GenExcel

Learning Center, the [campus] pantry, etc., and have contacts in different sources of campus support [that] I can email and put my mentees in contact with,” said Laura González Alana, a GenExcel faculty mentor who started during the 2019-20 academic year. “I also review my mentees’ resumes and am happy to serve as a reference for internship and full-time job applications.”

Through the program’s mentorship, students obtain personal guidance to the school’s extensive financial, educational and mental resources that many otherwise would not know of as first-generation students.

GenExcel hosts events and workshops where students can increase their financial literacy, renew their FAFSA and CADAA applications, develop professional resumes, refine their time-management skills and attend networking fairs while also cultivating relationships between their program members in their academic, professional and social lives.

“The resources provided by GenExcel were extremely crucial from the jump from when I first joined. Workshops and events allowed me to grow as an individual, and professionally. Having a mentor really allowed me to focus my attention on areas that needed improvement in my academics and my personal life skills,” said RayaPerez who served as president of the First Generation at the Beach student organization from 2020 to 2022, and now serves as the club’s vice president. After their freshman year, mentees have the opportunity to become peer mentors for the incoming freshmen to help provide a student perspective throughout the process alongside the faculty mentors, maximizing student success via various mentor relationships.

Originally established as Partners for Success program in 1988, the program’s priorities have evolved from providing faculty mentorship for first-generation students to aiding students who needed assistance with their English and math skills over the years.

With their recent relaunch in the fall of 2019 as GenExcel, the program reverted back to its original mission statement of aiding first-generation students in their college education journeys, according to Associate Director Josh Scepanski.

Since its recent relaunch, the program has assisted around 511 freshmen peer mentees, including this year’s participants.

CSULB has continued to prioritize the mitigation of the barriers that first-generation Latinx students oftentimes face as the institution was ranked number six in the nation for most degrees awarded to Hispanic students, according to Hispanic Outlook on Education. Incoming freshmen can contact GenExcel to be a mentee for the 2023-2024 academic school year at genexcel@ csulb.edu to take advantage of the resources and mentors provided through the program by next fall.

Cuando entras a Viento y Agua, una cafetería en la calle cuarta de Long Beach, escondida cuidadosamente en la esquina hay una vibrante tienda de regalos llamada “Adelitas Revenge”. Si te sientas en la cafetería con el tiempo suficiente y dejas que el olor a espresso fresco y bagels tostados invada tus sentidos, notarás que muchas personas comienzan a acudir a ese rincón, echando un vistazo a los muchos regalos que “Adelitas’ Revenge” tiene para ofrecer.

Algunos clientes se quedan durante más de media hora, riendo y charlando con las propietarias Marina Carranza e Yvonne Márquez, dos mujeres indígenas chicanas queer nacidas y criadas en el condado de Los Ángeles. “Adelitas Revenge” recibe su nombre de un grupo de mujeres mexicanas revolucionarias. Márquez dijo que durante la Revolución mexicana las mujeres tuvieron que tomar las armas para proteger sus hogares y comunidades del gobierno. Algunas de estas mujeres eran transgénero y muchas de ellas se convirtieron en generales en el ejército. Estas mujeres se llamaban las Adelitas.

“Siempre me ha encantado la historia de las Adelitas porque son mujeres fuertes fuertes y rudas. Le estaba diciendo a Marina un día, ‘honremos a las Adelitas’ y usamos la venganza como parte de un juego de palabras ”, dijo Carranza. “No es realmente venganza, pero es como nuestro giro ahora”. “Adelitas Revenge” está cargada de libros infantiles, artículos de México, cristales y banderas queer. La tienda tiene alrededor de 35 vendedores de pequeños negocios.

“Lo diseñamos con mucho amor y con la intención de ayudar a nuestra familia de pequeñas empresas y a las personas que hemos conocido a lo largo de los años. Estamos entusiasmadas de poder dar esta oportunidad a algunas personas que normalmente no la tuvieran”, dijo Carraza. “Cuando eres queer, mujer, lantinx o latina sabes que no puedes entrar en cualquier tienda de regalos y decir ‘¿puedes vender mis cosas?’ Así que queríamos ser ese lugar para los grupos marginados”.

Después de encontrar el éxito en hacer muchas ventanas emergentes (o “pop ups”), Carranza y Márquez abrieron su ubicación de ladrillo y mortero en 2022, justo al lado de Viento y Agua. Eso fue hasta que el propietario quería que les devolvieran su espacio inesperadamente y les dio a las dos mujeres 30 días para mudarse durante las vacaciones.

“Era más como si nuestras ideas y visiones ya no se alinearan, tenían una visión diferente de quiénes éramos”, dijo Márquez.

Antes de esto, Márquez tenía un trabajo oficinario en cuenta y nómina, pero tanto Carranza como Márquez fueron despedidas de sus trabajos en 2020 debido a la pandemia.

Márquez y Carranza conocían a los dueños de Viento y Agua, Jenny Laforce y Nick Kofski, al ser negocios vecinos y unos cuatro o cinco días después de que se les pidiera que abandonaran su espacio, Laforce y Kofski les ofrecieron un espacio dentro de la cafetería. Al principio, las dos damas pensaron que esta sería una situación temporal hasta que encontraran un nuevo lugar, pero Carranza dijo que “parece un hogar permanente para nosotras”.

Carranza y Márquez también organizan una serie de eventos en la cafetería, como la noche de lotería, el karaoke, “wellness days”, la noche de “open mic” y un club de libros centrado en autores latines; actualmente están leyendo “Too Soon for Adiós” de Annette Chávez. Yoli Luna Ibarra ha sido barista en Viento y Agua durante casi un mes, pero se reunió con Carranza y Márquez en abril de 2022, en los “Viernes Cuartos” de la calle cuarta cuando solían ser vendedores. Luna Ibarra siguió viendo a las dos mujeres y dijo que las damas se convirtieron rápidamente en su familia. Luna Ibarra incluso consiguió el trabajo en Viento y Agua a través de Carranza y Márquez, quienes le dijeron que la cafetería estaba contratando.

“Las veo como mis mayores, las veo como mi familia, como mis tías. [Me] Ha ayudado a que Long Beach se sienta como en casa”, dijo Luna Ibarra. “Antes de conocerlas, mi pareja y yo estábamos contemplando la posibilidad de mudarnos a otro lugar y a través de las coincidencias, por la cual conocímos a Yvonne y Marina, decidimos que tenemos una comunidad muy encantadora aquí y ellas son parte de eso”.

To read in English, turn to the next page.

When you walk into Viento y Agua, a coffee shop on 4th street in Long Beach, neatly tucked away in the corner is a vibrant gift shop called Adelitas Revenge. If you sit down in the coffee shop long enough, and let the smell of fresh espresso and toasted bagels invade your senses, you will notice that lots of people begin to flock to that corner, checking out the many gifts Adelitas Revenge has to offer.

Some customers stay for over half an hour, laughing and chatting with the owners Marina Carranza and Yvonne Márquez, two queer indigenous Chicana women born and raised in Los Angeles county. Adelitas Revenge gets its name from a group of Mexican revolutionary women. Márquez said that during the Mexican Revolution women had to take up arms to protect their homes and communities from the government.

Some of these women were transgender and lots of them became generals in the army. These women were called Las Adelitas.

“I’ve always loved the story of Las Adelitas because they are just strong badass women. I was telling Marina one day, ‘let’s honor Adelitas’ and we used revenge as part of a play on words,” Carranza said. “It’s not really revenge but it’s like our turn now.”

Adelitas’ Revenge is loaded with children’s books, items from Mexico, crystals and queer flags. The shop has about 35 vendors from small businesses.

“We curated it with lots of love and wanting to help our small business family and the people we have known throughout the years. We are excited that we can give this opportunity to some of these people that wouldn’t have much opportunity,” Carranza said. “When you are queer, a woman, Latinx or Latina you know you can’t just walk into any gift store and be like ‘hey can you sell my stuff?’ So we wanted to be that place for marginalized groups.”

After finding success in doing many pop ups, Carranza and Márquez opened their brick and mortar location in 2022, right next door to Viento y Agua. That is until unexpectedly, the landlord wanted their space back and gave the two women 30 days to move during the holidays.

“It was more like our ideas and visions were not aligning anymore, they had a different vision for who we were,” said Márquez.

Prior to this Márquez had a 9-to-5 job in account and payroll, but both Carranza and Márquez were laid off from their jobs in 2020 due to the pandemic.

Márquez and Carranza knew the owners of Viento y Agua, Jenny Laforce and Nick Kofski, from being neighboring businesses and about four or five days after being asked to leave their space, Laforce and Kofski offered them a space inside the coffee shop. The two ladies at first thought this would be a temporary situation until they found a new place.

“It’s looking like a permanent home for us,” Carranza said.

Carranza and Márquez also host an array of events at the coffee shop such as lotería night, Karaoke, wellness days, open mic night and a book club focused on Latinx authors; currently they are reading Too Soon for Adios by Annette Chávez.

Yoli Luna Ibarra has been a barista at Viento y Agua for just about a month now but met Carranza and Márquez in April 2022, at 4th Street’s “Fourth Fridays” when they used to be vendors. Luna Ibarra kept seeing the two women and said that very quickly the ladies became like family to them. Luna Ibarra even got the job at Viento y Agua through Carranza and Márquez, who told them that the coffee shop was hiring.

“I see them as my elders, I see them as family, like my aunties. It has helped make Long Beach feel like home,” Luna Ibarra said.

“Before meeting them, my spouse and I were contemplating on maybe moving somewhere else and through a few kind of serendipitous events, one of them being meeting Yvonne and Marina, we decided that we have a very lovely community here and they are a part of that.”