Rosales also stresses the need for a larger Latino presence in Harvard's corps of advisors and administrators.

A Puerto Rican proctor she spoke to as a first-year student "understood why the problems I was having meant so much to me," she said, and another advisor might not have shared the same level of sympathy and shared experience.

Garcia says that another initiative he hopes to see become a reality is a multicultural center with space and resources for all minority student groups, including Latinos.

Although students have called for such a center in the past, a 1980 report on race relations at Harvard rejected the plan in favor of the present Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations.

That position has not changed, says Epps. A discussion on a "third-world center" has not been reopened by College authorities and he says he "doesn't plan to open it" himself.

"Third-world centers tend to promote separation," says Epps. "I thought that it was better for Harvard to work toward inclusion of everyone rather than institutions which promote ethnic separation."

But Fernandez says that Harvard's stance on multiculturalism is based partially on a fear of minority groups empowering themselves.

"The administration wants to see cultural events, but that's it. They don't want to see minority groups active on campus in a political way," she says.