Benjamin Sampsell says he couldn’t have imagined that a cultural club he would help bring back to life freshman year would ultimately grow into one of the largest groups on campus. Thanks to his leadership and dedication to the celebration of Hispanic/Latino culture, that’s exactly what happened with La Alianza at Wabash.

“It’s honestly mind blowing and inspiring,” said Sampsell, a 2024 graduate. “Seeing La Alianza grow into what it is today—knowing future Latino freshmen will arrive to campus and find a group ready to welcome them as family—is one of my proudest accomplishments.”

Moving from San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico, to Crawfordsville, Indiana, Sampsell remembers arriving during the COVID-19 pandemic with an uncertainty about the future and where he fit in.

“I had never really been aware of myself as being someone different,” said the political science major and philosophy minor. “My friends in Mexico didn’t relate to me just solely based on the fact that I have darker skin or spoke Spanish.

“But when I came here, a lot of my day-to-day interactions involved questions like, do you speak Spanish or where are you from,” Sampsell explained. “Hearing those questions was hard and made me question what parts of me people were seeing.”

Sampsell had been told that there was a Latino organization at Wabash he could join called Unidos Por Sangre (meaning bonded by blood), but when he officially arrived to campus, he discovered the student club was inactive.

Six months into his freshman year, Sampsell said he felt like having an organization on campus that embraced and empowered Hispanic/Latino students, promoted racial equity, and provided a safe space was needed.

“Something was clearly missing—kind of a Malcolm X Institute of Black Studies (MXIBS) equivalent of strength for Latino students at Wabash,” Sampsell said. “Creating a new club just felt right.”

Along with some of his peers, Sampsell reimaged Unidos Por Sangre and renamed the organization La Alianza (meaning the alliance).

Adriel Trott, philosophy professor and Andrew T. and Anne Ford Chair in the Liberal Arts, said she admired Sampsell’s drive to create a more welcoming community for all students.

“Ben was that kind of student who had a strong sense of what was important to him and what he cared about,” she said. “He wanted to do things at Wabash that mattered to him and to bring other students along to change and improve campus for the better.”

Creating a student club was challenging, Sampsell explained. It took a lot of time, patience, and hard work of the founding members to organize.

“皇冠足球比分_澳门皇冠体育-在线|平台@ really didn’t know what we were doing,” he said. “皇冠足球比分_澳门皇冠体育-在线|平台@ first went back to Unidos Por Sangre alumni to get the history and figure out what the club was supposed to be. 皇冠足球比分_澳门皇冠体育-在线|平台@ learned that it existed, went dormant, existed, went dormant, again and again over