Latino Groups Host Conference

Latino organizations from Harvard Law School and the John F. Kennedy School of Government joined forces this past weekend to run a two-day conference on Latino leadership.

Titled "Alternatives in Latino Leadership: Giving Back in Different Ways," the conference featured panels and speeches by prominent Latino lawyers, activists and elected officials.

Around 70 Latino community members and students from the Law and Kennedy Schools attended each panel, according to third year law student Edward A. Torpoco, one of the conference co-chairs.

Speakers and panelists said Latinos should draw upon their cultural and spiritual traditions to become leaders in their communities.

"We should be anchored in the history we have," said Maria A. Berriozabal, Saturday evening's keynote speaker. "There's tremendous power in that," said Berriozabal, who is a founder of the National Hispana Leadership institute.

In her address, Berriozabal offered "words for the journey" to young Latinos, urging them to find innovative solutions to problems like discrimination in the criminal justice system and the "mean-spiritedness" of legislation like Proposition 187, a California ballot-initiative which denied benefits to many immigrants.

"My wish for the young people is that they figure out ways to do things that we would never think of in a million years," Berriozabal said.

Although the conference was run by and for Latinos, conference organizers stressed that the conference showed there was no single Latino agenda and no single way for Latinos to achieve individual goals.

"It's really difficult to talk about common ground except that our ancestors spoke Spanish and that a lot of Latino groups are in poverty today," said second year KSG student Sylvia H. Kauffman, a conference participant.

"There is a really wide array of Latinas at this school," added second year HLS student Betsy A. Miller. "Some people are first generation, some are not, some people are privileged, others are not. The Latina group is an interesting composite of people [but] you can't just lump all these people together."

Attendees said the conference helped them focus on their identity as Latino students.

"It was a really inspirational event for me, going to a school [HLS] where we don't have any Latino faculty," Torpoco said. "We got to meet a lot of role models."

Kauffman said the conference motivated her to take more classes dealing with Latino issues during her Harvard career, so that she can contribute more effectively to the Latino community after she graduates.

Although La Alianza, the Latino law student association, has organized annual conferences in past years, this is the first year that it collaborated with the Kennedy School's Harvard Journal of Hispanic Policy to put on a conference.

Conference organizers say the collaboration was successful.

"Hopefully it will set a precedent," Torpoco said. "It was a fantastic turnout and though coordination is difficult between students at different schools, it definitely paid off."