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Campus Resource Spaces Serve Latinx Students jackeline pedroza
H
umboldt State University became a Hispanic p ni Serving Institute (HSI) in 2013, joining g nearly earlly 500 other higher education institutionss that have enrollments consisting of least 25 percent rccent Latinx students. Today HSU has a student bodyy that thaa is about 30 percent Latinx. This figure represents n s ffast growth in Latinx enrollments. According to Fernando e naa o Paz, coordinator of HSU’s LATINX CENTER FOR ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE (LCAE), the figure w wass around 10 percent a decade ago when he was an undergraduate student here. Such growth comess with wit w it challenges and opportunities. A number of spaces cees es on o campus have been created with the goal of serving ving g HSU’s growing Latinx community. Perhaps the most notable Latinx campus space spaa is LCAE. Also known as EL CENTRO, LCAE wass founded in the early fall semester of 2015, following w several years of advocacy by students such as Paz. az El Centro’s mission, according to Paz, is to lift up the t Latinx campus community at HSU by creating a space for students to prosper in both academic and d social settings. Events occur year-round, but some o of th the most notable include La Concina, where students den dent can discuss food, nutrition, and cultural customs; to Q-POC talks, which is an open discussion forr queer people of color (POC); and Cafe con Chisme, e, an event where students enjoy a hot drink along g with pan dulce and discuss community events, campus m issues, and share stories The MULTICULTURAL CENTER (MCC) C also serves the Latinx campus community, aalong l with other cultural groups. The center features tu a womxn’s resource center, a prayer room, a library, i and a computer room that offers free printing i n to all students. An early step in serving HSU’s Latinx population u ul n was the founding in 2013 of EL LEÑADOR, a bilingual (Spanish and English) campus newspaper. a However, according to the newspaper’s mission n statement, it aims to serve well beyond campuss boundaries: “Our core value drives us to be the voice vo of the Latinx community in Humboldt County.” One O important service El Leñador provides for Latinx people of Humboldt is a list of community services in its back pages.
La Comunidad
C Ta an n yo O n ak -
Nelson Hall East - 205
El Centro
Multicultural Center Balabanis House 55
Gist Hall - 227
El Leñador
Culturally welcoming housing options have is on-campus housing that, according g to its i s website, it webs e is is “designed des ned for o students wh who ho share an a interest in n est e in regenerating cultural ut values, es, traditions, ns and n and d customs cu cu cust rooted in the eexperiences, ex xp p histories, hist s and and multidimensional mu ti mu t identities off tthose o se w who do do and an do not not no ot identify ide id den as Latinx. It’s also designed d e i ed to be be a space sp where whe wh w heere re students stu stu u feel connected nec aand nd d supported pp ed in ppo in a community comm munity centered c on thee eexperiences periences p r enc enc s an a d heritage and herit he h of Latinx people.” These spac spaces, pace aces located on the accompanying g map, m represent re entt a st start tto HSU’s responsibility to provide the support upp necessary es for the university to transcend ansce nsce c its tss baseline b in ne obliga obligation blig bliga g to be a Hispanic Serving g Institution ns and nd d becom beco become, come, as Paz says, a truly Hisp His Hispanic isssp paan p ani nic Thriving Institution. Th itut on itu
