Since its inception, the Institute for Latino Studies has sought to use its resources to engage the local community and broaden students’ horizons through service opportunities.
“Sueños sin Fronteras” is a long-standing initiative designed to meet these twin goals. For one day a year, usually a Saturday, the ILS offers a suite of workshops for South Bend-area eight graders and high schoolers interested in learning about the college application process and campus life. It is free of charge for participants.
The effort, organized and led by Notre Dame students, is meant to be more of a primer on the college application process rather than a Notre Dame-specific recruiting effort.
This year's “Sueños sin Fronteras” took place on Saturday, April 1st. It was the first time “Sueños” was held since the pandemic hit in early 2020.
“We almost didn’t do it this year,” said Maribel Rodriguez, administrative coordinator at the Institute for Latino Studies. “It only happened because some people from the South Bend Community Schools Corporation told us they were looking for student programming that was bilingual and could also serve the immigrant community. We were about to lose the institutional memory for ‘Sueños.’”
The initiative started more than 20 years ago, after former ILS events and programs manager Carmen Macharaschwili met with various club leaders at the time to see how a recently-founded ILS could facilitate service opportunities. Most of the funding for “Sueños” comes from an alumni donor couple that prefer to remain anonymous.
At this year’s event, 40 participants came out, and about two dozen student volunteers gave their time. Inclement weather meant organizers had to modify the campus tour portion of the day’s event.
Fierce tornadoes had battered Indiana and several other states the night before, killing at least 32 people. Though the South Bend-area was spared fatalities, the winds were still going strong as the event got underway Saturday morning.
First-year student Grecia Alcantar led the effort to make “Sueños sin Fronteras” a reality. She organized a schedule that included ice-breakers and games for participants; a workshop for parents in Spanish by David Jenkins and Karen Bautista of the Office of Financial Aid; a presentation by Velena Hernandez of Undergraduate Admissions; lunch at North Dining Hall and Dinner at South Dining Hall; and a keynote speech by Gabriela V. Hernandez Gonzalez, assistant director of admissions for Mendoza.
There were two student-led workshops in the morning and a larger, student panel in the evening. Most of the presentations were either given in both Spanish and English, or a student volunteer provided individual translation.
Before dinner and parental pick-up at the main circle, the teen visitors did a goal-setting and letter writing activity in the ILS lounge. The idea is that in a year, they will receive their letters reminding them of the goals, hopefully pushing them to meet them.
“It’s all about letting them know help is there," Alcantar, a Political Science and Latino Studies double major, said. "There’s so many opportunities,”
A native of East Chicago, Alcantar is a Lilly Endowment Community Scholar for Indiana's Lake County. She’s also part of the most recent cohort of the Latino Studies Scholar Program (LSSP).
During the afternoon panel, and in private conversations, she shared with visiting students and their parents the various sources of funding students can use, especially for public institutions in Indiana. Coming from a Mexican-American immigrant household, Alcantar believes it is important younger teens see someone like her in higher education.
Though the invitation is primarily for high schoolers and eight graders, younger middle schoolers came out, as well. A sizeable portion of participants were from John Adams High School in South Bend, as well as from Marian High School, a private Catholic school in Mishawaka. Overall, most students were from the South Bend Community Schools Corporation and live in St. Joseph County.
Indeed, it was while he was a student at Marian that current Notre Dame senior Victor Gomez participated in “Sueños.” He got into Notre Dame as a QuestBridge scholar, having heard about QuestBridge from a student at the time during his “Sueños” visit.
He grew up on the west side of South Bend but hadn’t really visited campus before "Sueños." Currently, Gomez is completing a triple major in Political Science, Theology, and Latino Studies.
“The Notre Dame bubble goes both ways,” he said. “Being a minority, living on the west side, the chance you have to interact was limited. I would meet Notre Dame students when they could come to volunteer in the city.”
‘Sueños’ for sure was a way I could come to campus and get to know Notre Dame at the academic level.”
Now that the pandemic has abated, ILS looks forward to continuing this programming for many years to come.