¡Nuevos Latinos Unidos!

From salsa lessons to authentic food, AHS’ new Latinos Unidos (Latinos United or LU) student organization has given students the opportunity to celebrate and share their culture, receive academic assistance, and build friendships with their fellow Latino students.

Seniors Brigith Bautista and Lina Abril-Montoya came up with the idea for the organization over the summer and now serve as the club’s main leaders. Bautista wanted to create the club to build unity among all of the Latino students at AHS.
“Three years ago, when I first came to the United States, I found myself in a situation where I did not know how anything worked,” she said. “I didn’t know the language, people, the education process was extremely different, [and] there wasn’t anybody from my country Venezuela. We all spoke different[ly] in Spanish; some words mean something different in each country.”

“Lina and I came up with the idea of creating a club that would bring together all Latinos and all others to celebrate our Latin American culture, provide academic assistance to Latino students, work on involving Latino parents in school matters, and help undocumented students to go to college,” Bautista said.

Club sponsor Leilani Keys agreed to help Bautista and Abril-Montoya with anything they needed. “They are wonderful, diligent, college-bound and strong young women who are culturally knowledgeable and radiate love for their community,” Keys said.

After the club’s first meeting, Bautista and Abril-Montoya “obtained really good ideas from all the members of the club, and we decided to do a Latin American festival in which food and drinks from Latin Americans countries will be provided,” Bautista said. “Also, we will perform different types of dances from [multiple Latin American countries].”

One of the club’s first events was the celebration of Latino Heritage Month in October.  “During the month, we had a visit from our artist friend Chicho Lorenzo who created a mural with students and whose work now hangs in the foyer of the library,” Keys said. “LU also hosted Salsa lessons in the small gym and a vivacious samba band named Beleza in the media center.” All of the club’s activities are open to the entire school community. More recently, “LU held a luncheon in which all Latino students were invited to attend, and discussed future academic and professional goals with guest speaker, Gloria Rockhold, from the County Office of Community Engagement,” Keys said. “It was very successful with over 40 students attending and lunch catered by El Tepeyac Restaurant. Muy sabroso [very tasty]!”

The club is also a source of guidance for participating students, as the leaders often gather the group to “[give] them advice about school and their future,” Abril-Montoya said.

Another goal of the organization is to increase parent participation in the school. “We really hope that the parents of all of these teenagers will become involved in their son or daughter’s school responsibilities [because] this is a huge issue within my Latino community, since the adults spend most of their time working and working,” Bautista said.

Bautista also hopes that the LU students will “receive all the help they need and learn to help other newcomers, become proud of our culture, to put all of their problems and concerns aside and be able to focus on education.”

Lastly, Keys wants the club members to gain “a sense of giving back to their community, ownership of their cultural heritage, friendships and relationship-building with those in the community that want to see them succeed.”