Latina women discuss overcoming feats throughout instances of racial adversity

Latina and gender-based minority groups came together Wednesday to present a panel discussion about first-time accomplishments and how a group of women overcame racial adversities along the way.

The three Latina women took the chance to tell the audience in La Casa their story of being the first to accomplish their respective feats.

Maria Luz Corona was the first Latina judge in Lake County, Ind.

Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies Iris Rosa was the first IU Latina professor to be a tenured, and Josefa Madrigal-Luce founded the first all-Latina Little 500 team in 2004.

All of these women were featured at the panel discussion sponsored by the Office of Women’s Affairs 40th Anniversary, National Women’s History Month, the OWA, La Casa and the IU Latino Alumni Association.

“The connection with the Latina’s First was with the Little 500 every year,” Madrigal-Luce said.

“It motivated me to form the first all-Latina team. So with the support of first La Casa, then Lillian Casillas and Mr. Stockman, I was able to accomplish that. At first, to me it was not like ‘let’s gather an all-Latina team,’ it was more like ‘let’s gather a Mexcla cycling team of women.’ I wanted to be a part of a team, but it became an all-Latina team.”

At the event, Judge Corona talked about her involvement with taking 18 students on a visit to IU in 1968 before the Groups Program: a summer program that helps low-income students prepare for college.

“It was before (IU) Groups program and that was when I was being interviewed by Dean Chaplan and that is what I liked about IU,” Corona said. “I told them that it was okay, but there weren’t any Hispanics at IU, and it was very lonely.”

Professor Rosa was also a part of the group that lead the students to the
Groups program.

“A lot of times when we talk about the success of a program, a lot of people look at the numbers of attendance,” graduate assistant at La Casa Karina Garduno said.

“We didn’t have a massive amount of people, but at least if we made a difference in one person, then it was successful. We accomplished what we wanted. We wanted people to learn and think about different things.”

Garduno spoke in regard to the hardships still present even today.

“It was interesting because what they were talking about still happens today. It was kind of like what (Madrigal-Luce) kept saying, you know that they were here so long ago, yet we still go through so many things, and sometimes we do have to speak up for ourselves because we do become kind of invisible,” Garduno said.

Rosa, also a dance director for the African American Arts Institute, said she has had the chance of being affliated with IU ever since she attended the University in 1968.

She gave advice to current students in regard to her experiences as a student.

“First of all, you have the challenge of being a student, trying to get through school, a predominately white school with very few latinos and African americans on campus,” she said.

“You just didn’t find your identitiy and you had people questioning your identity, questioning about you and trying to find your way through college.

Rosa said she has seen an improvement since the years when she was a student at IU.

“I’ve seen a little more acceptance of diversity, but when I first came here it was not even a discussion,” Rosa said. “We as Latinas tend to be a bit more reserve and we just need to break that and get out of the box.”