Hispanic Heritage Month is from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15 in 2025. Hispanic Heritage Month is an important United States observance that honors the history, culture and contributions of Hispanic and Latino Americans. To celebrate, some classes put up flags on classroom doors that signed up to participate in the celebration. The district project was initiated by Spanish Liaison Carmen Rudin.
According to senior Lydia Anderson, the celebration will remind people of Hispanic and Latino life and heritage and help them learn about different cultures. She said it will give people more appreciation for differing cultures.
“(Commemorating Hispanic Heritage Month) will give people reminders and help them think about different cultures. (The flags hung up) will also give more appreciation for cultural differences,” Lydia Anderson said.
According to Spanish teacher, World Language Department lead and Spanish club advisor Hanna Anderson, one of the ways they celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month was putting up the flags on classroom doors. She said it helps students to see their flags represented and brings awareness and more.
“It is Hispanic Heritage Month, and hanging up the flags around the school was one way of celebrating, and is one way to create visibility of the Hispanic heritage community (at Park). We had students who are from those countries (on the flags), and they were like, ‘Profe (teacher), where is my flag?’ We do have many of those countries (of the students’ origin) represented, and students were happy to see their flags up,” Hanna Anderson said. “For any of our general population, it also creates awareness or knowledge of countries all around us. I think everybody knows the U.S. flag, but many of the other countries (being represented) creates awareness.”
Senior Norman Kroger said there’s more improvement to be done for students to be more supported, but the Hispanic Heritage Month celebration and honoring is something that is meaningful to do.
“There are other (actions) that obviously can be taken to have more support and to support those (Hispanic and Latino) students more. But I think (celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month) is still a good thing to do,” Kroger said.
Hanna Anderson said a couple of years ago was the first time they hung up flags on teachers’ doors. She said Spanish classes and department take initiative with many people to honor Hispanic Heritage Month.
“About five years ago, we (put up flags) for the first time; this is probably the third time we did it (hung flags up). It’s part of an initiative between the multicultural liaison and Spanish teachers,” Hanna Anderson said. “Not just Spanish teachers but Spanish speakers in the school. We have worked with Carmen Rudin, but we have also worked with Nancy (Bacerra-Balbuena), who works at the LMC (Library Media Center). So we get together a couple of times before school to try to find ways to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month.”
Lydia Anderson said putting up flags was something to help the class gain understanding and learn new things about different Hispanic and Latino countries. She said Hanna Anderson helped them understand what the different countries were in relation to their flags.
“(Our project) helped us understand the different countries because Profe (Anderson) gave us an activity to guess and figure out what each country’s flag was. So it helped us gain understanding of each country,” Lydia Anderson said.
Kroger said, a way to include it (Hispanic Heritage and culture) more into everyday and class life, the district can include it in more learning opportunities to discuss and learn more about it. He said this would be a good experience and opportunity for students.
“I think having it (Hispanic Heritage and culture) more in our curriculum (is a good thing to add). Having more culturally relevant discussions about it in class would be really cool. That would be a really good option and opportunity,” Kroger said.
According to Hanna Anderson, the school has expanded the celebration in many ways from previous years. She said they’ve done activities, the LMC had Hispanic authors displayed, class projects and more to expand the awareness. She said there have been projects that get classes thinking about this topic more.
“We have expanded (the celebration) from previous years. (In) previous years, it was mostly just the flags, or we did activities in the cafeteria. If you notice, the LMC has Hispanic authors displayed this month. Our expansion this year was to do class projects where all Spanish teachers got together, and every teacher selected a topic. So Spanish one did food, Spanish four did music and Spanish five (focused on) important places to visit and cultural activities,” Hanna Anderson said. “(In my class) groups would select a country. We gave them a list of about 10 to 12 countries, and the class would have to research influential people in this given country.”
