With the time fast approaching for
the graduating class of 2025 for Sedro Woolley’s seniors, the importance of heritage is important for some of these students who want to show where their roots grew from. With graduation happening in June, most of the Latinos will want to wear a sarape that represents their pride in their heritage and show it off.
LIA teacher Rachel Rodriguez, who had fought to allow Sarapes in graduations, gave her thoughts about the Sarapes significance to the student
“it’s a culturally significant way of being able to show your culture, and students want to be able to have and show their pride in their heritage,” said LIA Teacher Rachel Rodriguez.
The Sarapes for this year are going to be printed on the cloth unlike previous years where they were embroidered with the Sarapes which shows the graduation year and SWHS on it, however, Rodriguez also dove into more detail regarding her newly implemented LIA Chords for her LIA graduating students.
“I wanted to implement that because I believe that showing people when the chords are earned for academics and other clubs and like Avid.” Said Rodriguez. “I believe that chord should be earned in LIA as well, we want to credit our seniors for their hard work, leadership, and dedication and so we’re implementing them this year to have them show that they actually have done some community service and worked really hard doing events in LIA and maintaining their academics.”
The LIA chords will be awarded to the seniors this year due to the first year of LIA however more will be required for future seniors. “This year, we’re actually going to award our seniors the chords because it’s the first year of LIA, but starting next year, we’re going to require that you actually carry through at least two to four years of LIA to get a chord and with the requirements of volunteering academics being involved in school,” said Rodriguez
The Sarapes order time is unfortunately coming to an end as the deadline to order is “before April this year” and the time is up with no exceptions for late orders so the Sarapes can arrive on time before graduation. However, the Sarapes will be worn by many Latino students along with the new LIA chord.
ASB Vice President Alexa Ceja says the Sarapes are a big part of our Latino culture. “I think it’s really cool SWHS has given us the opportunity to implement that into our school. It just shows a little bit more appreciation towards our culture and bringing it to Sedro-Woolley High School just gives us a bit of our home here,” said Ceja.
Ceja is excited but anxious with graduation coming so soon, but wants to live in the moment for the rest of her high school year. She is excited to see how the LIA class will grow in next coming years.
“Since it’s our first year, I think we’re doing good. I’m really grateful that we started this class, and I’m excited to see it expand further in the next years.” Said Ceja.
Ceja had lots of praise for the LIA class but she believes “there’s still some criteria that needs to be met” regarding the earning of LIA chords for future graduating LIA students.
With all things considered, the most important thing for seniors every year is to enjoy their time. “No matter what people tell you, no matter your failures, just keep moving forward,” said Ceja.