For the last month, first grade students at Speas Global Elementary School have been studying Latin and Central American countries in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month.
On Thursday, they marched through the field outside of their school, waving flags, wearing customary clothing, and chanting the names of the places they’ve learned about.
Four students held the Venezuelan flag, and wore yellow, red, and blue to match. Another group, representing Peru, wore brightly colored traditional clothing for a dance called Valicha.
Their teacher, Rosario Sakatoma, is from Peru and began teaching in the United States about eight years ago.
“Fortunately, in this school, we are people from different countries. We have Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, and many other countries," she said. "So every day we were trying to talk about one country, at least learning basic stuff like capital and traditional customs that they have.”
The students also learned a song in Spanish called “Color Esperanza,” which means “Color of Hope.” Sakatoma said she picked that song because of its positive message, and translated a few lines in English.
“Everything is possible if you just put your heart in it. Everything is possible when you just work hard for it," she said. "And you have to see every time the colors of hope that is coming in future."
At the end of the parade, the students, representing all of their different countries, gathered together to perform the song.
Assistant Principal Samuel McMillan said he was proud of the students' work over the past month to make the parade possible.
"They were so excited about it. As they've been preparing, you could really see the effort they put into all this, whether it was a song, whether it was the flags that they made," McMillan said. "They took a lot of pride in their work, and their effort for this."
Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated annually from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15.
Amy Diaz covers education for WFDD in partnership with Report For America. You can follow her on Twitter at @amydiaze.