UTRGV hosted the International Students Luncheon with the goal of bringing students and faculty from all around the world together to celebrate a well known U.S. tradition, Thanksgiving.
Director of International admissions and student services Samantha Lopez said that the purpose of this annual event is to bring people together who may be far from home.
“We have this event so our international students can get to know more about Thanksgiving, especially because they are not familiar with this holiday in the United States and they don’t have their families here, so we want to provide a warm meal and tell them more about our traditions,” Lopez said.
She said being thankful for what we have is the most important thing.
“That’s [why] we are to be thankful for everything that we have. We have health, we have food, we have a job, we have a family and we should be thankful for that,” Lopez said.
Campus Missionary Intern Vanessa Cisneros is from Ecuador and she said Thanksgiving isn’t as well known where she’s from, but she appreciates the meaning of the holiday.
“In my country, it’s not that popular as here, but it’s like me and my family would celebrate together, also our church here also,” Cisneros said.
She said she has learned a lot about the local cultures after attending many of the events at UTRGV.
“So over there it was like the same for all people from latin america and different countries but It was still a welcoming environment, I already learned a lot of accents and words from Latin America so that was nice,” Cisneros said.
UTRGV Sophomore Lia Quintero from Santiago de Querétaro, Mexico said she heard about Thanksgiving when she lived in Mexico but did not fully experience the holiday until she moved to the U.S.
“A few people that come from the North do celebrate Thanksgiving and we hear about it, but to be honest, if you ask me, I [had] no idea until I came here,” Quintero said.
In Mexico there is not a specific national holiday for people to get together, it is just in the Mexican culture for people to be thankful, according to Quintero.
“We do have a lot of festivals and a lot of days that we just use [as] an excuse to meet up,” Quintero said. “I feel like Mexicans do not need an excuse to just get together. There is a little joke that said that Mexicans only need a backyard to hangout.”
