Georgetown’s fifth annual Latinx Heritage Month concluded Oct. 15, after a month-long series of events stemming from collaborations between a range of campus organizations. On-campus programming will continue through Nov. 2, ending with celebrations for Dia de Los Muertos.

Collaboration between different Latinx student groups made a significant difference in planning the events this year, according to Mireya Iglesias-Ayala (MSB ’19), the cultural director of Georgetown’s Latin American Student Association, and Jose Ramos (MSB ’19), the president of Georgetown’s Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlán, a national organization founded in the 1960s meant to foster unity among Chicanx individuals through political action.

“We really attempted to work more together in order to bring about all these events, especially for the Día de los Muertos week long celebration,” Iglesias-Ayala and Ramos wrote in an email to The Hoya. “We are really content to have so many organizations on board promoting our cultures.”

Increased collaboration in planning served to bring together the Latinx community, Iglesias-Ayala said.

“This year we worked to have multiple orgs as hosts to promote unity amongst all Latinx orgs and the various cultures/social issues/traditions that exist in our diverse home countries that we bring with us here at Georgetown,” Iglesias-Ayala said. “Since most of us are seniors leading these orgs we wanted to make the effort to collaborate and bring about more cross functional leadership because that is what a community is supposed to be.”

Georgetown officially began commemorating Latinx Heritage Month in 2014, but students organized initiatives to celebrate Latinx Heritage Month over a decade earlier and to create a community on campus, according to Joseph Gomez (SFS ’19), resident director of La Casa Latina, which provides resources for Latinx students on campus and hosts events to share the narratives of these students.

“In 2002, a group of Georgetown University students designed a dinner event for the Latinx community on campus to take place during Latinx Heritage Month,” Gomez wrote in an email to The Hoya. “Due to a lack of institutional support and interest, it was necessary to gather as a unified group of aware, resolute individuals.”

The schedule of events expanded dramatically in the following four years. Student organizations planned and hosted events to celebrate the month, beginning on the first day of National Hispanic Heritage Month on Sept. 15. These events include the 16th annual Latinx Leadership Forum and the first Spanish Mass of the fall semester.

The event schedule for this year’s Latinx Heritage Month will culminate with a Día de los Muertos celebration from Oct. 26 through Nov. 2 hosted by various organizations, including La Casa Latina and Campus Ministry. This year’s celebrations will include a Spanish liturgy hosted by Campus Ministry, according to Iglesias-Ayala.

“Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a celebration to honor those that have passed,” Iglesias-Ayala said. “We will be having various altars around campus to commemorate our loved ones who have passed. Spanish Mass will be included in the normal liturgical order of the masses.”

Latinx Heritage Month is significant in the ways it empowers and creates community for Latinx-identifying students at Georgetown, according to Iglesias-Ayala and Rocío Mondragón Reyes (SFS ’19), the logistics coordinator of Ballet Folklórico Mexicano de Georgetown, a dance group that performs traditional Mexican dances on and off campus.

“The overall hope is that with these various events of celebration, those of us who identify as Latinx, can each find space and time in celebrating, acknowledging and sharing our culture amongst the rest of the Georgetown Latinx community and the community at large,” Iglesias-Ayala and Reyes said. “It is a way to remind us of our identity as a community and to celebrate it.”

Latinx Heritage Month  has also led to the creation of other community-building initiatives for Latinx students at Georgetown, including the formation of La Casa Latina, according to Gomez.

“Our success [in 2014], led us to contemplate and mobilize on other important issues our community faces here on the Hilltop. Thus, the movement to start a Casa Latina for Hoyas was born,” Gomez said. “On April 10, 2015, LLF and the Last Campaign for Academic Reform (LCAR) submitted our respective proposals and petitions to university administrators. After various meetings with administration, Casa Latina was established for the Fall of 2016.”

Iglesias-Ayala, Reyes and Ramos said they are pleased with the outcome of this year’s celebration and look forward to the continuation of significant, increasingly strong Latinx presence on campus.

“There is simply an overall hope to continue to strengthen our presence and alliances amongst each other so that the generations to come have a space and means through which they can celebrate and share their Latinx identity,” the trio said. “Given that we now have a physical space, Casa Latina, we just seek to ensure that the student run organizations continue in strength so that this space can be used to its full potential.”