(WXYZ) — For Diego Andrade-Caberea getting into the University of Michigan was a dream.
He is the son of immigrant parents and the first in his family to ever go to college. But once he settled onto the UM campus, he began to feel lonely and intimidated.
“I really started navigating this whole college thing by myself,” Andrade-Caberea said.
But he soon learned he wouldn’t have to.
After developing a relationship with a few other Latinx boys on campus, he discovered they were a part of a fraternity—Lambda Theta Phi.
“I didn’t know Latin fraternity was actually a thing," he said.
Neither did Alex Perez who admits to feeling displaced at the University of Michigan because many people do not look like him.
“Coming here, to a predominately white institution, and everyone you talk to in the classroom is white. They don’t understand the culture. It kind of sucks," Perez said.
But now Both Cabrera and Perez have found their support and strength through their chapter.
"You may get into it because you know people and they look like you and you have that bond, but you stay in it because you see the difference you can make together,” Chapter president Alma Cruz said.
The organization was founded less than 50 years ago.
The chapter's goal was not only to help people in college learn the ropes, but to encourage other people in the neighborhood to further their education.
“Every since I got my letters I walk into class my head held high no matter whose in there,” Perez said.
