STA News
STA Celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month
Storyteller, activist, and photographer Saul Flores joined our students for a full day in October as part of the school’s celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month. Flores addressed Upper and Lower School assemblies, sharing lunch with the Latinx Affinity Groups, visited English and religion classes, and spoke to C and B Formers in the Little Sanctuary.
A Brooklyn native, and son of immigrants from Mexico and El Salvador, Flores shared his family story, described the sacrifice his parents made for him, and detailed his own attempt, while a student at NC State, to reenact an immigrant’s trek from Quito, Ecuador, to Charlotte, N.C.—a ten-country, 5,328-mile walk. Flores used the walk, which he called the Walk of the Immigrants, and the photographs he took during it to raise awareness about immigration. He also generated funds to reconstruct his mother’s elementary school, which had been deemed “irreparable” and was slated to close.
“When I finally stepped foot into El Paso, Texas, the project was picked up all over the world, and what had started off as an idea evolved into something so much bigger than myself,” recalled Flores at Upper School assembly. “If you can cement yourself in a passion and and use that passion to serve a community that you’re coming from, you have the capacity to create incredible change.”
Also last week, Forms B and C were treated to dancers from Furia Flamenca, a local dance company. Although flamenco dancing is associated with beginnings in the Andalusia region of Spain, the dancers and guitarist who visited the Lower School came from Puerto Rico, Bolivia and Texas. All were in traditional flamenco costumes and shoes and showed the students how rhythm is kept with castanets and their special shoes. The students were called on to participate by performing a rhythmic pattern with the stomping feet and clapping hands.
Located in Washington D.C., St. Albans School is a private, all boys day and boarding school. For more than a century, St. Albans has offered a distinctive educational experience for young men in grades 4 through 12. While our students reach exceptional academic goals and exhibit first-rate athletic and artistic achievements, as an Episcopal school we place equal emphasis upon moral and spiritual education.