HispanicHeritageEssayNE

Hispanic Heritage Essay Why do we keep it alive? We use many things from the Spanish culture, think about tacos, black beans and rice, or even plantains, but do we think about some other very important things like how they treat their elders, or their games, even their death ceremonies are different from ours. In Mexico there are 104,000,000 people that is a lot of people and they are all Spanish! (Where in the World Is Spanish Spoken?)Many people take after the Hispanic Heritage. You could even be Hispanic and not know it, if you are Hispanic listen to this and you could learn more about your culture.

You obviously know how you treat your own Grandma or Grandpa, but do you know how Hispanic treat their Grandparents? Hispanics call their Grandparent abuela and abuelo. Grandma is abuela and grandpa is abuelo. They treat their elderly with a great respect, most families even have a rule to not disrespect the elderly. The elderly have a big impact in the Hispanics lives. Hispanics believe that they have a great deal of wisdom, which they do, but they cherish their wisdom. Wouldn't that be weird if you treated your grandparents like that, imagine calling your grandma ma'am or grandpa sir, well the Hispanics think it’s weird what we do. We are used to our own things. They think we do things weird, and we think they do things weird, that's just the way things are.(About - National Hispanic Heritage Month.)

We play board games, but do you know some Spanish games? One Spanish game is Balero, it's a game where you hold a stick with a string attached to it, and attached to the other side of the string is a cylinder with a hole that fits exactly onto the stick, so when you flick the stick the cylinder would flick with it and you try to get the cylinder onto the stick and into the hole. Another game is just like a game that we have today, if you have played mancala than I'm sure you will love this game. It's called Awlae. It's a board game with little divots in it so you can put equal amounts of pieces in each divot. you would pick up all of the pieces in your divot and put one in every divot and in your hole, if you land in a divot with more pieces in it you pick up all of the pieces and keep going, if you land in a divot with no pieces in it than your turn is over and it is your opponents turn, but if you land on your hole than you get to go again. When there are no pieces other than the ones in your holes the game is over and the person who has more pieces in their hole wins. I'm sure we have definitely played at least one of these games before, that proves how much we take from the Hispanic culture, you can play games and not even know that it is Spanish!(Multicultural Games)

October 31st is a day to go around to other people’s houses and ask for candy, that’s not true for most Spanish families, it’s a day to honor the people who have died, it’s called the day of the dead or Dia De Los Muertos. People have a festival for anyone who has died they set out flowers and other little treats and some of their older things for the people who have died to take with them to another world, that’s another reason why we as Christians don’t celebrate the day of the dead because we believe they go to heaven. People dress in costumes and dance around, there are people in stilts and other performers who dance for everyone. It takes place on November 1st and 2nd. The 1st is for all the adults who have died and the 2nd is for all souls. We as Christians do not celebrate the day of the dead because we believe that they go to heaven and live eternal life and because the 1st is all saints day and the 2nd is all souls day. That’s why everyone is thought of on the second because it’s all souls day so they remember all souls. People usually buy them.

We use many things from the Spanish culture, sure things like food but also the deeper stuff like how they treat their elders, some games they play, and how they remember the people who have died. So next time you think about the Spanish culture don’t just think about the tacos, black beans and rice, or the plantains but more about how they treat their elders, some of their games, and how they remember the dead in a special way. Go deeper than what is on the outside.

__**WORKS CITED:**__ "About - National Hispanic Heritage Month." // About - National Hispanic Heritage Month //. The Library of Congress, n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2015. http://hispanicheritagemonth.gov/about/


 * This source is valuable because

"Multicultural Games." // Nwsisdmrc //. Multicultural Resource Center, 29 Nov. 2011. Web. 30 Apr. 2015. []


 * This is a valuable source because these people who got the information actually went and looked at what the Hispanics did in their leisure time.

"Where in the World Is Spanish Spoken?" // Where Spanish Is Spoken //. Ethnologue, n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2015. []
 * This is a valuable source because people went and studied the Spanish language.

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