Nine teams turned out Sept. 16 to play soccer, eat and experience Hispanic culture through sports.
Mi Familia, The Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers and the Caribbean Students Association hosted the Hispanic Heritage Soccer Tournament at Lee Field.
“Soccer is a very Latin sport and it’s not very big in the States,” Adriana Weil, a junior in biological sciences, said. “We wanted to bring people out to experience Hispanic culture and unity through sport.”
According to its Web site, Mi Familia is a Hispanic cultural-awareness club that seeks to provide a social, cultural and political forum for students.
Teams could be mixed-gender with seven to 10 players, and the tournament was open to all students and members of the surrounding community.
“We had a broad amount of representation at this tournament,” Weil said. “We even had a team from Wilmington that wanted to come and play, but they were unable to make it.”
SHEP seeks to promote the development of Hispanics in engineering, science and other technical professions.
“Since Sept. 15 through Oct. 15 is Hispanic Heritage Month, we wanted to kick it off with something fun that everyone would enjoy,” Eric Valentin, junior in biomedical engineering, said, “This is just one of many events we plan on putting on this month.”
According to Weil and Valentin, Mi Familia and SHEP are planning an event called Salsabor in the beginning of October. Salsabor will showcase Hispanic culture through displays, food, singing and salsa dance lessons. Dates and times are currently unavailable.
Members of both Mi Familia and SHEP include students from Peru, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Mexico and other Latin American and Spanish-speaking countries. Both organizations are open to people who wish to enhance their knowledge of Hispanic culture.
“We’re a very diverse group,” Weil said. “Everyone is welcome.”
The winner of the tournament was a team called Mother Earth. They received 10 DVD movies, one for each player, for winning.
“[Mother Earth] is an intramural team, so this tournament was good preparation for the [intramural] season,” Eli Tiller, senior in biochemistry, said. “Also the Hispanic community is such a big part of Raleigh, and it was great that everyone came out to play a sport that the world loves.”