Looking back at old photos of UCI’s grounds during the ‘60s or ‘70s, the campus is hard to recognize. Aldrich Park was a wasteland populated by sparse saplings and Ring Road was a hollow space with large gaps between imposing buildings. The modern campus has emerged organically from this foundation over the past six decades. For the modern student, who witnesses only the contemporary result, the continuity of campus history is easily lost. It can be hard to find familiarity in those grainy photos of the university’s origins.
A student initiative in the early ‘70s built one of the first on-campus institutions centered around cultivating a sense of belonging for all of UCI’s diverse student body. Founded in 1974, the Cross-Cultural Center, or Cross for short, boasts a legacy of over 50 years of activism and campus involvement.
“The students wanted a space where they felt like they were being seen and being heard,” Dr. Cesar Ramos, the director of the center, told New University about the Cross’s founding.
To him, the guiding principles of the Cross-Cultural Center lie in facilitating social justice and identity development.
The role of the center is “providing spaces for dialogue around these topics,” Ramos said, as well as educating students and helping them build their own perspectives.
Dating back to 1974, the Cross was first located in an interim space near the School of the Humanities, as noted by the center’s official “Hxstory” page. It wasn’t until 1989 that it was moved to its modern location, the familiar building across from Aldrich Hall. Their current location is on Ring Road and directly adjacent to Aldrich Park.
“[The location] shows that UCI was committed to giving marginalized students physical space that is central, that is easy to find, easy to access, and a lot of students, you know, use it and find it that way sometimes by mistake,” Ramos said. “Well, they’ll walk in, and they’re like, ‘Oh, wait! This is the Cross-Cultural Center’ and then they make it their home. Our space gets used a lot by various students, not just for programs, but also just to like, sit, talk, sleep, eat, study.”
Plenty of the center’s time-honored traditions date back to the school’s early years. Art lecturer Manuel Hernandez and UCI students created the first of the Cross’s iconic murals in 1976; the center’s website describes it, “depict[ing] prominent historical figures who were voices for equality and justice.”
Predating the modern building, this piece of the center’s history almost didn’t survive the move.
“As we did our 50th anniversary this past school year, we had some alum come in, and I heard a story about how they actually brought that mural from that old space into our current building, because apparently it was going to be torn down,” Ramos said. “And so some students, mostly Latino students from the MEChA student organization, decided to work overnight to kind of bring it down and bring it over to where it currently sits. So, that kind of shows you the passion and importance that folks put on that mural like. It’s a big part of our legacy now.”
The preserved mural now holds the place of honor in the Cross’s lobby, for those who wish to see it.
“Art has always been a big part of the Cross,” Ramos said, encouraging the center to ask, “How does art work [and] serve as a way to advocate for yourselves and your communities?”
The annual Community Roots Festival is another one of the Cross’s vaunted traditions. Originally called the Rainbow Festival, it has celebrated diversity on campus every year since 1984.
“I think a lot of students may not even realize how long these programs have been around or how old they might be,” Ramos said.
But traditions change with each generation and new students renew institutions with fresh perspectives.
“They become used to it,” Ramos said. “It becomes their own kind of tradition.”
In fall 2024, the Cross-Cultural Center turned 50. Having served as the center’s director since summer 2022, Ramos took on the challenge of leading the Cross through its jubilee year. In the celebrations, he endeavored to strike a balance between honoring the program’s long history and fulfilling the needs of the modern student body.
Describing the anniversary gala, Ramos praised the variety of attendees.
“We brought back a lot of alumni community members, folks that worked at the center,” Ramos said. “Past directors were there. We had a lot of students show up and student performances.”
Hearing stories and memories of the Cross put its impact into perspective for the sitting director.
“I’ve heard the same common themes of like, ‘Oh, this is a place where I came every night to study,’ or ‘This is a place where I met my best friends that I still keep in touch with,’” Ramos said. “Just this past winter, we had two folks that had met at the Cross-Cultural Center that got engaged in our center.”
What is the role of the Cross-Cultural Center on the modern campus? With so many other cultural and identity centers on campus, it’s a question that Ramos has often considered in his three years at the Cross’s helm.
“I almost see the Cross-Cultural Center as being kind of like the networking department, the networking center, that kind of starts partnering and collaborating a lot more with different areas, including our Office of Inclusive Excellence, and almost being like the one that helps navigate programs [and] consolidate things,” Ramos said. “Maybe we partner more and create new initiatives.”
When asked about the future of the center, Ramos told New University that there will be no events this summer.
“But our space is open,” Ramos said. “So if there are students doing summer classes, or alumni or students that are interested in just coming to hang with us, it’s super quiet right now. So we could always use a little more noise and student energy in this space.”
Ramos left the invitation open to anyone curious about the center, saying that the space will remain open until 8 p.m throughout the summer.
The Cross staff will focus on planning for the coming year this summer. They intend to incorporate a strong theme of social justice into the year’s programming.
Looking beyond the summer, Ramos was excited to inform that, after several years indoors, this fall’s Community Roots Festival will return outdoors. This October, look for it outside the Student Center. For those interested in further news of the festival, or any student-organized events, they can follow the Cross’s Instagram.
With fifty years of experience, the Cross-Cultural Center has learned to expertly walk the middle ground by respecting its history while constantly adapting to the needs of the current campus. Now, they look to the next fifty years.
John Trytten is a Features Intern for the 2025 summer quarter. He can be reached at tryttenj@uci.edu.
Edited by Avery Rosas and Joshua Gonzales