APU community members propose solutions to establish integration on campus

Richard Martinez, executive director of the Center for Diversity, Equity and Inclusive Excellence (CDEIE) at APU, has a vivid recollection of how a predominantly white neighborhood in Upland, California started a petition against his family in the hopes of evicting them on the basis of their Mexican heritage in the 1950s.

“Thankfully, we had good people as neighbors who didn’t sign it,” said Martinez.

In response to the petition, a community of Christ-followers united over the persecution that Martinez’s family faced in a manner that was similar to the way people banded together during the Civil Rights Movement to achieve social justice for African-Americans.

Gazing at the nearly empty auditorium from the lectern of Wilden Lecture Hall on Jan. 18 during a tribute event honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Martinez understood that a sense of integration needed to be established within the APU community. The event, which featured a compilation of photos of King accompanied by some of his most memorable speeches, turned into a discussion between the few students in attendance and the staff members who organized the event.

Sylvester Doss, a senior Christian ministries major, said he was saddened by the poor attendance at the event, but felt that it only amplified the importance of needing to take action.

During the discussion, Doss proposed that the CDEIE create an event where all of APU’s student associations host a meeting together to support each other’s causes, rather than gathering as separate entities.

“The Lord says that every house divided against itself shall not stand,” Doss said. “Instead of fighting our own separate battles, we should come together and draw strength from our spiritual foundation.”

Stephanie Haskins, an executive administrative assistant for the CDEIE, agreed that in order to communicate a call for action to a younger audience who did not grow up directly experiencing the effects of segregation, they need to understand what the previous generation lived through.

“I have college-aged children and our conversations about diversity and equity are different than, say, the conversation I will have with my parents,” Haskins said. “My children don’t know what it’s like necessarily to be segregated or to be mistreated because of the color of your skin. They haven’t experienced that, but at the same time, we need to speak their language so they can understand.”

For Martinez and his family, discrimination and racism were a reality. To them, the 1960s were a repetitive cycle of optimism and despair, with positive moments such as the inauguration of John F. Kennedy.

“It seemed like there was finally hope for the Latino community,” Martinez said.

Every assassination of a civil rights movement leader chipped a piece of that hope away.

The portrayal of King at the MLK Day tribute represented this cyclicity. A photo of him laying in bed in a hospital gown was followed by him partaking in a peaceful protest on the streets of Washington.

Even though Martinez believes that the younger generation does not understand the urgency behind being an active change agent like King, he hopes that on a greater scale, society can still recreate the type of support his family received from a Christian community when they were on the verge of eviction.

“In hindsight, what was planted in me through the legacy of others and the legacy of my own family is to remain steadfast in the hope of our faith, and in Christ, to be of service to others no matter what,” Martinez said.