UCLA - University of California - Los Angeles
09/15/2025 | News release | Distributed by Public on 09/15/2025 12:12
IN FOCUS: National Hispanic Heritage Month
Harvesting a dream at UCLA
An encounter with Berkeley professor Markita Landry, who described her groundbreaking research on plant nanomaterials to enhance plant growth, opened Arismel Tena Meza's eyes to how science could address global and local challenges. "I realized I could combine my passion for helping people in my community with my growing love for chemistry," she said.
California Latino GDP surges past $1 trillion, as Latinos help power state economy
A UCLA and Cal Lutheran report shows that California Latinos also account for almost a fourth of the total U.S. Latino GDP. The top industries Latinos are involved in, researchers found, were sectors defined as finance and real estate; professional and business services; government services; education and health care; and retail trade.
Read more about what researchers say this means for Latino youth from UCLA Newsroom
UCLA's Jason De León wins National Book Award for Nonfiction
Drawing on seven years of on-the-ground ethnographic research and interviews, "Soldiers and Kings" gives voice and unprecedented context to the people, most of them young men, who make a precarious living smuggling migrants from Central America and Mexico into the United States. The professor and alumnus is the second Bruin winner in two years.
Read more about Jason De León from UCLA Newsroom
Homegrown voices, lasting legacies: Honoring UCLA's 2025 Class Artist winners
Jorge Parra Jr. is a writer/director whose work frequently centers on Latinx identity and emotionally resonant storytelling.
Read more about Jorge Parra Jr. and the Class Artist program from UCLA Newsroom
New research reveals significant wage gap for Latina workers in Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz and Ventura counties
UCLA and a group of collaborators found wage gaps, education access challenges and underlying adverse workforce conditions, predominantly among Latinas.
Centering Central American voices by challenging literary norms
"There's a tendency to only focus on the migrant once they arrive in the U.S.," Evelyn Giron said. "But what about the forces that made them leave? I use(d) a comparative colonial lens, pairing African American migration with Central American migration to explore the intimacy between these marginalized communities."
Read more about Evelyn Giron's approach to literary analysis from UCLA Newsroom
VIDEO: What is Cinco de Mayo? Its American origins might surprise you
Why is the holiday - which commemorates the Mexican victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862 - so widely celebrated in California and the United States when it is scarcely observed in Mexico?
Vanessa Aviva González-Siegel on firsts and pronouns
Last fall, González-Siegel, whose pronouns are she, ella and ela, assumed the role of director at the UCLA LGBTQ Campus Resource Center after serving as associate director of multicultural affairs at Columbia University, where she oversaw the campus' LGBTQ center as a staff of one.
Q&A: Albert Camarillo on Compton in the soul, UCLA en el corazón
Albert M. Camarillo recalls that in 1966, when he started at UCLA, there were fewer than 50 Mexican American and maybe 100 Black students in the entire population of 27,000 Bruin undergraduates. In his recent memoir, the alumnus and historian reflects on the multicultural experiences he had growing up.
Read more about Albert M. Camarillo from UCLA Newsroom
'Cheese' got a ticket to ride
Homemade queso de cincho and a transnational flight inspired Guillermo Miranda to look at history through the lens of dairy.
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