Senior Photography major Yoana Medrano’s thesis explores family and the American Dream.

SFUAD students answer the common icebreaker: “If you could have dinner with any person, who would it be?” and reveal what they would like to discuss with their picks. Answers range in variety from the predictable celebrity to an elusive family...

On Sept. 15, the campus was full of people grabbing flags and painting their faces green, white and red; music played everywhere. What was happening? Mexican Independence Day was happening. “Since I was a kid, this was a very important day in my family and in my country. It’s a day to be with all your family, with people that you don’t usually meet, and your friends,” says Jose Arturo Torres from Querétaro. “Even though it’s a day when you miss your family and your country a lot, it’s also a reason to spend time with my friends here from Mexico and also from another countries, so they can see something different for them, and so normal for us the Mexicans.” The holiday marks Mexico’s independence from Spain in 1810. “We celebrate this day as the beginning of a new country that finally was able be a country by itself, with its culture and its identity. We were finally a nation,” says María Villaseñor from Guadalajara. In commemoration of the day, a group of international students ate dinner together at the downtown restaurant Jalapeños. Most of were Mexicans, but there were also some people from Syria, Spain and Brazil. According to Daniel Bernáldez, coming together is what matters on this holiday: “We the Mexicans are very familiar people, which means that every celebration requires the family be together. The union in a family is something essential for us, and living in the campus makes us feel like a family, so this was a good reason to make something together, like having dinner.” And, of course, food matters too. “The best thing about Mexican food is that when we start to eat, the food needs lots of condiments, and salsas, and lemon, and salt, and...

Thousands of people come from other cities and states to be a part of Santa Fe’s Zozobra celebration: the burning of a giant marionette called “Old man Gloom” or “Zozobra,” which dispels the hardships and travails of the past year. Zozobra means, literally, “anxiety” in Spanish, but what does Zozobra really means for people who come to the oldest capital city in the United States for this celebration? If there was a synonym for  Zozobra at the Sept. 5 burning, it was “family.” The whole Fort Marcy Park was full of families sharing just their time. Ben Gomez, a Vietnam veteran, has been coming to this event since he was a kid. He used to bring his son; now also his granddaughters come with them. “It’s an important day because the whole family meets every year. When my son was a kid, he danced up there. We just come here, sit in the yard and spend the whole day together. For us this is an important tradition, we all come together, buy funny hats and we become this in a family day. We just enjoy being together.” Friendship also had its place at Zozobra. The whole park was full of teenagers, both enjoying themselves, and volunteering. One group had come from Northport School, in New York, as part of the International Baccalaureate Program. In this program, they go to a city every year to help in any event. Last year, they went to New Orleans, and this year they came to Santa Fe, where they seemed impressed with the city and the event itself. “This is really different from New York, and we love it,” Anna said. “Yesterday we were in Pueblo, helping in one of the kitchens for poor people, and today we...