Andres Galindo

UWRT 1101-041
Mrs. Thomas
18 November, 2014

LASO, the Latino Organization.

Writing this paper was a challenge for me. Not because it took me a long time to write it, but
because I had to give up other things in order to be able to attend the meetings. Since the
organization I observed meets every Tuesday, I struggled at getting my other homework done
before the time the meet began.

The Latin America student organization, best known as LASO is a UNCC-based

discourse community whose main purpose is to help Latin American students to succeed in
college, while representing the Latin American culture in UNCC. This organization meets every
Tuesday at 7pm at the Student Union. Not many people know about the existence of this
organization, nor do they know about the goals and requirements within this it. The first time I
heard about LASO was during my freshman orientation, I signed up because I was interested in
being part of this group. However, when the semester started I was not able to attend the
meetings since I had a really busy schedule and I was trying to adjust to college. Now, as I have
adjusted to college, Im able to attend more meetings than before. The reason I chose to write a
paper on this discourse community is that I have a profound interest on being a member of this
group since Im also Latin American, and would like to share a bond with the people from my
own culture. My goal is to analyze this group as a discourse community by applying Swales six
characteristics, attending the weekly meetings, and making interviews in order to explain this
groups goals and get rid of any misconceptions about this group.

During the meetings I went to, I had the chance to talk to the president of LASO, Evelyn
Cordero, and some of the members of the organization. She was a really nice, young lady from
Nicaragua. Cordero told me about all the opportunities that LASO offers for Latin American
students at UNCC, and how they were trying to gather more and more Latinos in order to
strengthened the Latino Community at Charlotte. From what I heard, about 2000 Latinos attend
UNCC, which according to what Cordero said, was a higher number than previous years.
However, many of these students drop out of school early in their college career which leads to
the creation of special organizations such as LASO to help them succeed. Another thing that
LASO does, according to Cordero, is providing a lot of community service in order to help those
who are in need. Cordero explained that homelessness is a fast-growing problem in Charlotte and
that help must be provided for those who, for one reason or another, lost their home.
When I attended LASOs meeting for the first time, I felt like an outsider since I did not
know anyone in the group. However, as time progressed in the meeting, I started to feel more
comfortable with the members of the group. During the meeting, I saw that the members
gathered several cans of food that were directed to a shelter in Charlotte. On top of that, some
things were discussed between the president and the organizations members. Apparently,
elections are coming up in LASO, the position of Historian and coordinator of Social media are
open for those who want to take charge of those positions. Another thing I observed while being
in the meeting is that there are people from different ethnicities, not only Latinos. LASO is open
to anyone who wants to join, not only Latin American students.
LASO works well as a discourse community for several reasons. Ever since I started
going to LASO, I was able to recognize the common goals of this group. Although I mentioned
them before, I would like to clarify them in a deeper way for emphasis purposes. The overall

goal of this group is to promote the Latin American culture in the University of North Carolina at
Charlotte. While doing this, LASO also creates bonds between Latin American students in order
to make them feel as if they are not alone and they have people from the same culture around
them. LASO not only provides help for Latinos but also helps to form a unified community by
helping people to succeed.
LASO is a very organized group; the leaders make sure that all of the members within the
group are aware of what events are happening on a certain week. Also, LASO always keeps its
members informed about the meetings and how to prepare for the meetings prior attending. Since
its not easy to keep everyone informed, the leaders of LASO make sure to keep track of all the
emails of its members. Even if someone is not a member of LASO, they give you the option to
provide your email. They do not force you to provide your email unless you are really interested
in participating in the group.
Not everyone that goes to the meeting is a member of LASO. Theres a fee you have to
pay in order to be a member. The fee is $5 to be a member for a semester or $10 for a year. Of
course, when you pay the fee and become a member of LASO you still have to go to the
meetings at least once a month. The membership allows you to participate in every activity that
LASO does, whether that be going to help people in a shelter or going to an event that LASO
hosts. Another benefit of being a member of LASO and attending the meeting is that you can
obtain experience and leadership skills that are needed in your job and career. All of this would
be, as Swales would say, a participatory mechanism for this group.
LASO utilizes different genres to communicate its goals and activities to its members and
to people who want join this organization. For example, LASO has a website which contains
information concerning the purpose of LASO and the people that run this group. LASO also has

a Twitter page (@lasouncc), Facebook page, and Instagram page to show pictures and comments
about the events LASO organizes. While being at the meetings I could see that, from time to
time, they used words that Im not used to hear all the time. Swales would call this specific
lexis, it does not necessarily mean that I had no idea of what they were talking about, but since
a lot of people in that group are from different Latin American countries, there are certain words
that are different from country to country. For example, someone from Nicaragua would say
certain words different compared to someone in Argentina.
Furthermore, in LASO theres a good amount of people that have been part of the
organization for 2 or 3 years, and theres people that are new to the organization. Usually the
new people are freshman that joined this year, and the people that have been in LASO for a
longer time are usually upperclassmen. I got the chance to interview one of the newbies. Her
name is Destiny Green and she is a freshman that decided to join this organization at the
beginning of the year. I asked her to give me a general idea of what the meetings consisted of, to
what she responded: We talk about Latinos in general, things that are good for us, and things
that can challenge us. We host events and we get back to the community. She seemed really
excited and proud of forming part of LASO. I also asked her what her future was going to be like
as a part of LASO, she responded that: I want to stay in LASO my 4 years of college, and next
year I want to try for a position within this group.
In conclusion, after reviewing Swales characteristics of a discourse community, and
after attending meetings and making interviews with members of LASO, I can attest that LASO
is a good example of a discourse community. It follows all the characteristics necessary and
forms a community of people who have a similar purpose, which is to represent the Latin

American culture in our society and help Latin American students to develop as individuals at
this University.

Works Cited
Cordero, Evelyn. LASO, the Latino organization. Personal interview. 11.
Nov.2014
Green, Destiny. LASO, the Latino organization. Personal interview. 7Nov.
2014
Swales, John. The concept of Discourse Community. Genre Analysis: English
in Academic and Workplace settings. Boston, Cambridge UP, 1990. 21-32. Print.