“Discovering Parallels between CSUSB and the Colton Community: Growing Up in Colton” w/ Tom Rivera, Frank Acosta, Henry Vasquez.

Inspired by CSUSB's exploration of its own history, Dr. Tom Rivera and retired educators Henry Vasquez, and Frank Acosta proposed the South Colton Oral History Project to Pfau Library Dean Cesar Caballero. With his encouragement and support, they initiated the project in 2013. Through video taped interviews, the on-going project documents the life stories of people born and raised in a part of Colton that for 70 years isolated the city's Mexican-American population. Just as the University's History Project identifies faculty, staff, administrators, and events significant to its growth, the South Colton Oral History Project identifies people, businesses, and events of major historical importance to the community. An unexpected value of the project has been the introduction of the university to interviewees, most of them past the age of 70 who had never been on campus. They report new found appreciation for the university as a resource for their own family's advancement. One of the interviewees has contributed two $500 scholarships to our Business Department. The project is also discovering parallels between an evolving university that welcomes and enriches the entire community and the evolution of the City of Colton as an ethnically inclusive city.