By Margery Cercado
LA Raza del Noroeste
Amid the festive Mexican dances and the smell of warm tamales across the University of Washington’s Red Square stood Juan Manuel “Manny” Flores, Jr., the senior responsible for this year’s Unity Day.
Most people call the holiday Cinco de Mayo, but Flores renamed it to open the event to other Latino organizations on campus by taking “a holiday that is not very celebrated in Mexico, [but] very much an American holiday, and have it be inclusive for all Latino-American cultures.”
For Flores, UW’s La Raza Commission director, inclusion is one of the many elements that define his passion for social justice. He prefers, for example, to write words like Latin@ and Chican@ with an @ symbol to be gender neutral. La Raza Commission is a student resource center under the umbrella of the Associated Students of the University of Washington (ASUW).
Flores believes the words “Latin@,” “Mexican-American,” or “Chican@”are more than simple descriptors. He sees these labels as a complex dialogue on identity that occurs daily. That dialogue has a major influence in his leadership, activism and his ever-growing sense of self.
Flores said he considers himself Mexican American, but doesn’t like the idea of categorizing people.
“I feel like once you create an identity or acknowledge an identity, [an opportunity arises] to be oppressed by the stigmas for those identities,” he said, quickly adding he did not want to discredit something as powerful as one’s self-awareness.
While he is very politically active, the La Raza Commissioner does not think of himself as a Chican@. Instead, he sees the label as more of a “political consciousness” or an idea in which one understands the struggles of the past and present, and is finding ways to move forward.
How Flores perceives what it is to be Chican@ is still growing, he says, and in the past few years in college he’s been able to practice the term as a political consciousness through experiences in which you must acknowledge people’s differences, such as through the usage of inclusive language and at marches or at workshops.
“You can understand a concept, you can read a book, you can listen to somebody, but until you experience into practice, I think that’s when the whole developmental consciousness starts,” he said.
Taylor Anuhea Ahana-Jamile, the UW’s Pacific Islander Student Commission (PISC) director, is a colleague of Flores’ and collaborates with La Raza and other ASUW commission directors weekly.
He commends Flores’s diligence and his leadership around campus.
“[Manny’s] not only involved with La Raza, but he has [five] interns and goes to different committee meetings and he does things that are outside of his [job here in the office]. Like, he’s also an officer for MEChA,” Ahana-Jamile said.
With his wire-rimmed glasses, slick, black hair, lip ring and smiling face, Flores is hard to forget. The first-generation college student was born in Los Angeles and moved to Washington State in 2003, where his family settled in Everett.
In his office, among pictures of family and friends, hang posters, paintings and fliers that emphasize his passion as a social-justice activist. He credits the UW’s MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chican@ de Aztlán) with helping to spark his interest in social justice and human-rights issues, as well as leadership.
“That’s my foundation on campus,” he said. “They helped me grow into the person I am today.” Through MEChA and many of his classes, he learned of the disparities between Latino and other minority communities in the United States, which fueled his desire to make a difference.
Marion Romero, one of Flores’s closest friends says his caring and compassionate demeanor help to drive his activism.
“Last year he was part of the Student Diversity Coalition that passed the diversity requirement, which was huge since it was 30 years in the making,” Romero said. The diversity credit means students’ coursework must include three credits that focus on “the sociocultural, political and economic diversity of human experience at local, regional or global scales,” according to the UW website.
“And earlier this year he did the Dream Act rally on Red Square, ” he said of Flores.
As for Unity Day, Flores hoped the event would be an educational way for people outside Mexican/Mexican-American communities to understand the detrimental ways in which historical inaccuracies and cultural appropriation affect a community
.
“People still think [Cinco de Mayo is] Mexican Independence Day, and its not, that’s in September,” he said. “And they go get a sombrero, a mustache and tequila and they act like they want to be Mexican for a day, but every other day of the year” people are getting deported.
“It amazes me.”
