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Two rows of students lined the hallway of the Henry Administration Building, chanting, “The people, united, will never be defeated!” It was May 5, 1992. Cinco de Mayo. Finals were due, but for the more than 450 people, including students, faculty, and staff, who came out to fight for increased institutional support for Latina/o students and programs on campus, their cause was more important.

Mary Carmen Moreno (LAS ’01), a first-generation student and sophomore at the time, knew the stakes were high.

“I went in well aware that if this goes wrong, I literally can be out of school and that would be devastating for me,” she said. “But when you’re young, you take the risk … And we just had a lot of hope.”

Moreno was the assistant editor of the newsletter, La Carta Informativa, a key tool in the movement for Latina/o support on campus. The students’ demands, published on April 24, 1992, called for creating a Latina/Latino studies program; hiring additional Latina/o faculty, staff, and administrators; increasing funding for the cultural center La Casa Cultural Latina, which provides educational, cultural, and sociopolitical programs; and strengthening recruitment and retention efforts for Latina/o students. They also called for eliminating Chief Illiniwek and for the university to support Indigenous students, many of whom have Latina/o heritage.

She and her fellow activists had been building toward this moment for years, organizing forums and teach-ins to educate students about the issues and ways they could get involved. Building relationships was crucial to getting people to show up for the Cinco de Mayo protests.

“We had created so many connections with communities throughout campus that the people protesting were not all Latinos,” Moreno said. “We had Black students, Muslim students, Jewish students, Asian students, and Native American students; they were all there.”

Their demonstration on May 5 followed a smaller sit-in at the Office of Minority Student Affairs on April 29, the same day as the Rodney King riots were happening in Los Angeles. Moreno said that seeing the university send in police to remove students during that demonstration motivated even more people to lend their support on May 5.

“People drew instant connections; they were seeing repression everywhere, and they understood the dynamic of power and what we were talking about in a very real sense,” Moreno said. “They were seeing it nationally, then they saw it playing out at the local level.”

After several hours of the peaceful sit-in on May 5, university administrators ordered the students to leave the Henry Administration Building. A video documentary by Richard Freeman shows police in riot gear forcibly removing students from the building after the students refused.

“The safety and security of everybody was one of our utmost priorities,” Moreno said. “We didn’t know they were going to throw us out.”

Moreno and her fellow activists had prepared security protocols and encouraged protesters not to take any actions that would escalate the police response. Despite their best efforts, protesters reported injuries from police stun guns and billy clubs. Sixty letters of reprimand were issued to students who participated in the protest, and three students were arrested on charges of resisting a police officer.

After the protests, the Illinois General Assembly passed a resolution requiring an investigation and asked the university to submit its results by August 30, 1992. On June 30, 1992, the university announced that it would begin developing a Latina/Latino studies program, locate a different building for La Casa Cultural Latina, and begin recruiting additional Latina/o administrators, faculty, and students.

Moreno was invited to serve on a committee dedicated to creating a Latina/Latino studies program. “It was very, very difficult work. There were times when I felt like they would talk over you, and so you just had to follow your gut,” she said.

Finally, by the fall of 1996, the program of Latina/Latino studies was established, along with an interdisciplinary minor in Latina/Latino studies. The program became a department in 2010, and in 2026, the unit celebrates its 30th anniversary.

“The Latino Studies program did not happen overnight,” Moreno said. “It was layers and layers of work, relationship building, self-awareness, understanding, and doing your homework. That and a lot of sacrifice.”

Over the years, Moreno has been invited back to campus to speak with students. In her talks, she tries to instill the importance of building community, which was crucial to the movement’s success.

In September 1992, Moreno wrote an article in La Carta Informativa about the movement, foreshadowing comments she would make 30 years later. “The struggle for our people did not start here and will not end here,” Moreno wrote. “Instead, we will continue to build the bridges and tear down the walls for our brothers and sisters who will follow. For, without these opportunities that our people build, we ourselves would not be here.”