More than just a fiesta

Thursday, Sept. 21, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Bryan Haynes⁄The Gazette Members of the South American band La Furia entertain a large crowd of fans at Sunday’s Festival Hispano at Lane Manor Park in Adelphi.

‘‘Just like people in this county learn about their history, it’s important that when I teach Spanish, I also teach about the history of my country,” said Jorge Baez, who is a native of Mexico. ‘‘We had struggles to win our independence from Spain, and we have struggles now to maintain our independence within our country.”

Hispanic Heritage Month officially kicked off this past weekend to honor the heritage of people from Latin America and to help educate other Americans.

Wanda Ramos, a regional manager for the Department of Parks and Recreation in Prince George’s County, was the co-chairperson of the county’s 25th annual Festival Hispano held Sunday at Lane Manor Park in Adelphi.

‘‘This is a celebration of our cultural heritage,” she said before the event. ‘‘Our children are growing up in a different culture, in a variety of different cultures. Being able to celebrate Hispanic Heritage month gives us a chance to educate our children in a culture we want to keep alive.”

One event organizer said the festivals help introduce children born in the United States to their family’s heritage.

‘‘It’s important to keep our roots and not to forget where we came from,” said Erick Oribio, the Hispanic-Latino community liaison for the Prince George’s County Office of Community Relations. ‘‘We need to preserve our cultural values and celebrate the contributions that Latin Americans have made to society.”

Celebrating heritage

National Hispanic Heritage Week started in 1968 as a way to observe and recognize the special contributions of Hispanic Americans and to celebrate Hispanic heritage and culture. In August 1998, Hispanic Heritage Week was expanded and became Hispanic Heritage Month, and is celebrated each year from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15.

The month of September was chosen to begin the observance because it is the month that marks the anniversary of independence of seven Latin American countries: El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua (all on Sept. 15). Mexico celebrates its independence on Sept. 16 and Chile on Sept. 18.

And it is why the Baez family travels to the Mexican Embassy each Sept. 16.

The Baez family is working to share their heritage and their language with others, as well. One way they can do that is as teachers.

Twin teachers

Prince George’s County Community College had one teacher lined up to teach Spanish I, but the classes were much larger than class organizers expected them to be. Program coordinator Mary Jane Shearer asked Carlos Baez, the lone teacher, to recommend someone else who could teach.

He recommended his brother Jorge Baez.

Shearer enjoyed the look on the students’ faces who left the crowded class taught by Carlos Baez for the new class taught by Jorge Baez. The brothers are identical twins.

‘‘The only way to tell them apart is that Carlos often wears his ROTC uniform,” Shearer said.

Jorge Baez didn’t start off wanting to be a teacher.

‘‘I was an engineering major,” Jorge Baez said. But he took to teaching well, and lasted in the professional longer than Carlos, who is now working as an investment banker. Jorge is still teaching, and has continued to make it a family affair. He teaches Spanish I and II. His sister Erika teaches Spanish I, and their mother Monica teaches Spanish III and conversational Spanish.

All three are teachers at the Prince George’s County Community College as part of the Workforce Development and Continuing Education Program.

The Baez family members all have what many people would consider a dream job, teaching others about their heritage language and culture, and how to speak their language.

The Baez family remains close, says Jorge, and try and get together every week to spend time with one another. He also believes in sharing as much of his culture and heritage as he can to his students, including correcting some of the myths that American have about Latin culture.

‘‘We all speak the same language, but there are a lot of differences in some of the idiomatic expressions we use,” Jorge Baez said. ‘‘Depending on which country you are from, you might have a totally different way of expressing yourself. I teach my students how people from Mexico speak Spanish a little differently than people from Spain.”

Staying in touch with relatives back home is important to the Baez family.

‘‘We try and go to Mexico every year,” said Erika Baez-Mora, whose husband is from Guatemala. ‘‘I miss my grandmother and father. They still live in Mexico, and it’s always nice to be able to visit them when we can.”

Like Jorge, Erika bring something more than language instruction to her classroom, teaching her students about history and culture, as some of her favorite places to visit. But both Erika and Jorge are happy to be living in the United States.

‘‘There are such great freedoms here,” Erika said. Jorge agrees.

‘‘In the United States, I feel like I can reach any goal I want to if I work hard enough. There are so many opportunities here to succeed. If you follow where those opportunities lead you, you can be successful here,” he said.

As for the celebrations of Hispanic Heritage Month, Jorge is looking into places to recommend for his students to go to experience some authentic Latin American culture, as he sometimes recommends his favorite restaurants in his classrooms.

‘‘We have such a diverse culure now,” Shearer said. ‘‘The world is getting smaller. We have a lot of people in our Continuing Education program signing up to learn French and Italian, but no where near as many as are signing up to learn Spanish.

‘‘We have so many people now who are learning Spanish for their jobs, so they can talk to their clients, and their neighbors. And it’s so much more than learning to speak the language. Learning the history, the culture, you really can’t have one without the other. They really go hand in glove.”

E-mail Carla Peay at cpeay@gazette.net.