Hispanic Heritage Month may have ended on Oct. 15, but at Northern Parkway Elementary School, the celebration was far from over. The school celebrated in a big way, with students from kindergarten through fifth grade taking part.
“There’s something special about a birthday,” Northern Parkway Principal Bilal Posen said. “We look at Hispanic Heritage Month and Black History Month as like celebrating a birthday.”
The school’s hallways were transformed by New York City-themed decorations, transporting students to neighborhoods such as Jackson Heights, Harlem and Williamsburg. The focus was on celebrating the diverse Hispanic communities throughout the city.
First-graders had their own bodega, dubbed Bodega 711 — their classroom number.
“They’re learning there are parts of New York that have Latino communities,” Posen said. “That’s the whole purpose of this: connecting, learning and seeing,”
Teachers served foods commonly found in bodegas, including rice and beans, bags of potato chips and boxed candy. There were also toy bodega cats.
One floor below, students stepped into Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood, featuring streets like Flatbush Avenue, Knickerbocker Avenue and Little Panama Way. Third-graders explored Hispanic and Latino culture with familiar television characters, historical figures and community landmarks.
Among the displays was Little Panama Way, a tribute to the neighborhood’s Panamanian heritage. On Sept. 24, a stretch of Franklin Avenue, in Crown Heights, was officially co-named Little Panama Way in recognition of the community’s cultural roots.
For third-grade teacher Xiomara Flowers, who is Panamanian, the display had personal significance. Flowers had attended the street-naming ceremony, and brought that experience into her classroom.
“I had a chance to be there — I literally saw the change take place,” she said. “I had to bring [the sign] because we have to represent a group of Latinos who are sometimes not really represented.
“I really wanted the kids to understand,” she added. “Not only my classroom, but every single classroom in the third grade, to teach them about the moment.”
Third-graders also explored Latino influence of popular culture with a reading project led by Flowers. Students dressed as Dora the Explorer, the 7-year-old Latina protagonist of the animated television series, and discussed other familiar characters, including Miles Morales, the Afro-Latino Spider-Man.
“Some of them don’t even know Miles Morales was Latino,” Flowers said. “And here we also have Dora, which they know a little bit about.”
“I learned that Dora teaches children that Latina girls can be smart, brave and adventurous,” Delissa Friday, who had never watched the series, said.
Sarai Deane, another student who hadn’t seen the show, learned about Dora’s bravery and her ability to speak multiple languages. “I just learned that she teaches children in your house that Latina girls can learn many languages,” Sarai said.
The classroom also featured a bulletin board full of characters from the 1970s Mexican sitcom “El Chavo del Ocho.”
Other displays honored prominent Hispanic and Latino figures, including Frida Kahlo, César Chávez, Dolores Huerta and Ellen Ochoa, the first Hispanic woman to travel to space.
The journey through New York City continued in Jackson Heights, Queens. Kindergarten classrooms introduced students to the neighborhood’s vibrant Latino communities. Teacher Cynthia Franco projected a video walkthrough, to show them Latino communities beyond Long Island. Some of the children were surprised by what they saw.
They were particularly fascinated by the 7 train and the street vendors they saw. They eagerly raised their hands to share their observations, describing vendors selling “futbols,” or soccer balls, and Colombian empanadas. Others recalled vendors selling mangoes.
“That was like a big deal for them,” Franco said, “because they learned that in Jackson Heights, the market was a place where everybody can find their food.”
“Walking” through Spanish Harlem, another classroom featured a table displaying cultural artifacts including drums, slippers, a doll dressed in Jamaica’s national colors, and knitted bags and wallets. Among them was a handcrafted wooden jewelry basket brought in by student Tushar Persaud, made from wood from Guyana.
Fourth-grader Gabriella Marquez explained the significance of the artifacts that students had brought to school. “These are from different countries around the world,” Marquez said. “They all came from someone’s home.”
