Iris Ramirez’s voice was thick with emotion as she looked at her mother, working at a sewing machine with her curly hair in a bun, on the projector screen.

Ramirez, a doctoral candidate in Chicana/o and Central American studies, worked with her mother – a formerly undocumented garment worker – to research immigrants’ sacrifices in clothes manufacturing. She presented her research at “Research Symposium ‘25: Voices Across Fronteras” on April 9.

The event was hosted in the Pauley Pavilion Clubhouse by three student groups serving UCLA’s Latino community – Afro-Latinx Connection de UCLA, Grupo Estudiantil Oaxaqueño and Unión Centroamericana.

Students asked researchers questions, and the organizers offered pupusas from Mama’s Tamales & Pupusas – a cafe and pop-up based in Westlake, a neighborhood in central Los Angeles.

Mireya Gutierrez Vasquez, a third-year Chicana and Chicano studies and sociology student, said she was dedicating her research on Central American migrant mental health to her loved ones, who she said silently endure trauma.

Isaias Cruz, a fifth-year sociology student who also presented, said he has wanted to give back to the undocumented community since childhood because he comes from a mixed-status family. Cruz, the external executive for Grupo Estudiantil Oaxaqueño, presented research on the financial challenges of undocumented California community college students.

“With everything going on in the nation, I think I really do have to use my privilege with citizenship and then speak for those who are afraid right now,” Cruz said.

The symposium featured researchers from various backgrounds, including pan-African and native Oaxacan perspectives.

Michelle Vasquez Ruiz, a postdoctoral fellow of Chicana/o and Central American studies, presented on the Zapotec community in West LA and how it challenges notions that Mexico is homogenous.

“We are dehomogenizing, diversifying the experiences of Latine communities – immigrants or not,” Ruiz said.

Isabel Menendez, a third-year public affairs student, said she attended to support Central Americans like herself who have low representation in academia. Only 20% of Central Americans aged 25-34 in the U.S. had a bachelor’s degree or higher in 2021 – a number that has increased 10% since a decade ago, according to the United States Census Bureau.

Hosting the organizations’ first research symposium required months of planning from the three student groups, said Alexis Ayala, Unión Centroamericana’s co-chair. Giving all 16 presenters who applied to speak a position in the lineup created challenges in balancing schedules, added Ayala, a fourth-year education and social transformation and labor studies student.

Organizers hope to make the event annual, Ayala said.

Menendez, UNICA’s social media coordinator, added that she hopes to increase the number of people who attend the event in the future. More than 40 people attended this year.

There was a break in the middle of the event to socialize and eat as reggaeton music played in the background. Students presented findings on the queer Latinx goth and punk scene, impacts of long COVID on UCLA students and skin cancer research, using posters stationed around the room.

Presentations in the second half focused on issues including UCLA’s food sources and the impact of third-party coup intervention. Menendez said she was particularly interested in graduate student Dulce Maria Lopez’s research on the negative impacts of tequila production.

Ayala said they thought it was important for attendees to see themselves represented in a multidisciplinary array of work, including STEM fields.

“There’s so much research that people don’t talk about,” they said. “Being able to see very new research that I had not been able to recognize – … that’s something that I want people to take away.”