Latinos in Multicultural Affairs

Tip #2: Understand the Challenge(s) you are Welcoming. When I began my job search I wanted a place where I could work with students of color, and the only place I could think of were multicultural centers. For the most part, Texas schools only have multicultural centers, as opposed to individual identity cultural centers like our northern counterparts. So it was no surprise when my job offer came through and it was the Office of Multicultural Affairs. I was excited. I knew it was going to be a challenge, but what I misunderstood were the type of challenges.

This can go for any first-year professional, but I think it's even more salient and pertinent to those in multicultural affairs. Multicultural affairs is a tricky and sticky area in student affairs. It was one of the few centers and/or services that were created out of protests. Every center I can think of that deals with marginalized communities have resulted because of protests from students and the university community. My office was a result of one student who in 1991 felt it was necessary for students of color, specifically African American students, to have a place for solidarity, as well as an increase in faculty of color and courses dealing with multicultural issues. (By the date, you can tell our center is premature considering the emergence of other centers, but what we have to take into consideration is that we are in east Texas).

Anyhow, I have learned that one must slow your pace down, your approach, your attitude, your style, maybe even you stroll. It's not bad, its just having to know, understand, and accept those changes/challenges. It is important to be aware that our jobs may be at stake given the circumstances, come to think of it, we have to be careful. The higher up we go up the ladder, the more careful we have to be, but yet our social justice lens must get sharper and clearer with every advance. It's like a walking contradiction: You have to have a sharp lens, but you have to be careful with how you use it and direct it. Recently, a school in California experienced racial tension, and as a resulted hired a chief diversity officer to 'manage' the tension. At the end, the woman was fired on the basis of her radicalism. Our jobs are on the line. Daily.

Second, you have to come to understand "self-tokenization". This concept came up when a friend of mine and I began sharing our experiences in multicultural affairs. He is Latino and is supervised by a Black supervisor, and so am I. We started thinking about Latino Directors of multicultural centers, but couldn't quite think of any, at least none in our circles. We could think of assistant Latinos, and Latinos who are directors of Latino communities. So, we began dissecting the concept of self-tokenization. Why did we choose to enter multicultural affairs?

I decided on multicultural affairs because I wanted to be the go-to individual for Latino students in Multicultural Affairs. From personal experiences, my friend and I shared how there was a lack of Latino student involvement in multicultural centers at our peer institutions. Why? And that question comes up constantly in conferences where the "Vanishing Latino" theory is addressed. How can we engage Latino students? Latino students on average are less engaged than any other student community, thus being less present in multicultural centers. (This does not include individual identity centers).

So in essence, self-tokenization can look different to many people. However, for multicultural educators, we must prepare ourselves to be "The Only One" in the room, and to slow down. So, do we as multicultural educators tokenize ourselves? And to what extend will we continue to slow down our to accommodate the educational system(s)?  Perhaps these two concepts are necessary for the survival of social justice.