A Latino Lounge is Everyone's Lounge

The more I pursue an understanding of our campus’s extensive history of student calls for change, the more I hear people say “my community needs a safe space.” Safe spaces are communal spaces. They empower all of us by providing an individual community with the right to feel like it is part of a collective whole. Latino groups will be mobilizing over the next few weeks by reaching out to alumni, administrators, and the student body to argue the case for a space on campus where the large Latino community can find a home for itself and an extra location to share its culture with the campus. As Latino Heritage Month continues, you will see that this endeavor to establish a campus lounge derives from a love for Columbia. Sharing culture is essential to building community. By supporting one another, we support ourselves. I am sure that deep down, no matter your political viewpoints, you believe in this too. I used to think that student government voice did not matter, but it really does. When the student government takes a particular stance, the student body is trusting us to represent it accurately. I hope the Columbia College Student Council stands with me when I say that safe spaces are a necessary part of building student life.

There almost two dozen Latino-affiliated groups on campus. I think as a whole they deserve a lounge that recognizes their history on campus. A critique might be that once you grant one community space, you have to give to them all. I disagree because this lounge space will be used to work with the non-Latino community as well.

The creation of the Malcolm X Lounge occurred simultaneously with the calling for a Latino lounge. One year after the Student Afro-American Society’s sit-in in 1970, when approximately 50 black students occupied the old ROTC offices in Hartley Hall to demand a community lounge, about 40 Latino students conducted a sit-in in 208 Lewisohn, currently the General Studies Lounge. President William McGill responded to the Latino students demands saying, “I can’t give in.” After the Latino students sit-in in February of 1971, Felix Cosme, then-associate administrator of the Urban Center and head of the Puerto Rican Development program, said that the University labeled the Latino sit-in as “another militant students’ action.” Student government did not act fast enough then, nor did it act fast enough during the hunger strike last fall. Student communities that are constantly working to make this campus a better place deserve the attention and support of student government. I am now taking the stance to help special-interest communities develop their longer-term agendas and to serve as an advocacy link with administrators. We cannot give space ourselves, but we can argue that having this space is vital.

After almost 40 years, action to create a Latino lounge has re-emerged. The Latino community is now more unified than ever and can handle longer-term projects. Our University should not see this calling as a “militant approach.” Before we rally, sit-in, or protest, special-interest communities have concrete steps they can take to provide a long-term voice for their communities on campus. Peers get each other on board with your cause—educate one another, nurture, and pinpoint someone to work with student government on your space concerns. I’m not providing you with misguidance on an invalid mortgage, and I’m not guaranteeing you space for free either­—there will be hard work ahead, but if we communicate well, we can accomplish this soon.

Designating room for a particular community is a decision administrators and student government leaders will make within the next couple years. After this year, Lerner 6 will be completed. The campus advising offices will be re-located to Lerner, opening up a variety of spaces. Deciding how to use this new space will require a careful evaluation of what the campus needs. For example, it became clear that the Office of Multicultural Affairs needed more space to accommodate its heavy student programming. This year, the OMA expanded to a second brownstone—there is a lounge in this house which potentially could be dedicated to Latino community use. It is a great location because it can be decorated like a ‘home,’ and provides an intimate setting where the wider community can meet, engage in discussion, and learn from one another. It could work very similarly to how the Malcolm X Lounge and Stephen Donaldson Lounge in Furnald Hall work right now. Go to a Columbia Queer Alliance board meeting in the Stephen Donaldson Lounge, and after a discussion with the board you will see that a safe space welcomes all members of the campus to learn from one another and broaden perspectives.

Taking place right now, Latino Heritage Month and Queer Awareness Month are two great examples of how special-interest communities reaching out to the campus to educate and build long-term relationships with the student body. Ask questions, figure out what the communities are like, and realize that these conversations will help us to better understand our campus. The results of these discussions will help us work with one another, especially when controversial issues confront the campus. In order for this to occur, we need the space available daily for us to learn about one another. A Latino Lounge will help facilitate this process.

Adil Ahmed is a Columbia College senior majoring in history. He is the CCSC vice president of policy. Additional Minutes runs alternate Wednesdays.
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