Race is a dominant issue on any college campus, even on a multicultural campus such as CSUMB where the vision of the university strives to embrace each ethnicity and to have a diverse population of students and faculty in the classroom. The problem lies in that some cultural groups are overrepresented and others are not represented enough.

    One student talked about how there were not enough African -American students on campus and even though that is not a problem for him, he would still like to see a well-rounded number of kids from his race attending CSUMB. Another interviewee spoke of the percentage of Mexican-American students on campus:

Actually, I was kind of surprised that there is a lot of Mexicans, Mexican-Americans, I remember In Summer Bridge we would use to get told that there's a lot of white people and a little Mexicans and that there is no diversity. Well, I'm here now and I see a lot of Mexican-Americans, and I think there's a lot of us. (Vargas)

    It is important for students to be able to find other people who are the same race and who share the same values and beliefs and who understand where they came from and why they have chosen certain paths. It is comforting for students to receive support from people who struggle with the things that they struggle with. Finding a professor who had to work in the fields, too, in order to pay for college can make a world of difference for some students. Having a connection or a common ground with another individual can make the transition from college to higher education much easier.