Incite Magazine Volume 8.1: Profiles and Perspectives by Incite Magazine

INCITE Profiles & Perspectives

Volume 8.1

Contents Aunt Dee Dee

Channeling Your Spirituality at the Holistic Wellness Faire

Wayfarer on the Ledge of Paradise

For All the Women and Girls

Not Quite ‘Clear’: Taking the Scientology Personality Test

So Who’s Going to Eat That Salad?

Staff EDITOR IN CHIEF Courtney Hamilton ASSISTANT EDITOR Nikki Constantine SENIOR EDITOR Gricel Garcia CREATIVE DIRECTOR Katie Ludwick WEB EDITOR Brittany Dunn WRITERS Mariah Castaneda Yesenia Cuevas Nidia K. Flores Elizabeth Mack Savannah Peykani @incitemag www.incitemagazineuci.com

Cover photo by Flickr user Devin Smith

Our mission is to create awareness beyond our common cultural community in an effort to educate, unite, and transcend barriers. We aim to provide our readers with insight into the world they live in, with the hopes of inciting activism.

Editor’s Note The “Profiles and Perspectives” issue is a departure for Incite Magazine in every sense of the word. First, it’s the most diverse and experimental theme we’ve run. The issue’s main feature is a creative piece by Elizabeth Mack that celebrates strong female voices and personalities. Other stories look inward: Nidia Flores’s “For All the Women and Girls” follows the author’s feminist coming of age, and my own “Not Quite Clear” documents my experience with the Oxford Capacity Analysis, a Scientologist personality assessment. Similarly, Savannah Peykani’s “Channeling Your Spirituality” probes alternative religion and spiritualism at the Orange County Holistic Wellness Faire. Our two profiles explore the lives of two intrepid women: Mariah Castaneda’s “Wayfarer on the Ledge of Paradise” profiles a UC Berkeley graduate and her drug-addled plunge into homelessness, while Yesenia Cuevas’ playfully titled “So Who’s Going to Eat that Salad?” captures the spirit of a Yogurtland employee with an unlikely story. Finally, this issue serves as a literal departure for the magazine’s current staff. It’s bittersweet to write this Editor’s Note—my final one as Editor in Chief of the magazine to which I lovingly (and sometimes warily, the two aren’t mutually exclusive) dedicated four years of my life. I’m sad to leave, but I’m thrilled to see it grow in the competent hands of my successor, Megan Cole. I know Megan and her fellow staff cohort—Roy, Casandra and Denette—will continue a legacy of progressive, alternative journalism while making this magazine their own. I’d like to use a sliver of this page space to thank the people who made and continue to make this magazine possible. First, the magazine’s founders Kristin Ladd, Joanna Clay, and Anna Nguyen. None of this would be possible without them. Next, the prior staff cohort that gave me this position—thank you for this opportunity. To my current and previous dedicated staff and writers—Katie, whose been my right-hand girl since the beginning, Brittany, Nikki, Gricel, Rachel, Celine, Nidia, Yesenia Carvajal, Jennifer Calderon, Kelly Kimball—I love you guys. To our supporters, Generation Progress and Alternative Media, again, we’d be nowhere without you. To the incoming staff cohort: Thanks for signing up for some sleepless nights. Do good work. Finally, to you, reader: You’re the most important. This magazine relies on your interest, feedback, and patronage. I’ve said this in every Editor’s Note, but thank you for your indelible support. Sorry, that was way more than a sliver. Sincerely, Courtney Hamilton Editor in Chief

By Elizabeth Mack

Badass Women

The women in my family are strong and not in the general sense. Women everywhere carry the weight. They lug that baggage, strapping onto their backs “got to feed my children,” “well he didn’t bother to stay around when it turned positive,” “work, feed the kids, iron, wash the kids, get groceries, pay for piano lessons, what am I missing?” “how am I going to handle all of this?,” “damn it, he did that again,” “no, I think I’m really missing something.” Or in my mom’s case, her ass. I think that’s why God made women with big hips. He took out his rolling pin and with hands meant for handling thunderstorms and curing big time diseases he stretched the sides out a little bit. “Now women can pop babies out and have extra strength to carry the baggage,” he said. And just like that. Women bearing babies and bearing baggage. Yep. That’s how it is. The thing with the women in my family though is that they don’t just bear the baggage. They throw it back. Not in the sense of “here you go, not my problem anymore” but “make sure to close the door on the way out of abandoning your family.” These women in my family flip the sky off instead of staring into that big blue ocean of space as if some kind of miracle mystery answer will jump right out at you and the world will suddenly make sense. Because all that big hunk of solid blue mass does is sit on the horizon’s back. That’s what Aunt Dee Dee says. The horizon then must have giant hips. You see when my Uncle Dan hit my Aunt Debra drunk on alcohol, depression and “stupidity bred from men afflicted with not liking women’s minds running wild on independence”, Aunty Deb hit him right back. When my Uncle Hanley was fixing the shingles on his roof and fell and broke his back, my Aunt Barb was mad. Mad at him like seared ash settling on flesh, burning through the skin. It meant she had to fix the roof herself. And she did. I try and ask my mom if she’s ever done things like Aunt Debra and Aunt Barb, but all I get from her is “do your homework Jess” and “why do you ask so many questions?” According to her I ask too many questions. And according to me I do, but I like asking questions. It makes people feel important, as if they matter in this big, vast, crazy world. At least that’s what my Aunt Dee Dee tells me. She likes it when I ask her questions. She says it makes her feel important. And she asks me questions too. My Aunt Dee Dee also says that the women in my and her family are badass. Badass women. Badass. Bad. Ass. Baaaaadddddddaaaaaaasssssssssss. Badass. That feels good to say. My mom would kill me if she heard me.

Cigarettes Cigarette smoke wavers in the air, swirling in little circles down a whimsical path until it reaches the end: your nose. Well, my nose. I love cigarette smoke. I love smelling the burnt, bitter tar. It means fun. It means excitement. It means Aunt Dee Dee is a couple steps away from the front door, about to knock and say her usual “heeellllloo.” The first time I tried a cigarette, Aunt Dee Dee and I sat on the curb outside of my house. She had said she needed air. Air from Bradley plunking on piano keys too small for his chubby hands, pink sausages squishing refined ivory into one another. Air from my mom and her hustle and bustle and furious pots and pans at work. I needed air too. Once sitting on the curb, she pulled a Marlboro cigarette from her black fancy pleather purse. I had seen her smoke before but not this close. The flame from the lighter licked the cigarette end. Cigarette billowed from the end and between the crevices of Aunt Dee Dee’s mouth.

“Wanna smoke, my dear?” Nicotine laced cloud encircling my pudgy face. I had and did. Turning 12 didn’t just mean one more candle on some chocolate marshmallowy cake. It meant I could smoke. Aunt Dee Dee told me that. We talked more than “superficial fluff..” She told me there’s too much racing, racing with cars, racing with jobs, racing to win some prize as if a marriage, money, and house, and kids before another are in the same category as a bake contest. People just need to stop and talk to one another. But I liked cookies. Supposedly Marilyn Monroe smoked a lot and she liked to bake, Aunt Dee Dee had said. She liked creating mountains filled with scones, cookies, cakes, muffins, tarts, the works. But she raced too much, raced in her job, marrying too many men, dealing with too many people, managing too much money all of this, all at once. That’s why she died Aunt Dee Dee said. I decided then I liked Marilyn Monroe. Because Aunt Dee Dee talked about her so much and she liked to smoke. I like to smoke, too.

P Uncle Deeds P Bobby P Sam P Braces Face P The Italian P Some Guy I don’t know why Uncle Deeds was called Uncle Deeds because he definitely wasn’t anyone’s uncle and I doubt telling Bradley and I to hush every time we spoke counted as being deed-full. He should have been named something else like Mr. Gross Face or Mr. WhereDid-My-Aunt-Find-You because his only skills worth any consideration without actually considering it surmised his ability to pick his nose and talk and smoke Cuban cigars at the same time. I like cigarettes, but I hate cigars. Bobby was the best one. He would grab the wheel-barrel meant for anything else than wheel barreling two five year old kids that sat next to Aunt Dee Dee’s unused and never walked-in tool shed, and Bradley and I would clamber in it, huddling together with anticipated delight. Round and round the dehydrated yard Bobby spun us, Bradley and I laughing in delight. He was the only one of them who bothered acknowledging we existed, like the stuff Bradley and I spoke was pure rocket science meant to be heard with the most intent-filled stare. I don’t remember his face, but I remember Aunt Dee Dee’s smile when Bobby was around. It was so beautiful, wide and stretched out from cheek to cheek. That and the wheel-barrel. I don’t know what happened to him. All I remember is Aunt Dee Dee’s tears streaming down her face and the one time she didn’t flip off the sky but looked up at it, wanting answers that only came down in the spattering of rain. The rest of the men blend in with one another. They weren’t individual people, more like one big blob of blended play-doh that turns brown after smashing together too many colors. Sam spoke out the side of his mouth. Braces Face was the only man I’ve ever met who had braces and wrinkles at the same time. The Italian, well, was Italian. And Some Guy fills in the category for the rest of the men Aunt Dee Dee has dated after, dates, and will date because honestly I’m tired of keeping track and the list would not be a list, but one long, big scroll. It’s not that I hate scrolls. I actually like them, the paper ruffling as it hits the floor and unwinds, leaving a papery trail past halls and draping down big long staircases. People who have scrolls are smart. I think Aunt Dee Dee is really smart. It’s just the rewinding, rolling the scroll up that’s the hard and tedious and the time-consuming part.

“I love cigarette smoke. I love smelling the burnt, bitter tar. It means fun.” Sometimes when Bradley and I are bored we play this game where we rate the best boyfriends on Aunt Dee Dee’s list; and even which way we put it, Bobby ends up on top. I miss those wheel-barrel rides and I’m 14.

Presents What’s nice about Aunt Dee Dee besides her cigarette smoke and list of infinite boyfriends is the amount of presents she gives. It doesn’t matter what time of day it is, day of the year or, if there’s a holiday or not or someone’s birthday, she always brings some sort of present. Especially her clothes. I love her clothes and even better I love getting her clothes after a “well if you say you like it you can have it.” The blouses were always form fitted with rhinestones and lace and strings hanging in every which way like they had a mind of their own, draping in “all the right places” according to Aunt Dee Dee. Her shoes never hid any toes. Shoes which hid toes weren’t meant for wearing, Aunt Dee Dee said. She owned every color open-toed shoe with heels ranging from high to higher. I love walking in Aunt Dee Dee’s shoes. My toes blister, tiring from shifting back and forth. My ankles wobble and my back leans too upright like some invisible

board chose to strap on and not let me bend any other way. To say I’m a sight to see is appropriate and “bourgeois” at the same time. Bourgeois. I just learned that word today in Mrs. Paisley’s eighth grade English class. Am I saying it correctly? The leopard dress. That dress still roams my dreams. And still resides in the trash, unbeknown to Aunt Dee Dee. Aunt Dee Dee once gave me her used leopard print dress. As soon as I unwrapped it, my heart stopped. Love at first sight. When I looked in the mirror some beautiful creature stared back. The dress tapered to the middle of my thigh with ties at both ends. I don’t know why there were ties because nothing needed to be tied. It was already tight, clenching every area of non-curve. Tiny strings tied up at my shoulders. I knew why those needed to be tied.

“A rippling neckline plunged to the middle of my chest, saying ‘look at me, I’m beautiful’ at every chance. It was official. I was a celebrity.” Except my Mom reviled it. “Jessica Joe Madson, what do you think you have on?” and “that counts as a dress?” and “blah blah blah blah blah...take that thing off before I yank it off ” and “what is Dee thinking?” and “oh no missy you are not wearing that thing to the dance.” “Uh huh. And I don’t care that you really want to. No daughter of mine is going to look like some white trash dragged out from under a pile of garbage.” “White trash” seems to follow Aunt Dee Dee because my Mom can’t get enough of calling her that. Other people can’t too but they say it different than my Mom as if it is infested with cockroaches, a word spread with grease, filth, and sewage handed on a platter of scorn. I threw that dress away. Not because I wanted to, but because my mom wouldn’t have it any other way. I guess it wasn’t bourgeois enough for her. Whenever Aunt Dee asks how I like it or if I wore it to the school dance I just mutter “it’s getting altered” as if the dress needed any alteration. It’s perfect. And the fact that I don’t know where the seamstress could alter it without being handed back a piece of cloth. Once I get big hips I’m going to buy myself a dress like that. Big hips for bearing baggage and big hips for wearing leopard print dresses.

You Can be Anything You Want “You can be anything you want, you know that, honey.” Those are my Aunt Dee Dee’s favorite words. I used to say, “I want to be just like you Aunt Dee Dee,” and she would chuckle and say, “well I don’t know about that,” as if something else lurked beneath those words. Now I say, “I want to be a writer.” I used to say “ I want to be a chef ” and before that “ a fashion photographer” and before that “a biomedical technically savvy brain surgeon electrical engineer” just because those words, all jumbled up and mashed together, sounded cool. I still want to be like her, but I don’t say it anymore. It’s alright for an eight year old to say those things, but someone as old as me, c’mon. Aunt Dee Dee says she’d love me even if I wanted to be a street sweeper or a politician. She hates politicians. The only difference between voting for politicians she says is whether you want some guy cheating you at every corner for his own god-forsaken benefit or some guy who says he won’t cheat you at every corner but still does and more all for his god-forsaken benefit. She would still vote for me though but make sure to give her a little bit of all the money I’d steal so she could get a new perm. And that I make sure to wear that leopard print dress. “It would look so good on you honey, standing at that podium.” I promised her I would. She could have all the perms she liked.

It’s Only a Scratch I remember one day Aunt Dee Dee came in my house and didn’t take her shades off when she shut the door. There was no doorbell ring and no fake, hollywoods style heeellllloooo, only “Where’s your mother hun? I need to talk to her about something.” She walked in the kitchen where my Mom, amongst her brigade of pots and pans, scrubbed feverishly at glued mac’n cheese. These were mac’n cheese days. Before that canned green beans and microwaved mashed potato days. And before that all you can eat buffets because she was really happy. And way before that, back when I was only a little itsy bitsy baby, grilled chicken, rice, potato salad, pudding, chicken noodle soup, and lemon tart days. I don’t remember those days, but my Mom does. I guess my Dad must too. Aunt Dee Dee shut the kitchen door. Later, my Mom took the door off on account of shutting that door only breeds wasted time. I didn’t hear any “ooohs” and “aaahs” and “I told you so” like normal visits. I pressed my ear against the kitchen door and instead heard a wail escaping my Aunt Dee Dee. I had never heard her nor anyone in my life sound like that. She sounded like a crawdad knowing its fate, tilted towards the broiler, its antennas already charred from the steam. “What did he do?” my mom murmured. I also had never heard her or anyone in my life sound like that. My mom spoke sympathetically with another sharp, steely undertone beneath the surface. Where did her tired-filled voice go? Who was this woman muttering behind the kitchen door? “Some guy” babbled Aunt Dee Dee through distorted snot and tears. I hated Some Guy. I already wanted to punch his face despite not knowing what he had done. From the sound of Aunt Dee Dee’s voice it was not good. At that moment I wish I could run faster, be more athletic, be stronger than my chicken legs and bony arms could carry me. People always asked me whether I was anorexic. Girls with jealously, boys with curiosity, and adults with concern. One time my ninth grade teacher, Mrs. Humberg, said she wouldn’t leave until I ate something. She bought me a blueberry muffin, pepperoni pizza, broccoli, ham, turkey sandwich, and a chocolate pudding. I ate it despite being full, despite wanting to throw up, and despite the fact I wasn’t anorexic. I never really cared about my anorexicy arms and legs and my fat face for I was too bourgeois. Not until now. Because now I couldn’t go to Some Guy’s house and punch his face off. Now if I tried I would only scratch him and he would just sit and laugh. The kitchen door slid open. I immediately rushed to the piano in the living room corner, appearing immersed in a speck on the stand. “Bye hun,” Aunt Dee Dee croaked. And then I saw it. Her right eyeball bulged forward about an inch with black crocheted around the edges, the white eye ball part now red. Stitches slid up the right corner of her face next to the faculty, binding the flesh so no blood escaped. That and so none of her pain escaped too. She must have seen the look on my face because she motioned the sunglasses she thought supposedly to have been on her nose only to find they rested on her head. She slid them down and whispered, “darling it’s only a scratch”, and opened and shut the front door. I really wished now I could run more laps. I also wished Bobby would come back.

Badass I don’t know where Aunt Dee Dee went after Some Guy. From coming over frequently, now she hardly comes over at all. She dropped off her dog one time. It stays in our backyard. It’s stayed there for two years now. I like to think she ran off with Bobby, like they’re two teenagers dangerously mad in love. But that’s probably not true. I see my mom more than Aunt Dee Dee which says something big. Yesterday, my mom came into my room, name tag and tired face still on, tracking in restaurant grime and the answers to a question. “I don’t know Jess. I don’t know where she went.” She sat at the edge of my bed, staring at a burnt carpet stain. She does that a lot now, staring at either a speck on the wall or a spot on the carpet; but I know that’s not what she’s really looking at. “How about I’ll make us some macaroni cheese” she says. I rested my hands along my hips. My hips didn’t grow that much but I can bear the weight. I look at my mom. I actually look at her. I see the tiredness sleeping in the crevices underneath her eyes. I see the nicotine patch peeking out from her blue and white striped skirt. And I see big rolling pinned out hips stretching skirt seams, excited at the possibility of being free. And for once in my life I noticed she is and has always quietly been one of the badass women in my family too.

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CHANNELING YOUR SPIRITUALITY AT THE HOLISTIC WELLNESS FAIRE By Savannah Peykani The moment Heather Green stepped into the School of Multidimensional Health and Sciences (SMHAS) lecture room for the Holistic Wellness Faire and Marketplace on February 28, I felt a wave of relaxation and affirmation rush over me. I had just spent the last 30 minutes listening to Amadeus Mozart AKA Frances Pullin tell me that I need to love myself and to say I felt unsettled would have been an understatement. Green’s group healing lecture ended up being exactly what I needed to re-center myself. “Channeling—1:00-1:30,” read the sign posted on an SMHAS classroom door. About 10 people gathered inside and spent 30 minutes listening to messages of self-love, respect and compassion. “It is so important to shake the boundaries that prevent you from loving yourself…We will go in love, laughter and pleasure to eternity.” This is what Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart said to the audience; or rather, this is what Frances Pullin—a volunteer at the school—said while channeling Amadeus for her lecture at the fair. Dozens of people ranging in age and ethnicities attended the fair, which SMHAS hosts on the last Saturday of every month to promote healing and spirituality in Orange County. Activities included psychic reading sessions, vendors selling crystals and healing paraphernalia, and a variety of free lectures with topics such as channeling, mediumship and the many forms of energy. People paid $25 for one 15-minute private healing session or $40 for two sessions. Heather started off the lecture explaining the existence of a Fifth-Dimension Energy System, a spiritual world that is constantly in a state of flux. By targeting our healing at our fifth dimension chakras, we can better cope with anxieties and stressors that may exist in this flux. We all closed our eyes, steadied our breathing, and followed Green’s voice into the fifth dimension. Founded five years ago, SMHAS is the product of Jerry Woods’ desire to create a more solid community for local healers, psychics and followers of this spirituality. SMHAS has healers trained in both Reiki and Theta practices, tarot card readers and classes in numerology, to name a few. Pullin, one of SMHAS’s founding members, volunteers her time teaching classes about channeling. Pullin’s free channeling lecture involved her initially explaining to the class what it means to channel and her own discovery of it. “I have been channeling for eight years. In 2003, my son passed away and I was feeling super overwhelmed so I took a meditation class,” said Pullin. “Soon after I started automatic writing and channeling,” referring to two practices that deal with contacting other spiritual entities via written or visual communication, respectively.

Soon after, Pullin had her first encounter with Amadeus Mozart, who she said was “a white-haired old man standing at a gazebo.” In a past life, Pullin was Amadeus’s older sister. They had a very competitive relationship, all of which Pullin details in her book: It is I… Amadeus. “He told me that he needs to repay the karma from that life time,” Pullin said, which is why she now channels him in this life. Those in the audience had an opportunity, at the end of the lecture, to ask Amadeus questions in the hopes of gaining some advice from the spiritual world. People asked about their current family problems and concerns about their futures. Amadeus’s responses encouraged continued exploration of past lives and the teachings practiced by SMHAS. Natalie Kassir, who attended Pullin’s channeling lecture, said, “As understanding as I try to be about other people’s beliefs and practices, this felt totally disingenuous and scripted to me. She also promoted her class through her channeling, which made it feel even more unrealistic.” For those who may not have been rushing to buy Pullin’s book after her lecture, there were plenty of other people to meet and lectures to see throughout the afternoon. Vendors outside the school filled the parking lot with color spectrums, as the sunbeams struck crystals and stones at each booth. Customers took their time as they wandered from vendor to vendor, inquiring about the different stones and the energies associated with them. Rocio Charry has been making jewelry out of crystals for a year now, but has been drawn to studying crystal healing for six years. “I feel like I have a special connection to stones since they are from Mother Earth,” said Charry. “Wearing crystals and stones offers healing, protection, grounding and a connection to a higher self. Some people don’t believe in this but I believe that they come from Mother Earth so they have to have something special to them.” This theme of combatting preconceived notions of what goes on at SMHAS resonated amongst teachers and participants at the fair. Jamie Goldenfield Nelson gave psychic readings to attendees, a practice she started five years ago after her dad died. “I saw his spirit leave his body, so I started exploring the psychic world. It’s all about white light and helping people. There’s nothing dark about what we do here,” she said. Most of Heather’s lecture consisted of me getting lost in a dreamy half-awake, half-asleep stasis of serenity. I focused on my internal organs and nerves. I opened up my soul and released any negative energy stored within my carbon-based form out into the universe. All the while reminding myself to shift positions in order to not completely fall asleep mid-lecture.

“I opened up my soul and released any negative energy stored within my carbon-based form out into the universe.” Once Green started talking about trust, then my mind and body woke up. She said we need to consider how and who we trust, particularly any part of our bodies that have issues with trust. Immediately I could feel my hands ignite with energy, as if every muscle and nerve-ending had been zapped with a small electric shock. It lasted only a few seconds but its impact was enough to jolt me back to reality. Of course, I thought. Out of anyone I know, I have the most difficult time feeling comfortable touching people. My hands are telling me to let loose a little, to purge myself of these issues with physical trust. As the afternoon turned into evening, the small rooms of SMHAS grew more and more crowded, with a flurry of conversations filling the air. “Today we have seen so many people who have never been here before, some who were just looking for something to do on a Saturday,” Pullin said. “It’s what’s out in the universe now; people are just picking up on spirituality.” With Green’s half-hour coming to a close, I continued to massage my hands and contemplate the oddity of what I had just experienced. I only came to the fair out of curiosity (and to complete an assignment), not as a devote follower or teacher of these new age forms of spirituality. How do I make sense of all I just experienced? Green’s final words, unintentionally, quelled all of these thoughts. She said to us all, “We ask this. So be it, let it be done.”

Wayfarer on the Ledge of Paradise Photo by Flickr user Torben Hansen

By Mariah Castaneda

Ocean Beach is a colorful subworld resting at the tip of San Diego County. Here, a plethora of unique personalities can be found among the artists, potheads and junkies that flock the pleasant shores. This is where Alison Hoover sells doodles for laundry money on Saturday. She takes a small green lump of marijuana from her shirt and offers to light it with a stranger. She sits on a sidewalk underneath the famed Ocean Beach Pier, among a haphazard line of beach transients. Initially, Hoover seems like a living and breathing contradiction. She drags on a cigarette, although she insists that foods with chemicals don’t agree with her lupus—a disease that leaves her body dotted with crusty sores. She smokes weed with a passerby, but is against dealers who offer naive adolescents drugs. She carries around a sketchbook and black notebook with her personal cooking recipes. Her slovenly state on the sidewalk is contrasted with her intricate use of the English language that’s full of clever jokes and an extensive vocabulary. She’s an educated woman. The 28 year old is a UC Berkeley graduate, a mother, a chef, and a former drug user and dealer. Today on this particular Saturday, however, she’s in between jobs and selling pen doodles on notebook paper for a bit of change, so she can do her laundry and be ready for a job interview. Homelessness in Ocean Beach, according to an Ocean Beach hostel attendant, consists of “runaways that came from good homes” that were well equipped with tablets and iPhones. This can seem true. Homeless youth are strewn about the alleyways and sidewalks of Ocean Beach. Some “beach bums” carry a guitar and craft tunes in hopes of earning a dollar or two. Others can be seen sporting an iPhone while they awkwardly sway and mutter in a drug-induced state. Some run away from well-off parents and family to the sun kissed beaches of Ocean Beach to embrace a freeing transient lifestyle where nearly anything goes. Hoover’s story differs as she has weaved into and out of extreme poverty throughout her life. Her saga of homelessness started in her early adolescence. Born to two parents with opposing personalities, her father was a conservative military veteran of 22 years with a vice for marijuana. Her mother, on the other hand, was a nurse struggling with a drug addiction. Eventually her parents saw the error in their ways and swore off prescription drugs and marijuana. Hoover, however, was not ready to make such a change. Instead of battling Hoover’s remaining drug addiction, the parents left their daughter in the government’s care. Hoover was placed in foster care, or what she thought of as “the care of over glorified babysitters”—that would only beat her up and hurt her. Sick and tired of the abuse she endured, in 2001, Hoover struck out on her own on the streets—just shy of 15 years old—as a homeless youth. Ashamed of her homelessness, Hoover tried to hide her status as best as she could. She attended the Stand up For Teens outreach program where she would receive free meals and occasionally free clothes. She had a boyfriend in the 9th grade, briefly, and then she started dating another boyfriend in 2002. His family allowed her to move in. She lived there until late 2004. Hoover pushed for stellar grades. She seized her education as an opportunity to escape the poverty she knew. She graduated on a Friday. She realized that her boyfriend did not share the same aspirations so she dumped him as she pursued a university education. In 2004, she attended UC Berkeley where she studied Spanish Linguistics.

Her social life was non-existent. Hoover’s day followed the routine of waking up, going to class, going to work, going to bed, and somewhere in between she would study. She never felt adequate in the prestigious school. She was never good enough. She never had the right opinion. She was too conservative, or too liberal. Her grades sometimes suffered due to her outspoken nature, as she wrote largely to please herself and not her professors. Meanwhile, Alison found work at a kitchen in Berkeley, owned by the famed Alice Waters, as a prep chef. Eventually she moved up the kitchen ladder and was working with pastries at the establishment. Despite her initial success, she left her career in the kitchen for the golden sun kissed shores of San Diego in ‘07. Hoover attempted to get her teaching credentials to help students whose dominant language is Spanish. She felt it wasn’t fair that these students were left to learn a new language on their own when in many cases these children faced many other hardships at home, such as taking care of and providing for younger siblings—a babysitting tool for parents. She felt like it was her responsibility to fill these large gaps, a task she felt she failed at. Hoover was discouraged, she believed that teaching the young underprivileged children was a difficult task because of their lack of support at home. She decided, “Yeah, you know I’m just going to quit.” Around that time, she rekindled a romance with her first boyfriend through MySpace. The young couple soon found themselves expecting a child. They married on February 9, 2008. She miscarried the child at five and a half months, two days before the set wedding. The failed pregnancy left Hoover in need of surgery and in a deep depression. Years later she couldn’t even recall her wedding day, due to the cocktail of painkillers and antidepressants. She didn’t want to admit it but she knew that she was only marrying him because of the pregnancy and because she was young. That is what she was supposed to do, right? She left her job teaching, and started selling marijuana full time. She was just done. Done with the post partum, the crap that came with teaching, and all the work she had put in with no results to

“The neighborhood is sometimes rough. She hates the meth addicts that roam the streets. Occasionally they offer her their crystallized terrors. What's worse though is that they offer her money for a kiss and a trip to a sleazy hotel. Usually she comes up with something clever to say like, 'No thanks, I'm giving up prostitution for 2015,' or she tells them in some way to piss off.” show. The lucrative opportunity presented itself. She was living in South San Diego. She was able to get into the herb business through her acquaintances. Everyone she knew that had a weed dealer was largely dissatisfied with substandard service. Many of them where sick and tired of the way their dealers were treating them. Dealers were often disrespectful, showed up late, and were all in all just terrible. Seizing the opportunity, Hoover decided that she would attract more customers by providing excellent service. On a Monday, she purchased an ounce of weed. On a Friday, she purchased a quarter pound. By the end of the month, she found herself purchasing multiple pounds. All she really had to do to stay in business was to show up on time and have a good product. Eventually, this business model helped her hit the $175,000 dollar mark. She was doing really well until a man she dealt the leafy green with robbed her of all of her earnings. She and her husband were left without all of their drug money and had to start again from scratch In the midst of this chaos, Hoover became pregnant again. In May 2010 her son was born. Wanting to be a better mother for her child and trying to take a step back from the dangerous lifestyle she once lived, Hoover tried to be more cautious. She quit dealing and only sold edible marijuana products to reputable dispensers. Despite Hoover’s intentions to clean up her act for her son, her child was born sick. He was allergic to something in her breast milk and this impeded his growth and he didn’t gain much weight. But the kid was smart, he was talking by 6 months. Her marriage was rocky and shortly before her son’s first birthday she filed for divorce. He took the money, the dog, the car and their child to San Francisco. Knowing that she had nowhere else to go, her husband told her that if she ever wanted to see her son or dog then she would have to follow him to San Francisco. She followed. Hoover was homeless again. She was living the way she had for many years. After a short stint in San Francisco, she moved back to the Ocean Beach shores. The neighborhood is sometimes rough. She hates the meth addicts that roam the streets. Occasionally they offer her their crystallized terrors. What’s worse though is that they offer her money for a kiss and a trip to a sleazy hotel. Usually she comes up with something clever to say like, “No thanks, I’m giving up prostitution for 2015,” or she tells them in some way to piss off. However, today is different because she has an interview for a local kitchen. Perhaps then she’ll get back on her feet, but for now she endures the adventure.

By Nidia K. Flores A little girl walked with her mother every day to school. As they walked, the mother and her daughter prayed to the angels, to bless the little girl’s head so she could learn everything she could that day, and be the best person she could be. As they arrived to school, the mother and daughter kissed and hugged each other goodbye. The mother stood by the school gate, and watched her daughter’s long brown hair walk away into the school buildings. The mother breathed in deeply as she talked to the school staff and the other mother’s about how big the kids were getting, and after a while, the mother walked back home. The school day began for the little girl, and that day they were going on a fieldtrip to USC. As the little girl walked around with her class, she thought all the university students looked so tall and elegant with their books on their hands. At lunch time, everyone sat around the teacher, and heard her say, “…you have to work very hard. If you want to become a doctor you have to finish four years of college, and then do a couple more years of school”. The little girl thought about how long it would take her to get to college. She thought about her older brother and how he was in college already, and another brother about to go to high school. She was small, and as she thought about the amount of time it would take for her to get there, she started to feel it was impossible. The little girl thought about how she had trouble getting through long division—how was she ever going to get through the algebra that she sees her brother working through? The tour started again, and as the little girl walked around, she tried to envision herself in the university setting. She took out her notebook, and walked around with it, pretending it was a book of great literature or an anatomy book. Somehow, she thought, she was going to get there. On the bus ride back to school, she could not wait to tell her mom about what she saw. Her mother waited by the gate talking to the same moms, and saw her daughter wave at her with a big smile, almost tripping because of the rolling backpack flowing behind her. The mother thought it was amusing, how the little girl kept smiling. When the little girl got at the gate the mother and daughter kissed and hugged each other hello and the descriptions of the university flooded the conversations. The mother felt relieved that her daughter was excited about school. The mother thought about how she did not have the opportunity to finish school because of the civil war, but her second chance at school was her daughter. The little person, with dark brown hair, tripping on her own two feet. They both would learn a lot from each other. The years went on and the elementary graduation day came. The little girl, felt tall and excited she was graduating. The middle school graduation day came, and the little girl felt relieved. It was tough, but she was done. By some miracle she had graduated. She thanked the angels, for having teachers that believed in her and helped her through a tough time. She finally believed again that college was an option for her. She could make it out. High school came and went and the little girl realized she was to become an adult soon. She was in the top tenth percentile of school, and felt like she could actually make it to college. She applied, and patiently waited. All that work was about to pay off, she thought. After several rejection letters, she went running to her parents, crying. She did not feel good enough for her parents and her brothers. She thought about how her brothers graduated, and how smart they were, how was she going to measure up to them? She thought about her parents and the girl thought she had let them down. When her family assured her, she was indeed working hard, the girl could not believe them. The rejection letters said otherwise. The last letter came, and she was accepted. For some reason, she was relieved. She started crying and jumping out of joy. She didn’t

know why, she sort of applied to this school blindly. Little did she know it would be the best decision for her. High school graduation day came and went and as the little girl writes this, she is weeks away from getting two bachelor degrees. The little girl somehow did it. Though she was a woman now, it’s like she never grew out of being that little girl anxious about the future. The mother, as she talks on the phone to her daughter can’t believe it either. Well, she can, but it is nonetheless amazing. All those years of walking her daughter to and from school, even when she was fully capable of doing it on her own, finally paid off. The mother feels quite proud that she has literally been there every step of her daughter’s education. As she and her husband fix the backyard in preparation for the graduation party, the two of them think about how the graduation day is not just their daughter achieving, but them too. The girl, as she types this thinks the same thing. Overwhelmed with school, and the future, she thinks about how this is a wonderful problem to have. She is learning about the subjects she loves. She gets to share her achievements with people she loves. All the stress, all the tears, all the uncertainty culminating into a paper that no one can take away. Even if they do take away that sheet of paper, the information is safe within my mind. I think about the many times my aunties encouraged my education telling my cousin and I: “you have to work hard. Do it for you, read for you. Be successful for you. At the end of the day, if you get married and you want to leave, you can leave with knowing you can take care of your kids. You won’t have to depend on a husband.” Now, when I see them they say how they are proud of me. How they wish they could have done what I’ve done. I didn’t get how important graduation would be. I grasped the idea, but I didn’t understand. I see the news, and hear about girls being shot for standing up for their education. I sit down and listen to the stories of family not being able to get an education. How, when they did, they walked for miles to receive it, and the learning process being interrupted by war. Escaping to another country to find opportunities for their children. I didn’t get it but now I do. I didn’t get how significant it was for me to go out and study and graduate. I didn’t get it until I read Malala’s Yousafzi’s book, and I could not help but to feel proud of her for getting an education.

“Claiming my education, was more than just learning facts. Claiming my education was fighting for gender equality. Claiming my education was negating the idea that Latin kids could not make it. Claiming my education was learning my worth and gaining strength.” I understood that by simply getting an education, an enormous achievement, I was empowering other women. Claiming my education was more than just learning facts. Claiming my education was fighting for gender equality. Claiming my education was negating the idea that Latin kids could not make it. Claiming my education was learning my worth and gaining strength. For a very long time, I thought I was alone in feeling like I was just a girl. My world consisted of mixed values in which a mother was expected to take care of her children, while the husband’s word was the word. At the same time both parents told me to fight for my education so I would not and could not depend on anyone else. Fight so hard that the only option I had was a choice to depend on someone if I wanted to. I think so much about graduation day because it is something special for my Mom and I. For all those days she walked me to school and prayed for my intelligence and strength. She prayed because what she wanted for herself and couldn’t have, she was giving it to her daughter. Helping her and teaching her how to fight. It may be self-righteous to say, but I think of graduation day as a lesson to those who think a woman or a girl are not able to achieve. I think of it as a lesson for the women who think they cannot “leave” for whatever reason, that they can. I think of it as a lesson to all those little girls who look at the road ahead of them- the road is shorter than you think. I think of it as a lesson for those who think traditions cannot change because it is the way of the world. “Traditions” have been changing, and will keep changing. Because for every girl that graduates it is an inspiration. It’s a silent fight with a loud purpose. The day I graduate I won’t have a rolling backpack flowing behind me. I will have a black gown. A cap. My mother, my family- especially my two little nieces looking at me, laughing because I once again managed to trip while standing perfectly still. For my mom, my aunties, my cousins, my nieces—for all the girls and women. We did it.

NOT QUITE CLEAR: TAKING THE SCIENTOLOGY PERSONALITY TEST By Courtney Hamilton Orange County’s Church of Scientology, located in the center of downtown Santa Ana, is pristine. Originally constructed as a Masonic lodge in 1931—another belief system shrouded in secrecy and controversy—the art-deco building served as Santa Ana’s Performing Arts and Events center for the first decade of the 21st century. The church acquired and dedicated it in 2012, restoring the interior to harken to the splendor of a bygone era. Inside, cream-colored walls bear quotes from the church’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard, in art deco type styles. The public information center occupies most of the first floor, with rows of large displays centering on the main tenets and missions of the church. At each display, a flat screen TV looms large, ready to play promotional videos created by Golden Era Productions, the church-owned and operated media house. Situated on the church’s heavily guarded 500-acre compound, dubbed “Gold Base,” in the Inland Empire, the media house churns out countless promotional materials. While the center is meant to be independently navigated, church employees start everyone with a video of lay scientologists gleefully espousing the benefits of the church. “Scientology is just here to help the world,” a grinning man assures us in the video. “That is literally all we are about.” I take in a few of these promotional videos. One discusses the church’s crime rehabilitation program, Criminon, and its wild success rates; the church claims that recidivism rates among prisoners who complete the Criminon program are near-zero. Another video discusses the similarly named Narconon program, a drug rehab that also presents itself as wildly successful. All the videos share a similar presentation style; An authoritative but friendly male voice presents the horrors of whatever issue the video takes up, then explains how Scientology has swiftly and effectively bettered the problem, always employing the findings of L. Ron Hubbard. A cheerful church employee named Brooke asks if I’m ready to take my personality test. She leads me to the church’s testing center and sits me at a cubicle. A timer sits in the corner of the cubicle, though it remains off for the duration of my test. The walls I face bear large posters of many self-help texts authored by L. Ron Hubbard. Directly behind me, the public bookstore carries many more of these texts in multiple languages. The covers of the books are like those of science fiction and fantasy novels: majestic, with surreal images and bold fonts. My test—called the Oxford Capacity Analysis—consists of a multipage booklet and a multiple choice scantron, each question allowing “yes, no, or maybe” responses. While the test starts with some heavy-hitting questions, like “Do you make thoughtless remarks or accusations which later you regret?,” it’s also laced with bizarre, seemingly inconsequential ones like “Do you browse through railway timetables, directories, or dictionaries just for pleasure?” or “When recounting some amusing incident can you easily imitate the mannerisms or the dialect in the original incident?” Some questions are poorly worded and take serious brain power to process. One example is “Are you usually undisturbed by ‘noises off ’ when you are trying to rest?” The double negative in “undisturbed” and “noises off ” trips me up, and I can’t help but wonder if that’s intentional. I answer maybe, as I find myself doing for many of the questions I don’t quite understand. I get to question 35 before taking stock of how long this test actually is. 200 questions. By question 35, the end of the first page, I’m already fatigued by intense self-reflection. I’m overwhelmed by the thought of completing this test, and desperately want a coffee.

As the test wears on, my focus wanes and my discomfort grows. Many of the questions center on depression and anxiety, two issues I’ve long struggled with. Having to acknowledge that yes, past failures do still worry me, and yes, I do occasionally feel depressed, feels a bit like mental torture. Around question 100, I receive a text from my Dad. “I hope you pass the personality test,” he jokes. “Me too,” I think. Question 132 asks “Do some noises ‘set your teeth on edge?’” A truck’s brakes screech loudly outside. I answer, “yes.” The final question asks “Do you consider you have many warm friends?” In retrospect, I realize I read it as asking if my friends thought I was a warm person, putting myself under the microscope rather than the reverse. Roughly 45 minutes pass by the time I complete the test. I hand it off to the church receptionist, who tells me someone will grade it shortly. I ask her where I can get some water. “There’s a café on the third floor,” she tells me. At the café, a fresh-faced, tattooed brunette woman assembles snacks behind the counter. The café is modern, with a full menu and bountiful natural light. Two children gleefully assist her and she coddles them. The scene is almost idyllic. She greets me with even more cheer than the first church employee I encountered. She wants to know my name, my last name, why I’m here. “Thirst,” I think sarcastically. I explain that I’m here to take a personalThe author’s Oxford Capacity Analysis results. ity test. Unsolicited, she launches into her history with Scientology. She, too, took a personality test only to discover some unfortunate truths about herself. She enrolled in the “purification rundown” program at the church—a strict regimen of exercise, nutrition, and sauna visits that purports to dislodge toxins in the body. After becoming involved with the church, she notes, her personality test showed marked improvement. I buy a $1 dollar water and leave. Downstairs, a church employee named Jason is ready to lead me through my test results. In a private room, in the testing center, he assures me that these results are not what he thinks of me, but what I think of myself. He places a clinical-looking graph in front of me, underlining and circling as he goes over its revelations. There are many broad categories of human personality listed: stability, happiness, responsibility, and others. The graph is divided into three sections along the y-axis: desirable state, normal, and unacceptable state. Results below a certain dotted line in the unacceptable region indicate that attention to the problem is urgent. Naturally, the bulk of my “personality” lies in the unacceptable, urgent-attention region. Jason notes that while I score high in my confidence and activity levels, my depression and nervousness are extremely alarming. He tells me that my high score in the certainty category must be false confidence because of my detracting qualities. He then probes me for the root of my anxiety and depression. I offer some of the causes and volunteer that he need not worry, I’ve visited professionals and have taken medication for it when necessary. The tone of the conversation shifts sharply. Jason wants to know what medications I’ve taken, for how long, and how old I was when I started. He’s shocked by my cavalier attitude. While Jason had heretofore been cordial toward me, my advocating psychiatry and medication has clearly struck a nerve. For a moment, I feel compelled to listen to him. His intense concern seems genuine, and medication has been a double-edged sword for my anxiety. I ask him what he suggests. He whips out a chart with Scientology courses organized by topic, suggesting that I look into the “Overcoming Ups and Downs” course. For $50, he says, I can enroll today and receive a book on the topic. It would be the first step toward enmeshing myself within the church. I’d come in as what the church dubs a “pre-clear,” someone who is pursuing a state of “Clear,” a form of spiritual enlightenment. “I’ll think it over,” I tell him. After some research, I learn that the Oxford Capacity Analysis is not scientifically supported and often garners criticism from psychology organizations. Despite the name, it has no association with Oxford University.

So Who’s Going to Eat That Salad? By Yesenia Cuevas At exactly thirty minutes past seven in the morning, Estela begins her battle to start her rusty, stubborn, 1992 Honda. “Usually it takes about an hour, if I’m lucky, to start this thing and get to work, usually I’m always late,” says Estela, with an embarrassed chuckle. A high-spirited, stoutly-built, 40-year-old Estela scurries over to open the doors of UCI’s Yogurtland, located within the UTC plaza, a center filled with a variety of food shops. She repeatedly babbles the phrase, “Sorry I’m late, sorry, sorry, sorry I’m late,” to her impatient coworker, who’s been waiting since nine in the morning. Estela carries an overload of items, including her lunch bag, her medicine bag, her coat, her phone with earplugs connected to it. All of her items are purple. As Estela fishes around in her uniform’s pockets for the store’s keys, using one arm to carry all of her belongings, perspiration glistens off of her face, highlighting the contrast of dark brown blotches of freckles surrounding her wide nose against her olive-colored complexion. Estela, after digging into her pockets and bags, lets out a sigh of disappointment, turns around and nervously smiles, “I left the store’s keys in my car, I’ll be right back, so sorry, very sorry,” and off Estela goes, running towards the parking lot. Shortly, she returns keys and all. Despite Estela’s disarranged mornings in pursuit to get to her job, she is the complete opposite of disarranged once she is in Yogurtland. It takes about an hour to set up the store between two people, and within this hour, Estela disassembles ten frozen yogurt machines, washes each individual part, sanitizes the parts, strategically places the right amount of lube onto specific parts, washes the machines, removes ten different gallons of yogurt from ice-cold freezers, sanitizes each gallon before pouring the yogurt into their designated machines. She then removes thirty-six lids off of assorted candy and fruit toppings that customers can dress their dessert with. Estela quickly sweeps and mops the floor, and with twenty minutes to spare, Estela wipes the windows clean, sets up the cash register for the coworker, and opens the doors. While customers walk in and out, purchasing their treats, Estela stays in the “back-of-the-house,” chopping and prepping fruit for the entire day. She has been working here for 7 years, has no children, no husband, and shares an apartment with an unknown family in a tiny, awfully crowded, 2 bedroom, and 1 bathroom apartment located in Tustin, CA. Estela left her primary home in Mexico, including her mother, father, and her two younger sisters, to cross the border, get to California, in hopes of attaining a higher-paying job to help support her family from Mexico. She was a fruit laborer at 13, picking grapes and strawberries in her family’s agricultural business in Mexico, but most of the laborers quit the agricultural business within five years and instead decided to cross Estela at her Yogurtland post.

the border to find higher-paying jobs, so Estela joined the bandwagon of crossing the border. “I thought it was going to be so easy to find a job here when I was 18, but I had a really hard time, I was doing it all alone, learning English, living with random families’ homes, looking for a job. I started off as a waitress at IHOP, worked there for about 3 years, but had to quit because my co-workers were very jealous people, super greedy about maintaining their positions and trying to get others in trouble, in hopes that they’d get fired.” Estela quit IHOP and with help of a friend, she was able to land a job in Yogurtland. “This very sweet lady would always come into IHOP and order the same breakfast every day, turned out that she was the manager of Yogurtland. One day, we were having a conversation where she was complaining about her employees recently quitting on her, I immediately thought, ‘this is my chance to get a new job!’ I asked the lady if I could work for her, and she said ‘yes,’ the next day I quit IHOP and was a new employee for Yogurtland.” Estela claims that she loves helping support her family from Mexico, by sending them her weekly paychecks, but sometimes it does take a toll on her own life. Estela says, “I always think about leaving and looking for a new job that would pay so I can buy myself a new car and a place of my own, but every time I think about actually leaving Yogurtland, I just can’t, I’m attached to my coworkers, I know the ins-and-outs of this place, and well since I don’t speak English fluently, I don’t know enough English to handle with customers,” Estela speaks without ever having to look directly at her hand slicing strawberries into three’s, a display of her experience. Estela never did get married nor had children because of a traumatizing experience she had when she was about 20 years old. Her boyfriend, at that time, was a very jealous man who didn’t allow Estela to leave the apartment that they lived in, without his consent.

“Estela speaks without ever having to look directly at her hand slicing strawberries into three's, a display of her experience.” “He was the sweetest person, he would bring me flowers, take me out dancing, but he wanted to be by my side all the time because he didn’t want me to talk to other men,” Estela recounts while dipping a thermometer into each machine filled with yogurt and writing down the temperatures in a daily log. Estela continues on with her story, “we were together for about six years, of course his jealousy increased until I had enough, after six years I ended it, but he wouldn’t leave me alone after that. Since then, I just have boyfriends, but I let them know that I don’t plan on marriage, I’m just too traumatized.” Estela is a jokester, she’s very witty, and always finds humor within any situation, despite all of her financial and familial struggles. She loves to go running in early mornings and cooking is her passion. As Estela recounts her past, the constant whirring, buzzing, and beeping from the yogurt machines makes it difficult to hear what Estela says. Out of nowhere, a machine lets out a high-pitched screech; Estella removes her cutting gloves, puts on plastic ones, and walks over to the crying machine. She removes the standpipe from inside, closes the lid and walks back to her sliced strawberries. “You know, I feel like a doctor when s/he listens to your heart beat and knows what your heart beat signifies of your health, only for me, these machines have a heart beat and I can tell exactly what is wrong with them, they make about million different noises all signifying different problems, and I can identify the problem for each noise made,” Estela beams a wide smile. Chris, the coworker who’s been working on the till the entire time, decides to sweep the front of the store, he makes an inch-high mound of sticky-stepped-on toppings, hair, dust, and leaves. Before Chris can sweep the mound into the dustpan, a customer is ready to pay. Chris leaves the mound where it is, tends to the customer, and Estela walks by and notices the mound on the floor. She points to the mound, looks at Chris, and smiling, says, “So who’s going to eat that salad?”

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