I’m proud of my culture because it’s very beautiful. It has a lot of colors has a lot of songs and lot of fiestas….it’s very heartwarming and inspirational. ~Sarah Marquez-Yara, Amana Student

How does your family hold on to their traditions, while living in the United States?

That actually sometimes gets pretty difficult. Because like, not a lot of people in my neighborhood are like from Mexico, there are maybe three people in my neighborhood that are Mexican, or like a part Hispanic and stuff like that. So, my mom, she’d always try like her best to include like little tiny traditions, like when it’s her birthday, she’ll sing it in Spanish, obviously. She’s not gonna do it in English, because like, No, she just doesn’t like it. Also, at the house, we’ll always talk in Spanish. So that’s like another thing trying to keep the language flowing. And try our best not to forget it. And my mom, she has these decorations from Mexico. And every, like, in September, we’d hang them up for like, we just keep it around the house throughout the year. And yeah.

What makes you proud of your culture?

I’m proud of it because like, the culture itself is very beautiful. It has a lot of colors has a lot of like songs, it has a lot of fiestas and stuff like that. And it’s very pretty, and learning about what happened back then, like even now, it’s still like, very heartwarming, and like, very inspirational from back then to now.

What’s your favorite Mexican tradition/holiday that your family celebrates?

Oh Dia de los Muertos! That’s my favorite out of them all. Cinco de Mayo, we don’t really celebrate it. Like it’s mostly September 15 is when Independence Day is and then May 5th is for other stuff, but like my family doesn’t really do that. Because in America, they celebrate it more than you do in Mexico. So like when I was little, we didn’t really do it. So the Day of the Dead, that’s when I’m terrible at explaining it. Well, that’s when my grandma, like my grandma’s mom, we always put her picture up and all her siblings who have passed away, we keep it in the living room. Like we have this little space in the room. Like hang it up. And then we have like these candles and just place them around and then maybe have like other stuff like candy and stuff like that. We also have one in Mexico in my grandma’s house. She has one and then here we have one. Like another one. Yeah, like a replica.