IC PODER: Showing Power in Unity 

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Ithaca chapter and does not reflect the views of Her Campus.

PODER: la capacidad de transformar pensamientos en acciones, de influir en el rumbo de los acontecimientos y de encender posibilidades donde antes había límites. 

Here at Ithaca College, there is a vast majority of unique extracurriculars and clubs to involve yourself with, for both entertainment and training for future endeavors to build on your resume. IC Poder, balances both lives under one club. 

With Anthony Ramos as President, Rowan Catandella as Vice-President, Martina Brinkley-Flores as Secretary, and Eva Leon as Events Coordinator, we discussed the importance of not only having a Hispanic club at a predominantly white institution, but the importance to bring inclusivity and understanding what exactly the point of unity — is. 

CHLOE: Thank you so much for meeting, I’m so excited for this interview, and so excited to publish this for Her Campus. First things first, lets go ahead and introduce yourselves. 

ANTHONY: Hi, I’m Anthony, I’m a junior speech pathology major, minoring in Spanish and education.

ROWAN: My name is Rowan Catandella, I am a World Languages and Cultures major, with minors in translations and speech pathology, and I’m the Vice President. 

MARTINA: I’m Martina, I am the secretary for IC Poder, and I am a politics and legal studies double major. 

EVA: My name is Eva Leon. I am a junior World Languages and Cultures and Journalism double major, and I am the event coordinator. 

Being one of the many Hispanic/Latine centered groups, How does IC Poder manage to to promote inclusivity for all members, especially those who may be new to the culture and community? 

ROWAN: This is a group targeted towards uplifting Hispanic and Latino students on campus, but it also includes people with the diaspora who might not necessarily be seen as Latino…People of the Caribbean who aren’t traditionally seen as Latino, such as Haitians, Jamaicans… South Americans… such as Guyanese people, people from Suriname and Belize. 

EVA: We also try to have an educational angle for all the meetings. At our last meeting, “Cafe con Pan” we had an educational slideshow about Latino American or Latino figures. We want to be able to teach and maybe even people with the diaspora might not even know about this kind of stuff. 

CHLOE: This is actually perfect because this brings me to my next question! What are some common misconceptions about Hispanic cultures that the club aims to challenge or educate people about necessarily? 

ROWAN: So I do feel like, especially within a PWI* there is not as much exposure to Hispanic culture… Especially in a time where our presidential administration and this national in general, a lot of people are afraid to express theur culture and their cultural pride. So in Poder, we want to smash that idea — promote our members to like, [not] be afraid to invite friends who aren’t Hispanic. Don’t be afraid to come and bring your whole friendgroup… we want more community, we want more power, we want more participation. And again, I feel that it is important every meeting we…educate people in some kind of way. 

MARTINA: We’ve been really emphasizing underclassmen voice in IC Poder, we recently opened a position for an underclassmen representative, because all of us are juniors. So we want to also make sure underclassmen feel seen, like outsiders of our friend groups, but bring the entire IC Latino community together… We have different perspectives, like those perspectives of growing up Latino, like [those who are from] Central America, South America…

ROWAN: An application we also want to open up… is a “build your own meeting” — so we would send out applications for people who want to host their own meetings on a specific topic. Our E-board is only so diverse, but the Hispanic world is more diverse. So if somebody wants to do a meeting about how Guatemalans celebrate Dia de Los Muertos rather than the E-board hosting it, we can definitely do that…this is something we think would help a lot, especially just spreading awareness, like for ourselves, too. 

Poder and I also briefly talked about feeling forced to conform to “specific Hispanic”, in a public, professional, or academic setting. Martina pointed out as being a native Chileana, people often struggle understanding her accent, making her often warp her pronunciations. Eva, Martina, and Rowan felt the isolation of being a South American Latina, and how limited their connections are with other South American Latinas, to almost at a point making a club to promote connectivity. Though the recent growth on IC Poder has made that slightly easier to achieve over time. 

Rowan felt her first introduction to IC Poder was originally more divided, centering on a specific “type” of Hispanic. Now being on the E-board, she has since worked to promote the club as a more diverse community for all Hispanics. She emphasized, “I want people from other parts of the diaspora who don’t necessarily speak Spanish… we all share the same culture, we all share… like indigenous European and African roots, so we should celebrate that. Instead of pushing people away because they’re different, we need to embrace our differences.”

The woman on the E-board and I also vented about  the misconceptions on the women in Hispanic cultures — how often we are “conceptializaed” as easily hot-headed, rude, and also extremely sexualized. 

I asked each of the E-board members to also point out a favorite female figure in Hispanic history. 

Anthony’s pick was Rigoberta Menchú, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who was an activist for the Indigenous perspective in Latino American culture. 

Rowan’s pick was the famous Cubana “Queen of Salsa”, Celia Cruz. As she was a female in a time where music was (and still is) a male dominated field; reclaiming the genre in the Afro-Latino community. 

Martina’s pick was Mon Laferte, as she feels heavily aligned with her, as a fellow Chileana, involved with politics and used her voice for political activism, whether it be in songwriting — speaking for things that she cares deeply about. 

Eva’s was Isabela Allende, another Chilean writer and journalist who was a huge importance to the ‘magic realism’ movement. In addition to writing about a lot of difficult topics that were often unspoken about in South American culture. 

To end off the interview with a fun question, I asked them to share their personal favorite piece of Spanish media for individuals who want to involve themselves and learn more.

Such as Instructions Not Included, Disney’s Encanto, and even gave Cine Con Cultura praise for their diverse selection of films.   

One Day at a Time and El Chavo Del Ocho both being favorite sitcoms. And a much newer show that handles stop motion with an interesting plot and a queer woman as a main character,  Women Wearing Shoulder Pads.

Eva mentions the journalistic side of media with Daniel Alarcon, and his work with Radio Ambulante — alongside Maria Hinojosa, and her diverse work across platforms, applauding her work with NPR. 

Rowan mentions the music aspect of media, bringing up recent renowned artist Bad Bunny and his most recent album, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS (2025), and how impactful it was for a Latino to sing about how proud he is to come from a country he loves, and how much he respects, cares, and committed he is to one’s culture. Despite Bad Bunny talking about his love for his land and being a puertorriqueño — this is a universal message that all Hispanics/Latinos could relate to, despite being immigrants feeling immense love for the culture you grew and surrounded yourself with, and being able to celebrate that through music, is powerful. 

If you want to learn Spanish, listen to the music! 

I can proudly say IC Poder continues to strengthen the core of unity for Latinos, Hispanics, and admirers of the culture. 

IC Poder is also hosting a final send-off celebration for the last day of Hispanic Heritage month,  alongside other Hispanic/Latine-centered groups here at Ithaca. The event is called “Alza La Bandera!” 

To stay up-to-date with more events & news hosted by IC Poder, here is their Instagram.