Honoring Hispanic Heritage Month While Building Core Assets

Hispanic Heritage Month runs from September 15 – October 15 each year in the United States. In a special way during this month, we honor Hispanic history, culture, and contributions. For the young children in our Friends of the Children – Eastern Idaho program, learning about different cultures gives them the opportunity to be curious about different perspectives, develop empathy, and build their respect for our diverse, multicultural society. Some of the children come from Hispanic families themselves, and celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month allows them the chance to form a better understanding of their own identities and grow their relationship with older generations from a place of common understanding and experience.

This year one of our professional mentors, Eduardo, shared his own Hispanic culture with the youth in our program by teaching several of them to make tortillas with his family’s traditional tortilla press. Eduardo worked with our Program Director, Susanna, to tailor the activity to focus on the different core assets that he is working on with each youth. For example, Eduardo has noticed that one of the youth he works with, David*, gets extra excited whenever their time together includes making their own snack but sometimes has difficulty listening carefully and following instructions. Eduardo helped David work on problem solving while making the tortilla recipe, and David carefully added masa just a little bit at a time. Eduardo was also glad to help David learn more about and connect with the culture of his Latina grandmother and many of his peers, fostering a stronger sense of belonging – another important core asset.

Another youth Eduardo works with, Luis*, immediately recognized Eduardo’s mom’s traditional tortilla press. Luis has been working on his Spanish, often counting to himself and using Spanish phrases that he picks up from his family. Luis enjoys learning new things but is often hesitant to try doing something new. Eduardo encouraged Luis to ask for help any time he needed to, and often repeated instructions in both English and Spanish to help build Luis’ familiarity with new phrases. Eduardo and Luis worked together to build the core assets of self-determination and persistence and grit by pushing forward through each step towards the reward of a tasty quesadilla with fresh tortillas. Eduardo shared that the activity was a “challenging, yet achievable” way to help Luis work through his fears of trying new things.

Allen*, another youth Eduardo works with, often tries to pay attention to many things at the same time. Sometimes this behavior is a challenge, but Eduardo works to help Allen use it as a strength by building his problem-solving skills. Eduardo explained that while making a recipe, if you can think about the next steps ahead of time you can often set yourself up for success! For example, Allen learned that turning the hot plate on while mixing the masa for the tortillas will mean the plate is hot when the first tortilla is ready. And when the tortillas were cooking, Allen helped cut the cheese so that the quesadillas would be ready as quickly as possible. Throughout the process, Eduardo noticed that Allen made well thought-out decisions and avoided making unnecessary mess.

These three children participated in the same activity with Eduardo, their Friend. Because Eduardo has built the foundation of a consistent, caring, trusting relationship with each child, he was able to tailor the activity in ways that help build important core assets and engage them in learning about Hispanic culture. This is just one example of the ways that our Friends and our Friends of the Children – Eastern Idaho team work to intentionally support each youth enrolled in our program. We look forward to sharing more stories of growth and learning from these incredible young people and Friends.

*Names changed to protect privacy.