Long Beach City College on Thursday dedicated its modern $102-million performing arts center to alumna and Latin music icon Jenni Rivera in a festive celebration worthy of “La Diva de la Banda,” as Rivera was known.
More than 50 students kicked off the program, performing as Los Vikingos de LBCC before a crowd of Rivera “fanáticos,” as board of trustees member Vivian Malauulu referred to the audience.
Rivera’s “success shines a bright light on Long Beach,” Malauulu said. The dedication of the space not only recognizes Rivera’s contributions as a musician, she said, but creates “an opportunity for our students to see themselves as artists and storytellers,” especially because Rivera’s story, one of hardship and perseverance, mirrors what so many LBCC students go through, she added.
“My mom’s story has always been one, not of perfection, but of resilience,” said Jacqie Rivera, Jenni Rivera’s daughter. “She wasn’t born into privilege. She fought tirelessly,” she said, referencing her mother’s journey through school while parenting and working for her father’s record label.
Jenni Rivera, a Long Beach native who became one of the most decorated Latin music artists before her death in a plane crash in 2012, left behind a local legacy. The city named a park near Chittick Field in her honor in 2015. Last September, LBCC inducted her into its hall of fame, announcing months later it would name the performing arts center for Jenni Rivera, who studied business at the college and went on to earn a degree from Cal State Long Beach in 1991.
After more than two years of construction, the state-of-the-art performing arts center opened earlier this semester, giving LBCC students access to a new auditorium and theaters, rehearsal and broadcast studios, editing rooms and classroom space. The sprawling complex, with more square footage than a football field, replaces Music Building G and Theatre Arts Building H.
The facility was paid for through Measures E and LB, bonds totaling nearly $1.3 billion, which fund construction, renovation and repair at LBCC. Additional funding came from the state of California and the Jenni Rivera estate.
In return for naming the performing arts center, Jenni Rivera Enterprises agreed to donate $2 million to the Long Beach City College Foundation over a decade. More than two-thirds of the gift will go toward scholarships and programs at the performing arts center and across the college, according to the agreement. Another quarter of the gift will be used to maintain the new facility.
As the first performance in the center’s new auditorium, two of Rivera’s daughters, Chiquis Sanchez and Jacqie Rivera, performed three songs in tribute to their mother, alongside Mariachi Divas de Cindy Shea — the first all-women mariachi group to win a Grammy Award.
Jacqie Rivera shared a message for all current and future LBCC students: “Never let your mistakes hold you back. Use them as a stepping stone for your future,” she said. “Every artist who walks through these doors, every young person who doubts themselves, every student starting over” will see Jenni Rivera’s name and remember she “started exactly where they are now.”