The seventh annual Cesar E. Chavez Address will be presented at Hope College on Thursday, Sept. 16, in conjunction with national Hispanic Heritage Month.

The address, "Living Beyond the Hyphen: Identity in the Age of Multiculturalism," will be presented by author Cristina Garcia on Thursday, Sept. 16, at 6 p.m. in the Knickerbocker Theatre.

The public is invited. Admission is free.

Garcia's family fled Cuba in 1960, in the wake of Fidel Castro's communist revolution. Her novels - "Dreaming in Cuban," "The Aguero Sisters" and "Monkey Hunting" - draw on her personal experiences in an expatriate family with strong connections in Cuba, and trace the pain and promise of national detachment as well as the delicacy and strength of family ties across generations.

Garcia attended Barnard College and Johns Hopkins University. A former Miami bureau chief for "Time" magazine, she moved to California in 1988 to pursue her new life as a fiction writer.

Also in conjunction with Hispanic Heritage Month, the college's annual "Latino Food Festival" will be presented a day earlier than Garcia's address, on Wednesday, Sept. 15, from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the Phelps and Cook dining halls. Admission for the general public is $5, payable at the door.

National Hispanic Heritage Month runs Wednesday, Sept. 15, through Friday, Oct. 15. The college's annual Hispanic Heritage Month lecture series is named in celebration of Cesar E. Chavez, who played a leading role in the 1960s in organizing the nation's migrant farm workers, and was the first head of the National Farm Workers Association, later the United Farm Workers. Chavez died in 1993 at age 66.

Cook Hall is located on 10th Street between College and Columbia avenues. The Knickerbocker Theatre is located in downtown Holland at 86 E. 8th St. Phelps Hall is located on Columbia Avenue at 10th Street.