Central Los Angeles : PRESIDENT INAUGURATED
On a day when Mexican Americans pay homage to the dead and celebrate the living, speakers did a little of both at Thursday’s inauguration of Ernest H. Moreno as the seventh president of East Los Angeles College in Monterey Park.
Speakers, including California Community Colleges Chancellor David Mertes, touched on dying employment opportunities, critical finances and the perilous state of racial relations as they pledged to find solutions within the Eastside communities the college serves.
“We are a community,” Moreno told a crowd of more than 500.
“We are a divided community; we are a troubled community, but a community nonetheless, and it is within this community that we will find solutions.”
A longtime administrator and instructor in the district, Moreno pledged to push the college to the intellectual center of the Eastside and make it the “crown jewel” of the nation’s largest community college system.
Although none of the speakers mentioned recent attacks on affirmative action, the idea loomed in numerous references to diversity and divisiveness on campuses and in the body politic.
“You can imagine representing an institution that’s about 96% minority . . . that I have concerns about rolling back affirmative action,” Moreno said later.
“We will continue to turn out students who are going to go on and do well. That’s all I will say on that topic.”
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