Coalition of Latinx Scholars (CLS) Community Impact Award to Dr. Marie Miville

On Thursday, November 21, the Coalition of Latinx Scholars (CLS) and the Latinx & Latin American Faculty Working Group hosted the 14th Annual Latinx Unity Dinner, a space for harvesting community and academic excellence among the TC community. During the dinner, TC President Thomas Bailey, Dr. Regina Cortina, Juan Carlos Reyes, the recipients of the Community Impact Award, and the CLS executive board offered remarks about the celebration. Notably, Dr. Marie Miville, the recipient of the Community Impact Award for Faculty and former advisor to the Coalition of Latinx Scholars, shared some poignant words for those in attendance. 

Full acceptance speech by Dr. Marie Miville

Thank you all so much for honoring me with the CLS Community Impact Award. That it comes from the CLS is particularly inspiring and deeply moving since, after working 30 years with Latinx student leaders, simply said, you all are my heroes!

Overall today has been quite an amazing day. It began with the historic vote by TC faculty to welcome lecturers into their ranks and being named Professors of Teaching. As some of you may know, this was a process that took over 2.5 years to accomplish. So this morning began, before the meeting, with my two amazing colleagues, Jess Riccio and Adele Ashley, presenting me with a beautiful pendant, the North Star, which was their nickname for me. They also gave me a lovely bracelet (for all three of us), which has a quote from R. S. Grey that reads “she believed she could…So she did”; momentous words for our time! And so now to be receiving this recognition at the end of the same day makes Nov 21, 2024 forever in my mind a beautiful, inspiring, and hopeful day. Ah yes hope–a word I did not think I would utter for a long time… yet right now is the third time this week, yes this week (especially after last week), that I am saying the word “hope” genuinely and with a full heart.

I know many of us are deeply and rightfully concerned about what or who may be coming for our Latinx communities, the fears of being targeted once more simply being Latinx, being muzzled, even criminalized for our citizenship status and abilities to speak multiple languages (which make people smarter, as the evidence shows). For some of you just beginning your studies, you are worried about being sidelined from your own dreams and visions concerning your educational aspirations, and how you would like to work within the many Latinx communities, and the social justice you are seeking on behalf of our communities.

Please know, as President Bailey himself stated this very morning, we (TC) will take a position of strength in response to any and all things that come our way. Remember, we’ve been here well over a century plus (something like 135 years and counting), as a higher education institution. And as  Tom said this morning, we have been through far worse. Remember, we have always been a place for serious international scholarship, education, and leadership, for at least a century (before the Bracero program), for many communities both within the US and internationally. We were here doing this work during the 1930s and 1950s when harsh removal programs existed targeting Latinx people in the U.S., some of whom literally were living in their ancestral lands. TC also has a long history of fighting for social justice initiatives, research, courses, and grant programs on behalf of Latinx and many other communities who have been directly targeted.

I urge each and all of us in this room to take our current circumstances from a position of strength, knowing our history of successfully fighting for communities that have purposely been marginalized. Take some time this holiday season to spell out for yourself and your loved ones what your/ours strengths are…because they are many!! Now is the time to once again refocus, recommit, and organize, organize, organize!!!

Muchísimas gracias a todos, especially the Coalition of Latinx Scholars, an amazing student organization who I was proud to serve as an advisor when I began here at TC (for all Latinx faculty here, I urge you to take a turn at this). The students here are so amazing in their brilliance, their commitment, their care, and their courage. I also want to do a shout out to Prof Regina Cortina, who has been a Latinx faculty member here at TC for many years and who has been a warrior for all things Latinx at TC! And finally to Janice Robinson our Diversity VP, who has worked many years making TC the community it is today.

As a saying used by recent DACA activists goes something like, They tried to bury us, but they did not know that we are the seeds.

Or the one I grew up with, El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!

Or as the Reverend Jesse Jackson used to say, Keep hope alive!

Thank you everyone!