Wasatch County students celebrate culture in artistic showcase

The energy at Wasatch High School Latinos in Action’s celebration of cultures showcase on Friday instantly topped that of many live shows. 

There was no awkward head-bobbing or distracted chatting from the crowd packed into the school auditorium. Instead, there were screams of support from parents holding bouquets, dancing in the audience and cheering that rivaled the Super Bowl. 

When Wasatch High School ninth grader and resident hype man Jafet Farías wandered on stage in a blazer and sunglasses to belt out Don Omar’s 2010 hit “Danza Kuduro” for the first act, the entire auditorium lit up with phone flashlights dancing like a swarm of excited fireflies.

Timpagonos Middle School student Salome Urquijo was a tad more timid than Farías was. 

Wearing a colorful traditional Mexican dress and flower crown, the 12-year-old student danced with the girls in Andres Caceres’ Latinos in Action class. Meanwhile, the boys donned masks resembling elderly men and sombreros, which they twirled on canes like spinning plates during the Michoacán folk dance Danza de los Viejitos (Dance of the Little Old Men).

Urquijo said they planned the dance for a year, but she still had stage fright.

“There are so many people here,” she said beforehand. “It’s people bigger than me, and I feel nervous.”

Wasatch High School Latinos in Action teacher Ana Alejandre said giving students a safe space to share their talents was one of the reasons she founded the cultural showcase four years ago.

“There’s a teacher friend of mine. She said, ‘This, for some kids, is going to be the only time that they really perform in their life on a stage where they have this many people watching them,'” Alejandre said. “Just to see them feeling so proud up there, it’s like, ‘Yes. That’s what we’re here to do.'”

Alejandre also founded the cultural showcase to foster interest in Wasatch High School’s Latinos in Action class.

Latinos in Action is a national program focused on empowering Latino youth through four pillars: leveraging personal and cultural assets, excelling in education, serving the community and developing leadership skills. Wasatch High School’s Latinos in Action class was founded about a decade ago, with Alejandre beginning to teach it four years ago.

“The first year that I taught Latinos in Action, none of this was happening. … Kids didn’t sign up for (Latinos in Action). I had to invite students to join,” Alejandre said. 

But once the group started holding the annual cultural showcase four years ago, kids became interested in the class. The showcase itself became wildly popular, with Alejandre estimating that this year’s crowd was three times the size of the first showcase’s. 

There were a few poetry and vocal performances, like the guitar-strumming and serenading of Wasatch High School senior Yandell Parra’s three-man band, Grupo CLAY, but the bulk of performances were dance numbers.

A standout performance was by a group featuring Wasatch High School alumni Milly Vieyra and Mayra Castro. The group performed a dance popular during July festivities in Guerrero, Mexico, when residents celebrate the saint Sr. Santiago Apostol. 

The group wore heavy, handmade sombreros that looked as if they were made of orange flowers, as well as wooden masks that distort their voices to sound deeper when they yell. They danced to a repetitive flute and drum melody, stomping the ground to represent growing flowers and cracking whips to imitate lightning.

“Every dance has a story behind it,” Castro said. “We’re basically representing the farmers.”

It wasn’t just students and alumni who danced, but school district employees, too.

High school counselor Angie Orjuela-Beltran performed a dance number with her fiance, father and mother. 

“Sometimes resources are not available for (students) because of the language. So, the job that they are doing helping them is amazing. I really love and admire my daughter,” said Angie’s father, Carlos Orjuela. 

Dance became a staple of the Orjuela family as soon as they immigrated to the United States about 20 years ago.

“We were not dancers before, but then, when we came, basically, we realized that dance is something that is joining the family together,” he said. “We enjoy it. So we dance on every occasion that we have the opportunity.”

Assistant High School Principal McKenzie Neiufi also performed a dance number with her family, though they had much less practice, according to her husband, Amoni. He learned about the showcase earlier that evening, when he’d just gotten home from work. The family practiced for about an hour before they were thrust into the spotlight. 

The Neiufis performed a Polynesian dance number to “Mate Ma’a Tonga” by Tupou Loto’aniu and made it through about half of the dance onstage. 

“There’s still more to that dance,” Amoni said. “Maybe next year, we’ll do the whole thing.”

The Neiufis’ performance was an example of how the culture night was for everyone, despite being organized by Latinos in Action. 

Junior Aim Jivon got the crowd clapping along as she sang Thai pop songs, while sophomore Daigh Marshall performed Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” in American Sign Language as twelfth grader Avery Green jammed on the piano. 

For Alejandre, the “culture” in culture night refers to Wasatch High School’s culture as well.

She grew up in Ogden after her family immigrated to the United States from Michoacán, Mexico, when she was 8 years old. She estimated that her family was one of five immigrant families in her school district. There certainly wasn’t a cultural showcase back then; her heritage felt like a secret she had to keep. 

When she began teaching in the school district, she was pleasantly surprised by the number of Hispanic students and the variety of cultures students came from.

“You can see that kids are just into it. They want other people to see. They want to show what they know because it’s hard to any other place,” Alejandre said. “That’s part of the school.”