Hxstory of REACH!
It’s important to know about the hxstory of the work we do in order to ground ourselves. When talking about being intentional with our work, knowing the hxstory helps remind us why we do the work we do and how we are working towards that.
REACH! Timeline
1968
1994
1995
1996
1998
Third World Liberation Front
Movement that began at SFSU and fought for the establishment of a Third World College. The movement spread to UC Berkeley, and eventually saw the creation of an Ethnic Studies College at SFSU and a Department of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley.
Formation of REACH!
This was established under the Asian Student Union in 1994/1995 to support those identifying as underrepresented, low-income, and non-college tracked in hopes of promoting higher education as an attainable goal.
Shadow
A 3-day 2-night host program that brings underserved high school students from Bay Area/Central California regions to UC Berkeley for a weekend of workshops centered around political awareness, higher education, and youth empowerment. Also included Shadow Day, which was an annual program that brought 300-500 API students to campus for workshops and tours.
Retention
Program focuses on supporting members within the REACH! community socially and academically. Aims to create a support network to ensure students are retained academically, emotionally, and socially
Let’s Rise
This program came from two Berkeley students, Jaduane and Danfeng who wanted to establish a tutoring program in a community center across from Helm’s middle school in Richmond because they saw a large population of SEA youth. This is now a mentorship program that serves underprivileged students at Helms Middle School by promoting higher education in a sustainable academic and social environment.
Prop 209
Prevented public institutions of higher education from using race, religion, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin as a criteria when considering admission. Also prevented targeted outreach efforts to minority groups. (“The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.”)
Formation of bridges Multicultural Center
Formed as a response to Prop 209. Encompasses the Recruitment and Retention Centers (RRCs) and the work that they did to circumvent the restrictions imposed by Prop 209.
TAL
Was established in 1996 originally as Youth Mentorship but joined REACH! in 1998 as TAL. The program as created to address the warring tensions and gang violence among API in the Richmond and Oakland communities. The name changed from True Asian Leaders, to Thrive, Aspire, Lead (TAL) to create a more inclusive name for our cohort who are not all API identifying
OutREACH!
Program was formed in 1998 as a group of friends decided to take a trip down to Southern California and talk to high schools. The trip would later become SCOR (SoCAL OutREACH!).
1999
2001
2004
2015
2016
2017
Present - Future
Senior Weekend
This program came out of a merge of individual RRC “Admit Weekends” into the largest yield program on campus (~500 students). Targets first-generation, low-income, high school students accepted into Cal and provides them with opportunity to experience campus life for the weekend, as well as with workshops on political awareness and youth empowerment.
Senior Weekend Boycott
This was a response to the passage of Prop 209, SP-1, and SP-2 (SP1 and SP2 : UC-wide policies that prohibited the use race, religion, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in employment and contracting practices and for admission to University) where bridges and the RRC’s refused to hold an event until “the UC Board of Regents repeals its ban on affirmative action.” This drastically affected admission rates for students of color for that year. Later that year, SP-1 and SP-2 were repealed.
Campus Organizing (Political Advocacy)
This program aimed to build awareness and foster leadership through building allies with other campus communities and tackling the political/social issues that continue to plague the API community. This ended in 2018 to promote this throughout REACH! as a whole rather than specifically in one program.
Fight for Spaces Campaign
This came to be because of lack of space, visibility, and accessibility for the bridges community. Originally placed in Eshleman Hall, bridges and QARC moved to Hearst Field Annex because of the demolition of Esh in 2013. In 2015, we returned to Esh and were placed in the basement--making our programs practically invisible. In response, bridges and QARC created this campaign which led us to be moved to our current, temporary space in MLK and the approval of permanent space being developed in HFA. The Fight for Spaces Campaign still continues to the present.
Public Relations
This program separated from Retention in 2015 in hopes of putting focus on increasing visibility amongst the different programs within REACH!. They aim to showcase the work that REACH! does for the community on and off campus by collaborating with other programs and capturing our community’s most essential moments and memories.
Transfer
Began with PASS and their want to create a Senior Weekend that was focused solely on transfer students. Now brings prospective transfer students to experience campus life, and caters towards better recruiting and retaining the transfer community.
STARR Referendum
Prior to this was Prop 3 which was a fee of $3 that served as our primary funding stream as an organization. The passage of this in 2018 ensured funding for future bridges leadership to get compensated in their work and have secure programming budgets by changing the fee to $26.50 per semester. This doubled the budget for outreach and recruitment efforts and quadrupled the funds for our retention efforts.
Moving forward, there is a lot that REACH! strives to improve upon.