Hidden Haven for Latinx Students

Posters decorate the corners of every wall in the Latinx Resource Center located in Faculty Office 4. Photo Credits: Zoraya Jimenez

In a hidden area behind Faculty Office 4 is a room filled with conversations, laughter and students hanging out by the sofa and chairs. This hidden gem is the Latinx Resource Center, more commonly known as “Nuestro Center.”

Brightly colored posters and artwork decorate the walls, mentioning some Latinx, feminist, LGBTQ+ and political figures like Bell Hooks, Bamby Salcedo, David Josiah Lawson, Prudencia Ayala and Trayvon Martin. Other posters cover the wall with phrases like “Free Palestine,” “Abolish ICE & CBP,” “Everyone is welcome here,” “Protect ROE and Abortion Rights” and “AB60 Passed!”

Students hang out on a daily basis at the center. Some of the students who congregate at the center are part of the student association La F.U.E.R.Z.A, which stands for Familia, Unidad, Educación, Resistencia en nuestra Zona Autónoma.

“F.U.E.R.Z.A has become a friend group to the point where I feel comfortable with all the people here. It’s what you get from the group, it's not a work environment but a friend group where you can actually have an intellectual talk about politics,” said Omar Arellano Gonzalez, a 20-year-old third-year student majoring in psychology and minoring in Chicano/Latino studies at Cal State Long Beach.

The center has brought in many people, developing new friendships and bonds by serving as a safe space. According to Data USA, CSULB, has 48.6% of Hispanic and Latinx enrollment, meaning over 18,932 students in 2022 attending the university were Latinx.

It's a community to feel safe despite being far from home.

“The center means a lot to me. Having a place to stay; obviously the USU isn't going to cut it, nor the library,” said Daniel Schott, a 19-year-old mechanical engineering major. “A lot of places you can feel very alone…a lot of friends I make here I talk to them on a daily basis.”

At the center there’s a computer room, wellness cabinet, library and kitchen. The center is run by the Office of Belonging and Inclusion, but is fully opened to all members of the Latinx community and is maintained by La F.U.E.R.Z.A.

Although the center has existed since 1968, it has gone through many names, such as “La Raza,” “United Mexican American Student Association,” “Nuestro Centro Latine Resource Center” and is now nicknamed “Nuestro Center.”

It has been located at Faculty Office 4 since its founding, which was supposed to be a temporary place, but is now permanent. The computer room available at the center is for students to do homework and print out their work.

There are free items donated by students such as greenbooks, scantrons, binders and notebooks, as well as a wellness cabinet providing free menstrual and sexual health products, masks and COVID-19 tests. There is also a library with books from revolutionary theorists and a kitchen filled with snacks, plates, utensils, fridge, art supplies and banners.

La F.U.E.R.Z.A and Nuestro Center help support students in joining the community, fighting towards higher education and social movements and issues affecting Latinx people.

“You can just go in there and everyone has a bit of sense of awareness when it comes to the United States,” Gonzalez said. “Us as Latino, Hispanic, Chicano/Chicana—how we are represented, how we have also represented ourselves in the United States and how oppression is given to us—we aren’t going to be oblivious to it; we can also become the oppressors as well.”

The center remains open and welcomes all as a space for working on projects, events, participating in activities, having conversations, forming friendships, laughs and joy. As their poster next to their coat hanger quotes, “It doesn't matter where you're from, we are happy that you are our neighbor.”