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The theme for this year’s Latino Heritage Month celebration is immigration and keynote speakers Sergio Arau and Yareli Arizmendi will further the discussion on the issue with a lecture Sept. 26 and a brown bag presentation Sept. 27.
Arau, a director, artist, and musician, and Arizmendi, a writer and actress, are co-creators of the film A Day Without a Mexican. The 2004 film is a politically charged fable intended to open a dialogue about immigrant rights. Through wit and social commentary, it illustrates California’s economic dependency on Mexican and Mexican American workers and the growing cultural presence and power of Latinos in America. The film will be screened in Limburg Theater, Farinon College Center 7 and 10 p.m. Sept. 22 and 23 and 10 p.m. Sept. 24-26.
The keynote event “Latino/as: Strong and Colorful Threads of the American Fabric” will be a multimedia display presented by Arau and Arizmendi 7:30 p.m. Sept. 26 in the Kirby Hall of Civil Rights room 104. The lecture will explore recent news items from a Latino point of view. The will also highlight the contributions made to American society and economy by immigrants.
Arau and Arizmendi will also engage students in a brown bag dialogue surrounding the issue of immigration 12- 1 p.m. Sept. 27 in the Interfaith Chapel.
Other Latino Heritage Month events are a Latin Market, a Night of Culture celebration, the Hispanic American League of Artists (HALA) Film Festival, and a lecture by Francisco Flores, former president of El Salvador. A complete list of events can be found here.
All events are free and open to the public. For more information about Latino Heritage Month, please contact the Office of Intercultural Development at intercultural@lafayette.edu or ext. 5819.
Arau was born in Mexico City and received his M.F.A. in film studies at the National School of Film (CUEC) in Mexico City. He won the Cora De Plata award at the Havana Film Festival for his animated short “El Muro” in 2001 and has won numerous awards with his band Botellita De Jerez. He has directed and produced numerous music videos and won Best Rock Video at the 1998 MTV Music Awards for directing Café Tacubs’s “Alarmala De Tos.”
His wife, Arizmendi, was also born in Mexico City and has resided in California since 1983. She received both her A.B. in political science and her M.F.A. in theater arts from the University of California, San Diego, and is currently a professor at Cal State, San Marcos. Arizmendi has lent her voice to narrate several movies, books on tape, and advertising campaigns. She translated the screenplay for and acted in the 1991 film Like Water For Chocolate. She will also be working on the upcoming Richard Linklater film based on the book Fast Food Nation.