to connect with each other and with the larger world, as well as allow Hispanic students to connect with their heritage.

Senior social work major and Spanish minor Victoria Callegari is the co-president of LaSHO. Callegari said the kickoff on Sept. 15 introduced Hispanic Heritage month and LaSHO as a group to students.

The week following the kickoff, LaSHO hosted a movie night where students watched “McFarland, USA.”

“’McFarland, USA’ is an awesome movie I recommend people to watch because it shows how immigrants come to this country and how much work children go through to help their family survive,” Callegari said.

LaSHO also celebrated Hispanic Heritage month by having a student faculty panel where people could ask questions to students and faculty who have Hispanic background and knowledge.

Callegari said the questions ranged from asking about immigration policies to asking about traditional dishes.

LaSHO encourages everyone, Hispanic, Latin or not, to attend their events and get involved with the organization.

“We welcome everyone because we want to share our culture with everyone,” Callegari said. “We want people to understand there’s different possibilities out there that you can learn from someone’s countries traditions.”

To end the Hispanic Heritage month celebration, LaSHO will be hosting a movie night with Spectrum that will represent the Hispanic and LGBTQ+ community. Following the movie, they will have a karaoke night.

Turner said he is very happy USD has LaSHO and to continue informing people about Hispanic heritage a Spanish club has been started.

“The idea is that students can learn about their heritage, they can share about it and students that just don’t know can become more informed. I think it’s very valuable,” Turner said.

After Hispanic Heritage month, LaSHO will be putting on an event with USD orchestra director Luis Viquez Oct. 21, where a composer from Costa Rica will be teaching students what he has learned the past few years being in N.Y. and Los Angeles.

To finish off the semester, LaSHO will host their annual Day of the Dead event on Nov. 2.