Fifth graders took part in Latino Career Week, a program through La Paz Chattanooga, by listening to Chattanoogans share their businesses and cultural experiences via Zoom during Spanish class. October is Hispanic Heritage Month.

This morning, students in Mr. Lauer’s class, had a Zoom session with leaders of La Paz and four business people in our community: a wealth manager at Merrill Lynch from Cuba; a social impact director at La Paz, whose family is from Colombia; a communications coordinator at La Paz, whose family is from Dominican Republic, and a realtor from Costa Rica.

Each of the four talked about their home countries and traditions they still honor while living in the U.S. All said they incorporate their home traditions with U.S. traditions. For instance, they celebrate Christmas in their own culture with the foods they prepare and eat and the activities they have at home. For instance, many celebrate on Christmas Eve or stay up until midnight. One talked about celebrating Dominican Republic’s independence day in February with traditional dances and costumes.

They talked about how they use their heritage in their places of business. They talked about the advantages of being bilingual and in understanding many cultures to help explain things like buying or selling a home or investing.

Food was a big topic, and they told the students about their favorite traditional meals such as sancocho, a soup sometimes served over rice; roast pork; flan, and habichuelas con dulce, a sweet red bean dessert.

Students asked about what places they would like to visit that they have visited before and any foods they would like to try that they have not tried before.