Salsa dancing lessons offered students the ability to open their minds and experience an aspect of Latin culture at the Latino Student Union's (LSU) Unity Fiesta Wednesday evening.
The fiesta was a Unity Week event that featured salsa lessons taught by private salsa instructors Chad Wright and Karina Marcelo.
LSU chose to bring the salsa instructors for its Unity Week event because dancing is something many LSU members enjoy.
"Part of our culture is dancing, and salsa's one of the hip new dances, so why not do that?" LSU member Sara Trevino-Norris said.
LSU President Alinna Nieto said she was excited about the event.
"We're really upbeat and like to dance and listen to music," she said. "It's good for people to learn that aspect about the culture, and they get the opportunity to learn how to dance."
Tiffany Washington, assistant director of the office of Student Organizations and Activities, said Unity Week events expose students to different cultures.
"We hope that people will take away an open mind, come out of their comfort zones and be able to celebrate and embrace other cultures," Washington said.
This is the first year LSU has been involved in Unity Week.
Unity Week has been organized solely by the Black Student Association (BSA) in the past, Washington said. However, this year BSA, LSU, the Asian American Student Association and Spectrum joined together to created the Unity Week Committee to plan this year's events.
BSA President Devin Day said the change has worked so far.
"This year we tried to do something different where we actually tried to get all the multicultural organizations together and doing something together instead of doing it out of one organization," he said. "I think that it was better that we got more people involved."
Bernice Liang, AASA's representative for the Unity Week Committee, agreed with Day.
"It's still in its planning stages because this is the first year we've done it, but I think it has a really great jump start," she said.
LSU treasurer Matzine Sanchez said the change was good for the multicultural organizations.
"It just brings us together as a multicultural community," she said, "and it's just about supporting each other."
LSU's fiesta was the third event in Unity Week. Day said the week has gone well so far, and he was happy with attendance.
Washington said she hoped to see big turnouts for the rest of the events.
"We want to get more people to come out and celebrate unity with us," she said.
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