BETHLEHEM, Pa. – It was a day filled with laughter, music, and memories as the Hispanic Center Lehigh Valley marked the end of Hispanic Heritage Month.<\/p>\n
“Here at the Center, every month we like to celebrate a different country. And this month happens to be Honduras, which we’re celebrating,” Raymond Santiago, Executive Director of the Hispanic Center Lehigh Valley says. “So, the food that we were served today, along with the performance by our seniors, is all really to kind of celebrate the end of Hispanic Heritage Month.”<\/p>\n
From homemade dishes to live performances, the energy inside the Basilio Huertas Senior Center was contagious.<\/p>\n
“Our seniors will dress up, put up some type of choreography, sing a special song, and really get people here in the Center just experiencing the life and the love that they have,” Santiago says.<\/p>\n
Many, like Ramonita Garcia, say it’s more than a performance – it’s a way to keep her culture alive.<\/p>\n
“Well, we bring, you know, our memory from them, and we teach them to dance. We explain how we dance, how we’re singing, what do we eat over there,” Ramonita Garcia says.<\/p>\n
And even those who aren’t Hispanic say they’ve found community here.<\/p>\n
Lori Sysak says, “I love learning about the different cultures, so they do a Hispanic culture once a month, so that’s really cool that I get to see and hear.”<\/p>\n
A celebration of culture that brings everyone together.<\/p>\n
“It’s great to be reminded of that and for others to see just how important the Hispanic community here in the Lehigh Valley is, what we’ve done for, you know, different sectors and businesses needs to be valued, and we want to make sure we continue that throughout the years,” Santiago added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BETHLEHEM, Pa. – It was a day filled with laughter, music, and memories as the Hispanic Center Lehigh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[2364,153,155,154,2359,2363,2361,2362,2129,2360,157],"class_list":{"0":"post-2651","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bethlehem","8":"tag-basilio-huertas-senior-center","9":"tag-bethlehem","10":"tag-bethlehem-headlines","11":"tag-bethlehem-news","12":"tag-celebration","13":"tag-community-engagement","14":"tag-cultural-preservation","15":"tag-diversity","16":"tag-hispanic-heritage-month","17":"tag-honduras","18":"tag-lehigh-valley"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}