By ANDREA LOPEZ
Multimedia Editor

(WARRENSBURG, Mo., digitalBURG) — Members of SOL, the new student organization of Latinos, met in the Elliott Student Union Jan. 20 to voice their opinions about the underrepresentation of Hispanics on campus.

Among those who participated in the town hall meeting was senior middle school education major, Johnny Arroyo.

“I haven’t felt at home (at UCM),” he said. “I really want to start something that when new people come in, like me, they at least have some type of security or someone they can relate to. This was a whole different culture shock I experienced when I first got here so I don’t want anyone to experience that.”

Arroyo said the culture shock kicked in because he’s used to living in a much more diverse area.

“I’m from a suburb in Chicago, it’s called Zion,” Arroyo said. “Over there, it would be about 40 percent Hispanic, 30 percent black, and the rest, (white).”

Tara Napoleone-Clifford, IDEAS coordinator for the MAPS office, said the creation of these town hall meetings comes from wanting to learn what the students on campus need.

“The president wants to know what’s going on,” she said. “How do we help these students? How do we get student who come from an underrepresented group, to have a good, positive, safe, collegiate experience?”

While Napoleone-Clifford said she sent nearly 450 emails to Hispanic students, faculty and staff within the university and less than 20 people actually showed up, she still considers the meeting a success.

“That strategy didn’t work because we had less than 10 people, but we have to start off small,” Napoleone-Clifford said. “It’s 10 people, opinions, that we didn’t have before.”

The Latino and Hispanic town hall meeting is just one of four in the series. The 2-hour meetings are used as a way for Napoleone to gather qualitative data from participants.

Through questions and intensive conversation, these focus groups help students voice their concerns.

“I’m going to take a look at the raw data with a couple of graduate assistants and see what kind of themes come out,” she said. “It’s any data. It’s more than we had yesterday. More than we had this afternoon.”

As a teenage Mexican immigrant himself, graduate student Ivan Ramirez gives insight on what inspired him to start up the Latino organization.

“I moved here in eighth grade, so I was silent until my junior year,” he said. “It’s really hard to be an immigrant and not be able to talk, especially being a teenager. I didn’t feel like I was part of the school at all, then I finished my associates, I came to UCM, and what I noticed was, I felt like I was on an island – there wasn’t a lot of Hispanics and Latinos, and if there were, I don’t know where to find them.”

Ramirez said the meeting gave the group an opportunity to openly share ideas of what’s to come for SOL.

“The biggest one was to create a multicultural center and I think everybody is excited about that,” he said. “Where Hispanics and Latinos can come to this multicultural center and feel safe and they can feel like they’re part of the community.”

For those newbies out there, Ramirez offers a piece of advice.

“I know sometime it’s hard for us to speak up or go to events because we’re afraid that we’re going to be stared at because we’re different, because we have an accent, or because we look different than everybody else,” he said.

The 4-week long town hall meeting series will continue through Feb. 10.

“I believe in a predominantly white university, we need to celebrate those differences of our classmates and of our peers,” Napoleone-Clifford said. “It’s not to bring attention in a negative light, but to celebrate their difference from their different perspectives because everybody brings something unique to the table.”