Spartan Daily Vol. 162 No. 38

90 years of reflecting

In April of 1934, the Spartan Daily was officially established by Dwight Bentel.

April 2024 marks 90 years of the Spartan Daily being an active news source and a cornerstone of our city and campus community.

Nine decades of operation makes us one of the few universities that is fortunate enough to have the opportunity to look back on such a rich history.

In this issue, you will get a glimpse into history through a personal, local and national lens of major historical events that have occurred over a period worth almost a century. Our stories will cover public figures from our past and present, as well as cultural changes that have shifted our society for the past 90 years.

Many of these stories will include memories and reflections

and renewing

from the Spartan Daily’s past staff and old sources from our past issues, along with follow-ups on cultural phenomenons that have evolved throughout our history.

been carrying the integrity of the Spartan Daily on their backs.

We’ve had many long nights and tough conversations at our newsroom table, but we have

publication date over the past 90 years (and we don’t plan to).

These experiences have reminded us of the resilient soul the Spartan Daily has maintained

This semester we have a small but dedicated team who have been carrying the integrity of the Spartan Daily on their backs.

We will also look into the future and ponder how journalism will continue to play an integral role in global and cultural politics for years to come. This semester we have a small but dedicated team who have

managed to keep our pages filled with a diverse collection of stories three days out of the week.

Thanks to our current staff and many of our past alums who have come and gone, the Spartan Daily has never missed a

– even on the other end of hardship.

We are proud to say the Spartan Daily is a public platform, purveyor of accountability and most importantly a reflection of our student-wide community.

We thank our passionate alumni, our current staff, our advisors and everyone else who has carried us through the late nights and stress.

We aim to show how our work is a continuation of the tradition Dwight Bentel established almost a century ago, while renewing ourselves and our standards as society continues to progress.

Each editorial team and every story, past and present, has brought a new conversation to our newsroom table.

We’ve seen some good, bad and bewildering days, but never a day when our team was not eager to cover important topics in our community.

This is our homage to all the hard work done at the Spartan Daily and every person who has made a lasting imprint. Here’s to being almost one hundred years old!

MEET THE EDITORS

MAYA BENMOKHTAR | SPARTAN DAILY

The heritage of DBH

By Jonathan

STAFF WRITER

The 90-year-old Spartan Daily publication was founded in fall of 1934 by the building namesake, Dwight Bentel.

He is one of the primary reasons why the journalism department has a multitude of options to major in according to “Spartan Daily: The First Fifty Years.”

The book was written by Delores Spurgeon on the first 50 years of SJSU’s department of Journalism and Mass Communications ranging from 1936 to 1986.

William Briggs served from 2006 to 2012 as director of San José State’s school of Journalism and Mass Communications.

“I had never seen anyone so passionate about what (he) believed in and what he taught,” Briggs said.

“Nobody stays at a job or university for a very long time,” he said. “Bentel did for over 30 years, and that's amazing longevity.”

Bentel taught as a professor of journalism from 1934 to 1974 according to the Online Archive of California.

Briggs said he never got to work with Bentel at the same time because Bentel retired in 1974, but he was a student of Bentel when he was a graduate.

“I had Dwight as a professor and I believe that was the last class before Dwight retired in 1974,” Briggs said.

He said he remembers taking Bentel’s Law of the Press course, and how passionate Bentel was about freedom of speech.

Bentel believed a welleducated graduate was someone who scrutinized the media, according to “Spartan Daily: The First Fifty Years.”

“He would often authorize stories that might have been critical of the administration of the university and they didn’t like that,” Briggs said.

Former co-advisor to the Spartan Daily and lecturer in journalism Mack Lundstrom knew Dwight Bentel and has a piece of history within Dwight Bentel Hall with the newsroom being named after him.

Lundstrom was the advisor from 1983 to 2000 according to “Spartan Daily: The First Fifty Years,” and said he had been diagnosed with early onset dementia.

“I forget an awful lot of things, but I don’t forget the Daily and I’ll never forget Dwight Bentel,” Lundstrom said.

Lundstrom said that Bentel was crucial in the role of having other classes like advertising, editing and photojournalism so that students could be prepared to have a job.

Lundstrom said by the time he was running things at the Spartan Daily, the journalism field had changed as it always does.

“Television had started by then and we had a strong radio,” he said. “News, art, print, television, radio and advertising were all major parts of the program.”

Lundstrom said covering the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake was one of the notable stories he remembers and was proud of, along with the rest of his students.

“When (the earthquake) hit, we were in the newsroom and then they kicked us out after,” he said.

Lundstrom said he decided to use his house as the newsroom and

sent reporters out to start covering the earthquake aftermath.

He said they managed to print because the commercial printing plant in San José did not stop printing and they delivered it to campus with nobody there.

Former professor of advertising and the Spartan Daily’s coordinator of publications Clyde Lawrence was one the last hires from Bentel’s time as chair.

“I was working in Texas at the time and I wanted to get back to California,” Lawrence said.

He said Bentel invited him to SJSU and then sent him a letter saying ‘Come on out, we’d like to hire you.’

When Lawerence came for his first semester in 1967, Bentel had retired from his position as chairman but continued to teach on staff.

Lawrence said the people that Bentel brought in to teach classes were also big reasons why SJSU’s journalism program became so successful.

“Our students were so employable that you would hear publishers and editors say that when you came out of SJSU, you were ready to go,” Lawrence said.

Briggs said it was a surreal feeling to sit in the same place as Bentel. He received a letter from Bentel upon taking the position.

“ ‘Congratulations. You have exchanged the best job in the world, being a university professor, for the worst job in the world: being an administrator at a university,’ ” Briggs said.

World War II

By Ethan Li STAFF WRITER

The start of World War II in 1941 changed life for every single person on Earth. San José State would see those changes come over its student body, campus life and courses.

In the 1941 issue of La Torre, the San José State yearbook, Thomas W. MacQuarrie, former San Joswwé State President, wrote that war must not cause students to lose their sense of values.

MacQuarrie told students to defend democracy and to not forget the good old virtues of honesty, decency, industry and kindliness.

Eric Narveson, SJSU senior lecturer, noticed the Spartan Daily was on the scene.

“They wait, and they wait, and nothing from this. He finally showed up sometime in January,” Narveson said.

“They were recruited on the spot to assist with the aftermath and some of them enlisted in the military directly after that,” Lowe said.

Pitman said before the events of Pearl Harbor, the local draft board was already planning on expanding the draft. This expansion would only be hastened after Pearl Harbor.

“The impacts of World War II reverberated throughout this campus,” Lowe said. “Some of our students departed for military service while others were being sent to prison camps.”

She said the men’s gym, which is now Yoshihiro Uchida Hall, became a processing site for local Japanese American Families on their way to prison camps.

Yoshihiro Uchida was one of many SJSU’s internship students who volunteered to go fight in World War II.

Uchida was only one of San José students and alumni who were interned by the US government and yet chose to fight for that same government.

On Sept. 5, 1977, SJSU transformed the Spartan Complex West, which was previously used to process interned Japanese Americans, into Yoshihiro Uchida Hall to much fanfare and celebration, according to the same source.

Dick Miyagawa, the captain of the boxing team, members of the Young Women’s Christian Association cabinet like Emil Kimura and Secretary Helen Mineta for the Speech Department were all sent to Japanese prison camps by the U.S. government, according to SJSU Digital Archives.

No matter their citizenship status, the Japanese population in Santa Clara County was forced out of California.

In the Dec. 9, 1941 Spartan Daily editorial titled “Stay ready, but stay busy”, writer Morrow said he urges his fellow students to stay strong and keep living their lives in the face of war.

“Wars come and go, but eternal truth threads its way through the ages,” said MacQuarrie.

Follow the Spartan Daily on Instagram @SpartanDaily

The historic legacy of Speed City

By Navin Krishnan SPORTS EDITOR

It was the summer of 1968 in Mexico City.

Fresh off of breaking a record for the Summer Olympics 200-meter event, Tommie Smith stood adjacent to San José State track-and-field teammate, John Carlos at the podium while receiving their medals during the playing of “The StarSpangled Banner.” Smith stood shoeless, with black socks, a black scarf and a black glove. Carlos took the third-place spot, with an unzipped jacket and a necklace of beads. Their heads bowed and their fists raised in disapproval of injustice and inequality. This was a major historical mark in the movement of Black Power in the United States.

Edwards said. “They had swept so many sprint events they came to be known as Speed City.”

However, it was only half a century after the 1915 rally that punctuated the revival of the Ku Klux Klan, according to an April 12, 2020 article GQ Online Sports archive.

“The reason it froze like that is because all the happiness instantaneously turned to anger,” Carlos

Edwards was the first Black student-athlete since the 1950s to graduate from SJSU within the years of his athletic eligibility.

Chris Giovannetti, former sports editor and executive editor for the Spartan Daily, said he recalls that Smith and Carlos were not embraced by Americans.

“I think it’s always important to remember those people as contributors . . . and break that social membrane of people really recognizing what was going on in America,” Giovannetti said.

said. “Our leaders are being murdered because they have the audacity to say we want to be equal and want to be treated as such.”

In 2005, the legacy of Smith and Carlos was officially inducted into San

is the same today as it was in 1968 — every athlete should be able to use sports as a platform.

Harry Edwards, the orchestrator of the Olympic Project of Human Rights and former San José State student-athlete, said he took the title of “scholar-

activist” because of the adversity he faced.

San José State earned the name ‘Speed City’ beginning in 1956 because of the famously fast athletes the school produced.

The school garnered 43 world records and 49 national records, according to the Online Archive of California.

“Speed City was a characterization of a very special group of athletes,”

said in an interview with WNDU television news on April 12, 2024. “They started booing, they started throwing things, they started spitting and calling me names. It sent me into shock the whole day.”

Smith and Carlos were merely athletes aiming to change the U.S. Harry Edwards created the Olympic Project for Human Rights, according to the Cal State University website.

Yet, it cost them their future participation in the Olympic Games by the President of the Olympic Committee, Avery Brundage. After their audacious stand against racism, Smith and Carlos were banned from the games and were subject to hate mail and death threats, according to an Aug. 6, 2021 New York Times article.

“We knew (Avery Brundage) was a racist from the get-go,” Smith said. “He represented a country that had deep roots in racism. He loved Hitler more than he loved the American people.”

“The message was simply, ‘World, we know what we’re dealing with’,” Edwards

It was a move for equality, justice and freedom.

Tommie Smith Scholar activist and SJSU alumnus

José State lore, as statues depicting the athletes were unveiled depicting the moment in Mexico City, according to the Visit San Jose website.

“The black glove was a sentiment of power, " Smith said. “It was a move for equality, justice and freedom. We never had a chance to speak (at the podium), only to run fast.”

In 2008, Smith and Carlos were presented with the Arthur Ashe Courage Award, where then U.S. President Barack Obama acknowledged their struggle for justice, according to the BBC website.

Edwards said the message

“They came on and made a statement about Black athletes, not just about a text or an email or an Instagram,” Edwards said. “ “But to get up and do something in terms of changing the course of trajectory of human rights in a broader society.”

In 2019, Smith and Carlos were inducted into the Olympic Hall of Fame class, according to the BBC website.

“I’ve passed that spot numerous times before the statues were built, headed to the library many times,” Smith said. “I’ve been on campus when nobody knew who I was in the past six or seven years. People ask me, ‘Do I know these guys?’ and I respond, ‘Yes, I do. They were courageous athletes who stood for human beings in a natural state.’ That statue represents freedom.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF SJSU NEWS CENTER

Dwight Bentel uses a typewriter in the journalism building on campus that was eventually named afer him.

PHOTO COURTESY OF HARRY EDWARDS Harry Edwards, Tommie Smith, John Carlos and Lee Evans sit for a group photo next to their statues on Smith and Carlos lawn on the San José State University campus.

Canas

Follow Jonathan on X (formely Twitter) @jonathancanas_

Alumni reflect on 6.9 earthquake

By Maya a Benmokhta r OPINION EDITOR R

In the heart of San Francisco, where the iconic Golden Gate Bridge spans across the bay and hills are filled with colorful Victorian houses, lies a city that has weathered its fair share of storms.

But nothing could prepare Bay Area residents for the devastation that would strike that fateful day on October 17, 1989—the day the earth shook.

It began like any other Tuesday in October. The sun cast its warm glow over the city as people went about their daily routines, unaware of the chaos that lay just beneath the surface.

Deep within the Earth, tectonic plates were shifting, building pressure with each passing moment.

And then, without warning, it happened. At 5:04 p.m., the ground began to tremble, sending shockwaves rippling throughout the Bay Area.

Buildings swayed, streets buckled, and the unmistakable sound of shattering glass filled the air.

It was the Loma Prieta earthquake — a seismic event measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale — that would leave an indelible mark on San Francisco and its surrounding cities.

During the quake, San José State student journalists from the Spartan Daily came together to produce a newspaper despite the chaos and destruction caused by the disaster.

Shelby Grad, a former executive editor, said he and the rest of the staff got under the desks and proceeded to go outside after the shaking stopped.

“Oh my god, there's a catastrophe because of all the smoke right there. Turned out an old brick-like wall

had fallen a few blocks away,” Grad said.

Chaos ensued and people scrambled for safety while their minds raced with fear and uncertainty.

Grad and his staff knew this was a breaking news story that needed to be covered.

“Once we got our bearings around though, we had to put out the paper tomorrow but we didn't have a place to do it. The whole campus was evacuated,” Grad said.

On October 18, 1989, the Spartan Daily released Volume 93, No.33 with a front-page breaking news story titled “7.0 quake rattles state; SJSU closed for day.”

Gradsaid Mack Lundstrom, the advisor of the Spartan Daily, decided to host the staff and produce the paper at his house.

“We all went to his house in Willow Glen, and we all got together using some kind of word processing,” Grad said.

This allowed Grad and his staff to put out a four-page paper that same night.

“It was what we put together all night while his [Lundstrom] wife made us some spaghetti, then we found a printer at San José City College, so we kind of worked all night.” Grad said.

Despite the stress and anxiety a natural disaster brings, Grad said he has great memories with the staff on the day of the 6.9 earthquake.

He said, “It was very, very fun, and the staff really came together, and there was this incredible sense of mission.”

Dan Nakaso, an advisor for the Spartan Daily in 1989, said it's a long tradition in newspapers to help each other out when there's a problem.

“City College helped us publish.

I can't remember how many papers we printed. But the idea is that you just get something out.” Nakaso said.

He said the last thing they wanted to do was not publish, despite the lack of resources following the campus-wide evacuation.

“I was trying to teach the students, big story, but we got to publish, it's part of newspaper history, right? You just do whatever it takes.” Nakaso said.

Sujata Krishnan had just been admitted to San José State as a graduate student at the time, and while she was excited to embark on new adventures in the city of

San José. Krishnan said she recalls the Loma Prieta earthquake as if it happened yesterday.

“I was home alone, upstairs in my bedroom. Interestingly, I had just quit my job a day before. And I never went to work the day of the earthquake.” she said.

Krishnan said she was writing a letter to her mom explaining she had been admitted to SJSU and therefore quit her day job.

“I was in the middle of my liberation when all of a sudden, everything shook.” said Krishnan, “I caught panic. ‘ What do I do now?

The shaking isn't going away.’ ”

Krishnan said everybody who lives in the Bay Area has to be mindful of the risks involved, be alert, and always try to keep an emergency bag.

“You should be aware of all your exit routes, where you are, you should know how to get out safely and the basic precautions,” said Krishnan.

Past staff recall COVID-19 lockdown

By Alexia Frederickson NEWS EDITOR

Chelsea Nguyen remembers exactly where she was on March 16, 2020, when San José State announced that in-person classes would be canceled because of COVID-19.

“We all read the email together at the same time, and we had a production that night, we had a paper to get out,” Nguyen said. “Certainly we had to get the news out in response to the school's email as fast as possible.”

Nguyen was the executive editor of the Spartan Daily for spring 2020, and she was sitting in the newsroom when SJSU sent out the campuswide email informing staff and students of the imminent lockdown. News editor Christian Trujano was in the newsroom as well, and he was in shock.

“I remember Mike getting up on the middle table and giving a speech about we can all go home or whatever, or we could stay and do our job,” he said, speaking about Spartan Daily Production Chief Mike Corpos.

The Spartan Daily staff had to make the choice to either give up for the night, and break a 90-year-long streak of never missing a scheduled publication date, or prevail and get the night’s paper in.

The team made the tough decision to continue on and publish that night’s paper but only through PDF, and suspended the Spartan Daily’s contract to print physical copies.

“And we're like, fuck it, let's just do it,” Trujano said. “Let's put out a nice paper just for the effort. And we'll go from there.”

Even though they weren’t supposed to, Trujano and Assistant News Editor Mauricio La Plante went to the library.

That’s when Santa Clara County sent a press release announcing a shelter-in-place order to all residents.

“We were both in shock,” Trujano said. “Obviously we had to get a story out, so I started writing a story on the press release.”

Trujano and La Plante then spent the evening walking around Downtown San José getting quotes to get the story out.

The two of them worked together on the story that would be the front page of the first COVID-era issue of the Spartan Daily.

“We weren't supposed to do that on campus, but we still came into the newsroom,” Trujano said. “We worked on the paper, did what we needed to do.”

Erica Lizzargo was copy editor for the Spartan Daily in 2020, and she said the hardest part of the lockdown was the frequent breakdowns of communication brought on by a fully online production.

She said there were many days the editors had to make the decision to cancel entire sections some nights because of a lack of content and

sources to write stories.

“It was for sure a sucker punch to the gut every time we had to cancel a section,” she said. “We held a ‘the show must go on’ mentality and didn’t want to falter on the idea that we produce no matter the circumstances.”

Lizzargo said that special issue was especially hard to put together because there were so many moving parts with no central way of communication, which made it difficult to get anything done.

She said she struggled to keep up with online work and keeping her morale high in light of the situation.

“College is already difficult to begin with,” Lizzargo said. “And throw in the lack of communication and less access to classmates for help, you really had to become disciplined to see your semesters through and

power through the end.”

She said staying up to 2 or 3 a.m. on production nights was a common occurrence during lockdown.

Both editors and staff initially struggled with the fully online format, but communication became stronger as the semesters went on.

“There was a lot of trial and error,” Nguyen said. “And I certainly felt like I was grasping at the same straw that everybody else was.”

Nguyen said she would often dream about telling information to her editors, and wouldn’t realize it was a dream until they didn’t know what she was talking about the next morning.

Despite the challenges, the team worked hard to break down the barriers of communication presented over Zoom.

“I think that what we kind of

established in fall 2020 really set the precedent on how things are going to be moving forward,” Trujano said. “We honestly didn't know when we were going to get back into the newsroom.”

Nguyen said despite the difficulties of running a newspaper during lockdown, the creativity and drive shown by the writers made it worth the trouble.

“I think we also learned to be more connected in different ways,” she said. “I kind of saw the whole staff adapt to all of that and it was an admirable thing on their part.”

PHOTO FROM SPARTAN DAILY ARCHIVES

Spartan Daily contributing photographer Mark Studyvin photographs Calvin Miles pointing out the collapsed wall of the Marquis apartment building in 1989 following the Loma Prieta earthquake.

Follow Maya on Instagram

PHOTO COURTESY OF MAURICIO LA PLANTE Spartan Daily production chief Mike Corpos stands on the table in the newsroom to announce to the staff that classes are canceled and the Daily newspaper production is uncertain following a campus-wide email annnouncing an imminent lockdown due to COVID-19.

Follow Alexia on Instagram

The evolution of intimacy at SJSU

By Melany Gutierrez MANAGING EDITOR

Expectations of gender roles have changed along with how young men and women interact, relate, and coexist with each other. This has changed over the decades for many young men and women at San José State.

On April 16, the Spartan Daily conducted a poll that was modeled after a poll done by the Spartan Daily in November 1977 called “Men, women react to sex polls” in which male and female students were asked about what they look for in a potential partner of the opposite sex.

According to the same poll conducted by the Spartan Daily in 2024, about 69% of the 87 women polled reported personality matters more over looks and ambition.

“I consider looks a good amount, but I think that personality matters a lot and it's often not credited as much,” public health sophomore Diya Kamath said.

Women reported some of the emotional traits they look for in men are funny, kind, respectful, passionate, stoic, grounded, communicative, caring, being a good listener, and having good music taste.

Women reported some of the physical attributes they look for in men include height, most said 5 feet 7 inches tall and above with their preferred body type being lean or muscular.

Around 17.2% of SJSU women said looks matter over personality and ambition, 13.7% of women said ambition matters more in men.

“How they think or their perspective on things is something that fascinates me more,” business senior Sraavya Apuri said.

The results from the same poll showed that 54.93% of the 71 men at SJSU polled reported personality matters more.

Men reported some of the traits they look for in a girl are trustworthiness, honesty, good communication skills, caring, good values, opinionated, loyalty, and have great taste in music.

Physical attributes they look for in a girl are nice eyes, a nice smile, shorter in height than them, most reported below 5 feet 6 inches tall is ideal.

“I just want to be able to do stuff with her, but also, at the same time we can chill at the house,” said finance junior Malachi Gossett.

Though 32.3% of men said looks matter, ultimately SJSU men agree that personality is a higher priority over looks.

“Looks drag you in, but I feel like you can't love someone just off of looks,” said technology engineering sophomore Landon Ross.

Michael Moretta, a 1984 San José State alum was interviewed in a story published by the Spartan Daily on Nov. 22, 1977 called “Relationships: from dates to marriage,” where he talked about married life as a student with his ex-wife Kathi.

Moretta said he and Kathi met in high school and started dating in 1973, married in 1976 and eventually divorced in 1980.

He said their partnership was based on equity, independence and the understanding that both him and Kathi needed to get their degree.

“We came in as best friends and we're still good friends today,” Moretta said.

Moretta said what also played into the emotional tone of their marriage was the time period itself, with value being placed on self-sufficiency.

Moretta said even though he had very strong platonic love for Kathi, he always subconsciously knew that they were not going to be together forever.

He said he knew the marriage would not work long term as they grew into adulthood.

Moretta said he now believes marriage is much more complicated than it was back then.

“I think the culture of marriage has evolved into two generations, it’s evolved into a whole different connotation,” Moretta said.

Moretta said he and Kathi are still able to look back at their time together and smile because they still have the same friendship that got them through college.

“It was a partnership and it was a

great one,” Moretta said.

Digital media junior Cassandra Santander, said she is still seeking the traditional idea of “finding love”.

Santander said there is a major cultural shift in relationships, and believes her generation typically do not want to commit or be serious about relationships.

Santander said social media makes things harder and more confusing to navigate relationships and marriage because it can often misconstrue things.

“Social media and being in this day and age makes it easier to realize how tough marriage can be, and that it's more than just love,” she said.

SJSU reflects on LGBTQ+ activism

By Kaya Henkes-Power STAFF WRITER

The work of SJSU students, faculty and staff championing LGBTQIA+ visibility on campus set the foundation for establishing The SJSU Pride Center in 2008, according to the Spartan Daily Archives.

Brief SJSU queer history

Wiggsy Siversten, former longtime counselor and sociology professor, has worked on LGBTQIA+ justice and rights issues for over 40 years on and off campus.

“When I came to San José State I refused to be in the closet,” Siversten said.

Siversten said before attending SJSU, she was fired from her job after management determined she was a lesbian.

Siversten had come out at SJSU, but her activism journey did not begin until 1977, according to a biography on Queer Silicon Valley’s website.

“Prior to the time there were any other (out) gay or lesbian people doing the thing, it was kind of dangerous to be too vocal about stuff so I was kind of quiet about it for a while,” Siversten said.

Coming out is a term used to describe when an individual decides to share their LGBTQIA+ identity, according to a webpage from the Stonewall human rights group.

She said there was no “out” faculty or staff on campus when she was a counselor.

“The students couldn’t find people to support them and whatnot,” Siversten said. “So they started coming (to me).”

SJSU’s Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was recognized by Associated Students in 1969, according to the Spartan Daily archives.

“I became kind of like their faculty advisor because students (were) their faculty advisors at the time,” Siversten said. “That’s how

we started the beginning of a long journey.”

Judy Rickard, former news editor for the Spartan Daily, wasn’t out while she attended SJSU.

“I was a late bloomer in terms of activism, but I have been fighting the fight since I was in my 20s,” Rickard said.

She said had there been a Pride Center, she would have understood her sexuality sooner.

Brief history of The Pride Center

The Pride Center was established in 2008, according to the Queer Silicon Valley website.

Former SJSU President Don Kassing helped to establish the center alongside Siversten and SJSU’s Associated Students.

A resolution passed by A.S. in 2005 called for a dedicated space as the LGBT Resource Center, according to a 2005-2006 A.S. Resolution.

“I thought it was the right time” Kassing said, “Or not the right time but it was just time.”

Director of the SJSU Pride Center

Bonnie Sugiyama, who uses they/ them pronouns, has been with the center since its establishment.

“There’s definitely people who don’t need a pride center necessarily, but there’s comfort that exists by just knowing there is one,” Sugiyama said.

They said there are students who need to be in the space whether that's feeling like they aren’t supported in society, fear of not being accepted or people not knowing how to interact.

The Pride Center, current and beyond

Sugiyama said the SJSU Pride Center moved into the Student Union building in April 2016 following the Student Union expansion.

“The ultimate goal I have for this space is to teach people how to be advocates in all the spaces that they go into.” Sugiyama said.

They said the center worked with SJSU’s Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) and the peer mentor program to create Peers in Pride.

Peers in Pride is a mentoring program that helps to create unity among LGBTQIA+ students on campus, according to the Peers in Pride webpage.

“At the time the Pride Center started there was no ‘out’ counselor in our counseling department,” Sugiyama said.

They said that because of the creation of the Pride Center and the partnership with CAPS, there's been increased visibility of queer counselors.

“We usually have at least two, three trainees, sometimes four, who identify with the LGBTQ+ community,” Sugiyama said.

Similarly, information technology (IT) programs on campus have been adapted to allow people to put in their preferred name so it gets properly distributed, according to SJSU’s Office of Registrar webpage.

Sugiyama said it was a technological uphill battle, but collaborating with former University Registrar Marion Yao helped to create the preferred name

and pronoun system.

“Now we have the ability for students to change stuff,” Sugiyama said. “It doesn’t just benefit the (transgender) population, it also benefits people who want to go by a different name.”

A preferred name is a name that a student wants to be commonly referred to, according to a webpage by SJSU Pride Center.

Students can enter their preferred name on the SJSU Email, MySJSU, Canvas, Zoom and diploma name, according to the same website.

Sugiyama said there are more “out” staff and people are coming to workplaces already being “out”.

Wiggsy Siversten, feels comfort seeing the evolution of queer visibility in society.

“It’s rewarding to recognize that there’s been some change, we have far to go,” Siversten said. “But we still need to keep going.”

GRAPHIC BY MELANY GUTIERREZ

KAYA HENKES-POWER | SPARTAN DAILY

The front of the SJSU Pride Center in 2024 inside the first floor of the Student Union in the late afternoon.

An architectual sketch shows a proposed design of the Student Union from 1963 by conservation senior Phi Kinzli.

SCREENSHOT FROM SPARTAN DAILY ARCHIVES

Chicano studies dates back decades

By Joaquin De La Torre COPY EDITOR

Over the course of the Spartan Daily’s 90 years of publication, it has reported on a multitude of events and issues that pertain to the Chicano community.

Student protest

Jesus Covarrubias, senior lecturer from the San José State Chicano and Chicana Studies department, said journalists help the community get accurate information, allowing them to see all sides of an issue and all voices to be heard.

“Journalists play a huge role in representing what the issues are,” Covarrubias said.

He said there was a protest during the June 14, 1968 commencement where Chicano students walked out, protesting the low number of Chicano students enrolled at the university.

A group of 15 Chicano community members confronted SJSU Vice President William John Dusel in his office and demanded for the school to make it a graduation requirement for SJSU students to attend “liberation workshops” before they receive their diplomas, according to a May 29, 1968 article from the Spartan Daily.

“From that walkout, the Chicano-themed graduation ceremony was born,” Covarrubias said. “I think certainly, student newspapers like the Spartan Daily have a role to play to kind of share that history with the campus.”

SJSU will host its 54th Annual Chicano Commencement celebration on May 21.

It is open to all students who wish to participate in this cultural ceremony, according to

an SJSU webpage.

Covarrubias said student journalists help honor the legacy of student activism.

The lowrider community of San José

Kathryn Blackmer Reyes, director of the Africana, Asian American, Chicano and Native American Studies Center (AAACNA) said “the media could be good or it could be bad.”

“I think now you have a generation that grew up with lowriders in a very different way,” Blackmer Reyes said.

Blackmer Reyes said the news media landscape of today is very different now from how it used to be when there were no Mexican Americans in newsrooms.

The Chicano community has had a connection to lowriding culture for a long time, according to a May 5, 2016

article previously reported in the Spartan Daily.

Lowriders remain a staple in Mexican and American culture for their elaborate modifications, aerodynamics, color and vibrant Chicano style, according to the same article.

“To me, lowriders are a part of my heritage and mean a lot to the Mexican culture. They’re an art statement because we’re proud of our culture,” said community member Rudy Castro in the story.

Blackmer Reyes said the person who is telling the story in the media is important because they can either present something in a positive way or a negative way.

“And that’s how we’ve gone from having a policy of no cruising to ending the policy of no cruising,” Blackmer Reyes said.

In 2022, the city of San José lifted its no-cruising ban enacted

in 1986, according to a June 28, 2022 article by The Mercury News.

The Chicanx/Latinx Student Success Center had its grand opening in February 2018, according to a Sept. 27, 2018 Spartan Daily article.

The Chicanx/Latinx Student Success Center, also known as Centro, is a community gathering space and resource hub for Chicanx and Latinx students, according to an SJSU webpage.

A program that operates out of Centro is the Adelante Mentorship & Leadership Program.

The program is firstgeneration freshmen students are provided with extra support including personalized counseling, community-building

activities and peer mentorship.

Sergio Gomez, sociology alumnus and current Adelante mentor, said it feels like it can be daunting coming straight out of high school to a four-year institution.

“(It’s) scary in a way for them to also not really know how FAFSA works and just finding resources on campus,” Gomez said. “Or even just how to make an appointment with your advisor.”

Gomez said the community aspect of Centro is what initially attracted him to it because he felt like he was lacking a sense of community during his first year at SJSU.

He said in his first year he was under a lot of pressure going to school full time while working 35 hours a week.

“I didn’t know who to go, who to reach out to for help,” Gomez said. “Having a support system where you can openly talk to other peers going into very similar situations kind of eases that pressure.”

“Though the center is fairly new, it has proved to be a model of community and cultural wealth,” said program director Lilly Pinedo Ganga in a Sept. 11, 2018 article previously reported in the Spartan Daily.

Gomez said the work of journalists, through their history documenting, has helped elevate future generations in the Chicano community to break barriers.

“I think seeing that first individual of someone breaking barriers provides an outlet for many more to do,” Gomez said.

Student organizations on SJSU campus

Follow Joaquin on Instagram @dovvaquin

JOAQUIN DE LA TORRE | SPARTAN DAILY

A 1968 Chevy Impala owned by a Blvd Kings Car Club member at San José State University is displayed at the Mexica New Year Ceremony on March 12, 2022 at the Emma Prusch Park barn.

Israel and Palestine: conflict over the years

By Alina Ta EXECUTIVE EDITOR

Many protests focused on the Israel-Hamas conflict began after Oct. 7, 2023, but a good number of Americans have been paying attention to these issues for decades.

“Historically, Palestine has always been kind of a forbidden issue in the U.S.,” said Nickolas Saba, a Palestinian resident from Los Gatos.

Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip stormed nearby Israeli towns on Oct. 7, 2023, killing dozens of people and abducting multiple victims during a surprise attack, according to a Oct 8., 2023 article from the Associated Press (AP) News.

Hamas is a Islamist militant group that governs Gaza and is considered a terrorist organization by multiple countries, according to a Thursday article from the Council on Foreign Relations.

In response to the attack, Israel launched air strikes into Gaza and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared war with Hamas, according to the same article from AP News.

“My initial reaction was just fear of what would come

next,” Saba said. “There was no moment where I thought this would be good in any way.”

Jewish Faculty and Staff Association hosted a vigil for Israeli victims and for community members on Tower Lawn days after the attack, according to an Oct. 12, 2023 article previously reported by the Spartan Daily.

Ten days after the attack, students marched through SJSU and held a protest by Victory Salute (Olympic Black Power) statues in response to Israel’s response to Hamas’ attack, according to a Oct. 17, 2023 article previously reported by the Spartan Daily.

Saba said growing up he noticed a lot of American support for Israel and this observation always gave him a bizarre feeling. “You kind of almost walk through life kind of like a ghost where you feel as though you’re not truly seen as fully human,” Saba said.

He said it was only a couple of years ago during the COVID-19 pandemic when support for the ProPalestinian movement increased.

“That was something that I never in my wildest dreams would have guessed to have seen here in the U.S.,” Saba said.

On Oct. 25, 2000 Donna Wallach, a Jewish resident in San José and others congregated at the Plaza de César Chávez for a

demonstration advocating against the unjust treatment of the Palestinian people, according to a Oct. 26, 2000 article previously reported by the Spartan Daily.

“The bad responses really started after 2001,” Wallach said. “When September 11 happened in the United States when the Twin Towers came down.”

She said she remembers a man came up to her once screaming at the top of his lungs that she was a terrorist while she was holding a protest sign that said, “Jews against the Israeli occupation.”

“Because of my sign, he should have assumed that I’m Jewish, but he still called me a terrorist,” Wallach said.

Linda Landau, a Jewish and Israeli English senior lecturer at San José State, said the political polarization is making it more difficult to have productive conversations about Israel and Palestine.

In February, ProPalestinian supporters gathered at Sweeney Hall to protest against a lecture where CSU Long Beach Professor Jeffrey Blutinger was scheduled to speak about finding a peaceful resolution between Israel and Palestine, according to a Feb. 19 article previously reported by a contributor for the Spartan Daily.

“You’re either ProPalestinian or Pro-Israeli, but it's not true,” Landau said. “You have to be both if you're

a decent human being, but that’s not the way it’s playing out.”

Halil Ibrahim Yenigun, the associate director for Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies at Stanford University and former SJSU political science lecturer said the topic of Palestine and Israel’s relationship and how it is seen in the U.S. can not be separated from historical movements within the American left.

He said the American left used to have a lot more Israeli support because Israel as a country was established by left-wing activists.

The history of Jewish leftist

parties in Palestine can be traced back to East European Jewish communities during the First World War, according to a July 1976 journal article from MERIP Reports.

Yenigun said during the ’60s and ’70s the American left wing started to embrace Palestinians as a cause because the Palestinian Liberation Organization also had a lot of leftist components.

“If you look at the progressive politics in the U.S., the progressive movement for a long time – truly now – has been advocating for Palestine,”

Yenigun said.

Landau said she is shocked by the current conversations around Israel and Palestine because many Israelis want to have a dialogue that includes Palestinians to talk about a just solution.

“It’s not the whole story and all of this is either feeding into the polarization or the polarization is feeding into them,” Landau said. “I don’t know which came first, but it has been going on for at least 20-25 years.”

Daily remembers internment camps

By Julia Chie PRODUCTION EDITOR

On May 25, 1942, the Spartan Daily front page news article notified the public that the San José State men’s gym, now Yoshihiro Uchida Hall, was going to be used as a Japanese evacuation center for a portion of Santa Clara County.

Around 600 Japanese were evacuated on May 26 through May 29, clearing the surrounding area of its entire Japanese population, according to the article.

Writer Jack Long said it’s despicable that good Americans should be treated that poorly in a June 1, 1942, Spartan Daily editorial. He includes a poem in the editorial contributed by SJSU alum Maroa Kanemoto who left the state for internment camps.

“I’d fight for freedom and liberty, / I’d die with the best of you, / But here behind this barbed wire fence / What can a patriot do?” Kanemoto wrote.

Journalism alum Wesley Hayato Dugle attended SJSU from 2008 to 2013 and worked as a staff writer for the Spartan Daily and page editor for its news, arts & entertainment and opinion sections. After attending the 31st Day of Remembrance in Japantown, Dugle wrote the Feb 21, 2011 article “JapaneseAmericans vow: Remember the internment”.

Day of Remembrance recognizes the signing of Executive Order 9066 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942, which gave the U.S. Army the authority to remove and incarcerate 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast, according to the Japanese

American Citizens League webpage.

Dugle said he immediately knew he wanted to write about this topic because he already knew a good amount about it.

“The things I mostly wanted to do was talk to the older folk who were actually there,” Dugle said. “It was also about connecting it to present-day politics which was when I got

I’d fight for freedom and liberty, / I’d die with the best of you, / But here behind this barbed wire fence / What can a patriot do?

Maroa Kanemoto SJSU alum from 1942

to talk to some of the Muslim Americans who were attending that event. It's about as relevant as it’s ever been.”

Dugle said he learned about South American Japanese internment while he was at the event. A few months later, he said was able to attend an event regarding Italian American internment.

“That was an interesting piece for me to write – just to see that perspective and what they went through because I had only been aware of the Japanese American internment,” he said. Mass communications alum, Alexandra Proca, was a staff writer at Spartan Daily for three semesters. She wrote the Nov 14, 2003 article “Documentary explores SJSU’s ties to Japanese

internment,” highlighting the KTEH documentary “Return to the Valley”.

KTEH, also known as KQED, provides television, radio, digital media and educational services according to their website. Proca said she does not remember a lot of details about the documentary or writing the story.

“What I remember was that I worked to find sources with Harvey Gotliffe who was the advisor for Access Magazine at that time and he had been heavily involved in (researching) Japanese Internment,” Proca said.

Religious studies alum

Jennifer McLain Hiramoto attended SJSU from 2000 to 2005 and went from staff writer to arts & entertainment editor and executive editor during her two years working for Spartan Daily.

In her opinion column “Oxymoron,” she wrote “Sad time in American history must not be forgotten” which was published Feb 24, 2004.

“I think the Spartan Daily was really helpful for me in trying to figure out my voice – whatever that was, you know, I'm 20 years older now,” McLain Hiramoto said. “If I were to look back at some of these columns I would cringe to think, ‘Oh my gosh, I can't believe I wrote that.’ ”

She said on the other hand, there are columns including the Japanese Internment Oxymoron column that set a foundation for how she looks at the world today.

“San José itself, it did have a strong Japanese American population and so we were able to go to . . . Japantown,” McLain said. “As part of the class, we went and we interviewed

several survivors who were in internment camps and that was a powerful experience.”

She said she would not have gotten her first job out of college at a weekly newspaper if it hadn’t been for the Spartan Daily. From there, she said she got a job at the San Gabriel Valley Tribune which was fascinating to learn more about.

“Monterey Park itself was the first city in the country that was predominantly Asian . . . there’s natural tensions that occurred on the city council as a result or there were lawsuits in the ’90s or late ’80s because of signs that were in Mandarin,” McLain said.

Wesley Dugle said more people are generally more aware of domestic discrimination in the U.S., but there seems to be a large portion of people who don’t care about it.

“It’s good that you know, things are changing, but it's not quite there yet either in my opinion,” Dugle said.

JULIA CHIE | SPARTAN DAILY

A four-sided monument stands outside the Issei Memorial Building, a historical landmark built in 1910 as a hospital, in Japantown.

Follow Alina on Instagram @mniatailmp

JILL TOYOSHIBA | SPARTAN DAILY ARCHIVES A protester sets up their sign before protesting at Plaza de Cesar Chavez in 2000.

ALINA TA | SPARTAN DAILY

Donna Wallach speaks to a crowd of protesters at San José City Hall in March.

Students want more from FAFSA

By Aaliyah Roman A&E EDITOR

San José State students still struggle to pay for college and other expenses even with support from the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).

FAFSA offers students financial support with grants, loans and work-study, according to the USA.gov webpage.

Work-study provides students with the opportunity to work a part-time job within the program, according to the Federal Student Aid website.

Civil engineering senior Sebastian Ortega said he struggles to pay for rent, groceries and textbooks even though he is a FAFSA recipient.

“I’m always gonna be hoping and expecting that they give me a little bit more,” Ortega said. “I’ve been able to make it work for the most part with the amount that they’ve given me, but it’s definitely coming down to living very frugally.”

Ortega said he’s also received funding from programs including the Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) program to help him pay for groceries, but didn’t qualify for the program in the Spring 2024 semester.

EBT is an electronic system that delivers funds to its participants so they can use them to pay for groceries, according to the California Department of Social Services webpage.

“For groceries, I’m having to pay it out of pocket, which for sure impacted my finances and my budget,” Ortega said.

Stephen Wright,1979 alumnus, said he considered himself a low-income college student and worked part-time jobs while going to school.

Wright said he relied on work-study, stipends and a federal student loan to pay for college.

“I always had a roommate or roommates to split costs . . . and (I also had to) live o ff of spaghetti for two years and the same pair of jeans for two years,” Wright said.

Business analytics junior Luis Perez said the amount of financial aid he receives is not enough to pay for tuition.

Perez said he works at the front desk of an apartment complex and pays a portion of his tuition out of pocket.

“I definitely feel like I could get more help, but I’m not gonna complain about (the) little help I get,” Perez said.

Kednel Jean, the SJSU Cares director of case management, said SJSU Cares helps students fulfill their basic needs including food, housing and funding depending on their situation.

Jean said food insecurity is an ongoing problem for college students, but the amount of programs and resources have increased.

Food insecurity refers to having a limited or uncertain access to food, according to the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion webpage.

“It’s just a safety net so that they can eventually get back on their feet,” Jean said, speaking about SJSU Cares.

He said it’s important for people to start advocating for higher funding so students not only have enough money for an education but to also live comfortably.

“Think about (how) housing cost has gone up (and) food cost has gone up, but the amount of aid that’s coming from the federal government and maybe to an extent the California system as far as Cal Grants maybe hasn’t gone up in that way,” Jean said.

Ortega said Federal Student Aid could improve its program by reducing the amount of time it takes for students to receive their funds.

He said he’s had to contact

the financial aid office each semester to confirm when funds would be deposited into his bank account.

“I’ve never had an issue where I never received it,” Ortega said. “It’s just been a matter of me, for whatever reason, having to directly email them and ask them for it.”

Wright said he remembers being really concerned of whether the money would be disbursed to him in time to pay rent.

for him to have money during his college experience so he could be a full-time student and participate in extracurricular activities.

Economics lecturer James O’Brien said the income entered on financial aid applications does not entirely reflect someone’s ability to pay for education.

could be more clear and resources could be more readily available.

Ortega said the only reason he chose to contact the financial aid office for his funds was because his classmates recommended him to do so.

Wright said it was critical

“(Money) allowed me to get good experiences which ended up in a pretty successful career,” Wright said.

Wright said he is retired now, but he worked for the San José Mercury News for 25 years.

Perez said the way students’ incomes are calculated to determine how much funding they get can also be improved.

Students are asked to input both their tax and income information as well as their parents’ on the Federal Student Aid application if they are a dependent, according to the Federal Student Aid webpage

“They make it seem like I make too much or my parents make too much and I don’t feel like we make too much,” Perez said.

O’Brien said when he was applying for financial aid in the early 90s, he was asked to include his parents’ incomes and assets despite not living with them.

“It’s essentially a bit of a ‘one size fits all’ right where you enter your income and so anyone earning the same income is going to be treated the same way,” he said.

O’Brien said he had to take an extra step in applying for financial aid by making an appeal to get more aid in his situation.

He said the application process wasn’t smooth for everyone because there were barriers to getting the right information.

O’Brien said the process of applying for financial aid

“That would open doors for many, many high school students that right now probably think college is not even really achievable because of the financial barriers,” O’Brien said.

Jean said SJSU Cares does not directly offer help towards applying for FAFSA, but is able to contact the financial aid office for the student if needed.

He said his goal is to make sure students’ basic needs are met so they can stay in school.

“The goal of education across the university (level) is to graduate students so students can fulfill their lives, fulfill their dreams and add to the society in whatever capacity,” Jean said.

Alumni see advancement in tech

By Nikita Bankar SENIOR STAFF WRITER

When students, staff and faculty walk into San José State’s Spartan Daily newsroom today, they are met with a sizable collection of computer monitors, DSLR cameras, and smartphones lying at the sides of reporters.

Decades ago, this was not how the room looked, according to Spartan Daily alum David Willman.

With 90 years of history, the Spartan Daily has provided content in both online and print since 1934, displaying a plethora of eras in technology.

Willman, who graduated in 1977 and is currently an investigative reporter for The Washington Post, said when he was working on the school’s paper, they were only using typewriters.

“The noise and cacophony we experienced was a totally different culture,” Willman said. “We also worked with carbons to preserve a copy of what we wrote.”

Carbon copying was a process in which a message written on the top sheet of a paper was simultaneously transmitted through a thin sheet of carbon-treated paper underneath to create a copy on a bottom page, according to a Oct. 7, 2018 article from CBS News.

Newsrooms around the world also embraced

the development of the typewriter, allowing journalists to produce articles in a quicker, clearer and more accurate manner, according to the LA Historia Society webpage.

Marcos Bretón, opinion editor and overseer of The Sacramento Bee’s editorial board, said he remembers what the newsroom looked like when he was both a reporter and then an editor in fall 1985.

Bretón said in 1985, the world was moving away from typewriters and towards computers.

“They were these big, bulky things that sat on our desks,” Bretón said. “Now when I tell my kids about it, they just think it’s science fiction.”

While gray MacBooks and wireless mics sit on the desks of editors in the newsroom today, Bretón said he and the other reporters made the most of these ‘bulky’ computers despite their complications.

He said he and other reporters wrote on what could best be described as word processors.

Word processing could be described as physical devices that stored information rather than singular apps that allowed reporters to type, according to an Aug. 18, 2016 article from Tedium.

“Obviously, there was no email at this point, so all you could do was create a file and

then write in the file,” Bretón said.

Marc Spears, senior NBA writer for ESPN’s Andscape, said he got his first email while attending SJSU and being on the Spartan Daily in 1994.

Spears said when it was introduced to the world, he thought it was corny and would have rather made a phone call than send one.

“At the time, it didn’t really make sense to me – the whole email thing,” Spears said. “Then I realized people could send me information through an email instead of me waiting at a fax machine all day.”

Spears, who was mainly writing sports stories for the Spartan Daily, said today it is easy for reporters to reach out to people and get the statistics they need for stories.

He said when he talked to the coach of a team on the radio, he would use his tape recorder and track his quotes.

“I would be sitting in my car writing the story as the game was going along, and would get faxed quotes from the players and coaches,” he said.

With a rise in technological advancement, sports journalism has had to constantly adapt, but continues to gain widespread coverage across print and digital platforms, according to a June 25, 2018 article from

the Oxford University Press. Zoom, an online video conferencing and collaborative platform, allows individuals today to make phone calls or join meetings remotely with one another, according to Lifewire.

Otter.ai, an artificial intelligence application, generates shareable, recorded notes that create transcriptions and speaker identifications, according to Okta.

Sarah Klieves, executive producer at NBC Bay Area, said with such AI apps and websites coming up, she is trying to be cautious about trusting certain services.

Klieves, who was on the

Spartan Daily from 2017 to 2019, said she remembers late nights in the newsroom where she and other reporters would try their best to have articles published by midnight.

Klieves also said today, she personally only looks to buy a physical newspaper when she is at the airport, yet is subscribed to a lot of organizations online.

“Just looking to evolve and tell stories in different ways is great for the industry as a whole,” she said.

Throughout its history, eight alumni journalists have been awarded with Pulitzer Prizes on Spartan Daily –most recently, Associated Press California photo editor

Marcio Sanchez, according to SJSU News

This does not include the more than 30 national journalism awards and 120 state awards earned by the paper’s editorial teams since 2015.

Spears said he thoroughly enjoyed his time on the paper, and made lifelong friends along the way.

“I was excited about the future that San José State and the Spartan Daily were helping me get to,” Spears said.

AALIYAH

Center.

NIKITA BANKAR

SPARTAN DAILY Spartan Daily staff members sit in cubicles and look at the screens of their iMacs.