The Campus Christian Fellowship at Western Washington University formed Café con Leche, a weekly meeting every Tuesday in the Viking Union. The meeting serves as a safe space for people with Hispanic and Latinx heritage to share their unique experiences growing up.
"We have had a lot of really good talks, a lot of personal heavy stuff," said Greta Lozada, club coordinator of Café con Leche and executive assistant of Campus Christian Fellowship and Western Washington University alumna.
Lozada said that the club is meant to be a resource for students who want a space to process their cultural identity.
“Café con Leche is a space we created because we long for it as students,” said Johana Martinez, an intern at Campus Christian Fellowship and Western Washington University alumna. “It’s a conversational space about our cultures and backgrounds.”
Lozada said that the name “Café con Leche,” references coffee, and the heart behind the meetings and bringing people together.
Martinez said the weekly event is small group focused. Lozada said people feel more comfortable sharing their experiences in smaller groups.
“Roughly there are around eight people total each week, and two people work for the organization,” Lozada said.
Lozada said they created Café con Leche because many Latinx and Hispanic students are insecure with their identity and find it hard to relate to other students of similar heritage.
"It's a space where we are coming from this common background,” Lozada said. “It's about meeting students that are encouraging our cultural identity."
Allison Greener, vice president of Campus Christian Fellowship, said Café con Leche is a sub-club under the Campus Christian Fellowship.
"It's really just a meeting of smaller subset CCF students who wanted some meetings that were focused on Hispanic and Latinx culture and experiences," Greener said.
Lozada said they have plans to add variety to the weekly meeting, stating that they want to start having nights where attendees can watch movies they grew up with and cooking events.
Third-year Tallulah Reyes, attendee of Café con Leche, said she likes going to the meeting because it’s a way to find people she can relate to.
"The point is to bring students together and talk about their experiences,” Reyes said. “It's nice because I can share my experiences with people like me."
Reyes said the weekly meeting has roughly the same amount of people each week and is the same group of people. She also said the first few meetings went smoothly and felt that everyone was comfortable opening up.
"I think for me, my dad is Puerto Rican and my mom is white,” Reyes said. “My dad would consider himself Afro Latino. We get a lot of the prejudices that come with being darker skinned."
Greener said the process of getting the club in place was a smooth, straightforward process.
"For this event it is all pretty much just automated,” Greener said. “All of our other work with the Associated Students Office is great, they are really lovely there. The only process we go through to get the meetings approved is just reserving rooms through the Associated Students management system."
