Noche Latina celebrates Latine culture
The annual Noche Latina celebration has returned to Chapin Auditorium after being held elsewhere on campus for two years. The night was jam-packed with food, fun and community.
Noche Latina is an annual celebration of the Latine community at Mount Holyoke College and in the area. The fun-filled evening of community, music, performance and food is one of the concluding events of Latine Heritage Month. This year, there was an additional element of joy: the return of the festivities to Chapin Auditorium on Friday, Oct. 4, after two years of being held in the Great Room of the Community Center.
An annual event since 2010, Noche Latina was planned by the student group La Unidad. This year’s theme was “The Latin Grammys,” which saw Chapin bedecked in Latin American flags, crepe paper streamers and vinyl records.
Nazareth Castro ’25 from Chicago, Illinois, and this year’s co-chair of La Unidad, was excited for the theme. “It’s going back to what we grew up watching on TV with our parents and families,” she said. “It’s all gold — very elegant.”
Alejandra Lopez Nestor ’27 from Warrenton, Oregon, and part of the executive board of La Unidad, was most looking forward to the student performances as well as a fashion show and a flag walk, “which has become a tradition for Noche Latina.”
“We’re going to have three singers and two dance groups — one is Sangre del Sol, Mount Holyoke’s only Latine dance group on campus,” Castro said before the event.
Sadalys Peña ’25 from Brooklyn, New York, and the co-chair for Noche Latina, added, “And we’re going to start with the Five College West African drumming group. We love them.”
The celebration was also open to students, faculty and staff of the Five College Consortium.
“We've actually had a really awesome turnout from Hampshire College,” Lopez Nestor said. “I was looking at the signups. We have people [coming] from Smith College coming and from UMass coming.”
Tickets to the pre-performance dinner being held in Chapin were sold out.
Hosting an event of this size and scope is quite an undertaking. The La Unidad’s executive board was glad to have a committed group of volunteers to plan the event.
“So, I think each of us are bringing things to the table that we're good at, and we’ve formed into a really, really great combination,” said Francesca Aguerrebere ’26 from Miami, Florida, and member of the La Unidad executive board. “And that's why I feel like this event has been so successful, because everyone is excelling where they feel most comfortable.”
Latrina L. Denson, associate dean of students for Community and Belonging, was thrilled with this year’s event. “I always love the performers,” she said. “That's always my favorite thing. And, particularly, I really love the tradition, and all the students come out with flags representing their heritage, and I love their pride.”
