CSUN Activist Elected Student Body President

Vladimir Cerna, the star Cal State Northridge student who sparked a controversy when he revealed he was an illegal immigrant at the height of a political battle over Proposition 187, was elected president of the student body this week.

Cerna said in an interview Friday that his victory is all the more poignant given the reheated debate over illegal immigration triggered by the recent beating incident involving Riverside County sheriff’s deputies.

“What this election shows is that Northridge is nowhere close to Riverside,” the 22-year-old sociology major said. “It proves that people can overlook superficial labels that some of us have been given and are instead able to look at someone’s qualities and ideas and overall potential.

“I think this is why people voted for me.”

It was in October of 1994, in the midst of a heated debate over illegal immigration, that Cerna acknowledged that he entered this country illegally in 1986 after leaving his native El Salvador. After the interview was published in The Times, Cerna found himself the target of outrage in numerous hate letters by pro-187 forces.

Cerna said he granted the interview to help raise awareness over Proposition 187. The initiative, which passed but is currently tied up in court, prohibits illegal immigrants from receiving public education, health care and other government programs.

Since making the revelation, Cerna and his family have attained legal resident status. He has also stayed active in school affairs, most recently becoming a rally organizer in the movement to protest attacks on affirmative action.

But he topped those accomplishments Thursday when he was voted student body president. In a close contest, Cerna and his vice-presidential running mate, Parag Vaish, beat out their opponents by garnering 382--or about 54%--of the votes.

The unlikely pairing--Cerna is an activist and Vaish is a member of a fraternity--had a hard time explaining their ticket to each of their peer groups.

“We shocked people when we came up with the combination,” Cerna said. “My friends were asking me how could I run with a Greek while his friends were asking him why are you running with this radical?”

In the end, Cerna and Vaish won endorsements from more than 30 student organizations.

The odd couple ran on a 13-point platform, which included uniting student leaders from different campus organizations, providing inter-campus transportation, more security guards for night students and a reduction in parking prices on campus.

Cerna said that after he decided to run, he began studying ways to build coalitions among the student organizations, including African American, Latino, gay and lesbian, and women’s groups and fraternity members.

“I want every student and every organization to feel they can identify with this administration,” Cerna said. “We are going to go out of our way to make them feel like they can.”