Matthew Garcia-Ramirez got familiar with the financial aid office as soon as he arrived at UC Irvine. He applied to four-year colleges only after winning a last-minute scholarship from the California State Summer School for the Arts, where he had been on a full ride in their creative writing program. He was anxious to know when the scholarship would be disbursed, and how it would impact his loans and other scholarships.

“I was calling financial aid every single day trying to figure out how much I would need to pay. This is a really big number, I have no clue what I'm doing here,” he remembers. “But a year later, when some of my classmates and peers had never even been to financial aid, I was like, ‘Oh, I know someone there by name.’”

This, Garcia-Ramirez would come to see, was an example of the “community cultural wealth” he had inherited – the fearlessness, enthusiasm and curiosity that he brings to everything he does. And it will be one theme in his speech to fellow graduates at the UCI School of Social Sciences commencement on June 13, 2025, when he becomes the first in his immediate family to earn a college diploma – after just three years at UCI.

Building up

Garcia-Ramirez’ parents immigrated from Mexico, settling in Pomona, California, where his dad worked construction jobs, often bringing his son along to help move bricks or translate. Sometimes, Garcia-Ramirez worried that his background was a deficit, but through his courses, research, field work and campus leadership positions, he discovered the opposite was true.

“I wasn’t behind. Growing up low-income in a first-gen household was building me up,” Garcia-Ramirez says. “Now, when I am up on the stage talking about my dad's experience as an immigrant worker, it’s a form of resistance for me, too.”

Garcia-Ramirez was drawn to social justice issues from the moment he arrived on campus. After his first year, he chose to major in social policy and public service, in part because of its fieldwork requirement. Having graduated from an arts-focused high school, Garcia-Ramirez opted to intern with Create California, a nonprofit that advocates for equitable arts education across the state. He also returned to his high school to teach a poetry class and to interview first-generation, low-income alumni about their college aspirations for his research project.

“It was a full circle moment, looking at what led me here but also what’s influencing others who are like me,” he says. “Everything was connecting for me as I was doing that research, helping me make sense of my experience, and I just started to kind of expand.”

He continued this line of research in his senior honors thesis, exploring college persistence for first-generation, low-income, gay Latinos – embracing another facet of his identity. He also did field work through the School of Education at an Internationals Network Academy school site where students who are learning English are supported and their multilingualism is celebrated as an asset rather than a challenge to overcome.

“I see research as a form of advocacy, and that's something that's important to me. I'm learning from first-gen, low-income, Latinx gay students, what their experiences are, and then finding patterns and putting it into academia,” he says. “It’s so affirming to see people and to amplify their voices.”

Creating cariño

Garcia-Ramirez carried those themes into his campus leadership roles, as well. As a Student Parent Orientation Program staffer and then as a coordinator, he has helped thousands of students prepare to become Anteaters. Through SPOP, he also met his mentor Lesley Aguirre, Transition Programs Coordinator in UCI’s Center for Student Leadership, whose “ leadership, care, and empowerment have been instrumental in helping me create the change I wanted to see.”

 

After hastily trying to translate phrases like “financial aid” for Spanish-speaking parents, Garcia-Ramirez – with Aguirre’s support – created a group of student volunteers who would focus on practicing their own bilingual skills while providing parents at orientation with a sense of cariño – care. For the first time, SPOP even offered a campus tour in Spanish.

“It was so incredibly awesome to see parents go through the entire tour and feel included. At the end of the tour, they all did the “ZOT!” and it was just such an awesome moment for me to realize I played a small part in this and it's creating an impact.”

And the feedback from parents? “They said, ‘We feel cared for,’ which is exactly what we wanted,” Garcia-Ramirez says. “That is the project I'm most proud of.” In 2024, he and Aguirre gave a presentation about the program to the National Orientation Directors Association.

It’s not the only place Garcia-Ramirez has focused on creating a sense of caring. As a resident assistant, first in Middle Earth and now in Arroyo Court, he has mastered the art of organizing events for students that create conversation and opportunities for connection – slime night, making Taylor Swift-style beaded bracelets, or watching and discussing the Academy Award-winning movie Moonlight.

Sharing with others

All of his work supporting students on their higher education journeys led Garcia-Ramirez to want to pursue a career in student affairs. Last year, he earned an undergraduate fellowship from the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, and he was recently selected for the organization’s 2025 Dungy Leadership Institute. This fall, after being accepted to a number of graduate programs, he will go to The Ohio State University to pursue a master’s in higher education and student affairs while continuing to work at a student resource center.

“I view student affairs as what gets you to the point where you can enter the classroom, focus on your coursework, and not have to worry about if you're going hungry or wonder if you are enough,” Garcia-Ramirez says. “And I feel like that is what UCI has offered me, and in return, what I've done is share that with others.”

He’ll be sharing that with even more students at the School of Social Sciences commencement, where the audience will include his parents as he speaks about the advantages – not disadvantages – they offered him growing up.

“What I want to offer to incoming students is that they’re worth investing in,” he adds. “Exploration is so accessible on a campus like UCI, so be willing to try new things – you’re worth trying new things for.”

-Christine Byrd for UCI School of Social Sciences
-photo by Luis Fonseca, UCI Social Sciences