Being the Honorary Latina

Much earlier before actually even reaching the first week at Drexel, I knew that my room mate was from El Salvador and that I most likely would become friends with many more people from Central and South America. What I didn't anticipate was how different the experience of going on the weekends would be.

After venturing out with my newly found friends living in the race street suite style dorms on Thursday, my room mate suggested that I go with her to a "Latino party" as they are called with her on Friday. A Latino party is a party in which a group of Spanish speaking students (all usually from central or south America) from all around the area and surrounding schools meet up so that they can dance, drink, and socialize with people who have grown up with similar situations.

My roommate and I began our night around 11:30, which is accustom seeing as in Latin America culture, most don't even eat dinner until at least 9:30. We finally reached our destination around Midnight, after a walk to an off campus University of Pennsylvania house (in heels mind you).

First off, I noticed that everyone greeted each other with a kiss on the cheek and an excited "Hola! Como estas?" meaning, "Hello! How are you?" After getting over the initial shock of getting kissed on the cheek by about eight different people, I realized that the main socializing area was around the Hookah. A hookah is a device made for smoking tobacco and it is considered a very social event in almost all cultures. So mustering up enough courage, I joined my roommate in the hap-hazaard circle around the hookah and started talking to different people around me.

I had never realized how diverse the student population in Philadelphia was! I met people from Ecuador, Bolivia, Hoduras, Costa Rica and two others non latinos, one from Ukraine, the other from SIberia Russia. I was astounded by the sheer amount of culture that was packed into one slightly cramped apartment.

After staying at this apartment until about three in the morning, I had gotten my fill of drinking and socializing, it was now time to go to an after party to get the last important aspect of a Latino party, dancing.

Our group arrived at the after party which was a Upenn frat house basement party, I was then schooled in how to dance like a Latina. Seeing as I have been living in America my entire life, my definition of dancing that goes on at parties is, as my boyfriend has defined it in the past, "Groping your partner to a beat, therefore 'qualifing' it as a dance." But much to my surprise, none of my newly found friends had any interest in dancing like this. Instead, they taught me a very simple salsa which honestly, made me like dancing again. Instead of it being about "How vulger can I be on this dance floor?" it was about "How much fun can I have getting spun in and out and keeping to the rythm of my partner who genuinely just wants to dance?"

After about an hour or so of dancing and realizing just how exhausted we all were, we decided to go back to the dorms. As we made the treck back to the dorms, shoes no in hand, loud spanish streaming around me, I realized that I could get very, very used to this. I can't wait to see what happens next weekend.