Celebrando Herencia: A Latino Educator’s Reflection on a Science Museum’s “Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month Celebration Day”

ABSTRACT

Promoting science education to all continues to be a key focus for many individuals and organizations. Informal science education settings such as museums have been shown to have a positive influence on student attitudes and interests toward science. Unfortunately, many underrepresented groups do not frequent museums as frequently as other majority groups. Hispanic and Latino-identifying individuals are an example of a group of interest, as their national population growth is not reflected in museum visitor statistics. This paper explores how the Museum of Science in Boston, Massachusetts attempts to engage the Latino community through a Hispanic Heritage Month event. This is explored through the lens of the author, after attending the event. These reflections will capture a “lived experience” that can potentially be used as consideration when planning future events that target the Latino community.

KEYWORDS:

• Culture
• latino identity
• autoethnography
• reflection

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Dr. Remy Dou for his endless support in bringing this study to life and for answering so many of my questions. His positive influence on me as a budding researcher will not be forgotten!

Disclosure statement

The author declares that there are no known conflicts of interests associated with this study. In addition, there are no financial conflicts as there was no funding utilized for this work.