On Saturday, Sept. 7, Augustana’s lower quad was lined with tables as the Multicultural Programming Board (MPB) hosted Culture Fest, a celebration of the different culture groups at Augustana. Among these tables were Latinx Unidos, Asian Student Organization, and Black Student Union.
These and other culture groups on campus provide opportunities for students to relate to one another, share feelings of home, and even teach other community members about their culture.
Santi Miranda, a senior and this year’s president of Latinx Unidos (LU), joined the group his freshman year on campus. He has enjoyed a sense of community with his peers and also with surrounding community members.
Some of LU’s most well-known events include celebrations for Dia de la Raza and Dia de los Muertos. Both of these celebrations bring the Augustana community together, but their biggest event even reaches the outside community.
“Our biggest [event] is our tribute to Our Lady of Guadalupe, that gets about 300 to 500 people from the community and they all come to Augustana and we celebrate,” Miranda said. “We have food, we have dancers, we have live music, we have priests come to speak.”
Miranda’s goal this year is to increase representation within LU so that even more community members can make connections.
“We are a very Mexican oriented group because a lot of the members are Mexican, so naturally that would happen, right?” Miranda said. “But we have so many other populations from like Nicaragua, from Columbia, and I want to make events for them or have them be included in what we’re doing. So one of my bigger goals is to just have everybody be represented in their own way.”
Senior Rachel Jocson, Asian Student Organization (ASO) president, was also drawn in her freshman year by a strong sense of community. Now as the leader of the organization, she is striving to grow that community while staying true to what made her love the group when she joined.
“We really work to build community for AAPI students and anybody who is willing to learn and engage in allyship,” Jocson said. “Our meetings tend to be pretty laid back and upbeat, we spend time doing highs and lows so highlights of everybody’s week and just getting to hear about how other people are doing.”
The community Jocson found in ASO has played a big part in her own Augustana experience.
“Being a part of ASO has helped me stay in college, and has helped me stay at Augustana, and I know that the culture groups also mean a lot to many other people,” Jocson said. “I also have a lot of admiration for the work that the other culture groups do. And I know, at least on a personal level, I feel like I have a sort of a legacy to uphold and I feel like I’m definitely stepping into big shoes, and I definitely feel humbled by that, and see being a leader of a culture group as an important responsibility.”
Some of ASO’s big events for the year, Jocson said, are the Mid Autumn Festival, or Moon Festival which teaches the community about the festival, Asian Night in May which invites members of their own culture group and other groups to perform and celebrate their culture, and even just hosting dinners throughout the year for AAPI members of the Augustana community.
Junior Reigna Hels, vice president of Black Student Union (BSU) also recognizes the important place culture groups are for Augustana students after joining and being a part of the group since freshman year.
“We’re the oldest culture group on campus, so I feel like it holds a lot of historical value, and it’s important to our community as a whole,” Hels said. “I just wanted to be a part of something that held such great weight here.”
The events to be on the lookout for from BSU include food, music and togetherness. The first of these events will be a back to school barbeque, and one of their bigger events takes place around the holidays.
“Usually in November, we have our soul food dinner night so a lot of people who can’t go home for the holidays or are missing the cultural food that they’re used to eating for Thanksgiving we either cater or we make some of it ourselves, it depends every year.”
All of these group members shared a desire for new students to join their organizations because as much as they are places for existing communities, they are also trying to expand their community at the same time.
“I think it’s just important to remember that we’re open to all. I know some people are worried that if they don’t identify with being black, that they feel like it’s our space and they’re intruding. But the whole point is to educate others and to build a broader community,” Hels said. “We want everybody to be there and at the end of the day our main goal is just to make sure that we all have connections that are valuable that will last past our time at Augie.”
To keep up with these and other culture groups on campus, you can follow their Instagrams, @latinxunidos, @augustanabsu and @asianstudentorganization. Also, you can attend their regular meetings and their hosted events on campus to learn more.
