It’s young Latina ladies night, or more accurately ladies weekend, in the Conference Center of the University of Wyoming. The 18th annual Wyoming Latina Youth Conference (WLYC) starts Friday afternoon and goes until Saturday night packed with workshops, speakers and food all with the purpose of empowering young Latina women. Geared toward Latina students in grades 5 to 12, the statewide event is open to the public.
Ada Montaño Mushati, one of the conference organizers this year, attended her first WLYC when she was in the eighth grade in Sheridan County, Colorado, and she attended five more times after that.
“When I went the first year, it was eye-opening for me to see a bunch of women who looked just like me in a state where there are a lot of people who don’t look like me,” Mushati said in a release. “To go to a conference where everyone looked like me, to see a lot of people who had similar stories and backgrounds as mine, and then to see the older versions of us in the future say, ‘I have this degree, I did this with my life’ – this is what I’m working for now. I am now in a position where I can be an example for achieving academic and professional goals. It’s being in that position where I can show girls that it can be done. It’s hard, but it can be done.”
Mushati herself is a Latina UW student in hopes of becoming an elementary school counselor. She received her undergraduate degree in psychology from UW and her masters degree from the University of Southern California, and is currently pursuing her second bachelor’s degree in sociology. She interned as an administrative assistant for the WLYC in order to assist in organizing the conference and acting as a mentor for the individuals who attend, and continues this work still.
The conference, which just recently moved to the UW campus and is now headed by Dr. Cecilia Aragón, Professor of Latino/Latina Studies, is expecting 200 attendees this year. The theme for this year’s conference is “Embracing Leadership, Science and Creativity.” The workshops will discuss a variety of topics in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, healthy relationships, identity, creativity and leadership. Also, Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodriguez will be the guest speaker for the WLYC. Rodriguez is Nashville, Tennessee, storyteller, theologian and feminist with a master in divinity degree from Vanderbilt University. She also founded and owns the “Latina Rebels” blog and is a contributing writer for the Huffington Post. Jay Martis, an artist from El Paso, Texas, will also be there to conduct creativity workshops of the conference.
“It is very empowering for me to sit there in a room and see all these women who look like you and who are doing all these great things; you feel so powerful. It’s a feeling that you don’t get very often in your regular school setting,” Mushati said. “Growing up, sometimes you go unnoticed. You don’t get the same experiences as everyone else. You’re not going through the same things as everyone else at home. The Latina culture is very different. There are just a lot of things in the mix that when you go to this conference and see all these people, that it’s such a great experience to feel that empowered. It’s a completely different experience from anything that you will see.”
For a full schedule and registration information see UWyo.edu/WLYC. Registration is $50.
