elsol
Editor’s Note
southwestern college
Volume 5, Summer 2014 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Anna Pryor MANAGING EDITOR Colin Grylls ART DIRECTOR Mason Masis WRITERS Lee Bosch John Domogma Serina Duarte Nickolas Furr Colin Grylls Marshall Murphy Gabriel Sandoval Jason O’Neal Gonzalo Quintana PHOTOGRAPHERS John Domogma Serina Duarte Rick Flores Marshall Murphy David McVicker Balkis Nasery Anna Pryor
Southwestern College is the higher education center of the borderlands. Our humble campus buzzes with amazing stories from extraordinary people. While we may be a lowincome school, we are rich with diversity, talent, horror and wonder. In this issue of el sol we hike to the ceiling of California and to Hell’s doorstep in a fetid canal just across the border. We recap the destructive Chopra era of cruelty and crime, as well as the uplifting story of our college’s legendary baseball coach who is hanging up his spikes after 39 years.We spend an arduous morning following two students on their grueling treks to cross la linea to get to class. Like tumbling dice, we roll with the SWC Game of Life, a creative look at the real-world challenges of transferring. Join us on these remarkable human journeys that prove anything is possible under el sol.
Anna Pryor, Editor-in-Chief
Photo Essay
19
Pictures of Despair
Rejected by two countries, deportees struggle to survive.
CARTOONISTS Dan Cordero Kim Garza Wendy Gracia Gabriel Hernandez Joaquin Junco Jr. DESIGNERS Rick Flores Colin Grylls Mason Masis Anna Pryor Kasey Thomas ADVISER Dr. Max Branscomb No part of el sol may be reproduced in any form by any means without prior consent from the Southwestern College el sol Magazine. For permission contact elsol@theswcsun.com
ON THE COVER: Death hangs overhead. Photo by Marshall Murphey.
I | el sol | Summer 2014
Contents 5 11 9
25 23
Features
1
9 A Walk on the Wild Side 25 Hall of Famer Hangs ‘Em Up
Former IT whiz Lon Cooper is hiking from Mexico to Canada. Legendary SWC baseball coach influenced generations of young men.
Faces of Immigration
1 I Walk the Line 5 Remembering the Forgotten 13 Tijuana’s Gateway to Hell
SWC students who live in Mexico face an arduous daily journey crossing la linea. More than 600 unmarked pauper’s graves in a secret cemetery are the final resting place of fallen immigrants. Deportation refugees live in filth and danger just over the border.
Editorials
11 UCSD Abandons South County Students 23 College Game of Life 31 SWC Wars
13
San Diego County’s UC is selling our seats to foreign and out-of-state students. Grab some dice and face the real-life challenges of SWC students. College slowly moving out of the Chopra pay-to-play era, but danger lurks.
el sol | Summer 2014 | II
I WALK THE LINE
Serina Duarte/Staff
O
fficially at least, the lines of the Southwestern Community College District are pretty clear. Division Street in National City to the north, Coronado to the west, Sweetwater Dam to the east and the Mexican border to the south. Officially, at least. Unofficially, college leaders have acknowledged for years that anywhere from 20-40 percent of SWC’s students live in Mexico. Some are Mexicans from excellent Tijuana high schools seeking higher education at the best college in la frontera. A surprisingly high number are Americans who reside in Baja California for the considerably lower cost of living.
Getting to school, though, has its own cost. Depending on the fluid dynamics of the border itself, traveling from Tijuana or Rosarito Beach can typically take anywhere from 2-4 hours. Sometimes it takes six hours. When there are law-enforcement incidents or political turmoil the border can be sealed completely. (Professors still talk about how empty the campus was for weeks after 9/11.) A pair of SWC Sun staffers went home one evening with students who live in Mexico, then documented their typical journey to Southwestern the next morning. Following is a day in the life of two intrepid students who commute across a heavily-guarded international border twice a day, five days a week. es
SWC students living in Mexico face a pre-dawn marathon Story and photographs by Serina Duarte
3:35 a.m. Sofia Montoya, 21, has lived in Tijuana her entire life. She wakes to her mother’s voice saying, “It’s time to get up.” Montoya energizes her morning by listening to “Royals” by Lorde on repeat as she looks through her closet to start her day. 4:30 a.m. Montoya walks a block from her house in Playas de Tijuana in the dark lonely hours of the morning serenaded by barking dogs as she reaches a corner and waits for an overfilled taxi to downtown Tijuana. 5:00 a.m. She walks two more blocks and patiently waits for the next bus. Montoya struggles against sleep while the bus rocks back and forth, then is jarred awake when the smoky vehicle hits some potholes near the border crossing. She walks off the bus and continues on foot over the pedestrian bridge. Toddlers wrapped in blankets hold their parents’ hands as elderly women amble along. Crowds of bleary-eyed travelers coalesce near la linea. 5:30 a.m. Montoya makes it to the border. Everyone is quiet and on their best behavior.
Customs officers look her up and down, pause a moment, then wave her through. It was a surprisingly light day at la linea, with only a 45-minute wait. 6:25 a.m. She catches the San Diego blue line trolley in San Ysidro, the southern end of the line. It is crowded with students, housekeepers, laborers and people looking for work. Montoya gets off at “H” Street and is lucky to get right on the 709 bus to Southwestern College. Sometimes she waits an hour for a seat on the 709. 7:15 a.m. Montoya arrives at SWC. This time is considered to be a very good day, free of major incidents and delays. On really bad days when it takes 5.5 hours she arrives at the college at 10 a.m. 7:30 a.m. Coffee at Jason’s Courtyard Cafe. 8 a.m. On time for class. It is a long day at Southwestern, especially with co-curricular activities, including singing in one of the college’s elite choirs. There is often another visit to Jason’s at the end of the day. Getting home takes between 2-3.5 hours. Montoya is hoping it is just two. es el sol | Summer 2014 | 2
FEATURE
So close, yet so far: Crossing la linea can be grueling Story and photographs by Marshall Murphy
6 a.m. Class starts in four hours. It is a hazy Friday morning and the only things between class and a student is a fortified line between two countries and a crushing line of people cued up to get into the United States. We begin our descent down a large hill from a gated community in Tijuana, an eclectic mix of the city’s most modern architecture and imagination-free cinder block homes. Streets are full of teethrattling cracks, bumps and potholes. As we jostle down the road, weathered posters for bullfights and Norteño bands hang askew, their color beaten away by the elements. 6:40 a.m. We are traveling by car to the border. When we get to the bottom of the hill, we stop at an OXXO convenience store, the 7-Eleven of Tijuana. Bottled guava juice is the most healthy choice. Others are getting ready for their day with a coffee and pan dulce. One man has an issue of “La Zeta,” Tijuana’s newspaper in hand. San Diego’s U-T is also on news racks. 6:48 a.m. Tijuana’s morning rush hour smells of sulfurized 3 | el sol | Summer 2014
PEMEX gasoline fumes. “Hectic” is an insufficient word. Haphazard driving and maneuvers make the roads an automotive pinball machine of chaos. We drive past newspaper salesmen and vendors getting their carts ready for the day. Foot-long, deep-fried, sugarencrusted churros are the roadside donuts of the Tijuana commute. 6:55 a.m. We park the car in a day lot a few minutes walk to the port of entry. Most of the car lots had filled to capacity by 7 a.m. Operators of many of the lots said they had been filled since 5 a.m. We start walking towards la linea. The highway exit, which becomes a two-lane road, was at a stand still. Food vendors and merchants meander through clouds of exhaust selling snacks, colorful knick-knacks and this week’s popular folk art knockoffs. “Real” Rolex watches and “designer” bags are also available. Two lanes multiply into gates dividing the ReadyLane/Sentri cardholders from the general population traveling like a human glacier toward el norte. The Ready Lane and Sentri
passes are known as Radio Frequency Identification. They are cards issued by the U.S. Government allowing for faster transit into America. Sentri allows the fastest cross times because of a pre-screening and application process. The rest of the general population, with paper passport or government issued ID, can expect a four-hour wait in the INS building alone. 7 a.m. The line was just up to the first bridge to start heading towards downtown Tijuana. It was a welcomed sight compared to the usual line of bodies snaking up and then back down the street. We hopped in line. Fragrant churros sweetened the morning air as the sun began to peak through the clouds. We waited. Then we waited some more. 7:35 a.m. In the distance a screechy violin massacred a melody. A musical panhandler with a limp and crutch wore the hood of his sweatshirt under his cowboy hat to fend off the chill. At the end of the violin is a cup of change he would shake to prompt his shifting audience. A few folks tossed in a coin or two, but most had heard his act before. 8:15 a.m. Crossing the actual official border line, which divides the U.S. and Mexico, is merely symbolic. Even though they are now
on American soil, travelers must enter a gate where there is another line to wait in. A no-nonsense Customs officer looks at travelers’ identification, asks where they are headed and why. 9:25 a.m. Walking out of Customs into the U.S. sunlight felt like finishing a marathon. Only we were not finished. As the crow flies SWC is about six miles from the Mexican border, but it’s about 10 miles from the San Ysidro port of entry to Jaguar Walk at SWC. Google says it’s a 28-minute drive, but students crossing the border rarely drive cars. It is public transportation from here to the college. There is a long line at the San Diego Trolley ticket kiosk in San Ysidro. A day pass costs $5, plus $2 more if you do not have a Compass Pass. The San Diego Metropolitan Transit System’s trolley cycles through every 15 minutes to the San Ysidro stop. Four stops from the border we get off at the “H” Street station. Luckily, the 709 bus to Southwestern College had not departed and we jump on. 10:10 a.m. It took 45 minutes for the trolley and bus to get our clump of students to SWC’s main Chula Vista campus. 10:25 a.m. Even though we left the Tijuana house at 6 a.m., we are 25 minutes late to class. es el sol | Summer 2014 | 4
Remembering the Forgotten More than 600 undocumented migrants are buried in the bleak Holtville cemetery, America’s secret resting place for unidentified immigrants.
Anna Pryor/Staff
FEATURE Story by Jason O’Neal
A
t first glance t h e Te r r a c e Park Cemetery in Imperial Va l l e y l o o k s like any other. Manicured verdant grass, shade trees, flowers and elegant granite headstones with carefully chiseled names mark the gravesites. Peer past the park-like front of the cemetery and a stern no trespassing sign hovers next to a padlocked gate. On the other side is a barren, sunbaked dirt field littered with small bricks stamped with Jane or John Doe. America’s forgotten people bake six feet below. Hundreds of undocumented migrants who died crossing the border return to dust in a forlorn section of a humble cemetery in the California desert near the Arizona line. It is the largest mass grave of unidentified people in the United States not resulting from a war. Unless immigration is considered war. Enrique Morones, founder of the human rights organization Border Angels, said the U.S. has
been at war with migrants since the 1994 initiative called Operation Gatekeeper. Tens of thousands of deaths have resulted, he said, including the nameless decamisados of Holtville. Morones has visited the cemetery for more than a decade, he said, and it still chokes him up. He led this year’s Marcha Migrante IX from the picturesque beaches of San Diego and Tijuana to the stark and sorrowful Holtville Cemetery. “There are more than 600 people buried here, most of them unidentified,” he said. “These people should not be dying, they simply wanted to have a better life.” Crossing into the United States through mountains and deserts is a gamble migrants have taken since the construction of a border fence in the 1990s left them with no alternatives. Those buried in Terrace Park lost that wager and are still isolated behind a fence. Morones sees the irony. “It is a sad situation,” he said. “Even in death they are marginalized.” Holtville is not the only pauper’s cemetery for unidentified migrants.
Balkis Nasery/Staff
Anna Pryor/Staff
(previous page) Salt Lake City activist Alicia Cervantes prays over the unmarked graves of unidentified migrants at the Holtville Cemetery. (above) Buddy Bell travelled from Chicago to participate in the vigil. (above right) Visitors mark unidentified graves with hand-made crosses to pay respect to the dead. (bottom right) Border Angels founder Enrique Morones describes the dangers of crossing the border.
7 | el sol | Summer 2014
Serina Duarte/Staff
Balkis Nasery/Staff
Anna Pryor/Staff
(above) Hand-made wooden crosses are all that mark the graves of hundreds of unidentified migrants. (above right) Morones leads a moment of silence as participants pay their respects to a fallen Latino military veteran.
Morones said remains are also transported to desolate Ocotillo or cremated without being identified. Border Angels is a non-profit organization that raises awareness of immigrant struggles in the community. Every year, on the anniversary of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the Mexican-American War, Border Angels hosts Marcha Migrante. Alicia Cervantes, an activist from Salt Lake City, said she participated
in this year’s march because the United States needs immigration reform. “We are all human,” she sobbed as her tears fall on the parched dust. Buddy Bell, a school bus driver from Chicago, agreed. “It falls on us as people who live in the U.S. to pressure our government to have a humane immigration policy,” he said. Morones said current legislation before Congress is not the answer
to the problems immigrants face because they do not need a path to citizenship as much as they need legal status. If approved, the current proposal would authorize extending the border fence. At the conclusion of the march Morones thanked the participants. “This creates a lot of awareness about what is taking place,” he said. “But the marcha really goes on. There is so much more work to do.”
As Morones and the Border Angels filed out of the dusty cemetery, the groundskeeper was biding time inside his tool shed watching. Someone had to lock the gate. es
el sol | Summer 2014 | 8
FEATURE
orrest Gump just felt like running. Lon Cooper, Southwestern College’s peripatetic former instructional lab technician, just felt like hiking. Cooper retired from SWC on March 7, then began marching toward Canada, 2,660 miles away. C o o p e r i s o n t h e Pa c i f i c Crest Trail (PCT), a beloved highway for hikers. It touches Mexico and Canada, weaving through California, Oregon and Washington. Its southern terminus is 38 miles east of SWC. From there it meanders through 26 National Forests, seven National Parks, five State Parks and three National Monuments to its northern terminus at in Manning Park in British Columbia, Canada. Legions of people hike sections of the PCT, but only the bold hike it end-to-end, a five- to six-month journey. They call themselves thruhikers. Before he ever set foot on the PCT
9 | el sol | Summer 2014
Cooper was taking steps to join that exclusive club. Lots of steps. He is already a California hiking celebrity. Cooper previously lived in Texas and worked as a photojournalist for the Austin American-Statesman and the Dallas Morning News. An outdoorsman all his life, he thought hiking opportunities in Texas were not spectacular, but found a new career path that was. “It was the very beginning of digital imaging and the Dallas Morning News was really interested in that,” he said. “They encouraged me to learn about it, so I did.” In 1995 Cooper moved to California where he worked as the information technology director at the Bakersfield Californian newspaper. Cooper discovered hiking opportunities in abundance. “When I moved to Bakersfield I was fairly close to the Sierra Nevada,” he said. “I ended up hiking the John Muir Trail that goes from Yosemite to Mount Whitney.” His favorite, though, is the Pacific Crest Trail. “I have been a little obsessed with the PCT,” he said. “I have hiked it every summer, several hundred miles of it.” He has also put an enormous
Former SWC IT whiz Lon Cooper is hiking royalty due to his popular website and epic treks. He is currently on a 2,660mile hike from Mexico to Canada, pausing here in the eastern Sierra Mountains. Courtesy Photo
amount of time and effort into creating maps for the PCT. Cooper’s maps are the cumulative result of data logged into his GPS logging device from 2007 to 2013. His maps can be found on pctmaps.net, pctwater.com and lon.net Cooper created Halfmile’s PCT, a free app for smart phones that is a companion to his maps. It shows PCT landmarks and trail notes relevant to exact locations. Cooper’s maps are so popular with PCT hikers they call him “Half Mile.” In the hiking community he a rock star with real rocks. Jack Haskel, a trail information specialist for the Pacific Crest Trail Association, regards Cooper as PCT royalty. “They are probably the most widely used maps for long distance hikers,” Haskel said. “He helps to educate people through his maps. They are definitely appreciated and loved.” Haskel estimated there are 700-800 people each year who attempt thru-hiking the PCT. Deb Kress, Cooper’s girlfriend, will accompany him on his Mexico-to-Canada odyssey. “It has been his dream for a long time,” she said. Kress said they originally planned to wait for Cooper to retire. Her longest hike was a three-week journey on the John Muir Trail, so she had mixed feelings about the PCT hike. “It kind of jolted me a little bit,” she said. “It is scary. I cannot wrap my head around how long this trail is. But I am feeling pretty
confident that when I am following him on this trail I am going to get where I need to go.” Cooper estimated his gear, not including food and water, will weigh around 12 pounds. That includes a backpack, a tent, a sleeping bag, a cook-stove, a knife, a first-aid kit, spare clothes, rain gear, an iPhone and a few other necessities. He and Kress will have collapsible seven liter water containers they will refill at water caches, springs and streams. They will stop at post offices to pick up packages sent to themselves, with dried f r u i t , granola, quinoa, rice, beef and salmon jerky, crackers and freeze dried spaghetti. Cooper estimates they will reach Canada by October. Hikers have perished on the trail by falling off mountains, hypothermia and being hit by cars at crossings. Cooper said he is prepared and not scared. “People will ask if it is dangerous, like if
wild animals are going to get you,” he said. “But I do not think of it as dangerous at all.” Donna Arnold, dean of the School of Arts and Communication, was Cooper’s supervisor at SWC. She and other colleagues praised Cooper for his respectful demeanor, strong work ethic, concern for the quality of his work and the impact it had on students. “When you call Lon and ask him for assistance, he is always trying to figure out the best way to solve the problem,” Arnold said. “He is a great worker. We are really going to miss him.” Forrest Gump said he ran across the United St a t e s f o r no particular reason, but C o o p e r said he knew exactly why he is hiking to Canada. “I love the PCT, it is a great trail,” he said. “You have the natural beauty, but then there is also the aspect of a journey to set out on foot with everything you need to just walk.” es.
el sol | Summer 2014 | 10
OPINION
Kim Garza/staff
UCSD closes its doors to the community it was built to serve “U niversit y of C alifornia except S an D iego .” Trustee Humberto Peraza’s off-the-cuff remark is the most concise description of the higher education holocaust that has played out at UCSD for a decade. UCSD flat out does not want Southwestern College students. We do not bring in as much cash as foreign students. Guilty as charged. When indignant UCSD administrators throw their arms in the air and accuse the citizens of the South Bay of “throwing rocks,” consider the evidence. For 10 consecutive years
11 | el sol | Summer 2014
the number of South Bay students admitted to UCSD has declined. Last year UCSD took 44 percent fewer SWC students than the year before. UCSD ended its Transfer Admission Guarantee and South Bay students are as rare at UCSD as snowmen in Kuwait. UCSD administrators have methodically executed a strategy to eliminate local students from their own region’s UC. UCSD has all but sealed shut the doors for first-generation college scholars from working class families, most of them under-represented minorities. No one here is accusing UCSD of intentional racism,
but discrimination does not always burn crosses and wear hoods. UCSD likes to boast of a diverse student body with 68 percent of undergraduate categories as “students of color.” A closer look, however, tells a much different story. UCSD has the lowest levels of under-represented students in the UC system, even though it serves the county with the most. Most of UCSD’s students of color come from other countries (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, China) and more affluent parts of America, and they pay much higher fees than local students of color (and rent pricey
student housing). UCSD’s enrollment of Latino students is 14.7 percent, the lowest in California. The statewide average is 22.5 percent. This is shameful considering San Diego County is one-third Latino. African-Americans are 2.7 percent of the UCSD student body, also the lowest in California. UCSD ranks second to last in American Indian enrollment with 0.6 percent. San Diego County, however, has more American Indian reservations than any other in the U.S. Surprise! UCSD has the highest percentage of profitable international transfer students with 19.5 percent. The state average is 11.5 percent. Historically, the community colleges in San Diego and Imperial Counties (Region X) have contributed the most under-represented minority students that transfer to UCSD. This was accomplished through the enlightened TAG program designed to provide greater access to under-represented students in the region. For more than 20 years the minimum GPA for TAG was 2.8 and it worked perfectly. Then came the sabotage. In 2007 the GPA for TAG rose to 3.0. In 2009 UCSD opened TAG to all 112 California community colleges. TAG
W here
do
applications exploded in 2010, going from 408 to 1,946. UCSD claimed this was done because “geographical preferences” for student enrollment was not allowed. Hmm. A diversity statement adopted by the UC Regents says the exact opposite. It says neighborhood demographics, gender and income can be used to assign students to schools. The hits kept coming. In 2011 the UC system allowed students to apply to multiple campuses that participated in TAG. No need to be Nostradamus to see where that would go. TAG transfer applications for UCSD increased to 8,715. More locals lost out. UCSD continued to poison the well. GPA for TAG jumped to 3.5, higher than UCSD’s cumulative average GPA of 3.03. Other UC schools in TAG require GPAs between 3.0 and 3.2. Despite these obstacles, students from San Diego County were still transferring to UCSD, so UCSD finally eliminated TAG all together. UCSD’s new scam is University Link, which offers “geographical preferences” to local students. Spring 2014 saw the GPA requirements for University Link increased to 3.5. Examining the historical trends of TAG
and University Link, it is clear that UCSD is stacking the deck against San Diego County. UCSD manipulates statistics, claiming that 93 percent of new transfer students are from California community colleges. That might be true, but odds are they did not come from a college in San Diego County. Region X had a decrease of 23 percent in transfers to UCSD and SWC was hit with a 44 percent decline. UCSD Chancellor Dr. Pradeep Khosla used a recent South Bay meeting to accuse SWC transfer counselor Norma Cazares of “throwing rocks in public” because she challenged him on UCSD transfer policy changes that hurt South Bay students. Cazares should be commended for her integrity and courage to confront such an injustice. The SWC response? A letter of apology to Khosla from SWC President Dr. Melinda Nish. Our president – who is truly a smart woman – made a truly bad blunder by selling out the courageous Cazares and us to curry favor with the UCSD boss. UCSD is, intentionally or otherwise, engaging in class warfare. It needs to stop, now. Khosla has answered his own question posed to this community – “What does UC San Diego do for us?” Judging by his recent actions, nothing. es
UCSD
San Diego
transfers come from ?
Los Angeles San Francisco Other California Out of State International
21 Transfers. Down 5% from year before.
403 Transfers. Up 34% from year before.
638 Transfers. Down 23% from year before.
`
538 Transfers. Up 41% from year before. 193 Transfers. Up 34% from year before.
911 Transfers. Up 58% from year before.
el sol | Summer 2014 | 12
La Frontera Disposable By Jason O’Neal and Lee Bosch
Misery Has an Odor. It is worse than sewage, worse than filth, worse than death. Misery Has a Face, hundreds of them. They are the faces of the forgotten, the ignored, the throw-away people two nations have rejected.
a’s People
Marshall Murphy/Staff
INVESTIGATION
Misery Has
an
It is the fetid drainage canals of the Tijuana River where a squatters colony hides what remains of once-ambitious people who have been reduced to begging, drug abuse and crime. It is the gaping crack in a damned corner of la tierra where earth and hell intersect in a chasm of despair, drugs, disease, dread and death. It is las America’s secret refugee camp. Misery has company. More is coming over every day. Carved between the Tijuana Centro de Bomberos fire station and a ramp to the via rapida highway is a refugee camp like no other. It gets no Red Cross or United Nations support. Tension crackles through Campamento para Migrantes Deportados like static electricity. Apathetic faces drift about the malodorous tent city like sentient zombies. Angry car horns on the adjacent via rapida stab the dead air, but the people are oblivious. More than 600 deportees deprived of showers create a cloud of nauseating smell that almost pushes aside the odor of reeking sewage nearby. Wretch-inducing stink is the least of the deportees’ maladies. Police abuse, abject poverty, extortion and powerlessness bind the deportees to the camp like paralysis. Just days, weeks or months ago the refugees were living and working in the United States, free to eat, sleep, play and shower in peace. Then la migra swept in and turned their lives upside down. Men and women, boys and girls who lived in the United States— some for decades—were deported, led through the gates of San Ysidro, Otay Mesa and Calexico, then abandoned in Mexico. They returned to a birthland that does not want them and segregates them from Mexican society. Neglected, forgotten and scapegoated, they have been rejected by two nations. Even God seems to steer clear of Campamento para Migrantes Deportados. On any given day there are hundreds of people hunched in small igloo tents in a community square across the street from the municipal headquarters of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), the current ruling political party of Mexico. Misery does not appreciate irony. Although the size of the camp does not compare to refugee camps in Somalia, Syria or Jordan, the level of misery is comparable—if not worse.
15 | el sol | Summer 2014
David McVicker/Staff
Address.
La Mapa, a border encampment at Plaza Constitution, is home to more than 500 homeless deportees. Clothes hang to dry at the refugee camp run by Angeles Sin Fronteras, a human rights organization. Deportees who cannot get tents live in the river bottom in dirt, mud and trash.
Marshall Murphy/Staff
Marshall Murphy/Staff
INVESTIGATION
John Domogma /Staff
Surviving the satanic squalor of stale water, sludge and the stench of sewage, inhabitants must fight the elements of nature as well as harassment from local criminals, drug cartels and the Tijuana police. Neighborhood gangs extort the inhabitants for their paltry money and property. Police brutality is even more galling. Residents of El Bordo, their name for the camp, are easy prey for lazy police officers eager to close high-profile cases. Tales of wrongful arrests and detentions of the “usual suspects” are a daily occurrence at the migrant camp. Tijuana police, residents claim, will sweep in and randomly grab men whom they later book as perpetrators of unsolved crimes. Case closed, and no one misses the “criminals.” Most are never seen again. Julio Cesar admits he was a criminal. He grew up in the U.S., but was arrested and deported for a crime. His wife avoids the emotional burden by staying with their child in Los Angeles. Phone calls are rare because most of the money goes to heroin. It dulls the depression, he said. Juan Manuel, 63, worked in Los Angeles
17 | el sol | Summer 2014
for 30 years in construction before being apprehended while on his lunch break last summer. He was deported, leaving behind 12 children. He now withers away in Tijuana with a drug addiction in a place he had never been before. Many of the deportees lived in the United States for decades, some since infancy. Contrary to talk radio rhetoric, most undocumented migrants are not apprehended while committing crimes, but are caught without identification during traffic stops, inland checkpoints or immigration enforcement operations. Once processed for removal, the migrants are transported to the border and turned over to Mexican immigration. Arriving like tourists in a foreign land, the repatriated nationals are left to fend for themselves. Some speak little or no Spanish. To address the growing number of deportees that are ignored by the Mexican government on local, state and federal levels, Sergio Tamai founded Angeles Sin Fronteras (Angels Without Borders) in 2010. “We were born in Mexicali in 2010,” he said. “We realized that the United States government was deporting between 200
Deportees rummage through a pile of garbage for clothing, bedding or anything they might find useful to survive. Scores of deportee “homes” line the banks of the Rio Tijuana drainage canal. and 300 people on a daily basis.” America has deported nearly 450,000 people under the Obama administration, Tamai said. National Public Radio places that number closer to 1.5 million. Tamai said El Bordo was opened in August and more than 600 migrants now live there. Angeles Sin Fronteras volunteers are helping residents return to their home states in Mexico by working with Grupo Beta to assist them with travel costs and obtaining identification cards. Javier A. Reyes lived in the United States as a successful home repairman for 10 years until he was deported two and a half years ago. He is a “coordinator” at the camp who hopes to return to the U.S. legally, but has no idea how or when that will happen.
Jobs in Mexico are hard to come by and require valid identification. Without a birth certificate and a permanent residence, a deportee cannot get the necessary identification. In order to pay rent to have an address they need a job. This cycle of dysfunction leaves most deportees with no options but to work on the streets and save enough money to try and cross back into the U.S. Residents of the camp struggle to guard their meager possessions. Savage fights are common. “Coordinators” wearing green vests attempt to police their own. They are chosen from camp members to maintain order. If residents want to remain in the camp, they have to follow some rules. But not many. Alcohol and narcotics flow like the nearby sewage. Not all the deportees are model citizens. Some were criminals, or, better said, desperate people who broke the law. Many, though, did nothing more than roll through a stop sign or “drive while brown” in the wrong neighborhood. It comforts many Americans to think undocumented immigrants are all criminals or uneducated laborers, but many are also award-winning writers, gifted musicians, law students, architects and business owners. They are also among the deported. Tent dwellers at El Bordo are the lucky ones, if the word applies. Skimming the basin of the river canal, hundreds more people live in lean-tos the locals call ñongos made from tires, wood and cardboard boxes. El Bordo’s resourceful individuals use whatever trash is available.
With more inhabitants the dangers also increase. Used hypodermic needles and trash litter the landscape of a concrete riverbed covered in mud, garbage and slime. Plastered in spray paint and graffiti, the walls offer words of inspiration like the gigantic El Sol Brilla Para Todos (“the sun shines for everyone.”) Other signs are not so cheerful. Atop the northern bank of the river is a reminder of the doom that lingers so close to the people that live here. A lone grim reaper hangs from a noose like a skeletal scarecrow, taunting inhabitants that they must face death to cross to the other side. Less than 100 yards north of the dangling la muerta is a sparkling new multi-million dollar inspection station built for the Aduana Mexico, Mexican Customs. Just beyond that another construction project is underway, new inspection facilities on the U.S. side designed to protect the country under the pretext of national security and the war on terror. Undocumented immigrants are collateral casualties of the war on terror. For three centuries people and goods moved freely across la frontera. Travelers returned home when it was time. A metal wall now forces people who are undocumented to stay put in el norte and live in the shadows. Those are the ones who survived. Thousands die crossing. Thousands live in refugee camps like Campamento para Migrantes Deportados. It is possible that the dead are actually the fortunate ones. es Marshall Murphy/Staff
David McVicker/Staff
INVESTIGATION
A poet’s silent scream By Gonzalo Quintana
A
poet’s voice has been drowned out by the wailing of police sirens, highway traffic and the cries of despondent deportees. Tom Zarate’s poetry is no longer in motion. El Bordo, a Tijuana deportee camp located less than a mile from the affluent Las Americas shopping outlets in San Ysidro, is home to many bent, but not quite broken dreamers. Zarate said his residency at the camp is temporary. “I cannot tell you ‘I’m planning to do this. I’m planning to do that,’ like a politician,” he said, “but I would love to go back to the place where I grew up. I really like the lifestyle out there.” After living in California for 25 years, Zarate said he is struggling to adjust to his new “home.” “I feel like a fish out of water,” he said. “Over in the United States I felt great.” Zarate said he has been living in the camp for two years and eight months. He even pinpointed the exact date of his deportation, Monday, March 14, 2011. A day that lives in infamy, he said, cannot be forgotten. His time in the United States ended badly, he admitted. He was arrested for drug possession and spent 6 ½ months in jail before he was deported. Though he described his arrest as a “confusing situation,” Zarate spoke freely. He said his friend was driving that day, along with someone who was later identified as a DEA agent. “It was a Wednesday, September 1, 2010,” he said. “I was aboard a pick-up truck headed to Huntington Beach from San Diego. There were a lot of drugs, 280 grams (of cocaine).” Zarate said the police report noted he was involved in a transaction with a DEA agent. While he admits to being present, he insisted he was dealt a bad hand, especially since his friend took full responsibility for the drugs. “I was charged with conspiracy, but they couldn’t prove the drugs were mine,” he said. “I should’ve been set free, but instead, my record was sullied.” Before his deportation Zarate worked many jobs. He was a host at a Denny’s, a cashier at an AM/PM gas station convenience store, a construction worker and he sold rims for cars on eBay. His education, he said, came mostly from reading books and encyclopedias. He also credited two psychologists for whom his aunt worked. “I got to know them well,” he said. “They were very intelligent people and they were very patient with me.” His affinity for poetry, he said, comes from his love of reading. “I really like literature in English, Spanish and Italian.” Zarate said he attended Torrey Pines High School in 1988, but dropped out. He eventually completed his GED during a stint at East Mesa Detention Center. He did not divulge the reason for his stay there. He said his life before the camp was one of tranquility. “Authorities (in the U.S.) never harassed me for not having an ID,” he said. “You don’t have to worry about delinquents or cops because police are there to protect citizens, not to screw them like they do here.” Zarate reminisced about his younger days in the U.S. “My first car was a 1979 Honda Civic when I was a kid,” he said. “I bought it with my own money that I earned at my first job.” Zarate said he just wants to be self-sufficient again. “My coffee would cost five bucks including tip,” he said. “Here I can’t even afford a five peso coffee,”
19 | el sol | Summer 2014
President Obama needs to come through on his promise of immigration reform, Zarate said, not for himself, but for his paisanos and all immigrants. “They deserve to live like human beings, not animals.” es
In mystical visions and cosmic vibrations I refuse to give up my insane obsessions Confined, isolated, I cannot change my past I dream in seclusion and dwell in the dark She found me confined to my insane mind Looking for affection searching for perfection in her wicked land Deceived and misled by her cunning ways We played childish games finding great relief to my strife and pain She, erasing my mind which colors my grief Dancing until dawn drinking poison wine almost every night In my longing eyes I wander around walking up and down In darkness the streets of this shady town Where I’m just another face in the crowd Must be the devil in the bottle Sure makes me feel like a lion, king for a little while My emotions are shocked Who am I to search to seek to find and keep what I never lost My senses are numb, wake up realizing I wonder why it’s difficult to say whether its night or whether its day She glows like the moon and shines like the sun to portray herself as the only one Show me the way back to the sacred path take me there and hold me in your sight as I pray for love to the lord above and my dreams My ambitions and all those vivid pictures vanish were in smoke Secrets from her world do not wish to know. Amen.
Alone with alcohol
A
By Marshall Murphy
rnee Estrada spent 35 years in Santa Ana working in the restaurant industry . He had been in the states in since the 1970s long before Operation Gate Keeper. “All of my family is over there, my brothers, sisters, mom and wife.” Estrada was deported last June. He said he just got picked up off the street. “In all my life I didn’t do anything wrong,“ he said, “I don’t know why I got picked up.” Estrada said he turned to alcohol to cope. “I drink because there is nothing to do. I am an old man it is hard to get a job, I can’t get a job with no papers. My family doesn’t know I’m here.” es
Photos By Marshall Murphy
Santa Muerte (Saint Death) is the personification of death. Her devotees believe she offers healing, protection and safe passage to the afterlife for individuals whose lives may have been less than pure, including violent crminals. Some deportees in the canal leave her offerings for protection. el sol | Summer 2014 | 20
INVESTIGATION
David McVicker/Staff
Leaving guns for God By John Domogma
M
auricio Melendez, an immigrant from El Salvador, said he now dedicates his life to helping deportees survive hard times in Tijuana’s concrete river channels. “It’s not easy,” he said, “but the purpose is to help the newly-deported have a decent place to stay and rest for a couple of days. Most of them come tired because they have been walking through the mountains. We are hoping to build a hotel where people can be treated with dignity.” A bricklayer in the San Fernando Valley’s Canoga Park for nine years, Melendez admitted that he was deported due to charges of assault with a deadly weapon and attempted homicide. “Honestly, I did do it,” he said. “I made a mistake and for being on probation and then parole I was deported. I am not going to say that it has been joyful, but that is my life and I have left all of that in the past.” Melendez said he is now an evangelical Christian, baptized at La Ultima Llamada (Last Call) ministry by Pastor Fernando Sicario of Tijuana. Melendez now attends La Ultima Llamada congregation in Tijuana. “If we were not here the police would be rolling up (on the camp),” said Melendez. “Us being here and the media attention keep the police from arresting (migrants).” Melendez said he was arrested by Tijuana police officers and is now
21 | el sol | Summer 2014
Marshall Murphy/staff
Maria de la Luz Hernandez has come to the migrant camp for a year to help feed deportees. She said she does it because God loves her. “I was going blind, now I can see. I can now look to the sky. God said ‘Wake up my little one.’”
providing unpaid labor for police on a station renovation project. Police often coerce free labor, he said, by threatening prison time. “The police have always respected this perimeter,” he said. “Once we go out in search of food they arrest us before we cross the street and take us to the famous Veinte de Noviembre, a local jail. They are building something at the station and they use the labor from the people that they pick up. Instead of doing 36 hours in jail, you work around mixing the concrete or help around the construction.” Melendez said the camp’s future is uncertain. “People are starting to say that the city is trying to get rid of us,” he said. “Some are saying that we will be going to the canal, but no one knows what is going to happen. The reality is that we are not receiving
John Domogma /Staff
(above) An ironic “Welcome Home� sign at the edge of the tent colony. In the background beyond the fence are the green hills of the United States, the former home of the deportees. (r) Making soup out of scavenged fish and other leftovers. (below) A U.S. Border Patrol agent peers through the border fence. The yellow line is the actual U.S. - Mexico border. John Domogma /Staff
Photos By John Domogma
el sol | Summer 2014 | 22
Start
INSTRUCTIONS: From 2 to 20,000 players. Using a single die, each player tries to advance to the end of the game and transfer to a university. Along the path they will find opportunity and peril. Setbacks abound, but players who are smart, resilient and persistent will make it to the end of the path. Good luck!
Finish!
LUCKY NU
Legendary Coach Bartow retires aft By Colin Grylls erry Bartow’s Hollywood finale did not quite happen. There was no state baseball championship and no frenzied players carrying their 79-year-old coach off the field on their shoulders. It was a Chula Vista finish and Bartow said it was good enough. His team reached the quarterfinals and he received a five-month, Jeter-like send off that stretched from San Ysidro to Sacramento. Bartow is to baseball what McCartney is to music – a sunny, humble giant who never forgot his roots. He is one of only three coaches in California community college baseball history to win more than 900 games. Southwestern College’s iconic coach is likely the bestknown Jaguar in America and probably the most beloved. He is known for his ability to whistle as loud as a tugboat, his ritual of sliding headfirst into home as a septuagenarian and his colorful vernacular that combines Yogi Berra and Bob Uecker. Mention the colorful, irascible coach and grown men will cry. Bartow, though, is hanging up his spikes without tears. “It’s always sad when you have to give up something,” he said, “but it’s time for somebody that’s probably got a lot more energy than I do. I don’t move as fast as I used to, my voice might not be as good and my whistle might not be as strong.” Bartow, or “Forty” as legions of his players call him, said the world beckons. “It’ll be a chance to do something else that I haven’t done,” he said. “Play a little more golf or bum around and see the country. Maybe I can be in Yakima and shoot a few ducks or something.” A member of the Table Bluff Reservation near Loleta, California, Bartow was born in the middle of a river. He was later adopted by Red Sox and Yankee pitching great Carl Mays, who won four World Series titles and roomed with Babe Ruth. Bartow played college baseball at Washington State University and minor league baseball in the Northwest League.
UMBER “40”
ter 39 years at Southwestern College
Colin Grylls/staff
FEATURE
Jerry Bartow tends to The Jaguar Junction, the field he has called home since 1975.
Russ Scoffin/staff
Cou r t
es y
Pho to
Bartow in 1956 pitching for Washington State University in the College World Series. “Forty” is presented with a base signed by former players to honor his “victory slide.”
s/ sta ff
“We beat USC for the Pacific Coast contracts during Bartow’s tenure. His Championship,” he said. “Played in the squads have transferred more than 180 old College World Series in Omaha. players to play at universities, almost five Rode the train back there from Spokane, players for each of Bartow’s 39 years at Washington. I came back and signed with SWC. the old Salem (Oregon) Senators.” “We’ve had a lot of wonderful players, Bartow credited Mays with his decision we’ve pretty well taken all of our kids from to go back to college for a graduate our own area,” he said. “Had a lot of kids degree. out of Eastlake, Chula Vista. Had that Mays, then a scout for the Cleveland (Alex) Palaez who played for the Padres. Indians, told Bartow that the annual He was a little fat guy and Jay (Martel) says salary for a minor league ballplayer topped ‘You’re not going to like him because he’s out at $1,500. He advised young Jerry fat,’ and I said, ‘Well, if he can swing the to go back to Washington State to earn a bat I’ll like him.’” Master’s degree. He did. Countless players have laced up their After graduating, Bartow left Pullman spikes under Bartow’s watch, but it is for San Diego to coach at Hoover High the Jaguar Junction baseball field that he School, where he, with a little support considers his greatest accomplishment. from Teddy Ballgame himself, built Ted “What I’m probably the most proud Williams Field. He led Hoover to a CIF of is that I got the ballpark all fixed up title against Bonita Vista in 1975, the so it’s a nice park,” he said. “Took a long last year he was not wearing an SC time to get the concrete and get some ballcap. of the things done, like the big Bartow said he is lucky scoreboard, the turf and to have spent his entire looking like a ballpark life doing what he should. I hope that some “It’ll be a chance loved. Retired SWC day there will be some to do something else for a while professor Bill bleachers in there. that I haven’t done. Play a little more Virchis became a Some things will golf or bum around and see the country. Bartow fan when change and will even Maybe I can be in Yakima and shoot a his son, Adam, get better.” few ducks or something.” pitched for “Forty.” Bartow was never - Jerry Bartow “The game is not one to hide his passion a game to him, it’s a for The Junction, lifestyle,” said Virchis. nor did he hold back “My son learned so when he disagreed with much from him, that’s why the umpires. Rudy Bautista, he’s in the pros right now, first the varsity pitching coach at West being drafted by the White Sox and now Hills High School and an SWC player in as a scout. There are many people that ’91 and ’92, recalled a game against Pima come through your life. He’s one that will Community College of Tucson, Arizona. just stick with you.” “Play at the plate,” he said. “(Bartow) Bobby Rector, who played for SWC in believed (the umpire) called it wrong. So 1993, said Bartow is forever etched in his Forty storms out to the field and lays into memory. him. He literally came around third base “Forty had quite a few quirks that still and did a hook slide at home plate to show stand out, like him singing that song,” how the runner had eluded the tag in that Rector said with a laugh before launching situation.” into “It’s a Beautiful Day for a Ballgame.” Rector said Bartow’s 11 conference “He used to have that on his answering championships, his scores of players in machine. He was probably the most universities and his Major League alums nervous coach I’ve ever seen. (If) there’s a make him a good coach. His concern for tough situation, he’s in the corner of the his players as developing young men make dugout not looking. He was just a crackhim a great man. up.” “He was a father figure (who) always Rector, who played in the San Francisco had good advice,” he said. “Whether we Giants system, is one of 37 former SWC wanted to believe it or not, it would always baseball players who signed professional come true. He used to always say stay out
l yl
Colin Gr
el sol | Summer 2014 | 28
FEATURE
Colin Grylls/staff
“He was a father figure who always had good advice. Whether we wanted to believe it or not, it would always come true.” -Bobby Rector, former SWC player of TJ, don’t get an expensive car and don’t get a girl pregnant. It just seemed like that’s what happened. The guy knew what would happen with young men.” Professor Angelina Stuart, the Academic Senate President when Bartow was awarded an SWC honorary degree in 2012, said she admires the work he has done for the community. “We have a word for it in Spanish, mansedumbre,” she said. “It’s a sense of humbleness. It’s just doing something good,
29 | el sol | Summer 2014
selflessness.” Ken Salazar, who played for the Apaches from 1990-93 and coached the Jaguars in 2011 and 2012, said Bartow has hinted at retirement for years, but never could step away. “It’s funny because when I was playing here it was supposed to be his last year,” he said. “It was always his last year every year. He just kept on coming out here because he was never happier than when he was on the baseball field.”
Throughout the 2014 season Apache/Jaguar alumni returned to The Junction for Bartow’s farewell tour. Players shouted “Apaches!” in their post-game huddle during their run to the Southern California Sectionals to honor Bartow. SWC changed its nickname from the Apaches to the Jaguars in 2000. “It makes tears come to your eyes to see all of the former players we had over the years,” he said. “They date back from all the teams I’ve had here. Some of them were Apaches, not Jaguars. A lot of them came from when I
Bartow didn’t always see eye to eye with umpires. used to have that teepee up on the roof. It makes you kind of think back through all of the years.” Hundreds of players have laced up their cleats under Bartow. Some went on to play professionally, many moved on to play at four-year universities, and others saw their careers end at Bartow’s field of dreams. Salazar said the 79-year-old coach left a lasting imprint on all of them. “He used to always say, ‘You know guys, one day you’re gonna be gone and you’re gonna miss it,’” said Salazar. “‘You’re gonna wish you worked hard. You’re gonna wish you played like it was your last day. It’s gonna happen.’ And I can honestly say I didn’t have many regrets because I know I always worked hard just like he told us to.” es
Russ Scoffin/staff
el sol | Summer 2014 | 30
A few years ago, in a college not far away…
A BRIEF HISTORY OF CRIME, CORRUPTION AND CONTEMPT By Nickolas Furr
S
outhwestern C o l l e g e ’s s e v e n years of bad luck may have drawn to a whimpering close with the final wristslap by milquetoast judge Ana España on SWC bad girl Arlie Ricasa. Maybe not. Even though Superintendent/Devil Raj Kumar Chopra and his misanthropic crew of crooks have been branded as criminals, flogged with España’s wet noodle and sent packing, their prodigy live on and SWC’s reputation lay smoldering in ruins. We should be celebrating the end of seven years of terror, corruption, investigations, arrest, trials and convictions, but there is little to celebrate. So much has been lost and too many misbehaving college officials survived the house cleaning. One by one España let the bad guys off light. Unbelievably, Ricasa still
Raj K Chopra as Emperor Palpatine, the mysterious evil force who becomes ruler, seizes power, and spreads fear and intimidation.
33 | el sol | Summer 2014
Albert Fulcher and staff of the SWC Sun as Luke Skywalker, who investigates evil plots and brings corruption to justice.
draws a hefty SWC paycheck. At least the trials and plea bargains changed one thing for the better. Regardless of how weak the penalties were, these former SWC decision makers are now officially criminals. What is worrisome is w h e t h e r E s p a ù a’s s o f t o n - c r i m e a p p ro a c h t o 1 5 people positioned to steal and misappropriate nearly $1 billion will defer future bad guys or encourage them. Former SWC VP Nicholas Alioto, for instance, paid a fine
for less than $8,000, a bargain for the tens of thousands he accepted in bribes, gifts, travel, expensive meals, fancy wine, liquor, tickets and God only knows what else. San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis called the Southbay Corruption Case the largest of its kind in county history. It roared out of the gates on the strength of 232 felony and misdemeanor charges filed against SWC and Sweetwater Union High S c h o o l Di s t r i c t o f f i c i a l s , and a smorgasbord of slimy contractors and financiers. She was right, even though the judge had a soft spot for folks who feed at the public trough. It was a case that began with each defendant charged with a mix of felony and misdemeanor charges and ended with each f o u n d g u i l t y, b u t g e n t l e
el sol | Summer 2014 | 34
35 | el sol | Summer 2014
el sol | Summer 2014 | 36
37 | el sol | Summer 2014
Phil Lopez as Han Solo, the swashbuckling, fearless freedom fighter, and Andrew Rempt as Chewbacca, banished but returns to strike a deadly blow against the Empire.
el sol | Summer 2014 | 38
Our community’s newlyminted criminals seem neither remorseful nor rehabilitated, but this community still has some reason to celebrate. For every person who spoke out, argued, protested, sought legal assistance, complained, wrote letters, demonstrated, fought, cried, suffered and eventually
Angelina Stuart as Princess Leia, Senate president who fights for freedom.
took the fight to the voters in 2010 to defeat the Chopra regime, this is proof that you were right. We were right. We won. Southwestern College won. In December 2010 former Chula Vista Mayor Tim Nader and former SWC president Norma Hernandez ran campaigns against dishonest governing board incumbents who supported Chopra and his band of criminals. Their victories blew a brisk wind of change across the campus, carrying away Chopra, three vice presidents, and more than two
39 | el sol | Summer 2014
dozen unqualified or unethical administrative cronies. By the time Alioto resigned in early 2011 the campus atmosphere had begun to clear. As the smog lifted, people breathed easier, saw more clearly and started wondering why they’d ever put up with it in the first place. Salcido and former trustees lit the fuse on 10 years of turmoil by re-writing hiring policies and hiring a crony as a VP over the objections of then-President Hernandez who resigned in protest. After a revolving door of five presidents in five years, Chopra rode into town on a black horse and declared himself the messiah who would save Southwestern. That didn’t exactly work out. Chopra channeled his inner Bashar al-Assad and began executing his own people. He fired classified employees he did not like (or who refused his sexual advances), punished faculty who were not supplicant and tried to crush honest trustee Nick Aguilar, the only member of the board with integrity and courage. Chopra’s minions mimicked his arrogant, dismissive behavior. Administrators screamed at faculty and threatened classified with termination. Employees were abused verbally, psychologically and, at times, physically. So were students. Administrators threw office supplies in rage. Union leaders were harassed. Five employees were fired outright (illegally as it turned out.) Students suffered as well. When they spoke out about academics they were sneered at and dismissed. When Chopra cut 429 classes, hundreds of students held a peaceful rally which Alioto called a “riot” and used the campus police to disperse (Chopra, ever the coward, left campus before the rally.) Chopra and Alioto suspended four professors for instigating the “riot,” including one who wasn’t even there. They found out they
Robert Unger as Yoda, brilliant counsel and advisor to the rebellion.
had been suspended that evening when an HR employee, flanked by armed campus cops, banged on their front doors to deliver their suspension papers. That may have been the beginning of the end of the terror, but the final straw was when they ordered The Sun newspaper to cease publication. Joined by Salcido, they ordered The Sun’s printer – Advanced Web Offset – not to print the issue that would break the South Bay Corruption Scandal. Journalism students and their advisor were detained for arrest by campus police. A two-and-a-half hour standoff ensued. The advisor received death threats as his home and car were vandalized. The week of the election he was accosted at gunpoint in his neighborhood. The Sun fought back and the story became national news. Voters – Democrats and Republicans – voiced their support for journalism students and their First Amendment rights. Donations poured in and The Sun was printed at a secret location in Los Angeles County. When the story broke the mass media of San Diego followed up – so did the Grand Jury and
Nicholas Alioto as Jabba the Hutt, the finance VP who handles money laundering, payoffs and bribery. el sol | Summer 2014 | 40
the District Attorney. It was the voters, though, who carried out ballot box justice. Two of the four corrupt board members were swept away. Aguilar, a rock in a stormy sea, finally had two more reformist allies. Change had come. In intervening years faces have changed. Students have come and gone, as have educators, classified employees and administrators. It is likely that most El Sol readers never had to deal with the poisonous atmosphere these criminals created. And that’s the way it should be. Right now Southwestern College is a different place, with a different atmosphere.
41 | el sol | Summer 2014
There is an abiding belief that no one on campus should feel the debilitating fear that came with the Chopra administration. Students should not need to worry about capricious class cuts that wipe out their chances of earning their Associate’s Degree or transferring to a four-year college. Employees should not have to walk on eggshells around certain administrative personnel, out of fear for their jobs, sexual harassment or abuse. But, unfortunately, some do. We must not forget that cracks in Chopra’s criminal administration began to appear a few years before it all came crashing down. It could happen again. It may be
happening now. Our current administration has some glaring cracks of its own. Our woefully unqualified police chief fires a bullet through a wall and barely misses three employees. One is on stress leave collecting her salary, one transferred to another office, and one is being harassed to keep his mouth shut. The college buried the investigation despite frightening evidence that our thrice-fired top cop is not mentally or psychologically fit for the job. Convicted criminal Ricasa showed such contempt for legal proceedings that she whipped up her supporters, many of whom
were former members of the ASO, to appear in court and shout, “We love you, Arlie!” Their posters, balloons, cheers and clapping blended with bullying tactics and gang banger behavior. She was the ringmaster of Circus Ricasa. Now she is using the same legal system to try to force SWC to keep paying her an administrator’s salary. Ricasa is part contempt of court, part contempt for the court. Most chilling for journalism students is that SWC President Melinda Nish and VP Kathy Tyner are now entering their fourth year of violating college policy and underfunding The Sun, especially its printing budget. If they think journalism students, our advisor and the governing board are going to put with that again, they are sorely – and sadly – mistaken. Nish actually tried to cut The Sun’s 2014-15 printing budget after the paper’s viewpoints page began challenging her decisions to de-emphasize academics, retain our trigger-happy police chief and keep Ricasa on staff. Push back if you’d like, but we are paying attention and we will not be intimidated. Make no mistake: this is not the criminal administration of a four years ago, but that is not good enough. Nish and crew need to bear down, focus on what is important and rise to a much higher standard. Southwestern used to be the gem of the South Bay instead of an embarrassment. It can be a gem again, but the scars are going to take time to fade. It has been a decade of darkness and this college is ready for a new dawn. We are still waiting for the sunrise. es
el sol | Summer 2014 | 42