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DiverseCity Tours takes students to cultural hubs around Los Angeles

DiverseCity Tours, run by UCLA’s Cultural Affairs Commission, provides free transportation to different areas around Los Angeles such as Chinatown, Little Tokyo, Koreatown and Little Armenia. The tours normally take place on Sundays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Niveda Tennety/Assistant Photo editor)

By Janice Yun

Nov. 12, 2019 12:55 a.m.

Students can travel to locations ranging from Chinatown, Little Tokyo, Koreatown and Little Armenia for free.

UCLA’s Cultural Affairs Commission provides free transportation to different cultural areas around Los Angeles under its DiverseCity Tours program. The program aims to take students out of the Westwood bubble and into various cultural hubs, where they can explore new places and experience the immense diversity the city has to offer.

So far, the tours have been in Downtown LA, where students were able to see what the city is like off campus and visit popular sites like The Last Bookstore and Grand Central Market. The tours normally take place Sundays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and the next tour will be visiting Smorgasburg on Nov. 24.

Kobia Stockhausen, a fourth-year sociology student and member of the DiverseCity Tours program, said the organizers of the program pick the locations of the tours themselves, researching their cultural histories and backgrounds. They aim to pick locations where businesses are owned by people of different ethnic groups. Some things the DiverseCity Tours organizers might look for in their locations include ethnic restaurants and cultural dance lessons or clothing stores, Stockhausen said.

“The whole point of CAC, in general, is education plus entertainment in a cultural context regarding arts and experience,” Stockhausen said. “So our goal is to provide a way for students to be able to explore LA and all the cultural hubs that are in LA.”

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Being a student at UCLA, Stockhausen added that she often feels trapped within the limits of campus and Westwood, and students don’t have easy access to affordable and fast transportation services to visit different areas outside the UCLA campus and Westwood. So far this quarter, the program has taken students to Downtown LA, and plans to go to Smorgasburg, as well as farther cities like Pasadena and Long Beach.

“We’re trying to pick places that are hard or take too long to get to by public transportation or are really, really expensive to Uber to,” Stockhausen said.

Before students leave for the tour, CAC members provide brochures with information about the historical and cultural background of the area, as well as what landmarks they can explore, said Angela Quan, a fourth-year history and sociology student working for DiverseCity Tours.

“I grew up in LA, so I know the area,” Quan said. “But others don’t, and they think it’s hard to get places when really it only takes 40 to 50 minutes, … so it gives them a chance to explore something that they might not ever had thought would be in reach.”

Brenda Garcia, a fourth-year world arts and cultures student who works for CAC, said the locations are brainstormed by staff at their weekly meetings, and they decide where the next tour will take place depending on what cultural events or activities are happening during the time they plan to visit. Students can find information and sign up for the tours through the Facebook events created by CAC members.

Garcia said each tour will last around five hours, and the pickup and drop-off location for the tour buses is on the corner of Gayley Avenue and Strathmore Drive.

“Anyone is welcome to join, so you can meet a lot of people from diverse backgrounds,” Garcia said. “Obviously, not everyone’s from LA, so it’s more of, like, getting to know people as well as the locations that we go to.”

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Focusing on the goal of “edutainment,” CAC’s DiverseCity Tours offers students an affordable and educational way to get away for the day with new people to experience a cultural spot in LA that they have never been to before, Garcia said. Students can take a break from studying and enjoy these mini-trips, while also being exposed to a wide array of cultures inhabiting LA and spending time with people of different backgrounds, Garcia said

“I feel like currently, our political climate is a little intense, so we like having activities that seek to create and foster relationships within students at UCLA,” Garcia said.

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Janice Yun | Arts and Entertainment Contributor
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