Diego Rodriguez, the new Hispanic American Student Community Alliance (HASCA) president, is excited for the future of the organization and what it means to be in HASCA.
HASCA is the Hispanic American Alliance at ETSU, founded in 2010. The purpose of the organization is to facilitate the interaction of hispanic and non-hispanics on campus.
“We seek to foster a better understanding of Latino culture, contemporary issues, promote diversity, and advocate on behalf of not just Hispanic or Latino people but for all,” said Rodriguez.
Rodriguez further explains that HASCA represents a desire for the Hispanic community to not just be noticed, but to have an impact from that recognition.
“We represent equality, advocacy, and promotion of equal rights for everyone,” said Rodriguez.
Rodriguez’s story in HASCA dates back to 2018. After attending a few occasional meetings to get more involved in his freshman year, he knew that it was something that he wanted to stick with in his college career. A year went by, and he knew that he wanted to run for a leadership position.
“Eventually towards spring 2019, I decided to run for vice president of HASCA and won that position,” said Rodriguez.
Due to strange times in the pandemic, the president had to step down and Rodriguez automatically became the new HASCA president.
“It was a huge learning curve considering that I was neither mentally prepared nor had much experience in a leadership position, but I learned really quick.” said Rodriguez.
In the 2020-2021 leadership season, Rodriguez had decided to step down and run for the treasurer position. However, as the semester was near to the end, he decided to run for the president position learning that classes would be in-person again.
For more information about HASCA, please contact him at Rodriguezd1@etsu.edu or Tracy Ye, the HASCA secretary, at @yet001@etsu.edu. Check out their campus page at https://etsu.collegiatelink.net/organization/HASCA.
