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By Dr. Jorge Juan Rodríguez V

The Hispanic Summer Program is an organization that empowers the next generation of Latinx Theological Leaders to come alongside our communities and struggle toward a more just, life-giving society. I know this to be the case because of the ways this organization has empowered me.

I started working for the Hispanic Summer Program in 2015 as a Social Media Intern. It was that same year that I first attended the HSP Summer Session, hosted by Candler School of Theology at Emory University. For the first time, I found myself in a Latinx majority classroom talking about race, class, immigration, and religion as we explored how environmental ethics and social movements were linked to our personal and communal histories. In this course, learning wasn’t merely about acquiring knowledge, but about applying that knowledge to our lived realities in ways that were both profoundly theoretical and creatively practical. Such “praxis” led those of us attending the HSP Summer Session to protest alongside immigration activists right there in Atlanta as they struggled for greater immigrant rights.

 

#MilkWithdignity Protest against Ben and Jerry’s ill treatment of immigrant workers. June 20, 2015. Photo by Daniel Romero.

 

“For the first time, I found myself in a Latinx majority classroom talking about race, class, immigration, and religion as we explored how environmental ethics and social movements were linked to our personal and communal histories.”

 

This disposition to learning was mirrored at the HSP Summer Session’s annual lecture. For an evening during the second week of the program, Dr. Cornel West joined us to speak about building coalitions across communities of color in this time of social crisis. At that moment, many in the nation still protested the murder of Trayvon Martin three years prior and the acquittal of George Zimmerman one year later. We struggled through the rise of anti-immigrant violence all while many protested the continued colonization of Puerto Rico as talks of imposing a fiscal control board reverberated through Washington. All this occurred as the U.S. increased military intervention abroad, especially in Syria, as Barack Obama’s second term was coming to an end and Donald Trump declared his bid for president in front of Trump Tower in New York City. Yet instead of a traditional lecture with one respondent, it was decided that all seven HSP faculty members would engage Dr. West around the complexities and nuances of this topic. For an hour, surrounded by local Atlantans and HSP students, we witnessed brilliant minds discussing the most pressing issues of the day with an eye toward how we could construct a better society for the next generation.

 

Dr. Cornel West

Dr. Cornel West’s Lecture, June 23, 2015. Photo by @jameswstroud

 

This was my introduction to the Hispanic Summer Program. And during and after that Summer Session I was poured into by countless Latinx leaders. Dr. Teresa Delgado, who was my Summer Session Professor, invited me to help her with her first book. After months of serving as her research assistant, I was shocked when she invited me to write the preface for, and have my name featured on the cover of, A Puerto Rican Decolonial Theology: Prophesy Freedom. At that Summer Session, I began thinking critically about my prospects for doctoral education as I sat with HSP faculty over meals in the Emory dining hall. And, most impactfully, at that Summer Session I deepened my relationship with the Rev. Dr. Daisy Machado as she and I began cultivating what would be an advisor-advisee relationship when I became her doctoral student in 2016. But it was also at that Summer Session that she began mentoring me by inviting me into greater leadership roles within the organization that helped me concretely envision a life as a non-profit executive and a scholar after my Ph.D. It was through her mentorship, which began at that Summer Session, that I realized that I didn’t have to give up parts of myself in order to contribute to my community of care and concern.

 

“It was through her mentorship, which began at that Summer Session, that I realized that I didn’t have to give up parts of myself in order to contribute to my community of care and concern.”

 

People often ask me why I work at the HSP. And part of my response revolves around how much I believe in our mission. As an organization, we work to create educational spaces that empower Latinx theological leaders. By this we mean individuals who can use the tools of theology, ethics, history, sociology, liturgy, and pastoral care to analyze the pressing issues facing the Latinx community and pursue innovative and transformative solutions that center around care, love, and justice. We do this through programs that, both, raise the consciousness of non-Latinxs so they can be in deeper solidarity with the Latinx community, and, empower Latinxs by cultivating spaces where the stories of our elders, ancestors, and community members are central to our learning.

 

“As an organization, we work to create educational spaces that empower Latinx theological leaders. By this we mean individuals who can use the tools of theology, ethics, history, sociology, liturgy, and pastoral care to analyze the pressing issues facing the Latinx community and pursue innovative and transformative solutions that center around care, love, and justice.”

 

But a more personal reason why I work at the HSP is that I wouldn’t be where I am without this organization. By inviting me to be part of this book project, Dr. Delgado helped me see that I had the capacity to be a writer whose words could contribute to anticolonial and decolonial struggles. By speaking with Professors over meals about what a doctorate could look like, I came to believe that a Ph.D. truly was attainable. By inviting me to be a co-dreamer and co-builder (which is, at its best, what good administrators do), Dr. Machado helped me see that I could be, both, an administrator and scholar and work in service of my community.

I am here at the HSP not just because I believe in empowering Latinx leaders. I am here because I was empowered by Latinx leaders and invited to think outside the dominant script of what leadership looks like. In a world that values individualism and competition, I was taught communal partnership and collaboration. And in a world that celebrates pulling yourself up from your bootstraps, I was invited into models of mentorship that revolve around care and creating opportunities for one another.

 

“I am here at the HSP not just because I believe in empowering Latinx leaders. I am here because I was empowered by Latinx leaders and invited to think outside the dominant script of what leadership looks like.”

 

So here I write, eight years later, reflecting on the fact that in five short weeks I will once again be on the campus of Candler School of Theology at Emory University helping lead the 34th HSP Summer Session. Except this time I go to Candler not as a student named Jorge, but as a Dr. Rodríguez, Associate Director for Strategic Programming at the Hispanic Summer Program—something that was only possible because of the ways this organization cultivated a space for my own empowerment.

Dr. Jorge Juan Rodríguez V

Dr. Jorge Juan Rodríguez V

Associate Director for Strategic Programming

Dr. Jorge Juan Rodríguez V is the Associate Director for Strategic Programming at the Hispanic Summer Program and Visiting Assistant Professor of Historical Studies at Union Theological Seminary. You can learn more about him and his work at www.jjrodriguezv.com or follow him on twitter @JJRodV.

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