Thank you so much.
Thank you to the Poetry Center for really hosting
an amazing evening.
I had the opportunity to dine with some of our faculty,
as well as our guest here.
And it's a real testament, I think, to really--
an equity lens in which they approach their work.
And you see it to be such a vibrant commitment, even
in who they select and pull into the Poetry Center,
and for that I am utterly, completely grateful.
To see HSI Initiatives be a reality
in all places of our campus community,
really is what we want to see the work happen and do.
So I'm forever grateful for the Poetry Center, and the role
that they play in advancing our efforts to center the concept
of serving us in practice.
So once again, my name is Marla Franco,
and I serve as the Assistant Vise Provost for Hispanic
Serving Institution Initiatives here
at the University of Arizona.
I myself, am a first generation college graduate.
I am also the great-granddaughter
of farmworkers in the Central Valley of California.
That is who I come from, and that
also is at the forefront of how I lead here
at the University of Arizona.
The University of Arizona became a federally designated Hispanic
Serving Institution in 2018.
And although the qualifier for that designation
rests solely on our enrollment of at least
25% Hispanic students, the U of A
has taken on an approach that far exceeds and challenges
those expectations.
We seek to bring that designation to life
in ways that honor the lived experiences of our increasingly
diverse students and employees, some of which
likely share in the vivid realities
that our guests authors present in their writing.
I don't know how it's possible to have both
so much to say, and to be rendered speechless
by the writings of Marcelo Hernandez Castillo.
He is the author of the award-winning poetry
collections, Cenzóntle and Dulce,
and wrote one of the most moving and riveting memoirs that
I've ever read, Children of the Land.
I've been carrying around these books
for about the past two weeks, really sifting through them
every moment that I get.
Marcelo, your writing is intricate, vulnerable, vivid,
and incredibly insightful.
As a reader, I almost feel unfit to have been gifted
the opportunity to be an insider to your world and that
of your family's.
Thank you.
Without further ado.
[APPLAUSE]