Beginning Thursday, Latino Heritage Month will kick off its annual celebration with three days of opening events.

It’s the 15th anniversary of the Latino Heritage Month Committee’s formation and, in honor of that, it extended the opening ceremonies from the normal one day to three days.

“Our opening ceremonies this year, since it is our birthday, it is going to be in three separate events,” said Daniel Hodapp, sophomore in art and design and co-president of Latino Heritage Month Committee. “It is our 15th and we plan to make it as good as possible.”

The 15th birthday, called the Quincea¤era, is important in Latino culture as the birthday where girls come of age.

“In the past, even though more guys are doing it now, 15 represents when you become of age, and so, in Latino culture, it’s for the women, and it’s basically when they become a woman,” Hodapp said.

The Latino Heritage Month Committee does not put on the whole list of events. It schedules the events, the opening and closing, but the time in between is made available for other organizations to schedule events.

“Our whole goal was just to promote awareness to people and let them know that the opportunities are there,” said Maria Smith, junior in architecture and co-president of Latino Heritage Month Committee with Hodapp. “We welcome anybody and everybody to throw events during the month.”

The committee creates the calendar and works out the logistics for the other organizations to schedule.

Some of the organizations that are participating this year include the Mexican Young Achievers Society, Organization of Latino Students, Descarga, Puerto Rican Student Association and the fraternity Sigma Lambda Beta and Sigma Lambda Gamma and Lambda Delta Nu sororities.

Latino Heritage Month is a national event to promote Latino awareness throughout the community, Hodapp said. It starts Sept. 15, the day Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua celebrate their independence, and lasts until Oct. 15.

“Basically, what the month means to me is honoring our heritage. Because, for me, for such a long time, I wasn’t doing that, so I owe that back,” Hodapp said.

Latino Heritage Month was renamed from Hispanic Heritage Month by the committee.

“Hispanic was basically an umbrella term that the government gave people who speak Spanish,” Hodapp said. “Latino is an umbrella word for people that come from Latin America, Mexico and South America that are living here in the United States. That better addressed what Hispanic Heritage Month represented, so we renamed it Latino Heritage Month.”