Volume IV issue III

university of california, san diego

volume IV, issue 3, may 2011

spaces.ucsd.edu

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Students and Faculty Occupy a Building at California State University East Bay Photos by David Bacon Hayward, CA 4/13/11

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tudents and faculty at California State University, East Bay, marched to the administration building on the campus and then occupied the building in protest. Organized by Students for a Quality Education and the California Faculty Association, the civil disobedience protested budget cuts and fee increases for students, and cutbacks on staff and benefits, while administrators’ salaries are increased.

The building occupation demanded the resignation of CSU Chancellor Chuck Reed, and a list of other demands discussed and adopted during the occupation. Similar building occupations took place on other campuses.

Some students wore face paint with scars symbolizing the painful slashing impact of budget cuts.

Before the march and building occupation, students and faculty organized a “People’s University.” Workshops talked about the attack on education and the rights of public workers, especially teachers, throughout the U.S., as well as campus issues that included lack of childcare, parking and student services. Other SQE demands included democratizing the state university’s board of trustees, budget transparency, fair treatment for unions and workers, and a recommitment to the California Master Plan for Higher Education.

According to the California Faculty Association, “the California State University has lost some $1 billion, let go more than 3000 faculty, slashed course offerings and tripled student fees. Tens of thousands of eligible students have been turned away or given up because of rising costs and inability to get necessary classes.”

volume IV, issue 3, may 2011

spaces.ucsd.edu

university of california, san diego

3

volume IV, issue 3, may 2011

Mestre by Elizabeth Nguyen › MESTRE from ISSUE 2 page 9

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hen slavery became “illegal” in Brazil, many blacks became farmhands on sugar cane plantations. They reaped and heaved the cane as their fathers had done, and their fathers before their fathers. They were paid very little, if they were lucky. Often, the plantation owners would say that their contracts were nill— quebrado—and the workers could do nothing.

They say that, in a desperate attempt to kill Besouro, the police razed an entire cane field.

Acres of black sweat and toil clogged the air in dark plumes. To compensate, they made the farmhands work three times as hard, rapido! rapido! all through the night. If they slowed, they were tied to a tree, the whip crackling with their dried blood.

The next night, when the only witnesses were the stains of his brethren’s suffering, Besouro jammed the giant mill gears with a pry bar. The plantation masters tried to start work the next day, but the mill groaned and splintered. The police chased Besouro through the remaining cane, firing their guns. Besouro flitted between the stalks or behind his enemies. Each shot broke clean air or shattered the cane. Whoever managed to confront Besouro face-to-face was hammered by his high-flying parafuso. Still, the only ones dead were the police caught by the bullets of their own men.

Juan said he picked strawberries for an hour and it nearly broke his back. He was paid ten cents a basket. His parents mistook the United States as some sort of vacation—you come, make some money, and then go back home. In the past, white people scrambled to import brown folk to the New World to do their work. Nowadays it’s slightly different—brown people hike through deserts, scale electric fences, dodge bullets, and suffocate in car trunks before picking grapes and peaches.

Most never see their homelands again.

After some confusion, Juan told me that he actually had been to Mexico. Just, never the “right way.” Nor did he remember. Only years after the trip did his uncle tell how he’d personally carried baby-Juan over his head across a river as Juan’s dad, who’d been in the coyote business, smuggled them over the border. Of course, this was before The Wall, when it was easier and far less dangerous. Still, Juan’s dad quit the business after a man he’d been guiding was shot dead three steps away from him. He spent the whole night in the cooling sand, still as the carcass, save for his trembling.

When our capoeira friends drove to Arizona, The Wall was a hideous steel-concrete gash that ripped through the sea of smooth desert dunes.

A fleet of tanks flanked it like soldier ants around their queen. We stopped five times for policemen to peek inside our cars for hidden brown people.

Luckily, Juan’s skin is so brown that he passes as Indian.

Juan said, some people think Mexicans are lazy and stupid, but if white people grew up in our situations, and we grew up in theirs, you bet things would be the other way around. Growing up in East LA means that drunks, rapists, gangs, druggies, and armed robbers roam your streets, hang in your parks, and lurk the playgrounds of your elementary schools after dark. One time, Juan told me, he’d been shot on a drive-by, but survived be-

cause they used BB pellets instead of bullets. Two angry bruises decked his side, but he didn’t mind because they could have been holes.

Juan said that he’d never ever go back to middle school, his Dark Chapter. He got into fights on the basketball courts, in the hallways, in front of the dean’s office, the art department, on the roof, the garden (once, twice), the dumpsters (more than twice). Everyone thought he was retarded because he refused to do his work. His 7th grade report card: one C-, two Ds, three Fs. His history teacher told him he’d be lucky to make it out of high school, if he made it out of middle school at all.

At first he didn’t care, but he cried after the dean reminded him that his mom worked on her knees for hours, scrubbing floors twice-over in Beverly Hills mansions, to buy him a pair of shoes.

Trickery. Magic. Cryptic spells of deception.

Hypnotism… Mandinga.

Some say that Besouro was in love with Dinorá, whose skin was sweet as brown sugar and whose spirit blazed in the face of danger. Unfortunately, Colonel Venâncio, leader of the cavalry and a ruthless plantation overseer, also lusted after her.

One day, furious from Besouro’s latest escape, the colonel came to Dinorá’s house and forced his lips upon her neck. Besouro flew in the doorway and gazed upon Dinorá with his spirit-eyes. Suddenly, the knife in Dinorá’s struggling hand clattered on the floor. Her eyes glinted wildly, a wicked smile curling her lips. She leapt into the air, spinning like a hurricane, her feet slamming the sides of the colonel’s face—un, dois, tres! His head cracked on the floor, blood squirting from between his broken teeth.

Besouro flew. Never did his feet pause upon the leaves of the banana trees. The village and the cane fields and the waterfall merged into a colorful blur. He reached the edge of the jungle, but the cavalry was already charging him, the police foaming like their horses and flourishing their tucum knives. The sacred wood hungrily sliced into Besouro’s gut and sprayed the sand a blood-pink. But back in the village, the people were singing, chanting his name: Era Besouro, era Besouro, era forte com um touro! They would be slaves no more.

Underneath the wizened watch of thirty-foot saguaros, crushed glass nibbling dully at our palms, we lifted onto our hands, our heads scraping the gravel, feet reaching for dry desert clouds before swinging back onto the street. Juan lunged swift as a cat! The wind from his meia-lua de compasso— the rotating compass kick—cooled the sweat on my brow. The worn heel of his Converse streaked inches from my eyes. His esquivas were so fast that, when our friends took a picture, the only one you could see was me; Juan was transparent as a ghost, half-faded in the flicking strobe lights of the nearby bar.

The next day, at the batizado ceremony, Juan and I shook hands and sprung into the roda. I spammed and spammed rolê, desperately clutching the ground as his meia-lua de frente, bênção, queixada barraged me, all of them too fierce to follow. An arm, browned and toughened by years of sun, cut between us, pushing me out of the game and demanding Juan’s attention. Mestre Espirro Mirim—46-years-old and a living legend.

Mestre Espirro turned his armadas like a sword, his leg a flashing white sliver that seemed to sever the very molecules of the air. But Juan soared— his aú sinmau was smooth as gull, strong as an eagle. His two feet whooshed over the mestre’s head, fluttering his hairs. Their whirling, leaping bodies became one as the atabaque thumped louder, as the berimbau twanged faster, as the people sang with trumpets for throats, as we cheered when they held handstands and flipped under each other’s kicks, as we gasped when their attacks would almost strike.

Axé. The drive. The inspiration. When your game is alive with spirit and soul. The best capoeiristas are glowing with it. They say that Exu is responsible for distributing it to the players in the roda. I think he plays favorites.

When the ring of gunshots slowly faded and the revolution was won, the mestres took the old slave quarters and turned them into capoeira schools.

The stains and scars of suffering were painted over in large murals of black men and women, clad in pure white, playing capoeira on the beaches, the town squares, or the jungles of Bahia. Now, the greens, blues, and yellows of the Brazilian flag are draped wherever there is a berimbau. It is the sign of a people reborn.

This rebirth continues as Besouro’s legacy is inherited by today’s capoeiristas, his sons and daughters who defy modern-day oppression. Juan told me that, after he started trying in school, it turned out that he was pretty good at this “smart” and “accomplished” stuff. He was president of the physics club, magnetized toy cars to fly, built a hovercraft at the famous Raytheon Defense Company, had dinner with Arnold Schwarzenegger, was the only Mexican on the badminton team, built eggdrop parachutes, got into MIT, went to college, studied computer science and engineering, learned capoeira, fell in love. His mother was proud; for someone who grew up in such harsh situations, he’d become a good person. His father said that Juan had become a better man than he was. Juan said that there are some days when he feels really empowered about being brown, and some days he hates it. But we both agree that, if there is anything good about being brown, it’s holding hands and seeing our different colors mix.

When the police would raid the villages, they would ask, Where is Besouro? The people would respond, What do you mean? Only Manuel Henrique Pereira lives here. Secret capoeira nicknames protected the rebellious from being arrested. Some capoeiristas even had two or three, just in case.

Juan had hoped his would have been something cool, like mandinho--small fast one! But, nooooo, he’d ended up with something that wasn’t even a proper noun! He found out when Freida texted him, “see you at the roda, Amanhá!” After asking Mestre Paulo why he’d gotten such a (stupid) name, the response was: well, you learn things fast, and you’re always ahead of everyone else, you have potential… and you’ll be a good mestre one day.

And then everyone started calling him Amanhá this, Amanhá that. Paulo never used his real name again.

“So what does Amanhá mean?” I asked.

Juan said, “It means ‘tomorrow.’”

Check out the 2nd issue of The Collective Voice for the first half of this piece on the SPACES website! http://spaces.ucsd.edu/candlelight/?page_id=379

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volume IV, issue 3, may 2011

spaces.ucsd.edu

Letters From The Community

Struggles of Undocumented Students Nationally and at UCSD

Based on UC 2010 documents, there were 572 AB540 (undocumented) undergraduate students within the UC system. Forty percent were Asian and forty percent were Latino. Eighty-one of these AB540 students were undergraduate students here at UCSD in 2010.

Though being an AB540 student qualifies one to pay instate tuition ($11,619) as opposed to out-of-state tuition ($34,497), there remains many hurdles AB540 students face.

Their undocumented status excludes them from receiving any federal aid, UC grants, participating in programs that require US citizenship, from taking out loans for their education, and from “legally” working to raise funds. AB540 students are limited to a few private scholarships and some are forced to take anywhere from a quarter to a year off to raise money in order to come back another year.

Despite the bleak situation for the roughly 2.5 million undocumented students under the age of 18 in the nation, many have come out of the shadows voicing how they are “undocumented and unafraid.” Armed solely with their courage and community support, many Dreamers have continued to be deported and still face that threat. As President Obama stated in his State of the Union Address, “let’s stop expelling talented, responsible young people who could be staffing our research labs or starting a new business, who could be further enriching this nation.”

As much as we wish for rhetoric to be reality, most recently, co-founder of the Dream Activist organization and

George Washington University law student, Prerna Lal received her Notice of Appearance for deportation proceedings. Though she may have entered “unauthorized” into the U.S., she has lived here since her youth, she has received both a Bachelors and a Masters, and is now seeking her Juris Doctorate. Her story is exemplary of the broken immigration system that targets individuals who have and will contribute to society.

Migrant Right’s Awareness (MiRA), a UCSD student organization, has invested itself in bringing awareness and the needed support network for those eighty-one AB540 students here at UCSD. Veronica Gonzalez, a principle member of MiRA and Cross Cultural Center intern, headed the “Invisible Students at UCSD” event, sharing narratives from Korean, Pilipino, Argentinean, and Thailanese undocumented students. As a collective, MiRA is currently fundraising to establish a scholarship that will benefit UCSD AB540 students. In the context of heighten xenophobia toward immigrants (i.e. Arizona’s SB1070, Georgia’s SB1070 copycat, etc.) community support is crucial for those who wish to receive an education but face hardship because of their status. We ask the UCSD community to donate to this scholarship by logging onto http://miraucsd.bbnow.org.

Thank you, MiRA

Migrant Rights Awareness

Waves of Native Ex/Rez-istance One of the defining things about the Native American Student Alliance at UCSD is that we deal with waves of (non) existence that drown out waves of possible resistance.

The fact of the matter is that American Indians will always struggle with the issue of not having enough students to constitute existence as an organization. The problem is when people use this as a reason to exclude Natives from spaces and programs that are meant to help underrepresented students. To people who continue the logic of colonialism that, “Well, they are probably not going to be here for much longer so no need in investing in them”, I would like to point out that that is a self-fulfilling prophecy, and one rooted in the desire to erase Native presence. The hardest thing I had to deal with as a member in NASA is battling this logic and letting people know that we are here, and we will continue to be here. This is and will be the message that needs to get repeated.

The most recent incarnation of NASA was in 2007 after a 4 year hiatus and since then we have being going strong.

However, the future of NASA is always uncertain. Given this reality, simply existing as a Native student in a university such as UCSD is an act of resistance in and of itself. However, when we’re lucky, we will have a group of Native students who are willing to resist beyond existence, through means of so called “social justice” endeavors. These last couple of years being deeply involved with NASA has been a really defining experience for me at UCSD. This last year particularly, serving as NASA Chair, has been a very challenging yet fulfilling year for me; one filled with many X-marks. Because of these constant waves of ex/rez-istance, it will always be hard for UCSD to get an accurate sense of what the Native struggle is, even in communities that purport to support underrepresented students such as American Indians. My goal as Chair of NASA for this year was to make sure that those

Native students who are here in the future who find it hard to be in such a foreign place (though maybe ironically in your own land), there will be resources set in place to make you feel at home so that you can succeed academically. With the success of the Inter-Tribal Resource Center, as well as the Institutionalization of the American Indian Recruitment and the UCSD Powwow, the Native Community on campus will continue to ex/resist for years to come. However, as I say nya’aamh to my experience here at UCSD as a Kumeyaay/NASA student, I hope to leave this one final X-mark to ensure that future waves of Native Ex/Rez-istance look to the past, for guidance in the present, and hope for the future. Thus, I leave the next wave with this message from Vine Deloria Jr.: “[T]he Indian task of keeping an informed public available to assist the tribes in their efforts to survive is never ending, and so the central message of this book, that Indians are alive, have certain dreams of their own, and are being overrun by the ignorance and the mistaken, misdirected efforts of those who would help them, can never be repeated too often. Every generation of Indians will have to assume this burden...” – Vine Deloria Jr. Indians are alive and we have certain dreams of our own that are being overrun by the ignorance and the mistaken, misdirected efforts of those who would help us. To the future members of the Native American Student Alliance (or whatever name you decide to change it to), I hope this serves as an empowering reminder to help you leave your X-marks.

Mematta, Phillip Espinoza Kumeyaay—Mesa Grande Band of Mission Indians Chair—Native American Student Alliance

Lack of People of color

in

Philosophy Deptartment

Hello, I am writing in regard to something I read in the Collective Voice that said the Philosophy Department does not employ (nor has it ever employed) faculty of color.

While it is true that the department is predominantly White, this is a bold (false) statement to make considering last quarter I took a Philosophy of Ethics class taught by a professor who I believe is Iranian.

Unless his identity does not count as a qualifiable “Person of Color” (as determined by those using exclusive discourses regarding who is of color/oppressed and who is not), I’d say the statement made in the Collective Voice itself contributes to the systemic erasure of POC on this campus. Even (especially) if it’s just one. It’s almost as bad as when I read in the Guardian a couple years ago that there were no Kumeyaay students here. Not a good feeling.

And as a paper that espouses progressive discourses, it is especially important, I feel, to make sure that statements claiming the non-existence of people in a space are accurate.

Thank you for your time,

Phillip Espinoza

Kumeyaay--Mesa Grande Band of Mission Indians Chair-UCSD Native American Student Alliance

From the Editors

We welcome any letters from the community such that the content and intent are in line with the missions of The Collective Voice and the Student Promoted Access Center for Education and Service (SPACES), to provide 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.

Send letters and questions to cveditors@gmail.com.

This Is Where We Begin

womyn writers on de/colonizing institutions

Contradictory Avenues of Decolonization

Secret Speech

Jacqueline Naranjo

Denise Manjarrez When I imagine myself teaching, something that always comes to mind are the silhouettes of students that I will work with. I have yet to see their faces, learn their names or hear their stories, however, when I imagine myself as a teacher, fear builds up inside of me. I question whether I can become a good teacher. After all, how can I be a good teacher if most of my educational life was marked by teachers who discouraged us because we “weren’t as smart as the white kids” or “all we knew how to do was get into trouble and talk back?” I have few examples of teachers who believed not only in me but also in my fellow peers. When I think about my commitment to teaching and teaching in a responsible manner, I strongly believe that I must first reflect on the pain and confusion that I suffered throughout my K-12 experience. I must begin to heal by first remembering. From that remembering I must then move towards speaking these pains. I must begin this process not only for myself, but for the students who I have yet to meet. This memory is for them I clearly remember the Friday morning before the week of our high school graduation. I had been absent the day before and was in line holding my mom’s note that excused me with the Compton High School Attendance Office. Still holding the note in my hand, my friends rushed towards me yelling, “Denise! Where were you?

You missed the Seniors Awards banquet.”

“I had to help my mom around the house with stuff so I couldn’t come,” I answered.

“Well you should have been here cuz they announced that you got valedictorian,” my friend Dessie revealed.

“Really? Oh wow,” was all that I could answer.

The news didn’t come to me as a surprise. I had expected it for a while now; every time I went into the counselor’s office to get a copy of my transcript, I noticed that my class rank kept moving up until it had reached to number three out of an entering class of almost one thousand students. I stayed in the top three of my class until the 11th grade, coming in third only to my classmates Carlie and Verenice.

I had known Carlie and Verenice since 10th grade when we all started taking honors classes and then when we all were enrolled in the AP classes together. My position at the top was solidified when both Carlie and Verenice suddenly switched schools. Carlie moved to the Southwest, to racist-friendly Arizona, with her family.

During 11th grade Verenice began to miss a lot of school days. A few weeks after we stopped seing her we found out that she had gotten pregnant. There were rumors that she was now attending the Chavez-Tubman Continuation School. It is known for enrolling pregnant teenage girls and gang members who either get kicked out of school and/or are trying to make up their high school credits. The school has a reputation and therefore we were all sad when we heard the news.

When both Carlie and Verenice left, I knew that it’d be easier for me to become valedictorian. Secretly, I really wanted it. For once I wanted to be validated for the hard work I did those four years. Looking back, I realized that I used my grades as a measure of self-worth. I wanted to be validated academically because I felt so invalidated in all other aspects of my life. I wanted the attention that I lacked from my parents at home. I wanted to be recognized above all others, above my friends, above the drop-outs, above the gang members. I wanted to be marked as different from all of them. I wanted to be the good kid who happened to be around the kids who didn’t care and weren’t as smart as I was.

Looking back, I feel shame for feeling this way. Becoming valedictorian didn’t make me as happy as I thought it would. I thought I’d feel excitement and ecstasy over the recognition, but all I felt was a mild boost to my ego.

Later on the day, I was called into the guidance counselor’s office. That office had been a home away from home for me. I would get called in for counseling about college, financial aid, AP classes on a weekly basis. I knew all the counselors and all of them knew me. I didn’t know back then, the rarity of a high school counselor knowing a student by name. When I reached the office my counselor went on to offer me her congratulations and told me that as a valedictorian I had the responsibility of delivering a speech to my graduating class.

The news came as a slap in the face. I was not good at public speaking, I was not even good at speaking in general. The fears and bad scenarios all flooded through my mind. With my constant switching between English and Spanish, I feared forgetting the English language during my speech. I feared stuttering over my words, of fainting from the pressure or having people boo me off the stage.

When I thought of what a graduation speech should be, my mind would trace back to when the star at the end of a movie would deliver an amazing speech that would bring inspiration to people’s hearts and bring the audience to tears. Graduation speeches should inspire people, make them reflect on their past high school experience, and make them excited for their journey ahead. I wasn’t sure whether or how I could do this, but there wasn’t really an option of backing out.

Yet another returned call slip from the T.A. “He’s absent,” the T.A. says.

Again. I make my way to the counselor’s cubicle to inquire about Jose, a sophomore and member of CAL-SOAP (California-Student Opportunity and Access Program)—a program in which as a college peer advisor I am to provide the support, assistance and information necessary for underrepresented students to get to college. I peep in and make myself visible to the counselor, who looks up from her work, perturbed by my interruption.

“Hi…did you have a question?” She says “Yes,” I say. “I was having trouble getting a hold of a student, and I was wondering if it was o.k. for me to go to his class and talk to him myself?”

“Well, who is it?” She says.

Taken aback, I stutter, “Jo-seee, he’s-a-soph-omore whom has not responded repeatedly to my call slips.

She rolls her eyes. “Oh, Jose, yeah…he doesn’t show up alot. He ditches school. I wouldn’t bother with him. Ya know?”

I nod hesitantly and make my way back to the “college corner.” I feel a strange sense of sadness come over me at the same time as anger begins building up toward the counselor. Defeated, I sink into my seat and proceed to organize paperwork, because it is lunchtime and do not usually meet with students.

Then, from the corner of my eye I spot a shadow and I look up from my work.

Startled, I realize a student has come to see me.

“Hi, can I help you?” I manage to murmur.

“Uh…I got this call slip?” he says handing it over with an air of surrender—as a slip can only mean the delayed disciplining for something that he has done and which he cannot remember at the moment.

Quickly, I receive the slip from him and read the name. “Jose?” I say, with my lips spreading into a crooked smile. He nods back, but his serious demeanor does not budge. I proceed to give him the spiel on the program and that I am interested in discussing his career interests. Meantime, he stares at the wall, indifferent to any of the information I have just mentioned. For a quick moment I feel nostalgic and a strange sense of familiarity with this young man.

This student, a marked troublemaker conjures up a memory that lures me in.

I am sleeping. I’m in a deep sleep. I have gone home to my parents for a quick two-week break before fall quarter begins. I make use of my time to sleep-in.

I feel uneasy. I must be having a nightmare. I can’t quite figure out what it is, but I feel like fleeing something. I hear muffled screaming. Gosh….I can’t seem to wake from this awful dream. Then I am able to discern the screaming. “Reynaldooo….for the last time open the door, this is LAPD. We are going to throw down the do-” I jump and fall off the bed startled. This isn’t a dream…? I run to the door, half asleep fumbling trying to open the door. I am greeted with the shiny dark metal of the guns that are being pointed at my face by dozens of policemen stationed on my front lawn. I gasp. I cannot breathe. I raise my arms up in the air almost instinctually. They yell at me but I cannot hear what they say. I feel paralyzed. I am yanked by my arm from the front steps away from my house and onto the lawn. The cold of the dewy morning grass bites my bare feet and shakes me back into reality. I am so confused. I am losing it.

“Wha-at’s ggg-oin on?!”I managed to sob out as I attempt to go back inside my house.

“Step away, stay back!” one of them screams at me and comes toward me.

Scared, I retreat. “But, you have to tell me what’s goin’ on! What are ya doin’ here?!”I timidly persist.

“We are looking for Reynaldo! Is he hiding in there? Tell us the truth?!” They demand.

“My-my brooo-therrr? He hasn’t done anything. He got a job. He’s been working. He’s been home a lot.” I defensively answer.

“Reynaldo is a notorious tagger. We’ve been trying to get him for months now.” They say. Panicked I say, “Whaaat? No, you must be mistaken. My brother is a good kid. I swear, you don’t know him.

“He’s been caught on camera several times, we have evidence.” “We know about your other brothers too you know.” They bark at me.

I stand there in disbelief. For the first time I am able to take in the scenery.

Police cars have blocked off the neighborhood. More than a dozen cops camped out on my lawn. All here for the event that is the raiding of my—once—home.

For a home is supposed to be sacred, a sanctuary. But, that is no longer true.

My home has been invaded. The megaphone as their present weapon of choice blares out the demand for my brother to give himself up. The shame. I look

see SPEECH on page 8

see AVENUES on page 7

creative non-fictions from

EDS 116

de/colonizing education

K. Wayne Yang special editor

This Is Wher

womyn writers on de/c

Land of Opportunity

Straddling Two Worlds Ana Laura Martinez

Ruby Reynaga

This is how it begins…

I can hear the 8AM bell calling the school day into session.

I’m right on time, I think.

I woke up maybe just twenty minutes before, appreciating the fact that I lived across the street from work. This occurred most of the time I worked mornings. In fact, I can remember how students, like Jennifer, a ninth-grader, often called me out: “You just woke up, huh?”, giggling away before confessing that she, too, would have loved to have slept in a bit more. As “unprofessional” as it might have been, the nineteen-year old me had difficulty adapting to being employed where I had previously been a student.

As I jaywalked across the street and made my way to my assigned classroom, I couldn’t help but fidget with my name tag. This behavior, usually reserved for “first-days,” became the norm for me. It was out of anticipation for the unexpected, for my mind racing over unanswerable moments.

This fidgeting was doing no good either: my identification card was breaking off the lanyard and I was told I could get a new one…for a five dollar fee. I would have to rely on tape yet again today.

This time, my mind raced over what happened last week: I was abruptly moved from tutoring in Mrs. Mitchell’s class from one day to another class the next day, because of a bizarre reason. Jessica, the tutoring coordinator, told me it was because the teacher did not appreciate that I spoke in Spanish to her “Latin@” students.

“Speaking to them in Spanish does no good,” she was told.

I was aggravated.

I remembered translating basic instructions. And, yes, there were prolonged discussions in Spanish, but all involved the class material. I even attempted what little Arabic I knew with those students who had been in the U.S. for a little over six months. Irrespective of the absurd “no language-other-than-English” rule never being explained to me, did I really do wrong by speaking to them in Spanish? Was I holding them back? …

As if English is all that is needed.

Another part of what was so aggravating was that it made me exhume memories that I had successfully avoided to process.

I began remembering how my third grade teacher, Mrs. Johnson, had made my eight-year-young self feel as if she were on top of the world. After going through the field trip rules, she had proclaimed to the “Latin@” class that if anyone needed help with their English, “Ana could help, because she was the most advanced.”

I felt euphoric in that very moment as I heard Mrs. Johnson’s words and received the class’ attention.

That feeling was heightened as I flashbacked to kindergarten, just a few years before, when I endured the excruciating moment of being tested for the alphabet, always mixing “g” and “h” and completely forgetting the second half. I was tested more than once and they all ended with tears, ashamed for not ‘getting it right.’

Simultaneously playing with this recollection was also the memory of finding my Spanish workbooks from first through fourth grades during my senior year in high school. They were filled with pencil marks, a golden star or the likes of “Nice job!” stickers on most pages. I was shocked at how I had lost consciousness over knowledge I once held, knowledge that had earned me those stickers that may have been sought after. I had forgotten where to place the accents, differentiate between a ver and haber and countless other words.

Most shocking was (re)learning that my own last name had an accent over the í.

I also recalled telling my dad, a man of few words, about this new finding, about the accent over the í, and his half-joking response: ¡¿No sabías eso?! ¿Entonces pa’ que vas a la escuela?

I didn’t know how to answer him. I simply laughed it off and felt ashamed.

As first period came and went, I thought of this. I tied it back to Mrs. Mitchell, trying to find the words that reflected what I felt, that would provide the answers to what had happened. But when the 9:26AM bell went off, I hadn’t found them.

My new second period class, instead of Mrs. Mitchell’s class, was Mrs. Hoffman’s class. I knew most of the students there, since I volunteered for a program that worked with “refugee” middle school students the previous year. Within a year and a half, I was able to see them grow. I had also seen Pedro become Peter, Nejat become Jenny and Khalat repeatedly experience a butchering of his name.

I reflected on my loss of knowledge and I feared it already happening in the simple name change for students like Pedro and Nejat.

When they are complimented for learning English quickly, do they feel the same as when I did? When they mispronounce an English word, do they laugh it off, hoping no one would uncover that it is their second language?

Regardless of my feelings, of my lack of silence, I still corrected students as they failed to enunciate English words correctly. I was expected to. But how did I make them feel?

I never found the words to address Mrs. Mitchell that day, and whenever we would be in the same classroom, I would make sure to avert her eyes, as if evading the ugly truth: that I too, in some way, was a Mrs. Mitchell.

Not by choice, not by choice…

As I crossed the street back home, which always took some time due to jaywalking during traffic time, I realized that I had forgotten to tape my badge.

Though I would be going home with a badge on the verge of breaking off completely, I thought, I would make sure it wouldn’t break. Soon enough it would be mended with tape.

a code an

I was woken by my cell phone. Half asleep, I squinted to see who was calling. It’s only my sister, I thought, and decided to ignore her phone call. Three minutes later I received a text message. Again, I stretched for my phone and opened the text: “Call mom. We want to know if you know how to look for people in jail or what we could do…”

Bleary-eyed, I re-read the first sentence. Jail?! “What are you talking about”, I muttered out loud. I sat up on my bed and closed my eyes for a few seconds and opened them back up. I needed to focus. I continued reading “…Aunt Lucy* called and she’s scared because Jonathan* wanted to take the desert by Arizona to cross the border and he left for Arizona 12 days ago and she hasn’t heard anything since. She’s scared something might have happened to him, mom wants to call jails in Arizona and Mexico to see if they detained him, but I don’t know what else to do, it’s like looking for a needle in a hay stack. Any ideas?”

I immediately called my sister. The sound of her voice said she was not okay. “Ruby, you’re the one who knows about border patrol and undocumented immigrants, where can we look for him?”

“I have no idea,” seemed to be the only thing coming out of my mouth.

“It sho worked.” search fo not work

“It’s n time I ha

“Let m helping m ICE perso with. All while on up. Once screen. It ment wo ing the w to protec about ho they can easily loc and comp self a pa agony. M there wa were up. under ICE

My sister explains that she needs to head off to work, but if I think of anything, to contact mom. We hang up, and I sit motionless on my bed. “Is he alive? Is he in Arizona, or in Mexico? Has ICE detained him? Is he in jail?”

All these questions were crossing my mind, and I did not have a single answer.

“What am I doing simply sitting in bed? My parents are right; I have done my research on border patrol agencies and immigration laws.” I quickly get up from bed and turn on my laptop. I search the word “ICE” (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). This is the only agency allowed to deport undocumented immigrants back to their country of origin. While on the government website, I searched for detainees. Through ‘Detainee Locator’ I was able to input his personal information. I quickly typed it in, in hopes that it would let me know if he was under ICE custody. However, I encountered a problem: it would not let me continue to the next step without entering a specific code. I was not given a code, so what now? I refused to call the department, a feeling of discomfort passed through me just thinking about it. Simply thinking about the ICE raids I had read about and watched on the news gave me the chills. I have issues with this department, so asking for their help made me feel like a hypocrite. “Should I call? No, I don’t want to… how could I ask for their help when all this time I have spoken badly about them? No, I can’t.” I was alone in my apartment, yet it seemed to be filled with so much noise. The various thoughts running through my head seemed extremely loud and overbearing. I finally decide I must call the department, not for me, but for the well being of my cousin. Slowly, I dialed the number into my phone, took a deep breath, and clicked send.

It rang a few times before I heard a voice on the other end. “ICE office of Enforcement and Removal Operations, how may I help you?”

There seemed to be a lot of commotion coming from the background, and then I realized I had stayed quiet.

“Hello?” the voice says again, “I’m attempting to look for someone that might be under ICE custody”, I quickly say.

“We are not allowed to give out any information to civilians; however you can search for him via our website.”

“Yes I know, I have tried to that already, but it asks for

I felt h formed m they wou he had no the proce toll on a bothering governm Why do I time I wa

Four e from my arrived in and for t had arriv erybody who resid

creative non-fictions from

ED

K. Wayn

special

re We Begin

colonizing institutions

y?

Kamalayan; Awareness

nd I don’t have it,” I replied.

ould give you a code, I was just using it and it ” I went back to the website and attempted to or my cousin once again, and sure enough it did k.

not working, it won’t give me a code”, by this ad lost my cool and was beginning to tremble.

me see here, we can figure this out” says the one me. I hear mumbling and a few minutes later the onnel realizes what I have been having trouble I needed to do was take the security key off the website. I said thank you and quickly hung e I fixed the problem, a message appeared on the t said something along the lines that the governould have access to my location if I continued uswebsite, however they added that it was simply ct my identity. Before I clicked ‘accept’ I thought ow much control the government has over us. If easily identify my location, they could have as cated my cousin. Yet again, I took a deep breath pleted the search. I have always considered myatient person; however this wait was complete My thoughts seemed to overcrowd the room, for as hardly any space to breathe. Finally, the results . I was distressed to read that Jonathan was not E custody.

around and the neighborhood watches. I feel naked. Exposed. Violated. Hot tears roll down my face and sting my cheeks. I hear screaming again. Startled, I realize it’s me. I scream with an intensity I never knew I was capable of. I feel defeated and it’s too much. I throw myself onto the ground. Looking rather perturbed, a police woman picks me up from the ground and I search her face for the tiniest sign of compassion, but instead I am met with a look of disgust on her face.

“Pull yourself together, she says, what is wrong with you?!” I feel the judgemental eyes of police officers on me. And suddenly, I am overcome with a sense of anger. Indignation. I rage. I make my way to the front of my doorsteps and I turn to face them. Prepared to answer their question.

“What’s wrong you ask?! You come in here, break into my home. Treat me like a criminal. You wanna arrest my brother. And you don’t know what is wrong?!! I yell. A police officer angrily grabs my arm and directs me inside the house and to sit on the couch.

excruciating days later I received a phone call sister; Jonathan had traveled from Arizona and n California. A feeling of relief overcame my body, those few seconds I felt weightless. My cousin ved to the so-called land of the free, where evgets to live the American dream… at least those de on the “right” side of the world, anyway.

He spits at me, “How dare you say we broke into your house? We have a warrant.”

“Well, I wanna see it.” I spit back.

Taken aback, he says, “Allright, we’ll get it to you. I really don’t know why you are so upset. Your brother broke the law. He needs to pay for what he did.”

I shoot him a dirty look. “He’s just misunderstood.”

“Well what do you do? He asks.

Caught off guard, I answer, “Uhhh I’m in college…I’m a college student at UCSD.” “See, your brother is just stupid. If you went to college why didn’t he turn out like you? He deduces.

I am stuck. I don’t know how to answer. Yeah, I was always a good student. He was always getting referrals to the office. But, I knew it was something more than that. I refused to accept that. “No.” I say. “It’s not that simple.” But, I am unable to explain. Deep down, I feel like I failed my brother. How could I have gone on with my life and left him there?

I realize I had spaced out for a moment. Gosh, this student is going to think I’m weird. I better make up for it or he might lose interest in working with me. “So what do you say Jose?” I burst out eagerly. I look at him. A young Latino male misunderstood. I see my brother. I see a lot of people. I smile. This is where we begin.

de/colonizing education

ne Yang

l editor

The typical UCSD introduction: name, year, major. Simple introductions become triggering events; I almost feel ashamed to say that I am a History major. Flashbacks of boredom, repetition, erasure, marginalization flash in front of my eyes. I, insanely jealous of those who enjoy their education, want to shrink into the background. I want to squirrel away my experience of violence and erasure into a little ditch in my heart, but a heart that beats I am I am I am, pumps it back up I know, I know, I know.

Minuscule and anonymous, I settle into my plastic seat, dozens of people around me. We get fifty minutes of lecture, and some type of media if we are lucky. Scratches of chalk on the board. Somehow, no matter what is written, it always sounds the same: hollow, scratchy, dusty.

Green. I eye students so satisfied with ironics and novelty: Thomas Jefferson was a racist, Martin Luther King Jr. was a sexist, and Abraham Lincoln was really only concerned about the reunification, not the slaves. People chuckle and tuck another bit of trivia into their pockets for some type of cocktail event, faking it with people they aren’t interested in. Red. I leave hungry, soul searching for something that makes me feel alive, aware, and validated.

Purple, is the color of kamalayan—that is, the Kamalayan Kollective. We sit together once a week, sometimes laughing, sometimes serious, the best times with an odd timbre to our voices; those are the tears we are swallowing because this is real, because we embody resilience and empowerment. Pinays speaking. We carve spaces to fill the need as sisters, as womyn to talk. Still shy from years of rejection, I gingerly offer my thoughts. All I hoped for was to not be alone, and I receive more than that. Reassurance, nourishment, and solidarity. One womyn asks me, what is the People Power Revolution? Her question starts an hour-long discussion of colonization, militarism, capitalism, resistance, gender, and power. I have learned more by sharing than I have ever learned by being a sponge.

There is a wisdom, deep in my soul that has never been validated in my classrooms. I am always being taught that I start and end on 1898. Amnesia abounds in my History major. Apparently, there was no Philippine American War! There are so many words people use to disregard any type of human connection with our people: frontier theory, economic benefits, white man’s burden. Say what you really mean: racism, bigotism, exploitation, gross disrespect of humanity. It is easy to use words to distance ourselves from the past, to analyze objectively the events, policies, and images we are fed.

I can’t do it. That telltale burning in my chest tells me that this is still my present. I know of another world where there has never been an end to the colonization of the Philippines.

Non-existence is really painful. It’s an arduous task, to push away the weeds to find my identity, lost because it’s too heavy and too complicated. To love that identity, to want to understand it and nourish it takes resilience and time that doesn’t exist in a quarter system. Small, my history is only a paragraph in a textbook, a handful of minutes in lecture.

Marginal, my politics aren’t down enough because they’re not public enough. Invisible, my phenotype erases the voice in my mind that screams oppressions and complications. Miniscule, my needs must give way for food group identities, for “downness”, for oppression olympics. Educated, I have learned how to silence myself.

Yet I stubbornly persist with this education. And I cannot accept amnesia. The danger in forgetting is becoming the colonizer himself, someone whose strength comes from erasing others.

I need to remember. This is where we begin.

› AVENUES from page 5

helpless; I did not know what else to do. I inmy parents that if Jonathan were to be in jail, uld have given him a phone call. It was safe to say ot been detained. All we could do now was wait; ess of waiting for news such as this can take a person. I found myself not eating, sleeping or g to go to school. I felt angry, angry with the U.S ment, anti-immigrant laws and even with myself.

I have the right to leave and enter the U.S any ant, when others cannot?

DS 116

Regine Reyes

volume IV, issue 3, may 2011

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spaces.ucsd.edu

This Is Where We Begin

womyn writers on de/colonizing institutions › SPEECH from page 5 After leaving the counselor’s office, I continued on with my day but all I could think about was that graduation speech. I had to find a way to inspire around the 300 students from the Class of 2006, which originally started as 1,000 students. During lunch, I joked with my friends that I’d begin my speech with, “well, you made it while 700 of our friends didn’t.”

At that moment I realized that I wanted to write something real. I didn’t want to write something that would bore people or something super cliché. I wanted to tell it like it was. To expose the real Compton High that I and most of the other students experienced.

I wanted to talk about how my friend Rosalinda didn’t get to graduate simply because she could not pass the English portion of the CAHSEE. She had immigrated from Mexico during the 7th grade and was fairly new to the language. She had passed all her classes, fulfilled all the requirements except for that test.

I wanted to talk about the fact that only 300 students out of an entering class of 1,000 students. What happened to the other 700 students? Did they all just not work “hard enough”?

I wanted to talk about how we were graduating, in spite of teachers who acted like they hated us, administration that constantly yelled at us, and the security who on a daily basis policed us. I would get the opportunity to do this in front of a packed football field of black and brown parents and families.

I wanted my speech to be remembered for its realness. Although I was graduating at the top of my class, I felt my fellow students and I were cheated out of something. I felt all this rage inside of me. I felt like saying, “This is all shit. I’m full of shit.” But then I realized that such a speech would be hypocritical coming from the rule-following,

creative non-fictions from

if-you-work-hard-enough 17-year old schoolgirl.

Fear also played a role in my backing away from my sudden calling as a rebellious teen. I didn’t want to expose myself as ungrateful. Wasn’t I going to UCSD? Wasn’t I finally getting out of Compton? Why did I feel this anger when things turned out fine for me? I didn’t want to disrespect myself in front of my parents who had made so many sacrifices to see their children get a high school diploma.

After only a couple of hours of contemplating my secret rebellion, I decided to return to my old self and just leave things as they were. As I wrote my valedictorian speech I included the expected traditional sayings: “Don’t forget where you come from,” “Remember the good times,” “Get ready for the best years of your life.” I did what I was expected to do that day, I stood as a symbolic representation of the American Dream.

In my speech I went on to praise the hard work of the 300 students that faced me on that hot June day. As rows of blue and white robes sat impatiently in their chairs, I went on to say words that I myself cannot remember, that I did not believe. What I remember most about that speech was all the things that I did not say. What was unforgettable about that speech were all the people I chose to forget. Verenice, Carlie, and Rosalinda were never named. The 700 drop-outs were all forgotten.

As I think about my motivation for going into teaching I will always remember that day in June and my secret speech. I have the secret speech lodged in the inside of my conscience. Its never uttered words haunt me, and they will continue to haunt me.

Therefore, I must teach the things that as a society we chose to forgot, the voices that are silenced, the people who are left behind. I will teach to remember. I will teach so that I may never choose to forget again.

EDS 116

de/colonizing education

K. Wayne Yang special editor

At the age of tEN, I had left my friends

The only thing harder than talking about being an undocumented student at UCSD is not talking about it.

and my extended family for a house that was never a home and a classroom taught in a language unknown to me. Throughout the first six months of my life in California my family lived in the home of a friend of a friend that we hadn’t met before. I walked to school were I sat for six hours in a classroom vaguely knowing what topic was talked about. Six months later I learned enough English to speak but was still two years behind my class. A year later, and after much help from my teacher, I was able to be placed in a regular English language class. Since then, and after many inspirational teachers, I was able to graduate at the highest 10% of my class with a dream of studying Computer Science at an institution of higher education. My dream became partially true after being accepted at UCSD. But what I found here was not a welcoming environment but a bureaucratic nightmare which denied my first AB540 application. What I found here was the never ending doubt and anxiety of not knowing how to pay for the education I had been offered. What I found here was the feeling of despair when seeing my peers continue studying while taking quarters off to work and save money. The feelings haven’t disappeared or even subsided, but as I’m nearing the end of this struggle I find myself with a degree that I will not be hired for given my immigration status. Since high school graduation my life has been rocked in a sea of uncertainty and I don’t know where it will take me next.

university of california, san diego

Mar Velez

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volume IV, issue 3, may 2011

MEChA Semi-Formal Speech

and community grass roots organizations and is the author of Always Running. This quote comes from his book Hearts and Hands: Creating Community in Violent Times. It reads:

MEChA Chair 2010-2011

I

want to talk about something that has been drifting around in the air for some time. I really feel that this year, this entire year, has been the most difficult year to be a student activist at UCSD. Last year brought us together in so many different ways. We organized together, we cried together, we laughed together, we hurt together. And yet as much as we were together, we also tore ourselves apart. Divided ourselves, sectioned off pieces of our heart.

Left it with last years’ victories and memories that some of us would rather not recall. This is pain, these were our actions, that was this year. But how does this institution, how do we expect ourselves to keep going? Relentlessly and with the same fervor of last year, when we are all so tired? MEChA has always been a consistent fighter, always there to help and to lead the way for change and communal growth. But I saw how tired we were, how exhausted, how stretched so thinly we all became. And who is there to help us out? Who comes to validate the work that we do as MEChistAs, as carriers of struggle?

And I believe that we must do this for ourselves. Self-love is a struggle and a blessing. As tired as we were, we desired for community to stay united, we demanded intersectionality. When I was a first year, I was brought into this community with open arms. People validated my identity, my identity did not impede on someone else’s. We did however, challenge each other, to learn from one another. In a healthy way, in a loving way. And although anger and violence are a part of love, they are not part of healing. And that is what we need for ourselves now. I would like to read a quote from Luis Rodriguez a community activista from Los Angeles who works with gang-affiliated youth

“There is a wound in the land, the body politic, and the collective spirit. Healing involves going directly to the wound, not recoiling from it. The wound, the damage, can be the mother of our rebirth, the reconciliation. If revolution isn’t about this, it isn’t about anything.”

- Luis Rodriguez

Hearts and Hands: Creating Community in Violent Times, Tia Chucha Press

I wanted to share this quote with you because I feel like this is where we stand today. We are wounded, and we do not want to look at those wounds.

We are hurting, but we do not want to talk about why we hurt. And I think Luis Rodriguez makes an important point that if we do not do this: if we do not look at why we are broken, then we can never be the revolution. That is the revolution: healing, decolonizing, loving. And I also say this quote because it also speaks about hope. The hope that we can look at our broken community and be born again from this pain. And after seeing the amazing energy and fire of the MEChistAs this year, I am more hopeful than ever that the spark and spirit of MEChA will continue as strong as ever. For the board next year, I hope that you all find strength in each other as well as comradery, and most important, a sense of family. Because that is what we are, familia.

“[How do I do it?] Well, it’s always a mystery, because you don’t know why you get depleted or recharged. But this much I know. I do not allow myself to be overcome by hopelessness, no matter how tough the situation. I believe that if you just do your little bit without thinking of the bigness of what you stand against, if you turn to the enlargement of your own capacities, just that itself creates new potential. And I’ve learned from the Bhagavad-Gita and other teachings of our culture to detach myself from the results of what I do, because those are not in my hands.

The context is not in your control, but your commitment is yours to make, and you can make the deepest commitment with a total detachment about where it will take you. You want it to lead to a better world, and you shape your actions and take full responsibility for them, but then you have detachment. And that combination of deep passion and deep detachment allows me to take on the next challenge, because I don’t cripple myself, I don’t tie myself in knots. I function like a free being. I think getting that freedom is a social duty because I think we owe it to each not to burden each other with prescription and demands. I think what we owe each other is a celebration of life and to replace fear and hopelessness with fearlessness and joy.”

applying it: ceramics, part ii

Joan Luzon contributing writer

One of the ideas I absolutely love about ceramics is the idea that clay can be ruined by hard work.

It’s an idea that anchors me.

Like many aspects in life, you can make mistakes in ceramics. You can mess up the shape of your piece and figure out how to work around it or work right through it. There’s an incredibly crucial question that is always in my mind when I am working at a piece and I mess up a little: is it beyond repair?

My ceramics mentors always told me to make many mistakes. Make many mistakes. Master mistakes. Master your own capabilities and your own faults.

Learn when to throw a piece away and learn when you can salvage it. Learn when a piece will be a little faulty at the throwing stage, but when it can be redeemed in later stages.

At first it was frustrating. I wanted to salvage every piece I messed up on. I couldn’t understand that there was too much water, or that you can’t change the general shape of a piece beyond a certain point, or that sometimes clay is just ruined and it can’t go back anymore.

I learned quickly how unwise it was to attempt salvaging each piece. I was getting better at the wrong thing: I was getting better at fixing bad pieces and making them mediocre instead of getting better at starting off right and making mediocre pieces amazing. By trying to salvage each piece, it took longer

for me to differentiate which pieces to struggle with and which ones to let go.

The more I tried to salvage lost causes, the more damaged I felt: the more I worked with these damaged and irreparable pieces, the more I felt like I was just as damaged, too.

Applying it. I’m a big believer in “trusting the struggle.” That said, I think I am getting better at figuring out when to draw the line. When to fight for friendships. When to fight for myself. When to just let it go. I can differentiate, now, which friendships can be amazing and which ones I would be fixing for mere mediocrity. When to look to my past to avoid mistakes I made before. When to look to my future because I can learn, I can change. When to just stay in my present before I ruin what is thrown in front of me at that moment.

I’ve been thinking lately about all the beautiful relationships I have with people. I’ve been thinking about all the beautiful pieces that reside in the home in my heart. The ones that are functional, the ones that are beautiful.

The ones that are both. The ones that took forever to finish. The ones that progressed almost instantaneously. The ones that change glazes. The ones that I don’t use often, but love dearly. The ones I do use often and love dearly.

The ones I get to look at, the ones that inspire me. Yeah, there’s that pile of pieces unfinished, sloppy, and broken. But those are far outnumbered by the relationships I’m secure with now.

I’m so grateful, basically. Let’s just ramble all day, shall we?

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volume IV, issue 3, may 2011

spaces.ucsd.edu

Where Will Alexandra Wallace Be Next Year? adam Crayne

contributing writer

W

ell, we certainly know where she won’t be. If she has any clue of the impact her racist diatribe has had on progressive communities across the state, she won’t be showing up on any University of California any time soon.

As nice as it seems to know that Alexandra Wallace took the hint and realized that opinions of such gravity rarely come without backlash of a congruent vitriol, I can’t help but question if Wallace’s decision to remove herself from UCLA constitutes proper penance. If the decision were mine to make, Wallace would have been forced to remain a student at UCLA and endure the scrutiny and contempt of her fellow students. Naturally, this is no foolproof solution, but it would at least allow Wallace to take a glimpse into what it must feel like to be a minority at the UC – to be the spectacle which she so vehemently loathes in her notorious YouTube video. Her departure from the UC is less an indication that justice has been served and more a demonstration of her privilege as a White woman with an ability to escape judgment which others can only pray for.

But let’s return to the question at hand: Where will Alexandra Wallace be next year? Will it be Alexandra or Alexander? Which UC will he or she attend? What mechanism will he or she use to disrupt the relative peace that students have worked to foster for brief periods of time? How will his or her peers distort the facts to absolve themselves of accountability? How will the administration fabricate our activism to make it look like they were active

participants?

These questions are less “ifs” than “whens” only because I am not convinced in the slightest that our institutions have progressed enough to prevent a second Alexandra Wallace or Compton Cookout from surfacing. Tim Wise’s “Majoring in Minstrelsy,” an article chronicling the history of racist parties, predates the Cookout yet it may as well have been published in the winter of 2010 – who is to say it won’t remain painfully relevant in the years to come?

Reactions to both Alexandra Wallace and to the Compton Cookout make it painfully clear that justice, whether a complete revolution or a pyrrhic victory, cannot materialize unless we as students act consciously to combat injustice. In both instances, action occurred full-throttle, yet when Wallace’s litany was released, our actions suffered a great dearth of consciousness – I fail to see how Wallace’s racism justified sexism and misogyny on behalf of her detractors. Oppression cannot be used to eliminate oppression. I commend a fraction of our community for taking notice of the double-standards which fomented in the wake of Wallace’s notoriety, yet the truth remains that many of us are guilty of perpetuating the same oppression which we so vigilantly work to resist.

Given this new awareness, I ask one final question: When (not if) Alexandra Wallace appears in the limelight once more, will we have the energy and the consciousness to react substantively and effectively? Many have regarded activism as passé, or only immerse themselves in progressive efforts once discrimination targets communities with which they align (it would have been see WALLACE on page 11

The Military and Our Access Work Regine Reyes co-editor in chief

A

s much as I agree with so much of our student initiated, student run access work, I have difficulty swallowing how we engage in discussions about the military with our high school students. Now, I am not advocating the military, imperialism, the military industrial complex, war, nuclear technology, or anything else that we recognize as problematic about the military institution. What I am calling for sensitivity towards our high school students’ experiences when we discuss the military in our access work.

The military does do shady things to low income, people of color communities. They do recruit high school students as young as seventeen. They do colonize our countries of origin. They do train and fund dictatorships and all sorts of nondemocratic regimes all over the world. They do support apartheid. There is a military industrial complex, which makes constant warfare an economic imperative and sucks in civilians to the manufacturing the weaponry needed for imperialist efforts in their countries of origin. However, shoving these critiques down the throats of our high school students does not give them much more than awareness.

We need to acknowledge that the military does give our communities access to middle class incomes and benefits like medical insurance, subsidized housing, travel opportunities, and vocational skills. For retired military, they are able to claim fee waivers for their and their dependants’ post secondary education, which is the only way my family was able to send me to college.

This is important because our communities do not have equal or equitable access to university, much less the same financial means as others.

We need to acknowledge that our communities are often victimized by tracking schemes in K-12 education. Tracking separates students according to “academic ability”; high achieving students are put on a college track and take honors and Advanced Placement courses. Other students are tracked into “regular” and high school graduation with a possible college future is planned for them. Then there are students who are tracked into remedial and vocational courses and are not seen as college material, instead seen as imminent high school drop outs. These students are often the ones who join the military, because there are literally no other opportunities for them (other than jail) as they have been tracked out of the classes and resources that are necessary for access to university and decent employment.

As someone raised in Southeast San Diego, I understand intimately how my community is connected to the military. I reject simple vilification of the military as I must acknowledge what it has done for me and my family, and many other people in my community. I have watched countless friends, family, and community members join the military because they could not afford college, were raised with people who glorified the military, and were

contacted at just the right time by persistent military recruiters.

For people who want to join the military, I recommend pursuing college first. If they can finance their education, they have four years to mull over their decision and possibly find a career path they are passionate about. If they cannot afford college and plan to go to the military anyways, they can turn to ROTC to subsidize their education. After obtaining a bachelors degree, they are automatically able to become an officer, saving them from grunt work and allowing them a bigger pay check.

For people who are ambivalent about the military, but plan to enlist due to perceived lack of opportunities, I would caution that joining the military is a long term commitment. As with all long term commitments, urge them to thoroughly think through their decision. Ask them to consider about their skills and passions, and if the military is a good place to pursue them.

There are people who join the military beacuse of lack of opportunities due to a lack of cultural capital or financial readiness. For example there are people who do not have high enough grades for graduate school and/or are not willing to take out loans for graduate school. They can gain practical experience in their field which can help them launch a civilian career after retirement. I know of many people who end up becoming doctors in the Navy because they did not get high enough grades for medical school and could not afford medical school. They were able to gain 20 years of medical experience in the military and later retired to work in the military hospital. My former dentist was a high ranking Navy dentist; after retirement he set up a dental clinic that contributes to the Filipino/a ethnic enclave in National City that provides employment for people in the community.

Joining the military does not necessarily make a person an evil servant of the nation state. Let’s critique the institution without automatically vilifying individuals. We should help our high school students build a critical consciousness that they can safely retain throughout their military service. The military promotes hegemony and obedience, but let’s prepare our people to safely find some form of agency and support in that environment..

How do our critiques affect students who have an intimate relationship with the military? Do we take into account that tracking funnels a proportion of our communities into the military? What do we do with students who have foreclosed a college future? Do we see them as villains or do we continue to see them and everyone as possible holders of agency and critical consciousness? We need to ask ourselves these questions before we can even effectively reach out to our community members who are intrinsically linked to the military.

Our access work is so crucial but it is not just about getting high school students to go to college. At the heart of access is the empowerment and liberation our communities, so let’s not forget to affect change within all our community members.

university of california, san diego

volume IV, issue 3, may 2011

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› WALLACE from page 10

nice to see API folks not in SAAC orgs participating in the events last winter). As progressive students at the UC, such a process is fundamentally flawed.

The ability to pick and choose one’s battles is in essence privilege. If we are to ensure that a “new and improved” Alexandra Wallace won’t pop up in 2012, we need to break from such thinking, form meaningful alliances, and make “having one’s back” be worth more than a nifty catchphrase.

And for those who have backed out simply out of exhaustion, or out of belief that their efforts may never be fruitful, I’d like to quote the brilliant Eden Jequinto and remind you all that, while you may never see the results of your work, the process is just as important, if not more important, than the product of your activism. The process is definitely just as beautiful as that which I am confident we can produce.

We as UCSD students have survived one of the most blatantly displays of disregard for humanity at the UC and stayed true to ourselves the whole way throughout.

If anyone has the capacity to triumph in the face of the next Alexandra Wallace, it is us.

Dictator

Domino Chris “Kareem” McCoy

Ana Arabee, Chris “Kareem” McCoy contributing writer

contributing writer

Dedicated to the more than 800 Egyptians who died peacefully protesting in the January 25th, 2011 Revolution that led to the successful ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.

Death threats to brave souls Let’s play dictator domino On top of nations and won’t let go It’s dictator domino Military might to smite rebels That’s dictator domino.

I love being Arab Having some culture Language identity color blood Fraternity History Life Egypt.

Interconnected in this Internet age

Let’s play dictator domino New youth generation ignites the flame

It’s dictator domino Once one falls, the rest shall go

That’s dictator domino.

A Writing Major’s Post-grad Life: Aesthetics, Politics & Hypocrisies Thoai Lu

contributing writer

I

’ve been fixated on the word “Arts” of my Literature/Writing, Bachelor of Arts degree. Writing lives on the margins of art, it is the bridge between the intellectual and the artist. The way that writing is produced is artful, but its consumption not so much. I cannot bring creative writing projects to an employer and demand a job, but during college, I enjoyed living in books, being fixated with imagined characters and settings.

As a current editorial intern at a daily news site with a racial justice focus (Colorlines.com), this aesthetics part of college has been intersecting with politics. I’ve been able to use skills from writing workshops to unpack politics to a guaranteed audience, in a journalistic format.

I am learning about all this hard-hitting policy shit that I would have found so dull as an undergrad. What I realized is that one can’t really be a social justice activist, caught up in a dreamy world of pure aesthetics without having a foundational understanding of politics, and politics basically equates to money.

In the span of one week at my internship, I was assigned to look up figures like Refund Anticipation Loans and the amount of federal spending going into reproductive health (with the GOP’s absurd effort to defund Planned Parenthood). I then realized that figures rule the country.

A direct way that a current issue of social justice ties in with money is Voter ID laws pending in states. If states impose requirements for photo identification, that is unfair to blacks, Latinos, the elderly and out-of state college students who are prone to lack photo ID. If it costs money to obtain a photo ID, then the basic right of being a U.S. citizen – suffrage - which blacks and women had to fight for, is forsaken.

My last and only Collective Voice contribution was on growing up AsianAmerican in a world I conceived as black and white. Now, I’ve transitioned from reconciliation of racial identity to privilege space. I’m of lower-middle

class but I’m not begging on the streets. I’m Asian-American; I don’t quite reap white privilege, but I represent a “model minority” that is perceived to have an upper hand over blacks and Latinos.

Abstraction, like the “real world”, economics, politics and policy were previously quite elusive to me because I was attending a university, that in retrospect, was very elitist from both a wealth and intellectual standpoint. I miss school but it’s been so nice to escape this elitism, which I regrettably participated in, the intellectual aspect of it, that is.

I’m here to unpack hypocrisy. For four years, I was insanely jealous of my comparatively wealthy peers, but I also strived so hard to portray myself as something of an equal. Also, I’ve tried to convince myself that writing about issues (particularly if there’s a substantial readership) is enough, only because I don’t know how I can come out of my shell of living through words, get active and become present in public.

External hypocrisies have been harder to unpack, and they intersperse a bit with that of the internal. I always wished that I grew up in the 60’s and stood alongside leading revolutionaries, fighting for rights at the expense of death.

It didn’t occur to me that the youth of my generation is rightfully experiencing our own historical period.

Around the same time the recession hit, our first black president was inaugurated. As the economy is in the worst plight since the Great Depression, historians might term this period as the Neo-Great Depression. We’re venturing the 2012 elections, in suspense if we will re-elect our first nonwhite president.

With limited work experience and little resources, how could college graduates use their degrees to actively write and make history? Moreover, how can we refrained from literally being depressed? Even if passion seems superfluous, institutional and structural prejudice can hinder efforts. How we will still make effort and write history is what will distinguish our generation, making us more interesting than I would have ever given us credit for.

volume IV, issue 3, may 2011

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spaces.ucsd.edu

CO-EDITORS IN CHIEF Regine Reyes Maureen Abugan

ROWS

STAFF WRITERS Elizabeth Nguyen

SPECIAL Editor K. Wayne Yang

Maureen Abugan co-editor in chief

For most people who frequent the Cross-Cultural Center, the hallway is first and foremost an obstacle – to get to the kitchen (which is inconveniently located past the end of the hallway).

Even when pieces are displayed on the hallway walls, passersby rarely take the time to look at, let alone interact with them, whether they are t-shirts from community events or framed work by local artists. The dim, transitory space reinforces how the issue of violence against women is often overlooked and seldom leaned into. I intended my full usage of the wall, the deterioration of rose petals and supplementary light fixtures to challenge this paradigm.

One out of every three rose petals were red, and the remaining two-thirds were white: this is symbolic of the 1 in 3 women in the military who are victims or rape or sexual assault, based on a recent study by the Department of Defense. Other statistics found in the study: 37% of women that have been victims of rape and attempted rape, have been raped more than once. 75% of cases fail to be reported. This installation was exhibited on March 8 (International Women’s Day) and for the remainder of Winter Quarter.

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Adam Crayne Ana Laura Martinez Christopher McCoy Denise Manjarrez Jacqueline Naranjo Joan Luzon Mar Velez Migrant Rights Awareness Phillip Espinoza Ruby Reynaga

PHOTOGRAPHERS David Bacon Maureen Abugan Clarissa Tong

Artists Maureen Abugan

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We want freedom

We want social unity and equality for all people on campus

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We want to promote social awareness and combat social ignorance

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We want to unite student activists and students with progressive values and common struggles

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We want to educate others about ourstories and our true role in present-day society

The Collective Voice is a student-run, 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.

In line with SPACES’ mission of valuing “the power of student-initiated action,” “proving 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 commu-

nity for students who may otherwise feel unwelcome at UCSD’s challenging campus climate thereby contributing to existing retention efforts of 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 the greater San Diego communities outside of our campus. Most importantly, The Collective Voice, provides marginalized students and underresourced 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 SPACES, 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.

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We want educational equity and to empower under resourced communities

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We want to fight the rhetoric propagated by oppressive forces on campus

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We want our beliefs, practices, and ethics to be illustrated in a correct light

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We want peace. The ability to coexist on campus without fear of prejudice or persecution

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We want to be recognized as equal individuals despite and because of our ethnicity, religious affiliation, race, gender, or sexual orientation c v e d i to r s @ g m a i l . c o m