Who We Are
The Coalition of Hispanics Integrating Spanish sPeakers through Advocacy and Service or CHISPAS is a student-run group at the University of Florida. The organization is comprised of students and community members who are truly invested in the immigrant community and feel passionate about "sparking" change on and off campus.
Note: Membership is open to ALL students regardless of race, creed, color, religion, age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, political opinions or affiliation, and veteran status.
Citizens of the community can also join as associate members; however, they cannot vote in student elections. Only registered students can vote as stated in the University of Florida organization guidelines.
Our Purpose
The primary purpose of this organization is to address the pressing needs and issues of the Hispanic-Latino immigrant community. It will strive to provide direct educational and cultural services, community building and advocacy through students, volunteers and allied organizations. Literacy and English as a Second Language (ESL) education shall be one of the primary targets of this organization motivating interested and affected people to integrate into the greater community. Cultural activities, open to the public, shall provide on and off-campus awareness about immigration issues and concerns. Furthermore, political advocacy via petitions, forums and speakers will provide depth to the issues that, in particular, immigrants, undocumented and legal, face in the United States.
Our History
This organization is relatively new. It was recently recognized as an organization in May 2008 and will become fully operational summer 2008. Founders Grey and Rommy Torrico had an idea of creating a new organization after volunteering as english teachers with the Latina Women's League in Gainesville. Here, they taught adults how to acquire techniques for vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation building in english free of charge. As time passed, the number of students increased from 15 the first class to 31 by the end of all classes. But the number of volunteers and resources remained stagnant. How could this be fixed? Having so much passion to learn, these students needed more than they could give them. They started researching if it was possible to start an organization on campus where student volunteers would be easily accessible and motivated to teach for a good cause. Not only that, they knew that this would lead to advocacy on behalf of the many migrant workers and their families who took these classes and sought resources within the community.
Within a short amount of time, they have been able to find interested and devoted individuals willing to put in their time to help jumpstart this fledgling organization.
The rest, as they say, is history.
But the war has not yet been won. It is up to you to keep this organization alive and maintain it for years to come.