After years of effort and campaigning on the part of students, staff and faculty, the UNC Latinx Center is ready to continue supporting the Latinx communities on campus.
Josmell Perez, the director of the Latinx Center, has seen a decade of his and others’ work transform the Carolina Latinx Collaborative (CLC) into the Latinx Center.
A long-time member of the CLC, Perez said the collaborative, formerly located in Craige North Residence Hall, was created years ago to address the needs of the growing Latinx community at the school.
“People didn't know what (the collaborative) was. People didn't know what it would become,” he said. “It really became a sort of badge of honor that we were able to do a lot of programming within the collaborative sort of umbrella.”
Perez said the Center, which is located at Abernethy Hall, is a place for students to be mentored and to see themselves and their communities represented and celebrated on campus.
“I think that (the center) is a touchstone,” he said. “Everybody wants to have something that reflects their sense of being, and so having a physical space that represents their communities, their values, their background is something that is so important to all of us as human beings.”
First year Gabriela Silva, a staff member at the center, said she was able to see the value of the center as an incoming student.
“It’s my first-year here, and I was really wondering if I was going to find a community with other Latinos and Latinas at the school,” she said. “Just being able to work here, I’ve met a lot of people that I don’t think I would have met any other way.”
