Volume II Issue I by The Collective Voice

UCSD IS NO PLACE FOR A MINUTEMAN PAGE 4

VOICE THE COLLECTIVE

Volume II, Issue I spaces.ucsd.edu

VOICES OF PROGRESS AND CHANGE AT UCSD January 2009

THE MOVEMENT CONTINUES “I will listen to you... I will ask you join in the work of remaking this nation... Block by block, brick by brick, callused hand by callused hand.”

President-Elect Barack Obama will be inaugurated on January 20th, 2009.

The Movement Continues BY TAKASHI MATSUMOTO

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

“…And although it seems heaven sent, We ain’t ready, to see a black President, uhh, It ain’t a secret don’t conceal the fact, the penitentiary’s packed, and it’s filled with blacks, But some things will never change..” - Tupac -“Changes”

ho would have imagined 12 years after Tupac’s death (assuming that he really is dead) that the president of the United States would be Black? What would Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X say? American history has been punctuated and dictated

by the national disgraces of slavery, Jim Crow laws, mob lynching, segregation, and racial discrimination. Racism against African Americans and other oppressed minorities has been “the American way of life,” more so than anything resembling true democracy. However, on election day 2008, a new chapter in American history began: an overwhelming number of Americans voted to send the first Black president to the White House. Not only are the Democrats in the U.S. celebrating Obama’s victory, but also people all over the world. The aftermath of his election brought millions of people worldwide to the streets in celebration, filled souvenir shops and magazine stands with Obama paraphernalia, and even inspired a global artistic movement in commemoration of the Presidentelect. The international response to the 2008 presidential election has been

PHOTO: WIRED

unprecedented. Obama’s victory opens the door for every racial minority who may too aspire to become the president of the United States someday. At the same time, we need to keep the Movement going. Let’s be real: Obama is not going to take care of everything. He is not going to fix every problem by himself. Remember the reason why the Civil Rights Movement occurred, the reason why Affirmative Action was able to pass, and the reason why legal discrimination was banned. John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson did not wake up one day and say “Something is wrong with this country! I need to pass a new law!” Change occurred because of social movements led by people like you and I, who marched on the streets hand in hand; who flooded public places and segregated spaces in civil disobedience; who struggled because they

See OBAMA on page 5

Bailout: not learning from history BY YUKI MURAKAMI

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

hen the Federal Reserve (the Fed) was originally considering the $700 billion bailout, it reasoned that the bailout would increase investor confidence in the market. Investor confidence is reflected in the stock market, so public perception of the bailout plan is a good indicator of how well it will work. In this case, the Fed should have realized its plan would fail when polls showed over half of the population with no confidence in the bailout. Beyond the repeated rhetoric on the credit crisis reaction, what has been left relatively unmentioned is why the government was so unprepared for this sort of emergency. Even though Fed-head Ben Bernanke has studied the Great Depression ad nauseam and Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson had been communicating with the heads of a few investment banks about the direction of their assets, this conservative couple seemed to be taken by surprise when so many upper-end banks started floundering or even going belly-up. The bailout enabled the unable banks to continue the same trends and spend half a million dollars on an executive retreat for American International Group less than a week after the bailout. The crisis and the results of their bailout – a further depressed stock market – were not unforeseen. In fact, many economists saw the situation as analogous to the Great Depression; banks fail, investments drop, and people lose jobs. Then, the national decline affects markets and economies around the global north, partially because the European and the more powerful Asian markets work very much the same as the US-investment economy. The bailout plan was similar to the bank closure; the administration hoped that temporarily preventing a drop in investments would protect them from further stock-value decrease. Why was the response so different

See BAILOUT on page 7

A HISTORY OF ACTIVISM AT UCSD PAGE 5

CAMPUS ART AND CAMPUS DIVERSITY

STUDENTS DISCUSS NEW POSSIBILITIES, PAGE 4 CONCEPT FOR PETERSON HALL MURAL BY ARTIST MARIO TORERO

UCSD STUDENTS BLOCK THE I-5 FREEWAY IN PROTEST OF THE 1992 RODNEY KING VERDICT

2 THE COLLECTIVE VOICE January 2008

Marriage Equality for All

hile While Barack Obama’s presidential victory may have swept away the millions of naysayers who vouched the United States was not ready for a Black president, the approval of Proposition 8 in California, which divested same-sex couples of the right to marry, signified that hundreds of thousands of Californians would no longer enjoy equality under the law. The passage of the amendment meant that gays and lesbians were to be stripped of their dignity; that while their contributions to the society were valued, they were insufficient; that while they could participate freely in the political process, they were something less than human. For those of you who supported Proposition 8 or carry the belief that it expressed, you have just denied another human being what is fundamentally a question of their humanity. Shame on you. Before proceeding, I would like to lay out some basic parameters as preface. I understand that the act of defending gay marriage carries the assumption that I am necessarily affected by the new legislation,

THE COLLECTIVE VOICE CO-EDITORS IN CHIEF Sam Huang Juan Vazquez STAFF WRITERS Saifuddin Amath Denise Manjarrez CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Alessandra Barbosa Jose I. Fuste Thoai Lu Takashi Mastumoto Yuki Murakami Julie Prado Isai Rosas Duc Tran Allyssa Villanueva The Collective Voice is a studentrun, student-initiated publication of UCSD’s SPACES, The Student Promoted Access Center for Education and Service. The mission of the Student Promoted Access Center for Education and Service (SPACES) is to act as an empowering dynamic on campus where UCSD students collaborate to achieve greater educational equity. This encompasses equal access to higher education, undergraduate retention and graduation, and matriculation to graduate and professional schools. SPACES values the power of student initiated action and organizing by providing an environment for student growth and development and thus is a foundation to create leadership and unity through community engagement.

UCSD SPACES cveditors@gmail.com spaces.ucsd.edu

EDITORIAL that I am either gay myself or know someone close to me that is gay. While I would readily clarify these ambiguities in private, I think providing an answer as to whether I satisfy both, either, or none of these conditions is irrelevant here. That is because from any point of view, depriving hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens of their rights to marry is neither rational or justified. It is illogical, immoral, and downright bigoted. But perhaps I just don’t get it. Maybe I don’t understand what in particular about this issue matters so much to “Yes on 8” supporters. In 2006, when South Africa (yes, the country which stood at the center of American criticism for upholding the system of apartheid until the early 1990s) legalized same-sex marriages, no violent rebellion ensued; no one’s rights were violated. Not only has the nation remained politically and socially intact, but over hundreds of thousands of South Africans have finally been given opportunity to feel a little less lonesome and a little less afraid. With the passage of Proposition 8, the happiness of hundreds of thousands of Californians is presently at stake, and the integrity of our political system dangles from a frayed thread. With this civil rights crisis at the forefront of national politics, I have some questions for those who oppose gay marriage: what is it about this issue that matters to you? Does it make you uncomfortable? Perhaps you just don’t like idea? No one is attempting to deny any one of your rights. No one is forbidding you to marry. And looking to the model of South Africa (just if you’re worried), gay marriage will not hasten the coming of the apocalypse. Decades following the dismantlement of Jim Crow segregation, Americans persist in writing discrimination into law. Campaigns of terror and repression have been waged not just against people of color but also, just as brutally, against gay and lesbian communities. More significantly, the terror is ongoing and intensifying. According to a report released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2007, whereas 52% of hate crimes were motivated by a race bias, 15.9% of hate crimes were motivated by a sexual orientation bias. In addition, the

number of homophobic attacks in 2007 increased by 6% since the preceding year. Discrimination can no longer be viewed as simply a “Black” and “White” issue. The law presently gives Americans the green light to regard discrimination based on sexual orientation less serious and less legitimate than discrimination based on race or gender. Under the new law, social exclusion of the LGBT community becomes not only permissible but the standard. However, as clarification, I am not contending that the struggle against homophobia is either more or less serious than the continued struggle against racism. Both movements, especially in context of the history of marriage exclusion, lie within the same narrative of discrimination and abuse. It is virtually impossible to view the current debate over gay marriage without at least casual reference to the history of miscegenation laws, which criminalized interracial marriage. “Yes on 8” forces today are redeploying the very same ugly rhetoric that White supremacists used to proscribe racial mixing just a little over half a century ago--that the marriage in question contravened the rule of God or was quite simply unnatural in moral society. Though often ignored by many Americans, miscegenation law formed a fundamental aspect of the social bedrock for nearly three centuries, from its first legal enactment in the colony of Maryland in 1664 to its demise in the Loving v Virginia Supreme Court decision in 1967. To this day, the same structures of marriage exclusion persist in the ongoing debate over Proposition 8. While I admit to a certain degree of discomfort in making these types of linear historical comparisons, the blatant type of legalized discrimination embodied by Proposition 8 nonetheless bears an ominous tone in light of this shameful history. At the peak of the political melee, gay marriage prohibitionists began equating Proposition 8 with religious freedom. Whether they genuinely believed the fact or hoped deceit would play in their favor, their skillful political maneuvering tilted the balance toward rescinding the right to marry for same-sex couples across the

THE COLLECTIVE VOICE

MISSION STATEMENT

In line with SPACES’ mission of valuing “the power of student initiated action,” “providing an environment for student growth and development,” and creating “unity through community engagement,” The Collective Voice is UCSD’s progressive newspaper that promotes social unity, justice and awareness across the many communities that exist on the UCSD campus. The Collective Voice will help create a sense of safe space and community for students who may otherwise feel unwelcome at UCSD’s challenging campus climate thereby contributing to existing retention efforts on campus. This newspaper deeply values students’ voices by providing an outlet for open dialogue and discussion surrounding issues and developments affecting their communities. Additionally, The Collective Voice allows UCSD’s progressive community to outreach, collaborate and communicate to greater San Diego communities outside of our campus. Most importantly, The Collective Voice provides marginalized students and under-resourced students the empowering opportunity to protect the representation of their identities and beliefs, and report alternative news that is not otherwise covered by mainstream media. The Collective Voice, in partnership with S.P.A.C.E.S., allows for the creation of “an empowering dynamic…where UCSD students collaborate to achieve greater educational equity.” It is through this mission that the collective of diverse voices in one newspaper will actively demonstrate an empowering progressive community on the UCSD campus.

country. With voices ringing and fingers pointing, the “Prop 8” zealots likened their campaign to a crusade to preserve the “sanctity” of marriage. While the appeals to religion may have been primarily responsible for hauling in their victory, I just can’t view much of this religious hooha with seriousness. In fact, it is absolutely ridiculous that while 50% of all marriages in the United States end in divorce, the “Yes on 8” forces seem to look toward the gay marriage ban as a solution to society’s moral decay. Unspoken in the news is the number of those forced into marrying someone of the opposite sex, who are forced into fraudulent marriages, unfeeling marriages, marriages that are meaningful on paper though meaningless elsewhere. Preserving the “sanctity” of marriage is not about a union between a man and a woman. It is about a union forged on the basis of reciprocal love and respect. Bigotry and hatred have perverted what should remain the sacrosanct. In coming weeks, the integrity of the nation will be tested: the California Supreme Court will determine the constitutionality of Proposition 8. As the fate of the bill remains uncertain, fear and anxiety runs rampant among the hundreds of thousands of Americans whose legal standing, along with their dignity, remains under assault. While I had hoped never to write this editorial, the legal and social implications of the amendment for all minorities, not just the LGBT community, were too serious for me to neglect. The passage of Proposition 8 set the precedent that equality under the law was not guaranteed and that the right to marriage, just as much as any other right, was expendable. In this state of social emergency, the apocalyptic days when Jim Crow segregation prevailed and the spectacle of lynching set the backdrop for Sunday picnics serve as ample warning for us not to repeat the errors of the past. The specter of reverting to such a state may seem ridiculous, but that it is in no respects an impossibility is serious cause for alarm.

SAM HUANG

CO-EDITOR IN CHIEF

10 POINT PLATFORM

1. We want freedom 2. We want social unity and equality for all people on campus 3. We want to promote social awareness and combat social ignorance 4. We want to unite student activists and students with progressive values and common struggles 5. We want to educate others about ourstories and our true role in present-day society 6. We want educational equity and to empower under-resourced communities 7. We want to fight the rhetoric propagated by oppressive forces on campus 8. We want our beliefs, practices, and ethics to be illustrated in a correct light 9. We want peace. The ability to coexist on campus without fear of prejudice or persecution 10. We want to be recognized as equal individuals despite and because of our ethnicity, religious affiliation, race, gender, or sexual orientation

Jim Gilchrist Speaks at UCSD UCSD STUDENTS PROTEST MINUTEMEN PROJECT FOUNDER BY ISAI ROSAS

CONTRIBUTING WRITER On the morning of October 16, over 100 students and faculty gathered at the UCSD Extension Complex to protest the lecture of Minuteman Project co-founder Jim Gilchrist. Minuteman Project is an extremist anti-immigration organization that monitors the Mexican border through “vigilante” patrol tactics. Students from UCSD and SDSU rallied peacefully for over two hours, expressing their concerns about what they charged as racist and xenophobic hate speech within the campus community. Chanting in unison and marching with banners in hand, the students stated that while they would approve and support a nonbiased discourse on immigration issues, Gilchrist’s complete command over lecture time provided an unfair and prejudiced perspective on Mexican immigration. “We condemn this university because this is a place where the university is supposed to teach with fact, with information, with educated critical evaluations, and this is a place where knowledge that is based on good, harmony, and understanding and progress. not knowledge that is based on someone’s fear and hatred and violence in this country,” said ethnic studies graduate student Jose Fuste. Jim Gilchrist was invited by the OSHER Lifelong Learning Institute to give a lecture titled “The uncertain consequences to the United States if immigration policies and laws are not enforced.” OSHER is a program for seniors 50 years and older and is a part of UCSD Extension. The protesters charged Gilchrist and the Minuteman Project with fueling racial hatred against Mexican Americans and for distorting the facts about immigration.

CURRENT

“[Gilchrist] is going to tell you he’s not a racist,” said Fuste. “That’s because he’s not an open racist; he’s a closet racist because he doesn’t have the rectitude the honesty to tell you what he really thinks. His whole campaign is motivated by his fear that people who speak different languages or are a little different are coming into the U.S.” Jim Gilchrist and the Minuteman Project are known for its connections with Neo-Nazi Organizations. In 2005, The Southern Poverty Law Center, a Federal American Legal organization that tracks organizations considered Hate Groups, released a report which stated that Jim Gilchrist willingly permitted members of the National Alliance, one of the largest neo-Nazi organizations in U.S. and Europe, to assist the Minuteman Project. A former Minuteman volunteer also confessed that the Minuteman Project was allowing Nazi Skinheads to run the phone banks and Information technology. Since its creation in 2005, the Minuteman Project has garnered the scrutiny of many civil rights activists, who allege the organization of violating the First Amendment rights and maltreating Mexican immigrants. On April 6, 2005, Minuteman Project volunteers made an immigrant wear a T-shirt that read “Bryan Barton caught me crossing the border and all I got was this lousy T-shirt”. The Minuteman workers took pictures and recorded the spectacle on video. They then called border patrol to take the man into custody. In 2007, the board of directors of the Minuteman Project fired Jim Gilchrist over accusations of fraud, mismanagement and document falsification. Following his dismissal, Gilchrist created his own “Jim Gilchrist’s Minuteman Project”. The Minuteman Project has inspired the formation of several “vigilante” border patrol groups, who often resort to violence in their confrontations with Mexican immigrants. In July 2005, two Mexican immigrants were shot along a stretch of territory patrolled by California Minutemen. While one was shot inside the U.S., the other was shot in Mexican territory.

PHOTO: CHRIS DATILES

Students marched and around the UCSD Extension building where Jim Gilchrist was speaking to a group of senior citizens. Equipped with rifles, handguns, clubs, and other weaponry, the Minutemen have also been involved in several violent confrontations with protesters. On one occasion, a listener who had attended Gilchrist’s lectures drove his car into a crowd of three hundred protesters after the protesters started beating the car with placards and other objects. Three in the crowd were wounded, and eight were arrested at the event. Another confrontation occurred in July 2005 when a heavily armed group of Minutemen threatened to open fire on a congregation of protesters keeping watch on their post. Ridiculing and shining lights at the Minutemen, the protesters, equipped only with a video camera, recorded the night time exchange. After one protester asked if the Minutemen were trying to threaten them, a Minuteman member responded “Listen assholes, you wanna play? Let’s play, motherfucker, let’s go!” In response to the rally against his lecture at UCSD, Gilchrist argued that the protesters were encroaching on his rights to free speech. Protesters responded by saying that UCSD administration and programs should not invite Gilchrist as a distinguished lecturer because much of

UCSD Students Protest Gay Marriage Ban BY SAM HUANG

On November 14, hundreds of UCSD students, staff, faculty, and local community members marched across campus to protest the passage of Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriages in California. The rally began at Price Center Plaza with an open microphone session held to discuss the impact of the Proposition on gay, lesbian, and transgender communities. Speakers talked about their experiences and reactions to the new legislation. “We’re here against Proposition 8,” said UCSD alumni Kevin Mann. “It’s unfair. It’s wrong. For the first time, we’re facing an election where people want to write discrimination into our constitution. We should be moving forward as a state, forward as a nation.” UCSD student Cheyenne Stevens said that the gay marriage ban was unacceptable in an equal and just society. “They want me in the kitchen or in the closet. And I refuse to accept that somehow those were the nostalgic days that we as a society were aiming for. We should be aiming for a society and a legal system that would agree to give all of our citizens all

the basic rights,” she said. As of now, hundreds of thousands from the gay and lesbian communities and their supporters have taken to the streets in a nationwide protest to express their grief and anger over the new legislation. A number of national and state organizations--including the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and Lambda Legal-- filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of Proposition Eight in the Supreme Court. Four Bay Area counties, along with the City of San Francisco and the City of Los Angeles, filed similar challenges to the state high court. Prominent African American, Asian American, and Latin@ organizations filed a petition on November 14, which stipulated that the gay marriage ban threatened the legal standing of all minority groups. At noon, protesters at UCSD marched across Library Walk, chanting and waving banners that expressed disapproval of Proposition Eight. They arrived at the Chancellor’s complex, and requested that the University, which had remained neutral on the issue, to participate in the repeal movement.

January 2009 THE COLLECTIVE VOICE 3

what he said constituted racially charged hate-speech. Students argued that UCSD administrators should not be using their tuition fees to invite speakers like Gilchrist on campus. They urged coordinators of the OSHER to provide educational and evenly balanced discussions on Mexican immigration. Director of Student Legal Services Anthony Valladolid insisted that OSHER was allowed to hold private events, even though student money was being used. “This area is not open to the public. Even though it’s on a public university and even though you’re a student who pays to come here and all of our taxes pay to support it, it’s still closed, and because of that they can have meetings and charge their memberships and not make it open to anyone else,” he said. While the protesters were still displeased with the UCSD extension for inviting Gilchrist to speak, they stated their satisfaction with the support of roughly a hundred student and faculty members. Even as the rally died down, the protesters continued to chant their cries for unity and voice their commitment to ending the promotion of messages based on fear and racial hatred.

CAMPUS HATE CRIMES GO UNNOTICED

Rob Corea, a Thurgood Marshall College senior and one of the primary protest organizers, read aloud a letter that rally organizers had sent to Chancellor Mary Anne Fox urging UCSD to officially denounce the gay marriage ban. “It is imperative that UC San Diego takes an assertive stance in the name of equality, proclaiming the fundamental right of all Americans to marry, and give moral and political support to those who have been denied a chance at fairness and equality under the law,” said Corea. “Failure to acknowledge the removal of the rights held by members of our community gives tacit and powerful support to the institutions and organizations that subvert equality and marginalize the struggles of those engaged in the next great struggle in pursuit of full civil rights for all.” Chancellor Fox vouched support of the protesting students, but declined to take an official stance on the issue. She said that the UC Regents required chancellors, as spokespersons of the university, to remain nonpartisan on political issues unrelated to higher education.

Despite the upsurge in the number of hate crimes and incidents directed against Muslim students at UC San Diego within the last several months, campus authorities have taken little to no action in protecting the victims or preventing further hate crimes from happening. With little being done, Muslim students continue to face racial and religious hostility on campus. The nature and variety of the recent hate crimes offers an unsettling account of the prejudice that many Muslims face daily. A few months ago, the board members of the Muslim Student Association notified campus authorities after receiving anonymous emails containing messages such as “F*** Muslims, F*** Palestinians, F*** the MSA.” Because of the safety net of freedom of speech under California law, campus authorities could only classify the set

see PROTEST on page 7

see MUSLIM on page 7

MUSLIM HATE CRIMES ON THE RISE

BY SAIFUDDIN AMATH

4 THE COLLECTIVE VOICE January 2008

FOCUS

ON COMMUNITY AND PUBLIC ART ON CAMPUS BY ALLYSSA VILLANUEVA CONTRIBUTING WRITER

BEFORE

PETERSON HALL

SOLIS HALL

PETERSON HALL

AFTER

GRAPHIC: LOCAL ARTIST MARIO TORERO CREATED THESE IMAGES AS AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT SEVERAL CAMPUS BUILDINGS MIGHT LOOK LIKE.

hen walking through Warren College, students may often find amusement in encountering a rock statue of a giant teddy bear. Near Geisel library at night, the hauntingl music emanating from the trees might frighten the unsuspecting passerby. In Marshall plaza, a broken television set and a hollowed block of concrete lie strewn about the lawn like pieces of trash. While meant to be aesthetically pleasing and intellectually stimulating, the current collection of artwork at UCSD often seems irrelevant to the lives of most college students. In response, El Movimiento Estudiantil Chican@ de Aztlán (MEChA) and the UCSD Chican@/Latin@ Concilio-- a group comprised of students, staff, and faculty-- entered into a joint partnership last spring to pressure UCSD administrators into installing culturally relevant artwork on campus. “We [people of color] don’t see ourselves in the structure of the campus,” said Concilio member Patrick Velasquez. “New art would be an important step to making the University think differently about us.”

MECHA and Concilio decided last spring quarter that the campus climate was a crucial factor in students of color remaining at UCSD. They plan to, if approved, paint cultural murals on a selection of stone buildings around campus. They are currently working with Chicano artist Mario Torero, who is responsible for producing many of the murals seen around San Diego, most notably in Chicano Park. Torreo has already begun planning how the murals will look like by using Adobe Photoshop to simulate his designs on campus buildings. The proposed murals would depict different ethnicities, experiences, and cultural backgrounds. MECHA and Concilio intend to make more visible the presence of people of color on campus and help to create a more inclusive university atmosphere that recognizes and supports students, staff, and faculty of color. They argue that culturally relevant art would also increase the effect of outreach and retention on campus. All of the UCSD art was created or approved by the Stuart Collection, a company that contracts an international

league of artists who mainly focus on conceptual art. In 1982, the Stuart Collection and UCSD entered into an agreement that would enable the company to use the campus as home for its artwork. While the Stuart Collection intends its art selection to provoke thought, inspiration, and interpretation, many feel that the campus should also feature artwork that portrays people of color and celebrates cultural diversity. MECHA board member Edgar Flores said that UCSD, as a public university, should reflect the diversity of people, thoughts, and experiences that exist on campus. “I feel that the current art doesn’t reflect students accurately. Giraffe catchers and a bear made out of rocks provide no connection to what it means to be a student in the 21st century,” said Flores. New art installations on campus must go through a rigorous process of approval. The Stuart Foundation Advisory Committee, a group comprised of international artists, determines the selection of artists for the commissions. The projects chosen by the committee then undergo a second

OBAMA, from page 1

Why

are

ucsd

workers’

families living in poverty?

The University of California has thousands of service workers who keep its 10 campuses and five medical centers running by cleaning dorms, hospitals, offices and labs; disposing of biohazards; maintaining buildings and grounds; and providing cafeteria and bus services. Many of these UC families live in poverty. In fact, UC service workers' wages are so low many of them can't meet their families' basic needs without working two jobs. As many as 96 percent of UC families can qualify for at least one of the following forms of public assistance: food stamps, WIC, child care and public housing subsidies. Skyrocketing gas prices and stagnant wages have created a crisis for thousands of these UC families that are already living paycheck-to-paycheck.

www.facingpovertyatuc.org

knew something was wrong with a system falling miserably short of its promises of equality. The Civil Rights Movement happened because massive numbers of people mobilized together for a greater cause and refused to accept a condition of life that was both destructive and humiliating. Broadcasted on mainstream media in 2006, the most recent mass social movement occurred in response to the proposition in Congress of the Border Protection, Anti-terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act (HR 4437). HR 4437 would have made it a crime for anyone to assist to an undocumented immigrant while “knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such person is an alien who lacks lawful authority to reside in or remain in the United States.” This would mean, for example, that if an undocumented person were injured, the doctors who provide him medical assistance would be liable to prosecution under the law. The bill caused uproar in many immigrant communities, fueling a mass mobilization against what protesters

review process, whereby the chancellor finally determines whether or not to approve the proposal. Throughout the review process, the artists design and tailor their work to a chosen UCSD site. As the Stuart Collection plays a determining role in the selection of the commissions, MECHA and Concilio members charge the Advisory Board of making biased decisions on the type of artwork on campus. Just recently, the university revised the process to get permanent art on campus. Many supporters of the culturally relevant art collection argue that because the new review process is longer and more tedious than before, the University is unconcerned with student efforts to promote cultural diversity. Recently, MECHA started a petition for installing cultural artwork at UCSD. To learn more, visit clah.ucsd.edu and click on “artes visuales”. MEChA meets every Monday from 5:00-6:30pm in the Cross Cultural Center “Comunidad” Room in Price Center East.

charged as racist and discriminatory legislation. As millions of people all over the U.S. chanted and marched down the street, HR 4437 failed to pass in the senate.

Now that we have a president that might listen to us, more than ever in the history of U.S., we really need to step it up.

The voices of millions have a huge effect on the role of the government. Just because you voted and Obama won doesn’t mean that we should do nothing and wait for all the problems to be solved. Now that we have a president that might listen to us, more than ever in the history of U.S., we really need to step it up. Let us celebrate the victory of Barack Hussein Obama, while at the same time fighting alongside with those who are struggling. With this extra push of ‘hope’, the movement continues… and we can bring about the changes that Tupac could have only imagined…

January 2009 THE COLLECTIVE VOICE 5

KEEPING AN ACTIVIST HISTORY ALIVE BY ALESSANDRA BARBOSA

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

n a hallway across from the Price Center West ballrooms, often enveloped by the almost too perfect San Diego sun, comfortably sits a timeline of UCSD history on the walls: in 1975, Mandeville Center opens; in 1987, the new University Center groundbreaking takes place; in 1993, former Chancellor Richard Atkinson requests a steppingup of campus affirmative action efforts. Facts? Yes. Historical accounts of students’ social discontent? Not quite. Today’s talk concerning a campus with characteristically apathetic students reflects a distant tone from the dynamic student activism of the 1970s and 1980s. While the pristine images of sunny La Jolla may seem to encourage an unadulterated perception of the area’s past, UCSD contains a history of political turbulence and student activism that should not be overlooked. The establishment of the San Diego military base prior to WWII set the scene for student activism centered around several critical military issues. Student protests against the Vietnam War during the 1970s took various forms. In 1970, after pressuring the college administration and rallying for weeks, UCSD students succeeded in forcing CIA recruiters off campus. The symbolic achievement was soon followed by an antiwar art installation in Revelle Plaza. The artists responsible for holding the event captured the atrocities of war by creating a visual display that was both provocative and grotesque. They filled body bags with rocks, meat, and newspapers, lining them along Revelle Plaza. In addition, in 1972, hundreds of students organized by Students Against Vietnam War participated in a blockade of Interstate 5 to spread their messages of peace in civil disobedience. Issues abroad received significant student attention as well. In response to the South African Apartheid, students engaged in sleep-ins in what is now CLICS

PHOTO: FROM “UCSD EXPOSED”, AVAILABLE AT UCSD LIBRARIES, SOURCE: UCSD CLAH

library, organized protests, and called for campus wide strikes. UCSD students and administrators also invited several prominent political figures to speak on campus. During the 1980s, American intervention in El Salvador and Nicaragua also sparked a series of protests. Throughout the years, as activist movements expanded and gained momentum, many student protesters were arrested or suspended. UCSD was also witness to a series of educational movements. In 1969, students rallied together to create Lumumba-Zapata College, which would service primarily Chicano and African American students. While the college was ultimately named Thurgood Marshall College, the visionary principles of diversity and community activism remained the college’s basic theme. The quiet facade of campus centers conceal the turbulent movements waged to create safe spaces around UCSD for minority students. In 1973, the the Women’s Coalition began pushing UCSD administrators to create a center for women. After the coalition struggled for nearly two years, it was finally able to obtain

university funding in 1974. However, as the center failed to have its funding renewed for the following two years, a group of unpaid volunteers set about the task of maintaining the center throughout 1980s. The dedication and commitment of these volunteers have helped to preserve the women’s community on campus.

UC students have also risen up against their very own governing body, the UC Regents. More recently in 1992, students protested the tuition fee increase by Governor Wilson at the San Diego Federal Building. Their requests to speak with the governor, while enthusiastic, unfortunately did not succeed. This historical information, while often forgotten or unnoticed by the students sunbathing on the Price Center lawn, can be reawakened by simple searches on UCSD’s history at Geisel Library. These mere highlights can in no way be conclusive of the university’s controversial history. A resonating pictorial history of this student activism is documented in the 1992 student funded publication “UCSD Exposed.” There is something intangibly provoking in viewing pictures and hearing a history of a politicized campus climate. As students of the university, our knowledge of the facts should be more transparent and deeper than the clean two-sentenced history on the walls. Recognizing this less favorable university history is not done with the sole intention of criticizing administration, but rather with the greater objective of progressing in time and in social justice.

LEARN MORE ON THE WEB

The following are documentaries that can both be found online on google video, video.google.com. Also, look for more on the history of ucsd in future issues of the collective voice!

1. “Growing Activism”, a documentary by UCTV featuring interviews with students, staff and faculty speaking about significant events in the history of activism on campus. 2. ” Herbert’s Hippopotamus: Marcuse and Revolution in Paradise”, examines the life of philosopher and former UCSD professor Herbert Marcuse and his involvement in student movements in the 1960’s.

THE COLLECTIVE VOICE

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6 THE COLLECTIVE VOICE January 2008

UCSD is No Place for a Minuteman

would like to clarify here why on October 16, over 100 students protested the lecture of Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist on campus. Most readers would agree that universities are not soapboxes for people to freely express their unsubstantiated personal opinions. We don’t just pick random people off the street and bring them here as distinguished lecturers. The university is a forum for persons who seek to grow our collective knowledge in a way that improves society. In my opinion, Gilchrist is far from qualified to speak as a “distinguished lecturer.” Here’s why: First, he willfully distorts the facts about immigration. In a recent article published in the Georgetown Immigration Law Journal, Gilchrist blames undocumented immigrants for creating traffic gridlock,

a letter to Pres. Bush reminding him of the benefits of immigration. Here is what the primary author of this letter said on this issue: “Economists disagree about a lot of things but there is a consensus on many of the important issues surrounding immigration...The consensus is that most Americans benefit from immigration and that the negative effects on low-skilled workers are somewhere between an 8% wage reduction to no loss in wages at all.” The notion that undocumented immigrants are a burden on taxpayers is also a distortion of the truth. They pay the same real estate taxes and the same sales and other consumption taxes that other Americans pay. The majority of state and local costs of schooling and other services are funded by these taxes. Also, the U.S. Social Security Administration has estimated that three quarters of undocumented immigrants pay payroll taxes, and that they contribute $6-7 billion

hospital bankruptcies, terrorist attacks, and instability in housing costs. He says they deteriorate the quality of education, deplete our natural resources, increase crimes like violent offenses and identity fraud, and bring in leprosy. He also holds them responsible for multi-billion annual frauds against U.S. taxpayers, for neighborhood terrorism conducted by fearless street gangs, for importation of lethal drugs, for increases in university tuition costs, and for reducing the quality of medical care. In the section of the article where he lays out these wild accusations, he provides only one footnote as a reference: an LA Times article, which he claims states how Los Angeles has the lowest literacy rate of any city in the country. Not only is this piece completely outdated (1993) and untrue (the least literate city today is El Paso, TX), the article provides no proof that undocumented immigrants are to blame for illiteracy. As a matter of fact, the article doesn’t say a single word about illiteracy. It is about how two-year schools were charging graduates higher fees (Gilchrist conveniently left out the part of the title that makes the article’s intent explicit). The fact is that these claims are unsubstantiated. On the issue of the economy, experts consistently point out that immigration (including the undocumented kind) has a substantial positive growth effect on the U.S. economy. In 2006, a group of 500 economists— including five Nobel Laureates—wrote

in Social Security funds that they will be unable to claim. The same goes for the claim that immigrants are causing a leprosy epidemic. It has been discredited by none other than the CDC. Also, the notion that recent immigrants (mostly Latino) commit more crimes than other Americans is completely misguided. One study in Florida found that the homicide rates were significantly lower for Latinos there than for other groups. Criminologist Andrew Karmen found the same trend in New York City. Robert J. Sampson, chairman of Harvard’s sociology department, reported in 2005 that the rate of violence among Mexican Americans was significantly lower than among nonLatino Americans. The facts say that overall, undocumented immigrants make this country a better place. That is why immigrants’ rights advocates seek to give these people legal status. The majority of them are productive, law-abiding citizens (except for their undocumented status, which is a misdemeanor offense). We owe it to them. The other reason why we opposed Mr. Gilchrist’s presence on campus is because we consider his speech to be hateful and potentially harmful to the millions of Latinos who live in this country. The lies he spreads are like yelling fire in a crowded theater. Like Rep. John Lewis recently said: “George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but

The Model Minority Myth

success, they have often been touted as a rising example to other minorities. While at first glance this generalization might seem flattering, many Asian American scholars believe that because such broadly drawn racial classifications tend to overlook the socioeconomic disparities among different Asian ethnic groups, governmental programs and charity organizations often dismiss or neglect the Asian Americans who require public assistance. The stereotype of Asian Americans as a “model minority” has been popularly cited by the press and in discussions about affirmative action, immigration, and education. The model minority stereotype

José I. Fusté

In 2007, Gilchrist told a crowd of 400 people that “it’s OK to say ‘rapist,’ ‘robber’ and ‘murder,’ when referring to ‘illegal aliens’.”

BY DUC TRAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

A quick look around the campus can generally provide a basic estimate of the demographic complexion of the UCSD student population: a significant amount of Asian and White students, but very few Latin@s and even fewer Black students. The number of Asian Americans attending colleges has been on the rise since the 1970s, leading to the mythical image that Asians have overcome racial discrimination in the United States. With many of them able to achieve economic

he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans.” The Minutemen may not go around assaulting and killing immigrants with their own hands but it is no coincidence that since they—and other similar nativist groups—began their antiimmigrant crusade in recent years, there has been a sharp increase in anti-Latino hate crimes. Recent FBI statistics say they rose 35% between 2003 and 2006. In California, the state with the largest number of Latinos, hate crimes against Latinos have almost doubled. Here are some examples: a) Oct. 16, 2005, Sacramento: Six people are injured by three white men who crash a private party with the intent of “beating up Mexicans;” b) Sept. 17, 2006, Laguna Beach: A truck driven by two men hits two Latino workers at a day labor center, and one of the workers is also assaulted; c) Aug. 8, 2007, Garden Grove, Calif.: Felipe Alvarado, an immigrant working as a janitor at a fast-food restaurant, is taunted with racist threats and then attacked by three men, one of whom is carrying a loaded gun. Also, this year, in the town of Shenandoah, PA, Luis Eduardo Ramírez, a Mexican immigrant, was beat do death by several white teenagers while they yelled racial slurs at him. No one is suggesting here that Gilchrist or the Minutemen are directly ordering people to commit these misdeeds. However, by stirring the pot with their inflammatory rhetoric and deceptions, they are tacitly

respected institution from validating Gilchrist as a legitimate commentator on immigration issues. We sought to stop the university from amplifying his message of hate. One attendee to the lecture told me that she was there to hear Gilchrist’s point of view and that we should let him speak. My response to her was this: would the Osher Institute invite a holocaust denier and anti-Semite to speak as a “distinguished lecturer”? If so, would she be inclined to go hear him and thus validate him as a legitimate speaker? I am not accusing Gilchrist of being neither a Holocaust denier nor an anti-Semite. What I do know is that through his distortions and his paranoid, xenophobic, Nativist, anti-immigrant prejudice, he has become our [i.e., Latinos’] version of one. I personally have no problems with inviting to UCSD speakers with contrasting ideas on immigration. However, if we want to uphold our reputation, we should make sure they are truly distinguished lecturers who deal with facts. A university is no pulpit for a self-proclaimed “vigilante” who goes around scaring people into believing that undocumented immigrants are a threat to the “preservation of a longestablished American heritage, culture, and language” (an almost direct quote from the above cited journal article by Gilchrist). This is the same type of cultural racism that German, Irish, Italian, Jewish, Chinese, and Japanese immigrants faced when they arrived here (legally and illegally).

encouraging Americans to act violently towards immigrants. In 2007, Gilchrist told a crowd of 400 people that “it’s OK to say ‘rapist,’ ‘robber’ and ‘murder,’ when referring to ‘illegal aliens’.” This is exactly the sort of mental picture of immigrants that leads some to commit shameful and sometimes fatal acts of violence against them. On October 16, we tried to prevent our

I regret that in the end, UCSD and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute fell into Gilchrist’s trap and we weren’t able to stop them. The next time he speaks at a forum, he will likely qualify his “lecture” by saying that he was once invited to lecture at UCSD as a “distinguished” person. Shame on UCSD for allowing him to do so.

PHOTO: SPL CTR.

José I. Fusté, Ph.D. Candidate, Dept. of Ethnic Studies

is the belief that through hard work, determination, and perseverance, Asian Americans can successfully integrate into American society. It views Asian Americans as economically successful, especially compared to other minorities, even though they have faced severe discrimination in the past. Believers in the stereotype draw from empirical evidence suggesting that Asian Americans “outdo” other races, earning at times higher than the dominant White majority. In 2004, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that Asian Americans earned a median income of $56,200, $8,000 higher than the $48,800 earned by non-Hispanic Whites. Asian-

Americans are also more likely to have higher degrees: 44% of Asian Americans hold at least a bachelor’s degree, compared to 24% of the general population and 27% of non-Hispanic Whites. As the statistical evidence points to a general pattern of Asian American success, politicians, educators, and many other public figures have used the model minority myth to essentially deny the relevance of racism as an explanation to social inequality. Their basic logic is that Asian Americans, by simply working hard, can succeed unhampered by social or political restraints. What exactly is wrong with such a

see MYTH, page 8

OPINION

PROTEST, from page 3 “Having the community come together as what we perceive as human rights is something to be proud of,” said the Chancellor. “Human rights are at the base of our principles of community, and the University of California San Diego, like our sister schools in the University of California, have all stood up for those who are underrepresented and were marginalized.” The protesters continued to urge the Chancellor Fox to denounce Proposition Eight. “If this were the 50s and 60s, would the universities take a stance on segregation? Yes, they would and they have,” said Corea. “But why is it now that the university as an institution will not publicly decry and repudiate the denial of gay marriage to California citizens?” The protesters took the rally across La Jolla, lining along the sidewalk of Gilman Drive and waving banners at honking cars. On November 19, the California Supreme Court granted review of the lawsuits filed against the gay marriage ban. In coming weeks, the Supreme Court will determine the constitutional validity of Proposition Eight.

MUSLIM, from page 3 of emails as a hate incident and not a hate crime. According to the California Penal Code, a hate crime is defined as “a criminal act committed [on the basis of] disability, gender, nationality, race or ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, [and] association with a person or group with one or more of these actual or perceived characteristics.” Unlike emails, vandalism with hate inscriptions are more likely to be classified as a hate crime. On August 29, a large display of Anti-Muslim graffiti was found near Muir College that read “F*** Muslims F*** Muslims.” Similar graffiti also appeared on poles near Warren Lecture Hall. On December 1, two members of the Muslims Student Association also noticed similar messages spray painted on the stairways of Center Hall. “I was shocked to see those sentiments on the wall,” said the Muslim student who noticed the graffiti in Muir. “I definitely didn’t expect it. Before I’d taken for granted that there was a kind of understanding and acceptance, at least in immediate surroundings, but this was a sad reminder that there were people, that maybe I see everyday, who harbored some sort of hate for Muslims and Islam, and that the struggle to create understanding and coexistence was by no means over in our immediate surroundings, let alone our society.” The same student notified the department of the vandalized building, and the graffiti was painted over the following Tuesday. The graffiti and emails directed at Muslims culminated into a more threatening incident on September 6 when a Muslim female found her tires slashed in Gilman Parking Structure. She reported the incident to the UC San Diego police two days later. Three months have passed and the guilty party have yet to be found.

January 2009 THE COLLECTIVE VOICE 7

OUR DREAMS ARE NOT ILLEGAL: NEGATING THE AMERICAN DREAM WITHIN THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM s the country enters a new phase in ourstory with a new president, Migrant Rights Awareness (MiRA) alongside other UCSD activists are working towards ensuring that promises of change and reform are actually met. Together they are working to pass the California Development Relief Education for Alien Minor Act (DREAM Act), which would allow undocumented AB 540 students to apply for various types of merit-based state and institutional financial aid. AB 540 students are undocumented immigrant students who while qualify to pay in-state tuition at California universities are prohibited from receiving any form of institutional aid in the form of grants, scholarships, and loans. One of the main struggles they face is finding the financial means necessary just to be able to stay in college. Given their inability to receive financial aid, they only have a very limited number of resources available to them. They often find themselves working long hours, up to two and three jobs, or working for employers that exploit them because of their status. “We are just another human,” said Daniel a second year AB 540 student at UCSD. “We did not choose this. We are trying to be the best that we can be. Trying to really give back to this country… trying to help our families, our communities.” On September 17, thirteen UCSD students traveled from San Diego to the DREAM Act rally in Capitol Hill in Sacramento. Around 150 students marched at Capitol Hill chanting, “fighting for the DREAM Act, and our education!” The day was spent in sit-ins, lobbying, writing campaigns and

press conferences. Students also spoke about their experiences and celebrated the accomplishments made during the day. Though disappointed with the Governor’s decision to veto the DREAM Act, the activists agreed that the roadblock was another experience from which could learn and grow. “At the DREAM Act rally,” said third year UCSD student Gracelynne West, “I felt so empowered by being surrounded by so many different communities all across the state, all rallying for the passage of the DREAM Act. In closing, I felt like I was a part of this greater movement that will come together again and continue to fight for the DREAM Act.” The DREAM Act rally inspired a diverse group of UCSD organizations to take local action. Last October, MIRA hosted “Underground Undergrads Book Stop.” The event promoted the publication “Underground Undergrads,” a book documenting the legislative and personal history of undocumented students within the UC system. Attended by approximately thirty UCSD and San Diego community members, the event raised awareness about the reality that undocumented students face. It stressed the idea that undocumented students should not be classified as “illegal” but above all else as human beings, whose everyday experiences are spent trying to overcome the borders that prevent them from living a life free of fear and hardship. The biggest irony to consider is that even though the U.S. claims the notion of the American Dream, it fails to mention that one needs a nine digit social security number in order to even reach this “American Dream.” Even though 50,00065,000 undocumented students graduate from U.S. high schools a year, antiimmigration supporters continue to debate

whether these individuals are “American enough,” asserting that they cannot and will not assimilate into society. As the bar for what constitutes “American” citizen continues to grow higher and higher, AB 540 students must continue to search for ways necessary to prove their “worthiness.” There is a need to demand that education be accessible to everyone regardless of citizenship status, ethnicity, gender and socioeconomic class. The activist community within UCSD and throughout California is trying to assure that these individuals obtain the their fundamental human and civil rights. Throughout the media and anti-immigrant debates, it has become standard to classify undocumented individuals as “illegals,” accuse them of destroying U.S. culture, and exploit them as underpaid and undervalued workers. Yet when it comes to undocumented students wanting to make a better future for their families and society, the issue then becomes a problem for the government. As the UCSD community, we must support the fight to make education equally accessible to every individual. We must make this society responsible to upholding the welfare of all human beings. Daniel, a student at UCSD, needs your help to stay in school. His current financial situation will not allow him to attend UCSD next quarter. We are asking you, if your wallet allows it, to donate ten dollars to his education fund. You can write a check payable to Samantha Huang with “Daniel’s fund” in the notes/for section. For more information, email cveditors@ ucsd.edu

Messages of hate, regardless of the group targeted, and inaction from school officials obstruct the coexistence of minorities on campus. A simple police email warning students to be on alert for hate crimes against Muslims could have been sent out. By covering the anti-Muslim graffiti and ending further investigation, they hid the

hostility on campus. Because many of the crimes directed against Muslims do not fall under the legal definition of “hate crime” under the California Penal Code, authorities are forced to list them under other legal categories. “If an incident does not contain the required elements as defined by the

would be much harder to prove as a hate crime and the emails are permissible under the freedom of speech umbrella, the multiple accounts of anti-Muslim graffiti found in Muir and Warren would be easiest to classify as a hate crime. With the occurrence of unhindered hate crimes, Omar Khan, a first year transfer, feels the anti-Muslim sentiment was a reminder of the hostility felt following September 11th. “The fact that authorities here and nationally have this lack of concern surrounding Muslim hate crimes only perpetuates this global anti-Muslim sentiment. This inaction is a form of institutional discrimination. It’s an unsaid accepted norm, and it only reinforces my feeling of being a second-class citizen.” The general lack of concern from UCSD officials toward hate crimes and incidents produces a “second-class citizen” feeling, a feeling felt by not only Muslims but many other minorities on campus. In response to a lack of school intervention, a united effort from collective student organizations to inform and educate others concerning racial and religious discrimination needs to be implemented. Silence from school administrators will not silence the crimes. Silence will only let hatred and bigotry to go unchecked on campus.

BY DENISE MANJARREZ

STAFF WRITER

The absence of official documented hate crimes provides false assurance to the UC San Diego community of the nonexistence of discrimination against minorities. fact that the graffiti even occurred. UCSD authorities’ lack of proactive and reactive action in response to the numerous acts against Muslims on campus unveils a more serious problem: the lack of protection provided after attacks on minorities at UCSD. The UCSD annual police CLERY report documents zero hate crimes reported from 2005 to 2007, which translates to an absence of hate crimes against any collective group on campus. However, the numbers mask the reality of anti-Muslim

California Penal code, then it would not be listed as a hate crime,” said Detective Sergeant of the UCSD police department Doug O’ Dell. “Another reason may be that these crimes go unreported to the police department.” The absence of official documented hate crimes provides false assurance to the UC San Diego community of the nonexistence of discrimination against minorities, as the recent experiences of Muslims students point to a definitive anti-Muslim sentiment on campus. While the tire slashing incident

If you’d like to donate, please mail it to: 9450 Gilman Dr. #923841 La Jolla Ca 92092

8 THE COLLECTIVE VOICE January 2008

MYTH, from page 6 stereotype? While for one the stereotype is certainly offensive, the accompanying statistics that are used to support the model minority myth are extremely misleading. The statistics generalize diverse and complex groups under the umbrella of “Asian American.” Different ethnic groups like Chinese, Korean, Japanese, South Asians, and Southeast Asians (Hmong, Khmer, Vietnamese etc…) are subsumed into an overly broad racial category. Indeed, a closer look at the income and educational levels of individual ethnic groups reveals another story. While certain Asian ethnic groups do earn substantially more than the White population, others Asian groups, especially Southeast Asians, live in poverty. Hmong, Laotian, and Cambodian ethnic groups have a 22.5% poverty rate compared to the 12% rate among all Americans. Moreover, the statistics for higher education attainment vary greatly between different Asian ethnic groups with 64.4% of South Asians, 46.3% of Chinese Americans, 13.8% of Vietnamese, and 9.2% of Hmong, Laotian, and Cambodian groups attaining a bachelor’s degree or higher. These statistics reveal that the model minority stereotype is far from true for many Asian

Americans. The pervasive nature of the stereotype has led to the false belief that Asian Americans no longer face racial discrimination and have succeeded economically while other minorities have not. It denies Asian Americans the government attention and assistance that they need. By perpetuating the conception that Asian Americans are in general succeeding, the stereotype conceals the amount of Asian Americans that are underserved, undereducated and need public assistance. It moreover reinforces the idea that anyone with hard work and determination can attain success in the United States. If Asian Americans are doing so well, then other minorities certainly have the capacity to make it too. However, such an assumption neglects the fact that the “Asian American work ethic,” even if widely adopted by other minorities, will not always lead to the same successes. The model minority myth is indeed often used as justification to end governmental support for African Americans and other minorities. Though there are many examples of prosperity within the Asian American communities, Asians still face racism, social inequality, and discrimination. The belief that entire Asian American community is a model minority is a myth.

BAILOUT, from page 1 from that of the Roosevelt administration? If the response had been similar to that of the New Deal in the Great Depression, the administration could have killed two birds with one stone. A smaller dollar amount committed to building grants for housing projects could have addressed the main cause of the crisis as well as the growing unemployment. As for how much less, Massachusetts wants to spend $1 billion on project housing; extrapolated to the national scale, housing projects would cost 7% of the $700 billion bailout. The financial situation was started by the housing crisis, in which people who could not afford homes received mortgages that the mortgage companies could not sustain. If the bailout money had been spent to build on existing project housing; buying out privately owned apartment complexes, and building upward; or buying unused space and building government housing, then lower and lower-middle income families could rent them at reduced cost. The unspecialized and semi-specialized job creation would have fed many families, and the housing would allow lower income families with outstanding mortgages a way out of the housing crisis agreements. This housing would be a natural investment, as people with permanent residence are more able to hold jobs. Any outstanding debt could be carried by those who caused the mortgage crisis, the higher-ups of the mortgages corporations. Why should they reap the rewards during harvest and get protection during famine? They accepted investments on investments, ignoring the compounded risk and decreased security. Technically and legally, these corporate officers are responsible for unsustainable lending – they oversee the mortgage negotiators who are responsible for the risk analysis of the mortgage applicant. Those benefiting from the housing investment are not the only people who have been wronged in this economic system. With the Euro/America-centric world economies in crisis, there is less aid going out to impeded development nations. Because there is so little investment in impeded development African, South American, South Asian, and Eastern European nations, the effects on these economies have been bad, though not devastating. The drop in direct aid – U.S. and European nations sending their own domestic products of food and equipment

through their own shipping companies – is an opening for a change in the paradigm of “aid.” It is possible to make each dollar of aid effective beyond the amount of food it can buy. For example, the richer nations could begin using their money to buy Kenyan wheat and contract Ugandan ships to transport the wheat to Sudan, where South Sudanese trucking companies could then take the wheat to Darfur, where the U.S. already sends food aid. The U.S. does not need trade assistance the way these regions do, and these regions do not need material aid as much as they do trade assistance. Trade is self-sustaining aid. On a related note, imagine if these resourcerich countries, with their commodity-based rather than investment-based economies, were a larger part of the world economy. Their survival of investment crises could enable them to invest in the weakened US dollar. But the money is spent. Now it lies in the investment banks just as before, with the exception of the now partial nationalization. This public power in a private entity can still be used to improve public good. The people could now push for investment in environmentally sustainable or rehabilitating technologies. And with a publically owned share, the technology could be used for wider improvements, not just expensive hybrid cars and solar panels. Along the same vein, investments could go into enhanced public transportation. A public transportation project would pay for itself in increased productivity and could help the housing problem; people who don’t need to invest money in a car might not seek potentially risky mortgages. The now partially public investment banks could take on these projects to make up for some of the damage they have done. The positive light of this problem is the opportunity set by the nationalization and regulation. Even the former Fedhead Alan Greenspan now admits that relentless deregulation has not worked and has even caused the current market problems. Perhaps the lesson learned after the Great Depression will stick with our generation – deregulation of the markets causes problems, public projects fix them, but deregulation a few decades later will restart the problems. Maybe this crisis will help us realize that a humanitarian approach to some economic problems will turn out for the best.

OurVoices JANUARY FEATURE: BY THOAI LU

CONTRIBUTING WRITER “You’re a black girl in an Asian girl’s skin with a white girl’s clothes,” my best friend Vana once said to me. Initially, I laughed at her innocuous joke, but jokes come from somewhere, and I knew I consistently thought about race and culture for some reason. It wasn’t until last school year that I realized it: I was obsessed with racial identity because I was confused with my own identity as an Asian American. I was born in Saigon, Vietnam, and immigrated to Oakland, California at the age of two. While I am Chinese and Vietnamese, I never learned to speak Vietnamese nor have I ever returned to Vietnam. My dad enrolled me in a Chinese school in downtown Oakland at the age of seven, and I studied there for seven years. Besides for being literate in Chinese, and consuming Chinese and Vietnamese food over the years, I have always felt somewhat distant from my Asian American heritage. As a child growing up in Oakland, I was immersed in bass-heavy hiphop, graffiti, ostentatious car-showing or “stuntin,” Black vernacular and the street slang of youth culture. I grew up listening to TLC and Usher as a toddler; then as a teenager, I started listening to rap, anything from Bay Area Hyphy rap to Southern Crunk rap. With the music came the slang, which I grew in love with because I could express myself in multiple ways outside of class and formal settings. However, when I arrived at UCSD, I was utterly culture shocked. I knew there wasn’t going to be as many people of color (with the exception of Asian Americans), but I didn’t know my demographics would change so drastically. In my high school, Blacks comprised about 40% of the population, Asians 20%, and Whites about 11%. It wasn’t until college that I realized most of my peers came from predominantly White and Asian hometowns. Though I had few friends who reminded me of home, I, for the most part, felt like an outsider, even among other Asian Americans who looked just like me. I couldn’t use slang like “juiced” [excited] or “bootsey” [lame, boo-boo] anymore because most people didn’t know what I was saying, or they called me “ghetto.” As a result, I significantly reduced my slang usage and tried to speak more properly. I didn’t dance with the same enthusiasm as I did in my car or in public places, because the dominant culture didn’t embrace hip-hop dancing in the same way. I had the physical

characteristics of an Asian American, but I was struggling internally to fit in with majority of the UCSD population. I also didn’t understand why I couldn’t listen to hip-hop/rap music and use slang without being labeled “ghetto” or “black.” Why couldn’t I wear Abercrombie & Fitch clothes without being labeled “Whitewashed”? What does Asian American culture even consist of and with what of those elements do I even identify? I was obsessed with other races more than I was my own. A race was historically defined in the U.S. by the dichotomy of Black and White, and I didn’t know what it meant to be Asian in a Black and White world. I had looked toward other races for building my racial identity, while refusing to look inward. Looking inward was a difficult and painful process, because although I critiqued other Asian-Americans on campus for being “White-washed,” I have, too, denied my heritage. The majority of the Asian-Americans and non-Asians I grew up with consumed hip-hop, used slang, and wore urban clothing. However, the cultural “norms” at home changed when I got to UCSD. My cultural experience changed drastically because I was suddenly too “gangsta.” I was constantly trying to retract my urban influences, to be more like everyone else or what I thought was the cultural “norm” here. Last spring quarter, I read Maxine Hong Kingston’s “Woman Warrior” for an Asian American Literature class. I was startled by an excerpt where the protagonist, a Chinese girl, tortures another Chinese girl to speak. The protagonist’s hatred of the quiet girl was a projection of her own self-hatred, which I have also experienced. Growing up, I was an extremely quiet and shy girl. I felt that it was more socially acceptable for Black and Latina girls to be more vocal, and I always thought the reason I didn’t speak was because of low self-esteem-- I never related my silence to Chinese femininity. Being a Chinese and Vietnamese American female, or more broadly, an Asian American female, was contradictory to being strong and expressive. It was painful to deal with my self-hatred, to accept that I may have been perceived as docile and weak because of my external appearance. I have tried hard to steer away from my race and even my gender because of my internalized stereotypes, which are so ingrained in me that I don’t always realize that I am practicing and performing them.

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