USU Spanish Club provides opportunities for learning about culture and community

This year, Utah State University sophomore Samuel Gilette joined USU Spanish Club in order to keep his skills in Spanish after serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Santiago, Chile for two years. 

 “I wanted to participate in the Spanish club because I love speaking Spanish. I love Latin culture. I was really excited to be able to do that,” Gilette said. “When I went to my first meeting, I figured out that they didn’t have any leadership and that no one was organizing the things, so I decided to step up to get it working and running efficiently.” 

Now, Gilette is the president with an administration underneath him to organize meetings and activities for club members.  

“Our goal is to provide a space where anyone can come and practice their Spanish in a more relaxed format,” Gilette said. 

At USU, there are programs offered for students to major or minor in Spanish. The curriculum has extensive language courses for speaking, writing, listening, reading and the history of Spanish and Latin American countries.  

“The Spanish spoken there is often more formal [and] academic, which is necessary, but Spanish is a lot more than that,” Gilette said. “Street Spanish — that’s actually spoken instead of more refined, academic Spanish. [We are] a place where you can have more fun instead of trying to academicize it.” 

Meredith Songer, club vice president, also served a religious mission in Seattle, where she spoke Spanish. She organizes the activities, where the club plays games or has social events every week.  

“Then, two times a semester, we have bigger activities — we celebrated Dia de los Muertos and Dia de los Reyes Magos,” Songer said.  

Another point of the club is to incorporate Latin and Spanish culture in the lives of USU students. 

According to a report from the United States Census Bureau in 2025, about 22% of Americans spoke a language other than English in the home, 61% of that being Spanish. Locally, the Logan City School District is offering a Spanish and Portuguese Dual Immersion program at the World Language Academy at Hillcrest Elementary.  

There are also study abroad opportunities for students whether they speak Spanish or not, which range from a few weeks to year-long studies. The focus is to get students from many majors involved with communities and cultures. These programs are hosted through the USU Office of Global Engagement, whose mission is “to empower students to become global citizens by creating access to international experiences and academic exchange,” according to its website. 

In the TSC at USU, there is also a Latinx Cultural Center, which serves as a meeting space for all students. From 2024-25, 1,947 undergraduates from USU identified as Hispanic, which was about 13% of all student body. According to the United States Census Bureau in 2024, about 12.1% of Cache County as a whole identified as Hispanic or Latin American.  

The USU Spanish Club is welcome to anybody who knows or wants to practice casual Spanish. By tying in Latin American and Spanish culture through activities, the club aims to create a community and space to learn about culture and language.