The Tuesday blood drive had a goal of 100 pints of blood from 200 donors to give to the Indiana Blood Center.
Spearheading and donating at the event was Mayra Meza, a sophomore and president of Latinos Unidos.
“We’re co-sponsoring with an organization that does a National Cesar Chavez Blood Drive Challenge,” Meza said. “If we reach our goals, we have the opportunity to win a scholarship prize that will go to Latinos Unidos and La Casa ?here at IU.”
The Migrant Students Foundation founded the National Cesar E. Chavez Blood drive Challenge in 2009. The Migrant Students Foundation helps connect students of migrant farm families to scholarships, internships and service learning opportunities, according to the foundation’s website.
Chavez was born a first generation American in Arizona. His parents lost their farm during the Great Depression when Chavez was 11, according to the Casar Chavez Foundation’s ?website.
“He helped raise a lot of awareness towards chicanos in the work place, especially migrant farm workers,” Meza said. “He helped get better rights for Latinos in the United States to be working here and get the same treatment as everyone else.”
A chicano is a person who identifies as a Mexican-American, Meza said.
Chavez’s civil rights actions included the fight to stop migrant camps, bitter racism and corrupt labor contractors, according to the History Channel’s website.
Aubrey Curtis, a freshman studying nursing, said she donates because of her grandma’s illness. Curtis has always wanted to be a nurse, and being in the hospital environment with her grandma has reaffirmed that desire, she said.
“I’ve always been really interested personally because my grandma had a lot of blood transfusions because she had cancer,” Curtis said. “Me and my step-mom are very passionate about it because we’re just always trying to help her and people like her.”
Curtis has donated blood in the past and said she was happy the nurses were able to find a line quickly to make the process easier.
“Generally, it’s kind of hard,” Curtis said. “I rarely get to actually donate blood myself.”
The La Casa Latino Cultural Center hosted events this past month such as Cesar Chavez Service Day, in which the centers tried to address cultural changes faced by the community, according to the La Casa IUB calendar.
La Casa is hosting a Latino Studies Cesar Chavez Undergraduate Symposium in which students can share multimedia presentations, research papers or poster projects with the IU ?community.
For more information or questions head to ?indiana.edu/~latino or email latino@indiana.edu, according to the La Casa IUB calendar.
“Years later we still try to honor him and all of his work,” Meza said. “We are Latinos in higher education, and this is how far we’ve gotten. We have jobs and great positions, so it’s really great to see how the Latino community has advanced over the years and has ?honored him.”
