Month focuses on Hispanic culture

Hispanic Heritage Month will be held Sept. 15 to Oct. 15 with events throughout the week featuring the Hispanic culture.

Poet Joe Hernandez-Kolski will perform Sept. 21, Sept. 30 “Cultural Connections” will take place, the film “Marking up the Dream” will be shown Oct. 6, the Oct. 13 Times Talk will feature Latinos in the media and there will be a Block Party Oct. 14 to culminate the week.

Hernandez-Kolski performed several line-ups in his show, “Cultural Collisions” in the Arts & Sciences Auditorium Sept. 21. Hernandez-Kolski is of Mexican-Polish descent, and travels to different universities to provide a comical perspective into the lives of college students.

“It was a phenomenal show. He layered the college perspective in thought, and brought voice to things we think, but never say,” said Paul Ayo, complex director of Foundation Hall.

Expressing his thoughts with poetry, Hernandez-Kolski provided an experience to a diverse crowd of students and faculty, hoping to leave them a little something extra.

“The influence I want to leave is to encourage people to be themselves. Do not try to fit into a box. We do not fair with one another because we are all individuals,” Hernandez-Kolski said.

Hernandez-Kolski refers to himself as Pocho Joe, and takes great pride in calling himself a Pocho. Pocho is a term that native born Mexicans coined to describe or label an American-born Mexican, and originated in the Southwest around the 1940s. Hernandez-Kolski empowered himself and re-appropriated it for his own identification.

Born and raised in Chicago, Hernandez-Kolski graduated from high school and attended Princeton University. He majored in history and minored in theater and African-American studies. He took classes taught by Toni Morrison and Cornel West, two well distinguished African-American authors.

Now older and having developed a professional career, Hernandez-Kolski encourages Latino men at GCSU “to succeed in the world and to have a ridiculous amount of confidence, a person of color works twice as hard and they must work hard.”

Some of the most memorable pieces he performed were “Feminists Anonymous” and “College Advice.”

“It was amazing, really entertaining, I almost teared up,” said Iona Pendergast, Theatre Generalist Faculty.

The event was promoted by the Black Student Alliance, Latino Student Alliance and the Office of Equity and Diversity. The Office of Equity and Diversity paid for the event.

“This event was different from the other events I have attended at Georgia College. I like that this event immolated race,” senior Spanish major Krystal Parker said.

Posted by Alexandria Bell on Oct 1 2010. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.