From the Neighborhood | Letter to our comunidad about El Centro Chicanx/Latinx

Querida Comunidad,

The pictures of scholars carrying indicators utilizing profanity in opposition to El Centro and Centro Director Elvira Prieto and calling for workers firing from the Might 5^th incident throughout Cafecito at El Centro have been devastating. Intimidation, identify calling and aggressive confrontation aren’t how we resolve variations in our comunidad. The checklist of calls for, protest indicators and the calls to take away El Centro’s Director, Elvira Prieto, have been obscure and inconsistent with the spirit and mission of the Centro and Casa Zapata.

As an alumnae, Stanford volunteer and mum or dad of two latest Stanford graduates, I’ve seen Elvira’s exhausting work and dedication to college students. I’ve additionally admired her ardour for preserving our artwork, tradition, traditions and historical past at Stanford. I’m proud to have such a robust and dedicated advocate for our comunidad.

In her roles as Director of El Centro and Resident Fellow of Casa Zapata Elvira has been a selfless advocate for our comunidad. All through her tenure Elvira has led the Centro with integrity, compassion, and humility. Elvira works exhausting to create a protected house for all college students to collect. In her position as Director of El Centro and RF of Casa Zapata, Elvira has been a zealous advocate for elevated assets, administrative help and different companies for our comunidad. We should demand that Elvira be handled with the dignity and respect that she has earned.

I’ve recognized Elvira for the reason that early 90’s doing the exhausting work within the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA) and main the Starvation Strike of 1994, in addition to coping with the fallout and its aftermath. These efforts finally led to the creation of the Heart for Comparative Research in Race and Ethnicity (CCSRE). Constructing on the legacy and the sacrifices of our ancestors and of the generations of MEChistas earlier than us, Elvira served as a scholar chief within the struggle for elevated help companies for college students, culturally related academic alternatives, and elevated assets that our comunidad enjoys at this time. She put her life on the road and has devoted her profession since then to preserving these valuable assets. Elvira stays steadfast in her dedication to our comunidad.

Throughout Elvira’s tenure as Director of El Centro programming, workers composition and our bodily areas have advanced to replicate the growing range of our neighborhood. She has woven a gorgeous tapestry wealthy with the colourful intersectionality of our neighborhood and based mostly on our frequent values of respeto, cariño y dignidad. We should defend our assets and help these doing the exhausting work to protect our place at Stanford.

We should additionally do not forget that El Centro and Casa Zapata belong to all of us. These areas belong to the present college students holding these areas, the workers working to help them, the college who assist construct neighborhood, and to generations of alumni who risked their educational careers and private well-being as college students and proceed to come back again to campus yr after yr to offer of their time, abilities, and funds. El Centro additionally belongs to future generations who will proceed to construct on our legacy.

Allow us to be taught one another’s histories and experiences and honor the wrestle of these whose blood, sweat and tears laid the inspiration for our comunidad at Stanford. As we now have all through our historical past, let’s draw our energy from each other and are available along with dignity and respect to resolve our variations. El pueblo unido, jamas será vencido!

Con Cariño y Respeto,

Alma Medina

Pronouns: She/Her/Hers

B.A. ’92, J.D. ‘95