The Latino Appreciation Student Organization presents the Southeastern Latinx Student Leadership Conference, the first ever of its kind in the Southeastern United States.
Benito Garcia Garcia, a member of LASO, described the conference as “innovative,” because “it strives to show diversity that exists not only at our university but in our country.”
“Its focus is promoting the strengthening of the Latinx community, team-building, networking,” Garcia continued. “But it’s also for non-Latinx students to be able to learn more and experience Latinx culture.”
The conference starts 10 a.m. Friday, April 11 and ends on Sunday that week, featuring concurrent workshops in three tracks.
The track titled Owning our Values will discuss identity, place and experience and how owning cultural values can influence everyday life. Identity and American politics, Latinx and American history and Afro/Latinx experience are all topics of discussion in this track.
The second track, Challenging Ourselves, will be about encouraging students to challenge themselves to reach their full potential, as well as inclusivity, strategies for campus engagement -and advocating for Latinx success.
Claiming our Roots is the third track. As their blog describes the third track’s purpose is to “leverage the intersection of our stories, identities, traditions, genealogical journeys, and even DNA results, to better form who we are and where we want to go.”
Ricardo Nazario y Colón, Chief Diversity Officer and faculty adviser for LASO, said that he hopes the conference becomes an annual affair.
Nazario y Colón described how students from LASO came up with the idea to put on the conference. Student leaders, a graduate student, and Nazario y Colón attended a 28-year-old Latinx conference in upstate New York.
“On the way back, the students were so overwhelmed with emotion, what it was like to be in a space where they were learning about their culture and learning about what it’s like to be a college student,” Nazario y Colón said. “And they were excited, they were like “we should do a conference.” And that’s how the idea emerged, in the middle of the night on I-81 South.”
Dr. Jose Hernandez is the conference’s keynote speaker. He retired as Chief Diversity Officer and Associate Vice President for the University of South Florida in 2017. According to Nazario y Colón, “he works a lot with college students, so he’ll be bringing a message that impacts the college student experience.”
