Student Affinity Groups Point to Need for Authentic Spaces

(Note: Throughout the course of this article the use of Latine is used as a gender-neutral term to refer to those of Latin American descent)

Despite diversity and community being persistent themes at New Roads, many students of marginalized communities still struggle to find a community one of their own within the student body.

New Roads’ culture is known to be a tight-knit space for progressive education and personal teaching styles. These key components of New Roads’ philosophy, along with efforts to create “Authentic Diversity,” allow the school to offer its education to a wide array of students across ethnic, socioeconomic, and other backgrounds in the hopes of providing equal access to everyone. New Roads’ community is also often defined as a family, as a “big embrace.” 

For some students however, it can be difficult to find a part of themselves in this community hug, specifically those that come from historically marginalized communities. While New Roads is diverse compared to neighboring schools, it’s still a predominantly White institution, with less than 50% of its student body being made up of people of color. In order to be better seen on campus as people who represent ethnic groups from which they emerged, New Roads offers the opportunity to take up space in the form of affinity groups, however many of these are new, with Latinos Unidos being formed just three years ago, and Multi-Racial Student Union being formed in 2019. 

Affinity groups have been a place where many students of color have been able to find solace, as they provide a time and place for students of similar backgrounds to come together and coexist with each other. Along with Latinos Unidos and MRSU, Black Student Union and Asian Student Union are spaces where students organize themselves, with some oversight from an administrator, dedicating themselves to planning events and holding weekly discussions.

Although quite new, these spaces are regularly utilized by students and appear to have a positive impact on those taking advantage of them. Senior Denise Rodriguez expressed that having a space like Latinos Unidos has helped her gain further insight on parts of her community that she was unaware of previously, “Going into Latinos Unidos in 9th grade, even though it was only a few meetings, I learned a lot and then in 10th grade after I did the poem (at the Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration) I felt good, like I was sharing a part of my culture.” For Ms. Rodriguez, L.U. has also been a place for confidence and growth, while Junior Siddhartha Shendrikar conveyed that although he doesn’t feel a particular way about being Indian at school, “I can connect (with other students) in ASU because if they weren’t Indian I wouldn’t be friends with them, when I see that they’re Indian I’m like ‘oh my god, we have a similarity already, I’m going to go talk to them.’ And [I] can kinda connect on the level of culture.” Having the opportunity to have deeper connections to people in his community is profound when it’s taken into account that ASU has 10 Asian identifying members. 

Senior Denise Rodriguez, class of ‘21.

Similarly, Senior Mateo Buadu Colbert articulated, “Both spaces are very important to me…To be honest, for a while when I was little I didn’t feel like I could say that I was Black because I’m mixed…I was glad to have the opportunity to join the Black Student Union because once I was there it was like ‘I am Black, it doesn’t matter what anybody told me. I can relate to this community, when I’m here I can speak from the I perspective…’ So in both spaces, I can relate fully but I feel like in Multi-Racial Student Union, there are different intricacies that play into that that I can relate to with Multi-Racial people.”

Due to their lack of strength in numbers, students from marginalized communities have historically struggled at New Roads especially in cases of being the only person of a specific race in a given class, as former middle school Humanities teacher, Ayana Nelson, described: “Sometimes feelings of being isolated or not good enough come [into] play, and I’ve seen students try to overcompensate for stereotypes, or in doing so they end up playing out those stereotypes.” This can lead to damage in terms of their identity and where they belong in terms of their ethnic communities.

These feelings of isolation caused by the environment can play a big role in mental health, as alumn Maya Carrillo-Villar describes, “I think I was always really upset but I don’t think I’d really found my voice. I think I was angry but because I’d grown up with everyone and didn’t really feel valid and hadn’t learned as much yet [about the world] so I felt more defeated.” Mx. Carrillo-Villar attended New Roads almost K-12, leaving one year to experience a public school. Their defeated feelings manifested themselves in crying and hiding away, partly because they felt that they’d become “whitewashed,” a term often used in a derogatory manner to describe someone who has assimilated greatly to western society.

It took Mx. Carrillo-Villar quite some time to feel comfortable as a Latine person at NRS because they felt as though there was a lack of people that they could relate to. They hid in classrooms as well as away from their peers. In their senior year, however, they felt as though they had found more of a voice, and Mx. Carrillo-Villar read a speech at their graduation relating their experiences and hardships as a Latine person at NRS. It allowed them to feel more liberated and truthful with themselves, something they eagerly welcomed.

Alumn Maya Carrillo-Villar, class of ‘17.

Alumna Shaila Hernandez experienced a fair bit of culture shock when joining New Roads in her junior year,  “There were about 4,000-5,000 kids at Silverado High, and about a 1,000 of them were Latinos…I was probably one of about 5-7 Latino kids (at New Roads).” Ms. Hernandez also experienced a culture shock in terms of socioeconomic status, “I’m the only kid walking in with this small Jansport black backpack, and at my old school that was exactly what you needed to fit it. Here, I’m now looking at girls walking around with Micheal Kors purses for backpacks. That part was super difficult to acclimate to, I think I was very much intimidated by how much wealth some of these kids had.” 

Ms. Hernandez expressed that, due to this intimidation and feelings of being out of place, she clung to the Black and Latine people she knew and eventually became friends with. She also hid herself in the beginning of her New Roads experience by having lunch in the corridors of the classrooms near the back of campus. It wasn’t until her senior year that she began to feel more comfortable in being a Latina at NRS. She and her friends made it something of a point to be seen, “We kind of just clung to each other and we would all sit together so it would be like 2 or 3 tables of us just sitting together and it was a mixture of kids.” She went on to say that they used it as a way to represent their morale, and the experience of being together as a group led her and many of her classmates to seek out cultural groups in their later education.

Alumna Shaila Hernandez, class of ‘15.

Senior Aaliyah Mack has also experienced something similar to what Ms. Hernandez describes, explaining, “When I came to New Roads I had a culture shock, because I had to quickly assimilate and become two different Aaliyahs who belonged in two different worlds because I was a girl coming from Inglewood and had grown up in predominantly Black neighborhoods, Black and Latino was basically all that I knew and when I came to New Roads there were Asian people and White people and Black people and Latinx people.” 

At Ms. Mack’s previous school, the population was primarily made up of Black and Latine students, and she explained that she didn’t quite feel the need to code-switch because she felt that she was able to share enough common experiences with the Latine community there to feel comfortable. However upon arriving at New Roads she felt as though she had to become “a second Aaliyah”  because she wasn’t as used to sharing a space with White kids and felt as though she had to quickly assimilate and code-switch in order to fit in. For Ms. Mack it was difficult to find her place because she also felt as though she had to dial personality back, “I remember I was being told I had to act a certain way, and when I was told that there was no explanation as to how I needed to act. I have a strong personality and it felt like I was being told to tone it back.”  Miss Mack, who currently leads BSU, said that, with some time, she was able to find a place for herself in the NRS community, but it wasn’t particularly easy to get there.

Senior Aaliyah Mack, class of ‘21.

It’s also important, however, to realize that not all Latine kids will want to participate in Latinos Unidos and not all Black kids will want to attend BSU meetings. Having affinity groups is essential, but there is still a need for spaces outside of them for kids to be able to interact with their similar ethnic group out of the traditional group setting. While the school has no obligation to make these spaces directly available to students, it can be difficult for marginalized community members to create them on their own when they feel as though there’s only a small percentage of people who can relate to them ethnically, let alone socially. Having an even more diverse student population would most likely allow for these spaces to begin to form organically, a goal that the school insists it’s working towards meeting during a time when intense scrutiny of an institution’s racial diversity and inclusion are prevalent.