CAA Announcements

The Wongs recognize that affording and navigating UC Berkeley is a much greater challenge now than when they met on campus fifty years ago.

Marco Ponce ’12

Being a volunteer for The Achievement Award Program (TAAP) hits close to home for Marco Ponce ’12. He was a former TAAP recipient, and he says it was a major reason why he decided to come to Cal. The conversations he had with alumni volunteers and staff from the Cal Alumni Association before committing to Cal were what sealed the deal.

“Some things in life: you cannot put a price tag on them. The value of being around like-minded people, people who come from the same background as you and have the same aspirations as you—I don’t think you can put a tag or value on it.”

On Sunday, June 30, 2019, more than 600 Cal alumni, faculty, students, and friends joined together to march at the 49th annual San Francisco LGBTQ+ Pride Parade. The Cal Alumni Association (CAA) partnered with UC Berkeley’s Gender Equity Resource Center (GenEq) to lead the Cal contingent of marchers for the third year in a row. This special year also marked the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, a catalyst of the gay rights movement.

We have many kindred memories of Cal, such as lounging on Memorial Glade with friends or eating Top Dog. We each have experiences from Berkeley that are just ours. Whether you once ran to class in your slippers to make it to a final on time, or met your college sweetheart handing out flyers on Sproul, each of us has special memories from our years at Cal that made our Berkeley experience unique.

UC Berkeley has long been at the forefront of social movements—Free Speech, disability rights, and environmental protection, to name just a few. Cal community members have also played critical roles in pushing for equal rights, visibility, and representation for the LGBTQ+ community.

Here are five moments—out of many—when Cal students, faculty, and alumni helped reach milestones for the LGBTQ+ community that all Cal alumni can look back on with pride.

In May we celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month to honor the history and culture of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in our country. At Cal, we are extremely lucky to have had our legacy of service and achievement carried on by AAPI alumni who have found success in politics, the arts, STEM, business, and many other fields. During this month of celebration, we would like to recognize a few of the many Asian American and Pacific Islander alumni who have shaped communities and blazed the path for future generations.