By Nathalie Cruz and Laura Rodriguez, news correspondents
The first noticeable atmospheric aspect when walking into the Curry Student Center Ballroom was how comfortable everyone was around each other — hugging, kissing and laughing. The second was the conversation that kept switching between English and Spanish without pause.
The Latino/a Student Cultural Center (LSCC) Anniversary Gala was an evening packed with inspiring and heartwarming speeches, nostalgic videos and slideshows and dazzling performances by Latinx dance groups Kaliente and Caramelo.
Each speaker had a different role in the center, but they all shared the same passion: having a community for Latin American students in which they can feel like they have a second family that supports them.
“We not only get to, we want to,” Director Rosa Rodriguez Williams said of helping the Latinx community at Northeastern.
The center started off as a small Puerto Rican center and expanded to become the space to get the “same ‘amor’ that was felt sleeping at each other’s houses, meeting as a group, and communicating universal struggles as Latinx students on campus,” Founder Dehlia M. Emanuel said at the event.
The center grew to be not only a hub for meetings and clubs, but a home to the prestigious Delhia M. Emanuel Award, previously known as the Civic Engagement Award and renamed as an honor and humbling gesture toward Emanuel.
Some of the biggest accomplishments that were showcased in the video included Los Huskies Leadership program, a series of leadership workshops for undergraduate students; the Sixth Annual New England Latinx Student Leadership Conference in 2007, which aimed to cultivate future Latinx leaders; and Hora del Cafe, where Northeastern students speak Spanish over coffee in the LSCC Thursdays.
In attendance were students who have been members of Latinx organizations for years, freshmen who want to be a part of this vibrant group, people who spoke fluent Spanish, people who spoke little Spanish and students who simply enjoy the culture. The center welcomed them all the same.
A phrase that is constantly used by students and staff alike who facilitate the operations of the center — particularly by Williams and Assistant Director Sara J. Rivera — is that the center is “a second home, a home away from home.” This was exemplified by the familiarity and warmth of not only the student members of the center, but by the faculty, staff and alumni, who all spoke about the LSCC and everything it has provided for them.
“[It’s] an empowering place where you go to grow as a person and positively embrace your Latinx identity, something that’s difficult to do in predominantly white university,” said Beca Muñoz, a second-year politics, philosophy and economics major. “The center offers you a safe and loving place to do so.”
Along with the opportunities that the LSCC has offered to Latinx students over the years, students said the importance of a center like this on campus cannot be understated. Those with backgrounds from all over Latin America talked about the fantastic experiences and the wonderful friends they made thanks to the center.
“We are more than a community,” Emanuel said. “We are a family.”
