Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

A Casa Latina We Can Call Home

While the advocacy for a Casa Latina may seem recent, the need and support for a dedicated space for the Latino community has been growing for decades. The Latino community on campus, especially for self-identified US Latinos, has come together and requested a safe space on the Hilltop not only to build a strong community of Latinos and allies on campus, but also to support Latino students in their own process of identity formation.

Georgetown treats the community of color on campus as one entity, lumped together in one shared, “multicultural” space. While a multicultural space is valuable, not all minorities are the same. We may share the broader experience of being minority students on the Hilltop, but each community has its own needs.There are many narratives and experiences within the growing community of color that are not given the opportunity to be adequately expressed on campus. The campaign for Casa Latin@ proves that the time is overdue for this to change.

The personal stories that characterize the US Latin@ experience at Georgetown, reveal a strong allegiance to Latin@ heritage and a yearning for community, especially upon arriving to campus. Many US Latino Hoyas are first-generation college students, children of immigrants or immigrants themselves, and often, but not always, from lower socio-economic backgrounds and disadvantaged communities. In my experience, I have also found that I am not alone in feeling a deep guilt for leaving home and not being able to support my family by being in closer proximity.

Upon my arrival at Georgetown, I was immediately struck not only by how few students on campus identified as Latino or shared a similar narrative to myself, but also by how few faculty and staff members I felt I could relate to and seek mentorship from. I had a difficult time finding a community that could support me in growing and developing my Latina identity because there was no locus in which to find them; it still doesn’t exist.

Because I didn’t fit the classic Georgetown narrative, I felt that I didn’t belong and wouldn’t be able to be as successful on the Hilltop. I thought I had to constantly justify my acceptance and enrollment because my story was different. When I couldn’t find a community that was able to understand my experience and background, I felt like a very critical piece of my identity was rejected by the very place that has been my home and the core of my personal development the past four years.

Georgetown has been able to accept my identity as a student, as a leader, as an eager SFS-er, as a dancer, but not as a first-generation college student and Latina from Los Angeles. And why? The answer I received consistently boiled down to something along the lines of “It is too inconvenient to be inclusive of all identities.” With these factors against me, how was I supposed to be successful in my academic efforts?

My time as Resident Director of the Black House has been transformative and empowering; it has truly been an honor. The Black House has continued to be respected and loved on campus, but my time in the position has illuminated to me that the space is not large enough for Georgetown’s entire community of color. Both the Black and the Latino community deserve their own space to grow and learn. The goal of the Casa Latina proposal is to permanently establish a dedicated space on campus for self-identified Latino Hoyas and allies directly adjacent to the Black House in order to attain a greater depth in the relationships between communities of color on campus, and to foster crucial Black-and-Brown unity and collaboration.

Here, the reservation often reflects something along the lines of: “If the Latinos get a house, then wouldn’t other communities start to advocate for one as well?” The answer is one I cannot give. I defer to each community to make this decision based on its own experiences. I can speak only to my own experience at Georgetown, and I know that I could have achieved greater success in my academic career, felt assured in my place at Georgetown, and been encouraged by a stronger support system if I had a Casa Latina starting my freshman year.

While this may appear like self-segregation with respect to culture, it’s not. The US Latino experience is closely linked to culture because of the heritage component, but it’s the narrative, the identity and the experience that needs a space. We are not just looking for a space to celebrate Latino culture and tradition.

The Black House and the Casa Latina for Hoyas would work together to create a stronger locus for the community of color. It would be a space that is welcoming and accessible to any Hoya seeking community, because the goal of this space is simple: inclusion. Founding a Casa Latin@ is simply a matter of appropriately expanding a safe space proportional to the size and diversity of the community of color on the Hilltop.

 

Nancy Hinojos is a senior in the School of Foreign Service.

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