Controversy with Annual Chicano Graduation
Miriam Olivares, Staff Reporter

All clubs on the CSU-Monterey Bay campus serve a purpose that the student body could appreciate and recognize. Among those many clubs CLGA (Chicano/a Latino/a Graduation Association is one who gives back to the student body by dedicating an intimate more personal graduation ceremony to graduating senior students. Even though the graduation ceremony is geared towards the Chicano/a Latino/a community on campus, Estela Hernandez organizer of the ceremony and member of CLGA mentioned that the only requirement to participate in this event is responding in a timely manner to an invitation posted on open forum, “As long as you are graduating ethnicity does not matter.”  The whole point is to acknowledge the plight of Chicano/a and Latino/a, and according to Hernandez all allies are welcome it doesn’t matter what color the students skin os or where is the students are from.

This year CLGA members and organizers came across a few roadblocks when planning. The first step was organizing a committee, followed by a meeting with Snehal to reserve the location for the ceremony, the University Center. That is where the hugest roadblock began, apparently the organizer of last year’s ceremony allegedly agreed to having Chicano graduation off campus. This came as a shock to this year and last year’s organizer Estela Hernandez who didn’t recall agreeing to take Chicano graduation off campus. After establishing the location on campus CLGA had another problem, the university center was not available for reserving the weekend of commencement. Student Activities and Conference and Events suggested CLGA reschedule and have the ceremony a week before commencement. Hernandez was quick in disagreeing. “It doesn’t make sense to have a graduation ceremony a week before actually graduating.” No one budged on this topic until a meeting was scheduled with Student Activities, and Vice President of Student Affairs Sue Borego. Before this meeting could even take place, supporting faculty interfered including Rina Benmayor and Amalia Mesa-Baines who took action and made sure they shared with Sue Borego the importance of this graduation ceremony happening on campus regardless of what anyone else has said or planned. After months of negotiating Estela Hernandez and her committee succeeded in getting the location and date they wanted for Chicano/a graduation

This ceremony which will be held at the University Center after Commencement on May 19th at 6pm includes a dinner full of traditional Mexican dishes as well as cultural entertainment while graduates and guests dine, a keynote speaker usually an active member of the community, this year it will be the Mayor of Watsonville, followed by a mock graduation where each participant gets two minutes to shine and thank all those who helped him/her get to the graduate point. The ceremony culminates with a dance that runs until 12am. The main idea of this ceremony is to recognize the accomplishments of the participating graduates as well as those who aided them in their success at CSU-Monterey Bay.