The Cadena Cultural Center held its 15th annual Beat Cafe Open Mic on Feb. 26, at the campus quad where students from different cultures came to the stage to sing, dance or share poetry. At the showcase, they performed art with confidence that revealed their thoughts on prejudice, justice and their view of the world.
The Cadena Cultural Center, as noted on the school website, is the cultural diversity center on campus and provides a network of programs with services to create a welcoming campus. Although the Beat Cafe open mic was one of the events to promote Black History Month, it was open to all students. This year, it was about Black excellence to go with the 2025 theme “African Americans and Labor.”
About 14 performers came to perform at the podium for the quad audience. Although most were students, one performer was a TEDx Talks speaker and founder of a youth writers camp, Brandon Christoper Allen. He’s known for being a creative speaker and poet on Black empowerment.
“We had a Black excellence performer come through and give his poems out and show the beauty of growing up as a Black child in America,” said first-year student Sincere Brown.
Brown also mentioned there was a performer who showed the struggles of incarceration and coming back to school to try to make a better life for themselves.
Brown has prior experience of performing from doing theater in high school and was thrilled to be the host. He says he loves going to the Umoja Center when he’s not in class and loves to share opportunities and events like the open mic.
The event also included a duo performance of a majorettes dance, which includes a combination of jazz, hip hop, and ballet. Majorette originates from the Dutch word “Dansmarietjes,” which refers to the original carnival dances who twirled batons. This dance reached its way to the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) in the American South. Freshman students Mia Long and Aniya Davis said they performed the dance as a way to introduce majorettes since they said it’s never been offered at Fullerton College.
“Sometimes I get a little nervous, but once I’m there I feel better. It’s just maybe like a confidence thing, you know, you could just show people, like your skills,” said Long.
For Davis, the showcase exhibited the theme of the month of excellence for her to share her legacy. Their routine was a fan favorite and one of the performances that got the most applause.
“Black History Month means a lot to me said,” Davis. “I am Back and half of my family is black too, and that means a lot because it’s a month that is about us.”
Long and Davis plan on starting a majorettes dance club on campus so they can appear at football games and do battle of the bands competitions with other teams from different schools.
