With a new Latinx initiative, the LGBTQ+ Culture Center and La Casa Latino Cultural Center are working together to serve intersectionality between the centers.
“We each bring a different perspective or strength, and I think students have a greater resource when it’s a joint initiative,” La Casa Director Lillian Casillas said.
Latinx is a group that was created to provide a safe space for those who belong to both the LGBT and Latino communities. This includes undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and staff on campus.
The initiative focuses on creating a support system and community and looking to increase education and advocacy for the group on campus.
“When people choose to go to one center rather than the other, it’s denying one half of their identity,” said Danielle Hernandez, a graduate assistant at the LGBTQ+ Culture Center.
Latinx arose partially from existing groups at La Casa that focus on Latino and Latina students, Casillas said. The Latino and Latina initiatives were created to provide networks of support for male and female students of Latino heritage across campus. However, Casillas said it became apparent in discussions that the center had to think about the spectrum of Latino students outside of the gender binary.
Casillas said Latinx is a term outside the culture center that reflects the idea of the gender spectrum rather than the gender binary. Instead of thinking of students as Latino, with a masculine -o ending, or Latina, with a feminine -a ending, Latinx is a gender-neutral term.
“I would be neglecting multiple identities by not looking at the intersection,” Casillas said.
It is often hard for students that come from different cultures with stricter gender roles to come out to their families, Hernandez said. As a result, the Latinx initiative provides students a place to find support and discuss these issues with others who understand their situations.
Hernandez said the Latino community tends to be more Christian in faith, and issues of being gay or queer within a family may arise from these religious beliefs. As a result, people who identify as both LGBT and Latino may feel alienated from one side of their identity, she said.
“If you hang out with Latino friends, they don’t understand the coming-out part,” Hernandez said. “If you hang out with LGBTQ friends, they don’t understand why you can’t just come out to your family.”
Latinx is student-led, with Hernandez and Casillas acting as presences from either culture center. The location for Latinx meetings rotates back and forth between the two neighboring houses.
The two centers have always had a strong relationship, LGBTQ+ Culture Center Director Doug Bauder said. He said from the first day his center opened, Casillas and La Casa acted like neighbors and have paired with the LGBTQ+ Culture Center for various events throughout the years.
“It’s not only creating these strong groups, but then, how do we bring them together to create a larger community,” Casillas said.
Bauder said he hopes to see the group get a message out on campus to remind people that everyone is made up of multiple identities.
“I think that it’s really important for students to value all aspects of themselves,” he said. “They’re just going to be happier as the people they are.”
