KU student works to establish Latina sorority on campus
By Juliana Garcia | @KansanNews
In her first year at the University, sophomore Leonor Ramos Salamanca noticed other women in her psychology class had something she didn’t: a connection to one another. They greeted one another with wide smiles, hugged one another and often headed out the door together. She knew they were sorority sisters from the greek letters etched onto their hats.
She spent her first semester and much of the second going to classes, working and spending many nights watching Netflix alone in her room. Tired of feeling out of place and longing to find a home away from home, she decided to take action to connect with other Latinas on campus. Last spring, she sent a message to KU’s Latin American Student Union GroupMe, asking if anyone would be interested in joining a Latina-focused sorority.
“[I was] missing home and missing my friends and missing that community, my Latina community,” Ramos Salamanca said. “I was really sad about it.”
Today, this first-generation college student from Johnson City is president of the sorority interest group Las Esmeraldas. Not only does she want to create a supportive space for women, but she also said she wants Latinas to be more visible on campus. Other members have similar thoughts about the goals of the organization.
“We have other sororities representing other identities, and I think Latinas are also important,” Monica Carvajal, a junior from San Jose, Costa Rica majoring in music therapy, said. “I think there should be more visibility for us as well, just like there is for other groups.”
Latinos accounted for almost 1,500 undergraduates on campus during the 2016-2017 school year and have been the largest minority at the University since 2010, according to the Office of Institutional Research and Planning. However, there have been no active Latina-based sororities on campus since spring 2016, when the sisters of Hermandad de Sigma Iota Alpha graduated, said former
President of Las Esmeraldas, Leonor Ramos Salamanca, hosted an event called Coco con Cocoa on Thursday. Las Esmeraldas is set to become a Latina-based sorority at KU.
said Vicky Reyes, former president of the sorority and recruitment coordinator for the School of Journalism.
“We’ve had another Latina organization that is dormant on campus, and we have a Latino fraternity that is dormant on campus,” Reyes said. “These two organizations were here for a really long time, and the only reason I say that is because for those gaps of years, those are opportunities that students aren’t available to take advantage of.”
Ramos Salamanca and the 10 other Latinas hope to officially establish Kappa Delta Chi, a Latina-founded national sorority, at the University.
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