Affinity groups continue to impact

VHS students

Ashley Rice, Reporter & River Powers, Reporter

Over the course of last school year and this past summer, many affinity groups have continued to grow at VHS. The affinity groups at VHS now include La Chispa, the Black Student Union, the Genderqueer Affinity Group, Sisterhood, and Journeymen.

An affinity group is a group made up of people that share a specific identity. All affinity groups are different, but many share the same goal of creating safe spaces for those students.

“[We are focused on creating] a safe space and somewhere where we can all learn and talk about each other’s experiences,” senior Malea Dickerson, a member of the Black Student Union, said.

It’s also important to recognize that affinity groups are different from clubs. Clubs are typically interest-driven, like the Ultimate Frisbee Club or the Chess Club, whereas affinity groups focus on something that affects a person’s identity.

“At a basic level, most clubs are fundamentally about activities. Affinity groups are about exploring a shared experience or identity and how that shapes us as people, and what we want to do about it. There is plenty of overlap, and some [affinity groups] may be both,” Wilks, an advisor of Journeymen, said.

Which for many begs the question—if affinity groups don’t serve the same purpose as clubs, what purpose do they serve?

“[Affinity groups are] often formed to create a sense of comfort or safety to engage in addressing unique and important issues that [members] all face or wish to make change toward,” Wilks said.

Many students in affinity groups feel similarly and also recognize how identity ties into their shared perspectives. For example, some members of La Chispa, a group where Spanish is frequently spoken, appreciate having a space to speak Spanish in a largely English-speaking community.

“I know I’m friends with a lot of people that just got here, and they have trouble understanding English, and they like hanging out with people that can understand their language because it makes them feel like they fit in,” said Stephanie Lopez Valadez, a student member of La Chispa.

Others share the same sentiment and echo that affinity groups provide them a safe space, although for different reasons, such as the Genderqueer Affinity Group which is focused on gender identity.

“If somebody is in an affinity group and says ‘I cannot believe the things somebody said to me in the hall the other day,’ [others can respond with] ‘I know dude, that happens to us too.’ So that [sense of] not feeling crazy, knowing you’re not alone [is a really important part of affinity groups]. Creating community, making connections, and also sharing resources [is also important],” Dr. Thomas Elliott, an advisor for the Genderqueer Affinity Group, said.

VHS isn’t a very diverse school so it is important to have these groups for people to identify with. Affinity groups aren’t for everyone, just those who identify with the group’s identity.

“I think I’m gonna say for this school, it’s important because there’s very few groups of minorities in the school. And it’s important to get those minorities together and realize that a lot of us do share the same experience, and I think it’s important for schools in general because [it] makes people feel included in their school environment,” Dickerson said. “I feel like an affinity group is for people who actually identify with something, and it’s for them, it’s not for everyone else. It’s something that, it’s special just to that group. It’s just to that group, and it’s not something that’ll really change.”