The Center for Social Justice at CSUB addresses issues tied to social justice through programming and documentaries. It tells the stories of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) students and helps bring those stories to life.
The gift will allow the center to continue creating quality content, such as documentaries like “American Migrant Stories” and other programming, such as the bilingual musical production, “Mariachi Girl,” which has stopped at the university.
The funds for the Center for Social Justice will also allow the team to move forward with projects they have wanted to pursue, such as stories about human rights abuses. The center has paid former students to help with those stories and aims to continue to explore those ideas.
Due to COVID-19, the center has not been able to bring anyone to campus, nor have they been able to go out, so they wanted to do more. That is when the Virtual Center for Social Justice webpage was born.
“The reason the department of social justice is important to me is because it provides an avenue to children living in communities like where I grew up to access stories about the contributions that people have made in our community,” said Connie Perez-Andreesen, a graduate of CSUB in business administration with an emphasis in accounting.
Perez-Andreesen, the current United Farm Workers Chief Administrative Officer, is a daughter of farmworkers, who worked to be able to provide the basic needs for their family of five.
Growing up at the Woodville Labor Camp in Tulare County where there was a small library, she remembers walking across the street to check out books to access information – it was a way of getting a hold of stories about different community leaders, places and was even a way to travel, since her family did not have the resources for that.
“In a few words, the gift helps the CSJ and CSUB tell stories about issues tied to social justice that need to be told. Transparency and sunlight are the best ways to fight abuses at any level, which is why having the resources to get the stories we pursue out to the public is so important,” said Dr. Mark Martinez, professor and chair, political science.