Chris Colindres, founder of CAUSA (Central American United for Student Advocacy), poses in front of Wilson Library at UNC-CH. | Photo by Adrian Tillman
Story by Lesley Gonzalez
Latino student leaders from top Triangle area universities say they don’t feel represented, after a 2023 report highlights where North Carolina schools can improve in supporting Hispanic students.
The sprawling campuses of the Triangle area’s rival schools are home to a vibrant, diverse student population, but the number of Latino students has grown slowly. According to the University of North Carolina system, in Fall of 2014 Latino students made up 5.2% of enrollment, compared to Fall of 2023’s 9.2%.
In 2023, LatinxEd, a non-profit built to support Latino education released a report detailing potential problems in North Carolina’s education system and their approach to Hispanic students.
WRAL reported on the group’s analysis, which included commentary on a lack of resources in high school, as well as Hispanics being underrepresented in colleges across the state.
According to LatinxEd, there are multiple barriers standing in the way of Latino students on their journey to post-secondary education. Recruitment and accessibility are huge issues in bringing in Latino students past high school. But a different problem comes up as well, and it has to do with colleges being able to retain Latino students.
A 2023 study by ¡Excelencia in Education! found that only half (52%) of all Latinos that enroll in a four-year college in the U.S. go on to graduate, a number that has stayed relatively the same for years. For North Carolina, a state that hopes to increase degree attainment significantly by 2030, these numbers don’t promise success. Latino students at top schools in the Triangle Research Area were able to explore some of their experiences on campus, revealing some of the barriers holding back Latino education.
Student-led groups on campuses across the Triangle area have worked diligently to create a sense of community for Latinx students. At UNC-Chapel Hill, the Carolina Latinx Center sits in Abernathy Hall, and boasts a comforting space where Latino students can gather for various clubs and events on campus. The Pit on campus can frequently be found hosting fundraisers and promotions for different groups. N.C. State University’s Mi Familia organization has brought together the Latino community at the school through multiple different events, and has continued to work toward forming its own space on campus. Duke University’s “Mi Gente” invites the university’s Latino students together with multiple events and collaborations with other campus clubs.
But despite the presence of organizations like these, for many Latino students, attending college is an incredibly lonely process.
Among Latino students are Central Americans; Hispanics who are from or descended from family in Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. As of Fall 2023, 9.1% of all students enrolled at UNC-Chapel Hill identified as Hispanic; however, the number for specifically Central American students falls even lower.
Connecting with other Central American students can be difficult, and university inclusion efforts can feel tailored more toward Mexican students, according to UNC-CH students like Kimberly Pineda and Chris Colindres. As a group on campus, Central American students face many of the same circumstances as all Latino students, but the added difficulties of being treated like a monolith can emphasize feelings of underrepresentation.
Colindres, a Salavdorean-Honduran from Miami, is a junior majoring in political science and public policy at UNC-CH. Beyond being a transfer student from out-of-state, Colindres found that the school simply didn’t have a space for Central American students such as himself when he first came in.
When he first came to the school, he realized there were already clubs for Latino students, but none specifically for Central American students. CAUSA, otherwise known as the Central Americans United for Student Advocacy club, is Colindres’ work toward uplifting his peers on campus.
“We [CAUSA] got in a lot of people who were interested in learning more about Central American culture, because I feel like a lot of the clubs here tend to cater more [toward] the Mexican population of Latinos. So, I wanted to bring that aspect toward other underrepresented groups like Central Americans, for example,” he said.
The club started in October 2023 and has been working diligently to make a name for itself on campus despite working through official recognition and funding setbacks. The club has hosted successful fundraisers and even participated in a trip to Washington, D.C., where members advocated for Central American working rights at the Here to Work Summit last November.
“With the club, one thing we want to focus on is community outreach,” Colindres said.
He hopes to reach out to high schools in the area and help other young Central American students by giving them the resources and support they need.
Despite the club working hard toward building a foundation for advocacy, it can be easy for Central American students like Colindres to initially feel left out as they navigate their undergraduate careers. For Colindres, the difficulties he faced as a Central American student were only exacerbated by his experience as a transfer.
“I noticed for me, trying to connect with people who are from my year, like juniors or seniors, especially if they’ve been here since their freshman years–I feel like it’s really much harder to connect with them, because they already have their cliques, they’re in their friends groups, and all these types of things,” Colindres said, “They are already involved in clubs, they don’t want to do that, they probably don’t feel as motivated to become part of it.”
Kimberly Pineda, a sophomore majoring in Peace, War and Defense, is CAUSA’s outreach coordinator, and was first drawn to the club for many of the same reasons Colindres founded it. She’s Salvadorean, and officially joined CAUSA after attending the D.C. lobbying trip with Colindres.
“So I was like, ‘Oh, I’m really interested in becoming one of the founding people in the club, because I enjoy the other clubs like Mi Pueblo and stuff, but I just feel they don’t really cater toward Central Americans a lot. Or, a lot of events feel like very basic stuff. So I was like, ‘I want to be a part of this and actually have more of a deeper conversation,” she said.
Multiple administrative sources at UNC-CH did not respond to requests for comment, but as far as Pineda is concerned, the university has failed in supporting both her and her peers.
“I feel like the only support that I’ve gotten from that [UNC-CH] is when I have professors who are Central American or Latino,” she said.
Pineda said the university should host more cultural events and put more resources toward support for students of color.
“They just don’t really cater toward students of color period,” she said.“I’ve heard this from one of my friends who is on the BSM [Black Student Movement] exec board, and she says the same thing. We’re all students of color on campus who just don’t feel very supported.”
Dr. Ana Mariá Silva Campo, assistant professor for the UNC-CH History department, in contrast, has felt supported as a faculty member. Originally from Colombia, she came to the school as a postdoctorate fellow during COVID, and has only recently been able to connect more with students as she begins teaching. She is grateful to the resources the school provided her with as she first came in, including multiple workshops and groups dedicated to helping make the transition into a faculty member easier.
But, in terms of what Campo has heard from students, she said that a common story has been difficult adjustment periods for students across the board.
“I have heard very similar things, from students of all kinds of backgrounds, that have to do with how they experienced the change coming from more rural areas in North Carolina, to Chapel Hill, an environment with a lot more going on, and a lot more people…That is what I have heard also from Latinx students, that that kind of shift to college, compared to where they’re from, is very challenging,” she said.
Difficulty transitioning and problems finding community can be heard from outside of UNC-CH’s campus, as well.
At N.C. State, students Jennifer DeLeon and Samantha DeAndrea are two executives at the school’s Latino organization, Mi Familia.
DeLeon, a senior history major, has been leading Mi Familia as president for the 2023-2024 school year, previously serving as co-secretary. She believes NCSU has fallen short in its efforts toward students of color.
“Our minority population is really, really small. We only make up, as of last year in the fall, about 11% of our population. We’re really tiny. So State doesn’t really advocate for us anymore,” she said. “If no one pushes and no one steps up, no one’s gonna do anything. And we have to be heard. They want diversity, and I know they’re working hard to be able to advocate for that. But we need more than a month [Latinx Heritage Month] to do it.”
One of the biggest setbacks DeLeon feels has affected the community is the lack of physical space on campus.
“We have to go under the radar and ask other people to help us out whether it’s financially or to bring more attention to us within the whole school. So financial-wise, that’s one issue. Another one is awareness, making sure that we have safe spaces. Right now, we have one and it’s called Multicultural Student Affairs, and it’s not a building, it’s a room,” she said, “We don’t have a building catered to us. So it’s in the Talley Student Union, which is the big student center. But we only have a room that’s dedicated to all students of diverse backgrounds, not just Latinx, it’s all students. Within the same floor we’ll have the Pride Center, and then the Women’s Center, and they only get rooms. So we’ve been trying to advocate to at least have a multicultural student affairs building.”
DeLeon has been serving Mi Familia for two years now, starting first as a secretary for the club. As she noticed the lack of structure and support NC State had for their Latinx and other marginalized students, she felt inspired to pursue a leadership role in the club, hoping to encourage their growth and push the school to do more.
“I just think that if we really want to become aware and accepting of everything, let’s go ahead and talk about bigger conversations. What is DEI? How can we implement it? How can we help?” DeLeon said. “How can we help these orgs that are trying to reach out other than using their resources?…Why is it that we constantly have to cater to Latin restaurants in order to have fundraising? I mean, that’s the honest issue. But we keep reaching out to Latin restaurants and they’re the only ones willing to help us when we do our fundraising. Can we do more?”
Samantha DeAndrea is the liaison for Mi Familia. As a Mexican student, she has also found that finding community can be very difficult on campus.
“I think as a person of color, you kind of do need to go out of your way to find that community,” she said.
For DeAndrea, she said that a big part of her feeling connected to other Latinos on campus came through having a fellow Mexican roommate. Otherwise, she’s found that for her and other students of color, the university itself is failing to support their communities.
Robertson Scholar Carolina Mendez is spending her four years as an undergraduate between Duke University and UNC-CH. She’s found that her experience varies across the rival school campuses for multiple reasons.
“A lot of the students at Duke, for example, they’re Latinos, but either they’re very white passing–and I think they experience that very differently–also, a lot of them are international students from very wealthy backgrounds,” she said, “So it’s like, you’re Latino, but we have nothing in common with our background. Therefore, sometimes conversations are very different. You know, there’s no interconnectedness there. And it’s not their fault. It’s not my fault. It’s just, you know, I equate it to just talking to anyone else.”
Wealth disparity can be a huge barrier of access for Latinos in reaching post-secondary education, as found by LatinxEd. The disconnectedness caused by financial gaps can further contribute to Latino students feeling left out and unwelcome.
Mendez also commented on the fact that Duke lacks substantial physical space for their Latino students in comparison to UNC-CH’s Carolina Latinx Center.
“I feel like I wouldn’t say I feel supported by the school. I feel supported by the students,” she said, on her experience at Duke.
She continued on to mention the lack of representation within leadership at Duke.
“I have a friend, right now she is the VP for DEI in the student government. And you know, she was telling me ‘I hate being in the student government. But I’m here because like, if I don’t do it, no one else is going to because everyone on the board is just white individuals.’ She’s the only Latina on the board. And through her presidency, she’s been able to bring up different problems that, you know, for example, a lot of the low income students are facing and many of them which are from Latino backgrounds,” Mendez said.
In comparison to UNC-CH, Mendez feels that Duke’s lack of physical space for Latino students and the socioeconomic divide are some of the biggest setbacks. She believes the school could be doing more beyond just funding clubs. Meanwhile, her experience with UNC-CH is that Latino groups can have a very difficult time finding funding and resources from the school. CAUSA members Chris Colindres and Kimberly Pineda previously mentioned the extensive work put in to gain funding for the young club.
LatinxEd’s SomosNC report cites many barriers standing between Hispanic students and post-secondary education, including financial problems, citizenship discussions and transport. These issues follow students into their college careers, and can be exacerbated by feelings of misrepresentation by their campuses. If North Carolina wants to encourage the growing Hispanic population to both pursue and complete degrees, there may need to be a re-evaluation of current university culture.
“We just want to be able to show like, ‘Hey, we’re here.’ And that we can put all stereotypes aside. That at N.C. State, our culture is more than just a sombrero, a maraca or a month. Our culture is a lifestyle. For us, it’s our identity. And that for any DEI, DEAI or any type of diversity effort, for N.C. State to realize that it starts with awareness, then action and ultimately acceptance,” DeLeon said, on her hopes for Latino students at the school.
Campo ultimately encourages UNC-CH to stay in tune with its diverse population, something that is becoming more necessary as Latino students continue to struggle with post-secondary attainment.
“I think it would be important for the university in general to continue to reflect the changing composition of the state of North Carolina as a public institution. Because we have a state that has changed in the last centuries, right? With many kinds of different people coming and going. And as a public institution, serving the people of North Carolina, I think, that should be something they continue to do.”
