A Night of Performances and Pride: Noche Latina 2025
By Leila Metres; Photos by Jeremi Amaya, Aubrey Coyne, Leila Metres, and Dylan Podlinski
Content
On November 21, 2025, crowds of students flocked to the Campus Center for Noche Latina (Latin Night), an event to celebrate the Latinx community at UMass through song and dance. The theme of Noche Latina this year was Cosa Nuestra (Our Thing), inspired by Rauw Alejandro’s album, and the dress code was “Roaring 20s Con Sabor Latina” (with a Latin flavor). Students showed up and showed out for the theme, decked in stark red and black, feathers, pearls, and even ballroom dresses. As I walked in, DJs were blasting Latin music from the stage, and a large red carpet divided the tables scattered around the Campus Center.
Noche Latina, which is sponsored by UMass Latinos Unidos, has been a prominent event for the Latinx community here at UMass since 2010. The event features cultural food and music, and it highlights a number of Latinx dance groups on campus.
“We don’t have as many events on campus for people of color, so Noche Latina is one that finally brings us together,” Janessa Altenor, an Honors student and one of the dance coordinators for Cayena, says, “Events like Noche Latina, Afroball, Voices of Caribbean, etc. give people a chance to culturally connect and feel seen.”
The night opened with a land acknowledgment for the Pocumtuc Nation and the land of the Norrwutuck people, highlighting this event’s commitment to heritage and community. Then, there was food: beef empanadas, fried plantains, pollo guisado (chicken stew), morro (rice and pigeon peas), and flan for dessert. As audience members chowed down, the emcee for the night, Manny Betanzos, took over. He spoke in a mix of English and some blended Spanish, engaging and joking with the audience, but also bringing a tone of gratitude for everyone who showed up.
“Tonight, we’re celebrating everything that makes us unique: our music, our language, our culture,” Betanzos announced.
Before beginning the main performances of the night, there was a flag walk, where students paraded down the red carpet holding flags to represent their countries. Betanzos encouraged the audience to cheer for their flags, and the crowd applauded for each representative member waving their country’s flag high. Each student walked with a purpose: to cultivate pride for their community.
The setlist opened with Norah Thomas, a senior majoring in music, covering songs in both English and Spanish. Thomas, who hails from Brockton, Massachusetts, is also a cultural dance coordinator for the Haitian American Student Association, a group that performed later in the night. Her strong voice pulled the audience in, setting the stage for a night of impressive performances.
Then, the dance groups came on. The first group to perform was called Cayena (a word that translates to cayenne pepper or a hibiscus flower). They strode out in sleek satin pajamas, proceeding to awe the audience with effortless partner choreography and elaborate moves.
Janessa Altenor became a dance coordinator for Cayena alongside Abdiel Huggins Rivera during her first semester at UMass. This wasn’t her first time managing a dance team, but she faced new challenges as a biomedical engineering major and college student.
“There were endless nights that we were up till 1 a.m. or 3 a.m…Having to manage emails, DMs, costumes, attending meetings, fulfilling the actual e-board responsibilities, budgeting, creating the mixes, teaching, scheduling…” Janessa reflected. It even reached a point where she considered stepping down entirely.
But there was something holding her back. “The reason you’re doing it,” Janessa said, is “not only for yourself but also the actual people on the team.”
“Rehearsals definitely take a lot out of us physically and mentally,” Val Jimenez, another Honors student on Cayena (who also happens to be Janessa’s roommate), said, “But Abdi and Nessa created such a lovely environment that it's 100% worth the hard practices and long hours.”
Next up was IPST, the UMass Insanely Prestigious Step Team. IPST was established at UMass in 2008 to create a space on campus for step dancing—a percussive dance form that includes footsteps, claps, and spoken words. Step dancing is a percussive dance form that includes footsteps, claps, and spoken words. It originated in South Africa as “gumboot dancing,” a form of communication between South African laborers who were forbidden from speaking in mines during apartheid. Now, it has transformed into a culturally significant and creative form of entertainment. Alexis Maduakor, an Honors biology major, and returning member of IPST said she loved “watching different cultures come together and thrive” at Noche Latina. She especially enjoyed watching Kompa, SoCA, and the UMass LU cultural dance teams, shouting out UMass cultural events for “including those from all backgrounds.”
Then, there was a performance from El Remedio (The Remedy), a group within the larger UMass organization Contagio (Contagion or Infection). True to name, their performance was infectious, taking the Campus Center by storm with a beautiful partner dance donned in black and red. I got the chance to talk to Dominique Von, one of the dance coordinators for the group, who shared that her favorite part of the night was “getting ready to perform, the nervousness of being next to the door, and listening to our org’s name being called.”
In between performances, the night was peppered with crowd work by the emcee and audience games. There was music jeopardy, where students guessed popular Latin songs, and a fashion show, where students got to show off their Roaring 20s Con Sabor Latina outfits. Each activity kept the audience engaged while the performers behind the scenes prepared for their next set or took a moment to relax.
The performances also highlighted HASA (the Haitian American Student Association), Kompa (another one of HASA’s dance teams), SoCA (Students of Caribbean Ancestry), UMass ALTITUDE, and one final performance from Cayena.
Lastly, all the groups and the audience came together on the open dance floor. Regardless of race or identity, everyone was grooving to the music, colorful lights bouncing off the walls of the Campus Center. It was the perfect way to cap off a night filled with culture and talent. Students congratulated each other on great performances and shared in dancing together before heading off for Thanksgiving break the following week.
“Being a part of something where I get to see people truly celebrating my culture is genuinely everything to me, especially at a PWI where it can be hard to stay connected to my culture,” Val reflected, “I get to feel at home away from home.”
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Leila Metres
