Warrior Life - Fall/Winter 2024

WHAT’S

28 Faith in Fashion

One in four community college students is homeless. This fashion student was one of them before she became the frst in her family to get a college degree.

63 My Big Fat Dating Encounter

Finding love as a plus-size woman can be a challenge but not impossible. See how this student was able to use a dating app to fnd Mr. Right.

18 Let’s Get Physical

Adaptive ftness classes help students with disabilities, from learning how to walk again to rebuilding muscle.

5 The Language of Trains

How one student’s hobby connected him to a community of train-lovers and railroad enthusiasts, developing into his lifelong passion.

46 Defying Gravity

These twin circus performers have spent years developing their profession. Now, they set their sights on the renowned, Canada-based Cirque de Soleil.

12

Reaching Above the Rim

Beyond coaching, Carla Shaw is a mother fgure and role model, inspiring the next generation of Warriors.

36 Animation

Isolation

For kids in the early 2000s, Japanese anime opened a new world. For one Japanese American, it led to questioning her own identity.

45 Frizzy Business

Looking for the best products to tame your mane? Here are 5 curly products that should be considered for your hair routine.

35

Trader Joe’s Recipes

From pasta and overnight oats to matcha, try these 5 easy, make-and-go Trader Joe’s recipes today.

INSIDE

60 Purpose in Praise

How one psychology major turned worship into an art through praise dancing, blending faith with movement to inspire her congregation.

26

Middle Child Syndrome

How being stuck in the middle helped this student fnd a place where she could fnally breathe.

58 Tik-Tok

Tailored

From feline prints to leather corsets and baggy jeans, check out these 5 Tik-Tokinspired styles on campus to fnd your next best ft.

10

Battling with Isolation

One student’s experience with handling mental health and its repercussions. Read about this student’s struggles.

38

From Chaos to College

Learn how the Guardian Scholars Program helps former foster youth succeed both in college and in their lives.

49

Unlocking the Door to ECC

Read about how this campus cowboy who comes to the rescue when the El Camino community has door and lock problems.

20 Baking Bonds

In 1984, an El Camino College alumnus bought a struggling bakery, unaware it would change his life and the city of Torrance forever.

44

Connecting through Injury

How hurting his ankle helped this student relate to his mother, who broke her legs when crossing the U.S. border.

52

Finding Her Rhythm

How one dance major found her passion for Latin dance in a city where bachata reigns and social dance thrives.

CONTRIBUTORS

+editor’s letter

By Angela Osorio

Ithere was one word I could use to describe this semester, it would be “new.” New, because we started with an almost entirely new staff, some who had no journalism experience. New, because we introduced an entirely different brand, revamping our social media, changing our logo and design. New, because we challenged ourselves to try new things – including learning how to use flash and lighting equipment for the first time –the day of our photoshoot. Yet, as much as our design may change, our heart behind every Warrior Life issue remains the same: to cover not just the prominent faces but the hidden stories, the heroes and oddballs, the advocates and the oppressed. People you might walk by on campus, never knowing they’re a physical therapy student who just learned how to walk again. Or that the man with a cowboy hat just happens to be our campus locksmith, who’s worked on thousands of doors for the past decade.That is who Warrior Life is. And that will never change. I hope you enjoy this issue as much as we enjoyed producing it.

Special thanks to everyone who collaborated with this semester –instructional assistants Doug Morino and Gerard Burkhart, the Photo Department, former staff writer Raphael Richardson and many more.

Editor-in-Chief: Angela Osorio

Social Media Editor: Ma. Gisela Ordenes

Designer: Chelsea Alvarez

Staff Writers: Chelsea Alvarez, Savannah Anderson, Eddy Cermeno, Camila Jimenez, Amari Jones, Erica Lee, Kim McGill, Jaylen Morgan, Ma. Gisela Ordenes, Joseph Ramirez, Sydney Sakamoto

Photographers: Chelsea Alvarez, Renzo Arnazzi, Eddy Cermeno, Katie Gronenthal, Erica Lee, Kim McGill, Angela Osorio, Angel Pasillas, Joseph Ramirez, Susana Reyes, Elsa Rosales, Sydney Sakamoto

Illustrators: Sofia Flores, Nikki Yunker, Isabella Espat, Kim McGill, Chelsea Alvarez

Advisers: Stefanie Frith, Kate McLaughlin, Nguyet Thomas

About us and how to join

Warrior Life is a student-run magazine located at El Camino College, 16007 Crenshaw Blvd., Torrance CA 90506. El Camino College students interested in being a part of the magazine must enroll in Journalism 9 for spring 2023 or contact student media adviser, Stefanie Frith at sfrith@ elcamino.edu for more information.

Photo by Sydney Sakamoto

Photo by Angel Pasillas

Cover photo by Eddy Cermeno

THE LANGUAGE OF TRAINS

How railroads have connected one student to an entire community

By Savannah Anderson

The first thing you notice about Richard Soriano is his hat.

He’s always wearing this murky green newsboy cap. Old-timey, but not old – no signs of dust or wear and tear. One might imagine he dusts that cap every night along with a pristine collection of newly restored British model trains. A black and white scene straight out of a vintage cartoon from the ‘20s.

Soriano has this way of speaking. It’s smooth and intentional, especially when he’s talking about trains. It’s quite the hobby for an 18-year-old engineering major at El Camino College, but

Soriano’s been charmed by the idea of trains ever since he was young.

For the past year and a half, Soriano has been a key member of the Lomita Railroad Museum, which is dedicated to educating the public on both the history and future of railroading. He and four other staff members, all under the age of 27, work as tour guides, groundskeepers and historians.

“We’re definitely not here for the money,” Alex Barnett, the museum’s 21-year-old manager said with a laugh.

Instead, their team is focused on uplifting the spirit of the museum. Each team member brings their passions to

the workplace, cultivating a rich atmosphere. It’s a place full of combined knowledge and skill sets. One person is a talented artist, another is a charismatic networker. They learn from each other and grow together as the museum grows with them.

They teach and encourage each other and anyone else sharing their passion for trains. Soriano has not been a stranger to the judgment others push onto him because of his interests, so he wants to make the museum a place where likeminded individuals feel safe enough to express themselves. Here, people can feel pride toward their love for trains.

Richard Sorian0, 18, hangs off a Southern Pacific caboose at the Lomita Railroad Museum on Oct. 13, 2024. Soriano holds a signal lamp, which was used by railroad workers to communicate at night. The museum has a collection of several examples.

Photo by Katie Gronenthal

Soriano’s interests began like many others. He was 2 years old when he was introduced to trains. His mother often played train documentary DVDs “Thomas the Tank Engine.”

It’s a common entry into the hobby for children nowadays, but it was different for children back then.

involved in the hobby through a spark of fascination and their parents help by funding it.

“I’ve noticed one thing small children, they come in and we’ve got the Thomas [the tank engine] stuff here,” Openshaw said. “They come in to play. A lot of them, they’re very young, and they don’t

I’ve always believed that when you do what you love, and you can do it well, then the money comes naturally.”

- Richard Soriano

Bruce Openshaw is a 75-year-old employee at The Original Whistle Shop, a model train store in Pasadena. He’s seen a range of ages come in and out of the store during the eight months of his employment, from young children below the age of 10 to elders in their 90s.

Openshaw was introduced to trains when he was a young boy. He and his father would often work on model train projects together, picking through pieces of a Lionel train set and watching it circle the track. It was his generation’s gateway to trains, a secret language he spoke with his father.

The age range of individuals interested in trains is diverse, according to Openshaw. Like him, many children get

realize what a train is but they love that!”

With the influence from both the children’s show and the original copies of “Thomas the Tank Engine” books from the ‘40s and ‘50s, Soriano’s interest piqued into a fascination for British trains.

His fascination, however, set swift concerns for his parents. Their idea of trains was attached to a children’s show rather than a stable future.

To his mother, a geriatric nurse, and his stepfather, an aerospace engineer, there was no money to be made in railroading. There was no future in a childhood dream.

Soriano had developed an opposite lens on life. His idea was that a good life

comes from experiencing the things you love. To follow someone else’s standard, would be a boring life to live.

“I’ve always believed that when you do what you love, and you can do it well, then the money comes naturally,” he said.

Understanding of Soriano’s interest wasn’t only scarce in his household, but also in school. When he was attending South High School in Torrance, he became all too familiar with the “Train Guy” comments his peers threw at him.

Something that, for so long, brought him a sense of wonder had become like a red stamp across his forehead branding him as different from everyone else. It was the pandemic and its quarantine that brought him closer to comfort, not only toward others with similar interests but also closer to himself and his hobby.

On Instagram, Soriano searched for a niche within a niche. Train hobbyists may be hard to come by on a day-to-day basis, but British train hobbyists were nearly impossible to find in America.

When Soriano was 14, he connected on the platform with then 15-year-old Adamn Maunser, a boy from England. Maunser introduced Soriano to other boys interested in British trains. For the first time, Soriano was exposed to others just as passionate about trains as he was. Freedom was a breath of fresh air with his group. There were no consequences for being unapologetically themselves.

The language of trains was buzzing vibrantly around them, solidifying their connection.

A Little Engines Railroad train sits in a display case in the Lomita Railroad Museum. Photo by Katie Gronenthal

Richard Soriano poses in the Southern Pacific Steam Locomotive waving his signature newsboy cap out the window.

Photo by Katie Gronenthal

Despite his parents concerns, Soriano grew into an individual of intellect, curiosity and eagerness. Railroads had captured his bright eyes from a young age, so engineering seemed like the perfect major. It gave him a good foundation and background in the mechanics of railroading, but also something he could lean on for a more stable career.

While he was busy collecting model trains and learning more about railroading everyday, he was also setting up for his future.

Soriano’s determination was clear: this hobby was not going away. This underlying empowerment simmered within him, emitting an energy that everyone around him could feel.

His parents felt it. Seeing their child step into his prime was an eye-opener and they continued to evolve into a strong support system. In 2023, they decided to fund Soriano’s trip to England where he would finally be able to meet with his gang of spiffy trainheads.

“They [parents] don’t see the fruits of your own labors until you really start expressing how much you love it and how beneficial it really is,” Soriano said. He stayed up for 24 hours to prepare for his trip. The plan? Stay up all day, sleep through the entire flight and wake up in a new world – England.

“I woke up when we were landing in Heathrow Airport for the first time,”

Soriano said. “I look down and I see this big cathedral-looking building and I was like, ‘Oh, I’m in England now!’”

Walking up to Maunser and his father after going through customs, Soriano immediately noticed the height. He was about 4 inches taller than Soriano.

He was blond, well put-together and, like Soriano, well-spoken.

Maunser and his father welcomed Soriano with open arms, and the boys hit it off right away. It was as if the years they’d known each other were their entire lives.

helped set a tone of acceptance for him. With them, he was able to explore and honor his interests without shame.

The Lomita Railroad Museum was another catalyst propelling Soriano’s dreams into reality.

The Lomita Railroad Museum sits nestled within a residential community, hidden from the rest of the city. It’s a quaint structure. The building itself is shamrock green while the arches curve around the windows and the pillars. The roof is a pale yellow.

Beside the building, “she” sits.

“You can empower yourself to find your own people and embrace what you love.”

-Richard Soriano

The railways in England were a far reach from the photos he was so used to seeing through pictures. In person, he was set on the desire to move to England where he would one day become a train engineer.

The move, of course, would have to wait, but the excitement took hold of him throughout the trip. He’d imagine himself getting his hands dirty, a brain full of history, a body running through an English museum like a steam engine. It was his group of online friends that

A shiny black, full-size steam locomotive steals the show.

After the museum’s founder, Irene Lewis, died, she left behind a large sum of money to keep the museum running. Currently, it is funded through the city of Lomita, the museum’s gift shop sales, and rental facilities.

The Lomita Railroad Museum throws an annual summer event called The Night at the Railroad Museum, featuring live music, historical renactment groups, and a vintage car show. Photo by Katie Gronenthal

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the museum took a big hit. It was closed for two years and many of the staff and volunteers left. Coupled with the lack of interest from the public, the museum was left with a little less life than what it first began with.

It was up to the museum’s current team, this new generation of train lovers, to bring it all back.

It wasn’t just the passion, but the

by Savannah Anderson

action. Together, they planned a plethora of events, most notably, their annual Night at the Museum summer event.

The Night at the Railroad Museum was created as a “live history” event, where attendees dress in attire from the 1850s-1950s. There’s a live band playing jazz, people dancing around the courtyard, a vintage car show, and even a historical reenactment group.

“We did have a generational loss there [because of COVID]. We really, I believe, brought some of the soul back to the museum after that,” Barnett said.

Walking into the museum is like being transported into a vintage rail station waiting room.

Lanterns and marker lights hang from the wood ceiling. Framed photos and traffic signs line the walls. Glass case boxes display artifacts, freshly restored by staff.

On a sunny Friday afternoon with the first breeze of autumn sweeping through the leaves, Barnett sat at a folding table pushed against the wall next to the window in the museum’s small office. Min Tsolomon, another staff member, sat at one of the desktops, mumbling about research.

Tsolomon had purple-streaked hair, round glasses, and wore vintage attirean Edwardian navy blue skirt, a white blouse with a ruffled collar and black ankle boots.

Lola wasn’t too far away, all warm and snug in a high chair in the corner of the room. She’s a grey tabby cat who often spends her time in the museum.

Soriano was sifting through a box of artifacts, hands moving back and forth between the box and the desktop where he was editing his plaque design. Each time, he’d speak about these inanimate objects as if they were living, breathing beings.

“Context clues… where are you from?” he said, holding up a rectangular slip ofpaper. His eyes scanned the surface as he hummed an old-timey tune to himself.

“New Jersey… 1944, so… intuition says that’s too late.”

He was in his element, all parts of his mind whirring like the mechanical workings of an engine. He was soaring through a box full of history, hands made to take care of the past. A heart that pumped for his hobby.

Despite judgment from family and peers, he has worked his way into this environment led by passion and resolve. Moving on from past insecurities, Soriano has looked outside of himself to build community, and now he’s able to fully dive into what he loves.

“You can empower yourself to find your own people and embrace what you love,” Soriano said.

Photo

Richard Soriano holds a copy of Thomas the Tank Engine: The Complete Collection. He credits the book as the start of his interest in trains. Photo by Katie Gronenthal

Isolation Battling with My

By Chelsea Alvarez

e xperience defeating anxiety as the enemy

When I opened my eyes, I realized I was in the bathroom stall, sitting on the floor with a lingering aftertaste from my vomit.

My teacher knocked on the stall door and asked if I was OK, snapping me back to reality. I was bewildered at how I got here in the first place.

Anxiety has impacted my life, making me miss out on every coming opportunity. It led to depression and a negative mindset.

I often felt like the loneliest kid. I struggled to manage or understand my emotions. Realizing I was isolated and in need of a solution, I wanted something new. I just wasn’t sure how to get there.

Later, in the nurse’s office, I was still confused about why this blackout happened to me and where it came from.

I wondered if it was a stomach bug or something else.

In the summer of 2009, when I was 8 years old, my family and I moved from Los Angeles to Texas in a town called Allen. They wanted to experience a new environment, which was an exciting adventure for me.

Fall came around and it was the first day of fourth grade at my new school, although I was starting a week late. I was excited to meet my new teacher and classmates.

Before I walked in to introduce myself, though, a sudden blackout overshadowed me. My chest was pounding so loud that my eyes. developed tears. This wasn’t a temporary illness but the beginning of a misery that would continue throughout the first week of school.

I had to stay and rest at the nurse’s office; I lay there, trying to understand the overwhelming emotions I had. Eventually, the school arranged for me to meet the school psychologist. She sat me down and gathered information, later explaining that I may have developed anxiety. I did not understand how to put it or explain it to others; I was just a kid.

After four months, we decided to move back to Los Angeles. I was ready for a fresh start. However, I still had continuous blackouts and frequent visits to the nurse’s office. I had the same reaction regardless of the environment. I was known as a shy kid, but I did not feel shy. This thing I had was taking over my mind and body.

It got to the point where my family and school thought I was doing it for

Illustration by Sofia Flores

attention. I wasn’t. I knew there had to be a way to work with this.

A year later, when I was 10, I attended a summer camp, missing half the week and spending time with the nurses. My mother thought it would be a great environment to break me out of my shell, but unfortunately, that didn’t go as planned. My body felt weak, and I couldn’t eat or move.

One night, while visiting the camp nurse, I experienced several episodes. My body was releasing everything to the point it released blood.

I froze, seeing the blood spill out of my mouth. I wanted this to stop. I felt out of place; not knowing who I was and what I was afraid of.

I missed out on numerous opportunities and felt disconnected from academics, friends, and activities. With the anxiety, I faced challenges in attending school and not being able to partake in a social environment.

It was challenging. Whenever I felt an attack approaching, I tried to hold it in to avoid drawing attention. I would try to control my breathing by taking five deep breaths–leading me to have chest pain for an entire year. I slowly developed chronic headaches and acute tics. I tried to distract my mind from the pain by exploring new hobbies and interests.

According to Medical News Today, about 25% of people will experience chest pain during their lifetime. Researchers don’t know exactly what causes anxiety disorders but it’s likely a combination of biological, genetic and environmental factors.

From movies, I learned that it’s easier to talk to people by engaging with others who share similar interests and are passionate about them. For me, it started with someone wearing a Dr. Who shirt. This was a great start, as it helped me connect with the person and open up.

“My body was releasing everything to the point it released blood.”

My mental health worsened, which led to a deep depression.

I truly felt like the loneliest kid. Movies, shows, books and other entertainment were my getaway. I found joy and comfort in watching characters I resonated with, including Charlie from “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” or Walter Mitty from “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.”

One character that inspired me was Ferris Bueller. Although I felt more like Cameron, Ferris was different; everyone loved and admired him.

If I wanted to be like the people I admired, I had to adopt a new mindset.

Later, I started a junk journal to process my thoughts by writing whatever was in my mind. I noticed after writing down my initial thoughts, I would have a second opinion and write that too.

My love for entertainment grew further when I had the opportunity to attend events, including Comic Con.

Over time, I got better at managing my emotions and anxiety. I made friends and got great opportunities to network and land a job I could do without a doubt.

I became comfortable being with myself and exploring new environments. I haven’t had these feelings in years. As an adult, my mind is now focused on navigating my 20s.

Along my journey, I learned from others who also suffer from anxiety that they had similar feelings for example, morning nausea or physical fidgeting. Understanding that you are not alone is essential to getting support and finding healthy coping strategies.

If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, check out these resources for support

Student Health Services at El Camino College Location: 16007 Crenshaw Blvd, Torrance, CA 90506

Hours: Monday through Thursday: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday: 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Contact: ECCStudentHealth@elcamino.edu 310-660-3643

Emergency: Call 911 immediately.

After-Hours Emotional Crisis Line: 310-660-3377, 24/7

National Suicide Hotline: 800-784-2433, 24/7

LA County Dept of Mental Health ACCESS: 800-854-7777, 24/7

Confidential Crisis Textline: Text COURAGE to 741741, 24/7

El Camino College Police Department: 310-660-3100.

Illustration by Chelsea Alvarez

Illustration by Chelsea Alvarez

Illustration by Chelsea Alvarez

REACHING ABOVE THE RIM

Carla Shaw is a role model and mother figure to players on and off the court, inspring the next generation of Warriors.

By Jaylen Morgan

To the Warriors basketball team, Carla Shaw is seen as a mother figure and role model. “She’s a very caring coach, she always makes sure we’re okay and checks on us, also the way she makes us comfortable.” Psychology major Siobhan Baltazar, 20, said. Photo by Angela Osorio

On a Monday afternoon, inside El Camino College’s gymnasium, the women’s basketball team is getting ready for practice.

Some players are doing their stretch routines and others are getting shots up. In the background, R&B music plays. The players sing along to Tyrese, then you hear: “Hi Coach Carla.”

Carla Shaw, 35, is wearing a blue El Camino hoodie, black Nike sweats and white Nike shoes. With a smile that makes the gym glow, the players smile back at her. She puts her bag down, her straight hair swinging back and forth.

“Baseline, baseline, baseline,” she calls out the players. Walking toward her is her father, women’s basketball coach Steve Shaw and the other coaching staff.

“We are working on our fastbreak drill transitioning to our offense,” she said.

Standing with her arms folded, focusing on the players executing the plays right, she paces back and forth talking to players on the baseline and on the court.

Carla Shaw is one of four coaches for the El Camino women’s basketball team. She’s an assistant coach along with her father Steve Shaw. She also coaches with Janina Hartwill and Mike Houck.

This will be Carla Shaw’s 11th season at El Camino. She started in 2014 and in her first year, the Warriors won the South Coast Conference championship. She’s seen her players earn Division II scholarships and NAIA offers, including from Cal State Dominguez and Cal State Los Angeles.

Carla Shaw attended Redondo Union High School from 2003 to 2007 and played basketball. After high school, she attended El Camino College from 2008 to 2010, coached under Steve Shaw.

“I always say soccer was my first love, but basketball is my forever,” she said. “I didn’t start playing basketball until I was a little older,my dad wanted to be a father first, rather than a coach.”

After her playing days at El Camino she transferred to William Jessup University, a Christian college in Rocklin, California, where she played basketball from 2010 to 2012.

“Leaving, going up north to William

Jessup was a huge transition, not only leaving my family but adjusting to a new environment alone and playing basketball,”she said.

Women’s basketball has showed a steady incline since 2023, trending in college and the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA).

Players including Catlin Clark, Angel Resse, Juju Watkins and Paige Beckers have been taking the game by storm.

Imani Mcgee-Stafford, a professional basketball player who was drafted 10th overall in 2016 and played four years in the WNBA and plays overseas now spoke about the incline of the sport.

“The WNBA is the best league in the world and women’s basketball is just

the best. I played before the attention but I’m glad of the recognition now,” Mcgee- Stafford said. During the 2024 NCAA Women’s March Madness Tournament, viewership sky rocketed. During the championship game against Iowa and South Carolina, it averaged around 18.7 million viewers and peaked at 24 million combined on ESPN and ABC.

The Men’s NCAA tournament final between Connecticut and Purdue viewership was 14.82 million on TBS and TNT.

The Los Angeles Sparks are now practicing at El Camino campus on a year to year deal. “The Sparks wanted a close facility that was accessible

Photo by: Angela Osorio

Prior to coaching at El Camino College, Carla Shaw was the girls’ basketball and volleyball coach at Redondo Union High School. “She’s a great coach, the way she connects with the players and how the players look up to her,” Steve Shaw, her father, said. Photo by Angela Osorio

for them. They also chose El Camino because of the brand facility we built,” said Jeff Baumunk, interim dean of athletics. The deal was first made in 2023 and El Camino hopes to keep this long term.

The Sparks being on campus brings a lot of attention and helps elevate women’s basketball. “ Having a professional team like the Sparks on campus is huge. We have seen an increase in women wanting to play on the team and taking classes,” said Jeffery Miera, Director of Athletics & Kinesiology.

On the court she her eyes are always lurking, making sure that the players understand and engage. She pulls players to the side to talk and helps them with what’s going on the court. The players have eye contact, nodding their heads as they listento her.

Carla’s sister, Erica Shaw also attended El Camino the same time as Carla and is in the Warrior Hall of Fame for swimming. She also played water polo as well.

Women’s basketball assistant coach Janina Hartwill and Carla Shaw were teammates at El Camino College from 2008 to 2010.

During her playing days at William Jessup University she played a lot of guard and forward. She played guard and forward, her all around game had her succeed. She had some injuries including shin splints that recurred. Over time, shin splints turned into stress fractures on her legs.

“Shin splints are a painful injury, it takes a lot on your legs and it’s a process

to heal. There were times when my legs would like snow and I couldn’t barely walk,” Shaw said.

Before coaching at El Camino, she coached the girls basketball team at Redondo Union High School from 2007 to 2008, then came back to RUHS to

psychology major, said.

Carla Shaw always had the idea to adventure out being a head coach at any level but would rather be an assistant coach.

This helps her spend more time with her 6-year-old son Kairee and not

“I always say soccer was my first love, but basketball is my forever.”

-Carla Shaw

coach from 2012 to 2014.

“She’s a great coach, the way she connects with the players and how the players look up to her,” Miera said. “The players view her as a mother figure because of the way she cares for them and connects with them.”

Carla Shaw received a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts from Willam Jessup and is a part-time teacher for homeschooled kids. She teaches world history and ancient history to third through 12th grade.

She taught full time at First Lutheran Church and school for some time.

Carla said she loves being an assistant coach and coaching with her dad. She also appreciates how the team accepts her son being at practices.

“She’s a very caring coach, she always makes sure we’re OK and checks on us, also the way she makes us comfortable,” Warriors forward Siobhan Baltazar, 20,

wanting to take a bigger role until the right time comes.

“As a single mom it would be hard to be a head coach, being an assistant is what I love to do. There are times I do want to give up coaching but it fits my schedule and I can bring my son to work with me,” Carla said.

Steve Shaw said Carla can coach for any program as a head coach.

“She has the credentials but we love having her here connecting with the players and the relationships she’s built with them,” Steve Shaw said.

Carla Shaw plans to stay at El Camino in the long-run, though she would consider other opportunities if they came her way.

“I love being a coach, I’ve always loved the game of basketball. I always say if I had to give it up I would but I love to teach and love this program, basketball is my forever,” Carla said.

Carla Shaw gives advice to freshman guard Aisha Burton during the scrimmage against Santa Ana on Oct. 18, 2024. In her first year at El Camino as an assitant coach, the women’s basketball team won the South Coast Conference championship.

Photo by Renzo Arnazzi

Assistant women’s basketball coach Carla Shaw didn’t always start off playing basketball. She initially played soccer, as her father encouraged her to wait until she was older before starting basketball. “I always say soccer was my first love, but basketball is my forever,” she said. Photo by Angela Osorio.

SPOILED

American students are pampered. They just don’t know it.

By Ma. Gisela Ordenes

STUDENTS

Illustrations by Nikki Yunker

The room looks so much bigger from this angle. This was my first thought the first time I lay down on a pile of old rolled-up mattresses that would serve as my makeshift bed for two years.

Am I doing the right thing? This would be a persistent question especially when the cold months started arriving and the three single half-inch foam pads piled on top of one another would not be enough to protect my back from the cold floor.

Those were the times when I would most miss the queen-sized bed with a six-inch mattress that I had back in Manila.

As an international student, staying with my mother in Harbor City would save me tuition money.

Every night, looking at the ceiling before closing my eyes for the day, I would question my decision to go back to school for yet another degree.

I wasn’t deluded enough to think that I could turn the tide. But I wanted to do my part.

The academic counselor told me to take journalism classes instead. I am taking both.

Revisiting the why would be my inner pep talk.

Other than that small matter of my sleeping arrangement, being a student in the United States is easier than being a student in the Philippines.

It was easy enough to quit. After all, I already had two bachelor’s degrees in public administration and law.

But every night, I would think of the 25 million students in the Philippines who would scoff at this inconvenience and probably tell me to quit my whining.

In June 2022, I was visiting my mother in the U.S. when the Philippines elected the son of a Philippine dictator as its 17th president.

Thirty-six years after they fled the country because of a bloodless revolution that international media dubbed as People Power, the Marcos family successfully reinstalled themselves in Malacañang Palace, the seat of power.

Thanks to an election marred by widespread lies, propaganda and systematic revision of Philippine history through fake videos and social media posts, the namesake of the dictator won by a landslide.

Like many Filipinos who had become disillusioned by the political landscape in the country, I felt I couldn’t return home until I had armed myself with the skills to take on the lies.

I decided to take film classes, to learn how to expose the truth through cinema, the same medium Philippine politicians use to disseminate untruths.

There are plenty of support services for students here.

When the pandemic forced schools to adopt online learning, the Philippines, a developing country, didn’t have the infrastructure to support this style of education.

Internet service was bad even for those who could afford it. In a country of 109 million, only 56.1% of households had internet access. Reuters reported in 2021 that students had to “scale roofs and trek up mountains” to catch an internet signal.

Around the same period, 90% of U.S. households had broadband interne

At El Camino College, there was a program that lent wifi hotspots to students. While it has been discontinued, the L.A. County Library recently introduced a program where students can borrow portable hotspot devices for six weeks.

And there’s the matter of getting to school. Owing perhaps to California’s car culture and its proud heritage of being “the world’s first auto-civilization,” public transport here is disappointing.

driving, the experience is still more comfortable – by a mile – than taking public transport in Metro Manila.

Plus here, students who can’t or won’t drive can get a free bus pass. The Metro U-Pass gives unlimited bus rides to various bus lines and is available at the El Camino Basic Needs Office.

The L.A. County Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the L.A. Department of Transportation recently rolled out a pilot program offering free prepaid transportation cards to lowincome residents. Each person selected can get as much as $1,800 in free rides to Metro lines.

Most Filipino students would trade these for their morning commute.

Like the elementary students in a remote village in Rizal who had to ride an inflated tire tube so they could cross the river to get to school. Or those who take a raft, cross a rope bridge or even swim to school.

Then there’s Lizabel Lansican, who, at 11 years old in Maguindanao in Southern Philippines, had to walk six hours “through cornfields and rivers” every day just to get an education.

El Camino students can also borrow laptops and calculators from the library and get help with homework and writing assignments from tutoring programs around campus.

It’s certainly not something one would expect of the world’s richest country.

The bus schedule is erratic; sometimes it will take two hours of waiting before a bus arrives.

The buses aren’t pristine; sometimes you’ll see a trickle of urine snaking down the aisle from an unwashed passenger.

And taking the bus is not as safe; sometimes a fistfight would break out and it will take your non-existent kung fu skills to dodge a wayward punch.

While riding the Torrance Transit or L.A. Metro is not as convenient as

Free quick snacks are available in select areas around campus and there is free food and toiletries at the Warrior Pantry. There’s free clothing from the Warrior Closet.

There are also referrals for child care and temporary and permanent housing programs. Mental health services are provided to students.

It’s apples and dalandan comparing the two, some might say. Dalandan is Filipino for orange.

You can even argue that this is a classic case of schadenfreude, or pleasure derived from another person’s misfortune.

Maybe.

But I’ve experienced going to school both in the Philippines and the U. S. Sometimes it takes a different perspective to appreciate that a room can look so much bigger from another angle.

Let’s get

hysi

cal

Adapted exercise classes help students with disabilities get groove back

By Ma. Gisela Ordenes

The ground floor of the Pool and Classroom Building has seen its share of miracles.

A 77-year-old woman who lost the ability to stand learned how to walk again.

A 58-year-old man whose right side of his body became paralyzed is driving to school once more.

A 32-year-old student with autism finds peace and relaxation while floating in the pool.

And a 94-year-old asthmatic student breathed new life into her daily activities because of chest exercises.

Located at the heart of the campus, the L-shaped structure houses El Camino College’s adapted physical education classes.

“Students have different disabilities, exercise experience, fitness goals, so all of their exercise programs are tailored towards their health conditions,” Adapted Physical Education Coordinator Jae Lim said.

The Adapted Physical Education Program currently has 132 students, ranging from 18 to 94 years old. Some of them have been with the program for over 25 years.

Classes are open to all; anyone can take a class.

The program is under the Division of Health Sciences and Athletics.

When students want to remain in the program after their first class, they must get a referral from El Camino’s Special Resource Center, Lim said.

The World Health Organization estimates 1.3 billion people have a significant disability. That means 16% of the global population or 1 in 6 people experience disability.

Federal and state laws mandate that students with disabilities have the right to equal access to higher education.

At El Camino, it is the Special Resource Center’s goal to provide accommodations to assist students with disabilities.

The program offers both land-based and aquatic classes.

Land-based classes include adapted fitness, adapted strength training, adapted cardiovascular exercises and adapted yoga.

These classes are in Room 119 of the Pool and Classroom Building.

Known as the Adapted Fitness Room, it has specialized equipment that caters to persons with disabilities.

“The exercise machines have adapted features, like removable seats for wheelchair access and easier transfers,

reclined seats for back support, smaller weight increments, and other adjustable options to accommodate each individual’s needs,” Lim said.

Aquatic classes consist of adapted swimming and hydro-exercise and are held in the two indoor heated pools.

Carole Hoshiko, 94, has been with the program since the early ‘90s.

Because of her health, she had to retire early from her office work at Carson High School, part of the LAUSD.

Hoshiko said she was very ill. “I had asthma and I was going to a pulmonary education program at Little Company of Mary,” she said.

One of the professors came to their monthly meeting and gave a lecture on the importance of exercise.

“He mentioned that for asthmatics, exercise would really be good and it may improve our condition,” she said.

Hoshiko said the people she met in the program helped her.

“You meet a lot of people with maybe the same condition, or they might have it a little harder, but I see how they try to work and it gives you encouragement to do the best you can, too,” she said.

“I used to go like [a] tornado,” Salma Farkouh, 77, said.

George Zamora, 32, floats in the shallow pool at the Adapted Pool on Oct. 15, 2024. The pool is Zamora’s happy place and floating is one of his favorite activities. “It’s very peaceful,” Zamora said. Photo by Angel Pasillas

She was physically active and was always on the move.

But when she was 54, she could no longer stand for long periods. She was diagnosed with fibromyalgia.

She lost her job as a salesperson at Macy’s in Del Amo Fashion Center when it was still called Bullocks.

Farkouh has been with the program for 16 years. It helped her walk again. Twice.

“Baby steps,” she said.

She was so happy with the adapted physical education classes that she also enrolled in computer classes.

Farkouh is from Cairo and fluent in both Arabic and French but wanted to improve her English grammar.

In 2019, while attending her grammar class at El Camino, she tripped on a backpack left on the floor. She had to get knee replacements as a result.

She had to relearn how to walk again.

She was depressed for six months but when her classmates came to her house to tell her they missed her, it pulled her out of her depression.

Every Tuesday and Thursday, she goes to the strength training class followed by the adapted swimming class. She uses a walker but thanks to the program, she has a new zest for life.

Oct. 6, 2009.

The day is imprinted on Starlin Jones’ memory. It was the day he had a stroke while picking up his kids from schools.

He felt his leg throbbing. “So after picking up my last kid, I went to the house and I started running up and down the steps to get the kink out of my leg,” Jones, 58, said.

Before the stroke which left the left side of his body paralyzed, Jones owned a moving company.

He was unaware that he had high blood pressure and diabetes.

Jones was in the hospital from Oct. 6, 2009 to Jan. 10, 2010. He enrolled in El Camino’s adapted swimming class two days after getting out of the hospital on the advice of his therapist.

He also got rid of the wheelchair he was using in the hospital.

He was doubtful at first. “Being in the water, it like insulates you, and so it took away my fear to move,” Jones said. “So I started moving in the water, just back and forth, just walking the lanes, and it gave me enough encouragement that I could trust myself.”

It took four years before he got a new driver’s license. But it took another three before he could drive again.

He earned three associate degrees in that time.

“Before I would start driving, I got acclimated by just riding the bus, walking down the street, you know, all that stuff had to come back real slowly,” he said.

In 2016, seven years after his massive stroke and intracranial hemorrhage, Jones bought a car.

Jones said he can’t dress himself so a helper comes the night before to help him put on shirts and pants.

“My ultimate recovery goal is to get ready and be self-sufficient, right? So instead of taking a big goal, I take small, proximal goals, like, you know, just getting up in the morning and getting myself dressed,” he said.

Today, he accomplished two “small” goals: making breakfast and driving himself to his strength training class.

He’s getting to where he wants to be, slowly but surely, he said.“I drove myself here, you know, just little things that I can attain and help me get to the bigger picture,” he said. ***

The rock band AC/DC’s song blares from a small, rectangular Bose Bluetooth speaker at the foot of the pool as the thick smell of chlorine fills the air.

Amid the noise and the smell, George Zamora, 32, floats on his back from one end of the shallow pool to the other.

He does this repeatedly for 40 minutes, until the clock says “12:10.”

“It’s very peaceful,” Zamora says.

The pool is Zamora’s happy place. He looks forward to his swimming classes every Tuesday and Thursday.

Zamora and three other classmates take the No. 5 bus from Easterseals Cota to El Camino accompanied by their lifeskills coach.

Easterseals is a nonprofit that provides disability and community services, including autism services that Zamora and his friends need.

When they arrive at the Pool Classroom Building, their life-skills coach can't go with the three men to the men’s locker and shower room.

Zamora makes sure the three of them come out of the locker room in their swimming clothes.

He also reminds the other two, ages 29 and 32, to bring their bags.

As soon as the bags are deposited securely with their life-skills coach, Zamora goes into the water, lies flat on his back and stares at the ceiling.

Sometimes he closes his eyes and just floats steadily on the water.

His other favorite thing to do is play his Nintendo Switch.

“My dream job is to work at GameStop,” he says.

‘Cause I’m T.N.T.

I’m dynamite

T.N.T.

And I’ll win the fight

Bon Scott, lead vocalist of AC/DC, sings as Zamora floats away.

Carole Hoshiko, 94, does chest exercises on a multifunctional weightlifting station on Oct. 24, 2024 at the Adapted Fitness Room as Adapted Physical Education Coordinator Jae Lim looks on. Photo by Angel Pasillas

Salma Farkouh, 77, swims across the shallow pool at the Adapted Pool on Oct. 15, 2024. Photo by Angel Pasillas

Baking Bonds & Community

In 1984, a 27-year-old El Camino College alumnus took a risk when he opened a bakery. Today, he runs a Torrance landmark serving everyone from students to the Dodgers and Taylor Swift.

By Erica Lee

It’s 9 a.m. on Sept. 20 and all anyone can think about is baseball. Three men commune over coffee and doughnuts in front of Torrance Bakery.

Their laughter reach a fever pitch as they recount the thrilling events from last night’s baseball game.

The night before, Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers sealed his place in the record books when he became the first player to achieve a 50/50: 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in one season.

Kirk Rossberg is just about to enter the bakery when he picks up on the rabble.

Earlier that morning, he had checked in on graphic designer Gabe Soy about the progress of the Ohtani 50/50 cookies that he planned on selling at the bakery to celebrate the milestone.

He gives the men an enthusiastic greeting before joining them at the table.

“Did you see the way that Ohtani swung that?” Rossberg began before mimicking the swing of a bat. “Isn’t he the first one to pitch 50/50?”

Rossberg, 67, stands out from the T-shirt and short clad throng in chinos and a white button-down. He wears the embroidered “Torrance Bakery” logo on his shirt with pride.

With a megawatt smile as white as his hair and sky-blue eyes shining behind black-framed glasses, Rossberg bears a striking resemblance to actor Ted Danson. Only, the “Good Place”

Rossberg runs isn’t in the afterlife.

It can be found in the heart of downtown Torrance.

Since Oct. 19, 1984, Rossberg has served as the owner and president of Torrance Bakery.

This past summer, Rossberg, his 117 employees and the city of Torrance celebrated the bakery’s 40th anniversary. It is a milestone marked along the way from its humble beginnings during a difficult time in Torrance’s history to its rise as a beloved local institution with a reach that goes far beyond the city.

Rossberg is a homegrown baker whose roots are sown deep in the South Bay.

During his freshman year at Bishop Montgomery High School in Torrance, he got his first start in the baking industry by sweeping the floors of a shop owned by Herman Schmidt, a Swiss candy maker based in Redondo Beach’s Riviera Village.

Eventually, Schmidt decided to relocate to a bigger storefront in Beverly Hills. Instead of following him, Rossberg decided to run for the other hills.

Rolling Hills Estates.

It was there he began working for Gerry and Dorothy Mayers of Mayer’s Bakery at the Peninsula Center while attending classes at Bishop Montgomery.

“I like to think they taught me a good work ethic,” Rossberg said.

He often found himself behind the wheel of his gold Chevy Vega as the

Kirk Rossberg dishes out an apple turnover at Torrance Bakery on Oct. 11. Rossberg is the owner and president of Torrance Bakery, a local institution which has been serving cookies, doughnuts and cakes to the South Bay for 40 years.

Photo by Erica Lee

delivery driver for Mayer’s Bakery.

At any given time, he delivered anywhere between five to eight wedding cakes from La Venta Inn in Palos Verdes Estates to the Queen Mary in Long Beach.

After putting in four years at Mayer’s, Rossberg decided to branch out and expand his education.

In the years that followed, he worked at a variety of bakeries from Beverly Hills to Torrance.

All the while, Rossberg attended classes at El Camino College.

“I would go to work at, like, 1:30 in the morning so I only took afternoon classes,” Rossberg said. “I used to love the library because they had the most comfortable seats around. Sometimes, I fell asleep after working.”

Although he never declared a major, Rossberg used the opportunity to take a diverse range of classes from physical education to astronomy. He flourished in art, excelling at the sculpture classes taught by art instructor James Russell.

“I had this feeling of wanting to have a bakery or to be better in the bakery,” Rossberg said, looking back. “The art classes really helped.”

While taking those art classes, Rossberg honed his skills in color, design, texture and placement. The freedom of the classes also allowed him to further dive into his passion for baking.

In one sculpture class, students could

pick their medium for their final project.

While his classmates used clay and metal, Rossberg went down a more outof-the-box route.

“I did it with cake,” he said.

By the early ‘80s, Rossberg, then in his mid-20s, knew he was ready to branch out on his own.

He looked at many bakeries for sale from El Segundo to downtown Los Angeles. But one place kept calling him back: Torrance.

At the time, downtown Torrance was experiencing an economic downturn.

“In the ‘60s and the early ‘70s, it was the center of the business district,” said Tom Aldrich, 69, a bakery regular and retired Torrance police officer. “Then they built the [Del Amo Mall] on the west side of Torrance and sucked all the business. It really became blighted.” El Prado Avenue and the surrounding streets in the Old Torrance district were occupied by pawn shops and thrift stores. Just down the street, at 1653 Cravens Ave., stood the Pussycat Theater, an adult movie theater where a young Quentin Tarantino worked as an usher. This didn’t deter Rossberg from one store front.

It was a two-story, 1,200 square foot brick building housing a place called Torrance Bakery on El Prado Avenue.

The owner, Al Perez, was a fellow baker who spoke only Spanish and was looking to leave the business after three years.

The rent was 35 cents per square foot, totalling $420 in 1984.

In photographs taken at the time of the purchase, Kirk Rossberg is beaming. He has the bright white uniform of a baker, a mustache that could rival “Magnum P.I.”’s Tom Selleck and a dream.

“You have to have that confidence,” Rossberg said, looking back on that time. “And a lot of help.”

The early years of Torrance Bakery were not easy.

“I was surprised by all the expenses

A Torrance Bakery sales associate helps a customer decide what cookies to order on Oct. 11. Torrance Bakery can sell up to 10,000 cookies a week. Photo by Erica Lee.

Customers wait to finish making their purchases at Torrance Bakery on Oct. 11. On average, the bakery serves 1,000 customers a day. Photo by Erica Lee.

Photo by Erica Lee

that you have to do to start up a business,” Rossberg said.

There were the ingredients, the payroll, the rent. When Torrance Bakery first started, there were seven employees on staff, including Rossberg.

In the days before Yelp and Instagram, the best and only ways to advertise was through the Yellow Pages and by word of mouth.

But in the years following Torrance Bakery’s grand opening in 1984, the city’s fortunes began to turn.

The American Honda Motor Company, Inc. opened its headquarters on Torrance Boulevard in 1990 and brought an economic boost to the city that has continued ever since.

“I think the downtown Torrance area has changed in the fact that it’s become more relevant, more trending and the businesses there are taking a bigger role in being active in the community,” said Donna Duperron, who has served as president and CEO of the Torrance Chamber of Commerce since 2010.

Starting in the ‘90s, the Torrance Bakery began seeing the changes when the row of shops across El Prado Avenue gave way to a condominium complex and a widening sidewalk that allowed for outdoor dining.

Like the city it is named after, Torrance Bakery grew and expanded.

This included a second location, which first opened in the Rolling Hills Plaza Shopping Center in 1995 before relocating to Gardena in 2007.

New businesses moved onto El Prado Avenue to better support the bakery’s operations, including a wedding cake gallery and a sandwich shop and cafe.

On any given day, Torrance Bakery is a thriving hive of activity.

Customers jostle to place their orders at the end counter before one of the dozen sales associates behind the counter takes them down the row of five glassed-in display cases.

Behind the counters, the black apronclad sales associates, wielding trays laden with anything from a slice of cake to dozens of jelly doughnuts, move

seamlessly past each other despite the narrow space.

Behind a short, patterned curtain, the bakery itself is a hive of activity.

Jaunty songs in Spanish play as bakers move between the network of smaller rooms that make up the back of house.

The main room houses the heart of the bakery, a massive Hobart 364 reel oven that dates back to the Al Perez days. It can turn out 18 sheet pans of baked goods at a time.

One may find Jose “Jefe” Pedroza, a 53-year-old baker with 27 years of experience under his belt, quickly transferring piping hot trays of challah bread to cool off on the portable bakery racks on the side.

Behind him, Daniel Reyes slices sheets of raw dough into squares that will soon transform into fragrant loaves of rosemary focaccia bread destined for the sandwich shop three doors down.

Reyes, along with three other bakers, came to work for Torrance Bakery when Alpine Village closed its doors in 2023.

The wooden table bolted to the terra cotta-colored tiled floor is also original, going far back to when the bakery first opened in the ‘80s.

Forty years ago, Rossberg would stand at the corner where Reyes is today, decorating cakes while another baker

rolled out dough.

“When I walk by here, it reminds me of our beginning,” Rossberg said, looking at the work table. “And the hard work it takes to get to where you go.”

Today Rossberg’s duties sees him working 10 to 12-hour days, six days a week, and have him more focused on the managerial and business aspects of running a bakery rather than shaping bread loaves and decorating cakes.

That role goes to decorators Blanca Venegas and Lin Alvarado, who have 27 and 13 years of experience each.

At their stations in an adjacent room, they pipe pastel flowers and scalloped borders, transforming plain white blocks of cake into stunning showpieces.

Their finished masterpieces sit in refrigerated displays and in the vaultlike walk-in refrigerator. They range from elegant three-tier affairs with delicate golden columns to a simple round cake swathed in pink frosting with a green “HAPPEE BIRTHDAE NATALIE” scrawled on top, a “Harry Potter” reference.

Cakes are a top seller at the bakery, where they produce 400 to 500 cakes a week, 286 of which are decorated and customized creations.

“It’s close to about 40% of our business,” Rossberg said.

Cake decorator Lin Alvarado pipes a birthday greeting in gold icing on a cake order on Oct. 11. Over half of the 500 cakes Torrance Bakery makes weekly are custom orders spanning from simple birthday cakes to elaborate, three tiered wedding cakes. Photo by Erica Lee

On July 7, 2007, Torrance Bakery broke a record of 114 wedding cakes produced in one day.

“It was quite a feat to do,” Rossberg recalled. A team of ten people worked together to to pull off the endeavor. “We had a smaller crew too. It was just nuts trying to deliver, let alone bake and decorate.”

The complex operations of the bakery don’t just rest on Rossberg’s shoulders.

There are two managers. One is Blanca Aguilera, 38, who has doe-like brown eyes and nails painted with clear polish and slices of tangerine orange tips. She oversees the 40 bakers and decorators in the back of the house.

“My team in the back, we have so much connection,” Aguilera said. “Everyone works so hard, I couldn’t do it without them.”

Mallori Wood, the general manager, stands out with her fuchsia hair and Halloweenthemed pins on her apron. Her tattoos are spookythemed, with a vampire Mickey Mouse on one arm and a witchy Marge Simpson from the “Treehouse of Horrors” short “Easy Bake Coven” on the other.

When she first started at the bakery over 10 years ago, those tattoos had to be covered up by long sleeves.

“When I got hired here, there were no tattoos, no colored hair,” Wood recalled. “So I kind of like to think that I had a hand in warming Kirk up to that idea of branching out and allowing everyone to embrace their creativity.”

Most of the sales staff she oversees got their start while attending high school, just like Rossberg did so many years ago.

“It’s a healthy work environment,” sales associate Kat Faber, 36, said. “Everyone here is really friendly and respects each other.”

The customers who visit Torrance Bakery represent a slice of the city’s population.

There are young, aspiring ballet dancers from the dance schools found along Satori Avenue to Torrance High School students looking for a quick bite before first period.

There are regulars for whom Torrance Bakery made their wedding cakes, then their children’s and grandchildren’s birthday cakes years later.

On any Thursday morning, one might come across a raucous group of retired Torrance police officers and one Hermosa Beach firefighter, representing a combined 300 years of experience, swapping stories over coffee and doughnuts.

Or the next day, one might catch 76-year-old twin sisters Sue and Judy Golden treating themselves to their weekly maple bars after spending the morning packing bags of nonperishables for the charity Food4Kids.

“We’ve been coming here for years,” Judy Golden said. “It’s our go-to bakery.”

Her twin chimes in, finishing her sentence.

“It’s an institution,” Sue Golden added. “They’re very community-minded.”

Torrance Bakery’s reach isn’t limited to the South Bay.

“Everybody loves Torrance Bakery,” Dupperon said. “That goes far beyond the city of Torrance. Cities as far as San Gabriel Valley knows Torrance Bakery and speaks highly of it.”

As an L.A. County preferred vendor, Torrance Bakery has supplied cookies, brownies and other baked goods for city events including the Rose Parade on New Years Day.

The Dodgers and the Lakers have sampled their fare, as have their out-of-town rivals.

Torrance Bakery has even stocked the green room at SoFi Stadium for the Rolling

Stones, the Foo Fighters and even Taylor Swift.

Even after baking for the stars, Rossberg still finds a way to give back to El Camino College and the South Bay community.

In the early 2010s, a unique opportunity came up for Rossberg, courtesy of his alma mater.

El Camino College was looking to add a cake decorating class for their Community and Continuing Education Program.

Rossberg took them up on the offer to join as an instructor.

The cake decorating classes took place at the Gardena location and were well received but only lasted a few years.

This past summer, Torrance Bakery delivered trays of cookies weekly for meals packaged for Palos Verdes residents who were displaced by the landslides in Portuguese Bend.

Although the bakery first began in October 1984, July 2024 marked its 40th anniversary with a celebration and a “week of giving.”

“It’s like a landmark,” Torrance Mayor George Chen said. During the July celebration, he presented Rossberg with a certificate of recognition. “They’re part of the fabric of the City of Torrance. It’s one of the marquee places.”

Rossberg has no plans on slowing down. He still lives in Torrance, across the street from his childhood home, with his wife

Stella, a 12-year-old Chihuaha/Yorkie mix, enjoys lunch at Torrance Bakery’s cafe with her Dad Jim Scharf, left, and his brother Lee Scharf on Oct. 11. Jim Scharf was the 1967 freshman class president at El Camino College. “We like going here,” Scharf said. “It’s like Main Street at Disneyland without the people.” Photo by Erica Lee

Margie. She works with another kind of bun in the oven.

She’s a charge nurse in the labor and delivery ward at the Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center in Torrance. They share a blended family of five kids and six grandchildren, whose ages range between two to 11 years old.

“I love Torrance,” Rossberg said. “I can’t think of a better place to live. The weather, the people are great. We have the beach. We have so many great things here.”

There are no plans to expand to a third location. Instead, Rossberg sees himself continuing the work he has done for the last 40 years.

“I see us basically continuing to do what we do,” Rossberg said. “Just things like that, where we can give back to the community as much as possible because the community has been so great to us.”

To read more, visit eccunion.com

Torrance Bakery Information

Location: 1341 El Prado Ave., Torrance, CA 90501

Tel: (310) 320-2722

Website: www.torrancebakery.com

Instagram: @torrancebakery

Twitter/X: @torrancebakery

Hours:

Monday-Friday: 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Saturday: 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Sunday: 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Six-year-old Abigail, left, takes a bite out of a cookie after ballet practice on Oct. 11. Torrance Bakery proudly serves performers from Abigail and her friend Penelope to megastars including Taylor Swift. Photo by Erica Lee

by Kim McGill

M IDDL E CHILD SYNDROME:

Growing up alone in a house full of people

By Savannah Anderson

I’ve always felt wedged between time, one foot digging into the past and one foot grazing the future. To exist in one place has been a battle where I’m pushing to escape, but am constantly pulled between two things. Being born in the middle has always felt like being trapped between two cement walls.

I was somehow stuck in the middle of things yet never included, especially in my family. My older sister was my mother’s best friend. One of my younger sisters had been my mother’s happiness. I’ve always seemed to be my mother’s anguish and throughout the entirety of

my 20 years of life, I’ve been trying to escape it.

“You always bring me peace,” she’d say to my older sister. “You’re my happy child,” she’d say to my younger sister. But with heat pooling in her eyes, she’d say to me: “Why are you like this? So difficult.”

It’s odd because all I’ve ever been told is, “Out of all my daughters, you’re the most like me.” And I hated it. Through my eyes, my mother was anger; unforgiving, wild anger. It was clear that everyone in my family saw me the same way.

The loneliness was suffocating.

My corner of the room seemed so dark compared to my sisters. They’d hang off the edges of their beds laughing at jokes they shared between each other and not with me.

I was forced into my own world but truthfully I wanted in on the late-night laughter and the sacredness of sisterhood.

Eventually, my anger overshadowed every other trait within me. With no access to my heart, my family couldn’t see my kindness. I was left alone feeling everything and having no idea how to handle it myself.

I was left to deal with my issues alone.

Illustration

According to an article by a group of psychology researchers, Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, childhood trauma poses a risk for a “variety of mental health problems in adulthood.” Anxiety disorders, depression and adult loneliness can easily become a reality for individuals like myself. Before I knew it, I had drifted into these issues with an eagerness to escape.

As a child, my emotions were much simpler and easier to forget. Though I still spent my days alone, it was fun. I found pride in my adventures. During one particular adventure, I had found

my promising future.

I hadn’t said much to my family before heading to LAX and I hadn’t planned on saying much to them once I was in Wisconsin. Like my childhood, I just wanted to fly.

Ami was the first friend I made in Wisconsin. She was one of the only other Black girls I saw, so, of course, I took notice. She was dressed casually, with shy, cool eyes and a double-pierced nose.

We had briskly passed each other during orientation, eyeing one other awkwardly before disappearing off to our tour groups. When we saw each other again later that day, she approached me.

“ Being born in the middle has always felt like being trapped between two cement walls. ”

freedom.

I climbed up onto my window, kicking my legs over the sill. The air crashed into me immediately and I smiled so wide that I could still feel the pull of my cheeks.

I was maybe two stories up, which is a lot of distance for a 6-year-old girl, but when I looked down I wasn’t afraid. Looking up, the sky was the closest I’d ever seen it. If I had popped up on my toes I could’ve swallowed the sky whole, but that’s not what I wanted. I wanted to fly.

Even now, the feeling of escape holds me tighter than anything I’ve ever known. It was that kiss of freedom on the window sill that directed me toward the Midwest once I graduated high school. I didn’t think much about what a school had to offer besides its distance from California. All I wanted from college at the time was to be far away. Wisconsin seemed like the proper distance. 29 hours, 1,985 miles by car separated my sour past from

“I like your eyebrow piercing,” she said. Her eyes were glued to mine, eager. “Thank you, would you ever get one?” I asked. “No,” she said.

Her answer was swift and awkward, and left me a little discouraged because, at this point, I still didn’t know how to talk to people. She turned on her heels, walking away, but later on in our friendship she told me she was so nervous she didn’t know what to say.

When we moved into our dorms three weeks later we were both surprised to find that we would be living next to each other. I thought it was fate and ever since, Ami has remained one of my closest friends.

Away from the emptiness of my home, Ami had pulled me into the brightest of worlds.

Once, she dragged me to a rooftop across the street from our dorms to watch the full moon. It was just the end of winter and we were freezing. It was Frank Ocean’s Seigfried playing in the background and the warmth of Ami holding my hand that kept me together.

Across the street, lights glowed from the windows of our dorm building. We went down the rows and columns of windows, trying to pick out the details of each room and imagine what each life

inside looked like. One window was a group of sweaty frat boys throwing back cases of beers.

Another was a sad-eyed girl making a lonely call to her hometown friends.

For a moment, I imagined how they saw us, me and Ami. Did we seem strange? Were we glowing in the moonlight?

She nudged my arm with her elbow, the fullness of her laughter pulling me back to Earth.

With Ami, I could forget about my loneliness. She never made me feel stuck and she never tore into me the way my family did. In this world, I was the best friend and the happiness.

After my freshman year in Wisconsin, I returned to California to find a better fit for my educational plans. Even with miles of land separating us, I stayed in touch with the gentleness Ami had shown me.

Pain has been spotlighted in my life for so long, but I’m at a point where it doesn’t need to be. Whether I’m alone, with Ami, or anywhere else in the world, I can let go of my feelings of loneliness. I can launch off that window sill, eyes pointed toward the sky, and fly.

f

Faith in Fashion

Formerly homeless student finds footing as first-gen graduate

By Ma.Gisela Ordenes

Ashley Mendoza, 32, looks to her right at the King Memorial in front of the Compton Courthouse on Oct. 27, 2024. Mendoza got her fashion design and merchandising degree at El Camino College in spring 2024, the first in her family to graduate from college. “[I am] a first-generation Chicana that graduated from college that also overcame homelessness, depression, and battling with my mental health while attending college and graduating with a 3.2,” Mendoza said. Photo by Eddy Cermeno

Her sister Nadia Mendoza tried to fling herself out of the passenger door as the gray Nissan sedan hurtled down the 605 Freeway at 110 mph. Nadia thrashed as her family members tried to stop her from grabbing the door handle.

The four other passengers in the car — their mother Maria Mendoza, Ashley Mendoza, her other sister Iris Mendoza and Nadia’s son Anthony — struggled to restrain Nadia. She was stronger than all of them.

Nadia let out a blood-curdling growl. Her face, covered in tears, snot and sweat, contorted in a fit of rage, her eyes crazed and scared at the same time.

“She was speaking different languages,” Ashley said. “She was stronger than my dad and my brother put together.”

They were on their way to an exorcism, in hopes that Nadia would be freed from the demons that the whole family believed had been possessing her for four months.

owed him money that he told the children years later he was never repaid. The family lost the house and had to stay with Jose’s brother in San Bernardino.

When Ashley was 3, her mother dressed her up in her Sunday best. Her parents told her and her siblings that the three of them — father, mother and Ashley — were going to the store.

They never came back. They went to the airport and back to Mexico, leaving eight of Ashley’s siblings with her uncle in San Bernardino.

A year later, while Ashley was still in Mexico with her parents, their uncle and his wife told four of her other siblings, ages 5 to 16, that they were going on a field trip. They were also being hauled back to Mexico, while the eldest four remained in San Bernardino.

call us from the bar and be like, ‘Come pick up your dad. He’s lying outside on the pavement. He’s too drunk. He can’t go home. Can you pick him up?’” Wendy said.

Her mother and sisters would go look for her father at 3 a.m. to bring him home. “He didn’t realize that it was hurting us, watching him,” Wendy said.

He was never violent with their mother or any of the children but his drinking problem got to the point that he would buy beer instead of groceries.

“I remember being drunk a lot of the times and crying in the corner and feeling like no one loved me,” Ashley said.

***

There was blood everywhere.

“It’s a crazy story. I feel like most people wouldn’t believe. It was almost like the movie, ‘The Exorcist.’”

Ashley was 12. She didn’t know it then, but this episode was part of a series of events that would lead her to a career in fashion years later. She’d win multiple awards at El Camino College. And she would become the first in her family to graduate from college despite eight months of living out of her car, homeless.

Ashley, 32, was born in San Bernardino County, the youngest of nine children. She was born 15 years after her parents, Jose and Maria Mendoza, crossed the border in 1977 with five children in tow.

Upon arriving in San Bernardino, Jose made a living selling leather bags and shoes and women’s clothing, some of which he sewed himself.

It didn’t take long for Jose and Maria, both 28 at the time, to find a house. Business was good enough to sustain the family. Jose hired his brother and other relatives to work for him at his homebased sewing business.

Four more children later, Jose gradually lost the business. His relatives

- Ashley Mendoza

“They put us all in a plane. We didn’t know what was going on. We flew alone, not knowing what to do,” Wendy Sufle, one of Ashley’s sisters who was 9 at the time, said.

The Mendozas – Jose and Maria with their five youngest children – returned to California that same year and reunited with the four eldest siblings in San Bernardino. They eventually rented a two-bedroom house in Compton where the 11 of them lived under one roof.

***

Ashley had her first beer when she was 5. She was thirsty and it was the only thing in the fridge.

She thought it was refreshing, like soda. She thought drinking beer was normal, like drinking juice.

Her father was never the same when he came back from Mexico.

He turned to drinking. It started with one or two bottles of beer for a nightcap until it got worse.

“There were points where they would

It was 4 a.m. and the police had come again. Broken fragments of plates and glasses were strewn all over the floor. Ashley’s brother and his girlfriend had been fighting the whole night, at one point it looked like they were about to kill each other, Ashley said. The neighbors called the police on them.

Again.

Ashley was 9.

She was in third grade and she was held back that year.

“Every morning we’d get waken up by cops at like 4 or 5 in the morning, and we couldn’t leave the house until they left,” Ashley said.

The police would only leave around 7 or 8 a.m.

“I didn’t want to go to school late, so I would just stay home,” she said. ***

The demons would come at midnight.

“That was the time that she would get possessed, at night,” Wendy said.

Ashley said the first time it happened she saw her sister Nadia on the floor, shaking like she was having a seizure.

“It’s a crazy story. I feel like most people wouldn’t believe,” Ashley said. “It was almost like the movie, ‘The Exorcist.’”

stands with El

in front of the Compton

College student models wearing her “Medieval Summer” collection at the King

on Oct. 27, 2024. The medieval armor-inspired ensemble won “Best Collection” in the

department’s spring fashion show on June 3, 2024. “It’s a collection inspired by my life what felt like going to war every day trying to survive all the adversities that I had to overcome,” Mendoza said. Photo by

Ashley Mendoza, center,

Camino

Memorial

Courthouse

fashion

Eddy Cermeno

Ashley Mendoza, right, stands next to the Korean-made Sunstar sewing machine and her father, 75-year-old Jose Mendoza, at the Mendoza family’s garage in Compton on Oct. 13, 2024. The sewing machine is 23 years old and was passed down from her father to Ashley Mendoza. “He never left us without clothes and shoes,” Wendy Sufle, Jose Mendoza’s daughter, said. “I remember asking him, how did you meet my mother? And he said, ‘Well, I was the one who would go to their house and do their shoes as well as their clothes,’” Sufle said.

They wanted to call the paramedics but her mother said it wasn’t a seizure. They rushed Nadia to every Catholic church they could find. Ashley said no church wanted to help them.

“They just said, ‘Oh, that’s just like the ancient times. That doesn’t happen anymore,” she said.

They decided to help her at home. Nadia would be herself during the day but would change dramatically at night.

“We would sleep in the daytime and at night we would stay up. Everyone would be watching,” Ashley said.

They would gather the children in one of the rooms with the door that had a good lock. They would keep watch the whole night, Nadia would be convulsing on the floor and speaking in tongues, foam coming out of her mouth.

She was stronger than all of them. “They couldn’t hold her down,” Ashley said.

Nadia used to “cleanse her with an egg.” She was 11. Nadia would hold up an egg all over Ashley’s body and break the egg into a glass. They would check the colors of the egg. Black meant bad energy. White meant good.

The family believes Nadia was

possessed because she practiced witchcraft and black magic. She used a ouija board.

The sisters believe their mother had a “gift” which was passed down from generations to Nadia.

“So there are people who were taught and people who are born naturally with it. And [Nadia] was born – and we were also born with it,” Wendy said.

They said people in the U.S. don’t believe in this but it’s “a normal, popular thing in Mexico.”

When Catholic churches didn’t help them, they went to a Jehovah’s Witness parish. While there, a woman overheard Maria explaining the situation to the church leaders. The woman, who didn’t want the church leaders to know she had visions, set her mother aside and told her she saw one. In the vision she saw the names of the streets, the time, place and event where God told her He would meet the Mendoza family and take all the demons from Nadia.

They went to an event of the Las Buenas Nuevas church at an open field at Excelsior High School in Norwalk. Nadia resisted all the way there and tried to throw herself out of the car.

When they got there, the pastor asked

the crowd to raise their hand if they wanted to be prayed over. “My sister at the time, she was like herself in that instant and she raised her hand and said, ‘Me, help me!’” Ashley said.

It was short-lived.

“That’s when she didn’t look like herself again. They ordered people to take her into a tent,” Ashley said.

The pastor and other church leaders prayed for her sister for four hours starting at 8 p.m. By midnight, Nadia was herself again. The episodes stopped.

“So after all that happened, the whole house was changed, like overnight, because of God,” Ashley said. Her father stopped drinking.

“When my sister’s demons were gone, he never touched alcohol again. He stopped cold turkey,” Ashley said. ***

Ashley hated school. She didn’t see education as important, all she wanted was to finish high school and help her father support the family. She had Ds and Fs at Dominguez High School.

“Living in Compton, it’s more like a ghetto area, so it’s like, we get paid less attention,” she said.

Her brother was in a gang and she thought that life was cool.

Photo by Eddy Cermeno

But her sister Dinora took her to a church event in downtown L.A. after she graduated from high school in 2014.

“That’s when I had prayed and I asked God, ‘What should I do?’ Because I graduated and I was lost,” she said.

She was torn between fashion and culinary, or whether to pursue a college degree at all.

“I didn’t know which direction to take. And so that’s when…I said that in my mind, ” Ashley said.

Everyone had been prayed for by the pastor except her. She was the last one.

When the pastor came, she told Ashley, “God said fashion. He’s gonna use you in fashion.”

Ashley was surprised because the pastor was a stranger and no one heard what she prayed for. At the same time, she wasn’t surprised because of all the things they went through with her sister and their spirituality.

That’s when she went into fashion with everything she had. She enrolled at El Camino College.

The Korean-made Sunstar sewing machine at the Mendoza family’s garage in Compton is 23 years old. Jose bought it brand new in 2001 for $300 at the Bega & Son Sewing Machine Center in downtown L.A.

The 75-year-old Jose always had a passion for sewing. He had 15 brothers and sisters. He never went to school and he learned how to help with the family’s finances at 5 years old in Mexico. He worked at a shoemaker’s store where he swept the floor. The shoemaker eventually let him help make the shoes.

In time, he learned how to sew clothes and dresses to match the shoes. When he started dating his wife Maria, he made her dresses and matching shoes. He did the same for his children.

“He never left us without clothes and shoes,” Wendy said. “I remember asking him, how did you meet my mother? And he said, ‘Well, I was the one who would go to their house and do their shoes as well as their clothes.’”

When they moved to the U.S., they couldn’t find pants that would fit the 4-foot, 4-inch Maria. Everything was too long. He repaired all her pants to make them fit.

Ashley loved hearing this story as a

She didn’t know that she could make her own clothes. When she realized she could, she started cutting up her clothes.

“My mom would always get mad at me because she’d be like, ‘I just bought you that shirt.’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, but I want to make it different.’”

Her siblings wanted to throw the sewing machine out to make room in the garage but Ashley put her foot down and said no. She still uses it for her projects.

It belongs to her now.

***

Ashley could feel someone’s eyes on her. She opened her eyes and saw a man leaning over, taking a peek inside the car, staring at her.

She woke up in a cold sweat.

It’s a recurring nightmare. She had not recovered since it happened.

She moved out of the Compton house because she said she was in constant fights with her siblings.

She and her boyfriend Antonio Guzman lived in her red Prius with untinted windows and broken A/C in February 2020.

Ashley had become a statistic.

In a 2021 campus climate survey, 8% of El Camino College students said they did not know where they were going to spend the night at least once during the past year.

A 2023 basic needs survey at 88 California community colleges said 58% of the over 66,000 student respondents

experienced housing insecurity in the previous 12 months.

One in four community college students reported being homeless.

Ashley was one of them.

Sharonda Barksdale, student success coordinator of the Basic Needs Center at El Camino, said L.A. County has different programs that address homelessness depending on the student’s age. Students 22 years old and below are considered “youth” and are referred to a youth program or agency in the area.

Ashley was 27, not married and belonged to the “single adult” category when she was homeless.

“If they are single adults — I try and be very honest, open and honest — there are not a lot of options,” Barksdale said.

“Even referring them to our lead agency in the area, the resources are going to be very limited, and you know, very close to nothing,” she said.

Guzman, 22, is an El Camino political science graduate who was finishing his degree at UCLA.

They bought a tent to cover the car after they caught a man peering over them as they slept while parked on a street in Lawndale.

Ashley said they were hungry all the time because they had no money for food. She delivered food for DoorDash.

“We had to choose between eating or having money for gas so we could keep doing DoorDash,” she said.

child.

Fashion department coordinator and professor Vera Ashley stands next to mannequins in the Extensive Lab at the Industry and Technology Building on Oct. 22, 2024. Ashley Mendoza considers Ashley, a 17-year-veteran of the El Camino College fashion department, her mentor. Photo by Eddy Cermeno

She parked in the McDonald’s parking lot in Lawndale to use the free wifi for assignments.

Her laptop, which she borrowed from the Schauerman Library, kept getting disconnected from wifi every 30 minutes, sometimes during exams. The wifi hotspot that she also borrowed from the library broke down completely.

They parked in public parks to sleep at night but the police who patrolled the area told them they couldn’t sleep in the car.

“Sometimes the cop would be like, ‘If we come around here and you’re sleeping in your car, we’re going to arrest you guys.’”

So they drove to different locations throughout the night, from Gardena to Torrance to Lawndale.

They signed up for a Planet Fitness membership in Torrance to shower before heading to class and work. They went to public restrooms when they didn’t have money for the monthly gym fee.

showcasing the talents of the El Camino fashion department students. There was an evening gown that glowed, an entire collection made of denim and reimagined business suits.

The judges had made their decision. “And the best collection, for ‘Medieval Summer,’ Ashley Mendoza!”

The 5-foot, 4-inch tall designer in a strapless tight-fitting long black dress sashayed the length of the stage to claim her plaque to thunderous applause. Her long black hair was gathered in a bun on top of her head, wavy tendrils framing both sides of her fully made-up face. Her long eyelashes fluttered as she held back tears.

Ashley at 31 was a picture of sophistication as she thanked her family and her four models in a short speech. The win meant more to her than the audience realized. It was a coronation to

She said her life “felt like going to war every day trying to survive all the adversities” thrown her way. She used leather, metal chains and a mesh chainmail fabric.

Ashley was grateful for her victories. Earlier that month, she learned she got accepted to the internship she applied for. She interned at Forever 21 as a designer assistant in the summer.

Before the internship was over, she got a call from Torrid, a women’s clothing chain that specializes in plus-size cocktail dresses, jeans, lingerie and footwear.

An El Camino graduate on the Torrid advisory board sent an email to fashion professor Vera Ashley saying she wanted to promote new students and if the professor knew any that would fit the position.

“Ashley’s moving us out of the hood!”

Some restrooms had locks. She would ask cashiers for the code and said she would order after using the restroom. When she was done, she ran as fast as she could while the cashier wasn’t looking.

The most difficult was when she had her periods or when she had an upset stomach.

“That would be the worst, because it’s like, I don‘t have time to run to the bathroom. And, you know, sometimes it would…just come out, like, on our sheet, so I got to throw it away,” she said.

Ashley felt that was the last straw. She told her mother about her situation. Her mother didn’t know that she was living in her car, she thought all along that her daughter was staying with a friend. Her mother asked her to move back home. ***

The air was thick with anticipation. The two-hour-long fashion show on June 3 had wrapped up. The audience at the packed Haag Recital Hall had been treated to an evening of style,

- Angel Sufle

10 years of hard work. That’s how long it took her to finish her fashion design and merchandising degree at El Camino College, part of which was spent being homeless for eight months.

It took her 10 years because of financial and mental health struggles.

She almost didn’t make it to this fashion show because she didn’t have the funds for the materials. She only finished one design the week before the show. She told Guzman she was no longer doing it.

Guzman also had limited funds. His car payment was coming up.

“I was like, I could pay my car payment, or I could give her the little bit that I had to be able to help her,” Guzman said. “I ended up losing my car, it got repoed, but I was able to help her with the fashion show.”

Guzman also helped her with the idea for “Medieval Summer.” The collection was inspired by medieval armor.

“So I remembered Ashley…how well she did, and it sounded like what she was describing to me. It sounds like the same duties as [Ashley] just finished. So I said, ‘Yeah,’ immediately,” the elder Ashley said.

Ashley started working at Torrid as an assistant technical designer in October. ***

“Ashley’s moving us out of the hood!” Angel Sufle, Ashley’s 16-year-old nephew, said as he watched his aunt being photographed for Warrior Life in the Mendoza family garage on Oct. 12.

It’s an inside joke, Ashley said. “We live in the ghetto. This city is probably like, one of the most…dangerous, full of gang-related things and all that.”

Though she sometimes lacks belief in herself, she knows her family has faith in her talents. She is still living with her parents, ever since her mother asked her to move back in. But she said the hope is to make it out of Compton.

“They always say, like, ‘Oh, she’s, the one that’s gonna make it out first. she’s gonna take us out of here.’ And…they say, I’m their hope, of giving them a better life,” she said.

Trader Joe’s Test Kitchen

From meal prep-ready pasta to breakfast ready for that 8 a.m. class, Warrior Life puts 3 Instagram Trader Joe’s recipes to the test.

By Erica Lee

As grocery store prices skyrocket, more people are flocking to Trader Joe’s for affordable food that doesn’t skimp on quality. According to a 2023 Supermarket News article, Trader Joe’s saw 6.3% more foot traffic than their competitors in August 2022. Instagram and Tiktok are brimming with Trader Joe’s recipes that promise cheap, delicious meals made with five ingredients or less. With five locations within four miles of El Camino College, easy-to-make meals and drinks are within reach.

Matcha Matcha Boba Recipe from @traderjoes, 3.2m followers

Don’t have time to make it to your favorite boba shop before class? TJ’s Instant Boba Kit brings the shop to you, saving you time and money.

Ingredients

5 tbsp of TJ’s Matcha Green Tea Latte Mix

1 stick of TJ’s Matcha Green Tea Powder

½ cup boiling water

1 packet of TJ’s Instant Boba Kit, prepared according to package instructions

¼ cup milk of choice

Ice Instructions

1) Mix Matcha Green Tea Latte Mix and stick of Matcha Green Tea Powder in a bowl. Whisk to combine.

2) Pour boiling water over matcha mixture and whisk thoroughly to combine. Refrigerate until cool.

3) Pour prepared boba packet and brown sugar syrup in a tall glass. Fill ¾ of the glass with ice. Pour cooled matcha over ice, then top with a splash of milk. Stir to combine.

Chorizo and Kale Pasta Bake Recipe from @traderjoes5itemsorless, 614k followers

With ingredients under $12 and a 20-minute cook time, this is a fantastic weeknight meal for those pressed for time.

Ingredients

Soy chorizo

4 oz penne pasta

1 cup shredded mozzarella, split 2-3 handfuls of kale

2 tbsp minced garlic

2 tbsp olive oil

Instructions

1) Preheat oven to 350.°

2) Boil 4oz bag of pasta and cook for 11 to 13 minutes.

3) In a large skillet, heat 2 tbsp of olive oil. Add soy chorizo, garlic and kale and cook for eight to 10 minutes.

4) Drain pasta and add to soyrizo mix. Stir to combine.

5) In a medium-sized baking dish, add the soyrizo mix, then layer a ½ cup of shredded mozzarella. Add another layer of the pasta mix followed by 1/2 cup of shredded mozarella.

6) Bake in the oven for three to five minutes, or until cheese melts.

7) Serve hot and enjoy!

Brown Sugar Overnight Oats

Recipe from @traderjoeskitchen, 422k followers

With less than five ingredients and limitless options for customization, here’s a quick and easy breakfast to put together the night before your busy morning.

Ingredients

½ cup rolled oats

½ cup milk of choice

2 tbsp TJ’s Brown Sugar Creamer

1 tsp chia seeds

¼ tsp vanilla extract

Sprinkle of cinnamon

Honey (optional)

Instructions

1) In a jar or bowl, combine oats, milk, Brown Sugar Creamer, chia seeds, vanilla extract, honey and cinnamon.

2) Shake and let sit overnight in the fridge. The ingredients will combine to make a creamy, ready-to-eat dish overnight.

3) Top with fresh fruit including bananas or apples, or add extra cinnamon and brown sugar.

Photo by Erica Lee

ANIMATION ISOLATION

How anime’s booming popularity in the 2000s became my personal reckoning of what it means to be Japanese American

By Erica Lee

When I was in the ninth grade, I achieved the unthinkable. I got a “C”.

My friends in Ms. Gunde’s first period class had to know why. How did I barely pass my Japanese 1 course when my own mother is Japanese?

I am Nisei, a second-generation Japanese American.

According to the Pew Research Center, there were over 1.2 million Japanese Americans living in the United States in 2022. 75% of those 1.2 million were born in the United States, but the numbers are inconclusive on how many of that

majority have mixed Japanese heritage.

Sometime between the late ‘70s and the early ‘80s, my Mom boarded a Los Angeles-bound flight from New Tokyo International Airport with no idea of what kind of future was waiting for her.

She wasn’t in it for the “American Dream.” Her grandmother, her last close relative in Japan, had just died. The rest of the family had moved to California years ago.

She had nowhere else to go.

Eventually, my Mom enrolled at CSU Long Beach and found a job in finance before marrying and starting a family with my Dad, a native Californian with

Irish and German roots.

Growing up, I thought I had a good idea of what it meant to be a secondgeneration Japanese American. It was having natto rolls for lunch and okonomiyaki for dinner. It was reading bedtime stories about Urashima Taro and Kaguya-hime, the Moon Princess. It was watching “Sailor Moon” and “My Neighbor Totoro” on our blocky, woodpaneled TV.

Having these things in my life made me stand out in a mostly-white

Illustration by Sofia Flores

elementary school in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.

When I started the ninth grade at Peninsula High School in 2005, I had to take Japanese. It was a no-brainer and I figured it would be an easy class.

After all, I’d seen “Pokemon” and Hayao Miyazaki movies in Japanese. And I had a Japanese parent who could help along the way. It couldn’t be that hard. Right?

Japanese is not an easy language to learn. Not at all.

were learning Japanese at a time when anime became mainstream.

Toonami, a program block on Adult Swim, began airing titles including “Dragon Ball Z” and “Evangelion” in the early 2000s.

Once they found out, my classmates were hooked. Soon, anime was taking over the pop cultural consciousness of our high school year.

On Fridays the class was treated to episodes of “Naruto” after wearing out the small selection of Miyazaki movies Ms. Gunde had.

But I couldn’t get into the hype.

I don’t know if it was the overlyexaggerated art styles of “Naruto” and “One Piece” that put me off watching, or their fanbases.

Worse was admitting that I couldn’t get into it.

People would say to me, “You’re Japanese. What’s so hard about getting into anime?”

Being Japanese was half of who I was, but now everyone wanted it to be 100% of my identity. After that “C,” I realized that I wasn’t as Asian as I thought I was.

My failing Japanese grades meant that I wasn’t a credible consultant on Japanese culture anymore.

“Being Japanese was half of who I was, but now everyone wanted it to be 100% of my identity.”

It’s actually one of the hardest languages for English speakers to pick up, according to Rosetta Stone. There are honorifics and three different writing scripts to memorize: hiragana, katakana and kanji.

Most teachers recommend their students watch TV shows and movies in the language they’re studying to better understand the material.

However, this was 2005 and streaming was in its infancy. Hulu wouldn’t debut for another two years and Netflix was still a DVD rental service.

Back in the Dark Ages, if we wanted to watch Japanese shows, we had to rely on torrenting, bootlegs or finding a video store in Torrance or Gardena that stocked the latest anime and movies, a rarity.

Thankfully, for my classmates, we

Friends now joked that I didn’t look that Asian, backed up by relatives who said I was the spitting image of my Dad’s sister in her teens.

My “Harry Potter” fanaticism, which defined a large part of my personality at the time, was the killing blow.

In my defense, while Pokemon was dominating the airwaves in the late ‘90s, Hogwarts was my escape from the harsh reality of my Grandfather’s failing health and the days spent in hospital waiting

20 years later.

People judge me for not liking media they think I should watch based on my cultural heritage.

Everyone always forgets that I’m descended from Lees who lived in Ireland, not Asia.

My roommate once accused me of being embarrassed to be Asian.

Afterall, what kind of Japanese American can’t speak their mother tongue? Or want to go back and reconnect with her cultural heritage with a grand tour of Japan?

Even today, I’m still struggling to find that happy medium between being Japanese and American.

I can cook Japanese meals, watch “Shogun” and know my way around Sawtelle and Little Tokyo.

But to the critical eye of others who have never lived my life, it’s not enough.

Recently, I confessed to my roommate Elena that I never watched “Power Rangers” as a kid.

Even though the Yellow Ranger was Asian, my Mom never pushed me to watch. She knew I didn’t like the show and left it alone.

That is something I have always loved my Mom for. She never forced me to conform to the mold of what an ideal Japanese American should be.

She gave me the space I needed to explore what I liked and build my identity from there.

“Wait,” Elena said after I told her why. “Why didn’t you watch Power Rangers? You know the Yellow Power Ranger is Asian, right?’”

If anyone asked what kind of anime I liked, I said I couldn’t

It was true. Anime was taking over my life and creating an identity crisis I am still grappling with over

Photos by Erica Lee

From to college

How ECC’s Guardian Scholars program helped one former foster

youth to succeed

SBy Kim McGill

eventeen years ago, Cass Cisneros stood on the sidewalk outside the North Hollywood office of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), terrified to step inside with her four-year-old daughter, Savannah.

Earlier that day, DCFS called to say they needed an updated photo of the toddler and ordered Gonzalez to come to the office before 5 p.m.

But Cisneros didn’t trust the agency. She froze at the building’s entrance as memories of her own childhood in DCFS custody flooded her thoughts. Inside, an intimidating crowd was waiting for her, including the director

El Camino College Guardian Scholar, Cass Cisneros, graduates from El Camino College on June 7. Her family and friends are there to cheer her on, including her children, Jonathan Orozco (center back), Savannah Valdez (middle), Elisyannah Valdez (middle right), Moises “West” Cisneros (front center) and Joseph “JJ” Cisneros Struthers (front right). Photo by Kim McGill

of the area office, the deputy director, a social worker and two, armed security guards.

They glared at her.

One security guard placed the palm of his hand on the butt of his holstered gun.

“I dropped to my knees and told my daughter that she would probably have to stay with strangers that night,” Cisneros said, crying as she recounted the event.

“Be strong. Mommy loves you. This isn’t your fault,” she added. “I won’t stop fighting until I get you back.”

The social worker, wearing a business suit and a cross face, pushed Cisneros aside and rushed greedily toward Savannah.

In a blur of confusion, Cisneros heard DCFS staff describe allegations and the start of an investigation, that they were going to remove her daughter from the home, that they would not consider her mother or grandmother as a temporary placement.

Over their shoulders, she tried to keep an eye on her daughter.

“We’ve never been apart,” Cisneros said, pleading.

But in a flash, the DCFS social worker and her baby daughter were gone.

Cisneros regained custody of her daughter the next day, and eventually won a civil lawsuit against DCFS for misconduct.

Still, the efforts to pursue a complaint against L.A. County subsumed her life for months.

Her education and career dreams were sidelined, and for nearly two decades, Cisneros gave up on college.

In the past few years, Cisneros started to hear about an increase in support for system impacted youth on college campuses. In 2023, she enrolled at El Camino where she has received support from Guardian Scholars, the ECC program serving students impacted by the foster care system.

And in June, Cisneros, now 40, stood among the El Camino College graduating class of 2024, having earned her paralegal and real estate certificates.

She is back on campus this fall taking courses in sociology and Chicano studies while she waits to hear from universities on her hopes to transfer and eventually earn a law degree.

El Camino College Guardian Scholars and Next Step success coaches, (from left to right) Rozlind Silva, Jesse Marinero, Lara Colindres and Alberto Navarro Zepeda, reach out to students at a resource fair on campus on March 27. The two ECC programs serve students impacted by the foster care system, providing coaching to navigate the complex processes of enrollment, registration, financial aid and scholarships. Photo by Kim McGill

Cass Cisneros’s youngest son, two-year-old Joseph “JJ” Cisneros Struthers, stands on the porch of his family’s home in Inglewood, California on May 1. Photo by Kim McGill

Her dream is to establish a “west side connection” to provide families legal representation, resource referrals and opportunities to organize for system change.

“I have been working hard to help other families who lose their children,” Cisneros said. “Getting my paralegal certification and eventually going to law school will give me the skills I need to do more.”

Cisneros credits the support she got from Guardian Scholars for helping her to graduate, including funds to cover student fees, books and food. Each week, Guardian Scholars provides a $40 card to students that can be used to purchase food at one of the on-campus vendors.

El Camino student Wesley Marshall, 19, is studying mechanical engineering and history. He was also able to benefit from scholarships and academic counseling through Guardian Scholars.

“Foster youth have different upbringings than most others,” Wesley said. “Without a secure family, it can be hard for them to find people to connect with and support one another. This can cause them to be disconnected from the educational system.”

Program participants can also get

coaching to navigate the complex processes of enrollment, registration, financial aid and scholarships; workshops covering everything from budgeting to time management; and peer support from other students who have experienced similar challenges.

“Students deal with financial and housing insecurity. A lot don’t have a place to cook meals, a place to eat, or a way to finance food necessities,” Guardian Scholars success coach Alberto Navarro Zepeda said.

Some students are also eligible to be a part of Next Step, a companion program to Guardian Scholars started in the fall of 2023.

The program provides co-enrollment in the Extended Opportunities Programs and Services (EOPS) program, enabling students to access additional financial and counseling services including book and supplies vouchers and thousands of dollars in additional cash aid.

Next Step success coach Rozlind Silva said that traditionally, foster students couldn’t always meet the eligibility requirements for EOPS, including having to maintain a minimum number of units or a specific grade point average.

So Next Step provides current and former foster youth the flexibility needed to access the EOPS program.

In the Spring of 2024, more than 60 El Camino students participated in Guardian Scholars and/or Next Step.

Wesley said that many people don’t know about the Guardian Scholars or Next Up programs, and this leads to greater isolation. Similar programs support current and former foster youth on a growing number of community college, Cal State and UC campuses. He urged colleges to better publicize available resources and support.

“Had I not served as a student ambassador, I wouldn’t have known about it [Guardian Scholars], which would have led me to not join a cohort for people similar to me,” Wesley added.

Addressing generational trauma

At the moment that L.A. County took her daughter, Cisneros crumbled to the DCFS office floor and balled up into a fetal position.

It was the worst day of her life in a lifetime of worst days.

She struggled to breathe.

“It fell like the whole world disappeared under my feet,” Cisneros said. “Everything switched to slow motion, the walls were closing in and the lights were dimming, almost as if I was coming in and out of consciousness.”

Her family had to drag her lifeless body outside by her arms.

As a child and teen that had cycled through both foster care and juvenile hall, she promised herself that her own children would never suffer those experiences.

She still carries the trauma of her own childhood and the pain of losing Savannah to the system, even for only one day.

Recounting the details of Savannah being taken into DCFS custody, Cisneros begins to cry. Her five-yearold son, Moises “West” Cisneros, notices and tries to comfort her.

When she tells him she is okay, he pushes back. “But why are you crying?”

“Sometimes it’s okay to cry about things that happened,” Cisneros said to her son.

But Cisneros said that it’s rare for her to share her life experiences, let alone

At their home in Inglewood, California on May 1st, El Camino College Guardian Scholar Cass Cisneros (right) listens intently to her 5-year-old son, Moises “West” Cisneros (left) as her daughter, Elisyannah Valdez, 16, and 2-year-old son, Joseph “JJ” Cisneros Struthers, wait patiently. The tattoo on her left shoulder is a tribute to her grandmother who Cisneros credits with providing her a stable and peaceful home. Cisneros graduated from ECC on June 7. Valdez also graduated in June from high school. Photo by Kim McGill

to be given the space to discuss them in college or the workplace.

A focus of Guardian Scholars — and other programs at ECC aimed at supporting students who have faced greater discrimination — is to enable students to realize their educational goals without discounting or hiding the totality of who they are.

“Intersectionalities, identities and experiences are invisibilized,” Silva said. “A student might have a dad who was deported, or a mom who was incarcerated and those realities aren’t evident. We want to meet students where they’re at and support them through those experiences.”

Guardian Scholars success coach and USC graduate student Lara Colindres said that a lot of success coaches choose education as a field to address inequity. She added that community college leaders who create policy should “hear the voices” of students.

“You never know what a person is going through,” Colindres said. “Advocating for students is what we are here for.”

Zepeda hopes that college administrators will provide greater resources to Guardian Scholars and similar programs that support students who are often discouraged from attending college.

“College staff have to be involved with each person — not on a surface level where you spotlight one student — but where multiple students’ voices are heard. We can guess what our students want. But if it’s not coming from the students directly we might not be creating the policies or programs or pushing for the changes that our students actually need,” Zepeda said.

Zepeda is a graduate student in the school counseling program at Cal State Long Beach. He eventually wants to work as a school counselor for students who cross the US-Mexico border every day to study in the US.

Otho Day worked for DCFS for over 31 years where he served as a social worker, a unit supervisor and finally as a manager overseeing several programs, including family preservation tasked with keeping families together and independent living programs for youth exiting the system.

Day urged college administrators to increase support for programs like

Guardian Scholars and Next Step. “Youth need support, commitment, and dedication,” Day said. “They [administrators] have to understand that student frustrations have to be met with patience, access to tutoring and extra counseling, and a whole lot of understanding.”

“Usually, a child who has been molested or severely abused by too many people in their life is not going to succeed in college without addressing those issues,” he added.

These are the reasons college students are disappearing from campuses, Day said. He emphasized that support programs for marginalized students are essential to keeping colleges open and accessible for everyone.

Wesley said that colleges and universities need to better publicize programs available on their campuses, and to focus on providing housing as an essential service.

“I believe so many current and former foster youth don’t graduate due to their lack of knowledge of resources coupled with them not having the longterm housing and support to pursue education for long periods of time,” he said.

Colindres agreed that one of the biggest struggles for system-impacted youth is housing, especially given that foster youth might have lost the family network that many students count on

for housing along with emotional and financial support.

A report published by California’s Legislative Analyst Office exposed that more than half of the state’s community college students face housing insecurity – more than double the rate at Cal State and UCs – with 25% having experienced homelessness.

According to the US Interagency Working Group on Youth Programs (IWGYP), nationally 31% of former foster youth experience homelessness by the age of 26.

Healing from a lifetime of hurt

On a warm afternoon in May, Cisneros was perched on the concrete porch of the small stucco house she rents in Inglewood.

She lives here with her five children, whose ages range from two to 20.

Her silver hair was pulled up into a high ponytail. She was wearing a men’s black undershirt, jeans and black vans.

Her face was clean and clear with only a touch of eye liner and dark mascara, while her eyes conveyed the wisdom and exhaustion that only a single mom knows.

The front yard was a patchwork of dirt, toys, two tricycles, a plastic playground slide and sparse grass struggling to survive amid the competition for air and sun.

Five-year-old Moises “West” Cisneros practices his Spider-Man skills outside his family’s home in Inglewood on May 1. Photo by Kim McGill

Cisneros yelled at Moises to “stay on this side of the sidewalk.”

The love and pride she has for her children are on full display. Framed photos and school awards cover the living room walls. Crayon sketches stuck haphazardly to the refrigerator. Tattoos that cover her arms include colorful replications of drawings that her children made as young children.

A new tattoo on her upper left arm portrays her grandmother, the most significant caregiver in Cisneros’s life.

“My grandma’s house was peaceful,” she said.

“She didn’t drink or do drugs. She gave me money for school lunch. At her home, I had access to food all the time,” she added.

Cisneros said she was removed from her mom’s house seven or eight times. She measures the time she spent with her grandmother by grades.

Exposed to domestic violence and drugs at home, Cisneros was impacted by police calls and DCFS custody early and often.

“My mom was an alcoholic and she couldn’t take care of us,” she said. “My stepdad was always very violent. He was a heroin addict and abused my mom.”

Starting at the age of seven, she took care of her two little sisters.

“I would cook for them, I would bathe them,” Cisneros said. “When they got

older I would walk them to school,” she added.

When her stepfather went to prison, her mom would get sober. But when he was out, Cisneros said she and her sisters would be taken into DCFS custody.

Her grandmother couldn’t show up to court, because she didn’t drive. So, she couldn’t get custody of her grandchildren.

LA County DCFS cases are heard in Edelman Children’s Court in Monterey Park, a two-hour bus ride from the west side home where her grandmother lived.

Day said keeping youth in family care whenever possible is essential to their wellbeing.

“In court, they talk around the child, about that child with little to no conversation with that child,” Day said.

He emphasized that families who can’t attend court or manage all the bureaucratic requirements to qualify as caregivers shouldn’t be excluded as foster homes.

“DCFS is not going to reform itself,” Day said. “The outside community has to come in strategically and make DCFS change its function and style.”

Cisneros said that she started getting into trouble when the court assigned her to group homes and placements instead of her grandmother’s.

She bounced from foster care to her

mom’s house and back again.

“I would party all night, run the streets and make sure I came home in time to take my sisters to school. Then, I’d sleep all day until it was time to pick them up,” she said.

She would make her little sisters something to eat, give them a bath, put them to bed and then go run the streets again.

Because her brother was sentenced to juvenile life and had a reputation in Lennox, she was protected from sexual assault and trafficking. But she experienced everything else that she said sidetracked her education — drinking, drugs, skipping school.

“All the homies from Lennox would hang out at my mom’s house. Or we would post up on the block and drink 40s all night until the cops would chase us home,” Cisneros said.

Before she turned 10, Cisneros was giving grown men needle and pen-ink tattoos. She served as a look-out when people put in work.

“They took care of me,” Cisneros said of the neighborhood.

She was locked up the first time in sixth grade for petty theft.

“I think I stole diapers,” she said. She was in honors classes and all her friends were in regular classes. When her mom refused to change her schedule so she could be with her friends, she dropped out of school in the seventh grade.

For nearly 10 years, Cisneros cycled through juvenile halls, foster homes, lock-down placements, Probation camps and Dorothy Kirby (LA County Probation Department’s lock-down mental health facility for youth).

While volunteers came into some facilities to offer educational enrichment, Cisneros said that the facilities are part of a vicious foster care to prison pipeline, rarely encouraging youth to attend college or preparing them for higher education.

The National Foster Youth Institute found that while youth impacted by the system can get into college, only 3 to 4% graduate.

Day blamed the system for not adequately preparing young people educationally and emotionally for college, including the failure of DCFS to hire staff that have overcome challenges that foster youth are experiencing.

El Camino College Guardian Scholars and Next Step programs reach out to El Camino students on Wednesday, March 27, on campus in Torrance, Calif. Guardian Scholars success coach Lara Colindres, (back), speaks with student Derick Cowo, (center left). Next Step success coach Jesse Marinero, (center right), prepares a packet of information for David Odiakoso, (front left), while Next Step success coach Rozlind Silva, (right), looks on. The two programs serve current and former foster youth. Photo by Kim McGill

“Too many [DCFS] staff don’t know how to deal with behaviors stemming from underlying trauma including sex trafficking, substance use, violence and loss,” Day said.

Day added that statistics reveal how the system is failing to adequately serve the youth in its care.

According to the Youth Suicide Prevention Project, “suicide is the leading cause of death for homeless youth, with more than 70% reporting suicidal thoughts and around 50% having a history of suicide attempts.”

Foster and former foster youth are three times more likely to significantly consider suicide, four times more likely to have made a suicide attempt in the past 12 months and five times more likely to be hospitalized following a suicide attempt when compared to non-foster care youth.

Youth impacted by the “child welfare system” — known by some survivors as the “family regulation system” — also experience higher rates of mental illness and substance use.

Zepeda said that understanding the experiences of foster and former foster youth is key in retaining students and preparing them to transfer to higher education and/or a career.

“Colleges need to have a holistic approach,” he said. “Our students might face some challenges other students don’t.”

Filling in where families can’t

For many foster youth, they navigate the college admission, registration and financial aid processes, attend classes, find and pay for housing, transportation and all their other expenses, and work extra jobs to make it financially and emotionally without any parental or family support.

Zepeda explained that students often need more time to complete assignments as they save the funds needed to get books or supplies. They benefit from added time on a test, or opportunities to express the emotional hardships they are carrying.

Silva said that Guardian Scholars and Next Step also focus on building faculty understanding.

“Students who are system impacted are expected to perform as well as other students,” Silva said. “But, students tell

us they struggle with homelessness, mental health issues, looking for jobs and getting back on their feet after they’ve experienced foster care.”

Next Step success coach Jesse Marinero was inspired to become a community college counselor because he didn’t get the support he needed in community college. He’s now in the graduate program at Cal State Long Beach.

“It took me to become a self-advocate, otherwise I wasn’t going to get what I needed,” Marinero said. He said those experiences have made him a better advocate for ECC students.

Silva attended Nogales HS in Roland Unified School District, a school that was predominantly Mexican and Filipino.

“My friends had no access with their counselors. I had to be the bridge to share information I got from my counselor,” Silva said.

On both high school and college campuses, Silva said this is a common problem.

“Some counselors can’t reach the students who are marginalized or most impacted, because our students sometimes put up a barrier to protect themselves,” she said. She just completed the college counseling program at Cal State Dominguez Hills.

“I wanted to be a community college counselor, because there’s a lot of outreach, and love and chances that get poured into minors. But, as soon as you cross 18 and come onto a college campus, you’re expected to know everything or figure it out,” Silva added.

In June, when Cisneros graduated from ECC, two of her children, Jonathan Orozco, 18, and Elisyannah Valdez, 16, graduated from high school.

To prevent DCFS placement of youth in foster care outside their community, Cisneros has served as a foster parent to the children of friends and family members, including Orozco.

On a warm night in June, a crowd filled a dance studio in Hawthorne for a graduation party celebrating the two teens’ accomplishments. Giggling friends posed with goofy props at the photo booth and raided the candy bar.

Cisneros took the mic. “I pushed hard on them to finish school,” she said. She added that education was an essential ingredient for the healing and progress of both herself and her children.

“My life was chaotic from the start,” Cisneros said later to Warrior Life.

“Home is supposed to build up your self-esteem. To give you love, stability and encouragement. I’ve been trying to create that for my kids. But college is where I found that for myself.”

Cass Cisneros picks out snacks with her sons, five-year-old Moises “West” Cisneros (left) and two-year-old Joseph “JJ” Cisneros Struthers at Alta-Dena Market on Imperial Highway in Inglewood on May 1. Photo by Kim McGill

Connecting Through Injury

How hurting my ankle reminded me of struggles my mom experienced

By Eddy Cermeno

After making the 2,196 mile journey from Guatemala to the California-Mexico border in 1990, new life opportunities were in reach for my mom.

The 30-foot tall border wall was the only thing impeding access to a new way of life for my mom who was 37 years old.

As she climbed to the top, border patrol was approaching.

A coyote, someone who specializes in smuggling immigrants across the border, screamed at everyone to hurry and get off the wall.

Health Center where she had surgery.

According to USAFacts, the U.S. averaged 1.3 million border apprehensions a year during the ‘90s.

Not getting caught was the only thing on my mom’s mind.

Without hesitating, she jumped off.

On the way down her body felt weightless. Then she realized the ground was much further than anticipated.

Once she made contact with the ground, a sharp excruciating pain engulfed her lower body.

Bones in her legs were piercing through her skin. She couldn’t move and wailed in pain.

My mom was pulled aside to nearby bushes and left for dead.

Blood gushed out of the open wounds and covered her legs. The severe pain left her near unconscious.

Her still body was laying in the desert until my uncle who was also traveling across the border at a later time was able to find and take her to safety.

While carrying my mom on his back, my uncle noticed her legs moved on their own like noodles.

Upon arriving in Los Angeles, she was taken to the Ronald Reagan UCLA

It took nine months to recover but the trauma and effects from her fall would stay with her to this day.

Some of my earliest memories are vivid moments with my mom.

We’re at Jim Thorpe Park in Hawthorne running around, throwing a baseball back and forth.

Then we would play basketball for a couple hours as she helped rebound my missed shots around the court.

As I grew up, my mom’s physical condition worsened in her lower body.

The surgery shortened the length of her left leg, leaving an imbalance in her step and posture.

Our time outside together would then also shorten over the years.

My mom, now 70 years old, is only able to walk short distances around our house due to ongoing pain in her legs and lower back.

To securely maneuver around the house, she has to grab onto obstacles, including furniture and storage drawers.

As time went on, she became used to the pain and so did my image of her.

It became normal for me to see her take more than nine pills a day to help diminish her pain and move around.

In July 2024, after running on a basketball court at a park, one quick turn caused me to fall.

My left ankle felt dull and I was in shock. I heard ligaments in my ankle tear like toothpicks when my ankle bent close to 90 degrees.

I had never experienced an injury this severe before.

The swelling grew and I could no longer walk or move my foot as I used to.

When I got home, my mom noticed my struggle to move around.

Despite her physical condition, she came to my aid and cared for my ankle.

The next day, my ankle ballooned in size and I couldn’t try to move it due to the pain and swelling.

I had to call off my work shifts at LAX since my job requires me to walk about six miles and push luggage carts around the terminals every time I clock in.

While I recovered at home, two weeks worth of income were lost.

When moving around the house, I had to grab things for support.

I was experiencing the same struggles my mom has been dealing with for over 30 years since her accident at the border. After my mom came to me at one moment to ask how my foot was feeling, I was brought to tears.

Words struggled to come out of my mouth as I sobbed about a selfish realization.

I had become accustomed to my mom struggling to move around and started not to appreciate her as I used to.

My sprained ankle was nothing compared to the life-changing physical trauma she went through.

Although my injury lasted six weeks, it reminded me to appreciate all my mom has done and continues to do for me despite her pain and struggles.

Illustration by Sofia Flores

FRIZZY BUSINESS

Story and Photos by Amari Jones

From the tightest curls to the loosest waves, here are top 5 hair products created to tame your mane.

Some days you love your hair, some days you hate it–like really hate it because of all the work it takes. Let’s not get straight to it…first comes the washing, then the styling, and you better love it or you'll be rewashing it, only to style it again and by that time you're late to class. With the help of an ECC cosmetology instructor, Warrior Life found that the payoff is worth it and very achievable with one or all of these products implemented into your curly hair routine.

Pattern: Leave-in Conditioner by Tracee Ellis Ross

This product is heaven in a bottle. The creamy texture will leave your curls feeling moisturized, smelling amazing and defined. Every curlyhaired person knows how important definition is and with this leave-in conditioning product, your wash and go will definitely be kicked up a notch. Though this product is on the pricier side ($12 to $49 from 3 ounces, 9.8 ounces and 25 ounces), you are getting your money’s worth.

Shrinkage is a nightmare for people with curly hair. Spending time styling your hair and using products that you’ve spent money on only for your hair to shrivel up like a grape that’s been left out in the sun can be annoying. To combat that, Camille Rose’s Curl Maker can be scrunched into freshly washed and detangled hair to give your curls that soft and bouncy look you want to achieve from $18.70 to $27.50 for 12 ounces.

SheaMoisture Coconut & Hibiscus Defining Styling Gel

Fighting frizz can be a hassle for wild, curly hair. This product not only defines curls but tames the frizz. Pair this with any curl-defining brush and you’ll be setting your hair up for success. Go ahead and add a bit of shine to the defining of your locks. With help from the lead ingredients silk protein, neem oil and natural flaxseed oil, this styling gel will help you achieve a picture-perfect curl day. ($7.49 to $11.49)

Looking for a perfect way to refresh your curls after a lazy streak? Curls can be a lot of work and become too much to maintain, sometimes leading to them being neglected. Treat your curls with this castor oil mist. Castor oil is known to have many benefits–one being hair growth. If you want to strengthen and moisturize your tresses, go ahead and snag a bottle, which retails between $2.99 to $9.99 for 12 ounces.

Love Ur Self: Sulfate-Free Shampoo

Washing your hair after using multiple products can be refreshing but can leave your scalp feeling dry. With this shampoo, you’ll not only get the cleanse you’re looking for but also a rejuvenating, moisturized set of curls. With shea butter and moringa oil as the key ingredients, go ahead and give your hair the wash it deserves. This product retails from $17.33 to $19 for 8.5 ounces.

As I Am: Jamaican Black Castor Oil Water

Camille Rose Curl Maker Jelly

By Camila Jimenez

Los Angeles-based twins Brooklyn and Brinkley Baker have committed their lives to mastering circus arts, with their sights set on the largest stages. They are driven to transform their passion into a professional career while balancing training and their studies.

Circus twins Brooklyn and Brinkley Baker form a star shape mid-air during their dynamic duo straps act. Photo by Sydney Sakamoto

Awarm glow radiates on the determined faces of 19-yearold fraternal twins Brooklyn and Brinkley Baker.

High above the ground, the twins dangle upside down from opposite sides of the trapeze bar, their bodies perfectly aligned in a mirror image. Their arms hang loosely, and their legs are crossed securely to keep them in place.

With effortless precision, they reach out to catch their 15-year-old sister Bixby’s arms and gracefully swing her, yet one slip could send her tumbling to the ground. Each move is a balancing effort of strength and timing, leaving muscles in their necks straining, faces reddening, and a collective breath held.

Every moment in the air is a test of trust — trust in the rope that holds them, trust in their strength and trust in each other. The rhythm of their synchronized movements is as much muscle memory as it is an unspoken bond.

While the twins are the family’s first circus performers, the foundation for their artistic career was laid long before they arrived.

Growing up and living in Playa Vista their entire lives, the lure of the circus world has drawn them since they were 2 years old, when they watched their first circus show, “Kooza,” with their parents in Santa Monica.

At 10 years old, the twins began performing with Le Petit Cirque, and from that moment on, their lives revolved around the circus, a place they could call home.

Le Petit Cirque is a humanitarian

youth production company based in Inglewood, California. It is one of the few companies in the Los Angeles area that allows minors to perform since they provide a Child Performer Services (CPS) permit.

As effortlessly as they do in the air, the twins balance their training and studies at El Camino College, where they major in sociology and are enrolled in online courses. They train three times a week with Le Petit Cirque devoting hours into their craft — five on Tuesdays and Thursdays and four and a half hours on Saturdays.

With graduation approaching at ECC, the twins hope to transfer to the University of Los Angeles. They are currently part of the Honors Transfers Program, excelling academically while pursuing their artistic dreams.

They set their sights on Cirque du Soleil, a well-known Canadian company based in Montreal, hoping to secure two spots to join the prestigious troupe.

With their identical long blonde hair and ocean blue eyes, Brooklyn and Brinkley are strikingly similar. They share the same tiny squint in their eyes and soft smile lines.

The twins had more than just a bond since childhood—they also share the same style. Whether it’s matching outfits or hairstyles, they’ve shared a fashion sense over the years.

“Sometimes when we were little, it used to be the same clothes just in different colors, and now it just became a habit after that,” Brinkley, who is one minute older than Brooklyn, said.

Bixby is also a circus performer who once dressed in the same outfits as her sisters. But as she grew into her own style, Bixby’s wardrobe evolved, reflecting her unique personality.

Their mother, Bridgett Baker, a former ballerina, was once at a crossroads between college and the prestigious New York City Ballet. At the age of 18, she decided to pursue her education at Boston University, leaving the world of dance behind. Their father, Billy Baker, a leadman, formerly worked as a stuntman for the 1994 film “The Mosaic Project,” instilling a sense of showmanship in his daughters.

The Baker twins made their first appearance in an aerial performance at the Pageant of Masters in Laguna Beach at the age of 12. Several months later, they performed their second aerial act on live TV on a show called “Wonderama” in New York City.

The twins’ favorite discipline, duo

The Baker twins in front of the Kooza tent in Santa Monica, where their dream of joining Cirque du Soleil began.

Photo by Sydney Sakamoto

straps, holds a special place in their hearts. Suspended by aerial straps, the act requires two performers to move in perfect harmony, strength and coordination, with choreography demanding intense physicality and trust.

“It’s kind of cool being a twin because all our shapes are symmetrical, which is something that a lot of their partners don’t have,” Brooklyn said, her eyes bright with enthusiasm.

They understood that reaching Cirque du Soleil would require more than just raw skill, so they plan to include footage of their best performances in a demo and upload them onto an online portal in hopes that scouts would recognize them.

“Thirty years ago when I started doing circus, it was a very difficult industry to get into,” said Serenity Smith Forchion, co-founder of The New England Center for Circus Arts. “It’s a competitive industry, but it has a pathway into it.”

The twins are no strangers to twin jokes; whenever people crack corny jokes, they exchange an amused look, an unspoken understanding. But, beyond the laughter and lighthearted moments, their performances create a greater sense of purpose.

As Le Petit Cirque primarily performs to raise funds for social causes one of their most cherished performances was a fundraiser for a boy named PJ, who had Treacher Collins syndrome,

a rare genetic condition affecting the development of facial bones and tissues. The funds raised went towards providing PJ with a cochlear implant, restoring his ability to hear.

After his passing, the twins performed at his memorial and were determined to pay tribute to him. As the performance came to an end, instead of the traditional bow, they lifted their hands and signed “I love you” in sign language and, in a touching moment of connection, one by one the audience followed.

“That show we did to raise money for him was very emotional,” Brooklyn said. “It just showed how powerful that performance was.”

of their daily routines, disrupting their training and performance.

They were set to perform alongside artists including Camila Cabello and the Black Eyed Peas at Rock in Rio Lisboa 2020. Due to the pandemic, their yearand-a-half tour plans in New Zealand were canceled.

“We had to train outdoors in Vegas with our masks on, and it was 110 degrees,” Brooklyn said.

Beyond training and performances, they coach the next generation of circus artists, enjoying the progress of the young children. Each success story fills them with pride as they witness children earn a place on the performing

“Circus people are fun. They don’t care what others think; they’re willing to be weird.”

- Brooklyn Baker

The twins not only perform, but they also give back. With over 250 hours of community service from 2021 to 2024, they received the Presidential Service Gold Award, the highest honor for volunteer work.

The twins’ path to a professional career was complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which altered the dynamics

squad for Le Petit Cirque.

While pursuing their goals of joining Cirque du Soleil, they envision a future after the circus. They wish to remain connected to the environment that shaped them by possibly becoming coaches or choreographers.

“You can’t give up even when things seem hopeless,” Brooklyn said.

Brinkley Baker balances on Brooklyn’s shoulders in front of the Cirque du Soleil tent. Photo by Sydney Sakamoto

Unlocking the door to El Camino

How a campus locksmith found the key to his career

At El Camino College there are 3,500 doors, which means many locks and key pads. Sometimes people lose their keys and sometimes doors just won’t open. All those responsibilities are taken care of by Roy Dietz, 51.

A strong stocky man raised in the city of Hawthorne, wearing his signature cowboy hat, sunglasses, El Camino employee shirt, and having a large cross tattoo on his arm, Dietz might look like a cowboy coming to the rescue.

Listening to country music while driving around campus in his green utility cart carrying his tools, Dietz is a sign of relief for the El Camino College community having door and lock problems.

It is Dietz’s 15th year working at El Camino, but Dietz has also won different hats in his life serving as the president of the classified employees and also once as a church pastor. Dietz is also a husband married to his wife Sara for 29 years and a father to two daughters.

Dietz’s work day begins at 7 a.m. He goes through his work tablet to see what work orders there are for the day. As he works on doors El Camino College faculty and staff greet him and sometimes trade jokes with each other.

Each day there is some door that is not opening right or some lock not working.

“When I was 16 my future father in law Bob Webb...was a locksmith with his own company and took me along to USC to work on campus and dorm locks and

taught me the trade,” Dietz said.

Despite the early experience, locksmithing did not become the first career move for Dietz. From 1989 to 1992 Dietz worked at the LAX airport as a freight runner. That is, until an injury.

“In 1992 while I was unloading cargo all the baggage fell on me and I really injured my back,” Dietz said. Later he was involved in a car accident making the injury worse. It also caused him to stop working at LAX..

Dietz remembered his experience learning locksmith work and decided to make a career of it. In 1994, Dietz went to the California Institute of Locksmithing in Van Nuys, California which opened in 1972, the only state certified locksmith school in California.

Story and photos by Joseph Ramirez

Roy Dietz, 51, demonstrates his cabinets and tools in his much more organized locksmith office. Formerly, when he first came to El Camino, the office was a mess, he said.

According to the California Institute for Locksmithing the amount of Californians training to become locksmiths have not decreased. There is a diverse amount of locksmithing jobs available in California and the rest of the country, including colleges and universities.

“Overall our school is teaching more students per year, the locksmith profession is not shrinking, and our graduates are able to find locksmithing jobs because we get many requests from different companies needing locksmiths,” said Teresa Friedman, director of operations of the California Institute of Locksmithing.

“It was in 1998, that I was looking and praying for a locksmith job that I found a job at Honda, at the same time my wife Sara and I were expecting our first child,” Dietz said.

From 1998 to 2009 Dietz worked at the Honda corpo,rate building in Torrance. Working with card reader locks, doors, and keys, Dietz became more of an accomplished locksmith. After a decade at Honda he decided to

move on to a new job: El Camino College.

“When I first started working at El Camino College it was difficult because the locksmith office was a complete mess and I found it difficult traveling from one end of campus to the other because of student traffic,” Dietz said.

Since starting in 2009, Dietz has been installing card reader locks, updating door frames, hinges, and locks. Campus has gone through much construction from 2009 to 2014, which has kept Dietz

nemesis since I have to return to fix it often because the door frames on the interior doors were not properly installed and things come out of place often,” Dietz said.

The locksmith office however has been a success in cleaning and organizing. After buying many large cabinets, Dietz is able to organize his different tools and parts into individual drawers.The office was formerly a mess when Dietz inherited it in 2009.

“The Humanities Building is my nemesis.” -Roy Dietz

busy, making sure it is all up to standard.

The biggest challenges of the job have been cleaning and organizing the locksmith office and the constant work on the Humanities Building. For Dietz, having to come back to the same building and make the same repairs over and over is frustrating.

“The Humanities Building is my

Dietz also works with the classified employees of El Camino College as their president. He became the president in 2020.This includes office employees and janitors, and painters.

Dietz also works with classified employees of El Camino College since 2020. This includes janitors, painters, electricians, and office employees.

Roy Dietz, 51, repairs a damaged panel on a Physical Education Building door on Sept. 26.

William Blackwell, 37, who works in shipping and receiving, is a classified employee represented by Dietz.

“Roy is great to work with and very positive and he helped me when I started the job in 2020 in how the previous shipping guy did the job,” Blackwell said.

Another employee who works with Dietz is David Molina, 45. Molina works with material handling and mail at El Camino College.

“Roy makes himself available as union president when you need to talk with him, listens to ideas, and will help you get a new key if yours gets broken,” Molina said.

Leading the classified employees union means Dietz represents the classified employees at meetings including with the Board of Trustees. The responsibilities also include listening to the members’ issues and communicating and explaining El Camino College decisions with classified employees. When there are employee grievances, Dietz looks into the issues.

Dietz also once had the opportunity of working as a pastor. When the senior pastor of Calvary Baptist Church of Hawthorne decided it was time to leave the church had a leadership gap. Dietz,

who had already been serving as a youth pastor, decided to take a leap of faith and become interim pastor from 2011 to 2014 until a full-time pastor could be hired.

“When the pastor left the church it was only 15 people attending and was a month away from closing its doors and they couldn’t find anyone yet to become the next full-time pastor,” Dietz said.

his sermons were improving. As time went on the congregation also started growing. When the church found a new full-time pastor, the congregation was 75 people.

“When I was a kid I had always walked by that church and I had never imagined that I would be attending that church and serve as its pastor in the future,” Dietz said.

“When you get comfortable, you get complacent.” - Roy Dietz

Writing sermons and leading a church proved to be a new and interesting challenge. Dietz often got criticism for his sermons from the small congregation. Yet he faithfully continued for three years.

“There was one old lady who was a longtime church member who would tell me upfront that my sermons sucked after the service, yet later she had me speak at her husband’s memorial after he passed,” Dietz said.

After a year the congregants told Dietz

Challenges and change are things that Dietz does not shy away from. He approaches them with confidence and determination.

“When you get comfortable you get complacent,” Dietz said.

The keys of El Camino College are neatly organized in Roy Dietz’s locksmith office. There are 3,500 doors on campus.

Finding her RHYTHM

This 21-year-old dance major found her lifelong passion for bachata through her high school’s salsa club. Now, she competes, teaches and performs in a city where social dancing thrives and bachata reigns.

On Wednesday nights, Alahna Alton comes alive.

Strutting down the empty, dimly-lit Everington Street in East Los Angeles in a crop top, jeans that hug her slim figure and three-inch heels that click on the sidewalk, Alton is ready.

She enters Steven’s Steakhouse – the “Steven’s” LED sign lighting the way –and heads straight to the host, handing him her credit card. It’s $10 – a small price to pay for the night she’s about to have.

She walks past the table and turns left, in through the double doors of the ballroom.

It’s 10 p.m., and Bachata Night is just getting started.

Bright hues of green, blue and purple greet her as she walks in, a familiar bachata rhythm booming from the loudspeaker as nearly 50 couples decorate the dance floor – twirling and dipping into their partner’s arms.

Alton turns left, away from the action and onto the mini platform, where she greets her friend, DJ Dmitrio – or DJ So Nasty, as he’s better known.

After stuffing her bag under a tablecloth, she lingers on the platform, scanning the floor for a familiar face.

There.

The song ends, and she heads over toward her friend with a sly grin on her face.“Want to dance?”

A Pinto Picasso song comes on and Alton is unstoppable.

She follows her lead’s direction perfectly, keeping up with the quick footwork. Her feathery brown hair twirls as her partner spins her around. She slows down, easing into undulating body rolls.

For the 21-year-old dance major, bachata isn’t just a hobby. It’s a lifestyle.

Alton is one of many Angelenos enthralled by the social dance scene, a phenomenon that has expanded since the pandemic.

In Los Angeles alone, there are over 10 socials that host salsa and bachata nights three, four – even five times a week.

“Before, you would get maybe one night in LA … it was only just strictly salsa and maybe like one bachata song out of the whole night,” Mauricio Colin, Alton’s director at Empowered Movement Dance Company in Norwalk, said.

Latin dance has gained exposure through social media, with influencers teaching viewers basic salsa and bachata steps, making the dances easy for anyone to learn.

In the past few years, bachata has been all the rage – in both its music and dance.

Originating in the Dominican Republic, traditional bachata consists of a slower pace, rhythmic hip movements and quick footwork. Modern or urban bachata developed among Dominicans in New York as a fusion of bachata, hip-hop, R&B and reggaeton.

Story and photos by Angela Osorio

Dance major Alahna Alton started dancing when she was 6 years old. She would watch music videos on the TV and follow the choreography, eventually developing her own. Now, she dances salsa and bachata professionally for a studio in Norwalk and teaches El Camino students how to dance at El Co Salseros club meetings. Pictured here in a dance classroom at El Camino College on Oct. 3, Alton’s goal is continue traveling, competing and performing – and someday teach it full-time.

A unique style of bachata began developing in L.A. in 2013, pioneered by dancers Jorge Contreras, Alejandro Ray and Leslie Ferrera.

“L.A. became the mecca of urban style,” said Aubrey Ares, an award-winning professional Latin dancer, Rams cheerleader captain, former Lakers dancer and owner of Empowered Movement Dance Company.

“They took music and took out the steps of bachata and used body movement to stay on bachata rhythm,” Ares said.

that provides performances for different companies. She has won international awards for salsa dancing and established judging criteria for the World Salsa Championships.

“It’s a pretty simple dance,” she said. “I think it’s gained a lot of popularity because most people can do a basic bachata. Salsa is not as easy to do.”

“I really just fell in love with the dance style itself...there’s a level of feminity that comes with bachata.”

Ares learned the style from Contreras, who invited her to become his dance partner. She fell in love with it and started teaching urban, LA-style bachata around the world.

Then, in 2017, sensual bachata was introduced by Spanish dancers Daniel Sanchez Berlanga and Desiree Guidonet, (who go by Daniel y Desiree on their social media), consisting of flowy movements, lots of turns and an intimate feel.

-Alahna Alton

Since then, sensual bachata has become the hottest dance on the floor, seen most frequently in dance clubs or socials.

“Right now the hot thing, the very hot thing, is bachata,” Katie Marlow said.

Marlow, a Florida native, has been a professional dancer for 50 years, in addition to being a dance instructor, a judge at national and international dance competitions and owner of Katie Marlow Productions, a Floridabased dance production company

More dance studios are offering Latin dance classes due to the high demand. In L.A., there are over 20 academies and studios teaching salsa and bachata.

“Because we were so isolated during COVID, once we came back together there was more of a demand for activities that put us together in a room,” Elizabeth Adamis, full-time dance instructor who taught Alton’s improvisation class at El Camino, said. Prominent music artists have helped

Alahna Alton, 21, dances a basic salsa routine at an El Co Salseros club meeting at the Student Services Plaza on Oct. 1. Alton teaches club member show to dance sals aand bachata every Thursday at 7 p.m.

propel bachata’s surging popularity, with Latin rappers and singers remixing their songs into bachata mixes, including Bad Bunny and Nicky G. Four bachata songs made No. 1 on Billboard’s Latin Airplay list last year.

“Dance is kind of cyclical,” Marlow said. “Depending on what’s going on in the music industry at that point, is what you’re probably going to find in the clubs, because that’s what they’re pushing.”

Although El Camino does not offer them, more colleges are also offering salsa and bachata classes, including Los Angeles City College, Santa Monica College and Pierce College.

El Camino’s salsa club – of which Alton is a member and instructor – has also seen a growth of members each semester.

“It’s being appreciated more in curriculum,” Adamis said. “Colleges realize they need these dance forms.”

Social dancing has also allowed people to learn and practice while building confidence and meeting new dancers.

“Social dancing has always been around, in many forms,” Marlow said. “In New York, a lot of the people who started pushing salsa – they were from Latin families…that was a part of their culture.”

Alton, an aspiring salsa and bachata professional, has practiced Latin dance for over three years – but it didn’t always start out that way.

From the living room to the stage

Alton’s first dance studio was her living room in Visalia, just three hours away from Los Angeles.

At 6 years old, she was freestyling and shuffle dancing to EDM, house music and LMFAO on TV. Her mother had taught her how to shuffle dance, thinking it would be amusing.

It only took a few music videos for Alton to become entranced, and it was only a few steps before Alton mastered the art of shuffle dancing and started developing her own choreography.

She never stopped. On her way to school, she’d shuffle dance. At her friends’ house, she’d play Just Dance on the Wii. At home, she’d practice her Michael Jackson moonwalk.

“She, like, totally just exploded with

it,” her mother, Aileen Alton, said.

Even with all the dancing, it was a quiet life for Alton. She spent most of her time watching TV, creating art, and, of course, dancing. But she didn’t have many friends.

Maybe it was the opposite shoes she would wear. Or the pencils she’d stick in her hair as an innovative hairstyle.

Despite getting teased, Alton refused to change her ways. “Why do I have to change?” she’d ask her mother and aunt, who suggested she change her style.

“She had a hard time finding people who would accept her for who she was,” Gabriela Perez, her aunt who lived with her at the time, said.

Still, Alton never minded being alone.

Around first grade, Alton moved with her parents to Las Vegas, leaving her aunt, grandmother and home behind.

Nevada didn’t bring the happiest memories – hot weather, continued teasing for her style and tension at home.

Three years later, Alton moved to Redondo Beach with her grandmother and aunt. She continued her childhood playing tea parties with her aunt, making “coupon books,” and watching “iCarly” and “Wizards of Waverly Place.”

After her mother returned from Vegas, they moved to Inglewood, where she lives now.

The exasperated 12-year-old had

danced at home long enough. She longed to be taught professionally. After begging her mother, she finally joined her first dance studio: Dancer 4 Life in Inglewood.

That’s where she discovered hip-hop.

The sharp, intricate movements made her feel powerful as she began competing and performing.

For her first performance, a winter recital, the dancers were told to create their own choreography for everyone to learn. Alton came up with hers and the director loved it – except, it was too difficult for everyone to learn. So, she performed it as a solo instead.

“She’s always pretty confident,” her mother said. “She can be nervous a little bit, but I think it’s because she knows she’s going to do well.”

Alton spent hours at the studio learning and perfecting her hip-hop, ballet, jazz and contemporary dance.

Alahna Alton trains with the Power team, the most advanced team at the Empowered Movement Dance Company in Norwalk. The team performs at vaious competitions throughout the country and internationally. In July 2024, Alton won an award for her bachata solo at the Los Angeles Summer Bachata Festival.

Yet, she yearned for more.

Around high school, she began ditching the mismatched shoes and funky hairstyles. She started wearing makeup. She got into skateboarding and made more friends.

But it wasn’t until she joined Redondo Union High School’s salsa club at 13 that her world changed.

Discovering Latin dance

Alton didn’t just discover salsa and bachata, she discovered a piece of her that had always been missing – and she found it in this new form of dance.

The music, the flavor, the styling, the personality – she was awed by the way she could capture it all through the sway of hips, quick footwork, body rolls and turns.

“I really just fell in love with the dance style itself,” Alton said. “There’s so much that goes into it…the way you move your shoulders and your hips; you need to make it look flowy but you have to make it look easy at the same time… there’s a level of femininity that comes with salsa and bachata.”

One of her dance instructors invited her to join the salsa team and dance studio she was opening in Whittier, called Paso de Oro. Alton gladly accepted the invitation.

She stayed for two years, learning the art of salsa and bachata and developing her own style before joining her current studio, Empowered Movement Dance Company (EMDC), in Norwalk.

EMDC was founded in 2016 by Ares, who combined her contemporary dance technique with the bachata style she had learned in L.A., to develop a technical, performance-style of bachata that includes tricks.

She started the studio with the goal of empowering dancers, building their confidence and holding them to a high standard.

“People enjoy coming to EMDC because…there’s always a goal,” she said.

The studio’s dance classes range from salsa to reggaeton and ballet, and are open to all ages. One dancer on the team was 76 years old, Ares said.

EMDC also trains dance teams to compete in local, state and international competitions. Their Power team, the most advanced, was the first bachata team to compete on World of Dance two years ago.

Alton recently made it on the Power team, after working her way up from the intermediate team. Most of the studio’s instructors and directors start out on the Power team and are later offered a position to work at the studio.

When Ares first met Alton, she was auditioning for the studio at 17.

“I remember thinking: she’s really talented, we just need to work on her confidence,” Ares said. “There’s a certain level of confidence people need to perform, to put on a show for people.”

So, Ares worked on private

lessons with Alton, improving her technique and, most importantly – her confidence.

Others at the studio also saw Alton as shy, quiet and reserved.

“She’d come in, put on her shoes, practice and then leave,” Colin said, who first met Alton when she joined EMDC in 2022.

Eventually, as she started to spend more time at the studio, Alton slowly started coming out of her shell, opening up to Colin and making friends with her teammates.

“She started blossoming, showing her character more,” he said.

Now, when Alton walks onto the stage, she strides across the floor with her head high and chin up. She knows she’s about to do well – even if she forgets some choreography.

During one solo performance at a competition, Alton forgot her steps right after the chorus. She kept a smile plastered on her face as she did some freestyle, trying to stay calm and natural, and then picked up the choreography again at a later point in the song.

No one noticed, except her directors.

“When it comes to doing something I know how to do, the confidence comes out,” she said. “It’s almost like a persona.”

In July, Alton won first place in Advanced Bachata Solo at the Los Angeles Summer Bachata Festival, where she debuted the solo she’d been practicing for almost a year.

“Right now, she’s got to…a true professional [level],” Colin said. “She’s working so hard and I appreciate that… the growth has been immense.I’ve seen her lowest. And right now she’s at her highest, and I’m really happy for her.”

When Alton performs her solo on campus to promote the salsa club, every movement is intentional and precise, fitting the mood of her sultry, playful style.

Alahna Alton, 21, dances nt only at competitions and performances, but also at an elementary school. At her job at F.D. Roosevelt Elementary School, Alton performs in front of 5 to 10-year-olds who cheer her on during performances.

“You won’t catch me doing a lot of basic moves,” she said.

She’ll end her performance with a signature hand flourish or a split, tilting her head back to smile at the audience.

“She’s very clear about where she puts her space, her arms, her head,” Adamis said. “She’s precise about it all.”

Alton doesn’t just perform in front of adult audiences, though.

Sometimes, she’ll have an auditorium full of 5 to 10-year-olds.

At F.D. Roosevelt Elementary School in Lawndale, Alton works as an afterschool program leader, overseeing academic programs for kindergartners.

She’ll often perform on the school’s cafeteria stage, where cheers and screams erupt from the children.

After one recent performance of her bachata solo, a group of second graders bombarded her with hugs, compliments and congratulations.

“Everyone’s very receptive, very appreciative…they just want to learn,” Alton said.

It was by far a more welcoming community than her high school’s salsa club, where she said people didn’t like her. Or believe in her.

“People would say I’m not that good,” Alton said with a shrug. “Maybe they’re saying something because they wish they could do what I’m doing.”

Even when she’s not teaching, Alton will join in on club meetings just for fun, following the basic routines she knows too well. As she’s dancing, she’ll spot someone lingering in the corner,

Yet, despite the awkwardness and terror of dancing with strangers, Alton was hooked.

She started visiting all the socials she could find – driving as far as Santa Ana and Northridge.

The social dance scene was new, unfamiliar, scary and yet inviting, and she was itching to explore it.

At first, she felt butterflies in her stomach every time she danced with strangers. As a follow, she didn’t know what the lead’s next move would be.

But after frequenting the clubs and dancing with strangers for longer periods of time, she realized they all danced variations of the same thing.

“When you connect with somebody and the movement is just flowing freely to a great piece of music...it’s one of the greatest joys in life – that feeling.”

“Let her be absent, and everyone will be asking ‘Where’s Ms. Alahna?’” said her coworker Demi Haines.

After graduating high school at 17, Alton enrolled at El Camino as a biology major, with hopes of becoming a medical examiner. She said her desire to “work on dead people” was influenced by her love for crime shows and movies – especially “Criminal Minds.”

Then, before the semester started, she dropped all her classes and switched to dance, realizing there was nothing else she loved more.

“I can’t see myself not dancing,” she said.

When Alton started at El Camino in 2021, she found El Co Salseros and joined immediately, discovering a community of beginner and intermediate dancers who were all eager to learn.

Noticing her talent, the club president asked her to become one of the instructors and she started teaching the club members on Thursdays.

-Katie Marlow

hesitant to join.

“Want to dance?” she’ll ask.

Despite her quiet, introverted demeanor, Alton has no problem approaching strangers and asking them to dance at social clubs.

“How is this girl, that’s so shy and timid and very reserved…so good at social dancing?” Colin would ask himself.

She wasn’t always a natural.

The art of social dancing

Alton was 17 when her former dance teammate, Patricia Nooner, insisted on taking her to social dancing.

“What’s that?” Alton had asked, not knowing she was getting into.

When she entered the bachata room, she didn’t know what to do. The amount of couples was overwhelming, and the thought of asking a stranger to dance was unbearable. She wasn’t even wearing heels – her preferred dancing footwear.

“[My teammate] told me, ‘just go ask someone to dance.’ I was like, ‘what do you mean?,’” she said.

She began recognizing the people she danced with and establishing connections and friendships, solely through dance.

She’s danced with someone at Steven’s for years – without even knowing his name.

“There’s a connection aspect to salsa and bachata and hustle…that doesn’t happen in the theatrical dances,” said Marlow, the owner of the dance production company. “When you connect with somebody, and the movement is just flowing freely to a great piece of music that you feel, there’s nothing that you can really compare that to. It’s one of the greatest joys in life – that feeling.”

Now, three years later, Alton plans to remain at her studio, obtain her associate’s degree from El Camino and continue traveling and performing –with the long-term goal of teaching dance someday.

“I see a lot of opportunities in front of her,” Ares said.

Once a member of the Power team is invited to join the staff of instructors and directors, they get to travel, perform and get paid, including paid flights and other accommodations.

“As a dancer, that’s like the top tier that you want to make it to,” Ares said. “To be able to live your dream of a dancer but also be able to see the world.”

TIK-TOK

Here’s 5 of the trendiest styles on campus,

Story and photos by

Jirai Kei

Jirai Kei literally means “landmine type,” relating to the portrayal of women as emotionally unstable “ticking bombs” ready to burst. The style consists of a pink and black color palette, mini skirts, frilly blouses, lace and platform boots, as well as accessories including chokers, chains and silver jewelry.

Office Siren

Drawing inspiration from fashion designers in the ‘90s and early 2000s including Tom Ford and Miu Miu, this trend glamorizes the corporate look. The style consists of of tailored blazers, mini skirts, fitted blouses, turtlenecks, stilettos, slick-backed hair and accessories including glasses.

Goth

Emerging in the late ‘70s as a youth subculture in the UK. Taking inspiration from the Victorian and Medieval eras, traditional gothic fashion is all about dark colors and bold pieces, with corsets, skirts, lace and chunky boots. Accessories include silver necklaces, chain belts and chokers.

Model: Ray Chesterton, 18, Undecided major

Necklace: Vivienne Westwood

Blouse: Rojita

Skirt: MA*RS

Thigh Highs: Amazon

Bubbles Tokyo

Model: Anaje Jolly, 18, Cosmetology major

Button-up blouse: thrifted

Low-rise jeans: thrifted

Model: “Slade” Davis, 21, fashion major

Chains: Amazon, Hot Topic

Boots: Forever 21

Loafers: thrifted

Loafers:

TAILORED:

campus, from baggy jeans to leather corsets

Angela Osorio

Leopard Print

From ancient Egyptians to fashion icons in the ‘50s and ‘60s, the feline print has long been a statement piece that has attracted consumers with its bold, exotic pattern. In the ‘90s, the leopard print became widely mainstream. And, like most ‘90s and y2k trends, its return has been spotted yet again.

The Baggy Aesthetic

With jeans, the fashion world has seen it all. Now however, Gen Z is favoring bigger, baggier and wider-leg pants. More specifically, JNCO jeans. In the ‘90s, JNCO was popular among youth, especially skateboarders and graffiti artists. Now, they’ve cycled their way back to modern fashion through Tik Tok.

Cape: Hot Topic

Lingerie dress, handmade

Fuzzy leopard hat (gifted by grandma)

Skirt: Amazon

Boots gifted by grandma

“Ignorantes” Band T-Shirt

JNCO jeans

Doc Martens

Top: Capelo

Leg warmers: Amazon

Faux leather corset: Amazon

Model: Maria Cortez, 18, radiology major

Model: Mason Alvarado, 18, radiology major

Finding Purpose in Praise A psychology major’s story about connecting with her faith

By Sydney Sakamoto

On a Sunday morning at Mt. Tabor Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, the air buzzed with anticipation. The congregation settled into the pews, their eyes fixed on the front. The music began softly —a gospel song filled with reverence and devotion.

Jennifer Chambers, an 18-year-old psychology major at El Camino College, stepped forward. Born in Texas but raised in Inglewood, Chambers has been part of Mt. Tabor since her family moved to California in 2007, calling the church her second family.

Dressed in a flowing white praise dance gown, she stood still for a moment. As the choir’s voices rose, so did her arms and with every turn and leap, she became one with the music.

Her movements told a story of faith that left the congregation in awe.

For a moment, it seemed as if time slowed. In that sacred space, Chambers wasn’t just performing a dance — she was ministering to her church.

“You put a lot of embers and passion into your dance,” a church member, Dianne Spencer told her.

In moments like this, Chambers realized the true purpose of her ministry. She wasn’t just moving to the music; she was inspiring those around her even a young girl who approached her after the performance, eyes wide with admiration, saying, “I want to dance like you.”

The power of praise dancing

Praise dancing, also known as liturgical dancing, has deep historical

roots in religious worship, tracing back so far that its precise origin is unknown.

Micheal Land, an arts and music professor at Trinity College, elaborates on this connection.

“When Psalm 150 calls on believers to ‘praise Him with tambourine and dancing; praise Him with strings and flute. Praise Him with clashing cymbals’.... it’s more than a suggestion – it’s an invitation to worship through movement using our whole selves to express devotion,” he said.

Praise dancing holds a profound place in Black churches, Southern Baptist, Pentecostal, and Catholic denominations, with origins that trace back to the era of slavery in the United States. In a world where enslaved individuals were often forbidden from

Jennifer Chambers, psychology major, has been attending serivces at Mt. Tabor Missionary Baptist Church where she performs praise dancing, in Los Angeles since 2007. She thinks of the church as a second family. Photo by Sydney Sakamoto

practicing their cultural traditions, dance became a subtle yet powerful act of resistance, enabling them to maintain spiritual resilience and communal identity under oppressive conditions.

“During the time of the Underground Railroad, enslaved individuals would use these songs to communicate information about escape routes or provide warnings about nearby danger,” Land said.

Praise dancing was not just an element of worship but also a reflection of the resilience of the Black community.

“As Black churches grew in prominence after the abolition of slavery, the tradition of praise dancing continued to evolve, transforming into a cherished form of worship that preserved cultural heritage while celebrating the strength, faith and unity of the congregation,” Land said. A shy girl finds her calling Chambers grew up in Mt. Tabor Missionary Baptist Church, where her spiritual journey began.

At 11 years old, Chambers wandered upstairs in the church and stumbled upon a group of women gracefully practicing a praise dance. The dancers, ranging from ages 3 to 80, moved with a rhythm that seemed almost otherworldly, their arms stretching

toward the heavens as they followed the flow of gospel music.

Chambers, shy and reserved, stood entranced in the doorway. It was as though they were speaking a language she hadn’t yet learned — a language of faith expressed through movement.

Hesitant but intrigued, she was invited to join them. Her steps were timid, but with each beat of the song, she felt something deeper than just the mechanics of dance — a connection.

“I didn’t know what it was at first,” Chambers said. “But I could feel this pull. It wasn’t just dancing; it was like I was praying with my body.”

What began as a casual interest soon became a spiritual experience for Chambers. Each practice session allowed her to pour out her vulnerability and transform it into worship. Dance

became her way of communicating with God — her form of prayer without words.

Finding her ministry in dance

Praise dancing has long held a sacred place in Black churches, including Mt. Tabor Missionary Baptist. This form of spiritual expression allows the congregation to feel the power of God’s presence through movement.

For Chambers, though, it was more than a ritual —it was a lifeline. When she first started praise dancing, she was unsure of herself, nervous about stepping in front of an audience.

“She’s an introvert by nature,” said her dance instructor, Toykia Stafford. “Sometimes you’d never know it by the way she moves in front of the congregation, but getting her to that point wasn’t always easy.”

“I could feel this pull. It wasn’t just dancing; it was like I was praying with my body.”

-Jennifer Chambers

Jennifer Chambers is a psychology major at El Camino College, she wants to help children have better access to therapy. She plans to transfer to Westmount College in Santa Barbara. Photo by Susana Reyes

Dance has always been a part of Chambers’ life, she started ballet at 3 years old. Her passion for dance continued when she discovered praise dancing at 11 years old. Photo by Angela Osorio

“I always encourage the dancers to connect with the song before we go out,” Stafford said. “Jenni has really taken that to heart. She makes sure that every movement means something, that she’s fully present in the moment.”

Overcoming her shyness

Chambers’ journey from shy introvert to confident leader wasn’t immediate. Early on, she struggled to keep up with faster-paced movements and sometimes hesitated to ask questions.

“When she was younger, she wasn’t always the fastest at picking up choreography,” Stafford said . “Some of the other girls caught on right away, but Jenni needed a little more time.”

However, Chambers’ dedication made up for any initial challenges. She spent extra hours practicing at home, refining her movements until they were flawless. As she grew more comfortable with the technical aspects of praise dancing, something else began to change her confidence. Stafford shared a turning point when Chambers took charge during a group rehearsal.

“There was this moment a few years ago when she really stood out. The older girls were gone, and Jennifer just stepped forward and took control. You could see she wasn’t holding back anymore,” she said.

Chambers said her confidence grew

after her first successful performance.

“It was nerve-wracking and unbelievable,” she said. “But after that, I wanted to keep going. Each time, it felt more like I was worshiping, showing my praise for God through dance.”

Stepping into leadership

As older dancers left for college or other commitments, Chambers found herself stepping into leadership roles, mentoring younger dancers and helping keep the ministry alive. She recognized the importance of passing on the tradition to the next generation.

“There’s a recruitment of the newer generation that I hope to get into the dance and keep the church tradition going,” Chambers said.

Her leadership and commitment are evident in her work with younger dancers. Her friend Giselle Richardson, 17, recalled their recent performance for their church’s anniversary.

“She took a leadership role and made sure we were doing the arm movements in sync with each other,” she said. Chambers’ continued growth

Since returning to the church after the pandemic, Chambers’ passion for dance and her faith has only deepened. Her most recent performance held special meaning, marking her first time on stage since quarantine.

“I feel like it brought me closer to God

and my own passion,” she said.

Now, as a psychology major, she hopes to help children access therapy, an opportunity she didn’t have growing up. This mission, rooted in her own experiences, aligns with her ministry and commitment to uplifting others.

Looking ahead, Chambers envisions recruiting more young dancers and organizing performances that inspire the congregation.

“I hope for the future of spiritual growth and to inspire others through dance,” she said.

Chambers has been praise dancing at Mt. Tabor Missionary Baptist Church, located in Los Angeles, after she moved to California in 2007. Photo by Sydney Sakamoto

My b ig f a t online dating encounter: My experience as a plus size woman finding love virtually

By Amari Jones

There I was, staring at my Hinge profile that I had carefully curated in order to appear as attractive as possible. This was an attempt at finding a partner because I was too insecure and reserved to do this in person.

Growing up, I never felt pretty due to my weight. I was bullied a lot by the boys in my class. I was used to seeing my slimmer friends getting attention.

Boys showed nothing but disgust toward me. They would call me slurs like fatty and butterball. So as an adult, it didn’t shock me that I still didn’t fit the “beauty standard” because I was a plussize person.

When men approached me at bars, gas stations and grocery stores, I ignored them, feeling there was no way a man could be attracted to me.

reciprocate. Eventually, men started to notice me.

messaged me to confirm. There was no way out and I had to face him.

So here I was, attempting to paint myself in the best light and pour my heart out into the prompts, hoping to draw men’s attention to my words and not my photos. I chose photos I felt my best in and felt confident enough to post on my Instagram but this was different. This was putting myself on display for my biggest critics: men.

Adding these photos to my profile was like putting myself on a chopping block. One more scroll for a quick review and my finger was pressing submit.

According to wooplus.com, a plus size dating website, over 71% of women said they were harassed and insulted on “regular” dating apps because of their plus-sized bodies. About 29% of women said they have never been harassed on regular dating apps, though many of them admit they have been turned down before because of their size.

Signing into my profile was like standing on a scale that was displayed for all the men who came across.

I sent out hearts to men I found attractive but doubted they would ever

Every match felt like an accomplishment.

We’d have a great conversation, until the topic would turn to meeting up. My biggest fear was meeting in person. The sooner a man brought up meeting in person, the sooner I ghosted him.

The photos I chose for my profile were the “skinny” version of me. I would take photos of myself standing in poses that made my body look curvier. When meeting in person, I didn’t want these men to see that I was plus-size. I couldn’t deal with seeing the realization of my weight set in on my date’s face.

To find love, I knew I had to get over that fear. One day, I met someone who made me want to put myself out there. After a few conversations through text, we realized we had similar interests. The date was set. We’d be seeing “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” at Cinemark Carson and XD at 12:10 p.m. on Nov. 11, 2022.

The morning of the date, I wanted so bad to cancel. I didn’t text him in hopes that maybe he would forget. But he

It looked like a tornado had hit my room as I prepared for judgment day. Maybe if I picked the best outfit, did the best hairstyle and sprayed my best perfume he wouldn’t see that I was overweight.

As I waited in front of the movie theater, all the worstcase scenarios ran through my mind. What if he saw me before I saw him and decided to turn around? What if he realized on his way over that he’s not attracted to me?

That’s when I heard my name being called, leaving me at a loss for words. We went inside and stood in line for snacks. I declined. What if he saw me eating and got grossed out?

After the movie, I knew my time was up. It was a Cinderella moment and the clock had struck midnight. I felt an inevitable defeat approaching. Then, he offered to get some food. He didn’t want the date to end. Neither did I. We ate and talked some more.

I was comfortable and felt like he wasn’t judging me. I didn’t feel my insecurities getting the best of me. All my worrying about whether he liked me was pushed aside as soon as he asked me on a second date while we were still on our first one.

He embraced me and told me he was attracted to me regardless, and that I looked exactly like my photos so there were no surprises.

I had done it. I found a guy who liked me, flaws and all. We are now in a relationship and I know my weight doesn’t matter to him. He loves me for who I am.

My patience and ghosting every other guy who attempted to meet up after a couple conversations paid off. With help from him I was able to see myself as more than just a plus size person. I feel beautiful regardless of my size.

Illustration by Chelsea Alvarez