As founding director, Dr. Hernández-Laroche brings teaching, public scholarship, and community partnerships together at South Carolina Centro Latino.
Students at La Fiesta for El Centro Public Scholars and Avanzando, April 22, 2026. Photo: USC Upstate (opens in a new tab)
El Centro connects academic work with public life. Students co-author publications and newsletters, develop portfolios of public work, and learn alongside community partners.
September 2024
Bryan Ramirez, Mariana Bakhoum, and Dr. Hernández-Laroche coauthored this El Centro newsletter. It brings together scholarship information, student opportunities, cultural events, and the Public Scholars pathway. The issue remains publicly available in the university's Scholar Commons archive.
March 25, 2026
She hosted a screening of Miss Perry Will Speak and a roundtable on working women's history in South Carolina. El Centro partnered with USC Upstate's Center for Women's and Gender Studies. In a later SC Humanities interview, she reflected on mentorship and preserving women's stories.
Mentoring, public scholarship, and learning through community work.
Open to students of any major. Come to El Centro events, build a portfolio of public work, and graduate with recognition at La Fiesta.
A six-session cohort that carries forward the UnidosUS Líderes Avanzando Through College program, supporting students as they navigate college.
Awarded every year and funded by the Swift Family Endowment.
Small grants that help Public Scholars go abroad, alongside a faculty-led study program in Spain.
Help tell El Centro's story, with volunteer roles at recruitment events and career fairs too.
Classes that connect what you study to the community and to industry.
Learn the theory and ethics of translation, then put it to work in service-learning projects with more than 40 local and state nonprofits.
Each semester ends with a celebration for graduating Public Scholars, their families, and their mentors.
El Centro's work doesn't stop at the edge of campus.
El Centro meets families where they are, in English, Spanish, and other languages, at admissions events and community resource fairs.
Civic leaders, artists, scholars, and mentors come to campus to talk with students, not at them.
Public history, oral and cultural traditions, art, literature, philosophy, music, and community theater.
Interactive lectures, podcasts, and multilingual projects you can find beyond the classroom.
Research, training, and gatherings for people who do this work every day.
El Centro co-hosts the Carolina Association of Translators & Interpreters conference, an interdisciplinary conference on migration, and a summit on Hispanic and Latino pathways in higher education with the Latino Faculty Caucus at USC Columbia.
A summer course for bilingual professionals who interpret in schools.
An open archive of student publications, presentations, reports, and newsletters. Browse the archive (opens in a new tab).
Graduations, La Fiesta, voter education, and public conversations from recent semesters.
El Centro is part of USC Upstate. To apply, sign up, RSVP, or give, please use El Centro's official page.