Burritos, horchata, chips, and dip for all. Latino Heritage month at Skyline was joyfully concluded with free Mexican food for everyone. 

The Latino American Student Organization (LASO) and Powering Ourselves to Demand Educational Rights (PODER) organized an event to celebrate Latino culture for all Skyline students in Building 6 on Wednesday, Oct. 12. The event included free burritos, chips, salsa, guacamole, horchata (flavored rice milk), and watermelon juice from El Metate taqueria in San Francisco. The first 200 students in attendance received a free burrito with their choice of meat including beef, chicken, carnitas (pork), fish, or vegetarian.

David Correno, the owner of El Matate taqueria, was in attendance at the event to hand out the free burritos to all the students. 

“I’m happy to see different people, not just Mexicans, who like this food,” Correno said, referring to the many students lined up for burritos. “The carnitas are the most popular. It’s tasty with the rice, beans, salsa, and guacamole.”

Students from different cultures were also in attendance at the final Latino Heritage event. Garland Li, a first-year student at Skyline, enjoyed this event with a free carnitas burrito along with a cup of watermelon juice. He was surprised at the turnout of this event, after only hearing about it from one of his professors. 

“This is a huge event. The free food is a good thing. It’s a good way to get people together and discuss a new culture that people may not know about,” Li said. 

An Aztec dance was performed in the quad to kick off the event, and history professor John Ulloa, linguistics professor Luciana Castro, and Director of Casa La Raza in Palo Alto Andres Connell were three panelists who spoke on different topics within the Latino culture. These topics included the history of Latino education, the statistics of Latinos in prison, the Latin culture and language from a personal aspect, and the importance of networking. 

Student Noemi Perdomo, the activities coordinator of the Latino American Student Organization, couldn’t ask for a better turnout at the event. Perdomo also recognized the idea that Latinos struggle through education and hoped the event helped spread the word around to the students. 

“Students should understand that not just Asians, whites, African Americans, and Filipinos struggle through education, but also Latinos,” Perdomo said. “I was surprised to see a big line, but I’m happy that a lot of people were able to come and check this out.”