 My name is Karina Olaru and I am the Director of the Latino Cultural Center as well as the Director of Student Advocacy and Education. We are always have our motto all our welcome from the beginning and we attempt to create an inclusive community through cultural understanding and meaningful dialogue for all of our students and the entire campus community. One of the ways that we do that is through our programming from the beginning of the academic year where we start with conexiones which is for students to get connected through to one another to the LCC and to faculty and staff on campus through our major programming like Dia de los Muertos and the Latinx graduation ceremony. We have day-to-day programming where students can come into our building that offers a support system so things like a computer lab, a library, cafecito all day long and students can come in there and be authentically themselves but they're also going to get challenged with that meaningful dialogue and so we have programs like in cheese mail which means the gossip but we talk about things like saliendo del closet so coming out of the closet we talk about religion we talk about sex and all those things that Latinx communities might have difficult times talking about or engaging in and we also offer programs for the entire campus community so for instance we celebrate national Latinx Heritage Month. One year we discussed what it means to be Latinx because that's very important to be inclusive of our our trans community our non binary gender communities and so we wanted to have those discussions. It worked really hard to to have a cultural center that dismantles stereotypes and creates a sense of belonging. One of the things that I worked really hard was to move away from the idea that a cultural center is food fun and fiesta and that we are there for academics to support students academically. We are there to create a sense of belonging and we are there to have meaningful conversations and to create cultural understanding across campus that helps faculty staff and everybody who's supporting Latinx students understand what it means to be a Latinx student. I think if you ask students how they've been impacted which which I do often is that they would call the LCC a home away from home and I think that speaks to the sense of belonging that they feel to the center. When you walk in you know that every piece on the wall you know that every color that the wall's painted every computer is placed exactly where it needs to be placed because of representation and so we understand at the Latino cultural center that a Latinx person doesn't necessarily look like me right. It doesn't it doesn't mean that you have dark brown hair skin my color we are diverse within the Latinx community and not just in how we look but our identities right our sexual orientation and so we address all of those all of those identities at the cultural center and so it's also important for us to work with faculty and staff you know by celebrating Latinx culture Latinx cultures and identities you're also reducing imposter syndrome which is really significant in students who don't see themselves represented when they walk into the classroom when they walk through the halls and so if we can chip away at that imposter syndrome we can increase their sense of belonging and I think that the Latino cultural center has done a really good job in doing that especially in the way that we've worked with other cultural centers on campus and across across campus with different departments with the Latino studies program women and gender studies American studies to bring that only you know not only to celebrate cultural dances and things of that nature but to bring people like Shari Moraga right who is an icon who is a scholar of Latinx studies to bring people like Denise Froman who is a queer Latina poet you know we're working we're working really hard to have that diverse representation amongst Latinx communities so that when you do walk in there and I've heard this a lot you feel welcome at the Latino cultural center regardless of all the identities that you bring with you so oftentimes students will ask how do I get involved what do I have to do what club do I have to join to become a part of the LCC and our response is always you just need to walk into the door you don't need to sign up for anything and the more students become involved the more that we get to know them the better we get to know them and we can connect them across campus to different leadership opportunities to different organizations and to different academic units many of our students for instance who are just happened to be at the center while a course in Latin American and Latino studies was being taught are now Latin American studies Latino studies minors so we really work hard to connect students and provide them different opportunities to grow and thrive at the LCC as for undocumented undocumented students it is really important to provide clear communication and support we know that those students are considered the United States or home they are part of the the nation they are part of Indiana and they deserve a right to education and so we are working really hard right now to provide that support and to be very clear that Purdue is a campus that welcomes DACA students right we want to be DACA friendly and that means educating one another so educating different systems or different departments on campus to know that information that is really very complicated sometimes right and so to make sure that people have the correct information to be able to support our DACA students in our DACA community