February 16, 2023
Dear Comunidad,
We are writing to postpone the ComuniLove Town Hall as we seek to meet with and connect with individuals and groups who need our support in a more immediate time frame. We want to make clear that this postponement is not in any way meant to delay, ignore, or suppress this critical important discussion. This will happen, but the exact time, date, location and facilitator are yet to be determined. We will be communicating that information as soon as all logistics have been confirmed.
In the meantime, we want to reaffirm our values as a Centro that is reflective of the changes in our community over the past 45 years. We are committed to promoting discussion and learning that centers and engages with experiences of marginalization of our comunidad and within our comunidad, including DACA/Undocumented, Central American, Black, Indigenous, and LGBQIA+ folk, among other experiences and identities. We know that this marginalization is deeply painful and features within our own families and communities and does not reflect the just world that we seek to build nor the vision of social justice that lays at the core of El Centro's mission.
Our mission has always been to make students feel a sense of belonging and connectedness at Stanford. Even so, students familiar and unfamiliar with our work have reported that they feel unwelcome in our community spaces on campus. We take these reports to heart and want to promote understanding and hear more about why some students feel this way. We are here to listen, learn, and help each other grow.
These conversations cannot solely take place within the walls of El Centro as it is our comunidad's duty to recognize, analyze, and call into conversation hurtful comments and behaviors. When folks have felt marginalized and harmed, the articulation of that experience may feel uncomfortable or divisive, but as a community we have a duty to listen, reflect, and understand what folks might be going through and why and how this should be addressed.
In order to promote a commitment to building an inclusive community, belonging, and healing let’s consider the following: What experience led to someone articulating something that way? How might we be unintentionally contributing to harm and marginalization and begin to do the work of learning and undoing?
We must take into account that this journey of learning, undoing, and the pursuit of justice is a life-long effort to be done with deep love, respect, and empathy for ourselves and for others.
As we do this, we would like to take this opportunity to provide a brief introduction to El Centro as we know that the ongoing experience of programming and use of our space was disrupted for over two years during the initial phases of the covid pandemic. As we have often mentioned at our programs this year, we are actively engaged in the process of rebuilding after such a long disruption. To review where we came from and where we would like to go:
El Centro was founded through the collective efforts and sacrifices of students, staff, and faculty, whose work was inspired by the Chicano movement with its focus on leadership development, educational access, and inclusion. While we honor our past and our founders, we naturally recognize that, with the benefit of hindsight, certain aspects of what they worked to build was imperfect. We know that while we rightly celebrate the accomplishments of iconic figures in our past, we also recognize the marginalization and harm experienced by those whose work was overlooked, ignored, erased, or simply not included. As a professional staff, we have tried to respect this history while working not to replicate these oversights in our efforts to build a more inclusive comunidad.
In order to do this, we began to make critical changes to our programming, our physical space, and the name of our Center over the past ten years, and sought input from students, faculty, staff, and alumni while engaged in this process. Some of the most substantive changes include:
- Events and programs put on by El Centro that center the vibrant regional and racial diversity of our comunidad. Just a handful of examples of this type of programming of which we are especially proud include visits to our Center from writers, scholars, and artists, including:
- Writer Gabby Rivera on her work in debut solo series for America Chavez, Marvel's first queer Latina superhero.
- Poet Yesika Salgado, whose work explores love, family, culture, and body positivity from a Salvadoran perspective in LA.
- UC Berkeley Professor Jovan Scott Lewis, who spoke about his book, Scammer’s Yard: The Crime of Black Repair in Jamaica and racial capitalism in the Caribbean and the US, to a large virtual audience.
- Princeton ProfessorLorgia Garcia Peña, celebrated scholar of Black Latindad, who presented a talk on Borders of Dominicanidad: Race, Nation, and Archives of Contradiction.
- Some of the upcoming programs this year include an art series featuring workshops and conversations with Johanna Toruño and Maria Elena Cruz that will also provide an opportunity for student artists to showcase their cultural and creative expression.
- Supporting the founding and growth of voluntary student organizations that seek to center and celebrate marginalized folx in our comunidad.
- Funding and staff support for the foundation and continued success of the Queer Caribbean Symposium, now in its third year, in collaboration with the Caribbean Studies Working Group.
- Ensuring that our student staff reflects the broad diversity of regional, racial, and gender backgrounds within the Latiné community at Stanford.
- Officially expanding the name of the Center in 2014 from El Centro Chicano as it was named in 1978 to El Centro Chicano y Latino with much student, faculty, and alumni input. Read more here.
- Intentional renovation and transformation of Center common areas and spaces to feature art and imagery that celebrates the diversity of our comunidad with a reflective approach on the use of our Center as a hub for students on campus.
- THE SPIRAL WORD:THE CODEX ESTÁNFOR: the most recent installation of a mural at El Centro, came to be after over 5 years of careful planning and research - and informed by students, staff and community input. Learn more.
- Events and programs honoring intersectionality and community-building with centers, departments and offices across campus such as the A3C, BCSC, NACC, FLI Office, Markaz, QSR, WCC, CLAS, CSRE, ChiLats, among others.
These are all efforts that have come about via collaboration between Professional staff, student staff, community members and partners, and our voluntary student groups. The transformation that we have seen speaks to the willingness for folks to grow and to remain open and honest about what they do and don’t know. We have witnessed this powerful and purposeful evolution of our comunidad in large part because groups and individuals have remained open to listening and curious about one another's ideas, stories and values. These interactions have been most productive when we listen with grace and brave discomfort. Change has also come about when courageous students speak up when they have heard racist, homophobic, or misogynist rhetoric, even from their own friends or family members. They have shown that unlearning internalized hate is a process, and one that often begins with difficult conversations.
Town Hall is not meant to be a space to resolve disagreements between groups or individuals. Those are restorative processes that are best addressed in small, intimate settings with those most immediately involved in or affected by specific harm – something which the professional staff at El Centro is involved in on an ongoing basis with appropriate care of all parties involved.
We have heard disturbing and heartbreaking reports of deep harm to individuals and groups in our comunidad, often our most vulnerable, that continues to spread on social media, especially via anonymous posts which create no space for honest and open engagement. Words matter and they hurt. We urge everyone to exercise care and concern for our fellow community members targeted by this unacceptable behavior.
We invite everyone to join us in our daily efforts by listening, sharing and learning with humility and a heartfelt intention to create continued space and opportunity to grow with love for ourselves, each other and for our comunidad both at Stanford and beyond.
We look forward to seeing you all soon.
With Love and In 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