Iliana Barnes Diaz ’25 Champions Civic Engagement

Students

It all started with a work-study job during Iliana Barnes Diaz’s first semester at the University of Puget Sound. She was tasked with raising voter engagement on campus—a daunting challenge for a first-year student who had only just become eligible to vote. Over the course of her four years at Puget Sound, Barnes Diaz has become passionate about civic engagement and showing up at the ballot box to demand change at the local, state, and national level. For her efforts, the graduating senior was recently honored with the Governor’s Student Civic Leadership Award and the John Lewis Youth Leadership Award.

“Voting, especially in local elections, is one of the easiest ways to get involved in your community,” she says. “It’s a stepping stone to being even more engaged and creating meaningful change.”

Barnes Diaz is inspired by generations of activists who stood up for their communities in large and small ways, both through voting and running for office, but also through mutual aid, labor unions, and community organizations. To her, voting is a gateway to being more in tune with the needs of your community and step up to meet them.

“Sometimes the government is going to listen and sometimes it’s not. When the needs of your community aren’t being met, then it’s time to come together—to protest, to volunteer, or to take that challenge on yourself,” Barnes Diaz says.

Since 2021, Barnes Diaz has supported efforts to increase student voter registration and turnout. Her leadership helped Puget Sound earn the 2022 Gold Seal from the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge for achieving the highest voter registration rate among four-year institutions nationwide. The university’s high turnout rate is especially impressive considering that it was during a midterm election, not a presidential election year, when fewer people tend to vote.

“The voter and political engagement specialist role is nonpartisan, and she takes that very seriously,” says Holly Dysserinck, associate director for student involvement and programs. “Iliana’s able to look at all sides of a political issue and explain it in a way that is accessible to other students. And then she empowers people to register to vote, to make a plan to vote, regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum.”

Her involvement on campus extends beyond the ballot box. When she isn’t organizing voter registration drives, she’s also worked as a student leader for Puget Sound’s orientation program, Passages, and serves as co-president of Sin Fronteras, a student organization that fosters community for Latinx students on campus, where she’s helped organize an annual Dia de los Muertos celebration and the Latinx Festival, and advocated for including more Spanish-language resources at Commencement.

Even with her long list of campus activities and projects, it took time before she felt at home.

“It was hard that first semester,” she says. “Being a student of color at a predominantly white institution, it wasn’t immediately obvious to me that there was a community for me. So, part of what I’ve tried to do now is create those spaces that I would have wanted my first year and making others feel welcome.”

As a Passages coordinator, Barnes Diaz organized a panel discussion where incoming students could hear from other students about their experience finding their place on campus.

“That was particularly meaningful for Iliana, because it took her a while to find her home here. She wanted to help incoming students know that the struggle is normal,” recalls Skylar Marston-Bihl, director for orientation and leadership.

Barnes Diaz finds many parallels between her campus jobs, her senior thesis exploring unionization, and her studies in sociology and anthropology, especially as it relates to civic engagement and activism.

President Crawford and Iliana Barnes Diaz ’25 at the award ceremony. — University of Puget Sound President Isiaah Crawford with Iliana Barnes Diaz ’25 at an event celebrating her Governor’s Student Civic Leadership Award.

“I took a class on social movement theory that completely changed my perspective on the world and gave me this awesome sense of being connected to these activists through time,” she says. “That’s the beauty of a liberal arts education. It’s designed to help you make those connections and so everything I learn in class impacts how I show up in the world and vice versa.”

As she looks forward to graduation, she hopes to continue to be engaged politically in the issues that impact her community.

“I was raised to feel responsible to my community,” Barnes Diaz says. “If you want to see change, you have to be a part of that change. Those values are what led me to do civic engagement work in the first place.”

Those who have worked with and mentored her during her time at Puget Sound expect her to do big things, focused on social justice and relationship building to benefit those who are often overlooked by those in power.

“I’m excited to see where she goes, because whatever it is, it’s going to be good, meaningful work that helps make the world a better place,” says Marston-Bihl. “We need people who engage deeply, reflectively, and empathetically across difference to have hard conversations. Ultimately, she sees and values you and what you have to offer the world, and it all starts from there.”

Regardless of where she goes after completing her bachelor’s degree, those core values will guide her and her involvement in her community. She hopes that others will follow in her footsteps and continue to build a more inclusive campus where all students can belong.

“Striving for social justice is something that’s always necessary and always a worthwhile endeavor.”

This story is part of Puget Sound’s series, To The Heights, profiling members of our community who embody what it means to be a Logger.

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