The likelihood is growing that if you overhear a conversation on Staten Island, the talk will be in Spanish, as 2010 census figures showed a huge increase in the borough’s Hispanic population. Now, a new exhibit in Wagner College is asking just what it means to be Latino and a Staten Islander. Borough reporter Amanda Farinacci filed the following report.

Anthony Gonzalez says he was one of just two Hispanic kids in his elementary school on Staten Island’s South Shore. Raised by a Peruvian mother and a Puerto Rican-Italian father, the Wagner college freshman says his parents wanted him to blend in with the rest of his class. So instead of teaching him to speak Spanish, his mother asked him to teach her English.

“My mother wanted me to assimilate into the culture, into the ‘American’ culture, just because she wanted to be anchored in. And once that happened, as I grew up, you become more connected to your roots,” Gonzalez says.

Gonzalez says his mother eventually taught him Spanish, which is worthwhile on a borough where now one of every six people is Hispanic. That is nearly 52 percent more than just 10 years ago.

Now an exhibit at Wagner College in Grymes Hill examines the impact of that increase. “Hispanic Staten Island: Culture and Identity” is a partnership between the college’s history department and a Staten Island cultural arts group.

“What does it mean to be Hispanic in our borough? How is your identity expressed? Do you feel that your voice is heard as a Hispanic? Those kind of different questions,” says Lori Weintrob, the chairwoman of the Wagner College history department.

Organizers say part of what they are trying to accomplish with the exhibit is to encourage Hispanics living on Staten Island to live out loud and take the culture they celebrate in their homes and make it more visible to the public.

“I think that’s an important struggle communities I work with have, keeping their young kids who might have been born here connected to the stories, folk tales, music, dance of their ancestors. That gives them a sense of their identity and makes them feel like they’re part of someplace important,” says Christopher Mule of the Council on the Arts and Humanities for Staten Island.

Wednesday night, Wagner College will host a public forum and cultural celebration of the work of island Hispanic artists. The exhibit will be on display until May 5.

FOUNDING FACES & PLACES: AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF WAGNER MEMORIAL LUTHERAN COLLEGE, 1869-1930 is a book of archival photos and interpretive material prepared to accompany an exhibition shown in the Horrmann Library’s Spotlight Gallery from September 12 through October 15, 2008, in observance of the 125th anniversary of the founding of Wagner College in 1883. It covers the period beginning in 1869, during Wagner’s “prehistory,” and runs through the last major building project to be started before the Great Depression: Main Hall, our Collegiate Gothic architectural signature, which recently underwent a complete exterior renovation.

WAGNER COLLEGE: FOUR HISTORIES is the first book-length history of Wagner College, published in conjunction with the school’s 125th anniversary in 2008. It contains historical essays by four authors (hence, the title) who presented their work at a forum on September 12, 2008. It was revised in November 2008, and again in February 2009, to incorporate newly discovered information about the college’s founders. It was revised in May 2011 to show more detailed information on the tenures of two presidents.

A former Marine Captain Brian Steidle explains why Americans should care about genocide in the Sudan. Steidle spoke at the “March against Darfur” rally in Washington, D.C. on April 30, 2006, organized by the Save Darfur Coalition. Listen to his speech.

Jessica Friswell at the Rally to Save Darfur