{"id":490,"date":"2022-10-05T15:21:11","date_gmt":"2022-10-05T15:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/blog\/?p=490"},"modified":"2025-01-14T14:53:12","modified_gmt":"2025-01-14T14:53:12","slug":"pace-celebrates-hispanic-heritage-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/pace-celebrates-hispanic-heritage-month","title":{"rendered":"Pace Celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Each year from September 15 to October 15, we honor Hispanic Heritage Month \u2013 a month dedicated to celebrating and recognizing the influence of Hispanic and Latinx people across the United States. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I am proud to be Cuban. I do not hide my Hispanic heritage, and I am not ashamed of it. I won’t change my natural, curly hair by straightening it. Nor am I not afraid to speak Spanish when I am out in public. Not changing who I am, is how I honor Hispanic Heritage Month,” shared Sandra, 17, a Pace Polk girl. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pace serves hundreds of girls from countless different cultural backgrounds across Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. At Pace Jacksonville, high school students Jossmaire and Natalie are proud of their Puerto Rican heritage. \u201cWe are very colorful people,\u201d says Natalie, a ninth grader who first came to Pace in January. Jossmaire, a tenth grader about to complete her first year at Pace, echoes Natalie\u2019s love of Puerto Rican diversity: \u201cYou can\u2019t pinpoint who is Puerto Rican or not\u2026 everybody has completely different ways of belief and arts, so it\u2019s really good.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pace is proud to create a safe and inclusive environment that recognizes girls for their unique cultural identities. To celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, Jossmaire and Natalie are creating a mural alongside their classmates. Jay writes: \u201cpara mi gente,\u201d which means \u201cfor my people.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s a tribute to the people that are like us \u2013 the Hispanics and Latinos.\u201d She also writes \u201csi se puede,\u201d or \u201cyes we can\u201d on the mural to uplift her classmates.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Natalie takes a visual approach to honor this month. She paints an outline of an umbrella, an homage to a beautiful umbrella-lined street in Puerto Rico that she recalls from her childhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Mercedes, an eighth grader at Pace Collier, Hispanic Heritage Month is all about celebrating her family\u2019s roots in Mexico. She loves to \u201cmake Spanish foods and celebrate\u201d at home, while at Pace, she has the opportunity to \u201cdress up with something from within [her] culture\u201d to commemorate the month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether Pace girls are doing an art project, wearing culturally significant clothing, or tasting cuisines from around the globe, every day at Pace gives girls a chance to feel accepted and empowered to share their cultures with pride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Natalie loves sharing her cultural knowledge with her classmates. She says \u201cwhen we\u2019re talking about a [relevant] topic\u2026 everyone is like: \u2018Jay and Natalie \u2013 they\u2019re Puerto Rican.\u2019\u201d This sense of ownership over her culture is reinforced by her history class at Pace. \u201cThey teach us about heritage and Hispanic heritage. It gives us comfortability to talk about it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This sense of cultural acceptance goes beyond one month of the year. From her classmates wearing vibrant shirts on Haitian Flag Day to enjoying turkey at Pace Collier\u2019s Thanksgiving feast, Mercedes has learned that despite their many differences, \u201ceveryone has something in common.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are you a girl who\u2019s interested in Pace? Know a girl who may benefit from our programs? Click here<\/a> to learn more about life at Pace and how you can enroll.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Each year from September 15 to October 15, we honor Hispanic Heritage Month \u2013 a month dedicated to celebrating and recognizing the influence of Hispanic and Latinx people across the United States. “I am proud to be Cuban. I do not hide my Hispanic heritage, and I am not ashamed of it. I won’t change […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":491,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"post_tag":[],"class_list":["post-490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-our-voices"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":498,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490\/revisions\/498"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_tag?post=490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}