By For nearly three years, I’ve explored arts and culture to share my community’s stories. From photographing cosplayers at anime conventions and braving the rain at a night festival to covering student activism, I’ve discovered that this type of community coverage— through direct presence and proximity—effectively voices our struggles and desires.
This fundamental translation not only drives tangible changes in our local communities but also carries symbolic resonance that can lead to global change.
A recent development to Long Beach State showcases this impact. After a two-year student-led activism, displayed by students themselves, a traditional commencement ceremony was reinstated.
The movement sparked when the Beach’s commencement website announced plans on Jan. 22, 2022 to return the ceremony following the COVID-19 pandemic with the stipulation that the event would have social distancing adjustments.
Adjustments included having graduates walk across sectioned mini-stages in the Angel Stadium parking lot instead of the main stage, with no announcement of names—just an attribution on projected gradation slides.
The student body displayed their dissatisfaction of this decision in several small protests, a Discord group chat and a petition with 8,199 signatures to demand a traditional commencement.
The following year, with minimal adjustments to the commencement ceremony, the movement gained momentum and seized in numbers. Signs and chants echoed in front of Brotman Hall in protest, a new petition garnered 19,689 signatures and a student media video questioning how CSU Fullerton could achieve a satisfactory commencement added pressure to meet student body demands.
As students fought, student media amplified their voices through articles and multimedia, keeping the issue in the spotlight. This collective effort brought undeniable change: the 2024 commencement reimplemented a traditional ceremony, allowing students to walk across the Angel Stadium’s main stage with their names were called.
Following the battle for commencement, student activism has continued forward to reflect the demands of our student body within the current geopolitical climate.
Since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7, the campus has seen protests, letter-signings to congress, a vigil and educational teach-ins assembled by student organizations like SJP, La F.U.E.R.Z.A. and local activism groups like Latino Muslim Unity. These displays share a demand of a ceasefire within Palestine and a divestment from our university’s financial holdings and investments in Israel.
As these shared demands and displays of student activism have been witnessed nationwide at Columbia University, University of California, Northwestern, Sacramento State students are the first to influence global change through their efforts.
On May 8, 2024, writers Alexander Musa and Chris Woodward from Sac State’s student publication, the State Hornet, reported that the university chose to divest from corporations profiting from genocide, ethnic cleansing and human rights violations, following an eight day pro-Palestine encampment.
Although CSULB has not announced plans to revise its financial connections with Israel, I believe that student activism, highlighted through journalistic coverage, has proven its power to create meaningful change where we currently reside and will always continue to.
