February 2, 2023
Dear Comunidad,
We hope you are doing well and having as positive a week 4 of winter quarter as possible.
We are writing to you all today, as the Professional Staff of El Centro, to check in and share some thoughts and plans as we move into the new calendar year, which is the first academic year in which we have been able to welcome everyone back in person since the beginning of the COVID pandemic.
The time away from each other, and from our students, has been incredibly difficult for many reasons, most notably the opportunity to build and hold space and comunidad in person – the most powerful and beautiful way to be with each other and with you all.
We are happy to report that we were able to once again host an event last week in our Jaime Miranda Lounge for the first time since the start of the pandemic in 2020. We know many students were able to study and relax in the Lounge, along with our beautiful Community Room, during Sunday’s Study Night. We are thrilled that so many of you are again finding a place of community and love with us at El Centro.
Sadly, we are also writing to address concerns and interactions that have come to our attention which relate to the central issue of inclusion here at El Centro and in our comunidad.
Let us begin by reaffirming El Centro’s commitment to everyone who wants to be a part of our richly diverse and expansive community, Chicane/a/o/x, Latine/a/o/x as well as folks who do not identify as such. Our comunidad, akin to those served by our sister centers on campus, is not monolithic. El Centro has always been a site on campus for critical conversations and action related to the diversity within and intersectionality of identities in our communities - in fact even before the establishment of the space in 1978.
El Centro is celebrating its 45th anniversary this year and central to our celebrations is our theme of ComuniLove. El Centro came to be as a result of student and community activism that brought together students, staff, and faculty who represented many diverse and intersecting identities within the Chicané and Latiné diaspora. At the core of this movement was a deep love for family, culture, and belonging, a recognition of systemic and institutionalized racism and a need for an equitable education and social justice for all. These values and goals still inform the work of El Centro to this day. We are committed to providing student-centered programming and resources to help students have a healthy and love-filled transformative educational experience at Stanford while also learning and developing as leaders who will go on to make impact in the world with a commitment to equity, inclusion and justice.
We seek to support all of our students, student groups, and the diversity of identities and experiences embodied in our Stanford familia. We are here to build and share space and community with everyone and we acknowledge that there are groups, identities, and experiences within our Comunidad that are extremely vulnerable. As such, centering the experiences of our marginalized and vulnerable groups is not an exclusion of others but an opportunity to honor as many experiences as possible. We want everyone who walks into El Centro, and who connects with us in any way, to feel seen, welcomed, and respected in the wholeness of who they are and how they want to inhabit the world.
Many of us are still reeling from the trauma and pain of the continued global pandemic, isolation and the disproportionate impact and loss felt by our communities and families. Coming together in-person is an opportunity to help each other heal, to help each other learn, and to grow together especially when times get tough. El Centro is committed to providing opportunities to grow and move forward together. Here are some upcoming events and programs already in planning for this quarter and into the remaining academic year.
- Student Community Town Hall to discuss and share how to move forward in this time of rebirth for our student groups, leadership, and community building opportunities both within Comunidad and across our diverse communities and spaces on campus.
- Volunteer Student Organization (VSO) Mixer and Monthly Meetings – these monthly gatherings will bring together VSO leadership for groups who are already affiliated or wish to be affiliated with El Centro. We will share information about the VSOs who have been a part of El Centro in the past as well as those who are up and coming. These gatherings will provide student leaders a space to connect with each other and El Centro, to build relationships, share ideas, and find opportunities for collaboration and shared support. Emails have already been sent out with information about the kick-off Mixer.
- Latinidad Unfiltered – this is a speaker and conversation series that gives us an opportunity to engage with many issues impacting our comunidad across various themes. Past events have included topics related to gender & sexuality, Latine representation and misrepresentation in politics, Latiné linguistic politics, anti-Blackness, machismo & toxic masculinity, environmental activism, among others.
We want to thank you for taking the time to read our message and we want to thank everyone who has come to speak with us already this year. Please feel free to connect with us if you have any questions, concerns, or ideas for programming and events we can help bring to life.
With deepest love and solidarity,
Elvira Prieto, EdM
Associate Dean of Students and Director of El Centro Chicano y Latino
Margaret Sena, PhD
Assistant Dean of Students and Associate Director for Graduate Student Engagement
Jacob Velasquez, MA
Assistant Director
David Eli P., MA
Special Projects Coordinator