The smell of sweet plantains and arroz con leche to the rhythm of Cuban salsa and snippets of Spanish attracted a dozen or so people to the promenades of Hughes-Trigg Student Center just to catch a glimpse of the Latin infusion Thursday night before spring break.
‘Buena Vista Social Club’ was playing, marking the first public event for the Spanish club. It featured a famous Cuban band, their music and how they came together and formed their band.
Much like the ‘Buena Vista Social Club’ band Kalindi Dinoffer, Gwen Carris, Ricky Mouser, Matthew Cody, Kelly Kiser, Guido Arcella, Patrick Doucette and Sharnell Robinson, all SMU students, with Angie Nozaleda as their faculty advisor, have joined to create a Spanish club on campus.
Spanish, the largest world languages department did not have a club on campus.
“I’ve felt the need of a Spanish club. We’ve tried several times but this is the first time we have a conjunction of a large group of students that have untied their forces and truly love the culture,” Nozaleda, faculty advisor and SMU professor, said.
The group started informally last year with smaller activities with a few students and the current officers of the club. Most of their activities involved learning how to cook certain Hispanic dishes or watching foreign films. Now the club is trying to grow and has just gotten its probationary charter status.
The new organization hopes to get its temporary charter status by the end of the semester.
“Let’s start [the club] small, let’s just get the people who are going to be hard workers. Just start small rather than advertising it to everyone and not have it organized and not know who’s who,” Spanish Club President Dinoffer said.
Dinoffer had been thinking about a Spanish club since she came to SMU two years ago. She met and discussed the idea with friends while studying abroad in Spain last year.
Nozaleda, her professor at the time, saw her enthusiasm with the idea and decided to help her and spread the word to students in her other classes.
“I want a balance and I feel like it’s a club that’s needed for the appreciation of the language and culture and that’s where we can get together on,” Cody, social affairs officer, said.
The club strives to unite native speakers with students who are learning the language in many ways, especially through community service.
Doucette, one of the community service officers, explained that the club not only wants to learn and practice the language but it has a big emphasis on giving back to the Spanish community in Dallas. The club wants to work with the after school program at Heart House helping Hispanic children.
“The club can attend social gatherings [of the Spanish community] and immerse themselves in the culture to better understand it,” Nozaleda said.
The club has many plans ahead including volunteering in different countries, tapas night, flamenco dancing and more.
The Spanish department at SMU includes teachers from various Spanish speaking countries that teach in diverse subjects such as feminist studies, gender studies, human rights topics and colonial studies.
Nozaleda explained that the Spanish club is trying to reflect the same characteristics by not only showing the diversity of the language but also of the cultures.
“There’s a wide range of cultures in the Spanish speaking community and we want to highlight the variety that there is and how they are all neat and special in some way,” Doucette said.
The Spanish club’s Facebook page received 59 likes in just two days. This supports the ideas of Dinoffer and Cody that SMU students are interested in joining a Spanish club.
“Without [the club] on campus students are missing out on an experience they could be having here at SMU,” Cody said.
