Harmonious maracas, caña de millos, pitos, tambor mayors, and llamadors– the sounds of Cumbia, an influential Colombian music genre –– can be heard emanating from room 4202, Thursdays after school as members of the Hispanic Heritage Club meet to celebrate their cultures. 

“We are here to promote awareness, appreciation, and understanding of the people and diverse cultural productions of the Spanish-speaking world,” senior Cristian Reza said.

Hispanic Heritage Club was started recently by a few students who wanted to create a place of community for Hispanic students at Liberty.

“Our club is mainly to give kids a place to go, so they don’t feel like an outcast. This is mainly a white school, and we want them to have a place to be heard,” freshman Alexa Romero said.

Reza, one of the founders of the club, has many activities in mind for future meetings, such as traditional games, food, and learning activities. He highlights that food is a way many Hispanic people celebrate and sharing recipes and snacks harbors a sense of community between members.

Some learning activities the club hopes to have included finding iconic Hispanic artists and how they have influenced music and lifestyles in different Hispanic countries. They also use this to blend American culture and Hispanic culture.

“Some days we’ll also do a double reading day where we take a Dr. Suess book, and translate the rhymes from English to Spanish so it’s the same rhyming scheme,” Reza said. “I think it’s really cool because it gives the same feel and helps people have good pronunciation in Spanish. So students can better communicate with each other.”

Communication is key, not only between Hispanic students at Liberty but the whole student body. Hispanic Heritage Club is currently working on outreach projects to involve more students in their quest to celebrate their culture with everyone.

“Everyone’s invited; we want people to learn about Hispanics, and what they’ve done in history,” Romero said.

Currently, the biggest issue facing the Hispanic Heritage Club is membership. In order to meet their goals, they need more members.

“Our goal is to build a big enough club so we could go to Maywood and we could talk with their Latinos Unidos club. We would also like to go up to the middle and elementary school on Wednesdays and read to the younger kids in Spanish,” Romero said.

As the Hispanic Heritage Club grows, the members are hopeful it will foster community in the Hispanic population and the whole student body at Liberty.

“I want to encourage other people who are too nervous to speak out on their culture to have some encouragement to come by and connect with their heritage,” Reza said.