Duke Students, Alumni, Faculty and Administrators Discuss the Evolution of the Latinx/Hispanic Experience at Duke

Duke students, alumni from the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, faculty and administrators gathered to discuss the Latinx experience at Duke and how it’s changed over time at a round table event entitled Diversity and Inclusion at Duke – The Evolution of the Latinx/Hispanic Experience (Today & In the Past).

Opening remarks were made by David Malone, Director of Duke Service-Learning and Professor in the Program of Education (Trinity '84), past DUHLAA Chair Nelson Camilo Bellido (Trinity ’89), DUHLAA Chair Tim Mendoza (Fuqua 1992) and Mi Genté President Elizabeth Barahona (class of 2018), who opened the conversation with an overview of the history of Latinx students at Duke, the topic of her senior thesis.

While Duke has evolved into a university where half the students identify as students of color, it hasn't always been this way.  The diversity we see today, Barahona said, is largely due to black student protests in the 60s when the university was pushed to bring in more minority students overall--more Native American students, more Asian American students, and more Latino students--and not just from wealthy families, but also from low and middle-class backgrounds. 

"Duke changed because students demanded it. They put their foot down and they were not willing to wait for the university to make the right decision. And they continue to do it today,” Barahona added.

Duke is now made up of 11% Latinx students, 11% Black students, and 30% Asian students. Yet many students reflected that their experiences of diversity and inclusion go beyond race:

"Diversity isn’t just one aspect of our identity, it's across the board," said one student. "There's diversity in thought, cultural and economic background, race, socio-economics. You can't really pinpoint it as one thing. But it’s very easy to pinpoint when there’s a lack of diversity."

Another student commented that when she was new on campus, it was important to her to be able to relate across experiences that went beyond being Latina:

"I wanted to speak Spanish," she said, "but I also wanted to have people where I could freely talk about the fact that I had never been faced with academics as rigorous as the ones I was facing here because I came from a very underfunded high school. Or I wanted to talk about the fact that I had never seen the kind of wealth that was displayed around me constantly. "

Sometimes, one student commented, diversity is simply a feeling of being seen, supported and welcomed:

"When I was in high school I came from a very diverse background but we didn’t really acknowledge that this diversity was something that we should be proud of. That's just the way it was and saw each other as friends and peers. Whereas at Duke, they really champion this idea of diversity, but at the same time the student body, doesn’t see people with diverse backgrounds as necessarily their friends. So for me this idea of diversity is more like this feeling of having people from diverse backgrounds, being there to be with you and support you and to feel welcome in that environment."

Another student remarked that being actively intentional keeps his social group diverse:

"I’m from a very small rural town in North Carolina, so there wasn’t very much racial diversity or economic diversity, so when I came to Duke I was very intentional about going to different spaces and making my social group as diverse as possible."

Though there were many different perspectives in the room, everyone agreed that in order to keep moving forward in terms of diversity and inclusion, we need to continue to work together to support each other's causes, just as student groups did in the 60s. "We were all fighting for the same goal--inclusion and to have a more diverse campus," said one alum. "When we fight for the same vision, that gives us more strength."

Nelson Camilo Bellido (Trinity ’89) added:

"In our day, we marched against apartheid. I marched with the BSA. It was was about making sure that if other groups were passionate about something, we joined forces." 

Barahona added:

"It's essential that we are members of each others groups so that we are able to continue to build that solidarity. It’s important that the president of Mi Genté is best friends with the presidents in BSA and ASA and NASA so that when push comes to shove when we have these different events that are so important for the university that we are able to communicate and come together as a group."

Malone had the last word of the day, urging participants to take action, make commitments, and play an active role Duke's evolution to becoming a more diverse and inclusive campus:

"It starts with us. All this talk is wonderful--it raises consciousness, it creates awareness and understanding, but if that's all it is, nothing changes. Frederick Douglass said 'Power concedes nothing without a demand'. We have to take action, we have to make commitments. Actions may vary according to who we are and what our choices are, but it’s not enough for us just to be having these conversations, and I see some emerging leaders in this room right now at all levels," he said.

Learn & Get Involved:

• A comprehensive list of student organizations can be found here.
• People's State of the University
• Article in The Chronicle, Building Bridges
• "The Bridge” is an online publication and social media outlet that celebrates Black and Latina women at Duke and UNC.
• #MeToo Dialogues at Duke
• The service-learning course Stories for Social Change takes as its centerpiece a story-building collaboration among Duke students and Durham community members that examines societal "visibility" and "invisibility" built by poverty, privilege, physical violence, and injustice.
• The History of Latinx Students at Duke University