Nestled in a corner on the third floor of Ronald Tutor Campus Center is the office of the Latino Alumni Association. Sitting atop the desk of the executive director is a new name placard that marks a new chapter for LAA, just as much as it signifies a beginning for its new director.
Ray López-Chang is only a few months into his role as executive director, but he already talks about it less like a job and more like a calling. As a USC alumnus with a master’s in urban planning from the Price School of Public Policy, he is familiar with the Trojan network. On paper, the job description is straightforward: fundraising, scholarships, and alumni programming. But the way he describes it, it’s really about connection.
Growing up, López-Chang never fit neatly into one category. His background spans Salvadoran, Mexican, Nicaraguan and Chinese immigrant communities. Throughout his youth, that meant constantly being asked to explain who he was or being told he didn’t fully belong in certain spaces.
“I was always building bridges between communities that didn’t make sense in the world,” he said.
López-Chang’s experience with civil service got an early start when he became California’s youngest elected official, serving on the Los Angeles Historic Cultural North Neighborhood Council at 15-years-old. This included advocating for youth involvement within his Chinatown community.
Instead of seeing his identity as a limitation, it was the perspective through which he could connect more profoundly with his community. It’s also why he sees Latinidad as something flexible.
“Latinidad has always been a spectrum for me,” López-Chang said.
His goal while at USC is to support that spectrum. He aims to expand what LAA does amid the wide net of students and alumni that it serves.
His upbringing reflects how prevalent education advocacy would be throughout his life. He was raised by educators, including his mom, grandmother, and great-grandmother, in Nicaragua. López-Chang has always known the important role a good educator takes on. But education advocacy, the kind of work he does now, can’t be learned from a textbook. It came from stories, and one story has stuck with him throughout his life.
His grandfather, a Chinese immigrant in Nicaragua, was forced to flee during the Sandinista Revolution. His grandmother made the decision to escape with their children, walking them toward a Red Cross plane while holding up a makeshift white flag that she made from a broomstick and a T-shirt.
Looking back, López-Chang sees that moment as something bigger than survival. “She was advocating for her children,” he said. “There was a path to a life that she did not yet see.”
The lessons instilled from his upbringing reverberate into what he does now. “This is the time to show up for the Latino community,” he said. “Not just as one person for another, but with one another.”
This idea clicked for him recently at the LAA’s annual scholarship gala that brought together hundreds of people, including alumni, students, and university leadership. People from completely different industries and generations were all showing up to celebrate the accomplishments of Latino Trojans, both current students and alumni.
The event is also a means to raise funds for student scholarships and professional development, ensuring well-deserving students get the support they need.
Although he hadn’t even met most of the people in the room yet, it didn’t feel unfamiliar.
“There was something really stirring about it,” López-Chang said. “Seeing so many people come together to celebrate and create impact… it was different.”
It made the work feel less like a network and more like an actual community.
One of the members of that community is LAA scholar Sabrina Rincon, who described López-Chang as a huge help when it came to applying for a scholarship award.
“I have seen his strong passion for the Latino community and wanting to really amplify the students’ voice… and wanting the best for the Latino community and LAA,” she said.
Before USC, López-Chang spent most of his career in education advocacy. But even then, his work wasn’t limited to schools.
During the pandemic, he helped bring together a coalition of over 100 organizations focused on making sure students didn’t fall behind. What started as a classroom-oriented approach quickly expanded into something bigger across sectors of health, immigration, and economic support.
Once schools closed, it became obvious that accessible education extends beyond subject material. “In thinking about the family unit… multiple organizations were brought in,” he said. “Regardless of space, I was building bridges.”
López-Chang repeats this phrase often, ‘building bridges.’ He believes in the importance of connecting and bridging the gap between people who don’t usually sit in the same room. It’s also how he ended up working in digital equity.
“I didn’t grow up thinking I wanted to advocate for internet justice,” he said. “But I knew I was being called to step up.”
His calendar stays stacked with to-dos, but he also highlighted a different aspect of his daily happenings.
“We’re an open door for students,” he said. “People come in just to talk, to get advice, to feel supported.” And helping navigate all of that, there’s also the support staff that keeps the office running.
“We’re laughing in the office. We’re experiencing joy,” he said. “We are humans before we are professionals.”
For scholars like Lucero Rodriguez, who already have a long-established relationship with LAA, the introduction of the new director is a welcome addition to the staff they are already familiar with, such as Associate Director Dolores Sotelo.
“After four years at USC, I’ve gotten endless support from the LAA team and Dolores specifically … I met the new director at the LAA graduating scholars brunch, and everyone could see how much this community means to him. He gave us all a platform to share a speech, and after, he said how much our words moved him [and] that they will drive him to never stop [working] to provide the LAA communities with spaces to celebrate our achievements,” Rodriguez said.
Within his new role, he wants to focus on promoting financial literacy, access to professional networks, and something he calls collective capacity. He emphasized that being in the right spaces, knowing the right people, having visibility - all of that matters more than people like to admit. Collective capacity refers to the tenets of influence, power, and kindness; all not as separate ideas, but as things that have to work together. “If we only focus on one, we lose the ability to stay connected,” he explains.
Underneath all of that is a goal that threads them together: building multigenerational power. Alumni networks already have that built in. Students, recent grads, people decades into their careers, it’s all there. Now the question is whether they’re actually connected.
“We all need to link arms,” he said. “We are all in existence in parallel with one another.”
Editor’s Note: Writer Jasmine Minchez Lopez and LAA Director Ray López Chang are not related.