Already busy with full-time jobs and family obligations, seven co-workers with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services (DPSS) enrolled together in California State University, Dominguez Hills’ (CSUDH) Interdisciplinary Studies (IDS) program in fall 2017, adding a full schedule of college courses to their hectic lives. Yet, they finished early, and graduated this spring with their bachelor’s degrees in IDS. On May 18, they celebrated together at CSUDH’s 2019 Commencement Ceremony. Rosie Desales, Gisela Bedolla, Heather Mitchell, Cynthia Uballe, Gina Plascencia, Grace Estrada, and Celina Morales were conferred IDS degrees with an emphasis in comparative cultures. Grace ... Read More
Social Work
CSUDH Celebrates 9th Annual Pow Wow with Weekend-Long Festival
For its Ninth annual Pow Wow, the Cal State Dominguez Hills community held a two-day celebration highlighting Native American culture, with traditional songs, food, and performances Saturday and Sunday, April 20 and 21, in the campus’ sculpture garden. The event combined traditions from numerous indigenous tribes across the country, including dances performed in colorful tribal regalia, as well as singing and drumming, and flute music. The event’s Native American marketplace featured vendors selling arts and crafts, jewelry, clothes and other cultural products. Source: Daily Breeze ... Read More
Legacy Marks the Male Success Alliance’s 10th Anniversary
Thomas Richardson was a shy and unassuming teenager in South Los Angeles who didn’t express his feelings too often, even with his family, until one day when he decided to tell his siblings “I love you.” The show of affection was just one of several ways Richardson started connecting on a more personal level with family and his peers at John C. Fremont High School, as suggested by his mentors from California State University, Dominguez Hills’ (CSUDH) Male Success Alliance (MSA) program. “It was strange, but cool, too. My sister would laugh and my brother would call me a name, or say ‘I love you, too, but I don’t need to tell you that. You know I do.’ But I thought, ‘Do I?’” said ... Read More
Suzette Mitchell Provides Validation for African-Native American Students
When alumna Suzette Mitchell visited her tribe’s reservation as a child, the children weren’t allowed to play with her. “Some even called me the n-word,” she said. Her grandmother was Goshute—a western branch of the Shoshone nation—and was ostracized after being the first in the tribe to marry an African American, a similar fate her mother shared after being stereotyped as a half-breed. Mitchell’s family experienced what many African-Native American individuals who stand on the border between two worlds do; they are often not readily accepted as Native American, and misunderstood as bi-racial persons with dual social identities. “It was very unpopular to marry a Black man back then. ... Read More
Graduate Tiffany Hall Finds an Angel in Uniform
There was a time when Tiffany Hall did all she could to avoid Long Beach Police Officer Jim Foster, even frantically knocking on the door of a stranger’s home pleading “Help me, the police are coming. Can I go out your back door?” She got away, that time. Run-ins with Foster were the norm for Hall in the early 2000s when she was on the streets and addicted to crack cocaine and PCP, but the usual outcome placed her in handcuffs cursing and pleading to be released from the back of his cruiser on the way to the police station. Clean for nine years, Hall was greeted by Lieutenant Foster on May 18 not with cuffs, but with a hug. After shaking the hand of California State University, ... Read More
