Prior to 1954, there were efforts led by a Cahuilla tribe member, Rupert Costo, his wife, Jeanette Costo, and Judge John Gabbert to establish a university in Riverside. They all attended Riverside City College (RCC), known at the time as Riverside Community College. The three started garnering support from the local community, to make this a reality.
According to Joshua Gonzales, Director of UCR’s Native American Student Programs (NASP), Costo’s vision was “having the youth go onto higher education. He was a very big advocate on education, he did a lot of advocating on behalf of the Native community.”
The NASP website describes how the center was established around 1980 and is “the first University of California campus to open an office focused on serving American Indian students,’ and remains as one of the few in the system. Gonzales shares that the center was born out of students’ desires for more support services, “Our foundation is supporting the students that are here at UCR and helping them navigate being here at a four-year institution, but also providing guidance to prospective students. If you want to come here, this is a place for you to be: a home away from home.”
When it comes to outreach and maintaining relationships with community partners, NASP takes initiative. Networking and connections are a large part of the university experience. Gonzales explains they are “always trying to connect students that are here with the local tribes or local community … It’s another place for students from different native backgrounds to be able to get to meet other folks.”
In 1986, the Costo’s established the first endowed chair in American Indian Affairs in the nation. They donated over 4 million dollars to create the position, as well as over 8000 texts to the special collections in Tomás Rivera Library, creating a designated section within the library known as the Rupert Costo Library of the American Indian.
Adding on to the history of the Native community at UCR is Marigold Linton, one of the first Californian Indians to graduate from a four-year university. Linton played a part in founding the Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Natives Americans in Science (SACNAS) and established a scholarship for those involved with the sciences at UCR.
Various active student organizations have collaborated with NASP to put on events that aim to empower students on campus as well as local community members. Gonzales explains, “Our purpose here is to try to have support and resources, but also build that network for students, so that way, when they graduate, they can go on, either go to grad school or go into the workforce, but they have connections.”
With partnerships both on and off campus, NASP aims to support students through various means. Currently, they work closely with faculty on campus, and also provide assistance through scholarships and internships offered by their offices. Off-campus partners often bring in their students to visit on-campus because, according to Gonzales, “they want to do tours. They want to meet other Native students. So it’s an opportunity [for outreach].”
Established in 2005, NASP also hosts the annual Gathering of the Tribes Summer Residential Program. Serving as a direct outreach program, this gathering hosts 30 to 40 Indigenous middle school and high school students at UCR. Students from across the nation apply to attend this program and their costs for the week-long stay are completely covered. During this time they attend various workshops, attend classes, are offered the opportunity to get comfortable with life on-campus, and get guidance from current students and staff and take part in various cultural activities.
When reminiscing on students who had attended the program in the past, Gonzales shares, “I’ve been here for so long that I have several students that have gone through the summer program, have gone to UCR, gone on to college and now I see them out in the community. They’re doing some of the work, whether it’s helping out other youth, or it’s being a professor, all kinds of different things.”
Jordyn Ramirez, third-year biochemistry major, has been involved with NASP since her second year. She attended Sherman Indian High School, one of the last Native American boarding schools in the United States, in order to learn more about her culture.
She shares, “Sherman hosted a whole bunch of different Native students from different areas, so from different rises, different tribes, different cultures and traditions. So I was hoping to sort of meet someone from the same tribe.” When she came out to UCR, she got to meet other people from the same tribe, and she mentions, “It was nice to talk to them and get to see different types of cultures.”
One of Ramirez’s fondest memories of being involved with NASP is the Annual UCR Pow Wow which is hosted in Spring quarter. She recalls how at the end of the event everyone is tired and drained because of the non-stop work that comes from hosting for three days, but that “the fun part is just doing everything, seeing how everything worked, and seeing all of us goof around, trying to boost each other up to keep going.”
Nowadays, Ramirez gives back to her old community by volunteering as an Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) tutor. She explains, “Now, I’m plugging UCR. Some of our students here volunteer out there. Like, I could stay after school to come to that stuff and just like getting involved. Like the clinics, the clinics have some sort of events going on for the Native community. So I go to the seminar clinics.”
For those in the community, Ramirez encourages students to “come by. You don’t have to be Native to come by here. Come eat some free food or some drinks. Just come by to all of our events. You don’t have to be Native for Pow Wow or the Medicine Ways Conference or even Jam Night. Just come out, meet Native professors, see if you want to take their class or not. We’re just super chill.”
