Hispanos Unidos Hosts 'Friendsgiving' Dinner
Zoe Vorndran
Hispanos Unidos is kicking off their Thanksgiving season with their first “Friendsgiving” on Monday, Nov. 21, 2016, at 9 p.m. in the Intercultural Center. This “Thanksgiving with Friends” event will serve to raise awareness of and gratitude for being bicultural.
Everyone is welcome to attend to share what they are thankful for and to enjoy the company of others regardless of cultural and ethnic backgrounds. “Hispanos Unidos wants to highlight being thankful for being bicultural,” said sophomore Angie Gonsiorowski. “We will mostly be focusing on Hispanic-American Culture, but everyone is welcome to come speak on how they are bicultural or even what they are thankful for in general.”
The topic for this Friendsgiving celebration focuses on what being bicultural means and what it means to merge cultures. The event will also encourage people to embrace their culture while integrating it with others. “We plan to discuss the merging of being Hispanic and American, as well as getting insight from other cultures and how they feel about merging with the American culture,” said senior Marilyn Godinez, president of Hispanos Unidos. “We would like to get various perspectives on this specific topic, not only from the Hispanic and Mexican points of view, but also from other cultural points of view. We are also interested in discussing what it is like for Americans to adopt other cultures.”
In honor of the American and Hispanic cultures, the club plans on setting up a Thanksgiving dinner featuring a variety of Hispanic dishes and food. “We plan to have a table talk with various different Hispanic dishes,” Godinez said. “We are looking forward to having Mexican, Salvadorian, Guatemalan and Ecuadorian dishes, to name a few. We want to make it a feast that resembles a Thanksgiving meal.”
The importance of Friendsgiving is not only to provide students with a community to share their gratitude, but also to bridge the racial and cultural divides. Manchester University highly values diversity, so Hispanos Unidos’ Friendsgiving is interested in increasing relationships between cultures and races. “With so many things going on and ideas of intolerance that may or may not be stemming from the election, I think it is important for us to have a collective gathering about sharing and celebrating our differences and being proud of how they merge together,” Gonsiorowski said.
In addition to combining the interests of people from a variety of cultures, the purpose of the event, as Godinez states, is to “join everyone with some good food, a good talk, and time to meet others as well.”
There are high hopes for the success of the event. “We are truly optimistic for a large outcome with hopes of having this event become something that is done in the future,” Godinez said. “We hope those who cannot go home for Thanksgiving will join us for some yummy Hispanic food. We also hope that those who have not experienced Thanksgiving before will join us so they could have an opportunity to experience what it is like to feast on this holiday.”