Latine Student Union provides students a home away from home

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Taliha De Ochoa (senior) and Jimmy Mendoza Hernandez (junior) on the Academic Quad at Occidental College in Los Angeles, CA. Oct. 20, 2023. Oliver Otake/The Occidental

Founded in 2017, the Latine Student Union (LSU) is a club dedicated to creating a safe space for Latine-identifying students to thrive on campus and aims to provide them with a community of peers from across the Latine diaspora, according to co-president Taliha De Ochoa (senior).

Previously known as the Latinx Student Union, LSU recently changed its name in order to be more inclusive of the Spanish language, representing its progressive stance as a club, De Ochoa said. Latine and Latinx are gender neutral, but Latinx doesn’t flow as easily with the Spanish language and some feel it is anglicized.

LSU co-president Jimmy Mendoza Hernandez said they host a general meeting every two weeks for their members to get together and build relationships. He said each meeting begins with sharing information about future events before moving into small activities, which helps strengthen the bonds between the members.

Outside of their general meetings, LSU also hosts several big events throughout the year for their members as well as others on campus who wish to attend, according to De Ochoa.

“We have these dance nights where we invite students and staff to come. We have food, and we have a live band there,” De Ochoa said. “We also do a professor-student brunch, and last year we started a carnival event where we had mechanical bulls, water dunking and other stuff like that which was super fun.”

LSU is collaborating with the Latinx & Latin American Studies (LLAS) program to host Fall Fiesta Oct. 27 from 5-6:30 p.m. in Cannon Plaza. They will also be holding a week-long Día de los Muertos celebration, starting with a workshop, dinner and ofrenda decoration Oct. 30. The event will finish with a guided meditation Nov. 3 to honor ancestors, according to an email from Newman Campus Catholic Minister Chris Negri.

De Ochoa said she wants everyone in LSU, including those who are not active members, to always feel as though they have a place to go where people will understand them and whom they can rely on.

“Coming into my first year, [LSU] was really important for me because it helped make the transition easier,” Mendoza Hernandez said. “I met the co-president, and he really helped me understand what college was like, and moving forward now I hope to be what he was to me for the younger students because I think that’s important.”

Jennifer Baidon Carrillo (senior) is the current Community Involvement Liaison for LSU, a position that she said was introduced last year.

Jennifer Baidon Carrillo (senior) on the Academic Quad at Occidental College in Los Angeles, CA. Oct. 20, 2023. Oliver Otake/The Occidental

“The purpose of the position is to bring community members together and hopefully be able to form bonds between upperclassmen and underclassmen so that we can find safe spaces around all of campus and not just limited to our meetings,” Baidon Carrillo said.

According to Baidon Carrillo, the position of Community Involvement Liaison was an opportunity for her to finally become more involved with LSU in her final year at Occidental. She said that she never had the time before this year between juggling classes and jobs, but she always wanted to give back to her community, so she saw this as the perfect time.

“One of my goals is to introduce a mentorship program in LSU so that freshmen and sophomores have another resource to go to—outside of professors and faculty—to explore what it means to be in college, what’s a major and what majors you’re interested in,” Baidon Carrillo said. “My goal was always to create stronger ties between the members, so that’s why when I heard about this position, I saw it as a sign that it was finally time to get involved.”

As a first-generation student, Baidon Carrillo said that she found LSU to be a safe place where she could be surrounded by those who shared her experiences and form deep friendships, and now she wants to provide that same feeling for those who are new to campus.

“[LSU] is a place to just chill and hang out with really cool people,” Baidon Carrillo said. “Whenever you’re feeling homesick, and you can’t necessarily go home, you know that there’s a little home here at Oxy for you.”

De Ochoa and Mendoza Hernandez both said that they are very happy about the new student turnout this year. They said that LSU has a great first-year community who are very passionate and excited to be a part of the club, and they want to encourage anyone who is interested in joining LSU to get involved.

“It’s literally never too late to join LSU,” De Ochoa said. “I have friends who’ve been active in LSU since my freshman year and also people who have just attended their first meeting in their senior year. Come to one [meeting] and you’ll make at least one friend there.”

Contact Izzy Shotwell at shotwell@oxy.edu

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