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On-campus center gives children a place to play
Detour: Mexican dance troop brings 5 nculture to Cal State Fullerton Sports: Titan baseball opens fall 9 ncamp with top-rated recruiting class
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t h u r s d ay
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O c t o b e r 12, 2000
Columbus Day incites several protests nNATION: Many schools, including CSUF, do not get the day off By Kelly Mead
Daily Titan Staff Writer Years ago Columbus Day was big. Students across the country painted pictures of Indians and sailors happily meeting in the New World. It was celebrated as the seed that ignited modern America. Major protests of the holiday that started in the early ‘90s have put the holiday in a different light. This year Native Americans gathered in Denver to protest a Columbus Day parade.
Despite all the controversy, many citizens have begun to regard the holiday as just another day. Cal State Fullerton didn’t get the holiday off. Both the elementary and high school systems of Fullerton went to school on Monday. Some schools in Los Angeles County had the day off, but the only people who were certain to take a holiday on Monday were government employees. Robin Grabyes, of the Human Resources Department at CSUF, said students didn’t get the day off because the school is allowed only a certain amount of holiday days a year. “There are holidays that other people get off that we don’t,” she said. “A lot of the days we combine together so we can have a whole week off later on.”
Michael Steiner, an American studies professor, said these protests could be the reason Columbus Day is becoming less and less of a holiday. “During the 500th anniversary, there was a lot of protest and people backed off of celebrating it. I think people are getting much more conscious of the horrific consequences of it.” Steiner said that, although he would condemn the actions of Columbus and his sailors, it is not always that simple. “We’ve got to be careful not to oppose our standards on the past,” he said. David Van Deventer, a history professor specializing in early American history, said it is hard to hold Columbus himself completely responsible for mistreatment of Native
Americans. He said that Columbus was in charge of the people who were doing the killing and, in fact, most of the Indians died of diseases the Europeans brought over. News accounts report that some protesters of the Denver Columbus Day Parade were comparing the celebration of the holiday to celebrating the Holocaust. Van Deventer said, though many Indians were killed, the Europeans had no intent of wiping out the Indians. “The Spanish hoped the Indians would be their workers,” he said. “There was no intent on the part of the Europeans to kill the Indians off.” Van Deventer also said that he does not
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looms Magic Kingdom
Gap not closing its
cloud
over
More than 200 straight days of Disneyland fireworks have raised concerns regarding health hazards to the surrounding neighborhood.
nRETAIL: The company had a recent drop in sales of 8 percent By Jamie K. Ayala
Daily Titan Staff Writer Anyone who likes bargain bins of capri pants and stretch work shirts doesn’t need to worry about The Gap’s doors closing permanently. Demonstrators began 24-hour protests at The Gap headquarters in San Francisco on Oct. 1, claiming that the corporation has been operating sweatshops and destroying redwood forests. The recent ‘scare’ prompted by environmental and human rights activists suggests that the retailer will be closing any day now because of bad business practices and a drop in sales by 8 percent last month. This drop is in comparison to last year’s increase of 7 percent. The corporation actually operated 656 more stores, up from 2,807 stores last year. According to the New York Stock Exchange the retail industry has dropped overall. “Our business continues to be challenging in a difficult apparel retail environment,” Millard Drexler, Gap Inc. president and CEO, said. “They’re just typical liberal northern Californians,” Alexandra Murphy said of the protesters. Murphy is a business administration graduate student who works in the retail industry. “The Gap is one of the largest retailers in the country. I’m sure its sales dropped because of competition, not the reasons of the protesters. “ Founder and major shareholder of Gap Inc., the Fisher family is also under fire because they own a lumber company. But the redwood clearings have no relation to the retail busi-
Grade schools seem to be treating the holiday indifferently. Nicole Holsinger, a first-grade teacher for Mango Elementary School in Fontana said that her students were in school on Columbus Day. On the first-grade level, the students are only taught the basics of the history. Holsinger said what older students are told depends on the teacher. “There has never been a change in the school,” she said, referring to how students are taught. “It’s left up to the teacher’s discretion.” The controversy of Columbus Day came to the spotlight in the early ‘90s when Native Americans started voicing their opinions against the status quo.
By Fermin Leal and Vu Nguyen The Daily Titan
i
t’s a scorching Wednesday night in early September. Hundreds of tourists stroll along the freshly paved Harbor Boulevard. Around 9:30 p.m., minivans and SUVs converge onto the parking lots of local Anaheim businesses. The crowds have huddled together to see Disneyland’s nightly firework show. Minutes later, their vigil is rewarded as the night sky erupts into a radiant spectrum of blue and green hues. Red flares festoon the dark sky as yellows and whites illuminate the redbrick walkway where the tourists ooh and aah from underneath the newly planted rows of swaying palm trees that extend 500 yards to Katella Avenue. When the spectacle ends, the ecstatic revelers walk away in delight. Some to their posh hotels. Others to a late dinner. The minivans and SUVs disappear into the night, like a caravan. But to Alejandro Robles, who lives just two blocks north of “The Happiest Place on Earth,” the show is just beginning.
Good Neighbors The same airborne fire flowers that bring so much joy to Disneyland visitors may be bringing something much more ominous to Robles and his low-income neighbors. Depending on how the wind hits, the clear summer sky turns into a dark smoggy haze often 10 stories high and half a mile wide, enveloping his neighborhood. About this time every night, his wife and children are forced indoors because they have a difficult time breathing. Every night for 200 straight days, since February, the stench of eye watering, sulfur-laden black smoke has made living downwind of Disneyland unbearable. The nightly shows run daily through Labor Day and on weekends the rest of the year. “The kids are entertained by the fireworks, but sometimes the smoke does get bad. When it’s windy, the smoke passes by quickly, but when it isn’t, the area gets really smoggy and smoky,” Robles said. “My wife has asthma and I have two kids that have asthma and when the fireworks go off, it really affects them and they have to go inside the house.” The bright lights that shine on Disneyland and its nearby businesses don’t make it into Robles’ neighborhood. The $546 million that Anaheim has plowed into improvements to the city seem to have passed these residents by. No rows of landscaped palm trees and gardens line his
PHOTO BY KRISTINA HUFFMAN
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Hip-hop group performs concert Titan extras at the TSU in front of large crowd nCAMPUS: Ugly Duckling gives a free one-hour concert at the Roundtable Pub By Samantha Gonzaga Daily Titan Staff Writer
David rivera/Daily Titan
DJ “Young Einstein” spins his records as he promotes his group
Long Beach-based group Ugly Duckling performed for a crowd this time. “We performed here [Cal State Fullerton] around a year ago,” Andy Cooper, one of the group’s front men, said. “Only about six people showed up to watch us. Of the six, two were
there because they were eating.” On Wednesday at noon, the group gave a free concert at the Titan Student Union’s Round Table Pub. Students from other schools, as well as CSUF students attended the performance. This contrasted to their previous stay on campus, as student spectators quickly filled up the small restaurant. A visible fan following could be detected in the crowd, as some followed along with the lyrics of rappers Cooper and Dizzy Dustin. At the turntables, Young Einstein supplemented the front men’s lyrics with beat variations. Cal Polytechnic Pomona student Ed Filart sat close to the front, one of the many fans familiar with Ugly
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Duckling. “They first started out as being more underground,” Filart said. “They do many hip-hop shows at clubs.” It’s been two years since 19-yearold Filart was first acquainted with their sound. “I like their break-beats,” he said. “It sounds very good.” CSUF student Amir Abghari heard them play at a rave — a venue which, he said, the group does not frequent often. “I heard them in a rave party, and liked them,” Abghari said. Hip-hop has an edge in the music industry and themes that it uses tend to lean toward the harsh qualities of life. Ugly Duckling was formed in
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Headaches, what causes them? Some answers can be found in mold.