News & Events
Dance, Films, Food, Music and Poetry Mark City Tech Observance of Hispanic Heritage Month
Lorenzo LaRoc
New York City College of Technology’s celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month from mid-September through mid-October 2008 featured a veritable piñata of educational, cultural, culinary and other events that attracted large gatherings of City Tech students, faculty, staff and other guests.
Lorenzo LaRoc: Electric Violinist
This year’s month-long City Tech observance kicked off on September 15 with a performance by acclaimed Dominican musician Lorenzo LaRoc. La Roc is a native New Yorker and electric violinist, composer and arranger, who began playing the violin at age eight. While classically trained, he is gifted in a diversity of styles, including jazz, rock and Latin music. He studied at the Julliard School of Music, the Guitar Study Center in New York City and the Creative Music Studios in Woodstock.
LaRoc performed as a solo electric violinist with Warner Brothers recording star Sheila E. before forming his own group of musicians called Masterpiece. The group is now comprised of cutting-edge musicians who have worked with Grammy Award winning artists such as Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Charles and Whitney Houston.
LaRoc also performs for all grade levels in the New York City public schools and has established a non-profit organization called Jazz for Kids (JFK) dedicated to providing musical instruments and scholarships to the children of underprivileged families. JFK brings artists into the classroom and also provides an interactive website for children to learn about jazz.
Mireya Ramos and ‘Movimiento‘ Latin Fusion Band
Movimiento: Mireya Ramos’ Latin Fusion Band
September also brought Movimiento, Mireya Ramos’ Latin Fusion Band, to campus at a celebration of music with a Latin flavor that saw countless students and other couples take to an improvisational dance floor in the College’s spacious cafeteria. Ramos, the band’s founder and lead vocalist/violinist, is of Dominican and Mexican descent and grew up in Puerto Rico.
Ramos’ mother enrolled her in the internationally acclaimed choral group Coro de Ninos de San Juan and also arranged for private violin lessons. With the group she was able to sing in many languages and to travel the world and experience both its musical and cultural richness. She later moved to New York City and became a part of an ensemble, Mariachi Angeles de Puebla, which enormously spurred her growth as a singer and musician.
She has worked with a diversity of musicians and musical styles, including Shae Fiol (soul) Rhen (rock), El Prodigio (pambiche jazz), Rythm Republik (funk), Omar Sosa (Latin jazz), and others. Mireya Ramos recently performed with Chucho Valdez at the Dominican Jazz Festival, where she appeared with some of the world’s greatest musicians.
YeraSon Orquestra Charange
Sabor de la Salud: YeraSon Orquesta Charanga and Healthy Foods
Sabor de la Salud in mid-October, co-sponsored by the College’s Office of Student Life & Development and the Student Wellness center, further exposed a culturally diverse City Tech community to a wide selection of healthy edible Latin treats and a performance by YeraSon Orquesta Charanga. YeraSon electrified old-school Cuban music with a distinctly modern New York twist and interpreted authentic Cuban son, mambo, cha cha cha and merengue with inimitable drive and swing.
The band’s unique sound was at once elegant and energetic with a contagious rhythm that attracted dancing and listening crowds alike. YeraSon was a treat for both the ears and the feet, as two salsa dance instructors offered free lessons to many in attendance. In addition to good music and healthy food, participants also watched cooking demonstrations, talked with nutritionists about healthy eating and took home a wealth of related information.
Latin Film Festival
Hispanic Heritage Month also featured three Latin-theme films – American Me, La Bamba and The Motorcycle Diaries. American Me is a 1992 fictionalized account of the founding and rise to power of the Mexican Mafia in the California prison system from the 1950s through the 1980s. The film covers the life of a Chicano youth named Santana, who breaks the law and is imprisoned. It tells of how the legal system worked against him, both in and out of jail.
La Bamba is a 1987 biographical film based on real events in the lives of ‘50s rock star Ritchie Valens, his half-brother Bob Morales, girlfriend Donna Ludwig and their families. In his all too brief career, Valens was the first Chicano rock and roll star. His best remembered hit, “La Bamba,” was released just one month before his untimely death along with Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper in a 1959 plane crash.
The Motorcycle Diaries is a 2004 biographical film about the journey and written memoir of the 23-year-old Ernesto Guevara, who years later would become internationally known as the iconic Marxist revolutionary ”Che” Guevara. It recounts the 1952 motorcycle journey across South America by Guevara and his friend Alberto Granado.
Mayrim Cruz-Bernall
The Poetry of Mayrim Cruz-Bernall
In October, the Department of Humanities and its Puerto Rican and Latin American Studies Program co-hosted a bilingual reading of the poetry of Mayrim Cruz-Bernall, a Puerto Rican poet and essayist, whose 12 books of poetry include Poemas para no morir, Cuando èl es adiós, soy dos mujeres que te miran, Querida amiga, querido amigo and Canción de una mujer cualquilera. City Tech student readers were Sarah Conyers and Oshana Moore.
From 1993 until 1999, Cruz-Bernall was the director of an important end-of-the-century artistic and literary movement call Puertas, which means “doors.” She also served as president of the 5th International Conference of Women Writers held in 2003 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where more than 300 writers signed a Manifesto for Peace. Cruz-Bernall is a graduate of Loyola University in New Orleans, where she majored in psychology. She also holds an MFA in creative writing from Vermont College of Norwich University. She has traveled extensively throughout Latin American and the United States, giving poetry readings and conducting workshops.
Hispanic Heritage Month
A national celebration of America’s Hispanic heritage was established by Congress on September 17, 1968. This date marked passage of Public Law 90-498, which declared the week that included September 15 and 16 as National Hispanic Heritage Week. Twenty years later, with passage of Public Law 100-402, Congress declared the 31-day period beginning September 15 annually as National Hispanic Heritage Month. That date marks the anniversary of independence from foreign domination for five Latin American countries – Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. In addition, Mexico declared its independence on September 16 and Chile on September 18.
City Tech is one of 193 Hispanic Serving Institutions identified by the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities that are located in 11 U.S. States and Puerto Rico. Some 29.4 percent of all City Tech degree program students are of Hispanic descent and greatly contribute to the cultural diversity for which the College is noted. In fact, U.S. News & World Report has identified City Tech as the most ethnically diverse college in its category for four of the past five years.
11/18/08
