ANA SOFÍA AMIEVA-WANG
NOAM SHEMTOV • JEA JOY PORTFOLIO • SPRING 2014
ACTION PHOTO
CHANNEL 2 STUDIOS NEVE ILAN ISRAEL JUNE 2013
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PHOTO BY MAYA SHEMTOV
VIEW FINDER Channel 2, based in Neve Ilan, just outside the city of Jerusalem, is among Israel’s largest and most widely consumed broadcast network. After interning for several months at a right-wing print publication, Israel Hayom, I was able to spend several hours at the channel’s studio. In this photo
I am speaking to the very man who picks the tapes— a network producer by the name of Kremer, whose show is being filmed in the background. The impossible ambiguity of the Israeli media continues to be a subject of fascination for me, and one I hope to deconstruct in my own career.
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APPLICATION
MATERIALS
Objective To tell the stories that matter: the stories of those who cannot tell their own. To engage in my community and amplify voices unheard.
Résumé Skills •
•
EDucation • Medill School of Journalism Northwestern University (2018) • Palo Alto Senior High School (2013)
experience Israel Hayom Daily Newspaper, Editorial Intern | June 2013 August 2013 • Copy edited and wrote stories for the newspaper with the largest readership in Israel • Managed the English edition’s social media and helped create a Youtube channel for the paper’s editorial show • Digitized the newspaper’s stylebook
awards • • • • • • • • •
• •
School Journalism
Ad sales and design, copy editing, copy writing, translation, photography, videography Adobe CS5.5 and CS5.6: InDesign, Premiere, Illustrator, Photoshop Proficient in Dreamweaver, basic HTML coding Fluent in Hebrew, English, Spanish and proficient in Brazilian Portuguese
“
One day I’ll find the right words, and they will be simple. — Jack Kerouac
”
Palo Alto High School’s Verde Magazine is a Pacemaker award-winning student-run publication of which I have been part since my sophomore year. The following is a record of my word on the Verde staff. Editor-in-chief | 2013-present • Led classes daily, oversaw design of the magazine, discussed and assigned stories to the staff, edited the magazine for content and design, mediated instaff disputes Copy editor | 2012-2013 • Copy edited the entire magazine, worked together with the editors-in-chief to coordinate the printing process, wrote at least two stories per issue Staff writer | 2010-2013 • Wrote, reported and designed the layouts for at least two stories per issue. • Wrote and reported news stories relevant to the district and student life.
1st Place for “Mind the Gap: The Achievement Gap in the Palo Alto School District” (Columbia Scholastic Press Association Gold Circle Awards 2012) Certificate of recognition and appreciation for “The State of Rape” infographic (California Legislature 2013) Critical Mention for “Across the Lines: The Double Lives of Palo Alto’s Illegal Students” (Columbia Scholastic Press Association Gold Circle Awards 2013) 2nd Place opinion for “Intolerant Tolerance” (NCFPW High School Journalism Competition 2013) Critical Mention for “Across the Lines: The Double Lives of Palo Alto’s Illegal Students” (NCFPW High School Journalism Competition 2013) Critical Mention for “Caught in the Crossfire: Gun Violence in Palo Alto and East Palo Alto” (NCFPW High School Journalism Competition 2013) Critical Mention for “The Naked Truth: San Francisco Nudists Stripped of their Rights” (NCFPW High School Journalism Competition 2013) “Best of the West” (JEANC Best Features Magazine in California awarded to Verde Magazine) Critical Mention for timed features writing (JEANC Sacramento 2013)
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VERDE MAGAZINE | WINTER 2012
THE NAKED TRUTH A city’s nudists put clothes on their backs (and flowers in their hair) as the center starts to hold for once in San Francisco By Noam Shemtov
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STORY TYPE: In-depth news feature/ narrative feature ABOUT: This is an exploration of San Francisco’s District 8 in light of a Nov. 20, 2012 ban on nudity passed by District Supervisor Scott Weiner. The ban reopened a debate about conservatism and free public expression the likes of which hadn't been seen in the Castro since the eighties. The center was holding. A generation of ex-free-lovers settled down and began to replace the ever-liberal Castro with a family-friendly residential neighborhood. This story’s controversial content was the subject of extensive edits and class discussion. After reading the story aloud in class a unanimous decision was made to hold on to graphic language and imagery. MY ROLE: Interviewed all sources, wrote the story, designed the layout and took all photos. AWARDS: Critical mention in the "general feature writing" category of the NCFPW's high school journalism competition 2013. CHOSEN FOR: Investigative initiative, in-depth reporting, timeliness, quality of writing and awards won. PREVIOUS PAGE: Ken dolls locked in plastic embraces swing from a piece of street art on Castro street, an epicenter of the gay and sexual liberation movements and something of a catwalk for District 8's nudists. FOLLOWING PAGES: Wearing nothing but a snapback, sunglasses, croc sandals and a sequined loincloth, San Francisco nudist Lloyd Fishback by turns struts and sprawls in Jane Warner Plaza, a favored hangout among members of the nudist community.
A
French woman walks her son down San Francisco’s Castro Street, where the technicolor whiplash of flags in the sun fills the street with resounding cracks. One of the woman’s delicate hands protectively grasps her son’s while the other grapples with a taut leash, at the end of which her dust-bunny of a terrier struggles for freedom. A van scoots past them, leaving behind a cloud of hashish-stained air and exhaust that streams from the beaten-up tailpipe like the hair of some hippie. In front of Harvey’s Bar, a drag queen films a music video backed by two women dressed in clothing that seems to make a strong case for third-wave feminism to the few straight men on the road. “Excuse me, misters.” The mother approaches a pair of balding men walking up the street hand in hand. “Do you know where there is a good place to eat here?” “You could check out Market and Castro, there are some nice little places up there,” one of the men says. Leaning in closer, his partner brandishes a heavily ringed hand and adds in a grave tone, “If you don’t mind seeing a few asses and cocks, that is. There’re some perverts up there who like to walk around without their clothes on.” The man’s more cautious attitude with regards to public nudity has permeated San Francisco’s Castro District, the historical nucleus of radical sexual culture in the city; whose liberality defines so much of our identity as residents of the Bay Area. District 8 (which includes the Castro) Supervisor Scott Wiener
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passed a ban on Nov. 20 on public nudity that prohibits displays of “genitals, anal-area and perineum” on San Francisco’s streets and parks, the stages on which free-lovers and gay protesters played out the unrestricted scenes of sexual liberation. The ban applies only to those above the age of five, and violation is punishable by a potential $500 fine, although violators will not be arrested as sexual offenders. Licensed street fairs and parades are exempted from
“This is San Francisco! There are no perverts here... We’re people, goddamnit!”
the ban, which has seen unanimous support from the district’s neighborhood services committee. In an article that appeared in Slate magazine on Nov. 27, William Saletan states that the public nudity movement is an affront to the gay community and that it has falsely adopted the gay movement’s rhetoric in its campaign for “freedom of sexual expression in all its forms.” An article by Joshua Sabatini that appeared in the SF Examiner
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on Nov. 5 quotes Wiener saying, in reponse to allegations that the ban is anti-gay, that homosexual men make up the “dominant demographic” of the ban’s supporters. The same article quotes Supervisor David Campos saying that he is “still trying to understand why [anti-public nudity] legislation was a priority.” Wiener’s ban, Sabatini says, has become representative of San Francisco’s rising conservatism and “has prompted soul-searching questions
To me, it's about freedom of expression. I’m just out here enjoying the sun.” — Lloyd Fishback
about San Francisco’s identity, such as whether tolerating nudity on public streets is intrinsically tied to what makes The City a destination for visitors and a leader on social causes.” These are the soul-searching questions that nude activist Gypsy Taub attempted to answer by tearing off her dress during a Nov. 5 city hall discussion on public nudity, spurring San Francisco lawyer Christina DiEdoardo to sue the nudity ban in a class action case on behalf of four
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of its protesters. The ban asks the core of the gay and sexual liberation movements, a center of radical dissent and the United States’ most renownedly liberal city to reconsider its definition of lewd behavior, not to punish the innocent. At the same time, it asks lewd exhibitionists to accept the responsibility of tolerance and and challenges a definition of free expression that is so tied up with what it means to be San Franciscan. “[The ban] is an interesting experiment in acceptance,” says Richard, a San Francisco nudist who refrained from sharing his last name. “The line between ‘nude’ and ‘lewd’ is pretty ambiguous,” Richard says. He notes a disagreement in the legislation’s premise and its enforcement, saying somewhat sardonically that “It’s interesting to me that nudity is going to be reserved for the Folsom Street Fair and Gay Pride Parade [both overtly sexual events].” The French woman and her son sit down for breakfast at a bar overlooking Jane Warner Plaza. Unwrapping burnished silverware from linen swans, they don’t give a second look to the practically nude, wiry figure who looms at the hill’s crest like a mirage. As he reaches the plaza, a sequined butterfly on his loincloth winks in the light. “I think that the nudity on Castro is something that tourists really appreciate,” says Lloyd Fishback, a prominent nudist in the San Franciscan community, the butterfly over his crotch threatening to take flight on a passing breeze. “It’s iconic.” Averting eye contact and in a self-conscious tone, Fishback concedes that locals of the Castro may not agree with his lifestyle on account of some “bad apples” whose lewd exhibitionism has ruined public nudity in the eyes of many. Cars pass and a group of winos hoot in ecstasy as they beat on a goatskin drum and pass a cockatoo over to Fishback’s sunburned shoulder. Nobody glances up from their breakfasts or newspapers. “Nudity to me isn’t about showing myself off,” Fishback says, knead-
It was this young wom“ an in a full burka,” Richard says, pointing his slate-disc eyes at the concrete. “She looked at me with such fear. She shielded her children from the sight of me with incredible urgency and shame. I felt sorry for her, even a little guilty for awakening that kind of trauma.” — Richard, San Francisco Nudist
ing the day’s warmth into a long scar that sits uncomfortably on his abdomen like a botched caesarean. “It’s not an exhibition show. To me, it’s about freedom of expression. I’m just out here enjoying the sun.” At a nearby table Richard writes in scrawling letters on the fading pages of his notebook. Growing up, he says he “was taught to be ashamed of [my] body, the expression of our most basic selves.” He vigorously taps his hand with a thick fountain pen as he recounts a childhood of repression. At San Francisco’s nude beaches, he learned to accept his body and himself. A blue-eyed, diffident child beat up for his long hair and pushed in the gym shower, Richard’s celebration of self through nudity means more to him than the free air tossing itself against his ruddy skin. To Richard, outlawing public nudity would be an oppressive action against the expression of his most essential being. His metronomic thrashing continues. “We’ve laid a guilt and criminality upon ourselves that we should let go of,” Richard says. He delivers his philosophy without pretension. “I just want to sit here looking boring and writing in my book. Sex has no place in this.” Crossing the plaza, a woman with brightly dyed red hair warns her less experienced friends of the weirdos around who are “just here to expose themselves.” A man makes a joke about some street art to his partner. “It’s a homobile!” He points to a hanging bike wheel adorned with running rainbow flags, ornaments shaped like cosmic ellipses and pairs of Ken dolls in stiff, plastic embraces. “Doesn’t this violate the ban? There’s a naked one!” Richard’s nakedness sparks much discourse between passersby, but being the subject of controversy does little to shame him for his unassuming celebration of self. Only once has a reaction to Richard’s nudity awakened old humiliation. His pen-tapping crescendos, Morse code for distress, while he tells the story. “It was this young woman in a
It doesn't add any“ thing positive to the district’s atmosphere... I think it should be a parent’s choice when they want to expose their child, if at all, to that kind of overt sexuality. ” — Daniel Bergerac
full burka,” Richard says, pointing his slate-disc eyes at the concrete. “She looked at me with such fear. She shielded her children from the sight of me with incredible urgency and shame. I felt sorry for her, even a little guilty for awakening that kind of trauma.” Offering a wide smile and a Diet Coke, Daniel Bergerac, a perpetually grinning gay man in his early middle age, momentarily excuses himself from the terrace behind the dogwash that he owns with two other men. “I’ve really evolved on this issue,” Bergerac begins, gentle voice
underscored by the crack tzzzz of the opening coke can. “It used to be a few guys, two or three times a week, sitting out in the sun. Nothing more.” Nudity in the Castro, like Bergerac, has undergone some change in recent years. “Since that time, we’ve had exhibitionists show up in genital adornments,” Bergerac says. “Constantly adjusting themselves, oiled bodies … they’ve ruined it for the nudists.” He mimics the shape of the area around Jane Warner plaza with powerful arms. “There are three elementary
schools and one public library within three blocks of Jane Warner Plaza,” Bergerac says. “I think it should be a parent’s choice when they want to expose their child, if at all, to that kind of overt sexuality.” Bergerac mentions twice that he is convinced there is something for persons of every sexuality in the “tremendously accepting” Castro District, but conversations with his customers and others in the community have revealed nudist exhibitionism as an unsavory form of expression. “It is making the majority of people very uncomfortable,” Bergerac
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says. “It doesn’t add anything positive to the district’s atmosphere. There’s a lot of humanity that passes through the Castro on bus lines and metro lines, they don’t necessarily want to see a bunch of naked guys just... hanging out.” Bergerac chuckles, faint lines in his face creasing with pleasure at his innuendo. At noon in the center of the plaza, a circle of older gay men listen intently to a comrade’s tales of sexual escapade and declarations of social equality one night, conversing with a robust nude man at a bar down the road.
“And I go back to the bar, and my friends all say, ‘Are you crazy? Why were you talking to that pervert?’” he says, cataract-ridden eyes full of incredulity. Around the table, a wideset woman who joined in the middle of the story begins to absently weave bottle caps into jewelry. “This is San Francisco for Christ’s sake!” He eyes each of them carefully with the emphatic mannerism of a dissident. “This is San Francisco! There are no perverts here. I’m a pervert; he’s a pervert. We’re people, goddamnit!” So his story ends, his pummel-
ling of the table ushering only apathy from his listeners. The wide-set woman tends to her bottle caps, which have been jarred off its edge in a series of clacks. The rest seem rather unaffected by his account, continuing to salute passing acquaintances and to stretch and curse arthritic ligaments. Across the road, the rainbow flag above the gaping subway station snaps against itself like a thrashing rainbow beast, a fighting testament to the obstinate liberalism of San Francisco.
VERDE MAGAZINE | FALL 2012
A L
cross the
ines
Out-of-district students falsify residency to attend Palo Alto public schools
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By Noam Shemtov & Jamie Allendorf arolyn remembers the first time she broke the law. She was in the third grade, sitting in the Walter Hays administration office, filling out paperwork with a false address. Her mother had told her it was the right thing to do, but as she scrawled the address, Carolyn remembers feeling as if she was hiding behind the address’ meaningless characters — numbers and letters that spoke nothing of home. The same numbers and letters that kept Carolyn on the right side of the
8-mile divide between her and a better education. “I felt like I was stuck [between] what my mother was telling me to do and what the truth was,” Carolyn says. Carolyn’s case is far from uncommon. She is just one of many out-ofdistrict students who breach the law daily, faking their addresses so they can attend Palo Alto’s public schools. These students, whose names have been changed to protect their identities, cost the district upwards
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of $12,000 a year per-student according to residency officer Roberto Antonio River. Carolyn and others in her situation are at the center of a phenomenon that exposes Palo Alto Unified School District as the victim of its own success. Defining the Issue The district actively pursues non-resident students through a search carried out over two randomly chosen grade levels each year by the
district’s residency officer, who was hired as part of a 2007 crackdown on out-of-district students. This crackdown came about after the number of students dismissed from the district on the basis of residency violations nearly doubled between 2006 and 2007. This increase coincided with the enactment of a supplementary parcel tax that meant district families would be paying more than ever before for schools according to a 2007 article in Palo Alto Online.
By the district’s estimation, around 30 such students have been dismissed from the school district annually since the 2006-2007 academic year, effectively saving the district an approximated $360,000. To these students, however, PAUSD’s stringent residence policy means the threat of having to leave friends and education behind. “It [is] really hard,” says Kate, whose parents have sent her to Palo Alto schools since elementary school under the borrowed address
ever since elementary school my mom constantly told me, ‘Don’t forget: Don’t tell anyone you don’t live in Palo Alto...’ My mom said she could go to jail to get me to keep the secret.” — Kate, Non-resident student of a relative. “Sometimes I feel like I shouldn’t be here.” Kate’s parents’ decision to illegally enroll her in Palo Alto schools has dictated the shape of her social life and drawn a very clear line between her sense of “house” and of “home.” Kate remembers waking up at 5 a.m. every day for school, each morning receiving her mother’s reprimand to keep the secret of her residency between her parents and the relative under whose address they are registered. “Ever since elementary school my mom constantly told me, ‘Don’t forget: don’t tell anyone you don’t live in Palo Alto,’” Kate says. “My mom said she could go to jail to get me to keep the secret.” Kate’s attendance of PAUSD
schools has caused some tension between her and her family. “I want to be more independent, which is hard because I have to rely on my parents for transportation, keeping my home life a secret.” Kate says. “I notice that I am straying away from my family members, but I feel like I owe them a lot.” Hiding her domestic life from her friends also took its toll on Kate, who broke her promise to her mother in middle school and told her secret to her closest friends. The betrayal of one friend has stayed with Kate ever since. “I didn’t want to keep lying,” Kate says. “One of my friends knew that I didn’t live [in Palo Alto] and she told me that we couldn’t be friends anymore because I had lied to her. It was just so strange to me.”
Kate’s family accepts the pressure of secrecy as a sacrifice made for a higher quality education, a sacrifice that, for better or for worse, has defined Kate’s sense of belonging to a community that sometimes pushes her to her limits. “I think I’ve gotten a better education,” Kate says, fidgeting nervously with the keychains on her bag. “The school work here is so hard that sometimes I feel like I just can’t deal with it. Sometimes I think it would have been better if I had just gone to school in [my city of residence].” Even so, Palo Alto was the place where Kate’s childhood unfolded. It was where she learned to read, made her first and closest friends, the place where she illegally grew up. “I can’t imagine what it would be like to have to leave,” Kate says.
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One day, she came close to finding out. “We almost got caught once... they sent someone [to the house] when I was in elementary school,” Kate says. Although nothing came of the investigation, to Kate, it represents the very tangible threat of being evicted from the setting of her childhood. To the man who knocked on her door demanding proof of her residency, however, Kate’s near-expulsion was just one of around 100 contacts by the district every year. Combating the Problem River receives an accusation of illegitimate residency approximately once every day. These tips most often come in the form of bounced-back mail from an illegit -imate address,
a tip from an online source or over a phone call via an anonymous residency hotline [(650) 329-3700 ext. 7385]. River, like the families of the students he investigates, took the job of residency officer with the interests of his family at heart and in mind. “I took the job for health benefits,” says River, sitting in his district office chair. “I have a young family. It was interesting to work with the school district, and it’s been very rewarding.” To River, the reward in his job is serving the interests of young families like his own, the PAUSD residents. “[Disenrolling non-resident students] does a very good service to the school district and its taxpayers,” River says.
Even though he finds it difficult, River says he has to distance himself from any sympathy he feels for the students and families he investigates. The way River sees it, he’s not punishing the criminal, but the crime. “We investigate parents and not students,” River says. “What affects me is that it [the population involved in residency violation] is not poor, it’s not rich, it’s everybody. [Residency violations] cross all the different socioeconomic levels. I have to retain a level of professional objectivity. I cannot create results, I can only uncover facts.” River begins investigations of suspected violators with a check on residency documentation, background and address legitimacy. He proceeds with his search using the physical paperwork of the family in
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question and through several government databases to which PAUSD subscribes. When these first steps give way to more serious suspicion, River takes further action. “At [the] high school level, it’s almost impossible to be able to pick a student out of a crowd [so]... we implement one of two different field contacts,” River says. These contacts include a “residency check,” in which an official identifies himself with a photo ID and PAUSD business card, asking to see a visual of the student as proof of their residency. Investigations are unannounced in order to preserve their candidness. The other field contact involves a significantly more thorough observation. “At times, we observe a student from an address to school, from school to an address,” River says. “This is basically watching the house, see[ing] who’s coming and going and mak[ing] observations.” River only implements the “observation” approach in his toughest
I just sleep in San Jose and come back. Palo Alto is my home... I can’t imagine what it would be like to leave.” — Kate, Non-resident student
cases. “I think PAUSD’s methods are extremely invasive,” Carolyn says. “By following a student home, they are crossing a boundary that separates the student’s public and private lives.” Despite this view, Carolyn does believe it is well within the district’s rights to investigate suspected students using less extreme methods and remove them from the district. River’s observations aren’t limited to the field. “I’ll find information on Google, on LinkedIn, on Facebook,” River says. “Not only do parents have their Facebooks, students have their Facebooks. I can identify through pictures off of Facebook. I can get parents’ employment information off of LinkedIn.” House or Home For students like Kate, the district’s stance on residency is much more than public policy. To her and other out-of-district students like Jessica, it represents the idea of
COMMENTARY
STORY TYPE: In-depth news feature/cover story ABOUT: In this story about students who falsify their residencies to attend Palo Alto schools, sources reflected on their experiences of justice, anonymity and silence. These were students who tried to exist anonymously in our space. I hoped the story would rename their fear of being caught — of being apprehended and seen as the other — as one pervasive in the human experience. After all, who of us has not once held down his head hoping to avoid such recognition? MY ROLE: Wrote the story, created all photo illustrations; interviewed all sources and designed the layout with my co-author. There were several ethical and legal concerns with regard to anonymity that arose with this story that I handled in close coordination with my partner and then editors-in-chief. AWARDS: Critical mentions in feature writing from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association and the NCFPW in their Gold Circle Awards and high school journalism competition, respectively. CHOSEN FOR: Investigative initiative, in-depth reporting, unique subject matter, quality of writing and awards won. PREVIOUS PAGE: This photo illustration is meant to illustrate the district’s potentially invasive investigations of suspected residency falsifiers.
equal opportunity, opportunity that they believe should be made universally attainable. “A good education should be available to everyone,” Jessica says. Not everybody shares her opinion — especially in PAUSD. Unlike its neighbors, PAUSD is a basic-aid district, which means that it gets a vast majority of its funding not from the state, but through local property tax revenue and grants from parent-run organizations like Partners in Education and the Parent Teacher Association. Growing numbers of enrolled students have brought the issue of residency violation into the arena of serious district concerns. The more students enrolled in district schools, the more likely it becomes that the quality of education will decrease, causing Palo Alto taxpayers to pay close attention to residency violations as a method of quality control, ensuring the highest return per tax dollar. “Our schools are overcrowded as
it is and we really don’t have the capacity for students who live outside the district,” says Diana Walsh, a concerned parent and former member of PiE. “Our classrooms are packed to the gill and overflowing.” Jessica’s parents, however, were not thinking about education in terms of inter-district tax return when they lied for her to attend PAUSD. “My parents just wanted me to have a good education and the same opportunities as kids here,” Jessica says. “They’ve sacrificed a lot to get me those opportunities.” Many Palo Altans feel that Jessica’s parents’ concern is not a legitimate one. “The kids [who attend PAUSD illegally] are in a really tough place because their parents have convinced them that this is the best place for them when, in fact, they can get a good education in many places,” Walsh says. The district focuses on the quality of its children’s education, which is being funded out-of-pocket. The
families of Kate, Jessica and Carolyn see no rationale for why they shouldn’t reap the same benefits and opportunities for their children. The issue of district residency has extended beyond the bounds of economic dogma, and not just for out-of-district families. Some parents say that it not only detracts from legal residents’ educations, but also from the moral education of the student perpetrators as well. “I’m horrified to think that parents teach their kids that it’s okay to steal to get ahead,” Walsh says. “To me, that’s appalling.” For Kate, the issue is not political. It goes beyond questions of “stealing” taxpayers’ money and the morality of vigilante socialism in a capitalist system where the taxpayer’s dollar is everything. To Kate, her address is just a collection of meaningless numbers and letters that allows her to remain within the boundaries of the place she calls home. “I just sleep in San Jose and come back,” Kate says. “Palo Alto is my home.”
VERDE MAGAZINE | SPRING 2013
T H G E U H A C NT I
S OS CR RE FI
v to em r h S nge m bi a o E N ie By Kat &
The gun violence debate takes hold in Palo Alto and East Palo Alto
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H
e peers out of the stucco house, looselipped and sunken-eyed. The man is rangy with tightly drawn, rusty skin and a fine shock of white hair. He passes a single slender Newport to the woman at his door, who lights it, flicking off the burning tip and releasing a puff of grey. It is a Sunday, one of the year’s first, and Jane, who briefly attended school in the Palo Alto Unified School District, is showing me around East Palo Alto’s arms trade. Her name, like others in this story, has been changed to preserve her anonymity. Cars blur past like bullets on the highway, each leaving in its wake only a trail of exhaust and a string of drivers pursuing it northward on 101. The man addresses Jane. “Hey honey, it’s been a while. What can I do for ya?” “Yeah it has, huh?” Jane says. “I heard that [someone’s] got a gun around here?” “Down the block,” the man says. “‘S for a good price, too. Got a clip and everything. You gonna buy?” The
man is old enough to be her grandfather, selling single cigarettes out of his front door. His accent, like his manner, belongs in the American South, and he eyes me like an unwelcome tourist in East Palo Alto, so clearly out of place and touch. Jane tells him she isn’t, that she was just curious. She exchanges a crumpled bill for a cigarette, and lights it. “See? That’s how easy it is to get a gun here,” Jane says to me, once out of the man’s earshot. “All you gotta do is cross 101 to East Palo Alto. ... He’s cool, though, the dude who’s selling. Tons of people are strapped [carry concealed weapons] over here.” Jane does not hesitate to recount the story of the night several years before when she was shot, an accidental casualty o one of EPA’s violent territorial conflicts. We cross in front of Home Depot, where a group of day laborers are congregated near a red Ford whistling over faintly musical radio static. “I didn’t know what was going on,” Jane says, recalling the shooting. “I just hit the floor. I remember hearing someone call, ‘Mark a-- n----!’ at us and watching the car drive away, windows all tinted.”
Jane recalls the sound of the shot hammering all other noise out of her consciousness, breaking against the inside of her ears. She dropped to the floor, but before reaching it she was hit in the leg, lying on her stomach in front of the neon signs of a fast food restaurant. “I didn’t even know what was going on that night,” Jane says. “The guys I was with helped me get home, but we didn’t call the cops or anything. I was too scared to start s---. I shouldn’t have been with people [from another neighborhood]. I guess they’d had beef before, but I shouldn’t have been there.” The Facts Shotspotter, an online service that monitors the number of shots fired in a locale during a given time, reported an average of 13.3 gunshots daily in November 2012 and 108 single gunshot incidents and 70 multiple gunshot incidents in EPA in January of the same year. In the same period,
People aren’t protecting themselves at home. Everybody knows not to come in when somebody’s at home and start sh-t. People here have guns for the street. — Jane, East Palo Alto teen
not a single shot was fire within Palo Alto city limits, although several reports of gun related crime have been filed with Palo Alto police, among them the arrest of two Paly students on Feb. 8 and Feb. 11 for bringing guns onto campus and several armed robberies in the downtown area. Getting Involved In Palo Alto, as in the rest of the country, the debate on gun control rose to prominence on Dec. 14, 2012, when Adam Lanza killed 20 children and six adult faculty members of Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn. The shooting brought gun control to the center of political debate on the national level, drawing a proposal from the White House calling for “increased background checks for all gun sales, including those by private sellers currently exempt.” Also in the proposition was a reinstatement of the 1994 ban on assault weapons that was abandoned in 2004, and other clauses that have
COMMENTARY
STORY TYPE: In-depth news feature/cover story ABOUT: This is a localization of the national gun violence debate that swept the nation after shootings in Aurora, Colo. and Newton, Conn. In it, East Palo Alto teens give a tour of the street market for strap-on firearms and local professionals and activists on both sides deconstruct the meaning of gun ownership in two very different communities. MY ROLE: Interviewed all sources, wrote the story and designed the layout. My partner for this story, Katie Ebinger, and I collaborated on preliminary reporting. AWARDS: Critical mention in the “general feature writing” category of the NCFPW’s high school journalism competition 2013. CHOSEN FOR: Timeliness, in-depth reporting, investigative initiative, quality of writing and awards won. LEFT: In this photo illustration by Lisie Sabbag a model poses with a sign authored by the group Anonymous. The sign reads: “With just one single exception, EVERY pulic shooting since at least 1950 in the U.S. in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are NOT allowed to carry guns.” NEXT PAGE: A detail from the cover of Verde’s third issue of the 2012-2013 academic year. I worked closely with the then editors-in-chief and art director to weave the theme of dramatic watercolors throughout the cover package. drawn serious reactions from proponents of relaxed firearm control and the National Rifle Association. An anti-gun group based in the Silicon Valley organized in support of Obama’s proposal at its inaugural meeting on Jan. 17. The group, which includes Palo Alto residents, plans to lobby to politicians to back Obama’s proposal. Local action in support of gun control is planned for Feb. 23 by Silicon Valley investor Robert Lee and outreach coordinator James Cook. Backed by some $50,000 in funding, an anonymous gun buyback will be hosted at Palo Alto City Hall for the tri-city area including Menlo Park, Palo Alto and East Palo Alto. Also since the Newtown shooting, maroon signs with white text have been distributed throughout Palo Alto. The text reads, “With just one single exception, EVERY public shooting since 1950 in the U.S. in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry guns.”
The signs belong to Palo Alto Liberty, a local self-described “physical manifestation” of the anarchist group Anonymous that has taken a stance against gun control. The group claims to be “fighting tyranny and corruption when and where [it] can,” and the pending gun control proposal represents a clear breach of what it considers to be an essential constitutional freedom. The Debate John J. Donahue III, a professor of law at Stanford University and the author of “Shooting Down the ‘More Guns, Less Crime’ Hypothesis,” argues that the relationship between gun ownership and crime is not, as argued by the NRA and much of the right wing, inversely correlated. In EPA, gun ownership takes on a completely new shape. According to Jane, firearms in EPA are being used primarily for violent crime, an attitude that influences the mentality around firearms enterprise and cul-
ture in the city. “I’m waking up to shootings almost every night,” Jane says. “Most of them happen cause of turf wars and drug deals.” “We keep our beds under the window, just in case anything flies through,” Kelly, Jane’s friend, adds, warning me, as I turn to use the restroom in a nearby building, not to cross to the other side of the street alone. The firearms that spray bullets through Jane’s and Kelly’s waking nights are sold on the street, Jane says. “Most of the guns here are unregistered,” Kelly says. “You buy them on the street, like drugs, from someone who got it from someone else. It goes on like that, in a chain, until you get to the [original] buyer.” “People aren’t protecting themselves at home,”Jane says, tying her scarf tighter across her forehead. “Everybody knows not to come in when somebody’s at home and start
Gunni for Chan
A local perspective o in east gun palo national debate alto, guns are being Also Inside: Planned demo used to kill Buena Vista Mobile Park will and injure PAUSD students (p.28) I don’t care what, but something needs to be done to stop it.” — Jane, East Palo Alto teen
sh-t. People here have guns for the street.” Donahue attributes the abundance of illegal weapons and frequency of gun violence in EPA to the propagation of drugs. “EPA is a locale in which there is a certain amount of drug dealing going on,” Donahue says. “Dealers tend to need guns because they cannot rely on the police to enforce their contracts or protect them from theft because they’re engaged in a criminal enterprise. ... If one thing would diminish the rate of murder and nefarious gun trade in the U.S. it would most likely be the legalization of drugs ... [Palo Alto is] a growing site for drug criminality, which may well pose a problem in our future.” A Tale of Two Cities By Donahue’s estimation, the drug trade and a host of other factors
brought on by the socioeconomic divide between Palo Alto and East Palo Alto determine a split in the role of firearms in the two cities. “In East Palo Alto, I can see people feeling the psychological need to buy guns for safety in the home, especially considering how difficult it is to [legally] register a concealed carry,” Donahue says. “In Palo Alto, that need is negligible. Guns [in Palo Alto] are used for recreational sports... and as Republican party political statements, political props of Second Amendment support.” Lee Hughes, a Paly Junior and gun owner, has an attitude towards gun ownership that corroborates Donahue’s assumption. “Fun!” Hughes says. “I’m not gonna lie, guns are fun. They are not evil things like everyone thinks, when used correctly. But key words are ‘used correctly,’ since they are not
toys and if you think of them as such you don’t deserve [to own] one.” To Kelly and Jane, the restriction of gun ownership surpasses the realm of individual liberty and crosses into that of individual safety. They are not concerned with the party politics surrounding gun control, and do not stop to think about the intangible implications of tighter restrictions or of laxer ones. “If I’m not going to be waking up to gunshots, though, it means that somebody’s getting them off the streets,” Kelly says. Jane is concerned for the quality of life and the degree of safety for herself and those around her, concerned that she’ll hit the pavement again with a bullet in her knee, afraid to get help. “In EPA, guns are being used to kill and injure,” Jane says. “I don’t care what, but something needs to be done to stop it.”
G A
Mind the
VERDE MAGAZINE | SPRING 2012
WRITING
P
PAUSD struggles to meet minority students on the other side of the achievement gap
By Noam Shemtov & Henry Tucher
F
ifty-five percent – that is the gap between Palo Alto High School’s black and white students in terms of proficiency on the math portion of the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE). This statistic, however, is not representative of the achievement gap; it’s just a statistic. What’s the problem? The achievement gap is the difference in academic performance between white and minority students, particularly black and hispanic students. Although Paly consistently ranks highly in overall performance, on average, its minority students are not performing at this same standard of excellence. Paly’s SARC (School Accountability Report Card) shows that in 2011, only 15 percent of the black students who graduated had completed the A-G courses required for UC and CSU admission. In addition, although 98 percent of white students and 99 percent of asian students had completed Algebra I by the end of their freshman year, of their black and hispanic counterparts, only 55 and 74 percent respectively had completed that level of Math. The achievement gap is a problem in schools across the state, but PAUSD has a severe case of academic disparity. The district ranks 147th in California in regards to the proficiency of PAUSD’s hispanic and black students in Algebra II. On the other hand, PAUSD’s asian and white stu-
dents are ranked third in the state for their proficiency in Algebra II. Many students and teachers intent on “closing the gap” are trying to make a difference. One of such students is Paly Senior, Tremaine Kirkman, who is involved in the district discussions about the achievement gap. “[The achievement gap] is a really serious problem, and while I think we are pointed in the right direction on the school level, there is more we could be doing as a district,” Kirkman says. Title 1 and No Child Left Behind Ten years ago, President Bush sat down at a high school in Hamilton, Ohio, and signed an act that supports standards-based education reform. The No Child Left Behind Act has led to increased federal funding of
education by $12 billion within the first five years of its passing, but the act has not had entirely positive results. Because of the act, there is a considerable danger that the PAUSD district will lose federal funding. How could Paly, ranked 83rd in the nation in the US News and World Report and known for sending students to top-tier universities and national math and science competitions, be in danger of losing federal funding? The answer is this: the provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act required that counties set forth goals by which 100% of their students would be proficient in a statewide standardized test. If this goal is not met, then it is possible that the district will lose federal funding.
There is a lot of work to do, but we have the resources and will power to close this gap,” Kirkman says. “The district is in our corner, but it takes a lot of time and effort to solve such a big problem.” — Tremaine Kirkman, senior
“If, by 2020, not all students have reached 100% proficiency in the California Star Test, then Paly will be regarded as a ‘failing school,’ which is most respects it isn’t,” Wilmot says. Even though private investments make up a large part of Paly’s budget, these donations are not enough to keep the school running if it were to lose federal support. “The act puts a lot of pressure on teachers to account for what they’re doing,” Maria Rao, a Focus on Success and Math teacher, says. “Everyone – parents, students, and teachers – needs to get involved to make a significant change”. A-G Requirements With the intention of mending the bifurcation of our student’s ed-
ucation, the school system proposed a controversial change in graduation requirements, to mirror those of eligibility to California’s state universities. These changes were contested by Paly’s math department with a strongly opposed letter, calling the changes “well-intended” but predicting “devastating consequences.” Others, though have reacted favorably to these pending changes, “There is a lot more we could be doing on the district level” Kirkman says on the issue. “Right now, though they are considering aligning A-G requirements, and we (student representatives) are strong supporters of this alignment.” Kirkman says, and adds that students are more likely to succeed if more is expected of them and that on the school-level there
is enough support in place to make these changes. Paly principal Phil Winston agrees. “I wish it was that easy, it is complicated. Yes I believe we are doing good work in this area [supporting kids to achieve the A-G standard]. Motivation is the most difficult area to tackle,” Winston says, who is optimistic about the school’s ability to meet the A-G standards should they be implemented. A report by the district shows that an average of 89% of white and asian students are currently meeting A-G standards. This number is mirrored by a mere 15 percent of black A-G graduates. An Early Start According to
Kirkman,
the
COMMENTARY
STORY TYPE: In-depth news feature/cover story ABOUT: This story attempts to identify the source of Palo Alto Unified School District’s yawning achievement gap, which has kept socio-economically disadvantaged demographics from academic success since “Palo Alto” became synonymous with “Ivy League.” Several concerns about fairness of coverage, both of the district’s perspective and that of the students whom we interviewed, arose during the reporting process, all of which I mitigated in close collaboration with the then editors-in-chief. MY ROLE: Wrote the story, designed its layout and took some photos; interviewed all sources with my co-author. AWARDS: 1st place in the “general feature writing” category from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association Gold Circle Awards 2012. CHOSEN FOR: Investigative initiative, in-depth reporting, quality of writing and awards won right, previous: These photos are meant to illustrate the “elephant in the room” as it applies to race in education. Achievement Gap is not just a transitional issue. “The main thing we could do is look at elementary levels and early education and focus on putting support in for students” Kirkman says in regards to the district’s shortcomings in addressing the gap. Winson agrees, and claims that the district has been making efforts to provide support in the earlier grades. “In the educational system there are red lights or warning signals. The district has made a massive effort to provide support and interventions to struggling students at the earlier grade levels” Winston says. Barron Park elementary provides a program that allows students the organizational and other support they need in the formative years of
their early education. Paly librarian Rachel Kellerman describes the program as “a wonderful opportunity that will no doubt have a positive impact. She is not the only optimist. Winston, too predicts that support at earlier grade levels will yield positive results with time. Wilmot’s district statistics have displayed some growth in proficiency among Black students, around 11% since 2009, in the English Language Arts section of the CAHSEE. Hispanic students’ success rates, however, have fallen from previous years and mathematic proficiency has seen a decrease across the board. Even with support at earlier junctions in students’ educations, Wilmot predicts that current goals
will be difficult to reach. Focus on Success In order to meet the goal of 100% proficiency among its students, Paly aims to help its struggling students more directly. Focus on Success, a class period where students do their homework or receive tutoring, is intended to be that direct help. “It’s all about providing students with the support they need, the resources and capacity for self-advocacy that will help them achieve at the same level. I think that Focus on Success is a great way to achieve that,” Kellerman says, claiming to have observed Focus on Success as a catalyst for positive change over the years. Math and Focus on Success teachers
Kathy Bowers and Rao also express enthusiasm and hope for the cause. “It’s all about getting the students to buy into it; a lot of them come into the class having been shown time and time again that they are failures” Bowers says. “Once we can get them to see results they often times take their education into their own hands”. Rao agrees, and claims that motivation to succeed comes after students are shown their ability to do so. “I think it’s all about showing struggling students that they have the resources they need to achieve, so that they can seize the opportunity for themselves,” Rao says. “They all want to be performing at the same level as their peers”. For these teachers, teaching Focus on Success has
been gratifying because it has shown them that failing students are often truly interested in succeeding. Kirkman agrees, though tentatively, “improvement of study skills is important, and it definitely helps with that, but the district on a whole needs to make steps in the same direction,” Kirkman says. Winston claims that the Focus classes have a visible influence on students’ performances. “Relationships have a major impact on a student’s education and performance,” he says. Despite the Focus on Success program’s success, the achievement gap hasn’t been eradicated. PAUSD superintendent Focus on Success may not be the key to achieving 100 percent proficiency on the California Star Test, but Kell-
erman, Bowers, Rao and Winston will all vow for its positive effect on the performance of minority and struggling students. Looking Forward With programs like Focus on Success and teachers and students passionate about making a difference to close the achievement gap, Paly may, indeed, meet its goal. The Focus On Success program is evidence that with the right support, students from all backgrounds can perform in school. “There is a lot of work to do, but we have the resources and will power to close this gap,” Kirkman says. “The district is in our corner, but it takes a lot of time and effort to solve such a big problem.”
VERDE MAGAZINE | SPRING 2013
INTOLERANT
TOLERANCE By Noam Shemtov
The responsibility of the liberal world’s gay community: not to stop at mere tolerance
I
NSIDE THE CHURCH, A PASTOR delivered his sermon with dramatic, revivalist passion. It was the night of a sub-tropical rainstorm. Fruit hung heavily like garnets from the trees. It was my third week in Paraguay. An angular face across the pew bore curious eyes into the side of my deliberately turned head. He always asked the most questions about United States, about what we were okay with there, where our boundaries were, if our pastors ever talked about the sin of homosexuality. That night in the church marked the first time I have ever felt shame for my sexuality. Not because of the preacher’s sermon, but because of the apathy I had previously expressed about being gay. Hiding behind Palo Alto’s liberalism, I had allowed myself to shrug off my homosexuality, reserving it for the dramatic irony of my own self-deprecating humor.
Outside the church, homosexuality was silenced in Paraguay, made a non-issue. I had treated it the same way in my life, dismissing my being gay as insignificant and calling this delusion profound self-acceptance. The October decision of the Boy Scouts of America to deny gay scout Ryan Andresen the rank of Eagle Scout drew the same reaction from me as the night in the church. It tore through the politics surrounding the marriage issue and joined the institutional bigotry of the conservative church with a symbol of good samaritanship, the Boy Scout, making the civil issue of the gay community accessible. It spoke directly to the American community. The message was clear: Andresen’s courage is not only undeserving of a badge, it is diametrically opposed to heroism, to Americanism. It was an isolating message, that made a public distinction between Andresen and that all-too-banal system of “American family values” that seems to have replaced reason in the argument of gay equality. The BSA’s reaction was to claim that it would tolerate silent homosexu-
WRITING COMMENTARY
STORY TYPE: Opinion/perspective/part of cover package ABOUT: This is my take on the Boy Scouts of America’s anti-gay policy, which sparked controversy last year when Moraga, Calif. teen Ryan Andresen was barred from receiving his Eagle Scout badge on the grounds of his homosexuality and unwillingness to pledge allegiance to God. The story was written in less than a week as a last-minute addition to the cover package. The story is also my appeal to the gay community of the liberal world not to stop at mere “tolerance,” an attitude that stands in the way of full-fledged equality. My role: Wrote the story and designed the layout. Awards: 2nd place prize in "opinion wriiting" from the NCFPW in their high school journalism competition, 2013. Chosen For: Display of voice, quality of writing, timeliness and awards won Left: This piece of San Francisco street art is a proclamation of freedom by the liberal gay community, freedom that is often taken for granted or overlooked. ality, the equivalent of saying “don’t push the gay agenda into our sacred value system and it won’t get pushed out.” The desire to act on such a personal “non-issue” as homosexuality had never so much as occurred to me, but the Andresen case is one of those instances in American life that make my kind of apathy problematic, that reveals it as deeply self-centered. By measuring the dramas of gay life against my priviliged one, I had rejected ownership of an experience receding from prominence in the civil rights arena on the basis that homosexuality is largely tolerated. Today, the collective reaction towards the gay community has not moved forward from the fight for tolerance. It floats between the halfway victory of tolerance and the unwelcome silence that comes holding tolerance’s hand. Actions against equality go against tolerance by definition, but raise no incendiary response. Perhaps they shouldn’t. There should, however, be a total rejection of the “tolerance” idea. The general attitude has been that tolerance is still a big enough success, that asking for
total equality would be unreasonable. Tolerance pacifies and pays lip-service to the idea of equality, to the idea that Andresen is even more deserving of a badge for upholding the secular moral code of equality than he would be for some community project. If there is tolerance, there is no conflict, but there is no discourse either. The response to decisions like this one by the Boy Scouts of America reveal that tolerance takes the problem away without giving a solution. The case reminded me that my first world liberal life was not so different than what I had encountered in South America. The Andresen case attacked the delusion that being gay meant nothing more to me than the genders of the wax figures on a future civil-union cake or the genetic composition of children I wasn’t planning on, that it was not a quality of my life directly tied to my political rhetoric. It re-problematized a social issue that I had taken as solved and thus ignorable. It put me firmly behind the struggle for equality with no irony or self-deprecation.
WRITING
VERDE MAGAZINE | SPRING 2013
Brooklyn Meats the Bay Roast Shop’s food a success, ambience a schlemazel By Noam Shemtov Tucked beneath a green awning just in front of Palo Alto City Hall, the Roast Shop is a dimly lit building whose near-emptiness you could imagine filling with extending lines of customers buzzing in anticipation of enjoying the smoky flavors and textures of the Roast Shops house-prepared meats. Owned by two anonymous partners, the Roast Shop is exactly what its name would suggest: a meat lover’s haven, dressed up as a sparse dining hall with jars of cured cauliflower and with long mahogany benches that stretch to the back of the dining area. The casual eatery debuted in late 2012, opening a new option for the area’s kosher community. According to restaurant entrepreneur Frank Klein, who assisted the partners in opening the Roast Shop, the project was met with great success in catering. A “grand opening” is expected at the beginning of April, after the end of the Jewish holiday of Passover. In most respects, the Roast Shop can be considered the lesser-known Jewish twin of Frank Klein’s Asian Box in that it aspires to be a casual, takeout-friendly spot with a low-concept menu. In the case of
the Roast Shop, the menu superimposes new-California cuisine and the carved tradition of Brooklyn-style cured meats double-wrapped in brown deli paper. The aesthetic theme burns with misplaced sarcasm in places — the cow heads on the wall are paper and a poster that calls itself the Lucky Eight Rules adds a bit of abrasive humor to the experience with the admonition that “dancing is prohibited by law.” While the menu is somewhat varied, you get the sense that the owners are more dedicated to kosher tradition than the Californian “health” palette. The bill of fare is a paradise of smoky, cured, lean meats in weighty rye-bread sandwiches, leafy flavorful salads (the chicken is a favorite), pickled sides and aiolis that pack a hefty punch. With crusty quinoa, roasted peppers and onion rings instead of eggplants, and avocado aioli on a rye bun ($11.75), the vegetarian sub’s toothsome flavor rolls together well. Though not flat-out fantastic, the dish colors a bit outside the menu’s conservative, strictly deli-style-meat lines. Also on the menu are the more traditional deli sandwiches, includ-
ing a corned beef sub whose subtle and ashy seasoning has won it some well-deserved popularity. Variously cooked and cured meats dominate the rest of the Roast Shop’s selection. The wonderfully plump chicken sub is an especially delicious option. Your sub comes with sauerkraut, which, besides adding some peppery hue to the meal, slides down with ease. On offer with the subs and Reubens is a Cel-Rey soda, a rare and deli-appropriate addition. Despite the half-baked effort at an ambience of a casual community kickback, the Roast Shop is true to its kosher roots. All the same, for a kosher food restaurant, the Roast Shop is the new take that we have been waiting for behind our thick, patriarchal beards and puts an unexpected spin on the triteness of New Yorkstyle kosher meats while executing classics to a tee. So, though it may not fill with scores of laughing friends, and despite Yelp complaints of servers with Moses-beards and no hairnets, the Roast Shop receives three out of five stars for its creative plays on banal Brooklyn Jewish cuisine.
COMMENTARY
STORY TYPE: Review ABOUT: The Roast Shop was a new restaurant/deli at the time of this story’s publication. Backed by Bay Area restauranteur Frank Klein and owned by aonymous partners, it offered Brooklyn-style Jewish cuisine. MY ROLE: Interviewed all sources, wrote the story and designed its layout CHOSEN FOR: Display of voice, quality of writing, foray into a new genre ABOVE: The Roast Shop acheives its casual atmosphere with walls of whitewashed brick and succulant plants in vases. Photo by Charu Srivastava
VERDE MAGAZINE | FALL 2013
WRITING
— Editors’ Note — “Marijuana may be reaching next for your son or daughter… or yours… or YOURS!” And now it’s reaching for your state. It saturates the air in Santa Cruz and the street in Venice Beach, hangs heavy in the hands of law enforcement and light in the lungs of cancer and glaucoma patients. Sheriffs in Northern California’s growing region routinely deal with complaints of its stench; teens in Golden Gate Park praise its redolence. In short, marijuana is everywhere — and it’s nothing new. The legalization of its recreational use is well underway in Colorado and Washington, with voter initiatives in process in at least three other states. But this is not the same five-leafed demon of “Reefer Madness.” Cheech and Chong have become more worn than witty and “Superbad” star Jonah Hill was nominated for a 2012 Oscar. The way we think about the drug is changing as it becomes a more and more accepted character in our cultural narrative.
A wealthy class of marijuana capitalists is emerging from the woodwork. Politicians, doctors and economists have conceded to identify regulated, licensed and taxed marijuana as a potential and virtually untapped industry. Use among teens has seen little to no growth since California doctors started writing prescriptions for medical marijuana in 1996, and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom has come out in support of further legalization. San Francisco Assembly member Tom Ammiano introduced a bill that would place regulations on California’s vaguely checked medical marijuana industry, notorious and oft-criticized for its easy access. In 2012, Palo Alto voters opted to ban dispensaries within city limits. Other communities who have made similar moves face under-regulated medical marijuana deliveries, teen abuse and the illegal and often dangerous street market. In his story, “Cannabis Controversy” (p. 26) staff writer
Jack Brook explores the complicated and dynamic role of medical marijuana in our community and others like it. The main players are three normal Palo Alto High School teens — no dramas, addictions or estrangements — interacting with marijuana in medical and recreational contexts. Doctors, parents and policy makers figure prominently alongside them, together deconstructing the complex relationship between medical and recreational pot use among teens and beyond. We often talk about recreational marijuana as the “gateway drug” — the key to a Pandora’s box of black market addictions, personal crises and wrong boyfriends. But our city, country and state are at a bigger gateway, asking bigger questions, and we look to medical marijuana for answers. The floogates are waiting to burst, and whatever is waiting behind them is clouded by smoke. — Noam and Hollis
COMMENTARY
STORY TYPE: Editors' note ABOUT: This note appeared in the opening pages of Verde's second issue of the 2013-2014 academic year, which featured as its cover story an in-depth exploration of medical marijuana. MY ROLE: Authored editors' note, edited national award-winning cover story extensively CHOSEN FOR: Display of voice, quality of writing, timeliness and foray into a new genre ABOVE: A customer at the Natural Herbal Pan Relief Cannabis Club in San Jose, Calif. sniffs one of the dispensary’s many varieties of marijuana. Photo by Jack Brook
LOOK AT THIS M TA KOOL LOOK AT THIS M TA KOOL LOOK AT THIS M T A K O O L Layout LOOK AT THIS M TA KOOL LOOK AT THIS design M TA KOOL LOOK AT THIS M TA KOOL LOOK AT THIS M TA KOOL
DE CI AN G AN AN AN RA U I T D P D T D S N I RA FO T Y S O C IN WI O ERI EXT E IS PE RM UR LE TH STE NE OU RE PR A RO AR E D I TH S ME O TIV U U CU N AT ISS SE E N P S LT TH G U CU ST DI O UR E E E TIO AT NG ME E S ME TS I N STI RA OF UR DIA IN CS PE T RO HO AB , A HE UN PE OU SER AM DI B NG S O T RA IES I F SH PE OF DD IN G
E
RAPE
THE STATE OF
TODAY
of rapes don’t lead to any sort of prosecution
69%
AVERAGE NUMBER OF YEARLY RAPE CASES IN THE U.S. IS 207,754 THAT NUMBER CONSISTS OF OVER 112,187 RAPES REPORTED TO POLICE
of rapists are never faced with a conviction
46%
AND 95,566 RAPES THAT REMAIN UNRECOGNIZED AND UNPROSECUTED U.S. Dept. of Justice
of rapes are not reported or prosecuted
FBI & Dept. of Justice
STATISTICS SHOWN HERE WERE TAKEN FROM THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, THE FBI AND A SURVEY DISTRIBUTED TO PALO ALTO HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ONLINE ASKING THEIR OPINIONS ON QUESTIONS CONCERNING RAPE.
58% AGREE of Paly students represented in a focus group of 100 responded
The same focus group answered 78% disagree to the statement, “A lot of people, especially women, are too likely to label a sexual encounter as ‘rape’”
Page design by NOAM SHEMTOV Illustration by HANAKO GALLAGHER
RA P
20
When asked whether or not “Certain women are more likely to be raped due to their flirting, teasing or promiscuous behavior”
E IS TH CR A V I E I N M C W UM E, A IOU O AC M ER N S RO EN O D SS C IN OU R PA NT APE IN IS CR A V O IM ICI VI F PE E, OU GO CTIM RPE AN S T NE O S RA D N N T E LE D AT O T T N R O O I CO C O S HE F M VE E PR A SUF NA AN NU RA EDI RA EV VOI FER LLY D T ME FA PIS A A GE AILS CE IN WH HEIR R W CT TS ND OF IN WH SIL O FR HIL TH RUN IN THI TH IE EN
IS S
IS
TH
DESIGN
25%
UE ,V ER D
INFO-GRAPHIC IN
S S S S S S S
COMMENTARY
I collected data for, designed and wrote this infographic, which appeared in Verde’s award-winning cover package on the culture of rape. It was a last-minute supplement to the feature “You Cant tell me I wasnt raped” by Lisie Sabbag, which was storyboarded for an extra page. The feature went on to place first in the NSPA's “Story of the Year” competition. For the infographic and my involvement in the Rape Culture cover package I received a certificate of recognition and appreciation from the California legislature.
MAGAZINE CONCEPT
DESIGN
COMMENTARY
I designed Verde's May 2013 issue alongside my co-editor-in-chief, managing editor and design editor. We chose the professional status of women and girls in the Silicon Valley as the topic for the cover package of our very first edition as editors-in-chief. The graphics of the package were inspired by superhero comics and the art of Roy Lichtenstein. The cover illustration, rendered by art director Diana Connolly, represents the challenges facing women in the corporate world today. We wanted to see the heavily graphic, playful and bold design scheme of the cover package repeated throughout the magazine and worked closely with staff writers and designers to that effect.
MAGAZINE SAN FRANCISCO NUDISTS STRIPPED OF THEIR RIGHTS
Text and photography by NOAM SHEMTOV
LAYOUT
COMMENTARY
DESIGN
I designed the layout for this award-winning article on District 8 Supervisor Scott Weiner’s public nudity ban, which was passed on Nov. 20, 2012. The first page of the design features a censored photo of a San Francisco nudist. Its subject standing in clear defiance of the ban on public nudity, the photo serves as a warning to readers of the story’s graphic nature. This was the subject of thorough discourse between myself, my adviser and the then editors-in-chief as well as with the entire Verde staff. After reading the story aloud and and deliberating as a staff an executive decision was made to go ahead with the story’s graphic details and withhold this issue of the magazine from dissemination at local middle schools. After so much deliberation, I felt that this story’s layout, like its sources, should speak for its self. The resulting design is a simple layout with large photos and ample white space.
MAGAZINE
LAYOUT
DESIGN
COMMENTARY
I designed the layout for my review of Palo Alto deli the Roast Shop. The text floats on a backround of whitewashed brick, the material of which the Roast Shop's walls are constructed. A vase of grass and jars of pickled vegetables, decorations that line the restaurant’s tables and counters, stand in the foreground. The simplicity and lightness of this layout was intended to give readers an experience of the dining area.
MAGAZINE
LAYOUT
DESIGN
COMMENTARY
I designed the layout for my culture feature on “alternative” music genres. I created all but two of the cartoonish illustrations, which break up the text and mirror the tone of each genre, using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. The headline illustration, which I handdrew and colored using Photoshop, is of an old-style record player and plays on the “alternative” interest in atavism that drives so many of the genres I featured. The vinyl in the background serves the same purpose, directing the reader’s eye across the page.
DESIGN
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WEBSITE
I co-designed Verde’s new website, launched in February of this year, with my fellow editor-in-chief and a student web designer. A screencap of the home grid is pictured above, with the cursor hovering over the image in the bottom right corner to reveal a floating display head. In addition to designing the website, my co-editor-in-chief and I have worked extensively with the Verde staff in order to increase their web and multimedia literacy. Part of this project lasted from November to December of this year and involved directing, editing and instructing staff members through digital projects on diverse platforms, many of them on the cutting edge of 21st-century storytelling, such as SkrollKit and Touchcast. Two of the stories in this grid (middle, column and middle, row) were packaged with multimedia elements. Staff members have continued to explore options in multimedia reporting as Verde overhauls its identity from that of a print publication to that of a multifaceted journalistic brand.
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ABOVE: Palo Alto High School seniors Remi Wolf and Chloe Zilliac of the musical duo Remi & Chloe rehearse together for a show. Photographed for Verde Magazine, this image appeared in a news story about the duo's upcoming concert dates. UPPER RIGHT: Students perform a traditional dance in San Jose, Costa Rica. This photo was published on local news source Palo Alto Online in a digital story about summer trips and features one of several activities at a Stanford University alumni excursion to rural Costa Rica. LOWER RIGHT: Students in Palo Alto High School's course "Painting and Drawing" collaborate on the sketches for a mural on campus. This photo appeared alongside a news story regarding the mural in Verde Magazine in January of 2012.
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Study finds Israel “torn by conflict yet united in its identity”
ISRAEL ranks a lowly 28 out of 34 countries TESTED FOR SOCIAL COHESION • STUDY BY JACOBS UNIVERSITY BREMEN IN GERMANY AND THE BERTELSMANN FOUNDATION ATTRIBUTES LOW PLACEMENT TO ISRAEL’S COMPLEX AND ONGOING GEOPOLITICAL SITUATION By ISRAEL HAYOM STAFF Israel displays one of the lowest levels of social cohesion in the Western world, a study released Tuesday by the Jacobs University Bremen in Germany, has found. The study, which was commissioned by the Bertelsmann Foundation, ranked Israel 28 of 34 countries measured for social cohesion in the past 25 years. The study, which claims to be an empirical measure of social cohesion based on comparative international surveys and “other scientific data,” defines social cohesion as “the special quality how members of a community live and work together … characterized by resilient social relationships, a positive emotional connectedness between its members and the community and a pronounced focus on the common good.” Project leaders Professors Klaus Boehnke and Jan Delhey divided social cohesion into three components -- social relations, connectedness and focus on the common good -- “each consisting of three individual, measurable components.” Of the 27 European Union nations and seven Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development members
reviewed in the study, Israel placed at “a lowly 28th, avoiding placement in the rock-bottom country group by a very small margin.” The report attributed this ranking to an extreme unwillingness to accept diversity, a low level of trust in political and social institutions and an abysmally low perception of social fairness among Israel’s population. According to the report, Israel reached a nadir in civic participation in 2009, which has lasted until today. Overall, Israel ranked in a category largely occupied by Eastern European countries -- Latvia, Romania and Bulgaria among them -- and some southern European neighbors, namely Greece, Portugal and Italy. The study placed Israel far below the leading Scandinavian countries, Western Europe and the English-speaking world. Findings displayed a strong inverse correlation between a country’s income gap and its social cohesion, though it cited wealth and social cohesion as directly correlated, making Israel’s marked down rank quite a surprise. It also mentioned a correlation between social cohesion and general satisfaction, saying “citizens in so-
cieties with high levels of social cohesion enjoy much higher levels of perceived well-being.” However, Israel displayed a higher-than-average placement in the identification category, and an average in “solidarity and helpfulness, trust in people and social networks,” earning it the designation of “a country torn by conflict yet united in its identity.” A 2012 project by the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya attempting to increase social cohesion cited a study that ranked Israel 114 out of 150 countries measured for social cohesion. The project abstract accredited Israel’s low social cohesion to its status as an immigrant nation comprising “a mosaic of groups.” The Jacobs report attributed Israel’s perceived trouble accepting diversity to the its turbulent geopolitical situation. However, program supervisor Stephan Vopel said in the report that “modern societies are based … on solidarity rooted in diversity and mutual interdependence,” not “solidarity rooted in similarity.”
Israel blasts UNESCO resolution censuring activities in Jerusalem UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE MEETING IN CAMBODIA BECOMES MIDDLE EAST BATTLEFIELD AS MEMBERS PASS PALESTINIAN-SPONSORED, JORDANIAN-AUTHORED RESOLUTION CONDEMNING ISRAEL’S ACTIVITIES IN THE CAPITAL • SAUDI NEWSPAPER: ISRAEL RAZING AL-AQSA MOSQUE TO BUILD SECOND TEMPLE By ISRAEL HAYOM STAFF Israel is irate at UNESCO for having adopted a Palestinian-sponsored resolution that denounces Israel’s activities in Jerusalem’s Old City. The resolution was presented to the 37th World Heritage Convention in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Sunday, where it passed with a narrow majority of 8:3 with 10 abstentions. According to Shimon Samuels, director of international relations at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Estonia, Germany and Switzerland voted against the resolution, while Algeria, Iraq, Malaysia, Qatar. Senegal, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates voted in its favor. Cambodia, Colombia, Ethiopia, France, India, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Serbia and Thailand abstained. The resolution also accused Israel of failing to disclose crucial information on the state of the various sites in the Old City to the World Heritage Committee. Israel canceled a U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization fact-finding mission to the city, which was planned for May, saying that the Palestinian Authority had politicized the issue despite agreeing not to.
“This is a dark day for UNESCO,” a statement by the Foreign Ministry said on Sunday. “Exactly as Israel had warned in the past, the Palestinians are exploiting their admission to UNESCO as a member state in order to hijack the agenda and drag this important U.N. agency into the abyss of politicized manipulation.” UNESCO accepted the Palestinian Authority as a full-fledge member in October 2011. Israel suspended its ties with the U.N. body following the vote and the United States suspended the funding lent to it. At $60 million a year, the U.S. provides about 22% of UNESCO’s annual budget. The Jordanian-drafted resolution, which was a last-minute addition to the agenda, came as a surprise to those present, and has reinforced Israel’s concerns that the Palestinians will use Israeli excavation and construction in Jerusalem as political rhetoric. The meeting, which focused on promoting tourism in Cambodia, was supposed to see the Palestinians defer five pending anti-Israel resolutions concerning Al-Aqsa mosque, the Mughrabi Gate bridge, Bethle-
hem, Hebron and Gaza. The Palestinians had agreed to postpone their motions following an agreement signed with Jordan in March, cementing Jordan’s custodianship of the Islamic holy places in Jerusalem. Though the Jordanian Waqf, which administers the Temple Mount compound, already manages Jerusalem’s Islamic holy sites in coordination with Israel, the agreement reinforces Jordan’s power in the city in a manner which may restrict Israel’s sovereignty in Jerusalem. The agreement stressed Jordan’s right to maintain the holy sites and its recognition of “the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people is expressed in realizing the State of Palestine.” Former Jordanian Communications Minister Sami al-Maayta stated that the agreement was intended to limit the Judaization of Jerusalem. Israel’s refusal to allow the UNESCO mission into the Old City prompted UNESCO’s Arab members to hijack the meeting and push for an official censure against Israel, over its continued developments in the city, including the construction of a visi-
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tors’ center, the installation of an elevator near the Western Wall and what the Palestinian claim are excavations that are damaging Muslim sites on Temple Mount. “It is still premature to talk of a confederation, given the official and resolute Jordanian position that it is necessary first of all to establish an independent Palestinian state,” Palestinian Liberation Organization Central Committee member Abbas Zaki told the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute. The reverberations of the fight over the hotly contested religious site made it all the way to Saudi Arabia, who is custodian of the holy Muslim sites. The Saudi Gazette quoted a statement by the Al-Aqsa Foundation for Endowment and Heritage saying that Israeli excavations near the Mughrabi Gate, Umayyad palace and the entrance to the Wadi Hilweh neighborhood of Silwan were “a theft and piracy against the Islamic civilization and culture … aimed at the [Judaization of] Jerusalem and the collapse of Al-Aqsa mosque to build the so-called second [sic] temple on its ruins.”
Israel maintains that is has a strict policy against excavation in Islamic holy sites. “The Israel Antiquities Authority has never excavated, nor will it ever permit excavation, in the Temple Mount compound,” the Foreign Ministry said. “It is a site of supreme historical value in which excavations are prohibited. All construction is to take place outside the Temple Mount, and care taken to preserve the status quo.” The Foreign Ministry remains firm that Israel will continue to support freedom of worship in Jerusalem, despite the resolution’s apparent claims that Israel has encroached on religious freedoms in excavations and construction projects in the Old City. “Israel will uphold its commitments and its sovereign responsibility by continuing to ensure freedom of worship to all faiths in Jerusalem, even as UNESCO insists on turning its back to reality and wreaking damage to the interests of member states through the regurgitation of Palestinian propaganda,” the statement said.
I interned at Israeli daily Israel Hayom’s English edition during the summer of last year. I received offers from several other publications after contacting their editors with a portfolio and resume, but decided on Israel Hayom because of its central location and wide readership (it is the most widely read news source in Israel). During my time at the paper I worked mostly as a copy editor, combing through stories for mistakes in grammar and AP style. I also digitized the paper’s stylebook, performed additional reporting and wrote several stories. Israel Hayom was among the first publications to break the story to the left, about a Palestinian-sponsored UNESCO resolution condemning Israeli activity in Jerusalem’s Old City. I researched the article through several sources, including multiple UN correspondents.
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This national award-winning cover story by staff writer Jack Brook from Verde’s second issue of this year is a project on which I worked very closely. My co-editorin-chief and I directed and curated the story’s content and style, and I designed the story’s opening spread, pictured below. The cover of the magazine originally featured the the parted lips of a marijuana user releasing a stream of smoke. After discovering on the last day of production that the photo’s subject was a minor, my fellow editor-in-chief and I decided to redesign the cover with the above image. From the first issue of this year, this feature on transgender students in the school district and the trials and tribulations of transgender life won a “Gold Key” in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards 2014 competition. I worked extremely closely with staff writers Jack Brook and Alyssa Takahashi to fairly describe the transgender experience, use inclusive pronouns and avoid ethical and legal concerns which arose during the reporting process. Part of this meant withholding the story from the issue’s cover in order to protect the identity of an anonymous source. Working with Verde’s largest staff in history, my adviser, co-editor-in-chief and I have spent more and more time exploring the expansion of Verde from a mere print magazine to a full-fledged and complex journalistic brand. This move has included a significant shift toward digital literacy on the staff, pushing its members to become not just writers and designers, but whole-brained reporters with diverse skills and a deep curiosity for the changing pace of the media industry. Pictured below is a screencap from Verde’s new site, which I co-designed.
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