Students at Lincoln High create district's first-ever Latinx-led Spanish newsletter
The first-ever Latinx-led Spanish-language student newsletter in the Sioux Falls School District, “El Corazón de los Latinos,” or the heart of the Latinos, has sprung up at Lincoln High School this semester in Mónica Cano-Conover’s Spanish for Spanish Speakers class.
In the class for both Latinos and Heritage speakers, students came up with the idea to create a newsletter entirely in Spanish after taking inspiration from “Mitakuye Oyasin,” the Indigenous Studies newsletter also produced at the school, senior Claire Conover said.
Conover and her classmates wanted to do something similar for the Latinx students on campus, so more students would “feel connected to the countries they came from,” noting she and many of her peers are from Mexico; some are from El Salvador or other countries in Latin America.
“It’s important to keep those relationships,” Conover said.
Lincoln High School’s student body is 10.88% Hispanic/Latino, and 5.6% of all the students are English Language Learners, according to the latest enrollment counts from the South Dakota Department of Education. Of all the students in the district, 14.7% are Hispanic/Latino and 10.86% are English Language Learners, according to the district’s October enrollment report.
Cano-Conover’s class started drafting the first edition of “El Corazón de los Latinos” on International Women’s Day this year and have the issue ready to print and distribute to classroom. They hope that they can also share the newsletter with other schools in the district. They’re open to students from other schools contributing to it in the future, too.
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La primera edición, or first edition, of the newsletter includes cover art by student David Duran Montes that shows solidarity between Mexico, Latin America and South America, with a beating heart and a bright yellow sun in the background.
There are articles on culture, food and recipes, music, current events, as well as poems and essays written by students.
Uleily Martinez-Ramirez wrote an article on her quinceañera coming up in August and all the planning she has put into the event that she said signifies her “entrance to adulthood.”
“Tener una quinceañera es una experiencia muy hermosa para una niña, es una celebración única,” 15-year-old Martinez-Ramirez wrote, explaining that having a quinceañera is a beautiful experience for a girl and is a unique celebration.
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Aylin Moreno, a Mexican-Salvadoran-American freshman, shared a recipe for buñuelos, similar to fritters or doughnuts, in the first edition.
“Almost all Hispanics connect to food,” she said, and explained in her article that during the Spanish colonization of the Americas, explorers brought over the tradition of “los buñuelos,” which are now consumed all over Latin America and are especially popular in Colombia, Nicaragua and Cuba.
Monica Rosales, a Mexican-American sophomore, wrote a column on feminism for the newsletter entitled “Juntas podemos,” or, “Together we can.” She explained it’s about a march in Mexico and the importance of remembering one’s history each International Women’s Day.
“Not everyone knows about it,” she said of the feminist issues in Latin America that inspired her writing. “Everyone has the same rights, and we’re all equal.”
This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Sioux Falls students create first Spanish language newsletter at Lincoln High
