Marcos Ruiz Rojas | July 8, 2026

On June 13th, the UCLA Labor Studies class of 2026 gathered with family and friends to celebrate a milestone years in the making. Commencement is always worth pausing for, but this year felt especially full, with graduates marking the occasion alongside the peers and professors who walked the journey with them.

This graduating class has lived through a remarkable stretch of crisis: the pandemic, wildfires, wars, ICE raids, repression and violence against student protesters, the curtailment of freedom of assembly and deep budget cuts that have hit the core of our academic mission. And yet, here they were, graduating.

Jennifer Jihye Chun, professor of Asian American studies and labor studies, opened the ceremony by noting that this year she has the honor of serving as the inaugural chair of the very first department of labor studies at UCLA, and in the entire University of California system.

“Some of you might be anxious about what the future holds,” Chun said. “Yet what we know from studying the struggles of working people, locally and globally, is that you cannot simply exterminate people’s quest for a life worth living, no matter how much the odds are stacked against you. People come together in the best of times and the worst of times to support each other, care for one another, laugh and cry together and do all the hard work of making our collective freedom dreams possible.”

Saba Waheed, director of the UCLA Labor Center, then introduced the ceremony’s keynote speaker, Senator Lola Smallwood-Cuevas.

Smallwood-Cuevas started her career as a journalist before she was called to labor organizing. While at the UCLA Labor Center, she launched the first Black Worker Center in the country, work that eventually led her to the State Capitol, though in many ways she had already been fighting for workers long before she got there. As Senator, she has secured landmark legislation to raise labor standards, expand access to justice for workers and ensure public investments support equitable economic opportunity. And she’s only getting started.

“You are graduating into difficult times, but difficult times do not arrive to destroy a generation,” she told the graduates. “They arrive to make the strongest one and to reveal the one that will change the world, and I am absolutely certain that your class, your generation, will be one of the strongest to lead this country. The challenges you have faced were not preparing you to retreat. They were preparing you for the courage you have shown and for your imagination to see something different, to stick through college, to stick with the promise. That is what your leadership is about, because the world is emerging around us and we need more dreamers like you. We need more who can imagine something different, a world where workers are treated with dignity, where their hard work is rewarded with security and opportunity and where housing, healthcare and education are not optional. They are rights.”

After her address, the crowd welcomed student speakers Diego Bollo and Karla Alejandra Perez to the podium.

Bollo graduated with two bachelor’s degrees in labor studies and political science. Diego is from Los Angeles and is the proud son of Zapotec immigrants from Mexico.

“This department trained us to examine the history of working people,” Bollo said. “This proudly included immigrant workers, domestic workers, young workers and those who have historically been left out of organizing altogether. An education that’s deeply rooted in solidarity. We have the privilege of connecting our academic coursework to real-world practitioners, people doing the work, leading the movement, shaping the future of labor in this city and beyond. And that’s why I’m incredibly proud to be a labor studies major.”

Perez, a proud immigrant from El Salvador, graduated with three bachelor’s degrees in labor studies, Chicano studies and political science, along with minors in community engagement and social change and Central American studies.

“Every person graduating today with a labor studies degree represents integrity, courage and a commitment to reclaiming power, to organize, to challenge and to transform,” Perez said. “We are a class that understands that power is built from the bottom up.” She closed with a call that echoed through the crowd: “A echarle ganas. Sí se puede.”

Between them, Bollo and Perez captured something the entire department holds close: that studying labor means studying the people who refuse to be left out of the story.

The ceremony also marked a bittersweet moment as the department honored the retirement of beloved faculty member Janna Shadduck-Hernández, a founding leader of the program for over two decades.

Introducing her, Waheed said, “Her courses have changed the lives of countless UCLA graduates, and her mentorship has shaped thousands of careers in labor, research and social justice advocacy. After two decades of extraordinary service, Professor Shadduck-Hernández is retiring.”

Shadduck-Hernández left the graduates with this: “We have lots of organizing, strategizing, learning and struggle ahead of us in the fight for justice, equality and peace. This journey will be challenging, and it will take collective tenacity and commitment, but I am confident that you, together, not only as individuals but as partners from the graduating labor studies class of 2026, will be at the fore of this fight.”

In total, the department conferred 62 bachelor’s degrees and 60 academic minors to the UCLA Labor Studies class of 2026.

The UCLA Department of Labor Studies is the first department of its kind at the University of California. Since its founding in the early 2000s, the academic program has been renowned for its commitment to engaged student learning in community worker settings, rigorous hands-on research and courses that explore urgent labor and social justice issues.

Watch more: Check out our video reels featuring highlights from the commencement ceremony on our Instagram page @uclalaborsd