Latinx Heritage Month 2025

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Two graduate students smiling during an icebreaker activity

Celebrating Latinx Heritage Month 2025

Victor Ortega Jiménez headshot

Watch Prof. Victor Ortega Jiménez explain how animals move in 101 seconds

Learn how biologists like Victor Ortega Jiménez use high-speed cameras to record fascinating slow motion footage of animals in the wild.

This Latinx Heritage Month, we recognize the vibrant and diverse contributions of the Latinx community to our campus and beyond.

This is a time to celebrate our shared heritage, honor the achievements of Latinx individuals, and engage with the cultural, academic, and social richness of our community. Now more than ever, community matters—as a place of understanding, care, and resilience. Together, we can create spaces where all feel seen, valued, and supported.

As we share community’s contributions, we must first acknowledge the conversations around the use of multiple “umbrella” terms, such as Hispanic, Chicano/Chicana, or Latino/Latina/Latinx/Latine, and the many intersectional identifying terms people embrace, whether racial identities or signifiers, such as first-generation or undocumented/documented. We respect and appreciate how community members choose to self-identify. While we use the broader term Latinx for this message, we are mindful both of the shared histories of inequities Latinx communities have endured, as well as the historical, raciolinguistic, regional, social, and educational variance and specificities experienced by Latinx peoples.

What are UC Berkeley's Thriving Initiatives?

What is Thriving?

Spotlight: Latinx Thriving Initiatives

When former Chancellor Christ set the goal for Berkeley to become a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI), it was apparent that other changes needed to be made institutionally in order to meet this goal and better serve our Latinx students, as well as staff, faculty, and alumni. Hence, the HSI Initiative became the Latinx Thriving Initiatives (LTI). Achieving HSI designation is one goal, and LTI consists of broader efforts to intentionally serve Latinx/e students, staff and faculty.

Task Forces and Advisory Bodies

Student Orgs and Advocacy Groups

Student Resources

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Articles/Profiles

Melissa Mora-Gonzalez Class of 2025, is majoring in English and minoring in conservation and resource studies.

Advice From a Berkeley Senior

Melissa Mora-Gonzalez, Class of 2025, is a first-generation student majoring in English and minoring in conservation and resource studies.

First-Gen: Start Here, a Latinx student shares resources and support for first-gen students

Rodriguez Siblings

Three Rodriguez siblings rewrite their family’s future through a Berkeley education

Norma Garcia headshot with text displaying ce3 connect Norma Garcia

Crafting a Career in PR: From Berkeley to Adobe with Norma Garcia

Victor Ortega Jiménez headshot

The Motion Scientist: Five Questions with Victor Ortega Jiménez, Assistant Professor in Integrative Biology

Jhussahara Mendieta Bernabe

Rodriguez-Pastor scholars

Karla de la Cruz

A first generation student shares her path from farmwork to UC Berkeley sociology grad

Michael Temprano headshot

Berkeley Sociology is a family tradition for this Cal graduate

Gisselle Medina

Gisselle Medina ’22, ’24 is a journalist amplifying underrepresented voices through reporting at Fresnoland and the Greater Good Science Center

Gladys Torres-Carmona headshot

Gladys Torres-Carmona is Latinx at Cal

Units and Departments 

Staff and Faculty Resources

  • Alianza: Community building, professional development and promotion of Latinx staff
  • It is important that we acknowledge the intersectional identities that exist within communities. While it is an issue that impacts several communities beyond Latinx, we would like to take this time to:

Latinx Heritage Month 2025

A message from leadership to the campus community.

Events

Research

Headshot of Jenny S. Guadamuz

Jenny S. Guadamuz

Assistant Professor at the School of Public Health

Dr. Guadamuz is a health services researcher who uses an interdisciplinary approach to identify how structural determinants impact health care access among minoritized racial/ethnic and immigrant populations. Relevant publications: 

Immigration Status & Disparities in the Treatment of Cardiovascular Risk Factors

More US Pharmacies Closed Than Opened In 2018-21; Independent Pharmacies, Those In Black, Latinx Communities Most At Risk

Mediators of racial/ethnic inequities in clinical trial participation among patients with cancer

Kristina Lovato headshot

Dr. Kristina Lovato

Assistant Professor of Social Welfare; Director of Center on Immigration and Child Welfare Initiative (CICW); inaugural member of the Latinx & Democracy Cluster

Her scholarship examines how immigration enforcement and child welfare policies affect Latin American–origin families, with a focus on youth development, family dynamics, and community well-being. Her current project, supported by national foundations, investigates the mental health and service needs of unaccompanied immigrant youth. At Berkeley, she teaches MSW courses and mentors students through her Immigration and Child Welfare Research Lab.

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Kurt C. Organista

Professor & Harry and Riva Specht Chair in Publicly Supported Social Services and Director of the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues (ISSI), Professor in the School of Social Welfare

His research focuses on psychosocial and health issues in Chicano/Latino communities, including HIV prevention with migrant laborers, minority mental health, and acculturation. He teaches the American Cultures course Race, Ethnic Relations, and Social Welfare in the United States, and is the author of Solving Latino Psychosocial and Health Problems: Theory, Research, and Practice (2nd ed.) and HIV Prevention with Latinos: Theory, Research and Practice, the first collection of texts on HIV prevention across diverse Latino populations.

Headshot of Victor M. Ortega-Jimenez

Victor M. Ortega-Jimenez

Assistant Professor of Integrative Biology

He earned his BS, MS, and PhD in Biology in Mexico. His research focuses on the biomechanics of living systems and how organisms interact with complex environments such as rain, turbulence, and fluid surfaces. By studying species ranging from insects to birds, his lab investigates the principles that underlie form and function, as well as the trade-offs imposed by physical forces like capillarity and electrostatics. Integrating experimental and computational approaches, his work has led to the design of bio-inspired robots capable of navigating unsteady aerial and aquatic conditions. A notable discovery revealed how flamingos create vortex traps with their feet, beak, and head movements to capture plankton, inspiring advances in robotics. He has published more than 30 scientific papers, and his research has been featured in international media including The New York Times, National Geographic, NPR, and BBC.

Headshot of Laura E. Pérez

Laura E. Pérez

Professor of Ethnic Studies and Chair of the Latinx Research Center

Her research, publishing, and curation explore Latinx art and spirituality, as discussed in a recent MoMA interview on altars, eroticism, and the “mundane sacred.” She co-curated Amalia Mesa-Bains: Archaeology of Memory, a major retrospective that traveled nationally after opening at BAMPFA in 2023 and was named one of the defining exhibitions of 2024 by ARTnews. Her recent publication, "Luchita Hurtado: Self-Portraiture, “Mountain and Leopard,” appeared in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism (2025). Since 2018, Pérez has led the LRC in securing major state and foundation funding to support faculty research, undergraduate fellowships, graduate dissertation writing, symposia, and public programming in Latinx Studies.

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