SUMMER 2013 - El Sol

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southwestern college

Volume 3, Summer Edition

The Beautiful Mind of J. Michael Straczynski and a celebration of the students of Southwestern College

elsol Dear Reader,

southwestern college

Volume 3, Summer Edition EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Ernesto Rivera

EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Amanda L. Abad

Features

Southwestern College is tucked away in a little corner of the country, and sometimes it is easy to feel overshadowed by America’s Finest City. This college though, is the most diverse multicultural higher education center in the country – possibly the world.

Our college and its influence can be felt around the globe. For more than 50 years SWC has produced writers, journalists, athletes, singers, visual artists, politicians, doctors, educators and lawyers who have made significant contributions in creating a better world.

In this issue of el sol we see uplifting stories of triumph over abuse and disease, journeys from the Vatican City to the top of the world, and we take a look inside the minds of some of our most sterling alumni. Join us in celebrating Southwestern College!

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The Fight of Her Life

Breast cancer survivor Veronica Esparza shows courage and aplomb on and off the basketball court.

Down Abuse 11 Staring Gifted athlete Jenny Zuniga escapes six years of violence and is reborn.

MANAGING EDITOR: David McVicker WRITERS: Amanda L. Abad Albert Fulcher Nickolas Furr Jose Guzman Joaquin Basauri Mason Masis David McVicker Jaime Pronoble Ernesto Rivera

40 years of Title IX 3 Fabulous Women athletes are gaining equality, but female coaches still have a way to go.

Call of the Wild

Ernesto Rivera, Editor-in-Chief

15 A former instructor and a film student prepare to conquer the North Pole.

From War Zone to the White House

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Lions, Tigers and Bears – oh my!

Ammar Najjar finds inspiration at Southwestern College on his way to the West Wing.

Sun Alumni Shine Brightly

members of America’s #1 student newspaper reflect on how their 25 Former experiences at the Southwestern College Sun propelled their lives.

PHOTOGRAPHERS: Amanda L. Abad Serina Duarte Albert Fulcher Nickolas Furr Marshall Murphy David McVicker Ernesto Rivera Kasey Thomas

Faces of Immigration Somali Shooting Star 21 Hassan Farah survived civil war and hate crimes to shine on the

CARTOONIST: Joaquin Junco Jr.

basketball court.

DESIGNERS: Amanda L. Abad David McVicker Ernesto Rivera

Thriving on Freedom 46 Taiwanese immigrant Carol Pullman blossoms as a musician and a

Photo Essay

woman in America.

Messenger of the pink dolphins 35 Brazilian scholar Cleusilene Villafane came to learn about America, found

ADVISER: Dr. Max Branscomb

love and never left.

Q&A No part of el sol may be reproduced in any form by any means without prior consent from the Southwestern College el sol Magazine.

For permission contact elsol@theswcsun.com

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Photo Essay: Animal sanctuary in Alpine provides a home to exotic and domestic animals.

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Return from Babylon 5

America’s reigning science-fiction genius J. Michael Straczynski ponders humanity, freedom, creativity and the wonders of writing.

ON THE COVER: The beautiful mind of J. Michael Straczynski by Joaquin Junco Jr. for el sol.

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el sol | Summer 2013 | 2

TITLE IX:

FEATURE

After four decades of sports revolution, women grab gold but men still dominate the sidelines

Serina Duarte/Staff

H

David McVicker/Staff

Softball coach Yasmin Mossadeghi, women’s soccer coach Karyna Figuero, and women’s volleyball coach Angela Rock (next page) are three of the four female women to lead athletic teams at Southwestern College.

By Amanda L. Abad

3 | el sol | Summer 2013

ope Solo, Gabby Douglas and Allyson Felix never met Patsy Mink, but more than anyone else the trio of American sports stars owe their gold medals to the petite Hawaiian Congresswoman who unleashed a revolution.

Mink’s landmark legislation, the Equal Opportunity in Education Act of 1965, sparked the greatest change in women’s sports ever seen.

An amendment labeled Title IX fired the starting gun for American women and they have been off and running ever since. Female coaches, however, are still trailing in the race.

Title IX is short and straightforward.

It reads: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex,

be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity re c e i v i n g f e d e r a l financial assistance.”

Title IX made sure that women were able to receive the same opportunities as men in the classroom and eventually in sports.

Title IX changed everything. Since it was signed into law

by Richard Nixon in 1972, nine times as many girls play high school sports.

Over the same time there has been a 450 percent increase of women in collegiate athletics.

In 2012, for the first time in h i s t o r y, w o m e n we re re p re s e n t e d in every Olympic competition. Young girls have many more athletic role models to look up to such as gymnasts Gabby Douglas (two gold medals) and Aly Raisman (two gold medals), swimmers Missy Franklin (four gold medals) and Allison Schmitt (three gold medals), and track star Allyson Felix (three gold medals).

Let’s not forget about gold medal skeet shooter Kim Rhode who hit 74 of 75 flying targets. She is the only American to win five consecutive medals in an individual sport, a traditionally male sport at that.

Women’s soccer is soaring in popularity and women of all ages can look up to gold medalists Abby Wambach, Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan, Solo and every female athlete on the roster for the U.S. national team. This stellar team was coached by former women’s soccer

player Pia Sundhage.

Unfortunately, though, female coaches are still too few and far between. One vestige of the Old Boys Club is still packed with boys.

“In the Olympics it was sad to see that the only female coach for women’s athletics was the women’s soccer team,” said Southwestern College head softball coach Yasmin Mossadeghi. “All the other women’s sports were coached by males.”

There is a need for more female coaches in the Beautiful Game, said SWC women’s soccer coach Karyna Figuero. Title IX, she said, has definitely opened doors for her.

“Due to the rise in number of female soccer players around the country, female coaches are in higher demand than ever before,” she said.

“Women’s teams of all ages and playing level are turning to female coaches to lead their young players.

I never had a female coach growing up and now I see the new generation is growing up with a female coach at every level. Times have changed and I believe for the better.”

At SWC 54 percent of all students are female. Lady Jaguars are able to participate in half the sports SWC offers. SWC volleyball coach Angela Rock, an Olympic gold medalist, said she owes her athletic and coaching career to Title IX. “Without Title IX the opportunities for women would not have been there for me or the women who have played after me,” she said.

Mossadeghi said she would not have a career without Title IX. “None of my accomplishments would have existed if (Title IX) did not exist back (when I was in college),” she said. “Cal State Fullerton may not have had a softball program, and I would not be here today coaching at Southwestern.”

Figuero said she is grateful for Title IX as well as all the female coaches and athletes that paved the way for her.

“I do believe it was because of their fight for equality that I am lucky enough to have achieved all that I have thus far in my career,” she said.

In 1971, the year before Title IX el sol | Summer 2013 | 4

FEATURE became law, about 294,000 high school girls competed in sports. In 2011 the number was nearly 3.2 million, an increase of about 980 percent, according to the Women’s Sports Foundation. The year before Title IX became law less than 32,000 female athletes participated in sports at the collegiate level and today “more than 191,000 females played NCAA sports in 2010-11,” according to the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

Inequalities still exist, however.

Girls, according to the National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education, have “1.3 million fewer chances to play sports in high school than boys. Opportunities are not equal among different groups of girls. Less than two-thirds of African-American and Hispanic girls play sports, while more than three-quarters of Caucasian girls do.”

There are not many female head coaches in the sporting world, especially at the college level. SWC has four female head coaches. Rock said the next revolution needs to be led by women coaches. Title IX may have caused one unfortunate unintended consequence.

“If you look at the Pacific Athletic Conference, all of 12 women’s volleyball coaches are male,” she said. “In the Pacific Coast Athletic Conference, our conference at SWC, 6 of 7 coaches are female, yet at the highest levels there are very few women as head coaches.”

Rock said men are reluctant to let go of the reins.

“I think this is because the majority of athletic directors are male and they

go figure

54

percent of all students at SWC are female. Lady Jaguars are able to participate in half the sports SWC offers.

5 | el sol | Summer 2013

see the men as a better coaching option,” she said. “Research has shown, however, that prior to Title IX there were more women coaching women and once women’s sports reached more equality, men became coaches due to the rise in pay.”

Mossadeghi said coaching is not a level playing field in terms of salary and hiring because “both male and female are applying for women’s sports where as you do not see the same for men’s sports.”

Rock said the gym floor is not level, either.

“The most common [issue] is gym time,” she said. “At the four-year university level men’s basketball always had first priority with the main gym, even when (SDSU’s women’s volleyball team was) ranked #1 in the nation and they were unranked at SDSU. Football, baseball, basketball and soccer take so many of the ‘male’ spots for sports that most colleges and universities do not have men’s volleyball. That forces men that love the game to migrate into coaching women’s volleyball, just because they love the sport. This is where I see the unintended down side of Title IX, the reduced amount of opportunities for boys and men to play volleyball.”

Mo s s a d e g h i s a i d s h e o f t e n experiences unequal treatment in women athletics, especially when she goes to neighboring high schools to recruit.

“There are still programs out there where male facilities are far superior to females facilities,” said Mossadeghi. “For example, I will go

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women head coaches and four women assistant coaches at SWC. Four women’s teams are coached by men without women assistants.

out to recruit and the softball team doesn’t have a ball field on campus whereas the baseball team has one on campus, or the softball team has to put up their fences and doesn’t have covered dugouts where the baseball team has covered dugouts and a permanent fence.”

Rock said it is important for young women to have women as role models and she tries hard to be a good one.

“I only had two female head coaches and that was in high school,” she said. “My track and volleyball coaches were very good role models and really helped me develop as an athlete and as a young person.”

Being female has never stopped Figuero, she said. It only made her work harder and determined to always do the best she could. This is the reason, she said, she has been able to get where she is today.

“I try to instill that same message to my players,” said Figuero. “We can’t live in the past. It’s hard at times because it is in our culture as Latino women to feel the need to stay at home and raise the kids, but now we have to strive for more. We can achieve all that we desire as long as we believe and act on our abilities as the new generation of female athletes, coaches, mothers and career women of today.”

Mossadeghi agreed.

“I probably would have never thought about being a collegiate coach if it wasn’t for my female coaches in college,” she said. “It’s easier to visualize yourself doing something if your gender is doing it and accomplishing it already.” es

Ernesto Rivera/Staff

3,200 9 female athletes participated in sports at the collegiate level the year before Title IX became law.

times as many girls play high school sports since Title IX was signed into law by Richard Nixon in 1972.

191,000 1.3 females played NCAA sports in 2010-11, according to the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

million fewer chances for girls to play sports in high school than boys, according to the National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education. el sol | Summer 2013 | 6

FEATURE

Winning

fight of her the

life

Story and photographs by Ernesto Rivera

V

eronica Esparza said she first felt a lump on her breast in October 2011, but did not feel a lump in her throat. She initially thought it was normal, she recalled. Friends and family told her it could not possibly be breast cancer because she was too young.

They were wrong.

At 20, Esparza, a kinesiology major and guard for the Lady Jaguars basketball team, felt like her whole life was ahead of her. But at a doctor’s visit in November 2011 she said terror began to surround her.

7 | el sol | Summer 2013

“I was nervous because she looked at me with this face that you don’t want to see coming from a doctor,” she said. “It was scary, nobody wants to see something like that. I’ll never forget the look on her face.”

Espar za said that after an ultrasound her doctor said she had a rare type of breast disease. She was given two options, take a sample of it and wait months for test results or immediate surgery.

“My doctor recommended me getting the surgery because what I had was growing really fast,” she said.

Esparza said she was afraid she might die.

“Nobody in my family has breast

Veronica Esparza was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 20. The scare helped Esparza refocus on education and helping others. She now considers it a blessing.

cancer, it’s still a sensitive subject when we talk about it,” she said. “I remember it was a Thursday night and I was so scared because I was trying to go to sleep and it was really big and I could tell it just wasn’t normal.”

Esparza said she felt comfortable talking with women’s basketball coach Darnell Cherry because of his family’s history with breast cancer.

“When I was feeling down, he would motivate me to do better and just get right back up and not fall behind,” she said. “He was very inspirational. He helped me look at the positive instead of the negatives.

He helped me realize that it’s a blessing that I’m still here.” el sol | Summer 2013 | 8 8

FEATURE

A look at

Breast Cancer

1 in 8

women will develop breast cancer every

13 minutes a woman dies of breast cancer in the U.S. every

19 seconds a woman in the world is diagnosed there are more than

2.6 million breast cancer survivors in the U.S. Sources: http://www.komen.org/ http://www.cancer.org/

9 | el sol | Summer 2013

Cherry said he could not believe it when having those ‘what if?’ questions going he first heard Esparza’s diagnosis. through my head,” she said.

“I haven’t really heard of a young lady, Groggy from medication, Esparza said as athletic as she is, to develop breast she felt lost, exhausted and in agony when cancer so I was both shocked and sad for she came out of her surgery. her,” he said.

“I was in so much pain, all I remember Cherry said his main advice to Esparza is that I couldn’t cry,” she said. “It was so was to keep her head up and know that painful that I just couldn’t.” the team was praying for her and there to Esparza said the surgery was successful, support her. but she may never be out of the woods.

“Just from talking to her and letting “Various doctors told me it was a rare her know that not only myself but our breast cancer disease and even though coaches and our team were really behind they took the cyst out, I have a huge her, I think that helped out a lot,” he said. chance of getting it again when I’m older,” Elizabeth Jaimes, 20, a criminal justice she said. “So what I’m doing now is I’m major, said she felt numb when she first living my life.” heard the news about her friend and Surviving breast cancer opened Esparza’s teammate. eyes to so many things and has made her “I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “I hear think dramatically different about her life. about these kind of things all the time, “I realized I could do two things,” she but when she said. “I could told me what be depressed t h e l u m p “Tomorrow is never a promise and cry about turned out to it, and it was be it seemed and knowing that is what makes that bad, or surreal and I me want to go on.”

I could get didn’t want to up, work accept it.” hard and be November was filled with an air of an inspiration to others. Just because uncertainty, Esparza said. something this bad happens to you “I didn’t know what to think, I didn’t doesn’t mean you have to stop and you know what was going on, I didn’t know can keep going and that’s exactly what I if the surgery was going to change did.” anything,” she said.

Despite a successful surgery, not being On Dec. 12, 2012 Esparza had a fiveable to play basketball until January was hour surgery to remove the cancerous cyst. painful and frustrating. Esparza even She spent three days in the hospital. disobeyed doctor’s orders to be on bed rest “Waking up and heading to my surgery to catch the Lady Jags’ first home game. was fine, I wasn’t nervous,” she said. “It “I felt like I needed to be there because I wasn’t until they put the IV in me that it am part of the team and I wanted to show hit me. I was scared because I wasn’t sure support for my girls and hopefully I could how it was going to turn out.” inspire them to play harder,” Esparza said.

Jaimes said she was willing to do “Coach Cherry just looked at me and whatever it took to help Esparza through said, ‘You’re crazy. You should be in bed.’” her terrifying situation. She went with Going against doctor’s orders again, her friend to doctor appointments and Esparza began practicing three weeks after sat through the surgery to make sure she her surgery. was okay.

“I practiced by myself because I wanted “I honestly was really scared for her to be ready when I came back,” she said. because if this surgery didn’t (work) Esparza finally got the doctor’s okay to she’d be taking all sorts of medications,” play again and came back to the team at she said. “That’s the last thing I wanted the end of January. because she needed to get better fast and “I felt like I was me again because play the game we both love to play.” basketball is a huge part of who I am,” Esparza said it was her first surgery ever she said. “It’s a sport I’ve been playing and she had never even been in a hospital since I was a kid.” before.

Cherry said he was worried that Esparza “I knew I was going under and I was had come back to the team too soon.

“Once the doctors cleared her and our trainers cleared her, I knew she was good to go,” he said. “It took her a minute to get back into it, but she did and she did just fine.”

Espar za said even though it was great being back, things were not the same.

“It was hard for me to breathe and it was scary to know that if I got hit I could open up my wound,” she said. “I didn’t let my fear hold me back and I wanted to show the girls that just because I had surgery, don’t treat me any differently.”

Cherry said it felt great seeing Esparza pull through so quickly.

“I was glad that, first of all, she got all the cancerous cells out of her body and she didn’t have to have her breast removed so it was great,” he said.

Jaimes said she felt a huge weight taken off her shoulders when Esparza came back to team.

“I was relieved and excited to see her play,” she said. “She was at her best skill wise and I wanted her to show others that she’s a fighter, and despite her situation she pulled through.”

Cherry said Esparza had already been a mature young lady before her ordeal.

“I just saw her grow up a lot,” he said.

“She matured not only as a player, but also as a person. I think her having gone through that has put a lot of things in perspective, like you can’t take life for granted.”

Before her surgery Esparza was looking to transfer to a university basketball program and held basketball as a higher priority than academics.

“Now I’m just focusing on my education,” she said. “I’m more serious about school now and I’m more focused on what I want to do. Basketball might not get me there, but school will.”

Esparza said she is still unsure of

A frightening breast cancer diagnosis caused Esparza to completely re-evaluate her life. She changed her major to kinesiology with hopes to help other athletes and inspire people with her story.

what she wants to do in the future, but hopes it will involve basketball and her experience as a breast cancer survivor.

“I know I just want to do something to help others and inspire them to do their best at something,” she said.

Esparza said her doctors say she is doing better and her body is recuperating well.

“Everyone says I’m back and nobody even thinks that I’ve gone through that because of how positive I am as a person,” she said.

Esparza’s advice to anyone going through exceptionally difficult times is simply to hold your head up.

“Don’t be ashamed of what you’re going through,” she said. “There are people out there who will listen and will help you with what you’re going through.”

Now 21, Esparza said she is not going to let her high probability of getting breast cancer again hold her back from anything.

“Tomorrow is never a promise and knowing that is what makes me want

go on,” she said.

Esparza said that despite having to miss school and go through surgery she managed to pass all her classes.

“I’m thankful for what happened,” she said. “Actually, I thank God every day that I’m still here. I’m happy we caught it on time before it was too late.

Everything happens for a reason, I just live everyday.”

Jaimes said Esparza fights for what she believes.

“Veronica Esparza is a special and beautiful young lady with a kind heart who is always willing to help others in anyway she can, a great listener who puts loved ones before herself,” she said.

Cherry agreed.

“Veronica is an inspiration to us all.”

More than a year after her surgery, Esparza is checked regularly by doctors in case of any recurrence and reflects on her incident as a blessing.

“It’s better that it happened now rather than later,” said Esparza. “As life goes on, we just move forward.” es el sol | Summer 2013 | 10

FEATURE

Finding inner peace after violence

Talented athlete regroups after escaping six years of abuse. By Amanda L. Abad Photographs by Serena Duarte 11 | el sol | Summer 2013

el sol | Summer 2013 | 12

F FEATURE

For six years Jenny Zuniga was losing.

She almost lost everything.

Today she is a big winner, even if her Southwestern College water polo team struggled. She is alive and free from the violent relationship that nearly ended her life.

A natural athlete, Zuniga began playing soccer when she was five. She played four years in high school, was varsity captain her senior year and excelled in club soccer.

“My parents kept me in soccer,” said Zuniga. “It was one of the greatest things they have done for me. It made me become more competitive. It taught me to push myself harder than most people. It kept me knowing that as long as I keep practicing or trying, that I will get better.”

Her drive to compete brought her to cross-country, track and field, golf and an acceptance letter from San Diego State University. Unfortunately, she said, the Beautiful Game lost its luster when she fell into an ugly relationship.

“I started dating this guy shortly after my junior year of high school,” said Zuniga.

“He was my first boyfriend and I did not know how a relationship was supposed to be. Coming from a Hispanic family where the women tend to the males, I was not educated on the fact that women have rights in relationships, too. Eventually, I was being manipulated…controlled.”

Domestic violence includes physical, sexual, mental and economic abuse. It is one of the most chronically underreported crimes, according to The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Research shows that one in every four women will experience domestic violence in their

13 | el sol | Summer 2013

lifetimes.

“I felt ashamed. I didn’t know what else to do,” said Zuniga. “I didn’t want to tell anyone because I didn’t even know how I felt about it. I placed him on a higher pedestal than I placed myself. I continued to let it happen, I wanted to die. I lost everything because of him.”

After years of mental and physical torment, she said she lost her self esteem.

Zuniga stopped competing in sports.

“I realized I had to leave the relationship because of that event that nearly could have ended my life,” she said. “That night, as we were arguing, I had decided not to fight back since I was already 21. I understood that fighting wasn’t acceptable anymore. As we were arguing I tried walking away and he dropped me to the floor, pinning me down by my hands and getting on top of me. I struggled to get out from under him.

I broke free, and he immediately put me into a head lock and was strangling me. After that moment, I knew I had to leave the relationship because my life was in danger, this time fearing evermore that it could have been the end for me.

I realized that if I had stayed with him any longer, he could have killed me with his usual outbursts of aggression and violence.”

Faith brought her spirit back to life, she said. Support from her church and her water polo team helped her remember who she was.

“I didn’t realize how much I changed,” said Zuniga. “I forgot how smart, athletic and talented I could be. I finally had the freedom to heal and to speak out against domestic violence.

I felt phenomenal.”

Claudia Chavez said she met Zuniga about a year ago at Cornerstone Church of San Diego.

“Jenny began to attend my Women’s Family Life Group on a weekly basis,” said Chavez. “I got to know her strengths and, most importantly, her heart.”

Zuniga said her pastor gave her priceless advice.

“The condition of your heart will determine the course of your life,” she

After years of abuse, Jenny Zuniga had enough. Today she is a certified domestic violence counselor and helps run an SWC campus club.

“I placed him on a higher pedestal than I placed myself. I continued to let it happen, I wanted to die.

I lost everything because of him.” recalled him saying.

By letting her heart heal, she said, she finally found her true calling —helping people. Zuniga said she gives presentations in class about domestic violence against women and men.

“I am a certified domestic violence counselor,” she said. “I’m also starting a club at Southwestern College to show people it’s okay to be nice, to care about people.

We are going to show people that there is happiness, joy and peace in everyday life.”

Aleena Houseman, a friend and water polo teammate, said she really admires Zuniga’s positive outlook.

“She has such a need to help people, to

help make other people’s lives better,” she said. “She inspires me to be a better person.”

Chavez said Zuniga’s nightmare with domestic violence had a deep impact on her life. It is like getting into a horrible car accident, she said there is a long and painful healing process.

“After some accidents, we are never the same,” said Chavez. “I know Jenny has a strong faith that God will continue to heal her and allow her to help others that have been impacted by domestic violence. If her experience enables her to speak to the multitudes and be used to bring healing to others that have been hurt by domestic violence, then yes she is a better person.”

Returning to athletics was easy for Zuniga, she said. While taking a swim class, she was approached by a teacher and was invited to join the SWC women’s water polo team. She said she joined because she was mentally and physically ready to be

challenged. It takes dedication to be a water polo player, she said.

“Water polo was very intimidating at first,” said Zuniga. “The other girls have been playing since high school. I had never played before and I’ve maybe only watched a game once or twice on TV. I’ve continued to practice. I know I’m not perfect, but I’m willing to practice and get there.”

Houseman said Zuniga is very hardworking and extremely motivated.

“She pushes herself to be the best she can be,” said Houseman. “She never gives up or cheats herself out of anything. She just wants to succeed in everything she puts her mind to. It’s just in her personality.”

Chavez said that Zuniga loves the leadership and competitiveness of sports.

“Sports helps her build herself up and remind her how amazing and strong of a woman she is,” she said. “I think that her participation in sports helps her physically,

mentally and spiritually.”

Zuniga, a psychology major and a women’s studies minor, is taking 15 units this semester, and she plans to get her Master’s Degree in communications. She practices three days a week for two-and-ahalf hours, and has a swim class two days a week.

“I stay at school knowing that this is a place where I can concentrate,” said Zuniga.

“Sports and school is what I’ve always done in my life. I forgot how good I was at this.”

Zuniga said she plans to compete in a half-Ironman triathlon next year. She also plans on joining the cross-country team.

“I did cross-country in high school,” said Zuniga. “I’d be good at it. As long as I keep pushing myself to these limits, as long as I don’t give up. I have a better state of mind being a survivor, a conqueror.”

No need to check the standings, Jenny Zuniga is already the winner. es

el sol | Summer 2013 | 14

FEATURE

CALL of The

wIld

By Mason Masis

S

anta Claus is about to get visitors – unless they are eaten by polar bears and orcas.

Archaeologist Jose “Pepé” Aguilar has spent the past 16 years preparing for an epic journey to the North Pole. He will be joined by SWC film student Carl Thiessen to document the adventure.

Aguilar is a veteran of the frigid north. He has made five trips into the Arctic Circle, alone and unsupported, using only a pair of skis and what he could carry. Added companions only increased the danger involved in his journeys.

Thiessen said he approached Aguilar last year and asked to join the expedition with the intention of documenting the entire trip.

Aguilar said he has been asked to take others before but always said no. He developed an irresistible bond with Thiessen, an athletic, intellectual young man with a quiet confidence.

“I trust Carl with my life,” said Aguilar.

Thiessen said he hopes it does not

come to that.

“We aren’t going with a huge group,” he said. “If one of us gets hurt we don’t have a helicopter. If we call in a rescue it’s gonna be a good $10,000.”

Thiessen is no stranger to the cold, he said. He has made numerous trips into the mountains of British Columbia where temperatures can plunge to polar levels. Canada, though, is land, terra firma, whereas the North Pole is a spinning skullcap of ice that covers the top of the world in winter and melts away to an ocean in the summer. Polar explorers, in essence, are always walking on water.

Challenges abound, but the first is to raise $150,000 to support the two explorers. In addition to travel expenses, Aguilar’s team must purchase special jackets, camera equipment and

astounding amounts of food to combat the caloric burn of Arctic travel. He said he has always run a small operation, paying for most of his trips with his own money or with donations from relatives.

Thiessen said the duo has to have certain items for survival, but will not be extravagant.

“We are not working on a National Geographic budget,” he said.

Temperatures could reach minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit with a wind chill ­­­that will make it feel like 130 degrees below zero, Aguilar said.

At these temperatures filmmakers need to master ­­­special techniques such as when to remove lenses and how to acclimate cameras so condensation will not destroy the internal structure. Even a photographer’s icy breath could badly damage cameras at Arctic temperatures.

Ernesto Rivera/Staff

Film student Carl Thiessen and former professor Jose “Pepe” Aguilar are preparing to make an epic winter time trek to the treacherous North Pole. el sol | Summer 2013 | 16

FEATURE Members of the expedition will also be dragging about 300 Jose “Pepe” Aguilar during an pounds of Arctic gear expedition to Resolute Bay in and food in sleds as they cross-country Alaska, March 28, 2012. It ski toward the North was 35 degrees below zero Po l e . A d e l i c a t e balance of weight when the sun was out, minus and clothing must be 60 at night. maintained in order to keep from sweating, Thiessen said, because perspiration can ruin the gear and cause death by hypothermia.

Aguilar said if the team members do not take enough food they will not be able to replenish the 7,000 to 10,000 calories burned daily in the Arctic.

“I remember a trip I took where the cold temperature re-broke ribs that had been broken and healed well before the trip,” said Aguilar. “Pain killers will constipate you and I just had to push through it.” figure the poor sap will have about five Dangerous wildlife in the Arctic minutes of life provided he does not is also a real problem. Aguilar will be drown first.” armed with a shotgun to protect the Aguilar said the team plans two team from polar bears which may see practice runs to Northern Canada members as food. He said he had to before their assault on the North Pole. abort a previous solo expedition because Explorers must travel in the dead his bear alarm stopped working. of the Arctic “It’s necessary because after skiing winter when all day with all your gear you will not the ocean wake up until it is too late,” he said. “I region that have never encountered a polar bear on is the North any of my expeditions, (but) orcas have Pole is frozen been known to break through ice and over. Practice take people.” runs will test That last part was new information to how team members interact with each Thiessen he said with clear consternation. other in challenging conditions and Melted ice can cause stretches of frigid if the filmmaker can deal with the lakes that span vast distances in every environment direction, an obstacle the duo is not “If we all get an A we are good, if we looking forward to, Aguilar said. don’t, we will need to rethink things,” “The sleds can be rigged into a raft in said Aguilar. “Annoyances will only be case we find open water,” he said. “The compounded in the Arctic.” situation will become very difficult and Intense training is necessary to bulk dangerous if one of us falls in the cold up for the journey, he said. Footage water and does not get pulled out. I of Aguilar training on the beach with

‘Staring into the abyss’ excerpts from Jose “Pepe” Aguilar’s log from a previous Arctic expedition

courtesy photo

tires and weights to simulate the load he carries in the Arctic will be shown in the documentary. So will an Arctic right of passage.

British knight Sir John Franklin and his entire team of 128 died on King William Island in 1845 on what is now the far north of Canada. It is considered one the great tragedies of modern exploration and was all the more gruesome when evidence of cannibalism surfaced.

Searches for the Franklin party gripped British and American citizens for decades and evidence of ships, equipment and human remains were discovered over a period of 150 years.

Though the journey to the graves of this failed expedition can be done with a tour guide on snowmobiles, getting there on cross-country skis is a bucket list must for Arctic explorers.

“Anguish is the name of the game.”

17 | el sol | Summer 2013

Danger and intrigue are fueling the team, Thiessen said.

“We plan to ski from Resolute Bay to Beechey Island and set camp on Beechey Island, the place where at least three members of the Franklin Expedition are buried,” he said. “That is about 200 kilometers on the ice provided the pack conditions are optimal, which they never are.”

If successful, Aguilar and Thiessen would become the third and fourth people to ever ski to the North Pole and back completely unaided. In 1995 Richard Weber and Dr. Mikhail “Misha” Malakhov were the first to do it. This feat was called the most difficult polar challenge ever achieved by Sir Ranulph Fiennes, British adventurer and the “Guinness Book of World Records” greatest living explorer.

Aguilar and Thiessen hope to add a new chapter to polar history when they stand on top of the world.

It won’t be easy, Aguilar said.

“Anguish is the name of the game.” es

March 28, 2012 Resolute Bay 4:50 pm And everything ended in disgrace.

After turning off the stove around 7 p.m. last night, the temperature inside the tent plummeted from 8° C to 40° below zero! After turning off the stove I donned a second layer of clothing and I went to “bed.” I was pretty cozy for about five minutes, but soon after the cold turned brutal. That did not worry me too much at the beginning because I was expecting it.

I am not sure how much time went by because the shivering and the cold would wake me up every two or three minutes. Eventually I had to get out of my bag to pee – you can imagine my trepidation!!! I went back to bed soon after, but this time the cold arctic silence was interrupted by the uncontrollable shattering of my teeth.

At around 3 a.m., I had to get out of my bag to pee again. Soon after I went back to bed the wind started to pick up. This told me that the temperature outside the tent was going to plummet even more. This wind, however, penetrated the tent walls and I got even colder. My breath froze on my mask and my eyebrows were white with ice. My eyelids were so frozen and icy that I could not keep my eyes open. And to top it all off, I had to pee around 4:30 a.m. again!!!

The wind blew really, really cold and the temperature dropped below than what my thermometer could register.

At about 6 a.m., I got up and got dressed up. The movements involved with taking down my camp warmed me up a little bit and my spirits rose up a little as well. I turned to look toward the southeastern portion of Resolute Bay and I contemplated for a

minute continuing. I reasoned that if I survived last night I ought to be able to make it; but, in all honesty, I had to admit to myself that that was not going to be the case. I tried to push myself into continuing but something inside me told me that if I continued I was going to die.

The decision was painful, but it was the right one – I turned back defeated by the threat of the polar bears, the cold and my weak mindset. I figured my loved ones would be happy to see me again, and that was enough for me.

Skiing back to the hotel was easy, although it took about 30 minutes for my legs to warm up; it felt as if my feet were a pair of wooden stumps.

Arriving at the hotel I stumbled across the owner; it took him a while to recognize me due to the condition I was in. He invited me for breakfast and, although I was half dead when I got back to the hotel, I suddenly came back to life when I smelled the goddamned bacon.

I sat down next to a man that I had met on the flight coming into Resolute Bay. He asked me how my trek went and very ashamed I told him about my tribulations on the sea ice.

He did not seem to be as impressed as he was a few days prior. I proceeded to eat my breakfast, but soon after, little by little, I felt my heart coming apart in despair to the point that I slowly stopped talking. I don’t remember if I finished the plate or not…

I believe it was Nietzsche who said that when you stare into the abyss long enough, the abyss stares back at you. Right now we are staring at each other through a cold window pane. I don’t know if the abyss is going to miss me, but I am certainly going to miss it. el sol | Summer 2013 | 18

FEATURE

Making it in the

West Wing

AMMAR NAJJAR, Southwestern College alumnus, a Mexican- and Arab-American, shuttled between the wonders and horrors of the Gaza Strip and California borderlands on his way to a White House internship

By Jose Guzman resident Barack Obama makes it a commitment to personally read 10 letters a day from constituents.

So u t h we s t e r n College alumnus Ammar Najjar decides which ones they are.

A 24-year-old White House intern, Najjar credits two SWC professors for helping to put him on a path to the West Wing. It is a path that has wound through Palestine’s wartorn Gaza Strip and borderlands California.

During his formative years Najjar had to cope with moving back-andforth every year between the U.S. and the Middle East. His father’s family is Palestinian Muslims and on his mother’s Mexican Catholic.

It was a confusing but enlightening childhood, he said.

“Being culturally diverse can be empowering and challenging, sometimes even comical,” said Najjar.

“I went to Catholic school in Gaza and to Islamic school in America.

19 | el sol | Summer 2013

I’m not sure what my parents were thinking, but that’s where the empowerment came in. Having to constantly acclimate to various cultures and belief systems ultimately broadened my perspective on religion and social issues.”

Najjar lived in Gaza during the Second Intifada. It was an intense warzone between Israel and the Palestinians with almost daily violence.

“I’ll never forget the paralyzing fear I felt when the entire city’s electricity would go off in the middle of the night and the bombing of nearby buildings ensued,” he said.

“The bombings would last all night, followed by a lifeless silence that pervaded the entire city. It would be pitch black if it weren’t for the ominous afterglow of a moon made red by the smoke that filled the sky.”

Najjar said he was discriminated against during the dispute between the Palestinians and Israelis even though he was racially Palestinian.

“As an American I quickly became a scapegoat for my peers, who had a vague belief that the United States had to share some of the blame

for the circumstances,” he said.

“While I was loved and validated by the countless friends and family members, the discrimination I felt by the hands of a few cut deep.”

Najjar spent three consecutive years in war-torn Palestinian territories, then returned home to the U.S. with his mother and brother. His father and two younger siblings stayed in the Middle East.

“I was eager to come back to San Diego, a place where my diverse cultural background was not only acceptable, but the norm,” he said.

“In America I had Catholic Mexicans on my mom’s side, Muslim Arabs on my father’s side and even Jewish inlaws. As cliché as it may seem, what I needed more than anything at that point was the American Dream.”

Many Americans, however, turned on him after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It did not matter to some angry Americans that most of the 9/11 terrorist were Saudis and he was Palestinian. Middle Easterners in general felt the lash, he said.

That changed in November 2008 when Barack Obama became the first non-white president in American

history.

“The election of President Obama pulled my American dream from beneath the rubble of those two towers,” said Najjar. “I am so proud to have a culturally diverse president. That’s what makes being a White House intern under this administration so special, almost sacred, for me.”

From 2007-10 Najjar attended SWC and the college gave him a second chance to make something of himself, he said. Though he would graduate from SDSU, he said he considers SWC his home.

“I am forever in debt to both the people and Courtesy photos institution of SWC for Ammar Najjar with professor and mentor Peter Bolland cultivating the ambition in Washington D.C. Najjar credits Bolland and Professor and skills that have brought Alejandro Orozco with guiding him to get where he is today. me to where I am today,” he said.

Najjar gives special credit to two of his philosophy professors, I take pride in the work I do as an intern, student who was different and possessed Alejandro Orozco and Peter Bolland. and understand the importance of the a genuine sincerity.

“Professor Orozco was one of my first work I am tasked with.”

“This class wasn’t just a means to an professors at SWC and he won me over Najjar said he did remarkable things, end, it was an end itself,” said Bolland. within the first 10 minutes of class,” said including interacting with the senior “He has natural curiosity and desire to Najjar. “He won’t let me give him credit, staff, participating in the White House learn, and if a student brings that then but he profoundly helped to shape the events, attending White House press everything falls into place.” person I am today.” briefings and taking part in the Foreign Bolland said Najjar deserves to be Years after leaving Bolland’s class, Policy and Communications public where he is because of his hard work.

Najjar said he is still affected by him. interest groups.

“There are other interns who got the “Anyone who knows Professor Bolland “My experience as a White House intern job because their father is a powerful knows why I’m listing him as one of the has been absolutely transformative,” he attorney who knows Michelle Obama, most influential teachers in my life,” said. “I am amazed at how much interns or knows this senator or that judge, or he said. “It’s been three years since I’ve are valued and respected at the White comes from the elite, but Ammar comes taken a class with him, and I still haven’t House. I’m reminded daily by staff from the working class, through just stopped learning from the guy.” how important interns are to the work sheer hard work,” he said. “He applied Najjar works in the Office of Presidential of the White House. In my short time three times and it’s because of his work Correspondence in the White House. here, I’ve grown both professionally and on the Obama campaign he proved He reads thousands of messages sent personally.” himself.” by citizens with opinions, problems, Orozco said he is not surprised Najjar Najjar’s advice to SWC students is to suggestions, criticism or praise. has enjoyed so much success so early in seek out a professor as a mentor.

“Whenever I read a moving letter by life.

“Professors Bolland and Orozco both a constituent, I imagine how important “He gives me a lot of credit for took the time to invest in me and guide hearing back from the White House inspiring him, but he was already very me, which ultimately lead me along the must be for them,” he said. “I remember gifted before I met him,” said Orozco. path I am on now,” he said. “Have a goal when I first applied for the internship, I “He already possessed a philosophical of what you want, and make sure not to anxiously waited to hear back. I cannot mind and I could tell he would do lower your standards when things get even begin to comprehend how these something good with his mind.” tough, that’s the time when you can show people must feel, writing to the president.

Bolland described Najjar as a great yourself what you’re truly made of.” es el sol | Summer 2013 | 20

FACES OF IMMIGRATION

Ball in his court

Hassan Farah has survived civil war in Somalia, winter in Nebraska and a brutal beating to emerge as SWC’s basketball wizard.

D

riving the lane for the Southwestern College basketball team, Hassan Farah has taken a few elbows and his share of pushing and shoving.

Cakewalk. Life off the court is far more challenging.

Farah is a Somali refugee and a Muslim.

He escaped civil war and death marches in Africa, but faces racism in a land that can play rough with Muslims. He is a newly-minted American who has lived

Story and photographs by Amanda L. Abad

21 | el sol | Summer 2013

as a tumbleweed, rolling across the continent until he put down roots in Chula Vista.

At four years of age Farah left wartorn Somalia for Atlanta and finally ended up in San Diego with his grandmother.

“I thought I was in heaven,” he said.

“Everything was so different. It was civilized here. There were paved streets and lights everywhere. Everything was so convenient. I was living the good life.

Now I’m Americanized and spoiled, I sometimes forget how good I have it.”

He has not seen his parents since he left Somalia and does not know them well.

“If I were to see them now I wouldn’t know how to react,” he said. “I mean, how would you act if you went to visit people that you haven’t seen in 18 years?

These people are my parents, but I don’t know them like that.”

Farah’s parents currently live in Kenya and are trying to leave because of escalating violence. He said he talks to his mother three times a week on the phone.

“It’s weird to talk to them,” he said.

“I do things at 100 percent because of them, so I can help them. It’s really tough on me. I work at Delta Airlines at 3:50 a.m., get off at 9 a.m. and go to school the rest of the day. Earlier this semester, I’d have basketball games, too. I always thought, if I got more rest, I could play better, but I have to sacrifice. I have to support my mother somehow.”

Farah said he tells his teammates how lucky they are that their families come to watch them play every game.

“My grandmother only went to one of my games and that was for senior night in high school,” he said. “I’d play like Michael Jordan if my parents were here to watch me play.”

Farah said he will play basketball with the Somalian national team throughout Europe for the summer and plans on transferring to a D-1 university in the near future. After everything he has experienced, he has continued to stay

focused on the goals he has set for himself.

“You learn a lot when things don’t go your way,” said Farah. “You have to suffer to get that reward in the end.”

Farah said he can speak four languages (English, Ethiopian, Swahili and Kenyan) but noted that English was the hardest to learn.

He is halfSomalian and halfEthiopian, but admitted not being in touch with his native cultures. “ I ’m t o o A m e r i c a n i z e d n ow, but knowing where I’m from, my background and what my culture practices is enough for me,” said Farah.

“My culture is very tribal. All the different groups of people hate each other (in Somalia), that’s why I never got into it.”

A 21-year-old, 6-foot guard, Farah is a business major at Southwestern College, but he said his ultimate goal is to become an orthodontist.

“There are a lot of people (in Africa) with messed up teeth,” he said. “But braces are expensive. I want to help people. I want to go back to Somalia and open a few free dental clinics there.”

Farah discovered basketball in the seventh grade. When he first played competitively he was surprised how well he did. As his skills improved, he joined travel teams and was able to play around the country.

Basketball is both sanctuary and battleground.

“I feel relaxed, yet anxious when I’m on the court,” he said. “Basketball is so many things rolled into one. It’s like a

chess game because I have to anticipate the other person’s move. But it’s like playing music, because the team has to be smooth and on rhythm.”

Teammate Dominique Miller has been playing basketball with Farah

“The U.S. used to be so diverse and understanding. But after 9/11 it got complicated. People associate being Muslim with being a bad guy, that we’re the bad people because of our faith.” since high school.

“He is the same guy on and off the court,” Miller said. “Hassan is dedicated, a hard worker and a good leader. He just wants to do whatever it takes to win.”

Farah said his high school basketball coach punished him by making him join the cross-country team as a freshman. Although he completed the season, he said no to pursuing crosscountry any further.

“I like playing team sports,” said Farah. “I like having a shoulder to lean on and people I get along with. I didn’t really like cross-country because it focuses too much on the individual.

But I did well. I beat out a lot of guys.

The cross-country coach said it would be easier for me to get scholarships for cross-country but I said no, my passion was for basketball.”

Farah almost lost his basketball career—and his life—due to a brutal attack just outside his San Diego home when he was a junior at Crawford High School. He said he stepped outside of his house and someone clubbed him on the back of the head.

“I was in a coma for a day,” said

el sol | Summer 2013 | 22

FACES OF IMMIGRATION

Hassan Farah dreams of the NBA, but when his basketball career is over he plans to return to Somalia and as an orthodontist help the less fortunate.

Farah. “I had daylong headaches for months, and my body wasn’t moving like I wanted it to. I was in rehab for a month, and two months later, I came back but not fully. It broke my heart that I couldn’t play basketball.”

Farah said the motive was never established and the crime remains unsolved. He said he does not know if he was attacked for his race, nationality, religion or for money.

He never saw the perpetrator.

After a game in his senior year, Farah said he woke up with shoulder pain.

He went to the doctor for an MRI and

23 | el sol | Summer 2013

was placed on six months of rehab.

When he felt strong enough to play again Farah tried out for the National Junco League in Nebraska. Playing basketball against other Californians was easy, it was more of a challenge to play against ballers from the East Coast and basketball-crazy states in the Midwest.

“On the East Coast, there’s a lot more talent and more traveling,” he said. “It’s very competitive. More physical, fast paced and everyone gets to the bucket. They don’t do jump shots. On the West Coast basketball

players are better shooters.”

Moving to Columbus, Nebraska was a shock, he said. Living in a small town with a lot of people who were not used to African-Americans, immigrants or Muslims was challenging.

“Everyone knows the guy with an Afro,” said Farah. “It snowed a lot. I became a man when I lived in Nebraska. It was hard having to live on my own. It was hard to deal with a lot of people being racist toward me.”

Farah said he wished more people better understood the Muslim community.

“The U.S. used to be so diverse and understanding,” he said. “But after 9/11 it got complicated. People associate being Muslim with being a bad guy, that we’re the bad people because of our faith.”

Since 9/11 the American-Muslim community reported “more than half – 55 percent – say it is been more difficult being Muslim in the U.S.,” according to a 2011 Pew Research Center study. Discrimination and hostility were not uncommon to the Muslims and groups who share similar characteristics to the Muslim

community. Since 2001 there has been a 1,700 percent increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes, according to the FBI. In 2010 the FBI reported 160 anti-Muslim hate crimes. “It was the highest level of anti-Muslim hate crimes since 2001, the year of the Sept. 11 attacks, when the FBI reported 481 anti-Muslim hate crimes,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

“Too many people believe what they see on TV,” said Farah. “Muslim is a faith that teaches discipline through religion. It keeps me level.

I do see hope, though. The younger generations of America are more understanding.”

After playing basketball in Nebraska for a season Farah came back to San Diego County and played at SWC. Head basketball coach John Cosentino taught him discipline, he said, but there is one thing that coach told him that really stuck with him.

“If you make excuses now, you’re going to make excuses the rest of your life,” he said. “That quote really stuck with me and that’s probably the best thing Coach Cos taught me.” es

el sol | Summer 2013 | 24

FEATURE

Shining Stars Courtesy photo

Alumni from America’s #1 ranked student newspaper, the Southwestern College Sun, on how their time at The Sun helped them shine across the globe as professionals.

25 | el sol | Summer

Almendra Carpizo

By Amanda L. Abad

A

lmendra Carpizo grew up playing the Beautiful Game and dreamed of starring on the soccer pitch. A gifted player, she was captain of Southwestern College’s women’s soccer team and a brilliant leader.

It turns out leadership on the pitch can transfer to the newsroom. Carpizo became one of SWC’s greatest ever student journalists and most revered leaders.

Carpizo earned her Bachelor’s degree in journalism from Chico State and served as editor-in-chief of The Orion, Chico’s elite student newspaper. She is now the public safety reporter for the Chico Enterprise-Record. She also served an internship in Washington D.C. covering Congress and the White House.

“I’ve wanted to be a reporter since the day I joined The Sun,” she said.

“Listening to Max Branscomb talk about the profession that first day in class awakened my passion for journalism.

I remember many of Max’s stories as

a young journalist. I remember him sharing with us the importance of checking your equipment before going on assignment—no one wants to take a Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of a swiftwater rescue only to realize there’s no film in the camera. However, I never thought I’d be chasing sirens for a living.

Although it was tough at first, I’ve really come to love what I do.”

After searching for a class to meet her 12-unit requirement to be on Southwestern College’s soccer team, her counselor Ed Cosio suggested taking Dr. Branscomb’s journalism newspaper production class.

“Once in Max’s class he began talking about The Sun and how it needed staff writers,” said Carpizo, “so I gave it a shot.

The first time I walked into The Sun was intimidating, but I also immediately knew I had found a place where I belonged aside from a soccer field.”

Carpizo was on The Sun staff from 2007 to 2009. She was the assistant sports editor, sports editor, assistant editor-in-chief, and in 2009 she

became editor-in-chief. During her time at The Sun, Carpizo said she is proudest of earning two SWC Student of Distinction Awards, first place for the Best Sports Story in 2009 from the California College Media Association, third place for editorial writing from Columbia University’s National Gold Circle Awards, first place for front page design from San Diego Society of Professional Journalists, and in 2009 college journalism’s Pulitzer Prize, the Pacemaker Award from the Associated Collegiate Press.

“The Sun served as the building blocks to my career in journalism,” she said. “It was at The Sun where I learned to be a reporter. The Sun shaped my ethics and standards and also taught me to understand the meaning of what the SPJ Code of Ethics reads, to ‘be honest, fair and courageous’ in reporting. If I hadn’t learned any of that, I doubt I would have had the opportunities that I’ve had. I’ve been able to succeed and advance in my career thanks to all of Max’s teachings.” es

el sol | Summer 2013 | 26

FEATURE

Albert Fulcher

By Joaquin Basauri

Humberto Gurmilan

By David McVicker

A

lbert Fulcher was a dead man walking. Diagnosed with HIV, he was told by his grim-faced doctors to get his affairs in order.

After months and over the course of a year Fulcher relished his waning life until he realized one day that he was still alive and relatively healthy well past his doctor’s predicted expiration date. An experimental drug cocktail seemed to have worked. Fulcher was reborn.

F. Scott Fitzgerald was wrong. Fulcher got a second act and the United States Navy veteran used it to become America’s best student media leader, a multiple award-winning writer and a warrior for the First Amendment. He was recently named Editor-in-Chief of The East County Californian.

Fulcher found journalism accidently after his Navy career. He said he was hit with the fact that without a diploma he would not be able to find work that made him the same kind of money he was used to.

“Everywhere I went and looked for work,” he said, “the best I would find without a diploma was $25,000 a year despite all my experience. The sad thing was that no one cared what kind of degree I had, they just wanted to see I had some kind of schooling after high school.”

Fulcher began attending Southwestern College and said he chose to take a writing class solely because he did not want to be another person who could not write a proper email. After two semesters of classes with Professor of Journalism Dr. Max Branscomb, he fell in love with print media and it with him. An article he wrote in Branscomb’s Writing for Publication class was purchased by Newsweek.

“I got so hooked on journalism that it got to the point where money wasn’t an issue anymore,” said Fulcher. “I had finally, at the age of 50, found what I loved to do. I had come to school to make more money and I could easily be making three-to-four times as much as I am now, but I don’t want to anymore. I don’t care about the pay.”

Fulcher used his national award-

27 | el sol | Summer 2013

Serina Duarte/Staff

winning column in The Sun, The Human Chord, to fight against former Superintendent Raj K. Chopra and the corruption that engulfed SWC during a very tumultuous time in the school’s history. Fulcher was an editor at The Sun in September 2010 when Chopra ordered the paper to stop publishing.

Despite countless attempts to silence him and the rest of The Sun staff, Fulcher said it was that very struggle that elevated him as a journalist. In 2012 he was named America’s best student media leader – university and college – by the College Media Association.

“If I had to give one kudo to the infamous Chopra,” he said, “it would have to be that he made us into real journalists. He made it more difficult than anyone else could have if they tried and that pushed us to be the best that we could be, and taught us to be professional journalists.”

Fulcher, however, was quick to give credit to his peers and the influence they have had on him.

“The freedom Max gives The Sun staff makes it, in my opinion, the best journalism program in the country,” he said. “It attracts

the best and it creates the best journalists. I feed off that. I’m like a vampire. I will suck the best thing out of every person and I will morph it into myself.”

Fulcher said his experience at The Sun prepared him well for his job at The East County Californian.

“I have this job because The Sun made me such a well-rounded journalist,” he said. “One of the main reasons I love this job is because it reminds me of The Sun. I get to do a little bit of everything.”

The weekly East County Californian, formerly known as The Californian and The Daily Californian, has served San Diego’s East County since 1892. Fulcher has breathed new life into the publication, and is winning fans with his talent, energy and empathy.

“When I got hired I was told to be ready to be the mayor of six communities and they weren’t lying,” said Fulcher. “I’m busier than I’ve ever been, but I never feel overwhelmed and I love every second of it. This isn’t a profession where you go to work and then just head home at the end of the day. You really have to live, breath and love this job.” es

B

usy is relative. Even though Humberto Gurmilan is one of Southwestern College’s most famous alumni, the broadcaster-authorteacher-motivational speaker-human rights advocate does not ever consider himself too busy to help other young journalists with dreams. He loves life too much to ever be too busy, he said, especially after coming so terribly close to losing his.

Gurmilan is a humble superstar whose face covers billboards and buses. He is the award-winning producer and sports anchor for Telemundo 33, a multinational Spanish language television network watched by millions in San Diego County and Northern Mexico. He is an instructor at San Diego City College where he teaches communication courses. He penned a critically-acclaimed memoir titled “From My Chair,” a poignant narration of how he transformed tragedy into triumph. He is an advocate for organizations like Access to Independence, which helps individuals with disabilities fully integrate into their communities.

Gurmilan is the region’s face of Spanish-

David McVicker/Staff

language sports, but also the face of courage and perseverance. Tragedy struck him at the age of 15 when a beautiful day in Baja California turned into a nightmare.

Gurmilan was out doing what he loved the most, riding the sublime blue waves of the Baja surf with friends.

“All I remember is diving off my board like I had done a thousands times before, but this time the water was too shallow,” he said. “It’s still mostly a blur, but I remember hitting the bottom and being barely conscious as my friends pulled me out of the water. I would have certainly drowned without their help.”

While he survived the accident, his life was forever altered. A spinal injury left more than 80 percent of his body paralyzed. To access state-of-the-art medical care Gurmilan and his family moved from Tijuana to Chula Vista.

He graduated from Montgomery High School’s stellar media program and enrolled at Southwestern College. In 1997, while a student at SWC, Gurmilan was bit by the journalism bug, which reminded him of his childhood.

“I would watch the Padres games at home

with my friend and used to turn down the volume of the TV set and pretend we were doing play by play,” he said. “I think it was then when I realized I wanted to be a sports reporter or commentator.”

He said he is thankful for The Sun for giving him the means and opportunity to realize his dreams.

“The Sun was very important for me because the experience I got while there helped me get a feel for what professional journalism is,” he said. “Everything we did there was held to high standards of journalism and ethics therefore it prepared me for the real world and gave me the confidence to go out and perform at a professional level.”

After Gurmilan reached the influential position of News Editor of The Sun, newspaper adviser Dr. Max Branscomb gave him a piece of Watergate-era advice that stuck with him during his career as a professional.

“Max always told us ‘Follow the money,’” he said. “I still remember that quote to this day. His point being that if you just follow the money, there will always be a story to write.”

Gurmilan starred on the SWC forensics team, a program he joined to improve his public speaking skills. He transferred to San Diego State University to complete his Bachelor’s degree in communication, then a Master’s at National University in strategic communication.

While at The Sun, Gurmilan racked up a mountain of awards and accolades, but he said that nothing compares to the warm feeling he gets when he hears about The Sun’s continued tradition of excellence, one that he personally helped to create.

“I am most proud of being part of an amazing staff that changed The Sun from an average college publication to a top-tier nationally recognized newspaper,” he said.

“I am glad to have been a student of Dr. Max Branscomb and to be a part of the group that laid the foundation of what it is today. The fact that The Sun is still going strong and has a great reputation in the community is far more valuable than any award won.” es

el sol | Summer 2013 | 28

FEATURE

Katia Lopez-Hodoyan

By Amanda L. Abad

R

OME—Katia Lopez-Hodoyan lives the old saying, “when in Rome, do as the Romans do.” That, and she also covers the pope.

A s T h e Va t i c a n correspondent for the Global Spanish News Agency, Lopez-Hodoyan reports on Rome and The Holy See for Spanish language TV stations all over the planet.

She has done something a billion Catholics would like to do and got face time with the Holy Father.

“I did get to meet Benedict XVI, now Pope Emeritus,” she said. “I was able to cover his meeting with the Prime Minster of the Czech Republic, Petr Necas, in May 2012.

The Pope constantly has diplomatic meetings Courtesy photo with different world leaders.

There are dozens of reporters who want Hodoyan was the News Editor at The Sun, to cover these meetings, but it’s just an ASO senator and a 2000 Student of impossible. Journalistically, right now it’s Distinction Award winner. the place to be, of course, with the election After SWC she transferred to the of a new Pope.”

University of San Francisco and earned a Lopez-Hodoyan attended Southwestern Bachelor’s degree in media studies. Soon College in the summer of 1998. She after, Lopez-Hodoyan was ready to work decided to try a journalism course at SWC for a newspaper. and said her professor Dr. Max Branscomb “I wanted to be a print journalist,” she had a lot to do with helping her to find her said, “but local newspapers weren’t really career path. hiring at the time. Print journalism was still “It started off as just a class,” said Lopez- strong, but I wasn’t having any luck. After Hodoyan, “but it quickly turned into a about six months of looking and sending lot more. It was interesting, challenging, applications, I was hired at Univision, a intriguing and constantly changing. It was Spanish language TV station in San Diego. everything I wanted in a career. I thought I was an assignment desk editor, so basically my writing was acceptable, just okay, the person who helps reporters coordinate nothing unusual. But Max would cheer me their stories for the newscasts.” on and motivate me. Over time I thought, While at Univision, Lopez-Hodoyan ‘maybe I do have what it takes.’” freelanced for the bilingual newspaper La During her two years at SWC Lopez- Prensa de San Diego, writing in English

29 | el sol | Summer 2013

and Spanish. Next she was hired as a writer and producer for NBC’s “Mi San Diego,” a newscast in Spanish. That show eventually shut down, but being bilingual, she said her manager and news director gave her an English on-air reporting job at NBC San Diego.

“Being from the border region and being fully bilingual and bicultural has opened so many doors. My parents say they never really thought about it as a ‘success formula.’ They wanted me to know and understand my Mexican heritage first hand.

I think this fact made it easier for me to make the plunge and move to Rome. Like my parents said, ‘you make a decision, and you follow through.’ But with that being said, there is no place like home. I just signed another one year extension to my contract, but eventually I do want to go back to Chula Vista.” es

Ivan Orozco

By David McVicker

W

hile many kids fantasize about being the next Michael Jordan or David B e c k h a m , Iv a n O r o z c o wanted to be the next Bob Costas. Orozco dreamed of being a sports journalist and reporting on the giants of the athletic world.

Today he is living his dream.

A native Los Angelino, Orozco came to San Diego when he was just 3 months old. He established himself as a serious sports reporter from the comfort of his own home.

In addition to practicing maneuvers of athletic finesse, he honed his skills as an amateur wordsmith.

“I realized I wanted to be a sports writer when I was in high school,” he said. “My mother first suggested it. She said I used to write down stats and quotes from players off the TV when I watched pro football beginning when I was nine years old.”

After a stellar football career as a wide receiver at Castle Park High School and a ticket to SDSU, Orozco enrolled at Southwestern College in the fall of 2000 to re-take a math course.

He found success almost immediately.

Orozco joined the ranks of The Sun staff in spring 2001 and by the time he was ready to return to SDSU to complete his bachelor’s degree in journalism in 2003, Orozco had become an academic star. He rose through ranks to become editor-in-chief of The Sun and an award-winning writer. He was the recipient of the SWC Student of Distinction Award, the college’s highest student honor.

Orozco said when thinking about his career as a student journalist, one thing stands out the most.

“I am most proud of the newspaper’s

Marshall Murphy/Staff

first Pacemaker (the Pulitzer Prize of college media),” he said. “I am proud of the editors who worked countless hours to make our paper the best it could be. It was their work that led to such a prestigious award.”

Orozco and The Sun’s senior editors were presented the 2002 Pacemaker in Dallas by the Associated Collegiate Press. It was SWC’s first ever Pacemaker after 40 years of publishing.

He said The Sun instilled in him a burning passion for the art of storytelling, a requirement for a future in the highly-competitive field.

“The Sun was a very important factor in my journalism career,” he said. “It was at The Sun where I developed a love for the craft. It is where I learned what it would take to be in this industry.”

Orozco took the lessons he had amassed since his days at The Sun into the professional world of journalism and flourished. He began freelancing at the San Diego Union-Tribune and the Los Angeles Daily News covering local sports. In 2006 he was hired as a full-

time staff writer for the Union-Tribune.

He worked with the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association of Football covering the 2009 and 2001 Gold Cup, a championship series consisting of the top teams from member nations.

Today Orozco is the English-Language Communications Coordinator for the Xoloitzcuintles de Caliente, Tijuana’s champion soccer team. Orozco said his dreams as a child have been realized.

“I am now near some of the best young athletes,” he said. “I get to work with some of the world’s top pro athletes on the journalism/public relations side of things. I guess you can say sports are my life in one way or another.”

Orozco said there is a constant that he repeatedly calls upon in times of need.

“Dr. Max Branscomb has been an important part of who I am today.

His teaching was not only good for journalism, but for life in general. The Sun gave me the tools to get out into the world and tackle it.” es

el sol | Summer 2013 | 30

FEATURE

Viridiana Pacheco-Word

By Ernesto Rivera

E

ach year more than 225,000 students study journalism at American colleges and universities. Each year the Associated Collegiate Press names its National College Reporter of the Year.

Each fall Viridiana Pacheco-Word smiles because she is the only student in 93 years to win it twice.

Pacheco-Word’s award-winning work both years focused on immigration, a topic she understands intimately. An immigrant herself, the Castle Park High School grad waited patiently for the opportunity to pursue a higher education and her dreams to study history and journalism. After the California Assembly passed Bill 540 in October 2001, there was no holding her back.

Pacheco-Word rose through the ranks to become editor-in-chief of the Southwestern College Sun and one of SWC’s most decorated student journalists ever.

Pacheco-Word was in Sacramento attending the Journalism Association of Community Colleges Convention with SWC classmates when she got a call from human rights leader Enrique Morones, founder of the Border Angels. Morones encouraged her to fly to Tombstone, Arizona to witness the establishment of the Minuteman Project, an armed right-wing vigilante group that was setting up “citizen defenses” along the border.

Pacheco-Word immediately flew to Arizona with Sun photographer Josh Calley, even though she was pregnant with her first son.

“This was something I was very passionate about,” she said. “The hardest part for me was taking myself out of the situation.

Looking at those men in the face and asking them questions in a manner that wasn’t bias was difficult.”

Even though travel to the southern Arizona desert borderlands was brutally hot, dusty and festooned with rattlesnakes, it was a story Pacheco-Word believed needed to be covered thoroughly, she said.

“I thought (the Minuteman Project) was unjust and unfair because I was an immigrant and an A.B. 540 student, but I wanted the world to know what was going

31 | el sol | Summer 2013

Mark Rojas

By Ernesto Rivera

I

Ernesto Rivera/Staff

on,” she said. “It was more of a test to myself as a person and as a journalist.”

She and Calley returned with stunning stories and photos, which designer Ken Pagano skillfully turned into an awardwinning four-page insert that was one of the most requested features ever produced at The Sun. CNN’s Anderson Cooper based an entire hour-long episode of his “Anderson Cooper 360” newsmagazine on PachecoWord’s coverage.

After a year-long hiatus to have her baby, Pacheco-Word returned and won her second ACP Reporter of the Year award for her work covering immigration in San Diego County and Northern Baja California.

She won several national awards for her writing and helped The Sun maintain its national status as one of the top student newspapers in the country. She transferred on scholarship to CSU San Marcos and served as a transformative editor-in-chief of the university’s student newspaper. Not bad for a young woman with a Brazilian father, Mexican mother and Indian grandparents.

“I came to the United States when I was 10 and couldn’t speak any English, let alone write it,” said Pacheco-Word, who currently teaches high school English while freelancing for regional newspapers.

Her next goal is a Master’s degree in education, which she could complete this

December. After working for the San Diego County Juvenile Court and Community School District as an English teacher, Pacheco-Word said she is passionate about working with at-risk youth because of her personal history as one.

“I can’t imagine myself doing anything that’s not making a difference,” she said. “I was an at-risk person, I was expected to drop out and get pregnant and be on drugs. I grew up around that. I grew up very poor in a very low socio-economic status.”

Her experiences at the Juvenile Court and Community School District improved her ability to work with challenging students and corrections officers, she said, a skill she learned at The Sun. “I was forced to work with people that were different than me who had completely different views,” she said. “I learned how to build a rapport with people I needed to work with.”

Pacheco-Word said that throughout her education she had very little support until she joined The Sun and was influenced by its adviser, Dr. Max Branscomb.

“I know what it’s like for people not to believe that you’re going to be something,” she said. “All it took was one person to tell me I was going to be successful and that person was Max. I want to do something like that for someone else.” es

n the 1700s there were Romanticists, the 1800s had Realists and the 1900s were full of Expressionists. In the 21st century we have graphic designers and they are as gifted as the great ones who came before.

Mark Rojas, former art director and sports editor of the Southwestern College Sun, is one of the leading thinkers and creators in the Graphic and Interactive Design Movement. He aims to take design where it has never gone before while honoring its ancient history of communication and service.

“Graphic design is a cornerstone of the human existence,” said Rojas. “Think back to the earliest men and civilizations.

Their cave drawings and hieroglyphs helped them tell stories and have helped us discover so much about their lives.”

Rojas is a graphic design associate for Gregory FCA in Philadelphia, one of the nation’s top public relations firms. His extensive body of work includes grand multimedia and interactive projects that have been featured in Forbes and visual.ly.

Rojas, 25, had some experience in journalism and communication while attending Clairemont High School, but said it was not until his time at The Sun that he received the proper tools and outlet to create and realize his true passion.

“The moment I edited a photo using Illustrator and placed the edited photo into the InDesign document I was hooked,” said Rojas. “I wanted to learn as much as I could about good newspaper design. I latched onto the designers on staff, Ken Pagano and Audria Ruscitti, and studied Tim Harrower’s book ‘The Newspaper Designer’s Handbook’ to help develop a stronger understanding of good design.”

Rojas quickly earned a national reputation for his stunning, conventiondefying designs and graphics. His

nickname at The Sun was “The Genius.”

He won scores of national awards for photography, design and illustration.

Sometimes he would singlehandedly sweep entire categories, winning first, second and third place.

R o j a s’ c o m m i t m e n t a n d involvement at The Sun led him to be recruited by Chico State University, one of the states’ top journalism programs.

Rojas moved up in ranks eventually becoming the Art Director for the Chico State Orion newspaper, one of America’s elite student publications.

“To me this was as huge as if I was a high school football player being recruited to a college with a program the likes of USC or Alabama,” said Rojas. “As a result of my college career and portfolio, I was able to land a job at one of the top PR agencies in the nation – Philadelphia’s Gregory FCA.” Rojas has produced interactive eBooks, updated and maintained various social media pages, and enhanced blogs with custom art and informational graphics.

“I interact regularly with several clients who require varying amounts of design work of different scopes,” he said.

Rojas said his success can all be attributed back to SWC. “My time at The Sun was the very foundation of my study and passion for journalism and communication design,” said Rojas. “Dr. Max Branscomb was very kind and spoke very enthusiastically about the program and the work involved in producing content that is important to your audience.”

Even across the continent, Rojas can still feel The Sun’s influence in his work.

“Deadlines are key and content is

Courtesy photo

king,” said Rojas. “At the Sun we had to plan our sections, write our stories, gather our photos and art, and meet print deadline all while maintaining a regular class schedule and—in my case—holding a part time job. The Sun was a great training ground to learn and practice the principles of journalism and newsgathering as well as the importance of modular design and other layout guidelines.”

Learning the rules is necessary to successfully break the rules. Breaking the rules is often the gateway to creativity and innovation. Rojas said he was able to do all those things at The Sun and let The Genius find his voice. es

el sol | Summer 2013 | 32

FEATURE

Misael Virgen

Allison Sampite -Montecalvo

By Amanda L. Abad

By Jaime Pronoble

A

llison Sampite-Montecalvo came to Southwestern College to play on the soccer field and never imagined also starring in the field of journalism.

Barely a decade later she is playing in journalism’s major league.

Sampite-Montecalvo was campus editor of The Sun in 2003-2004, freelanced for Uptown News, then was an award-winning reporter for three years at The Star-News. She is now a staff writer at the U-T San Diego where she covers Chula Vista, National City and Imperial Beach government.

Growing up was difficult for SampiteMontecalvo, she said. Her alcoholic mother passed away in 2010. Although her father was present and loving, he went away on frequent business trips, forcing her to grow up much quicker and take on more of an adult role as a younger person. Despite the rough times, there were also good moments.

She said her mother was a writer of poetry who kept a journal for much of her life.

“I believe it’s her passion for writing that instilled the same passion in me,” she said. “And I am thankful for that.”

One of the biggest influences on Sampite-Montecalvo’s decision to choose journalism as a career was an SWC professor.

“I actually got started in journalism,

33 | el sol | Summer

as many people do, which is basically through Max Branscomb,” s h e s a i d . “A f t e r graduating from Bonita Vista High School I went to Southwestern College and I wanted to be an English major. After taking Max’s mass communications class he said I should join the newspaper and I did.”

She said she stayed on staff at The Sun for five semesters before graduating from SWC in 2004. She was recruited

by Humboldt State University where she earned a B.A. in journalism.

Sampite-Montecalvo said human interest stories are her favorite.

“I really like doing features and profiles and in-depth type stories on people that have made an interesting contribution to the community, or the ‘warm and fuzzy’ stories that everyone loves to read, which is typically someone who has overcome some sort of adversity.”

Great stories are everywhere, she said, especially in the borderlands where immigration is transforming the region.

T

Kasey Thomas/Staff

“It’s just really incredible to me to hear these people’s stories and that people are willing to share intimate secrets and intimate details of their lives that have changed them in a powerful way,” she said. “I like writing those stories because those are the stories that I feel can help people connect.”

Sampite-Montecalvo said she does not expect to write for newspapers for the rest of her life, but she would like to continue telling the stories of interesting people by writing their memoirs.

“That’s what I’m passionate about as a journalist, to tell the stories of people that need to be heard, to give them a voice. The poor, the weak, the disabled, people who tend to be underdogs — telling their stories can be really important.” es

hey say a picture is worth a thousand words, but the man behind the camera can be worth many more. Misael Virgen, a recent CSU Northridge graduate and former Southwestern College Sun assistant photo editor, loves words but is picture perfect.

Already an award-winning photographer and just 24-years-old, Virgen’s desires as a teenager ran less Tony Spino and more toward Tony Hawk.

“During high school my only real ambition was to become a professional skateboarder,” he said. “I didn’t know where or even if I wanted to attend college.

It wasn’t until I was at SWC where I made my decision to continue my education and ultimately earn my Bachelor of Arts in photojournalism.”

One of the requirements for his major while at SWC was newspaper practicum.

Virgen said he can remember the day newspaper adviser Dr. Max Branscomb pushed him to take his visual talents to the next level.

“It was my first week at The Sun and I had just written a personality profile about a teacher on campus,” said Virgen.

“After reading the profile and looking at my pictures side-by-side, Max looked at me and said, ‘You’re a photographer.’ I thought I had done a great job on my profile, but apparently he knew something I didn’t. Then he looked at the photo editor at the time and told her to give me more photography assignments and that was that. The Sun is the place where I established myself as a photographer for

David McVicker/Staff

the first time.”

Virgen became the assistant photo editor from 2009-10. He said he remembers spending countless hours in the newsroom reading copy, doing homework or just waiting for something exciting to happen so he could take pictures. But it was not until he won an honorable mention award for spot news photography at the Journalism Association of Community Colleges conference where he finally understood his calling.

“Leaving with that award in my hands for the first time gave me confidence in my skills as a photographer,” said Virgen.

“That was the moment when I realized I wanted to be a photojournalist. Later that year I went on to receive a first place Society of Professional Journalists award for best news photo and a first place San Diego Press Club Award for feature photography, which I am also very proud of earning.”

He attributes much of his success and journalistic ethics to the teachings of Branscomb and being part of The Sun. “Each one of Max’s anecdotes still resonates with me today,” he said. “He taught me how to be a real journalist and I always think, ‘what would Max do if he

were in this situation?’ and I know the answer is always the ethical choice.”

Virgen is currently a freelance photographer for the San Diego UnionTribune. He is also working on a documentary about the significance of jaguars in the Meso-American culture. He said he hopes to travel and film jaguars in their natural environment, and interview native people who know jaguar legends.

“I’ve already conducted interviews with zoologists, anthropologists and professors,” he said. “Right now I am looking for ways to finance the project. It was really my dad’s idea, but it’s become a personal goal of mine.”

Virgen said The Sun opened a floodgate of opportunities that allowed him to grow both as a journalist and as a person. He said he is a very ambitious person.

“I also want to live on a private island someday, but only time will tell,” he said.

“I figure if I don’t aim high I will never find out my full potential. It’s also just fun to dream. Some people dream of becoming rich and famous, and I dream of making wildlife documentaries and retiring on a private island some place. I’m not scared of failing. Everyone fails. I am scared of failing to try.” es

el sol | Summer 2013 | 34

FACES OF IMMIGRATION

LESSONS FROM BRAZIL

By David McVicker & Albert Fulcher Photographs by Albert Fulcher

S

ometimes during warm starlit evenings in Chula Vista Cleusilene Villafane can see and hear the pink dolphins of the Amazon River frolicking in the churning coffee currents of the planet’s greatest waterway.

At times she answers them, but refuses their invitations to return to them.

Home is now the Southern California borderlands for the poetic Brazilian scholar and idealist. Villafane, a petite woman of impish charm, left her native land as a student to study America, found love and never returned.

This is no American fairy tale, however.

Like millions of immigrants before her, Villafane struggled mightily in the land of e pluribus unum. She began her American odyssey as a university researcher. She boarded a jumbo jet and took to the skies for the eight-hour journey to Riverside, New Jersey because there she felt she could

Cleusilene Villafane came to America to absorb American culture and share it with her fellow Brazilians. She fell in love and never returned.

35 | el sol | Summer 2013

el sol | Summer 2013 | 36

FACES OF IMMIGRATION

Villafane’s American dream took time to develop. Today she is happy to raise her American children. She wants to teach Americans the culture and traditions of her native Brazil.

acclimate herself to the culture of the U.S. with the support of the area’s sizable Brazilian population.

“There is a very big Brazilian community in Riverside,” she said. “I thought it would be better because it was very close to New York. It was my dream to live close to New York, because there you can see people from all over the world and that’s what I wanted to do.”

Villafane’s early experiences in America were bleak. She suffered severe culture shock and was preyed upon by many of the ex-pat Brazilians she was counting on to help her. She arrived with no money, no prospects for employment and little English. Luckily, she met Ivette Szekely, a native of Hungry who faced a very similar

37 | el sol | Summer 2013

situation. They became fast friends.

“We were the ones who tried our hardest to understand each other,” said Szekely.

“Her native language is Portuguese, mine Hungarian but that didn’t matter. We had patience with each other and figured out what the other was trying to say. We just had to listen carefully.”

Villafane said she was profoundly disappointed with the other New Jersey Brazilians, who seemed to have evolved into Lusophonic versions of The Sopranos.

“They hung around speaking Portuguese, eating Brazilian food all the time,” she said.

“It was like they were wasting their time.

They were here in the United States and they think and live like they’re in Brazil.

They just think about money, money,

money all the time. I did not have that ambition. I did not want to earn money to buy things. I wanted to earn money to learn.”

Villafane recalled hitting rock bottom during a period of homesickness when she wanted to send a letter home. Unable to communicate with American postal workers, she asked a roommate for help.

The woman made her pay $10.

Extortionist fees never stopped. She had to pay everybody to help her with anything.

If she needed a ride, $15. Translation help, $20. Villafane grew tired of being used.

She made up her mind to return to Brazil.

“I did not come here to be a rat,” she said.

“I realized in that moment that everything was so difficult. I thought ‘what am I doing

here?’ I didn’t come to work as a slave for another Brazilian. I thought maybe I should go back to my country. But I didn’t want to go back because I felt like that would make me a loser.”

She decided it to give it one more try. A Brazilian-American acquaintance offered to help her find a job, for a fee, of course. She decided to pay the money one more time.

At last, a glimmer of hope.

Villafane was hired to be a caregiver for an elderly woman who was recently widowed. She said she was excited because she thought she would have an opportunity to make a living and learn English at the same time.

It was a tough job because the woman was suffering from depression and Villafane could not speak to her. So she switched to non-verbal communication and sang and danced while working to lighten the mood in the somber household. Eventually the woman began to whistle along with Villafane’s uplifting antics. Then she would hum. Then came the smiles and attempts to sing and dance along.

Villafane was smiling, but not on the inside. She rarely spoke. Lacking the ability to communicate with the woman’s family, the silence made Villafane feel insignificant.

“In all of my entire life, I never felt so stupid,” she said, “because I didn’t say anything. If they were saying something bad, I was smiling. If they were saying something sad, I was smiling. If they said something happened, I was smiling. We had no communication.”

Villafane said she decided it was time to return to Brazil.

A friend convinced her that if she was to leave America, she must say goodbye in American style at a New York City nightclub.

“I said no, I’m not going,” she said, “but I went. That was good because I met my (future) husband that night and I fell in love with him. And then all my plans changed.

A year later we got married and I forgot all about my plans, I forgot about wanting to go back to Brazil. I was here.”

Soon the couple relocated to California for her husband’s job with the Department of Homeland Security. Villafane was home, but confessed she still dreamed of the sleepy Amazon tributary town of Itapirapuã, in the state of Goias, Brazil, where she felt she had status and standing in the community.

“I had all this experience in my town and in my country,” she said. “I was very close to the government. I was a teacher and I was doing what I loved. I felt I was a professional. I felt I was someone doing something good in my country. Then I came here, and I was a house cleaner, a caregiver and I realized that I didn’t know how to speak English. And that was a problem that I had to correct, and I am trying.”

She said although she has made a happy home here in the United States, she hopes one day to return to Itapirapuã with her American family and address the goals she had in mind when she made the trek in the first place, to promote equality in education for those who suffer without.

“I would like to make a better world for everybody,” she said. “Not just the ones who have the opportunities to go to college.

I would like to reach the ones who could not afford to go to private schools or to college.”

Villafane was a writer in Brazil and a Portuguese-language poet who wrote produced plays. Her creativity is struggling to blossom in the sunlight once again, this time in English. She has written a children’s book about a brave ant traveling through the Amazon rainforest as well as articles for nature journals about river tubing in Itapirapuã and the mysterious pink dolphins of the Amazon River.

Many native Brazilians believe the pink dolphins leave the river and become human gods. Villafane said she now feels she can leave the river and become human again.

“I am a teacher and I came to America so I could teach Brazilians about America,” she said. “Now I think it is my destiny to teach Americans about Brazil.” es

el sol | Summer 2013 | 38

Q&A

J. Michael Straczynski

J. Michael Straczynski signs copies of his new comic book “Ten Grand” at Yesteryear Comics in Clairemont Mesa.

Straczynski has written numerous ground-breaking comics, TV shows, screenplays and created “Babylon 5.”

The El Sol Interview

J.

Michael Straczynski is a man of many firsts.

Back when the Internet was unknown to everyone except a tiny number of techies, geeks, wealthy dilettantes and nerds, he was the first showrunner (Hollywood-speak for a television show’s executive producer who handles day-to-day operations) to go online and interact with fans.

He was the first – and will likely ever be the only — scriptwriter to write 92 out of 110 episodes of a show, his brilliant creation “Babylon 5.” B5 was the first television show meant to run a certain number of seasons, five, with a definite beginning, middle and end, and included dynamic storylines the characters and multiple, overlapping story arcs. Long form television writing is now common thanks to Straczynski. He did it first.

He is probably the first journalist to cross over into a successful television career, likely the first journalist and television writer to cross over into mainstream comic book writing, and absolutely the first television and comicwriting journalist ever to become a major Hollywood 39 | el sol | Summer 2013

screenwriter.

Other “firsts” include developing his own comic book line (Joe’s Comics), his own multimedia studio (Studio JMS), directing his first movie and creating an original series for Netflix.

The word “first” applies to Straczynski in many ways, including as a fiery, intelligent defender of the First Amendment.

From 2009 to 2010, students, faculty members, Sun journalists, and concerned citizens fought with a corrupt Southwestern College administration and governing board to keep the First Amendment freedoms of speech, assembly, and the press alive on the campus. In 2010, when the administration attempted to strangle the newspaper by tying its purse strings around its throat, Straczynski responded by undermining the administration the best way possible – financially.

It was definitely the first time that had happened.

And now, for the first time, an unbridled, warp speed first person Q&A interview with the 2013 Southwestern College Honorary Degree recipient:

Nickolas Furr/Staff

with Nickolas Furr

el sol | Summer 2013 | 40

Q&A First Amendment Warrior In the fall of 2010, the Chopra administration dug up a never-used print bidding policy to force the Southwestern College Sun to prevent printing a controversial issue. You stepped in and paid for the entire issue. Why did you feel this was necessary?

I hate tyranny and I hate bureaucracy, and when I found out what was going on and the way an obscure rule was being used to suppress the truth and repress the rights of the students to publish and hear the truth…well, no way was I going to let that stand. I think we are defined as people as much by what we won’t allow as what we do, and when it comes to a subject like this, I draw a hard line in the sand. If the only way to ensure that the truth got out there, and the issue came out, was for me to pony up the cash for that to happen, then so be it. What’s life if you don’t stand up for something from time to time?

How did you find out about the Sun situation in 2010?

Because it was known that I’d graduated from SWC, I heard about it from a number of folks at Southwestern, from folks at The Sun, some fellow graduates, staffers in the library. They felt that something had to be done, so something got done. That this was, in some ways, the first pebble falling downhill that later resulted in indictments, and further exposes about corruption, is icing on the cake.

Given that you are famous for your belief in, and support of, the First Amendment, how strongly did you feel about it?

I think it’s important in every circumstance to confront bureaucratic stupidity, cupidity, deceitfulness, malice, intimidation and manipulation – especially when it’s being

41 | el sol | Summer 2013

done deliberately to either repress the truth or otherwise stomp on First Amendment freedom of the press. I don’t believe in a sliding scale. You fight all of it. Otherwise you have to start reconciling yourself with the idea that some evil is okay if it’s small evil. No. You have to make sure that not one of those snakes gets past you or they’ll multiply and grow and eat you when you’re not looking. In this case, the abuse was so obvious, so offensive in its deliberateness, that it practically demanded response.

Are you glad you got involved?

Hell yes!

You are being given an honorary associates’ degree this year. How long did it take you to decide to come down and accept it?

Ten seconds, nine of which were taken up by typing “Yup, I’m honored and will happily attend.”

Growing Up and Attending College What part of your life was spent in Chula Vista and the South Bay? I know you moved here when younger and I believe you graduated from high school here, but how long did you live here?

That’s a more complicated question than it might appear at first blush. My father had a unique economic philosophy: blow into town, run up a lot of bills, then split.

So we moved 21 times in my first 17 years, averaging about six months in any one place. We moved from Inglewood to Chula Vista in the fall of 1971, so I put in some time in the fall semester at Chula Vista High School, then graduated in 1972. It was at CVHS that I had my first articles published, including one from JoAnn Massie’s creative writing class, Under the Sun. She and Rochelle Terry got me to

write small parody plays that we’d perform from class to class, which culminated in writing a play for a general assembly that was performed before the whole school and started the Smile Day tradition. It was that experience that really confirmed for me that I wanted to be a writer.

We then moved to Kankakee, Illinois for one year, followed by Richardson, Texas, for one semester. During this time I kept lobbying and hoping for a return to Chula Vista. I considered myself fortunate that we returned in February 1974 and immediately enrolled at Southwestern.

I lived in Chula Vista until about 1977 when I moved to El Cajon, so if you add it all up it was nearly five years. I lived in San Diego from 1977-81, picking up two B.A. Degrees from San Diego State University, one in Psychology, the other in Sociology, and a bunch of writing credits along the way.

Your description of your father’s economic philosophy seems quite negative. Did you have a strained relationship?

Strained is putting it mildly. My father was probably the most intrinsically evil person I’ve ever known: a drunk, a philanderer, a wife-beater, a cheat, a thief, a racist and a generally violent man. I broke off all contact with him in 1986, and never spoke to him between then and the day he died.

Why did you decide to attend Southwestern College — reputation, price, location, or something else?

The choice was based on necessity and comfort. Because we never had any money, I basically put myself through college through a combination of published articles, part-time jobs, student loans and grants. So on the one hand, Southwestern was all I could afford. But on the other hand, I genuinely liked SWC. I liked

the campus, the somewhat laid-back attitude, the friendliness of the staff and the opportunities it provided. It didn’t hurt that some of the folks I knew from CVHS were also attending SWC. So even if I’d been able to afford SDSU, I would’ve preferred Southwestern.

Two interesting asides to that point: one of my part-time jobs while attending SWC was at the CVHS library, where I worked part-time as a combination bouncer, bookfiler and shusher. So if anyone using the library back then remembers being a bit loud and getting shushed by a 6’3”geek weighing in at 140 pounds – that was me.

Also, many Chula Vistans who were around during the mid-late 1970s will remember that there was a somewhat cultish group operating out of the First Baptist Church called the House of Abba, which was part of the Jesus Movement of the period. They owned and operated a bunch of communes around Chula Vista housing anywhere from 10-15 people who lived together. I was part of that group, and lived in a communal household on Mitscher Street during a good chunk of my time at SWC. Can you describe the kinds of courses you took here, your major? Any interest in journalism, perhaps?

JMS: I felt that the best use of my time at Southwestern was to take care of as many of my general education requirements as possible before transferring to SDSU, so I didn’t really have a major. My AA from SWC is in Interdisciplinary Studies. At the time, I was more interested in fiction and stage work than journalism, so I tended to take lots of creative writing classes and some theater classes.

It was during this time that I met Bill Virchis, who saw something of value in my work and quickly began giving me a regular venue on campus for my one-act

plays. They proved very popular, and he assigned me to write a take on Snow White that ran in summer stock at SWC’s main stage in 1975.

I went on to continue writing plays, some of which were performed at SDSU while another ran for a while at the Marquis Public Theater. I was sure that I was going to be a playwright, and the Chula Vista Star-News ran the very first article anyone ever written about me, June 17, 1977, announcing rather foolishly that I was on track to become the next Mel Brooks.

So throughout that entire period, from the day I returned to the South Bay and for the next four years, Southwestern and Chula Vista were not just recurring themes, they were absolutely essential to my becoming the writer that I am today.

At SDSU you were known for writing anything there was to write. In fact the Daily Aztec became colloquially known as the “Daily Joe.” How did you develop such a drive to write in so many different fields?

I believed, even then, that if you’re going to be a good writer, you should write everything. You need to be willing to experiment, try new things, and if necessary fail gloriously, pick yourself up off the cement, and try again. I knew that as a student, I could fail and learn and try things without the pressure of doing so in the outside world. College is where you can experiment to your heart’s content and not get killed. So I did as much of that as I could in order to then walk out into the world of real-life publishing with all the tools I would need to claw my way into the business.

Early Work in Television Given that you seemed to know you wanted to be a writer, initially what did you want to do?

And can you tell us how you crossed over from

prolific college graduate to television?

The dream was always there, practically from the moment I was born, but the specific form of that dream morphed with time. Initially I thought I’d make my living writing novels and short stories and plays. But it took a long time to sell any of my fiction. At best most of the very few markets around paid a hundred bucks or less for short stories, so the idea of making a living at it seemed pretty remote. So I focused on writing articles for magazines and newspapers. I appeared regularly in The Daily Californian, the San Diego Reader, and the San Diego bureau of the Los Angeles Times. I did a year or so as an on-air reviewer for KSDO. I got to burn through a lot of words in a short amount of time, which is crucial for a writer because the only way to get good at it is to do a lot of it.

When I moved to Los Angeles, I continued that by working for the Herald Examiner, Writer’s Digest and other magazines, and finally ending up at Time, Inc. It was at this point around 1984 that I made the decision to try and flip to television. I wandered in the wilderness with no income for over a year before I finally scored a spec sale with [the animated program] “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.” I sold three or four freelance scripts and they were good enough that they hired me on staff…and I was on staff on one show or another pretty much nonstop until 2003.

You somewhat famously took over “Murder, She Wrote” several seasons in and took it in a vastly different direction — adding a real career for Jessica Fletcher, real deadlines, and real authorial hassles. What sort of reaction did you get for doing this, and how much did it appeal to you to take a long-standing (possibly staid) concept and turn it on its head?

To say that I “took over” “Murder, She Wrote” is overstating the situation by several

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Q&A orders of magnitude. David Moessiner, for whom I’d worked on “Jake and the Fatman,” was hired as executive producer and showrunner, and he brought me on to work with him. It was David’s idea to move her to New York, and to support that I came up with the notion of making her a teacher and digging in more to the writer’s life – which Angela Lansbury loved. In the past, there was very little about Jessica Fletcher’s life that showed her as a working writer.

Because I’d been in the prose arena quite a bit by then, fiction and nonfiction, I could apply those aspects to her character in ways that felt real. The audience responded to it in a big way, the show jumped substantially in the ratings, and stayed there while we were working on the show.

Of your early TV work, what are you the proudest of?

“The Twilight Zone.” Not even close. You can write the best “Jake and the Fatman” script in the world, but in the end, it’s a “Jake and the Freaking Fatman” script. It’s like taking 10 years to teach a pig to sing.

In the end, even if you pull it off, all you have to show for your efforts is a singin’ pig.

When I worked on “The Twilight Zone,” I was able to tell the stories I wanted to tell in the ways I wanted to tell them. For the first time, I could write about battered wives, and loneliness, and loss, and the lure of the past and the fear of the future and the reawakening of love and all the things that matter to me on a personal basis. That’s desperately important because at the end of the day I’m a storyteller. That’s not just what I do. It’s who I am at a cellular, possibly genetic level.

You are regarded as the first showrunner ever to go online and communicate with fans, on GEnie and CompuServe, I believe – up to the point of taking some of their questions, comments, and worries to heart. Given that,

it had never been done before, what was the impetus for reaching out into that completely unknown atmosphere of communication, the internet?

Part of it stems from being a stubborn pain in the ass who doesn’t like to change his habits just because suddenly he’s a Known Entity. I’d been online – as much as anything pre-1994 counts as being online and logging on from a 28.8 modem – since the late 80s. I enjoyed the discussion boards and sites like GEnie and CompuServe, and saw no reason to reason to change that. Yes, suddenly I found myself deluged with questions, but that eventually became another part of the reason for staying online.

I believed, and still believe, that unless people understand how television is made, why things are done and why certain decisions are made, they can never bring the necessary influence to bear that will let them get the shows they want instead of the shows they are given. So I set out to create a document, tens of thousands of messages long, documenting the day-today production of a TV series from end to end. That document is still out there, being used by academics and fans and others curious to see a real-time log, or a blog as it’d be called now, about the making of a TV series.

But yeah, at the time, everybody else in The Business thought I was insane to put myself out there in the very Wild West that was the Internet then, heavily populated by trolls and psychopaths. Or as one showrunner said, “those people are crazy-mean.” Some were, sure, but the majority weren’t, and those were the ones I stuck around to chat with. Now everybody does it.

Creator of Babylon 5 When did you start coming up with the idea

of “Babylon 5,” and how did you work to start moving toward it?

I’d been playing with ideas for what I thought initially were two different series: a big, expensive, galaxy-spanning saga with empires rising and falling in the course of an interstellar war, and a smaller, more confined story about a group of people living on a deep-range space station.

Then one day I realized that they were the same story, with the big events of the saga writ small on the lives of those living on the station. When I had that flash of understanding, I was suddenly able to see the whole five-year arc of the story, with a beginning, middle and pre-set ending, which was something that no one else in American television had ever attempted.

Now, of course, with shows like “Lost” and “Battlestar Galactica,” multi-year arcs are the norm, but we were the first.

Was the five-year plan part of the development of “Babylon 5,” or did you realize that’s what you were going to do a little further down the line?

No, the five-year arc was there literally from the moment the story crystallized in my head. I saw the whole thing in one massive flash, a moment of perfect clarity, then spent the next several years extracting those threads and putting them into story form. Kind of a Big Bang that spread outward in every direction.

I believe “Babylon 5” was first aired via the Prime Time Entertainment Network [a venture affiliated with Warner Bros. and other independent television stations]. Did you find it easy to work with them?

It was a mixed bag. On the one hand, because we weren’t an in-house Warner Bros. show, we tended to get short shrift on just about everything, from publicity

to budgets. On the other hand, that benign neglect let us do pretty much anything we wanted to do, allowing us to tell stories that no other network in its right mind would ever have allowed on the air.

Why did you put yourself through the grinder of writing so many episodes of “Babylon 5?”

There is probably no other human being in history that can claim that much writing in that little amount of time.

We were shooting 22-episode seasons, and I’d written roughly half of Season One and half of Season Two, when I realized how tight the arc was getting, and consequently how difficult it was becoming to assign stories to freelancers. It became consistently harder to figure out where one episode was going to end and the next begin. The stories began to flow together. So in Season Three I decided to write them all myself. It just seemed simpler than trying to explain it.

It worked out well. Warners was happy, so they asked me to do it again. And then again for Season Five. Though year five did have one freelance script from Neil Gaiman.

In the end, I singlehandedly wrote something like 92 out of the 110 episodes and all five of the TV movies. What I didn’t know at the time was that this had never been done before, and there was a very good reason it had never been done – because it was impossible…especially if you’re functioning as the day-to-day showrunner handling physical production.

Happily, no one told me it was impossible before I started doing it, so I was able to pull it off.

How were you able to create such vivid, disparate, and often alien characters – like Centuari Ambassador Londo Mollari, Narn Ambassador G’Kar, Lieutenant Commander Susan Ivanova, Captain John Sheridan, and Minbari Ambassador Delenn – and frankly, everyone else?

Writers write from what they know and have experienced and believe. We cloak it in other characters, and sometimes borrow a bit from one source or friend or another, but at the end of the day, it’s us. B5 was no different. All of the characters are pieces of me. Sheridan is who I had to be to make this show, Ivanova was the dour Russian in me that is sure we’re all going to die. I like to think that I’m a lot like G’Kar and Delenn, but I suspect I’m probably closer to Londo. It’s all visceral material given form. They’re all still alive in my head, and there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t get at least one of them whispering to me about one thing or another. It makes me crazy some days, but on other days it’s nice to hear from old friends.

There’s a sense of humor running from beginning to end in all B5 properties. Did you feel this was something missing from the science fiction of the time?

JMS: Absolutely. There’s this weird thing that happens when someone puts on a wardrobe piece that belongs to a science fiction series. They get all serious, as if thinking that if they don’t take it really seriously nobody else will. At that time in particular there was a definite lack of levity in shows like “Star Trek,” where you had to treat the characters with white gloves, as though you were afraid of breaking them.

Me, I’m a goofball, and consequently my characters were, at times, goofy. Unlikely, improbable things make me laugh, and pound for pound, where are you going to find more unlikely things than in a science fiction series?

Did B5 accomplish what you wanted it to do?

We wanted to change the way storytelling in television was done – very episodic, pushing the reset button at the end of every episode. We did this by introducing

the five-year arc. We wanted to change how science fiction was done by showing flawed characters and creating a massive spaceopera saga. We did that. I could go on, but yeah: everything we set out to do, we did.

If I’m not mistaken, Warner Bros. owns the television rights to “Babylon 5.” What sort of relationship do you have with them, and is there ever going to be a time when B5 will be available on Netflix, or in its entirety on Hulu — or somewhere else? Studio JMS TV, perhaps?

Warners has never really understood “Babylon 5.” We’ve always been their little-favored stepchild, complicated further by the fact that the folks running regular network TV programming were kind of shut out from what PTEN was doing, leading to resentment toward the show.

Consequently there’s never been any real desire to keep the show on the air in the US, though it continues to do very well overseas. As to the future: the problem is that WB owns the TV rights and I own the film rights. One can’t be done without the other, so maybe one day we’ll find some way to make this work.

On Superheroes and Careers You moved into comic books and earned yourself a stellar reputation in the field. I know people who’ve never heard of “Babylon 5,” but consider you to be one of the greatest comic book writers in the past couple decades.

What led you to doing this, and taking on new careers?

I’m a geek and a fan, and as a writer I do the stuff I like to do and don’t do the stuff I don’t like to do. I like comics. I read comics.

Hence, I write comics. I learned to read from comics, learned my sense of morality and ethics from comics, so it’s great that I have a chance to give back to the next

Ernesto Rivera/Staff

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el sol | Summer 2013 | 44

Q&A bunch of dreamers coming over the hill.

To the question of personal identification, it’s kind of a funny situation, because I’ve had four completely separate, whole careers.

I had this whole career as a journalist, publishing over 500 articles, landing at Time, Inc., which would be enough on its own. Then I had this other whole career in TV, writing over 300 produced episodes and having my own shows, winning two Hugo awards and Emmy awards, which would be enough on its own. Then there’s the movie career, working on five movies that have earned nearly a billion dollars worldwide and netted me a British Academy Award nomination, and that would be enough on its own. Now there’s the comics work, writing over 300 books, having my own line, picking up Eisner and Inkpot awards, and you’d think that would be plenty. But here I am at 58, still going, writing as fast as I can to keep up with the dreams, still looking for the next horizon to explore, the next mountain to climb.

And that, all of that, comes down to just three words: follow your passions. The stuff I cared about as a kid, the things that excites me, are the things that I pursue and write about and fight for. I’ve been fortunate enough to make a career at it.

In that vein…what sort of advice would you give to young writers?

Write what you care about. Nothing else is worth the time, the sweat, the blood, or the energy.

Are there any particular Marvel or DC characters that you particularly enjoyed writing – given your penchant for creating well-rounded, vivid characters?

For Marvel, it was Spider-Man in first position, with Thor coming up fast behind.

I really got to dig into those characters and show colors that they hadn’t much shown before. For DC, it’s Superman, hands down. Coming from a position of being a huge Superman fan, to have the chance to reinvent that character for a new generation…there are no words how stunning that is for a guy like me.

You worked with Marvel Comics for years, but also created your own comics – “Midnight Nation” and “Rising Stars.” Granted, there are many more people to answer to at Marvel, but

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how would you compare these two different companies?

My assessment of Marvel is less than valid because I’ve been outside of that world since Joe Quesada moved on to fish in broader waters, so any comparison I’d make would be equally flawed.

The Silver Screen and Points Beyond How did you get involved with the “Changeling” script?

I’d heard about the story years before while working as a reporter. When I decided to flip from TV to movies, I revisited that story and spent a very long time researching it until I felt I was ready to write it. There were no secondary references, so I had to go down to City Hall and the County Library archives, and the LAPD archives, to dig out the material.

I wrote the draft on my own time and my own dime, gave it to my agent without a heads-up, and within days he’d sold it to Ron Howard. They brought on Clint Eastwood to direct, and Angelina Jolie and John Malkovich to star, and before I could digest that this was actually real, they were shooting the thing.

Screenwriters are notoriously ignored on movie sets. What sort of reception did you get?

Clint was profoundly welcoming and always made a place for me on the set.

Sadly, the Writers Guild strike that happened a couple of weeks into filming made it impossible to be on set for most of it, but I was there for the start and the end, and it was a great experience.

Do you have any comments on your early scripts for “Thor” or “World War Z”?

“Thor” was fun to work on because the thing really had to focus in on that sibling rivalry. Everything else would work if you bought that aspect, and that was something I emphasized a lot early on.

In terms of “World War Z,” I was the first writer brought in to figure out how to turn [Max Brooks’] book of interviews into a narrative story, and finally cracked it.

The thing got changed a lot later on, but I get screen story credit, so I’m a happy guy.

You recently announced the creation of Studio JMS. Can you describe it for people unfamiliar with it?

The thing about being a writer in Hollywood is that in many cases you’re a hired gun working for other people. You don’t actually own much, or any of what you’re touching. Having gone as far as I could as a producer and writer, the next logical step was to create a situation where I could own what I wrote.

Now, there are any number of writers who have a bigger footprint than me in comics or TV or film, but nobody has the same footprint that I do in all three.

So we launched Studio JMS to create TV shows, produce movies, and publish comics. And in less than a year we’ve had a ridiculous amount of success. We have a 10-episode order for a new series called “Sense8” for Netflix, which I’m doing with the Wachowskis of “The Matrix” fame. I’ll be directing our first film in Berlin very soon. And our in-house line of comics, Joe’s Comics, debuted last week with “Ten Grand” #1, which has rocketed in sales, logging in nearly 68,000 pre-orders, great reviews, and has just gone back for a second printing. Again, everything we set out to do, we did, and this is just the beginning.

Journey of self-discovery

What’s coming next?

Issue Two of “Ten Grand” hits stores the first week of June. We’ll keep going with that for as long as we feel we can tell good stories, then we’re done. Our second title, “Sidekick” – about a sidekick whose mentor/hero partner is killed, and then begins a long slow descent into madness – will debut at San Diego Comic Con in July.

In my copious free time I’m writing a movie based on Valiant Comics’ Shadowman character, working on a screenplay for Will Smith, doing another film project for Disney, an online graphic novel for MTV. com, and the next “Superman: Earth One” graphic novel.

Coming into my middle 50s, I thought I’d begin to slow down a bit, but I’m busier now than at any time in my life, and it’s great. Yeah, there’s a lot to get done, but it’s all good work, and I’m enjoying it immensely. So I expect I’ll be pounding away at the keyboard until the game is finally called on account of darkness…and maybe beyond. We’ll see…. es

Ernesto Rivera/Staff

I

By Ernesto Rivera

t took Carol Pullman a few years to figure it out, but now she knows. She is a bigthinking American woman accidentally born into the body of a repressed Taiwanese female. She has successfully made the transition.

Pullman, the Disability Support Services Test Proctoring Coordinator at Southwestern College, was frustrated with ancient Chinese cultural expectations and limiting views of women, so she immigrated to the United States and never looked back. In America she was finally able to be independent, find opportunities to pursue higher education and develop a self-actualized life of her own. It was not going to happen in her

native land, she said.

“Thirty years ago in Taiwan, only 10 percent of high school graduates had a chance to go to college,” she said.

Realizing she would not be one of them, Pullman immigrated to the U.S. in 1979 and enrolled at Southwestern College. At first she found it too difficult. She dropped out. She spent several years in the workforce and earned a good living, but eventually realized there was something missing in her life.

“Something just pushed me back to Southwestern College,” she said. “But this time I really appreciated the open door Southwestern offered me. I learned to appreciate American’s educational system.”

Higher educational in the United States is vastly

el sol | Summer 2013 | 46

FACES OF IMMIGRATION

“I feel like life without traveling is like a stone without rolling, like still water without running.”

courtesy photos

(left) Carol Pullman in the Himalayan Mountains, the peak behind her is Mount Everest. (far left) The Potala Palace in Tibet, the winter palace of the Dalai Lama. (above) Pullman visiting with a nomadic family in Kathmandu, Nepal.

different than the system in Taiwan, she said.

“In my culture, they criticize you,” she said. “If you got an 80 percent they’d ask why you didn’t get 100. Here if you get a 70 percent they encourage you and say ‘that’s great, let’s do better.’ That makes you want to do more.”

Asian culture pressures women to be “traditional” and did not allow her to be an individual thinker, Pullman said. America celebrates individualism and creativity, while Asian cultures value collectivism and conformity.

“You never have that kind of privilege to find yourself,” she said. “In Asian cultures, for women, they give you a box and you have to stay inside it. Over here I broke all the barriers. I became an individual. I was able to be whatever I wanted to be. When I came to Chula Vista I finally had freedom

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to find who I was. This led me to express myself through traveling.”

Pullman said her dream is to travel the whole world. She has a great start and has been to Tibet, India, Turkey, the Czech Republic, Greece and Australia so far.

In 2005, she stayed in the Himalayan Mountains for two months.

“It was the trip of my lifetime,” she said. “I feel like life without traveling is like a stone without rolling, like still water without running.”

Pullman said she prefers traveling by herself because she feels more independent.

“Without immigrating to this country I wouldn’t have been able to (travel),” she said. “I was able to come here and fulfill my dreams.”

Pullman has worked at the office of Disability Support Services for eight years.

She began her career at SWC as a DSS

student.

“I graduated in the year 2000 with an Associate of Science in Computer Information Systems,” she said. “Even after that I still couldn’t read and write English, so I went back to the basics. I signed up for a personal development class without even knowing that it was a DSS class.”

Enrolling in the class led to DSS Director Dr. Malia Flood offering Pullman a parttime job.

“Over the years I’ve worked my way up to being the test proctoring coordinator,” she said. “This job has taught me a lot about what disabilities are all about. I’ve realized that everyone suffers a disability in some degree and it’s given me a better understanding of people.”

She said she is in charge of coordinating every DSS student who needs accommodations and works with more

than 800 instructors and more than 200 students. Pullman speaks with instructors and proctors to give students the most appropriate time, environment and tools in order to succeed at SWC. “You see so many students with vast areas of disability,” said Pullman. “We are here to provide equal opportunities. Each student has equal opportunities to succeed and an equal opportunity to fail.”

Dr. Flood said Pullman is an extremely bright and creative person, but lacked confidence in her English.

“Carol was a great student,” said Flood.

“She was curious and very motivated to learn. She asked questions, did all the work, and was very invested in the learning process.

These same characteristics make Carol a great employee. She continues to be passionate about learning and is always looking for ways to improve services for students.”

Flood said the work Pullman does is integral for DSS, which serves about 1,200 students.

“Carol coordinates the DSS Test Proctoring Center, communicating with students and faculty to make sure that students receive their test accommodations,” she said. “This involves many steps, including scheduling student exam times, arranging proctors, and obtaining exams from faculty. Carol communicates with students, proctors and faculty and brings the process together in order for students to have their test accommodations.”

Pullman is classically trained in voice and piano, and performs with SWC’s Concert Choir as a soprano. She has performed with the elite choir at the Sydney Opera House, Carnegie Hall, France’s Notre Dame Cathedral and in Greece.

“With this group we have something to accomplish together,” Pullman said. “You contribute one thing and as a whole it comes out beautiful. Every time we rehearse it’s such a treat.”

Choral conductor Dr. Terry Russell said Pullman adds a diverse element to the eclectic choir and assists with recruitment and enrollment of adult students.

“Carol already had excellent musical skills when she joined our choir,” said Russell. “She is a great asset to our ensemble not only for her musical skills but also because of her enthusiastic personality and dedication to the choir community.”

Pullman has been able to travel across the world because of the independence that immigrating to the U.S. gave her. She said she still looks at life as an open road.

“Life is not one meter in front of me,” she said. “It’s a thousand miles.” es

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Critter County PHOTO ESSAY

By Amanda L. Abad Photographs by Amanda L. Abad, David McVicker and Ernesto Rivera

D

orothy a n d To t o no longer need to go to the dark and creepy forests of the merry old land of Oz to sing of lions, tigers and bears. All the same critters are now stalking the hillside of Alpine.

Oh my!

“My husband and I purchased this land specifically for the animal sanctuary,” said Bobbi Brink, the founder of Lions, Tigers & Bears, a big cat and exotic animal sanctuary. “This no kill, no breed, no sell, educational rescue facility allows the animals to live out the rest of their lives in dignity.”

LTB currently has 12 big cats and five bears. A handful of domestic farm animals also call the 93 acres of LTB their home. Brink said it costs about $33,000 a month to run the sanctuary.

“We have to say no all the time when people ask us to take in more animals,” she said. “If we do not have the land for their home and the funding—which comes strictly from donations—we have to say no or else we’d just be part of the problem.”

Brink works to help promote legislation to stop endangering the lives of animals, and goes to different areas in the nation to conduct health check-ups, match animals to sanctuaries and assist with transportation. es

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Many of the exotic animals at LTB were once “pets” living in cages smaller than jail cells, often with two or more other animals.

Photos by Amanda L. Abad

Domestic animals and farm animals are also being abused by overbreeding and living in overcrowded cages.

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PHOTO ESSAY Ernesto Rivera/Staff

Many of the animals have longterm effects from their abuse. The goat above gets false pregnancies from overbreeding. Raja (r) has developed arthritis from living in a 6’ by 12’ cage for six years with another tiger. Conga the leopard (below) was abandoned at five weeks by her owner.

“This no kill, no breed, no sell, educational rescue facility allows the animals to live out the rest of their lives in dignity.”

-Bobbi Brink

David McVicker/Staff

David McVicker/Staff

Photos by Amanda L. Abad

51 | el sol | Summer 2013

Ernesto Rivera/Staff

Some animals, like Sugar Bear (above), had never been in the sun, felt grass or dirt before living at LTB. Natasha (top r) came to LTB with Raja. Many of the farm animals lived in factory farms. To support the sanctuary send a check to: Lions, Tigers and Bears, 24402 Martin Way, Alpine, CA 91901

Check out theswcsun.com/LTB for video coverage and more ways to help. el sol | Summer 2013 | 52

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