collegian.csufresno.edu
Monday, Mar. 12, 2018
ASI CANDIDATES WANT YOUR VOTE Pages 2-4
Fresno State’s Award-Winning Newspaper
SPRING
Sprouting selection
CULTURE
Shining a light to hushed voices through comedy By Bineet Kaur
@hellobineet
By Christian Mattos @ChrisssyMattos
P
lants grown by Fresno State students were sold Saturday at the Gibson Farm Market in hopes of raising funds for the campus nursery and farm. The Horticulture Nursery’s Spring Plant Sale featured discounted organic and conventional spring vegetable seedlings and fruit trees. “All of our plants are grown by our students and are grown on site so they are acclimated to our conditions,” said Calliope Correia, an instructional support technician from the department of plant science. She said the event allowed students’ hard work to be seen and utilized by the community. “It’s our time to interact with the public and show off what amazing things are happening and being grown throughout the farm,” Correia said. “There is a strong sense of pride in the students when they can sell something that they have nurtured and grown from the very beginning.” It was the fifth annual spring plant sale, and the most popular plant of the day was tomatoes, Correia said. Some of the other plants available included blackberry, blueberry, strawberry, cucumber, eggplant, zucchini and dandelion. Fresno State alumna Elizabeth Thomasian brought her own wagons to carry the plants. She picked out an apricot tree as well as tomatoes, squash, eggplant, zucchini and strawberry for her home garden. “Usually the Fresno State variety I find to be a stronger producer, and they usually have more flavor than the everyday variety that you would purchase from, say, Home Depot or Lowe’s,” Thomasian said. Alan Preston, an instructional support technician from the chemistry department, came to get tomatoes and peppers for sal-
Benjamin Cruz • The Collegian
Patrons of the Gibson Farm Market wait patiently in line in order to achieve their deals on plants during Gibson Market Spring Plant Sale on March 10, 2018. The annual sale is hosted by the Fresno State Horticulture Nursery and provides the public with special priced organic and conventional spring plants.
sa. He said he was pleased by the variety of plants for sale. “The horticulture greenhouse seems to bring in some different varieties that you wouldn’t find anywhere at the big-box stores. Especially today, the price is great because everything’s discounted,” Preston said. In addition to the plants, the Gibson Farm Market also featured some sales and new products of its own. Fresh citrus and dried mangoes were available to shoppers. Hot dogs and bacon products were 25 percent off, and Fresno State-made jams were 15 percent off, said Emily Baker, a marketing intern at the market. “Not only are [shoppers] getting plants on sale, but then they get to come in and see what else our campus has to offer, whether it be the dairy products or the nuts or the meat,” Baker said. The food processing unit was also offering different flavors of jam to sample. Culinology major Andrea Valdovinos had strawberry,
mango and blueberry jams for customers to taste. Valdovinos explained that the jams are made in a half-jacketed kettle that allows for steam production and control while frozen fruit and sugar cook inside. Other ingredients, like pectin or citric acid, may be added depending on the jam. “For me, I feel like store-bought ones have a lot of other things added to them, and these – it’s mainly just fruit,” Valdovinos said. “We try to keep away from adding too much.” By the end of the day, Correia said, around 800 people had come to the event. Fifteen minutes before the 9 a.m. opening, she said there were easily 100 people there. Correia said that anyone can garden, whether it be on acres of land or just an indoor plant. “Gardening is good for the soul,” she said. “We are lucky to live in a climate we can garden year round.”
The Funny Asian Women Kollective (FAWK) visited Fresno State on Saturday and Sunday for a weekend of comedy, theater and educating others on microaggressions. Microaggressions are described as covert remarks with underlying implications that the remark is influenced by someone’s demographics, such as race or gender. FAWK is a Minnesota-based group composed of three Asian-American women: May Lee Yang, Saymoukda Vongsay and Naomi Ko. Yang and Vongsay are both playwrights and poets. Ko is a writer and actress who has written for Warner Bros. The group encourages Asian women to deconstruct stereotypes pertaining to them by being assertive and true to themselves. FAWK formed when Ko performed at a poetry reading and was asked to censor her material. Ko was asked to avoid inappropriate topics and swear words. She said she felt that, as a result, she wasn’t allowed to perform to her fullest potential. “Because she was censored, she wasn’t able to be her full self as an artist,” Vongsay said. “She wasn’t funny. She wasn’t witty.” So, the three women created a space in which they could feel free to perform in the way they would like to. “As Asian-American women artists, there are these assumptions on what kind of topics we should be talking about,” Vongsay said. “We are sick of people’s expectations of what Asian women artists should be.” The members of FAWK explained that at times, people expect Asian women to be soft spoken and to restrict their speech in order to be perceived as more polite. Gena Lew Gong, a Fresno State lecturer in the anthropology department, said she felt it was crucial to bring FAWK to Fresno State because the university’s Asian-American students don’t find many opportunities to attend events geared toward them. “We thought that by bringing in a
As Asian-American women artists, there are these assumptions on what kind of topics we should be talking about. We are sick of people’s expectations of what Asian women artists should be. — Gena Lew Gong, Fresno State lecturer See CULTURE, Page 7