Lina Corona

LSU at West Linn High School provides support for me and my community.

When I first came to West Linn, I wanted to feel welcomed and connected to the people here. I was intimidated by the common stereotype of high school and how “West Linn High School is filled with rich, snobby white kids.” It caught me by surprise when I noticed that wasn’t the case, and that our school is actively trying to diversify. 

As a student who transferred from Canby High School, I was very confused by “Affinity clubs.” Melissa Reyes, senior, encouraged me to join the Latino Student Union (LSU), which is an Affinity club. It was explained to me that Affinity is a club for people of color, made up of all the racial groups in our school.  

I was hesitant at first, as I was very new to this whole concept. One of the biggest factors of why I left Canby High School was because I no longer felt a sense of belonging like I had before. The only Latino club at Canby High School was called MEChA, a club for Mexican students. I assumed the club was mostly for Mexican students who knew very little English, but I soon learned that was false. 

I wish Canby would have approached advertising the MEChA club differently. It would have been great if the school made it more known and showed more support like school events.

One thing the LSU members realized when we went to the student conference at Portland State University, was most of the clubs there were called MEChA instead of LSU.

 I learned they were called MEChA because it consisted of mostly Mexican students. However, there were still a few students who were not Mexican. Alessandra Yee, junior, is a member of LSU.

“It was only one other Colombian and me here at the Educate Conference, why are we the only LSU-named club,” Yee said.

When I joined LSU, I felt welcomed right away, everyone was very kind. LSU had around eight students who would show up to the meetings when I first joined, and now it has around 18. We started participating in more events that our school hosted, and began hosting our own events as well. Our goal for LSU was to gain recognition and spread culture. 

We have a diverse group of Latinos, and we want to work on focusing on the Latino groups that are often not represented. 

I felt grateful that I took the big leap to transfer schools as it helped me stay motivated, but that wasn’t the case for many of the students who came to the event from different high schools. Because of this, I noticed that this conference was all about trying to encourage students to continue their education. 

There was a guest speaker at this Portland State conference, Eleazar Gomez, who was also in the same position as many students. As a high school student, Gomez had a 1.25 grade point average (GPA) because he and his parents were undocumented, so he could not go to college and get his dream job. Gomez had given up.

Soon his life completely changed for the better by suggesting he apply for DACA (Deferred Action for Child Arrivals). This program offered him to get legally documented for a certain period, pursue his dream career, and get a job. His mom died and he became a parent for his brother at the age of 19, and helped create classes similar to the Ethnic Students class that we have at the high school now. 

I was one of the many students who felt inspired and grateful that there are many more opportunities for us Latinos, but I also realized that schools with a higher Latino population had more limited options.

The population of Canby High School was white and Latino, but the classes I am now taking at West Linn are not available in Canby. Due to their limited resources, schools like West Linn have a higher graduation rate, as these classes offer many honors chords and so on. As someone who worked hard to come to this school, I knew I had so much potential that was yet to be explored and I know that is the case for many of the other students.

Canby did not offer as many classes because they see the lack of student engagement, but they don’t realize the reason for this is that there aren’t even opportunities for them to be engaged in the first place. 

Classes that are available at West Linn High School and not at Canby are: Journalism classes, AP Environmental Science, Field Ecology, Japanese, Ethnic Studies, Theater, and more. 

I was recently elected to speak at a school board conference because I took these career and technical education (CTE) classes. It was a great opportunity for me to have a voice, and LSU offered me to have that voice. LSU was also being promoted the right way in this school, I think that was the biggest difference between the MEChA club at Canby and the LSU club at West Linn. 

All of those classes were also classes that allowed me to get honors cords and more recognition from colleges. Black and Hispanic students are the students with the lowest graduation rate. I truly believe this is because we are limited and the school has purposely kept this system. 

I want to make a change. I can speak my voice and feel connected in my school because of clubs like LSU. LSU is so important, as it offers many students who feel that they are in a “stuck” position like I was. It allows them to reach out for help if they want to change their future for the better. If it wasn’t for LSU, I wouldn’t have known of all the career opportunities and the empowerment I felt for being Latina.