Hispanic Heritage Month at Muhlenberg kicked off with an event hosted by the Students of Caribbean Ancestry club (SOCA). The event, “Rep. Your Flag” with SOCA, took place this past Sunday, Sept. 15, from 3 to 6 p.m.
SOCA is open to all students, but is specifically catered to students of Caribbean descent. Josephine Glass ‘27, co-president, explained that the club is a space for everyone who wants to celebrate Caribbean culture. “[SOCA] is a club dedicated to uplifting and supporting students of Caribbean ancestry, but also just Caribbean culture, Caribbean events–just a space for anybody to come and just celebrate Caribbean culture in general,” said Glass.
“[SOCA] is a club dedicated to uplifting and supporting students of Caribbean ancestry.” Josephine Glass ’27
The “Rep. Your Flag” event encouraged attendees to create a pennant flag with a design of their choice and also offered a chance to meet the executive board of the club. The executive board consists of Co-Presidents Josephine Glass ‘27 and Angelina Hayban-Deleon ‘27, Secretary Eliana Yascual ‘27 and Public Relations Manager Zayon Cordova Febres ‘27.
Students chose to celebrate themselves and their cultures in various ways while decorating their pennant flags. Some put their names on their flags, carefully cutting out letters from the felt provided, while others chose to celebrate their recent acceptance into their sororities/fraternities by placing their greek letters on their flags.
Hayban-Deleon mentioned that for this event, SOCA wanted to increase club following and awareness. “Before we get into culture-specific events, we wanted to build our following,” Hayban-Deleon said. “And what better thing to do than a trendy craft and just get new people involved?”
Tables were set up under the trees on the College Green, protecting attendees from the sun. Caribbean music played while students cut and glued their pennant flags together. SOCA also provided rhinestones and flower stickers that could be used for decoration.
“The Represent Your Flag event encouraged attendees to create a pennant flag with a design of their choice and also offered a chance to meet the E-board of the club.”
In the future, the club hopes to host more residential-based events. There is currently a SOCA Themed Residential and Affinity Communities (TRAC) house and the executive board wants to use that space for future events. “We have a space in South, so we’re looking at more residential based events,” said Yascual. “Maybe a movie night or a cooking class, just to use our residential space. [To] bring people, invite people into that, but also, again, uplifting Caribbean culture.”
If students are looking to get involved in SOCA, Glass said that the best way to do that would be to interact with Instagram posts and attend events. “You can be as active or passive as you want and still get stuff out of it,” said Glass. SOCA is also currently looking for a secretary for this year.
Sunday, Sept. 15 was the first day of Hispanic Heritage Month, which will last until Oct. 15. Students looking to celebrate the month can attend a myriad of events aimed at representing Hispanic culture such as movie and Mexican food night and Loteria night. Movie and Mexican food night will be hosted by the Spanish Club and will take place at the Language Commons, Ettinger at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 19. The Loteria night, hosted by Comunidad and the Muhlenberg Activities Council (MAC) will be in the Event Space from 7 to 8:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 27. To find more information about events related to Hispanic Heritage Month at Muhlenberg, visit @bergcomunidad on Instagram.