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Aryn Sanderson
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Industrial technology junior Rotem Drori is an immigrant from Israel. Drori comes from a family of mostly Orthodox Jews. And Drori is gay.
No single aspect of his identity defines him entirely, and so he turned to both the MultiCultural Center (MCC) and Pride Center for support while preparing to come out to his family.
“I personally believe it’s harder to come out with your sexual orientation as an immigrant because there’s already so much pressure to fit into society,” Drori said. “It’s especially difficult to come out to your family when you’re from a minority culture.”
Drori went to both the MCC and Pride Center to discuss this sort of intersectionality. But now students like Drori, who experience intersectionality — the interacting of different axes of identities — in their lives, are in luck. The MCC, Pride Center and Gender Equity Center (GEC) have been reorganized under one umbrella: the Cross Cultural Centers.
The changes are mostly behind-the-scenes. Each of the three centers will remain physically independent; there are no location changes, mergings or even new buildings in sight. But, while each of the centers had previously been organized under the Student Life and Leadership department, now they’ve been united under the Cross Cultural Centers title and become their own, independent organization.
“We were removed from the Student Life bubble and raised up so we have more authority in what we’re doing,” assistant director for the Cross Cultural Centers Erin Echols said.
Though Safer often works with the GEC, it is not included in this restructuring.
“The way I like to explain it is that the GEC, MCC and Pride Center are now brothers and sisters, and then we’re cousins with Safer,” assistant coordinator Tammie Velasquez said. “We are not overseen by the same person anymore, but the GEC and Safer do share a space and put on programs in conjunction with each other.”
The behind-the-scenes hierarchy changes are also coupled with a shift in programming.
Each center will maintain and bolster its internal support services for their underrepresented groups.
“We’re trying to focus less on the general student body and work more with the folks who access our center, more on — in the MCC’s case — students of color and those underrepresented students on campus,” assistant coordinator Que Dang said.
Then, as a whole, the Cross Cultural Centers’ programming will center more around intersectionality, “giving students a broader look into issues and doing things that aren’t just connected to one center specifically,” Echols said.
Ally training and diversity advocate training, for example, will be combined along with other issues into a new social justice leadership training series.
And since the Cross Cultural Centers’ leadership noticed there wasn’t a space for students to discuss current events such as the Trayvon Martin case, the Cross Cultural Centers will be hosting a current event discussion series.
“We know students have a lot of aspects of their identities, and so this will give them their larger support area,” Echols said. “Does this mean that our Pride Center will not be mainly (lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual) students utilizing the space? No, it most likely still will be, and we will not be cutting back on the internal support services for our students. But, the programming aspect outside of those spaces, that’s what we want to be more inclusive.”
Officials from the Cross Cultural Centers want to emphasize — first and foremost — that students know each center is a resource for its target population (the Pride Center for LGBT students, for example). But, they are excited about the new, even closer partnership between the centers.
“I’m really excited about breaking down the walls between the three centers,” Pride Center Assistant Coordinator Adam Serafin said, speaking figuratively. “In the past, some students have felt like they had to check an identity at the door. Like, if they identify as gay and a person of color, they might have felt like they had to check their ethnicity as they walked in the door of the Pride Center or their sexual orientation as they walked in the door of the MCC. We’re really focusing on reconciling all aspects of self and celebrating everyone’s different identities.”
English senior Ariana Chini says she found a home within the MCC, Pride Center and GEC. However, she knows of others who felt siloed in one center.
“A lot of people don’t know that you don’t need to be on the LGBT spectrum to hang out in the Pride Center, or if someone’s white, they sometimes feel like they can’t go into the MCC … Having it all under one umbrella will get it across that these aren’t isolated spaces, but rather all cater and celebrate diversity on campus,” she said.
For students like Drori, the restructuring makes perfect sense.
“It allows people who are going through similar struggles to help and support each other,” he said. “Combining the centers will create a much more adhesive atmosphere for people to grow at Cal Poly. I see only a bright future ahead.”
The Cross Cultural Centers will have a kickoff and social on the evening of Sept. 25, the first Wednesday of the quarter.