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Hispanic Heritage Month at Lab begins Tuesday

"Hispanic Americans: Honoring our Past, Surpassing our Present, and Leading our Future," is the theme for this year's national Hispanic Heritage Month. The Laboratory’s Hispanic Diversity Working Group is hosting several activities to mark the national observance, beginning with a kickoff event Tuesday (Sept. 16) at the Administration Building Auditorium at Technical Area 3.

Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated nationally from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15.

The event begins at 11 a.m. and is open to all Laboratory badge holders. The kickoff event will be broadcast on Labnet Channel 9. The program also will be videotaped for later viewing on Labnet Channnel 10.

Laboratory Director G. Peter Nanos is scheduled to recognize and honor the contributions of Hispanic workers at the Laboratory, according to Lisa Gutierrez of the Diversity (DVO) Office.

Richard Vann Bynum, deputy associate director of Weapons Engineering and Manufacturing (ADWEM), will recognize the efforts of all employees on the "Qual 1 team," which worked on manufacturing the first nuclear weapons pit made at the Lab in 14 years.

More information on the Qual 1 project can be found in the April 23 Daily Newsbulletin.

Senaida Madrid of Internal Security (ISEC) and Rebecca Cordova of Project Quality Management (PM-18), chair and vice chair of the Hispanic Diversity Working Group, will make opening and closing remarks and Frances Castellano of High Performance Computing Systems (CCN-7) will sing the national anthem.

Northern New Mexico musician and educator Cipriano Vigil also will perform at Tuesday's event. Vigil teaches at Northern New Mexico Community College in Española.

Other scheduled Hispanic Heritage Month events include a talk Oct. 7 by Carlos Ramirez, the executive director of the University of New Mexico-Los Alamos.

For more information, go to the Hispanic Heritage Month Web site at http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/dvo/hdwg/hhm/hhmonth03.htm online.

--Hana Binder

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