More comfortable with patterns and consistencies in math, he struggled with writing composition in particular. He eventually earned a bachelor’s degree in political science.

It wasn’t until he started reading stories that were directly relevant to him in graduate school that he began to find a comfort zone with the power and potential of the written word. There, he felt he could develop a language to express himself, that there was a place where he could discover a healthier relationship with words and sentences in order to share a feeling or depict an emotion.

Thankfully for thousands who have read his work or taken one of his courses, a career as a mathematician was not written in stone.

Magabo Perez, an associate professor and program director of ethnic studies at Cal State San Marcos, was recently named poet laureate of the city of San Diego.

For someone born in Detroit who also lived in Las Vegas and Redlands (he taught at Cal State San Bernardino), it’s an extra special honor because he considers San Diego – and CSUSM in particular – a home.

“I'm no doubt a visitor, a guest, a settler, on Native land," Perez said. “I, and I think all of us, have a responsibility to support Native communities in whatever way makes the most sense for those communities. I feel a deep affinity for peoples in the entire county. I'm the poet laureate of the city of San Diego, but I also feel a home and history in Oceanside. That happens to be our lived reality as migrant families. Wherever we set foot we try to be good relatives and be good neighbors, to listen, to learn, and to develop relationships with our local communities. And I think there's possibility for building those kinds of sincere relationships at Cal State San Marcos, which is still a growing university.”

His two-year appointment as poet laureate will include holding workshops, representing the city in civic cultural events, and writing poetry, like the powerful “We Draft Work Songs for This City” that he wrote and performed live at January’s State of the City Address (his introduction begins at 16:24).

That event was hosted by Mayor Todd Gloria, who is a second-generation Filipino American like Magabo Perez. The congruous nature of the sons of Filipino immigrants sharing the stage to celebrate the rich culture of migrants that has made this country a rich and vibrant one was not lost on Magabo Perez.

“We're out there,” said Perez of the great presence of migrant families in the region, particularly Filipinos. “The mayor's mama was a hotel worker. Pops, who is Native, was a gardener. I don't know the mayor, but I think that his presence and the presence of his staff from various backgrounds and historical experiences meant something for me at the State of the City event. We're here. Not just Filipinos, but folks of color, Native folks, are here doing work for our city, doing work for our people, our communities. We don't all agree on issues, but we're here, an undeniable presence.”

At the age of 10, Magabo Perez moved to Oceanside, where his parents still reside.

After the major shift in plans at UCSD, he pursued his passion for writing further in an MFA program at New College of California in San Francisco. His career as a professor then took him to Cal State San Bernardino, where he would commute to and from West Los Angeles.

He loved the work he was doing at CSUSB, but when the opportunity arose to come back to his adopted home of San Diego, he jumped at the chance.

“The opportunity arose to teach and to build ethnic studies in my hometown area, and I had to come back. It just felt right,” said Magabo Perez, who earned a dual Ph.D. in ethnic studies and communication from UCSD. “It felt right to be close to family, of course. But in terms of my work as an educator, as a community organizer, as an artist, as a poet, it made the most sense to come back to this particular area.”

Magabo Perez’s work is littered with references to his surroundings.

In “We Draft Work Songs for This City,” he writes of the smells that certain intersections in the city have. He uses the word work to describe the physical act of labor as well as the people, places and things that work together to give San Diego its tough but gentle personality.

He writes of the folks we often pass by every day but don’t see (“here sings the lettuce-picker here sings the strawberry-picker here sings the bellhop the postal worker the custodian the hotel maid grounds-keeper landscaper gardener construction worker nurse teacher waiter dishwasher bus driver grocer labor organizer mechanic therapist”).

“A big inspiration for that piece was just really to show love and give recognition to those communities that we see,” said Magabo Perez, who is also community arts fellow at Bulosan Center for Filipino Studies, associate editor at Ethnic Studies Review, and a core organizer of The Digital Sala. “And those are our communities. Those are our folks there. They make San Diego. I'm always really intentional with my writing and specifically who my audience is. And for this poem, I sort of was sitting with it a while and thinking, I just want to write to the folks who you pass by all the time. I want to see them in this poem. Part of my writing practice is very cinematic. I just like to see and sense things … not determine the experience of other folks with my lens or my description. But just to be like, here's a portrait. Those are folks. We love those folks.”

Magabo Perez possesses an amazing ability to weave stories based on the simple yet beautiful things that inspire all of us to live a life of love and understanding. To build neighborhoods of varying cultures and backgrounds that combine to form shared community.

His works include “Phenomenology of Superhero” (2013) and “This is for the mostless” (2017), both of which combine his unique combination of prose and poetry. His work has also been seen in many literary publications.

His new book “I ask about what falls away” is set to be released soon. It's a long book-length poem about grief during the time of the pandemic.

It’s no wonder CSUSM offered that combination of opportunity both professionally and emotionally.

“A lot of our communities are here at the university, for sure,” said Perez, who now lives in Clairemont. “And by our communities, I’m talking about our working-class communities. Our first-generation students. Their families. Those histories. They're all here. Being able to share a space with them in the classroom and to imagine what's possible is meaningful. It's profoundly beautiful to share space with students in the North County area. I look forward to partnering with CSUSM to explore possible literary arts and literacy initiatives to support our local communities.”

As program director of ethnic studies at CSUSM, he relishes the responsibility of providing that introduction of the subject to his undergraduate students as well as discussing the topic to anyone who wishes to dialogue.

“The work he does in and out of the classroom is critical for CSUSM’s shared vision of social mobility and student success,” said Liora Gubkin, dean of CSUSM’s College of Humanities, Arts, Behavioral and Social Sciences (CHABSS). “His research and knowledge in the ethnic studies arena are only matched by the level of care for his students. Being named poet laureate of the city is an amazing honor, and our university is enriched by Jason’s presence.”

For Magabo Perez, ethnic studies is about studying marginalized groups and how they’ve been treated in the past as well as how much, if any at all, that treatment has improved in current times.

It’s an academic field that has been around for more than 50 years at the college level. It just recently became a required class to take for all CSU students.

But for Magabo Perez, ethnic studies is as much about the future as it is about the past.

“It’s important to understand that both the history and the ways in which our communities have been studied and understood have been incredibly limited, or neglected and erased completely,” Magabo Perez said on a recent video call. “In order to really understand, in a place like San Marcos, in a place like North County, in a place like San Diego County, to really understand how our relationships came to be, or how our tensions and celebrations and joys came to be, we have to take into account a historical reality that’s too often and too easily ignored. So I think that even with all the backlash around things like ethnic studies, African-American studies, and Critical Race Theory, we still have a responsibility to study those erased histories.

“Ultimately, ethnic studies is about our dignity. Empowering communities who have been robbed of their dignity. Challenging and resisting traditional paradigms of education, pedagogy and knowledge production in order to think about something new and something bigger. That something new and something bigger just so happens to be humbly our humanity, which as we see in the current political crisis, the humanity of many of our neighbors, our families, is being denied on a daily basis. Ethnic studies is about not shying away from those tough conversations because we know those issues and instances are impacting our community every single day.”

We Draft Work Songs for This City

by Jason Magabo Perez

This poem was performed at San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria’s State of The City Address at the San Diego Civic Theatre on Jan. 11, 2023.

whenever we stretch grammars of worry past the Pacific
whenever another blackout gifts us much needed stillness

whenever the surrender of this quiet is typhoon enough we
draft work songs for this city mighty we of rough draft

futures mighty we in river-mouth of rush hour traffic we
of protest chant & scrapyard syntax we draft on the corner

of Black Mountain & Mira Mesa here on a sidewalk of torn
shoelaces & lost grocery lists we draft blueprints for survival

we survive on the smell of beef broth the smell of basil of
turmeric of cilantro of carne asada of freshly cooked rice

of steamed bok choy of freshwater fish of deep-fried rice
paper we work song at this bus stop for students we work

song at this bus stop for tech workers this bus stop for lolas
y abuelitas we work song in tin drum glottal syllables of

distant motherlands we draft litanies at every streetlight
altar we draft verse on napkins & reused plastic grocery

bags wherever there are elders playing chess & waxing
geographic outside the donut shop whenever much needed

stillness promises a new hour whenever the Pacific knows
to rupture the shoreline whenever typhoon is fractal hum in

chest we draft work songs for this city we raw material
literatures we distillation of afterdreams we swapmeet

philosophers we draft work songs on the corner of Genesee
& Clairemont Mesa we draft of gutters scattered with pink

boba straws & dried palm leaves we draft for mothers & children
hustling bouquets of carnations from the bicycle lane we draft

for parolees in orange vests selling local tribunes from the center
island we draft on Murray Ridge where a family sells roses &

chocolate from a white bucket whenever the small hour calls
collect whenever ruptures in the line set us free whenever hum

in chest arrives as ghost in throat we draft work songs we whose
hands wash sky we who grow gardens & gardens against worry

we whose mighty ache remakes history we draft work songs here
in the alley off University behind 49^th we draft of a perfectly

reusable red plastic slide of a car full of birthday balloons of a
small hill of middle grade paperbacks a gold purse full of fresh

broccoli & rubber gloves a black tote bag stuffed with wet lettuce
& white surgical masks we draft at the backyard family parties

& block-wide barbecues we work song where it smells of fresh
tires & flour tortillas where dried lemon rinds stick to pavement

work song of cleaned chicken bone wrapped in foil work song of
rainsoaked boxsprings work song for the infamous hot cheetos

burrito brushfire fabulous work song work song on the graveyard
shift survivor song song of the parking lot nail salon work song

of the underfuture heavenly pho outside between two buildings
work song we draft as patrol cars cram the alley we draft as protest

medics cram the alley we draft as Muslim cabbies double-park their
Priuses outside the mosque outside the taqueria work song of a child

chasing mosquitos with a hammer wherever a community of uncles
gathers in the shared parking lot of the banh mi shop & Somali

restaurant wherever we feel that lived intensity of interior traffic here
sings the lettuce-picker here sings the strawberry-picker here sings

the bellhop the postal worker the custodian the hotel maid grounds-
keeper landscaper gardener construction worker nurse teacher waiter

dishwasher bus driver grocer labor organizer mechanic therapist here
sings the nanny here sings the refugee here sings the Native here sings

the migrant O, what work! O, what song! O, what city! when our utterance
is archive when there is historical reckoning when we demand nothing

short of collective joy & here we are on Native land we draft work songs for
this city we draft work songs for this city we draft work songs for this city

Courtesy of Jason Magabo Perez and San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture

Media Contact

Eric Breier, Public Affairs Specialist

ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

It’s not an exaggeration, however, to say sometimes it takes a monumental event to create a revolution.

When the decision-makers within the California State University system watched events unfold that summer, they knew they had to create actionable events to respond to the great call of action coming specifically from young people. Hence was born Assembly Bill 1460, which, in conjunction with the state legislature, was signed in August 2020 and mandated that CSU students take ethnic studies as a graduation requirement.

That same summer, Cal State San Marcos’ library upped the ante by committing to develop library materials to be more representative and specifically anti-racist. And now the CSUSM library team is going even farther.

So far this year the library has acquired approximately 20 new digital information resources, many directly in support of the ethnic studies and American Indian studies curriculum. The material will go far to diversify the information, experiences and voices represented in the library’s collection.

“The library is moving beyond statements of support to action, and this includes coordinated work across the CSU system with the support of provosts,” said Jennifer Fabbi, dean of the CSUSM library.

Earlier this year, the university introduced its new strategic plan, “The Power of CSUSM.” The third goal of the plan is to achieve its vision through diversity, equity and inclusive excellence. The library’s work is an example of the university’s commitment.

“I am incredibly excited about the library's tangible commitment to developing our collections in ways that wholly represent the experiences and voices of communities and groups that have been historically underrepresented and marginalized in academia,” social sciences librarian Lalitha Nataraj said. “To me, this is a clear sign that we are moving toward a more anti-racist praxis.”

The collections include both historical documents and current content as the CSU system continues its work in becoming a progressive agent for positive change.

The biggest benefactor is the CSUSM student body. Much of the content will be made available locally for the first time, which will undoubtedly have a positive impact on students.

“Most of the new resources we have added include primary source documents, films and other resources created by and for marginalized communities, and much of the new content is not available anywhere but in these digital collections,” said Lauren Magnuson, the library’s head of collections, delivery and access. “For example, the Black Drama collection contains more than 1,700 plays written by more than 200 Black playwrights from around the world. Many of these works were previously unpublished, rare or no longer in print. Our access to this online collection allows CSUSM students and faculty to read and study these works and contribute to original scholarship that centers Black experiences and honors Black contributions to the history of drama.”

Thanks to money from the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF), the library was able to purchase access to these digital collections that go directly to support virtual teaching, learning and research. Additional funding came from the chancellor’s office – with support of the CSU provosts – following a vote of the CSU council of library deans after feedback was requested from campus faculty.

“These collections help situate students in historical and cultural moments where they have never been afforded an opportunity to see themselves,” Nataraj said. “These resources will facilitate self-reflection as well as beginning or extending vital scholarly conversations that will positively impact current and future generations by helping them feel validated within the academy.”

The library worked with the ethnic studies and American Indian studies departments when deciding which collections to pursue. A survey also was sent to all faculty early this spring to garner feedback and narrow down focus on what would have the greatest impact on students.

The new American Indian Histories and Cultures collection includes art and written work from the culture’s earliest contact with European settlers.

There is also a collection called Race Relations in America, which was an institute that investigated racial conflict and documented the fight for civil rights. It includes speeches, reports, surveys and analyses produced by the department and institute participants, including Charles S. Johnson and Thurgood Marshall.

“Actively working to center the experiences of those who have been excluded, marginalized and harmed through our shared history is essential to building CSUSM’s library collections and furthering CSUSM’s social justice mission,” Magnuson said. “CSUSM’s library collections need to represent the research interests and experiences of our students and faculty, all of whom have a right to see themselves and their communities represented when they do research with CSUSM library resources. It is critical for libraries to intentionally collect and preserve histories and narratives of people who have been excluded and marginalized from dominant culture, so that researchers can use them to surface and amplify voices that otherwise may not be heard.”

A dedicated group determined to provide impactful resources, the library also is planning community and campus oral history projects focused on campus community voices. A deep dive of the library’s print book collection also will occur to establish gaps to be filled.

A university library has long been a place for learning, a place to revisit the past to create a better future. Like bees pollinating to positively impact our environment, the new collections are expected to inspire learners to take their newfound knowledge from the CSUSM library and spread it into the world.

The pay-it-forward arena always has available seats.

“The library does not exist in a vacuum, inured to the structural inequities and systemic oppression that impacts Black, Indigenous and People of Color,” Nataraj said. “Our collections are organic, and library staff and faculty constantly update them to reflect the changing sensibilities of the world around us, including developing our materials to be more representative and anti-racist, addressing instances of racist language in our collections and catalog records, and analyzing our print collections to fill gaps. 

“Being anti-racist is a collective responsibility on the CSUSM campus. Since the collections directly support the teaching mission of the university, the library also commits to creating co-curricular programming for the campus community on anti-racism, systemic oppression and similar topics.”

Media Contact

Eric Breier, Public Affairs Specialist

ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

In his teaching career, Perez has never been content with simply assigning readings, distributing exams and grading papers.

The first-year Cal State San Marcos assistant professor subscribes to the idea that hands-on learning sticks with students longer. The world is the best classroom in Perez’s philosophy.

Hence was born the Ethnic Studies Pop-Up Gallery, an interactive campus-wide project put on by Perez’s Ethnic Studies & Society 301 course this spring. The interactive space is located on the first floor of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Building and has been showcasing events and projects since Jan. 21. It runs through May 8.

“Our class focuses in part on the practical application of Ethnic Studies theories and methods within a community context,” said Perez, who holds a dual Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies and communication from UC San Diego. “Being new to CSUSM, I figured as a class we could build community and amplify our conversations in Ethnic Studies locally on campus. When I was tasked with designing the display case to showcase the Ethnic Studies program, I thought it would be a great opportunity to turn this project over to the students.”

The interactive transmedia space aims to generate community dialogue about the histories, literatures and contemporary concerns of Ethnic Studies. Throughout the spring, this space will display research artifacts and projects created by students enrolled in ETST 301 and books relevant to, inspired by and produced for Ethnic Studies.

Flash lectures, writing workshops, impromptu performances and other activities will highlight the semester-long project. All of the events are free and open to the public.

Perez has been impressed with the work his students have created.

“The students have produced some very thoughtful blackout, erasure and cento poems based on Third World studies and Third World feminism,” said Perez, who was an assistant professor of English at Cal State San Bernardino before coming to CSUSM. “I think these sort of experiments are surprising because they provide new angles to encounter the histories of Ethnic Studies.”

Perez had his Cal State San Bernardino students produce a similar project but on a smaller scale. Pop-up art galleries, which have become so significant and inspirational the past couple of decades, helped form the basis for taking it to a grander scale.

He was also inspired by the recent pop-up library at Yale, staged by the Coalition for Ethnic Studies, that was created to address the lack of support for its Ethnic Studies faculty.

“The pop-up gallery and library has become such an empowering mode of community engagement,” said Perez, who is the author of two hybrid collections of prose and poetry, “Phenomenology of Superhero” and “This is for the mostless.”

“The pop-up format as a performance, as a public intervention, can really push the conversation further. Our efforts here are linked to a broader commitment to Ethnic Studies, its histories, it present and its futures.”

The project will also showcase a visiting lecture series featuring professors from San Diego colleges – including CSUSM assistant professor of communication Antonio Tomas De La Garza on April 28 – as well as a couple from Perez’s former school. Some of the topics include the struggle for Ethnic Studies, racial justice, women of color feminism, popular culture and educational justice.

In selecting the lecturers, Perez reached out to colleagues he has worked with or is currently working with.

“I’m part of the San Diego County Ethnic Studies Consortium, which is a collaboration among Ethnic Studies programs and departments across San Diego,” Perez said. “When I put the call out, and when schedules aligned, colleagues were more than willing to donate some time and energy and come build with our students.”

Budget cuts for almost five decades have threatened the future and stability of Ethnic Studies, according to Perez. However, that could be changing. AB 1460, if it passes, would make Ethnic Studies a graduation requirement for all CSU students.

“Ethnic Studies is about the students and their local communities,” Perez said. “Even as students are beginning to engage the questions and principles of Ethnic Studies, I think it’s important to always make sure those conversations happen and are understood in the broader context of social justice, decolonization and liberation.”

Flash Lecture Program

All flash lectures and programs will take place at 4:30 p.m. in an area near the gallery. 

• March 10: Dr. Angelica Yanez, Chicano Studies, Palomar College
• March 24: Dr. Thao L. Ha, Sociology, MiraCosta College
• April 21: Dr. Josen Masangkay Diaz, Ethnic Studies, University of San Diego
• April 28: Dr. Antonio Tomas De La Garza, Communication, CSUSM
• May 5: Dr. Jasmine Lee, English, Cal State San Bernardino 

For more information about the Ethnic Studies Pop-Up Gallery, follow Perez's Ethnic Studies & Society 301 students on social media:

Twitter: @csusmetstpopup

Instagram: @csusm.ethnicstudies 

Media Contact

Eric Breier, Public Affairs Specialist

ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314