Students in the Spanish National Honor Society (SNHS) gathered for the Spanish Olympiad in Nichols Atrium during lunch today.

During the event, members of SNHS participated in activities and ate “pastel de tres leches,” a traditional Spanish cake.

“Today’s agenda is to basically showcase our pride in Latin American and Hispanic culture,” SNHS president Aditi Maheshwari (12) said. “Our aim is to ‘promote and preserve’ [these cultures], and we’re going to do that by doing a bunch of activities and getting everybody involved.”

Through the course of the Olympiad, SNHS members played a game of cultural bingo, in which they answered questions regarding Latin American culture to win prizes. Although it was initially planned for the students to also play a game in which they identified genres of music, time ran out because of technical difficulties.

“The kids are creating their own bingo cards based on these smaller cards of cultural information, so they’re either refreshing or learning new [information] and then they’re jotting down some of the answers to the cards,” SNHS advisor Abel Olivas said.

Members answered questions about the food, music and history of various Spanish-speaking countries.

“If we knew the answers we would put down [an M&M] on our Bingo card and once we got Bingo, we got more prizes of chocolate candy,” SNHS member Karena Kong said. “It was a good learning opportunity, but it was also fun.”

To wrap up the event, members shared a tres leches cake, a traditional Latin American dessert made of different types of milk.

Jimmy Lin (11), a member of the society, found the event both entertaining and educational.

“I learned a lot of interesting cultural tidbits, such as the origins of different music genres, like reggaetón and cumbia,” Jimmy said. “In addition to that, I gained a deepened appreciation for Hispanic desserts.”

SNHS is planning other activities relating to Spanish culture.

“Other than the whole idea about taking pride in Hispanic culture, I think this year we’re also trying to start focusing more on giving back to the Hispanic community,” Aditi said.

SNHS will also host the Spanish Cultural Night in the spring.

Gallery • 3 Photos

Meena Gudapati

Emily Chen (11) plays bingo during Spanish Olympiad. Members of SNHS played bingo and ate cake during Spanish Olympiad.