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Media Credit: Conor Kevit Former CIA director Jim Woosley spoke on Monday about the Middle East.

Commemorating the end of Latino Heritage Month, the Latinofest festivities were marked by an overwhelmingly enthusiastic and positive reaction by audience members.

The Latino Heritage month, which started on Sept. 15, recognizes the independence of six Latin American countries and the contributions of the more than 40 million Latinos living in the U.S. today.

Organized by the Organización Latina Estudiantil (OLÉ), which represents the Latino student population on the Hopkins campus, Latinofest was held in the Charles Commons banquet room on Friday, Nov. 2.

The event included food, music, dancing and performances. Among the 80 attendees were patrons, members of the Baltimore community and students from a local outreach organization called Mi Espacio, a local, after-school, teen pregnancy prevention program.

The volunteers at Mi Espacio include OLÉ members and the non-profit organization COPRODELI USA, whose mission is to aid Peruvian families by providing them with fundamental needs.

"Collaboration is a huge aspect of cultural organizations on campus and is readily apparent though various aspects of programming. I would say every year we become much more efficient, our events become much more popular, and we constantly diversify our initiatives. The Office of Multicultural Student Affairs (OMSA) has done an amazing job in facilitating all of this ... they are a pivotal aspect of the Hopkins community and do a great job in helping us as well as other cultural organizations put everything into perspective and work towards achieving our goals," said Christopher Louie, president of OLÉ about the group's objective in hosting the month-long cultural festivities.

The evening's events began with the main speaker, Dr. Lea Ybarra, the executive director for the Center for Talented Youth. Dr. Ybarra stressed the importance of the Latino influence in a community by encouraging prominent Latino figures to help motivate and push lower class Latinos to achieve their same success.

"Dr. Ybarra is one of OLÉ's advisors and an inspirational person. While not only being the current Executive Director of CTY, she is a great role model, helping us understand what we represent and how we need to give back to our community. I would say she easily exemplifies a person that has been innovative in making her passion of education into a world class business of giving back. Her experience running such a global organization brings tons of insight into how we should approach our future careers as well as how we can pursue our passion," Louie said.

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