It’s Latinx Heritage Month and all month long, Annenberg Media will bring you stories of students, faculty, and staff who are making a difference within their communities. For more, Tess Patton has the story.
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Latinx Heritage Month highlights the importance of Latinx history and culture within the United States. The latest Census shows more than 62 million Latinx living in the United States. The number is constantly growing. Here at USC, about 1 in 6 students identify as Latinx and about 1 in 15 faculty members also identify with this community.
On the fourth floor of the student union is “LA CASA.” That’s the Latinx and Chicanx center on campus that strives to educate students about Latinx issues… and provide an area for empowerment, cultural identity, and community building.
Here’s a place that you could come and learn more about one — one being yourself.
Greedly Harris supervises LA CASA.
...and it’s a safe space you could come and be a Latinx student, but also get connected with other folks who may identify with you. But also that may be different from you as well.
As a Black faculty member, Harris is proud to be what he calls “an ally” of the Latinx community and he’s serving on the committee for Latinx Heritage Month.
I remember during Black History Month, we had allies on our committee. And it’s so important for all of us to celebrate, for all of us to do this work whether you identify or you’re an ally.
Harris encourages all USC students to visit LA CASA on the fourth floor of the student union to learn more about this community.
But all of us celebrating the contributions of our Latinx brothers and sisters, our Latinx community, our Latinx folks and looking at their history, looking at culture and just making sure that we’re celebrating that and, you know, just coming together as a campus community and just just celebrating the culture. And I think that’s what it’s all about.
Latinx Heritage Month runs from September 15th through October 15th. Be on the lookout for more stories from Annenberg Media throughout the month.
For Annenberg Media, I am Tess Patton.