Southwest Airlines is celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month in many ways.  We designed a specialty package for our peanuts, created a special poster for our airports (designed by Dallas artist José Suaste), and will be closing this month of celebration with a special event in New York this Friday.

Southwest is partnering with Latino Art Beat to create a special event at the Southwest Porch in Bryant Park in midtown Manhattan on Friday, October 9th. (See the attached invitation below.)  Latino Art Beat is a Chicago-based nonprofit arts organization that awards scholarships to high school students through its arts competition, which is held annually in May. Latino Art Beat's motto is "Celebramos la juventud, el Arte y la Cultura Hispana": We Celebrate Youth, Art and Hispanic Heritage and Culture. This year's theme is "What Hispanic Heritage and Culture Means to Me."

The Southwest Porch will display the participants’ artwork, NYU students will read Spanish poetry, and a local middle school group will be dancing some salsa and tango for our guests.  If you are in the NYC area, please feel free to join us for this event. 

Artist José Suaste's bio:

With distinct and colorful visual imagery, José Suaste expresses themes of music, love, community and understanding in just about everything he does. Pulling from his Mexican-American upbringing in inner city Dallas, Suaste, as his friends and fans know him, has been creating bold themed art since childhood. Inspired by graffiti, skateboarding, and over all music, Jose’s work is familiar yet on the edge of what’s to come from pop culture.

José graduated from the University of North Texas with a Bachelors Degree in Communication Design and a minor in Creative Writing. He currently lives in his native Dallas, with his wife Helen and daughter Sabrina.