LBCC’s second annual Native American Cultural Graduation Celebration will be held on Friday from 5-9 p.m. at LAC in room W201.
“I feel that it’s a great opportunity to accept one more step to show the LBCC community we are here and this is who I am and getting the support of LBCC and the recognition for the students,” Interclub Council President Samuel Perez said.
The event is planned to run differently than the other cultural celebrations, omitting row seating and allowing students to give thanks to their support systems.
It will also include performances such as prayer, singing, and drum circles.
“Students are able to address people in the room and someone in their community who supported them, as well as sitting in circles not rows. Circles are a sacred shape in the culture, there is no start or finish, everyone is equal,” Director of Student Equity Eric Becerra said.
Event organizers included Employee Resource Groups, as well as the involvement of student clubs.
Becerra wanted to focus on listening to Native voices regarding how the event was planned.
This will be the second year that an official Native American cultural graduation celebration has been held, but the school had organized an event during the solstice in 2022.
Native American California State University, Long Beach graduate and leader Rue Cepeda attended a cultural graduation and expressed the importance of why she participated.
“I think the cultural graduation was so much more important to me than the regular ceremony. I was a leader in the community and I was recognized in a space where I was with my peers and professors, which wouldn’t be something I’d get in a normal ceremony,” Cepeda said.
Students were able to sign up for the event through a streamlined process of selecting which cultural celebrations they’d like to attend, when applying for graduation.
RSVPs for the celebration are available through Friday.
“If you don’t show up as a culture, they don’t know you exist in LBCC,” Perez said.