I am the co-chair of a brand new organization that after months of organizing and collaborating is now public. The Latinx Humanist Alliance. I am beyond excited to be able to talk about this phenomenal organization since my co-chair, Dr. Juhem Navarro-Rivera, and I have worked with Latinx humanists throughout the country and with the great folks over at the American Humanist Association to be able to make this a reality. This is an idea that I’ve previously written about and I am incredibly lucky to have been able to get involved and even luckier to have been able to become a leader of it so early on.

What is the Latinx Humanist Alliance?

The Latinx Humanist Alliance is an affiliate organization of the American Humanist Association. The primary purpose of the Latinx Humanist Alliance is to advance the interests of the Latinx humanist community in various ways through the numerous projects it will take on. It also serves as one of the advisory councils to the American Humanist Association.

The mission statement of the LHA:

The Latinx Humanist Alliance’s mission is to facilitate social justice activism among, expand the visibility of, and foster safe spaces for Latinx Humanists. We work toward this mission through education, legislative advocacy, and activism.

These projects include the creation of the very first Latinx Speakers Bureau for the humanist community to connect with Latinx speakers who are themselves, humanists. In creating this those of us over at the LHA will be working to support speakers from our community in gaining new opportunities and connecting more readily with humanistic organizers who are searching for speakers who can provide often unheard perspectives and bring experiences from an underserved portion of the humanistic community to the forefront of conversations, events, conferences, podcasts, videos, and more. We want to celebrate talented members of our community whose contributions to humanistic discourse, thought, and spaces have gone undercelebrated for a long time. We also want to show individual Latinx humanists who are nervous about voicing their skepticism and their perspectives with their friends and families out of fear of rejection and social isolation that they aren’t alone and creating this bureau does that because each person in this bureau chips away at the untrue idea that the Latinx community is a religious monolith.

To learn more about our action plan and the projects we plan to do over the next few months click here.

One member’s goals for the organization:

If I had to boil down my goals for the Latinx Humanist Alliance especially in the immediate future I’d say there are three.

1: Connect Latinx humanists with the rest of the humanistic community. I want for the many talented Latinx humanists I know who want to connect with the rest of the humanistic community to do so more effectively because of the work done by the Latinx Humanist Alliance. That is one of the reasons why I am so excited about ideas like the speakers bureau.

2: Encourage more diverse conversations on religion and irreligion in Latinx communities. The overwhelming majority of conversations that Latinx people have about faith and that people outside of our communities have about faith in our communities revolve around Christianity. And that’s because Christianity is the most popular religion in our spaces. But we can still have complex and nuanced conversations about religion outside of Christianity in Latinx spaces, and we can intelligently and fairly discuss irreligion as well. I would like for the Alliance to make it easier to have complex discussions about religion and irreligion that are better than the sorts of conversations we have right now. Ultimately I’d like to ensure that not only are Latinx humanists given platforms and empowered to discuss and share our own viewpoints but so too are other religious minorities in Latinx spaces because humanism isn’t just about people who are irreligious but rather it’s about the fight for a better and fairer future for everyone. Part of the fight for humanism includes fighting for comprehensive religious freedom and working to better understand the beliefs of other people who’ve historically and contemporarily been silenced or otherwise pressured to keep quiet.

3: Empower and collaborate with Latinx humanists all over the country and beyond. Latinx humanists in different states and different countries have earned different victories and have different battles to face. One of my goals as a co-chair of the organization is to work with people outside of my state and outside of my country to secure a better future for us all and to collaborate successfully with people whose struggles I might not face because I am not only in the United States, but also outside of say Puerto Rico, or the Bible Belt. And similarly as a queer Latinx person, the struggles I face will differ from the struggles straight Latinx folks face.

Getting involved:

So after reading all of this you’ve decided you want to get involved? That’s great! We’re excited to connect with you. If you want to join the Latinx Humanist Alliance just click here.

If you want to find us on Facebook click here. We’re excited to connect with you and hear how you can help, and what you may need help with. Let’s connect, collaborate, and strengthen each other!