Winsor Alum and First Gen Club Founder Joins Students at Assembly
At all-school assembly Winsor honored National Immigrants Day and National First Gen Day by letting students take center stage to share their experiences, and welcoming an alumna back to campus.
With a history dating back over 50 years, National First Gen Day is celebrated annually on November 8 to commemorate the signing of the Higher Education Act of 1965 by then-President Lyndon B. Johnson, and it was former President Ronald Reagan who proclaimed October 28 as National Immigrants Day in 1987.
At Winsor, First Gen is an affinity group run by club heads Aleena Bacorro ’25 and Gabriella Franca ’25 with support from club advisor and World Languages Faculty Laura Bravo-Melguizo. Using presentation slides, they explained first generation is a term used in various contexts and the First Gen club at Winsor is a welcoming place for anyone who identifies with one of three definitions: first in your family to be born in the United States, first in your family to attend college in the United States, those who immigrated to the United States with their family. The seniors also underscored the point that there are 1.2 million immigrants living in Massachusetts, where large swaths of the state population hail from Brazil, Dominican Republic, China, Haiti, and India, before introducing a video where First Gen club members shared personal experiences and anecdotes.
Students in First Gen are a melting pot of cultures with families hailing from the Dominican Republic, Barbados, Nigeria, Philippines, and Brazil to name a few. Yet it’s their common experiences that bring them together. “The club allows me to be with people who understand what it’s like and allows me to build a sense of community with people who understand how my life is both inside and outside of school,” shared Mia Gonzalez ’26. Calling First Gen “a place of mutual support,” Aleena added, “there are all these different aspects of our identity that we don’t share with the majority of the community and [in First Gen] we have a comfortable space to do so.”
Afterward, First Gen club co-founder and Winsor alumna Karen Torres ’19 joined students on stage for a Q&A. Together with fellow classmate Avantika Kothari ’19 and with help from Ms. Bravo, they started First Gen in 2017.
Reading La Gringa by Carmen Rivera in Ms. Bravo’s Spanish class was an eye opening experience for both Torres and Kothari, who identified with the main character’s experience of being a daughter to immigrant parents and searching for identity. Ms. Bravo encouraged them to extend the classroom discussion and with support from Mr. Braxton, the Bezan Chair for Community and Inclusion, First Gen at Winsor was born.
Of the early days, Torres shared, “Sometimes, it was just the three of us in club meetings.” Many affinity groups at Winsor allow people of similar race and ethnicity to bond over shared experiences. While First Gen is an affinity group where students gather in community, it’s unique because student backgrounds are often varied. The club founders, Torres and Kothari, who are Nicaraguan and Indian respectively, found commonality in the experience of being first generation. Torres and Kothari have since graduated and it’s been seven years since that first club meeting. Now the club has a group of regular attendees and students who drop in, too.
In addition to isolation, Torres said that the club helped her and her peers deal with a multitude of challenges they experienced as first generation students, including xenophobia, assimilation, exhaustion, representation, and complex identities. Getting stares on the train for speaking with family in another language, seeing parents endure that sort of treatment, balancing the desire to be like your friends alongside the rich culture of language and food at home—those are just a few of the scenarios that students in First Gen get to discuss together. “That’s why the club at Winsor was so important for me,” explains Torres, “you’re not alone in this experience.”
A recent Harvard graduate, Torres is working with organizations like FirstGen Forward and Sociedad Latina while looking at graduate schools and figuring out what comes next.
To close the assembly, she offered advice to Winsor students and first generation students in particular. “Always be yourself, be bold, and be you,” she urged, “and be open to sharing your food, your culture.”
Torres offered a story to illustrate her point. She recalls sharing a Spotify playlist with Winsor friends, and while they liked the music, some couldn’t understand the Spanish lyrics. After translating the song, Torres shared that her friends would blast the music themselves.
“Love yourself, your community, your peers, and your parents, too” she added. “Remember where you come from.”
