La Plebe

Like most aerospace engineering majors, Ramon Riesgo (’91) had to study — a lot. 

When he was a student in the 1980s, the engineering majors claimed the library’s fifth floor as their study location and given the nature of the subject, the area got crowded at test time.

So as Riesgo recalled, he went looking for a quiet place where he could concentrate.  He found it a few floors down in a small reading room housing the library’s Chicano Collection.

“This room had three large six-seat tables,” he remembers, “and it was always empty.” But not for long.

“Three of us started sitting there and then one day somebody knocked and came in and started browsing and hearing our conversation and by the end of the first semester we had, like, 14 people using that room.”  More and more visitors dropped by to hang out and the formerly quiet little room became a gathering spot for a mostly male and largely Latino group of friends.

“It was like you needed to make reservations to go inside that room,” Riesgo said. “Those three tables?  We had people standing on the side!  It became more of a social area than a study area, to be honest.”

"I'm with La Plebe"

The close-knit group of a few students who had grown up in Yuma and come to SDSU from Arizona became an extended band of buddies.  They formed intramural basketball and soccer teams and soon gained a reputation across campus.

They needed a name, so Riesgo came up with one: La Plebe.

“In this region of Mexico where I used to play basketball, they had a phrase: 'The Gang,'  you know, 'I'm with the gang — I'm with La Plebe,'” he explained. “So I came up with that name and it stuck.”

Over the years Riesgo estimates several dozen students from various backgrounds became at least loosely associated with La Plebe.  Some were foreign students, most native Spanish speakers, but all from what he calls “kind of the fringe.”

“All of them were first-generation college attendees and their families,” he said.  “In order for them to survive whatever barrio they lived in or whatever ghetto they lived in or whatever high school they went to, they had to keep a low profile.”

Low profile, perhaps, but also high achieving. On campus they weren’t necessarily joiners — they were doers.

“We had the largest Latino group to graduate from San Diego State as engineers,” Riesgo said. “We had 23 people and they were all, in some way or fashion, related to La Plebe.”   

Staying in touch

When a proposal was made to close the Chicano Collection, the students of La Plebe signed petitions and raised money to keep it open.  Years later, when the Collection was once again threatened with closure, Riesgo struck a deal with the library dean; La Plebe donated a paver for the new library dome to keep the Chicano Collection intact.

In the years after graduation, the students of La Plebe went on to get good jobs, start families and move all over the country, but they have always stayed in touch.   Riesgo says the core group of about 35 – 40 people now extends to 70 – 75 including spouses and children.

He says La Plebe has three or four functions a year including picnics, a Vegas trip, a Memorial Day gathering and tailgates at Aztec football games.  This year, though, there was a special gathering to commemorate 30 years of friendship.

On December 5, more than two dozen local members of the group met at the Parma Payne Goodall Alumni Center to take an official 30th anniversary photo. SDSU President Elliot Hirshman, Ph.D. joined them for the picture in the rotunda in front of the giant Aztec statue.

Back on campus

For Carolina Martinez of Chula Vista, the photo provided an opportunity to meet up with old friends and revisit the university she hadn’t seen in at least five years.  She and the group took a tour of the campus that included a return to the library and a walk through the alumni center she had never seen.

“We just really wanted to come back to where we started - where we met,” she said. “This was the place that nurtured this relationship and this family - because we consider ourselves a family — that has retained a unique and very special bond."

Martinez thanked Riesgo for arranging the photo session and credited him as “the glue that holds us together.  She said she will always treasure the photo and hang it in a prominent place in her home.

The idea for the 30th anniversary observance came from Rafael Juarez, who now owns an engineering firm in San Diego.  He is one of the original Yuma members who started La Plebe.

“I'm very grateful that everybody's sticking together,” he said.  "There's a lot of comfort knowing those guys still have your back for any reason.”

Group dynamics

Juarez observed that the group’s dynamics haven’t changed much over the years.

"Nobody is bigger than anybody else even though we have some important people running around here,” he said. “We can still treat everybody like we used to when we were younger.  We don't call anybody 'Mister' or 'Doctor' or anything like that. 

“That's the great thing about it.  They've seen you at your worst and also your best and everybody's proud of everybody else and their accomplishments.

Riesgo, for example, became an aerospace engineer and now works for the General Services Administration.  He is director for the southern border and interim director for the northern border with 142 border crossings under his command.

"We're celebrating as a group, but we're also celebrating San Diego State because we would not exist without San Diego State," he said. “We're still the same group we were 30 years ago.”

Still La Plebe. Still part of “The Gang.”