Every year since 1968 from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated and recognized across the United States. Yesterday, Emporia State held the final banquet of the celebration in Webb Hall that provided a dinner and featured guest speaker.

“Usually Hispanic Heritage Month is to create awareness of all successes of Hispanics, share our culture and celebrate those who have done great things in the U.S.,” said Clarissa Carrillo, senior economics major.

Carrillo was born in Mexico and moved to the United States when she was ten years old. Although she celebrates this month here at ESU, typically her family does not celebrate it because it originated in the U.S.

“What I like the most (about Hispanic Heritage Month) is just sharing little bits of my culture. We have a very beautiful culture and different things that many people don’t know about,” Carrillo said.

Guest speaker, Xanath Caraza, a professor from University of Missouri Kansas City (UMKC) and also a poet and short story writer, was born in Mexico and moved to the U.S. in 1996 to go to graduate school at School for International Training in Vermont.

At the banquet, she read and sang one of her poems called “Digital Image,” which was about an experience she had when crossing the border to the U.S. and how then at that moment she described herself as a woman of color.

In Caraza’s poetry she focuses on education, social issues, female voices, and some history. She writes bilingualy in English, Spanish, and Nahuatl, which is the language of the Aztecs. So far Caraza has written five books, four of them comprised of poetry and one has short stories.

“We need to be proud of who we are no matter what or where we came from no matter what,” Caraza said. “We all still have opportunities here in the U.S. to keep going and develop our education.”

Gregory Robinson, assistant professor of English, modern languages and journalism, believes this month is important because it takes them back to their roots and also to communicate to other citizens in the community for them to identify more about the hispanic heritage.

“Sometimes people have stereotypes, a lot of people think ‘oh everyone is Mexican’, when they’re not,” Carrillo said. “This month helps that a lot because it’s not just like Cinco De Mayo where it really only celebrates Mexican culture, this month we’re celebrating all different cultures and not specific to one country.”