The LEGACIE+ Program partnered with the Arts, Business, and Cultural Division to host “Talk with Victor Rios” on Thursday, September 25, 2025. UC Santa Barbara Sociology Professor, Dr. Victor Rios was the keynote speaker at Rio Hondo College, on the 5th floor of the L-Tower. The event was open to all Rio Hondo students, staff, faculty, and administrators.
As guests arrived throughout the event, they were given a meal pass and a free copy of the book “Street Life: Poverty, Gangs, and a PHD.” Highlighters, stickers, and flyers were also provided at the sign-in table. At the beginning of the event, there were speakers prior to keynote speaker Dr. Victor Rios. The guest speakers included: Program Manager LEGACIE+ Dr. Reggie Robles, Arts, Business, and Cultural Programs Dean Dr. George Wheeler, Superintendent/President Teresa Dreyfuss, and President Board of Trustees and Trustee Area 5, Oscar Valladares.
Keynote Speaker, Dr. Victor Rios spoke about his life and perspective on how he bettered himself in life through determination and education. He explained how he went from gang involvement to earning a Ph.D to then becoming a social entrepreneur. He also mentioned that he initially wrote a textbook with “big words” that people from his old neighborhood could not understand. This is what inspired him to write and publish the book, “Street Life: Poverty, Gangs, and a PHD.” When the same audience read the book, they kept the copies and ordered more for others in the neighborhood.
Eventually, the book was well known in that community and most of the juvenile halls in California ordered those copies. At the end of his speech, there was a Q & A and the audience had an opportunity to ask questions and provide comments. After the Q & A, the audience was able to grab food and have their books signed by Dr. Rios himself.
LEGACIE+ is a program that serves men of color students at Rio Hondo College. The program allows opportunities for students to build community and personal growth through academic support, professional development, and mentorship. Inviting Dr. Rios to speak was an example that not only reached students in the LEGACIE+ program, but also the Rio Hondo community at large.
Dr. Reggie Robles explained that “Dr. Rios has a story that I felt could be very relatable in multiple ways to the student population here at Rio Hondo College. I also felt that the way that he speaks and story would connect with many from the Rio Hondo community.” Dr. Robles and his team decided to open this LEGACIE+ event to the entire campus because the team “wanted to create an inclusive space where all students, faculty, and staff could benefit from Dr. Rios’ powerful story and research, while also showcasing the mission of LEGACIE+ to uplift Men of Color and build campus-wide community.”
Dr. Robles also gave a shout to Dr. Wheeler and explained that the event would have not happened without the partnership between them for the event.
A student in LEGACIE+, Ricardo Villarreal shared how keynote speaker Dr. Rios’ speech was relatable to his journey. He mentioned that the Talk with Dr. Rios event was well organized, and Dr. Rios himself, was well rounded, and felt that he comes from the same demographic. Villarreal expressed it was the upbringing not from the streets, but “the community being surrounded by a little rough, a rough past kind of thing.”
Villarreal also shared how the event inspired him and how it showed him what he could possibly go through in the educational system from Dr. Rio’s own trials and tribulations. Villarreal explained that he himself “would have never thought of myself being a college person, but here I am with a 3.71 GPA, you know, like just powering through my classes, and I feel like he gave me more inspiration to keep going.” What he also wanted to add was that “there’s hope for all ethnic students to go and prevail, even from the demographic that they came from, whether rough or not so rough, it’s just keep pushing.”
LEGACIE+’s purpose of hosting Talk with Victor Rios was to bring some motivation and inspiration from someone outside the community of Rio Hondo College. The outcomes that the LEGACIE+ team was aiming for were met. “Students expressed feeling motivated and seen, while faculty and staff shared that Dr. Rios’ message resonated with their work.”
“The event drew strong attendance, sparked important conversations, and reinforced the need for culturally affirming support.” Dr. Robles said. A total of over 130 participants attended the Talk with Victor Rios. Dr. Robles expressed that the LEGACIE+ team is “grateful to the campus community for showing up with such energy and openness. This event reaffirmed the importance of creating spaces where our students feel seen and supported, and we look forward to building on this momentum.”
