Family, Culture, and Literature

May 3, 2014 was a busy and exciting day at California State University San Bernardino as the campus hosted a Cinco de Mayo celebration, honoring Latino literature, music, and culture. Held within the Santos Manuel Student Union on campus, this Book and Family Festival had a tremendous turn-out as families brought their young children to experience a day of music, dancing, and of course literature. Vendors were also present, selling Cinco de Mayo-themed souvenirs and food. Since this festival had literature as its focus, there were many authors present. One of these authors, Alina Gonzalez, revealed that she had been invited to attend as part of a book tour. Copies of their works were available and they also did book signings. There was also a section of the event partitioned for a reading festival for the kids, while surrounding area featured performances by young children in a choir. To provide entertainment, music and dance performances were held in the center of Student Union. It was here that the Master of Ceremonies for this festival, Rudy Bravo, spoke to the audience. “There is a misconception that people are reading less, when in reality we are reading more,” Bravo said to his audience. He spoke strongly on how people may not be reading books as much, but because people use the internet so heavily, read digital books, read text messages, they are in fact reading far more than in the past. The festival was originally to help raise literacy as well as to appreciate literature among Latinos since Latino literacy was below average in the US Bravo said when speaking about how the festival was started. Since then, it appears that the festival has become a resounding success, with at least a dozen authors and hundreds of guests this year. When asked about how the turn-out of visitors was compared to last year, student volunteer Carlos Esparza, who had worked the event the previous year, said that it was a greater turn-out than last year; a believable statement, with a seemingly endless stream of people going into the event.