Latinopalooza was about inclusiveness and extending a helping hand to Latinos who want a shot at a better life.
The Latinx Student Union held the annual talent show at the L.A. Pittenger Student Center ballroom Friday.
“The main point is kind of just to celebrate the different types of talents at Ball State ... We provide an opportunity for all these beautiful talents and organizations to represent themselves,” Ashley Caceres, a senior architecture major and president of LSU, said.
This is Caceres’ third year being involved in the talent show, and she said it helped improve her life.
“My first year I was just a member of LSU, and I had very little self-confidence, so this was really an opportunity for me to get out there,” she said.
The event also raised funds for La 72 Shelter, part of a network of shelters throughout Central America and Mexico that assists immigrants and refugees.
“The money will go to resources that they need like food [and] providing shelter for people,” Caceres said.
Edgar De Santiago, a sophomore theatre acting major, has been in LSU for two years and hosted Latinopalooza for the first time Friday.
“Maybe not everything was planned, but it’s coming together,” De Santiago said during the intermission of the show.
He was thankful to have the opportunity to host the talent show because he knows there are others who have to focus on matters like finding food, medicine and shelter.
“We live in a pretty, we call it middle class, but, like, we take things for granted, you know,” he said.
De Santiago compared his opportunity at Latinopalooza with the realities of immigrants and refugees searching for a better life.
“They live with the constant worry of ‘am I going to survive today?’” he said.
The show consisted of a range of talents including musical performances, dancing, a drag performance and magic.
“I first got into magic probably in the fourth grade from a book I found in the library,” said Anthony Boler, a sophomore marketing major, who did magic tricks at the talent show.
When he was growing up, he learned magic tricks online. Nowadays, he gets paid to perform magic.
“This is definitely in the top things I want to do with my life,” he said.
Boler attended Latinopalooza last year, which inspired him to sign up for an audition.
During his set, a sealed deck of cards bound in rubber bands sat on an audience member’s head, and he had other members in the crowd think of a card.
“They created the card in their own mind randomly,” he said. “Then we went back to the deck and there was one card reversed in the deck and it was the card they created randomly.”
The drag queen Holly Berry Blossom also made an appearance at Latinopalooza.
“You can be whatever you want when you’re in drag,” Evan Schacherer, a sophomore hospitality and food management major who performs as Holly Berry Blossom, said.
He was introduced to drag through Spectrum and when he performs, he feels like something takes him over.
Schacherer said a major part of drag for him is performing and breaking the way society thinks of gender.
“Don’t be afraid to be who you want to be,” he said.
Contact Patrick Calvert with comments at pcalvert@bsu.edu or on Twitter at @MidwestPatrick.
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