The story of Latinas/os in higher education in the United States is often one of exclusion and erasure. In this essay, Arelis Hernandez argues that, from grade school to college, there is rarely an occasion for Latinas/os to learn their history and to produce scholarship based on their communities. Instead, they are pressured to subscribe to a homogenizing paradigm of history that stresses assimilation and a negation of their particular stories. The author describes the movement initiated at the University of Maryland at College Park in the spring of 2008 for the institutionalization of a U.S. Latina/o studies minor. After the administration refused to recognize the legitimacy of Latina/o studies, students used insights from historical efforts to fight for equity to leverage the creation of a Latina/o studies program. A student leader of this movement, Hernandez examines the collaboration among faculty, staff, and allies to transform their campus. In the process, she explores her own transformation.

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Arelis Hernandez is a multimedia journalist and recent graduate of the University of Maryland in College Park, where she was one of the first students to receive a minor in the newly inaugurated U.S. Latina/o studies program. She was involved in a long struggle to institutionalize the ethnic studies program, and after a decade of protests, the university delivered on its diversity promises. As a reporter, she has worked for various publications, including the Associated Press, the Orlando Sentinel, washingtonpost.com, the Baltimore Sun, and the Star-News in Wilmington, North Carolina. In 2009, Hernandez was named one of the top 100 student journalists in the nation by U-Wire, a news wire for college newspapers. She is now working as a staff writer for Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, a magazine and Web site devoted to news about minorities in the academy.