La Plaza

Bienvenidos! Welcome to La Plaza, Western Washington University's Latine Student Center, a space created to empower, celebrate, and support the vibrant Latine community on campus. La Plaza is more than just a center; it's a symbol of advocacy, resilience, and unity—built from the vision and efforts of past and present Latine students at WWU.

La Plaza is also dedicated to fostering a welcoming, safe, and empowering environment for undocumented students and those from mixed-status families. We actively center the experiences and needs of undocumented students through collaboration with the Blue Resource Center and Blue Group to build community, offer tailored resources, and amplify advocacy. We recognize that the undocumented community is diverse and includes individuals from many backgrounds, not only Latine students, and we are committed to supporting all undocumented students holistically—through resources that address academic, emotional, and financial needs. Our goal is to create a campus where everyone feels they belong, no matter their background or status.

Latine (pronounced la·ˈ ti· ne) is a gender-neutral form of the word Latino, created by LGBTQIA+, gender non-binary, and feminist communities in Spanish speaking countries. The objective of the term Latine is to remove gender from the Spanish word Latino/a, by replacing it with the gender-neutral Spanish letter E. This idea is native to the Spanish language and can be seen in many gender-neutral words like “estudiante”. –callmelatine.com. La Plaza uses the term Latine to refer to people of Latin American and Carribean roots and ancestry.