The HSI Movement

What it means to intentionally serve Latine students in higher education.

Hispanic-Serving Institutions now make up 20% of US colleges and universities, yet enrollment, eligibility, and grant-seeking alone do not guarantee meaningful change for Latine students. The HSI Movement examines what happens when change agents commit to intentionally transforming the institution to truly serve these students as an organizing and foundational principle.

Completing a trilogy on HSIs that includes Becoming Hispanic-Serving Institutions and Transforming Hispanic-Serving Institutions for Equity and Justice, Gina Ann Garcia centers the voices of practitioners who are actively reshaping their campuses. Through detailed accounts of institutional change, the book shows how leaders and staff interpret HSI identity in practice by embedding it in strategic planning, staffing decisions, student services, mental health support, and relationships with families and communities. These efforts reveal the labor, resistance, and persistence required to move institutions beyond symbolic recognition alone. The book also confronts the structural obstacles facing HSIs, including administrative pushback, governing board resistance, and broader political attacks on equity-focused initiatives. Recent federal challenges to HSI funding underscore the urgency of this work, as institutions continue to enroll growing numbers of Latine students regardless of anti-DEI state and federal legislation.

The HSI Movement offers concrete strategies for campuses seeking transformation. It speaks directly to students, faculty, staff, administrators, and policymakers at HSIs, emerging HSIs, and institutions nearing eligibility. At a moment of political uncertainty and institutional strain, the book insists that justice-oriented change is possible—and already underway.