The ninth annual Iowa State Conference on Race and Ethnicity opened with an appeal to minority students to hold on to their culture while pursuing higher education.

Loreto Prieto, director of the U.S. Latino/a Studies Program at Iowa State, delivered the opening address in front of a packed audience in the Sun Room of the Memorial Union on Friday morning.

“Education is only a place to start, not where you encounter the finish line,” Prieto said.

Prieto began his speech by sharing a journal article by Juan Carrillo, a doctoral candidate at the University of Texas-Austin. In the article, Carrillo expressed confusion, anger and remorse at the loss of his Chicano heritage, a change he said he holds the society of America accountable for.

During his childhood, Carrillo’s life was marked by wearing hand-me-downs from his older siblings and sitting on the porch hanging out with his family.

This simple early life has been replaced with wearing the latest fashions and working without taking time to appreciate the smaller things in life. He described his current lifestyle, saying he has “lost my culture . the culture that I am now paid to explain.”

“Carrillo wonders in a very public way with us all what has happened to him through the process of his higher education,” Prieto said.

He said he was worried that others reading Carrillo’s article might be persuaded that disillusionment and decisions were the only conclusions that could be drawn. He said the article addressed much broader topics.

“I wanted to talk about these issues here today because, obviously, this issue concerns not only Latinos – it concerns all students and faculty of color, men and women alike,” Prieto said.

Prieto said people often don’t understand the pursuit of higher education and the impact it may have on an individual’s state of being. Some, he said, view education as “the key to upper mobility and a path to truth and understanding.”

However, Prieto said the process of pursuing higher education can actually leave a person more empty than full.

“Our happiness, our identity, our knowledge of what is real and valuable to us will always remain ours to forge and to re-forge as we learn more about ourselves, our chosen disciplines and professions and the world at large,” Prieto said.

He expressed to the audience the importance of surrounding themselves with people “who remind us of who we are, who we want to be and who we have the potential to be.” Prieto said students should value their education, be gentle with themselves and hold steadfastly to their individual qualities. Education, in his opinion, is not only for the individual who is engaged in it, but also for those who will follow in the future.

“All I can tell you, brave youth of all races and ethnicities, of whom I am extremely proud,” he said, “is to savor your victories and to make good use of the real benefits you will acquire in your higher education.”