Renowned for its long-standing position, Malden High is home to the most diversified student population in the country. A significant demographic that makes up this population is Latino and Hispanic students.
Yet, seeing a lack of opportunities for their student involvement, juniors Merari Flores, Daniela Licona-Cruz, Guilherme Da Mata Silva, and Karla Duenas joined efforts and sought to create a club that would welcome all Hispanic students at the school, in hopes of providing a space where members could share their experiences growing up, celebrate their cultures, and embrace volunteer and cultural opportunities.
“We always felt that there was a need for a more amplified voice for Latino and Hispanic students,” stated Cruz, vice president of the newly formed Latin American Culture Club.
While a Hispanic Heritage Club had run in the past, officers realized that it was never rebuilt after the advisor went on maternity leave, “not everybody knew about it, not everybody was participating,” said Silva, secretary of the club, they wanted to revive the Latino community and host more active events.
Since their sophomore year, the president, Flores, and Cruz have wanted to start a club together. Creating one that would unite the Hispanic community ultimately motivated them to bring the Latin American Culture Club to Malden High, Flores explained. She also shared that “there’s not a lot of student involvement for the Latino kids, especially ESL kids.”
“Seeing a lot of the Latino immigrants coming in not knowing any English, having to learn by themselves, struggling a lot” made Silva feel as though there were a number of students who felt alone. “I want to help everybody—I want us to be there for each other,” he stated. Silva wants to impart a sense of belonging for Hispanic students “to understand that there are other people like them, and I want to build our own little community here.”
Cruz shared a similar sentiment, expressing that she hopes “to create a space where people feel comfortable,” as she acknowledges the Latino community “is not as loud as the rest of the communities that there are here, and I want them to feel proud of where they come from because it’s a very isolating feeling sometimes.”
“We thought it would be great to create an environment where we can fully express ourselves around people who also understand the struggles and our culture,” echoed Duenas, the social media coordinator for the club.
With the idea coming up only a few weeks ago, the club plans to help with the Multicultural Night as well as host events specifically geared toward Hispanic Heritage Month. “From there, we hope to have nights where we can either share food from various countries or put on music where people can dance… and just any way that we can celebrate our culture,” Cruz described.
In terms of gaining members, the club is looking to put up fliers in different languages, including Portuguese and Spanish. Duenas also plans on advertising the club through social media, as well as engaging with students. “In our posts, I believe creating them to be pleasing to the eye and informative. Also, posting about our volunteering opportunities, when we place fundraisers, and where we plan to donate the money,” she described.
Club events would be mainly focused on volunteer opportunities, along with watching movies or sharing experiences “we've had as growing up as Latino students, whether you were born in America or not because everybody’s experiences are different,” Flores explained.
In terms of communicating with ESL students, “We would speak all languages… the only one we don't have is Haitian Creole… But we have Portuguese and… Spanish. So we were thinking of just using those languages, mostly in English, but we won't just specifically use those. Yeah, I would also include English, but we also don't want to leave out the students who don't know English,” she continued.
Silva spoke on his personal goals for the club, stating that he wanted to notice “things that people point out, what they want us to include in the club, and I want us to implement that in our next meetings and I want to listen to everybody's opinions.”
With their first club meeting on April 11th in H311, be sure to look out for when the club will be meeting regularly, as well as “what our goals are as a club, what things we value, and just about explaining that we're just here to amplify our voices and just have a good time,” Concluded Cruz.
