Bakersfield College kicked off its annual Hispanic Heritage Month celebration Tuesday, bringing students, staff, faculty and community members together for an afternoon of food, live music, guest speakers and cultural activities at the Panorama campus.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday we have food from various Latin American countries,\u201d said Cesar Jimenez, vice president of student services. \u201cWe have a band (Velorio) playing, we have a radio station and we have featured speakers.\u201d<\/p>\n
And Tuesday was just the kickoff to the celebration that will be extended to five campuses this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are coming from throughout the community, students and faculty are coming from their classes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
According to Jimenez, 75% of Bakersfield College students are of Latino heritage, and most of them are women.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are the largest Hispanic-serving institution in the state of California, and the fifth largest in the United States,\u201d he said. \u201cWe serve well over 46,000 students.\u201d<\/p>\n
The celebration took place on the Center for Student Success Lawn near the northwest corner of the campus. The event was free and open to the community.<\/p>\n
As more students began arriving, BC President Stacy Pfluger welcomed them along with faculty and staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cHispanic Heritage Month is a time to really reflect on the history and the cultures of the dominant group in this area,\u201d Pfluger told the gathering.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of history that has shaped Bakersfield and Southern California, and we\u2019re certainly happy to be a part of that story,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
But more important than the history is the path to the future, she said. And that\u2019s what BC offers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe continue to build on these foundations and lead the college and the community into an even better future.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Kern Community College District Trustees Yovani Jimenez and Nan Gomez-Heitzeberg watched and listened, city of Arvin Mayor Olivia Calder\u00f3n delivered a passionate and heartfelt keynote address.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, I want to speak to you not only as the mayor of Arvin. I want to speak to you as a daughter, a sister, a wife,\u201d Calder\u00f3n said. \u201cI want to speak to you as a Latina, a proud Latina, who believes \u2014 I believe in every fiber of my body \u2014 that education can be the trajectory of a family, a community and a life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Calder\u00f3n said she wanted to share three key ideas with those gathered: Heritage, the power of education and community leadership.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to begin somewhere very, very personal,\u201d she said, \u201cbecause sometimes history is not something you read in a book. Sometimes history is sitting at your kitchen table. It\u2019s your grandmother. It\u2019s your father\u2019s hands. It\u2019s your husband\u2019s accent. It\u2019s the language your parents spoke to you when you were a child. The sacrifices that made it possible for you to stand where you are today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Josue Valladares, 22, a sophomore nursing student at BC, attended part of Tuesday\u2019s event. His family, he said, came to the United States from El Salvador, and they are intimately aware of the meaning and cost of sacrifice.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe came here running away from gang violence,\u201d he remembered.<\/p>\n
The country was controlled by corruption, and criminal gangs.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo my mother decided we needed to migrate to the United States to have a better opportunity in our lives, to live peaceful, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n
Valladares was 12 at the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mom had had enough,\u201d he said. \u201cThis was after my father was killed. My grandfather was killed a year after.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 17th of this month is actually the 18th anniversary of my dad\u2019s death. So this week, for me, is just emotional, honestly.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday is also Independence Day for us in El Salvador. That is one of the reasons why I\u2019m out here.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it comes to our family,\u201d he said, \u201cwhat we always say is we are a family of faith, so we say the Lord brought us here and allowed us to be here in the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe came, actually, seeking asylum. So we were allowed to stay. We like to think we were allowed to be here for a reason. And one of those reasons is for us to study, learn the language, the culture, soak up the good things the United States has for us.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of those things is peace,\u201d he said, just being able to enjoy a walk outside of our house without thinking we\u2019re going to be murdered today, or we\u2019re going to be robbed, or the children could be kidnapped or violated or raped.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose are some of the things that we grew up with and just being able to walk outside or just sit outside, that\u2019s just something that we didn\u2019t have.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bakersfield College kicked off its annual Hispanic Heritage Month celebration Tuesday, bringing students, staff, faculty and community members…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":466282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":["post-466281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}