Spartan Daily Vol. 162 No. 34

SJSU celebrates API Heritage Month

By Kaya Henkes-Power STAFF WRITER

San José State takes the month of April to celebrate Asian Pacific Islander (API) Heritage Month.

API Heritage Month is a yearly celebration that recognizes the contributions and achievements of individuals of Asian and Pacific Islander descent, according to a webpage on the United State’s Courts.

Mary Trần, SJSU alumna and program coordinator for the Center for Asian Pacific Islander Student Empowerment (CAPISE), oversees students who create programs and operations there.

“We’re not just celebrating our different Asian and Pacific Islander communities and cultures,” Trần said. “But also honoring the history and the legacy that it holds.”

May is federally recognized as Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, according to the USDA website.

The observance was originally only a week long, until President George H.W. Bush extended it to a

duration of a month beginning in 1990, according to the same website. Trần said SJSU observes API Heritage in April partially because students are in final mode, but also because of the semester system.

“So for us to be able to fully celebrate the month, that’s why we do it in April instead of May,” she said.

She said the SJSU 2024 API Heritage Month theme is belonging, which focuses on what it looks like to feel a sense of belonging and to advocate for spaces of belonging.

Jinni Pradhan, program director for the Center for Asian Pacific Islander Student Empowerment, said she feels that having the whole month to empower and uplift the API community is exciting.

“It’s really great and having students connect to the events and the spaces we’re creating and is really, really what I do all this work for,” Pradhan said.

She said that she is specifically looking forward to the fifth annual SJSU Night Market, and loves to hear the excitement from students.

API Heritage Month has events

throughout the month, according to a post on the Center for Asian Pacific Islander Student Empowerment’s Instagram.

“Student involvement collaborates with us,” Pradhan said. “It’s a really great opportunity that we get to work with them to create that space.”

Student Involvement includes leadership development, fraternities and 350 recognized student organizations, according to the Weeks of Welcome SJSU Instagram biography.

“Especially being an alumna it's been really cool to come back to campus and be able to pay it forward and work with students to create events that highlight different topics.” Trần said. Pradhan said they looked forward to a panel with Stephanie Foo, the author of What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing From Complex Trauma.

As a part of API Heritage Month’s event lineup, Foo’s book talks about her journey of healing and figuring out intergenerational trauma.

“I was born in Malaysia, but my parents and I immigrated to the

“Personally, API Heritage month means showcasing our culture, and how our roots and upbringings have influenced us in becoming who we are today and the generations to follow.”

United States when I was two,” Foo said. “Our family moved to the Bay because it seemed like paradise.”

She said behind the perfection and delight of moving to the Bay Area, she endured extreme physical and verbal abuse from her parents.

Foo said it was not until decades later that she was diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder.

Complex PTSD is when an individual is subjected to prolonged chronic exposure to traumatic experiences, especially in childhood, according to a study by the National Library of Medicine.

“The diagnosis rocked me, I didn’t know anyone else who had it,” Foo said. “I felt like a broken freak.”

She said she coped through journalism and began researching her own trauma and spoke to her family about its origins, which led her back to San José.

“Honestly one of the reasons why I never suspected I could have PTSD was because abuse was so normal,” Foo said. “To the point where for a long time we never even use the word.”

She later would ask her teachers if they knew about the abuse she was enduring while attending Piedmont High School.

“They shook their heads, they told me that I was an exception.” Foo said.

Foo said the ‘bullshit’ model minority myth blinded teachers from warning signs of abuse, and prevented them from getting help.

“Everyone thought we got great grades and came from highachieving Asian households,” Foo said.

The model minority myth stereotype characterizes people of Asian heritage as high-achieving economically and educationally, according to a 2023 article from the Pew Research Center.

“The conversations around visibility of Asian and Pacific Islander stories and experiences continue to be an important one, not just one campus,” Pradhan said.

“API month is important to me because my parents immigrated from the Philippines to the U.S. for better opportunities so my family and I could have a better life moving forward.”

“API month to means acknowledging our roots and our history. It’s also acknowledging our people’s challenges and appreciating what they did for us to get to where we are today.”

KAYA HENKES-POWER | SPARTAN DAILY

Christopher Yang, former director of MOSAIC Cross Cultural Affairs, moderates the Q&A session at the end of author Stephanie Foo’s speaker event titled ‘Decolonized Therapy’

Two San José State students, Avery Cloward, a junior majoring in liberal studies teacher preparation, and Nina Ewert, a graphic design major, founded a crochet club at the beginning of the spring 2024 semester.

Cloward said Crochet Club is in the process of becoming an official club at San José State.

She said The paperwork is going through right now for the different positions being switched over.

“We are planning on having our meeting times on Fridays at 3 p.m.,” Cloward said.

Crocheting and knitting are both needlework crafts that can be used to create a variety of items such as blankets, hats and scarves, according to Sarah Maker’s website.

“I was hanging out with Nina and we were talking about crocheting and we were like, ‘Oh, is there a club?’ ” Cloward said. “We couldn’t find anything and we were like, ‘Why don’t we just start a crochet club?”

She said there was originally a ‘Yarn Circle’ club that wasn’t active so they plan to take over the paperwork for it.

“We currently have 15 members and are trying to combine Yarn Circle and Crochet Club,” Cloward said.

She said people found out more about the club by making their own posters and putting them

up on their Instagram page. The main reason people found out about the crochet club was by using my and Nina’s social media platforms.

“We just wanted to relax on the lawn, crochet, and chat and we recently had a crochet movie night with snacks,” Cloward said.

She said there are a lot of beginners in our club. Around eight to 10 beginners had no idea how to crochet. We started to show them how to hold the yarn or how we hold the hook and just the basics of crocheting said Cloward. “Even if you don’t know how to crochet or if you don’t know how to knit anything, just please come in and we can learn together,” Cloward said.

She said the purpose of our club is to make new friends and bring people together.

“My aunt taught me to crochet when I was

part is that the club does not follow any patterns at all, so it is always interesting when people

Even if you don’t know how to crochet or if you don’t know how to knit anything, just please come in and we can learn together.

around seven or eight years old and I started off making simple things in elementary school,” Cloward said. “I made a lot of stuffed animals.” Cloward said the best

ask at club meetings what patterns we use. “I think the hardest part is starting or making a chain but then it starts getting therapeutic and a lot more relaxing for

people,” Cloward said. Management information graduate Sheena Kumar, who is a new member of the crochet club, said her roommate Avery is into crocheting and always wears crochet tops.

“Crocheting is a very practical skill to have and it saves you a lot of money,” Kumar said. “Yarn is a lot cheaper than bags and clothes.” Kumar said people are always friendly and we share supplies but we usually get supplies from Michaels or JOANN Fabric and Crafts.

“I have a personal connection to crocheting,” Kumar said. “My grandma was talented at crocheting

as a kid. She would make us carpets, sweaters, and a tablecloth my family still has to this day.”.

She said at the club’s first meetings, they had a lot of different backgrounds and genders. They also had a lot of people joining and all of them were at different skill levels.

“Any fear about joining will be gone immediately because the club is so warm and welcoming,” Kumar said.

Co-president Nina Ewert said she and co-president Cloward are trying to gather people who seem interested or who are willing to come to meetings.

She said most of our club meetings have been

spent sitting on blankets on the Tower Lawn while chatting and playing some music.

One thing is knowing how to crochet and another thing is also being able to teach someone, Ewert said.

She said the initial moment of finally learning how to crochet is rewarding.

“Crocheting to me is my safe place,” Ewert said.

Avery Cloward Liberal studies teacher preparation junior

PG&E company is a huge scam

Wifi and power grid outages have been costing citizens more money over time according to Uptime Institutes annual report. Wifi outages also represent other utility company failures, as 43% of wifi outages are due to power outages according to the same report

When I want a coffee, I can go to Starbucks in the Student Union, or walk across the streets to Philz Coffee. If I have the time, I can stop by a grocery store and grab a tea bag and make myself a cup. If I am really in a rush, I can swing by any 7-Eleven where they offer hot joe 24/7. This is not the case for internet and utilities. There is no business competition in California, and while I love my cup of coffee, I don’t need it the same way that people need wifi and power.

resources as it possibly can.

Internet broadband companies hold a monopoly on the majority of people in the US, 97.7% of Americans get internet from just five big companies, according to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). Most communities only have up to one company that serves them, according to the same site. 96% of Americans have only two wireline providers according to a federal government study.

There is a monopoly for utility companies here in California. The system in place disincentivizes good practice, and rewards companies for frivolous spending. Utilities companies were given free rein in California by the government in order to help expand the utility network to the newly developing West Coast.

A regulatory compact involves the government incentivizing companies to expand into the West by granting them a monopoly over the geographical area they served, in exchange for the companies providing reliable, nondiscriminatory power at a low cost, according to the CPUC. This was done when there needed to be electric lines everywhere, as the West was brought into the modern age.

A hundred years later, this regulatory compact no longer helps the average consumer but merely props up companies instead. The act of granting these corporations monopolies has made citizens vulnerable to the greed of companies.

The regulatory compact stipulates that utilities need to be provided at the lowest cost

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possible. These privately owned companies are required to sell to their customers without any markup, and thus this has led companies to find profit elsewhere. Companies found that profit through a process known as cost t of service regulation. When a new building is built such as a power plant, the company is allowed to defer that cost onto the consumer in the form of higher electric bills, while profiting from around 10% of the total cost, according to the CPUC. This is done to incentivize private investors to offer up money at a safe rate of return to build public works according to the CPUC. However, this has had major side effects such as making these companies focus on racking up huge bills rather than improving service.

Due to the cost of service regulation, utility companies embark on large projects at the customer’s dime. This causes your average Joe to pay more in utility bills while also making the private shareholders more money.

This relationship of higher spending resulting in larger profits for shareholders also means that power companies are not rewarded for innovating. If they could do things for cheaper, they would lose money. If they made transporting energy more efficient, with less processing and use of fossil fuels, they would lose money. Utilities companies are encouraged to be this big bloated monster taking up as much land as possible, using up as many of our limited

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Another horrible side effect of this relationship is that only more builds and construction are rewarded with a guaranteed profit. There is no such relationship for maintenance leading to the creation of more and more and more.

In 2018, PG&E caused the deadliest fire in the history of California. PG&E, without a doubt, caused this fire and they caused it through their negligence. This deadly fire killed 85 civilians and injured 12 civilians and five firefighters. It covered an area of 153,336 acres and destroyed more than 18,000 structures according to CalFire. Paradise and Concow, two nearby towns, were almost completely destroyed, each losing about 95% of their structures according to CalFire. These fires were started by a PG&E line when a hook holding a transmission line snapped, according to AP News. The hook was originally built in 1921, and despite having failed tests as far back as 1987, the company did not bother to change it. This led it to snap 97 years later from wear and tear, according to AP News. PG&E ended up pleading guilty to 84 counts of felony manslaughter, and set aside $13.5 billion to repay the victims.

Picture yourself graduating college, but having an immense amount of debt weighing down your back.

As a student attending SJSU, I can advocate for all of us that raising the cost of tuition for CSU’s will not help us. There are students who are already struggling to pay off their tuition as is. There are students who are in debt already. There are students who work multiple jobs just to pay off their tuition. There are first generation students who face additional challenges with their finances and there are several students who have all of this combined.

Upon coming to SJSU, I came here seeking to get a high level of education, not to be drained of all my funds. My family and I are not made of money. The article calmatters.

org explains how this will affect us students in the following years, “The first increase will kick in for all tuition-paying students next fall. For in-state undergraduates, that’ll be an uptick of $342, rising to $6,084 per year. After five years, annual undergraduate tuition will be $1,940 higher than it was in the 2023-24 school year.” (Zinshteyn, 2023)

I understand that this plan was made to help provide us with our necessary resources and maintain school facilities, but there are alternative solutions, such as reallocating existing resources and implementing different costsaving measures. Not only that but there should be a more inclusive decision-making process by the actual students of the CSU’s since we are what makes a university. I urge all of

year, PG&E killed eight people in the San Bruno gas explosion which was also due to poor safety work, according to ABC.

Public utilities no longer deserve the monopoly that was once granted to them. They have actively pushed back on competition and have stood in the way of green energy. as solar and wind, while good for the Earth and everyone who lives on her, hurt monopolies’ shareholders and their profits.

In addition to the murder and mayhem, these companies cause through their poor decisions, even a lapse in power and wifi can cause havoc. Many people rely on the internet and electricity for devices that keep them alive. Ventilators, ventricular assist devices, and other medical devices all have models that need a working power grid. A failure in these areas affects much more than just a person’s education.

Moreover, when they committed these crimes, PG&E was already on probation after their actions led to six federal felonies in 2010. That peo onc competitio gre energy. w and ever mon prof murde c decision ca d Ventil devices an mo affec pers

Companies often ask to be treated like people. They have the right to make hefty public donations and influence politics by donating to elections. Our governor along with many officials have taken money from PG&E after they became felons, according to journalist Brandon Rittiman at ABC10. If companies would like to be treated like people, people have to obey laws. And when a person kills 84 people in one instance due to negligence and is a repeat offender, they need to have the consequences. PG&E belongs in jail.

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Rising tuition doesn’t help students

ETHAN LI | SPARTAN DAILY

Ethan Li STAFF WRITER

Transmission towers with high voltage power lines stand over the Old Mission Community Park in Fremont on a clear sunny day.