LYNN — Breed Middle School and the Spanish National Junior Honor Society celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month Tuesday afternoon with the Outstanding Latino and Outstanding Latino Student 2021 awards, a “Proud of My Heritage” panel and traditional Latin-American dances.
Delivering opening remarks, Mayor Thomas M. McGee said that everyone in attendance felt strongly about Hispanic heritage, sentiments he believed were reflected by the Lynn community.
“It’s great that this celebration continues here not only as a celebration of the month and how important it is,” said McGee. “But it recognizes the Spanish National Junior Honor Society, the students that are part of this, the school that embraces this, and the recognition of so many leaders in our community who really have done great work and continue to be an inspiration for all of us.”
Adriana Paz, co-chair of the Lynn Racial Justice Coalition and vice president of the North Shore Juneteenth Association, led a panel discussion between guest speakers State Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz (D-Boston) and Harvard Medical School Assistant Professor Dr. Martha Cesena, as well as the Outstanding Latino Student 2021 Award recipients.
The panel discussed who their Latino hero was and why they were proud of their Hispanic heritage. Some students picked prominent Latinos as their heroes, including a fashion designer with Down syndrome from Guatemala, a children’s doctor in Boston, and the first female detective from Lawrence.
Chang-Diaz, who was the first Hispanic woman to be elected to the state Senate, spoke of her father, who came to the U.S. by himself from Costa Rica as a teenager with $15 in his pocket and went on to become an astronaut at NASA. She also said that a lot of people who come from different strains of Hispanic heritage, from different countries of origin have struggled in their home countries with adversities before coming to the U.S. or have struggled after coming here. That is why, for her, Hispanic heritage means sadness, said Chang-Diaz, but also joy that comes from food, music, and multigenerational celebrations that help Latino people to persist.
Many of the student panelists shared that they were proud of their heritage because Latinx people are resilient and hardworking.
“Being Hispanic is a symbol of strength, prosperity, and we have a will to fight,” said Yarie Tejeda, a Lynn English High School student. “We as Hispanic immigrants, we as descendants of Hispanic immigrants, have the determination, the will to succeed. Our parents come to this country with little to nothing and they build themselves up to become something. And those who don’t, they leave it to the hands of their children to succeed. And coming from a Dominican mom who came from nothing, I will make sure that her sacrifices don’t go in vain and I become something.”
Cesena encouraged students, parents and the superintendent of schools to take the opportunity provided by the mentoring program she started at Harvard in 2012 that introduces first-generation and immigrant students to professions in medicine, engineering, and psychology, among others.
“We give them hope to succeed — not to stay where they are but to dream big,” Cesena said.
After the panel, McGee presented recipients of the Outstanding Latino 2021 Award and Outstanding Latino Student 2021 Award with citations.
Recipients of the Outstanding Latino 2021 Award included Chang-Diaz, Cesena, Lynn Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Faustina Cuevas, and local Lynn community leaders Nicauli Cedano, Elizabeth Figueroa, Adriana Paz, Henry Puma, and Quity Regus.
The Outstanding Latino Student 2021 Award was presented to Breed Middle School students Evelyn Arrivillaga, Marly Perez-Esteban, Gabriela Morales, Alan Melara, Yosef Diaz and Diego Sorto; Lynn English High School students Yarie Tejeda and Mya Torres; and Lynn Vocational Technical Institute student Anjelis Amaro.
The audience was treated to several Latin-American dances from Maritza Jansen and the group of Dance of Latina Center Maria and students of the Quity Regus Academy of Performing Arts.
In closing, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Patrick Tutwiler said that he felt energized, invigorated, and proud by the community taking charge and celebrating who they are and what they believe in.
“Today we are celebrating our core value of inclusivity,” said Tutwiler. “We are wrapping our proverbial arms around the richness of Hispanic heritage and the many impactful contributions in this community and beyond (that) our Hispanic brothers and sisters have made. For the Hispanic or Latinx students, who are seated here this afternoon, to you I say hold your hand, stand tall and be proud.”
