Students in Amy McCann’s Spanish classes at Salt Point Center are learning about art and perseverance and putting their creativity on paper as part of a Hispanic Heritage Month mural project.
The project, to create a mural for the hallway for the school’s Open House scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 29, began this week. McCann’s classes learned about Frida Kahlo, an artist born in Mexico in 1907, and also heard a little bit about how School Counselor Sam Esposito was connecting with her Hispanic roots.
As a child, Kahlo had polio and one leg was shorter than the other. She was often teased, and her father encouraged her to take up boxing, wrestling and other sports to help strengthen her leg. She was also a passenger in a school bus accident which left her spine fractured in three places and required more than 30 operations, causing her to remain in bed to recover much of the time.
“Her outlet was her art,” McCann told the class.
One of her famous quotes was, “Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings?”
McCann chose a mural of individual wings for her classes to color as they wanted, which will be assembled to create a large mural, with space for people to stand between so it appears they have wings.
“She really overcame a lot of adversity, and for some of our students it is nice for them to see someone who has a lot of adversity and overcomes it to do amazing things,” McCann said.
Esposito shared that she is Puerto Rican and Dominican and that her family is from the same town Bad Bunny was born in, which is why he is her favorite artist. She said she speaks Spanish fluently, but lost some of those skills by not speaking the language regularly, so she is making more of an effort to do so. She encouraged the class to connect with their roots as well and to have fun with the project.
The project struck a chord with student Dania, who was coloring a heart red as part of her panel.
“I was sad because that girl had a hard life,” she said. But when asked about the project honoring Kahlo’s life, her outlook changed. “It feels happy to color it because I want that girl to be happy.”
Hispanic Heritage Month runs from Sept. 15-Oct. 15, and this project is one of many happening around campus.
