The Sun Vol. 62 Issue 1

A N AT I O N A L PA C E M A K E R AWA R D N E W S PA P E R

Volume 62, Issue 1

theswcsun.com

October 25, 2018

Study finds ‘toxic’ climate USC report issues 12 recommendations to fix SWC’s racial problems Siobhan Eagen News Editor

Brittany Cruz-Fejeran/Staff

TAKING THE BLAME – Trustee Nora Vargas holds herself and the Governing Board accountable for not properly communicating efforts to

eradicate race issues that have plagued the campus for decades.

‘We dropped the ball’

Southwestern College employees said at a Governing Board town hall meeting last week that recent tensions on campus regarding charges of racism have made it difficult to breathe.

A team led by Dr. Shaun Harper, USC Race and Equity Center Executive Director, reported that SWC suffers from some of the worst anti-black racism they had ever seen. This problem, they said, was largely the fault of white and Latinx employees.

“In addition to being called n------, unnecessarily confronted by campus police, and associated with animals, African-American classified employees had numerous other examples of being bullied and harassed on campus,” Harper wrote.

After issuing the report, Harper disappeared and cancelled the special Governing Board meeting scheduled for Aug. 22. He also didn’t respond to multiple calls and emails from The Sun.

Southwestern faculty and staff voice concerns about Racial Climate Report, demand action from administration The college was left with a mess and hundreds of unsettled faculty members.

Employees and community members are looking to SWC President Dr. Kindred Murillo to answer the questions Harper’s team left them with. The report said numerous people referenced her as the “clean up president,” tasked with handling racial conflicts that manifested during the tenure of former SWC President Melinda Nish.

“There was a near-unanimous praise for the ways in which President Murillo messages the college’s commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion,” the report. “Her email messages to the campus were repeatedly mentioned.

Accordingly, she consistently uses those messages to convey her values and what she hopes will be the values that Southwestern enacts.”

Mexican-American history instructor Gregorio Pantoja said Murillo is the

reason the college has started to have these conversations. Racial problems existed at SWC before she arrived, he said.

“I’d like to commend Kindred for charging this and taking it from side discussions that the minority groups had to have, to owning this historical issue and bringing it to the forefront,” Pantoja said. “Especially as a white president too.”

Not all staff agreed.

At the Governing Board town hall meeting, which was held on Oct. 16, counselor Abdishakur Omar said he has not seen any formal apology for what black people on campus have experienced. He said an informal one may have been sent via Murillo’s “Things to Know” emails. It is not enough, he said.

“I don’t know where the board stands on this, and to say that this was swept

under the rug is an understatement,” Omar said. “I think it’s negligence.”

Governing Board Trustee Nora Vargas, who is running unopposed for re-election, said a lack of communication was to blame. The Governing Board has been working, she said, but has not communicated that they are working to address the issues in the report.

“We dropped the ball in my opinion,” Vargas said. “At least that’s where I drop the ball as a governing board member.

I will take responsibility for that. I can’t take responsibility for my colleagues.”

He was walking in the street

Murillo delivered the report to staff and faculty via email with a preface stating the report was “not a fact-finding investigation, i.e., not intended to determine whether someone was right or wrong.”

Harper is a leading scholar on campus racial climates. USC launched and administered the annual National Assessment of Collegiate Campus Climates. The research is collected as quantitative survey.

“We do rigorous, evidence-based work that educates our nation, transforms institutions and organizations, boldly confronts racism, and strategically achieves equity,” wrote Harper.

USC’s study is typically conducted across three to four days. Due to proximity, however, five researchers were sent over a period of two days instead.

One-hundred-nineteen participants volunteered to be interviewed and were then separated by race and employment status to keep focus groups homogenous.

Participants said they appreciated Murillo’s commitment to equity overall. A notable number of participants were critical of her position as a white president during a racial crisis. Participants also felt Murillo missed opportunities to appoint qualified people of color to leadership positions.

Please see Jefferson, pg. A5

Please see Racial Report, pg. A3

Issues not in the past

Critics of the report have questioned its validity and said it was not thorough enough. Murillo said it was not a factfinding mission and was meant to let people’s voices be heard. Its purpose, Please see Town Hall, pg. A3

Frederick Jefferson found dead in cell

Artists Joe Yorty transforms trash into assemblage sculptures at the SWC Art Gallery

nationalists away from Chicano Park where they staged a protest against the park’s murals. Police had sealed off the park with a chain of about 40 motorcycles and scores of officers.

Jaywalking turns violent

CAMPUS

ARTS

SPORTS

Jefferson

Frederick Jefferson, the homeless U.S. Navy veteran whose beating

by San Diego Police sparked a viral campaign to protest police brutality, died in custody. He was 39.

Jefferson was reportedly found dead in his cell at the George F. Bailey Detention Center by San Diego County Sheriff’s deputies Sept. 1 at

2:17 a.m., just hours after he was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison for punching an officer in Logan Heights earlier this year. A Sheriff’s statement said Jefferson killed himself. It also said Jefferson was alone and there was no evidence of foul play.

Jefferson’s death concluded a sevenmonth ordeal that began Feb. 3 when he was confronted by SDPD officers for jaywalking across Logan Avenue as police escorted a group of white

Alissa Mashburn returns to Jaguar’s after a six-year break from coaching.

Students, faculty and pups come together to commemorate SWC’s 57th birthday.

VIEWPOINTS

By Katy Stegall Editor-in-Chief

The Study

Letter from the Editor-inChief

@THESWCSUN

By Katy Stegall and Sabrina Wu Staff Writers

Southwestern College has “one of the two to three most toxic” racial climates of 50 colleges studied by USC’s Race and Equity Center.

President Kindred Murillo requested the assessment in July 2017.

Dr. Shaun Harper, founder and executive director of the USC Race and Equity Center, was taken aback by SWC’s anti-blackness problem.

“The stories we heard from classified employees at Southwestern were the worst of any place we have been,” Harper wrote.

Researchers were told by multiple classified employees that Caucasian and Latinx employees have called them the “n-word.” Other testimonies alleged physical assault. A full-time faculty member, who is black, said they were mistaken for a trespasser and beaten by a campus police officer in the parking lot.

Murillo replaced previous SWC President Melinda Nish, who was dismissed for mishandling the racial climate on campus.

“We felt like we needed to do something,” Murillo said. “Dr. Harper became very highly recommended because he is considered a national racial climate expert.”

Employees referred to Kindred as a “clean up president” according to the USC report.

“They understood her to be the person whom the Board hired to fix many of the climate, cultural, and operation problems that led to the dismissal of the previous president,” Harper wrote.

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Oct. 25, 2018 — Vol. 62, Issue 1

NEWS

Siobhan Eagen, editor Tel: (619) 482-6368 email: news@theswcsun.com

JoseLuis Baylon/Staff

SWC students evacuate campus following threat

By Ramona Lopez Campus Editor

Southwestern College administrators have acknowledged a myriad of problems with the Sept. 6 campus evacuation, which happened after a parent called to report their child overhearing another student comment about shooting up the college.

Student workers said they were forced to stay to sweep and wash dishes.

One police officer even left his car unattended in the road and blocked traffic behind his vehicle. Students with disabilities were the last to be evacuated.

SWC President Dr. Kindred Murillo said she was awaiting a flight when she received the news. She called for an Emergency Operations Center (EOC) meeting and took on the role as “incident commander.” Murillo said what the family told the police was alarming.

“What they said was concerning,” she said. “We felt we had to find that student and follow up still not knowing the name of student.”

It boiled down to two options, she said, a lockdown or an evacuation.

Because they did not know the student’s name or if they were on campus at the time, Murillo said the EOC did not want to lockdown in fear of provoking the credible threat in class.

S W C Po l i c e C h i e f D a v e Nighswonger said he assumed that the credible threat was not on campus because of the subject’s school schedule on record.

“By comparing the schedules of the potentials we didn’t feel the person was here,” Nighswonger said. “We ultimately identified the person of interest and they were able to confirm the schedule. We were then attempting to make contact with this person. No scheduled classes.”

Notifications to evacuate were sent to faculty and students via text message, email and phone. Many students and faculty, however, did not receive all or any of the notifications. Murillo stated the inconsistency is due to information either not being updated, or when it was updated the data was transferred to the wrong data element or inputted in the wrong location.

Cafeteria workers were notified of the mandatory evacuation but were not allowed to leave. A cafeteria employee said their supervisor would not let staff evacuate until the day’s work was finished. The employee asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation.

“I was a little concerned about my life and my coworkers lives,” the employee said. “Since that time (of the evacuation notice), it was only about 40 minutes. It took so long because we were washing dishes, cleaning, making sure everything was clear. I was concerned about what could happen

if that was something super serious.”

The workers’ leader and supervisor were present and said workers were not allowed to leave until everything was done. Those workers waited an extra 20 minutes in bumper-to-bumper traffic to get off campus.

The Sun reached out to Food Services Manager Jackie Watts but did not receive a response before deadline.

SWCPD Sgt. Marco Bareno said the situation was against protocol.

“I’m pretty sure the person would be reprimanded,” he said. “You can’t just keep a person when there’s an evacuation.”

Bareno compared the evacuation to people leaving a ballpark after a game.

“Everyone exiting at the same time, you can put about eight or nine exits out here and you’d still have an issue getting out, unfortunately,” said Bareno. “There’s a lot of construction going on. That doesn’t help.”

Anthropology Club President Christina Cortese, however, said the construction at the college was beneficial.

“The damn construction workers were more helpful than the police,” Cortese said. “One immediately started directing traffic to allow us to get out of the L parking lot.”

Campus Police Officer Jorge Rojas left a patrol car unattended in the road.

Students trying to evacuate had no way to go around the vehicle. Those trying to get off campus were at a standstill, and it took 45 minutes for students to exit.

Murillo has three solutions regarding traffic congestion if this situation were to happen again. She said the back gate near the Child Development Center would be opened sooner. Select people would be assigned to certain parking areas to help guide people to the exits. The college would also contact the city and have the lights turned green continuously to speed up the evacuation. She also suggested that students leave their cars on campus and focus on getting out, even if it is by foot.

Murillo said the Metropolitan Transit System was a huge help for students without cars. SWC contacted MTS and requested more buses to assist the evacuation, though school officials did not explicitly request a bus that was accessible for people with disabilities. Students with mobility challenges were waiting for almost an hour while other students boarded.

Murillo said administrators learned a lot from this evacuation and are trying to improve the system.

“I think overall it went very well,” Murillo said. “I have been involved in many college evacuations, so I do have a reference point. We learned a lot. It’s always you learn a lot when you do this kind of stuff, but when you think about the whole entire fact that we had within 45 minutes everyone off campus, I was pretty pleased with that.”

JoseLuis Baylon/Staff

BUMPER TO BUMPER – Southwestern College students and faculty evacuate campus after the school received a threat that was unclear at the time. Students were stuck on campus for more than an hour due to limited exits and lack of coordination. (Top) Students with disabilities were the last batch evacuated from campus at the 45-minute mark.

NEWS

The Southwestern College Sun

Town Hall: Harper disappears following controversial report Continued from pg. A1

she said, was not to determine whether someone was right or wrong.

Harper’s report was also criticized for its lack of data. Dates, times and names not being listed was seen as a lack of official evidence. Murillo said honoring the stories was more important than addressing the validity of the testimony. Incidences reported in the study were from the past, she said, in a Presidential Cabinet meeting with The Sun. “Some of this stuff that was mentioned was long before I ever got here,” Murillo said. Some of it may have been within some period of time of the last few years but this is their story.”

Pantoja said the people who are discrediting the report are contributing to the racism on campus and they are afraid to relinquish the power they have received from being in a place of authority.

“This report was by far a confrontation of an issue that has been shoved into the basement of this campus for 60 years,” he said. “It has finally been brought to light.

Anyone who discounts this is the reason we have this issue.”

Biology instructor Trishana Norquist said racial incidences are still happening.

She has been an instructor on campus for two years and said she has experienced four acts of racism, all by different aggressors.

She asked how administration is intending to reach out to those who need to hear this dialogue the most and were not at the meeting.

“How am I supposed to feel comfortable to stay,” she questioned. “How am I supposed to feel comfortable to continue to teach my students, to mentor my students? What are we doing? Again, four incidences, different people. I’m pretty sure none of them have read the report. They are also not in this room. They haven’t been to any of the other listening hearings. What are we doing to reach the people who do not care?”

A myriad of meetings

Several racially segregated meetings were held a month prior to the Governing Board town hall. Murillo sent an invitation to those who receive her “Things to Know” emails, which includes staff, faculty, administration and student workers. The meetings were divided by black, white, Hispanic, Asian Pacific Islander, and a final group for people who did not identify with the other four.

The “White Dialogue” was held Aug. 29. Every other meeting was held on Aug. 30 in the same building. Harper wrote that dividing conversations up among individual races was not advised and to have collective conversations where race discussions could be more normalized.

“A college with racial problems as pervasive as Southwestern’s cannot afford to sustain an environment where its employees talk around race, only to discuss it with others in their respective racial/ ethnic groups, or abstain all together from conversations about race,” the report reads.

The Sun attempted to attend each of the meetings but reporters were kicked out by Professional Development Program Coordinator Patricia Hinck. Hinck denied reporters access because they were journalists and refused to provide her name.

Racial Report: Study ordered in July 2017 shows anti-black problems Continued from pg. A1

Racial Tensions

Allegations of discrimination against black employees included: unsafe work environments with toxic chemicals, threatening l e t t e r s , a v a n d a l i z e d l o c k e r, unequal reparations of employees by administration, and unfair assignment of campus resources or removal of resources from black instructors to white instructors.

“It is important to note,” Harper wrote. “That anti-black views are not only held by white people, but also their Latinx co-workers, many participants felt.”

Overrepresentation of white p e o p l e i n p o s i t i o n s o f p ow e r were said to cause a feeling of powerlessness for Latinx employees.

Latinx employees said they felt an overall sense of community at SWC, which is a “Hispanic serving institution,” though many still

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Murillo confirmed students were removed for being members of The Sun and said it was a discussion for employees only. This was not advertised until Aug. 30, the day after The Sun’s first reporter was removed from the “White Dialogue.”

One of the reporters was also a student employee.

On Aug. 31 the college hosted a group discussion where all employees could be heard.

Black staff ignored

Black employees have said they feel largely ignored by co-workers and the administration and feel they have been passed up for jobs alongside lesser qualified colleagues due to Latinx nepotism.

Recording Arts and Technology Professor James Henry said he was brought to tears by the thought of all the missed opportunities an anti-black campus has caused.

“I cried, and then I started to get angry,” he said. “Because then I thought, ‘what might this program be? What opportunities have I missed? What interactions have I missed that I could have built upon to further the opportunities for my students?’”

Omar agreed, saying it took him six days to read the entirety of the report. Omar could not believe it, he said, and he could not fathom the idea that he worked at such an anti-black institution. He said he loses sleep over the things he hears on the college campus. He also said black employees are ignored until it becomes a legal issue.

“The only way that black staff and employees have been able to get attention in this institution is by suing it,” Omar said. “And that’s very sad.”

Three lawsuits have been filed in the last two years citing institutional racism.

A former dean and an IT employee filed separate lawsuits against the college in San Diego Superior Court charging racial discrimination and retaliation. Dr. Donna Arnold, the former dean of the School of Arts and Communication, and PC Systems Technician Johnny Blankenship allege that the college systematically discriminates against black employees and is guilty of “outrageous conduct” and unfair employment practices.

Arnold received a $60,000 settlement payment approved by the Governing Board at the July 10 meeting.

The third lawsuit was filed by custodians Thaao Streeter, Mark Gutierrez and Roderick Curry. They filed a joint suit claiming systemic racial discrimination that began in 2009. The suit alleges SWC did not adequately train employees to prevent racism and retaliation.

Henry said racism on campus is not Brittany Cruz-Fejeran/Staff always blatant and the issues are more systemic.

FOUR IN TWO YEARS – Trishana Norquist tells the board about four racial incidents directed at her in the last two years. She is “People are always saying ‘well there’s willing to share two of them, but only her husband knows about the other two. no racism cause there’s no red flags,’” Henry said. “People aren’t going to be design of power.” The lack of available she is aiming for five. She added that the students had witnessed discrimination on going around boiling black people in oil. employee positions, he said, acts as a way college is working to improve their hiring campus or reported racism on campus, to committees and diversifying the college’s which almost 90 percent of participants They’re going to use the tools they have to to pit one side against the other. responded no each time. Harper’s slow things down to where someone else “It’s basically throwing breadcrumbs employees.

She also said she has been working survey also asked if students could see gets it quicker.” to the minorities,” he said. “We also felt Negative feelings among the black and that the historical white power or power to improve the investigation process administration’s dedication to diversity.

Murillo said she hopes to take part Latinx communities were referenced in of whiteness at Southwestern College has by making sure each discrimination or the report. It reads that qualified black manipulated these two groups against each Title IX complaint the college receives is in Harper’s newest survey, the National employees are passed up for jobs against other. It created conflict as a way to divide followed up with in less than 72 hours. Assessment of Collegiate Campus Climate.

Almost 50 investigations have been filed She also said the faculty survey has moved lesser-qualified Latinx faculty members. and conquer.” during her tenure as President. the college in a positive direction.

The report also reads that Latinx employees “This is my midnight to six a.m. project “I think it provided some more feedback have a strong camaraderie on campus What is SWC doing now?

Numerous employees who attended right now,” she said. “I’m serious. This is that further supports the direction we are and they look out for one another. Black moving in toward systemic culture change classified employees said those with the Oct. 16 meeting asked what the hard work.”

Murillo said in Spring 2017, 18,933 that does not tolerate discrimination and the “strongest sense of belonging and Governing Board and Murillo are doing to improve the climate. Murillo told The students were emailed a student “diverse disrespect in any form,” Murillo said. “It inclusion” were Latinx employees.

Pantoja said the black and Latinx Sun “she was trying” and that institutional learning environment” survey and only was obvious we need some more time and conflicts can be attributed to the “structural change takes up to seven years, although 1,233 responded. The survey asked if more dialogue.”

felt they had unequal access to resources and power compared to white employees. SWC’s Academic Senate and employee union leaders are both predominately white.

White employees are aware of the racial conflict between AfricanAmerican and Latinx groups on campus but abstain from the conversation, according to the report. Some white participants stated they did not feel it was their place to intervene while others feared the consequences of intervening.

White participants did not mention overrepresentation of whites in positions of leadership and power within SWC. H a r p e r’s r e p o r t a l s o f o u n d that white employees re-direct conversations away from race more frequently than any other group.

Interviewers did attempt to guide the discussions back, but white participants continually redirected to “raceless topics.”

Native American, Asian American, Pacific Islander and multi-racial employees felt “severely underrepresented.” USC’s report said the college failed to diversify beyond Black and Latinx employees and hoped SWC would hire more racial groups. While the participants of these groups said they did not

experience overt racism, they felt removed from conversations about people of color on campus. They also said they experienced a lack of community.

Recommendations

Human Resources

Host a Quarterly Employee Forum on Race

All groups said they felt hiring processes are dysfunctional and mishandled. Participants had major concerns about being overlooked for job opportunities by less-qualified employees based on race. All groups agreed that SWC’s human resources department has little oversight or accountability, but the black employees felt most affected by it.

Participants were concerned about loopholes in the hiring process like interim positions and strategic committee stacking of Latinx employees.

The report concluded with recommendations aimed at improving the school’s racial climate.

Murillo said she was “keeping a promise to the college community” when she released the report via mass-email to the college’s employees the Saturday before classes began.

Since the report’s release, employee seminars have been held to discuss the findings and the campus racial climate amongst homogenous racial groups.

Here are Harper’s 12 reccomendations for SWC: Issue a Formal Apology to African American Staff Facilitate Listening Sessions with Classified Staff Establish a Presidential Commission on Race Create conversation Guides on Race Strategize Ways to Increase Faculty Diversity Creating Leadership Pipelines Make Employment Date Transparent Hire a Consulting Firm to Fix HR Do Not Aim for Quotas in Hiring Appoint a Vice President for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Encourage the Launch of Employee Affinity Groups Harper was scheduled to facilitate a “special Governing Board meeting” but canceled. He has not responded to multiple requests of contact from The Sun or Murillo.

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Oct. 25, 2018 — Volume 62, Issue 1

Immigration: More than 12,000 children detained at U.S.-Mexico border Continued from pg. A20

show detention center employees how it feels to be detained and separated from their families.

“People began yelling from their cars that they wanted to go home to their families,” he said. “That’s the point we were trying to make. We want them to know how it feels to be locked in a place, to not be able to go home and see their children.”

Elnakib said some authorities are trying to strip advocates of their Constitutional right to redress their government. He said he fears “constant arrests and conflated charges will deter the youth from protesting the inhumane administration.”

“They’re making it harder to organize,” he said.

“People are seeing this and they fear that the moment we speak, we’re going to get arrested. It’s worrisome.

Students need to know their rights.”

Activists have not been deterred, he said. As their strength and numbers grow, so does the number of protestors being arrested for civil disobedience.

Two were arrested at the “Families Belong Together” rally July 1. People Over Profits organizer Julie Corrales was caught in the middle of a scuffle between protestors and white supremacist Roger Ogden, editor of the blog Patriot Fire.

Ogden gained notoriety in the South County for his work with Border Patriots, a white nationalist organization with the stated mission of destroying Chicano Park. Ogden was not arrested, but continued “doxing,” the act of filming activists and publishing their photos or addresses so they can be harassed and threatened.

Ten more were arrested during a peaceful sitin organized by Mijente, a Latinx human rights organization, for rappelling off the Westin Hotel’s roof and hanging a banner which read “Free Our Families Now” and “Stop Streamline.” Hundreds gathered outside the Edward J. Schwartz building to support protestors locking arms around the building to prevent any entrance or exit prior to the banner being dropped. Activists who dropped the banner are being charged with felony burglary and conspiracy.

Union del Barrio organizer Benjamin Prado said the inhumane treatment of migrants is nothing new and both political parties are to blame because of America involvement in the internal affairs of other countries. “(American) military intervention is what’s causing this wave of migration,” he said. “Yet they criminalize warriors, they criminalize people at the border. They separate them from families, violate human rights and create a whole climate of impunity on the border. It’s an attack on communities. It’s an attack on families.

You see the disintegration of entire communities as a product of U.S. immigration policies.”

Lane agreed.

“I hear people screaming all the time this isn’t what we’re about as a country,” he said. “It is. It is because we’re doing it, because we’re allowing the politicians to do it. We have to change that.”

Pressel, the Holocaust survivor, said America is too good a nation to mistreat immigrants, but warned that history can repeat itself if people of good will do not pay attention. No one thought the Nazis would do the monstrous things they did, he said.

Pressel spoke with his marching feet and also his trembling, but determined 81-year-old-fist. When a speaker asked if anyone had ever been forcefully separated from loved ones, Pressel’s fist punctuated the sky.

NEWS

Design by Marty Loftin Tel: (619) 482-6368 email: arts@theswcsun.com

Victoria Sanchez/Staff

“I was separated in 1944. I was so overwhelmed with loneliness and homesickness. Crying every day and night. It was awful.”

-Phil Pressel, Holocaust survivor

Victoria Sanchez/Staff

Victoria Sanchez/Staff

FAMILIES BELONG TOGETHER — (clockwise from top) Protestors march against the Trump administration policy of separating undocumented immigrants from their children.

Holocaust survivor Phil Pressel is disturbed by the communities he sees between the Trump administration and the Nazi regine. Protestors young and old bond at the march.

Thousands gather in Downtown San Diego in solidarity against the separation of children.

Victoria Sanchez/Staff

NEWS

The Southwestern College Sun

Oct. 25, 2018 — Vol. 62, Issue 1

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Arantxa Calles/Staff

CONVICTED – District Attorney Michael Reilly argues Frederick Jefferson “played by his own rules” during a February altercation with SDPD officers Matthew Ruggerio and Justin Tennebaum. Jefferson was found guilty for one count of assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury and two counts of resisting an executive officer.

Jefferson: Homeless veteran beaten by police outside Chicano Park Continued from pg. A1

when officers Matthew Ruggiero and Justin Tennebaum passed him in their police cruiser. Police body cameras and video taken by witnesses across the street recorded Ruggiero shouting, “Sidewalk, bro!” Jefferson replied, “There’s nowhere to go.”

Jefferson said during the trial he was told Chicano Park was hosting a parade and he thought the street was closed off due to the barricade at intersection of Logan Avenue and Cesar Chavez Parkway. He walked south as the cruiser passed him. Ruggiero and Tennebaum backed the car up and engaged Jefferson again. When he refused to leave the street, they exited the car and confronted Jefferson.

“No dude, walk in the sidewalk,” Tennebaum said. “There’s cars coming down here. You’re gonna get a ticket or go to jail.”

“Stop,” Ruggiero repeatedly said.

Jefferson lifted his arm motioning to the crowded sidewalk and asked the officers where he was supposed to go.

He was walking away from the officers when they grabbed his arms. Jefferson spun out of their grasp and backed away.

Ruggiero unsuccessfully tried to grab Jefferson again as Jefferson pushed his hands away and continued to back away. Ruggiero then swung his baton at Jefferson’s waist. Jefferson counterpunched, grazing Ruggiero’s face. Ruggiero hit Jefferson again and Jefferson threw a punch that missed.

Then Ruggiero swung for Jefferson’s head and a Jefferson counterpunch caught Ruggiero squarely in the jaw.

Ruggiero said in court that his jaw was wired shut afterwards and he had metal plates surgically placed in his face.

Officers on the motorcycle barricade ran over to take down Jefferson. He was pinned to the sidewalk by five officers who were sitting on his arms, back and legs. Moments after he was incapacitated, Jefferson was beaten, tasered and pepper sprayed in the face with riot grade spray by SDPD officers. Witnesses on the sidewalk can be heard in the videos screaming for police to stop and begging them not to kill Jefferson.

Civilian video showed Jefferson was seriously harmed in the scuffle, though SDPD spokesperson Lt. Scott Wahl told reporters later that day he was not injured. Jefferson did

not receive medical attention from Bailey personnel for nearly a month, according to his public defender Jimmy Rodriguez. Jefferson said he requested medical attention five times for injuries to his rib area and lacerations before Rodriguez intervened.

‘Black slime needs to be eradicated’

Ruggiero was outspoken on social media about his dislike of civilians who video police confrontations.

“Law enforcement has spent the last twenty-five-plus years being unfairly criticized because of the growing proliferation of out-of-context videos taken by the public,” he wrote. “Those videos viewed out of context have led to a false belief that police use-offorce policies are broken, calling for mandatory body cameras to keep us in line; but when body camera footage shows that it’s the citizen acting like a child/animal/jerk instead of the cop, we shouldn’t release the video?”

Ruggiero also made numerous posts critical of the Black Lives Matter movement.

“I’m tired of hearing people call these black activists,” he wrote on Facebook.

“They’re not black activists, this is black slime and it needs to be eradicated from the American society and culture.”

Ruggiero also posted flags representing Blue Lives Matter, a conservative propolice counter-movement to Black Lives Matter. After the district attorney was questioned about posts by a journalist from The Sun. Ruggiero deleted them and changed his handle from “Matthew Ruggiero” to “Tango N’ Cash.”

Evidence excluded from trial

Jefferson and Rodriguez were never allowed to show Ruggiero’s Facebook posts to the jury. Trial judge Leo Valentine Jr. excluded them from testimony, along with several witness statements. He said Blue Lives Matter material could not be used as evidence of discrimination since Ruggiero is an officer and following a movement that defends his safety is allowed.

Rodriguez said the decision severely damaged Jefferson’s self-defense case.

Misinformation given to officers at a briefing the morning of the altercetion was also withheld from the jury.

Tennebaum mischaracterized the rally in the preliminary exam, calling it “an immigration protest.” He described the white nationalists as “pro-government” a n d s a i d h e a n d Ru g g i e ro we re concerned about Jefferson because he was wearing a red shirt. At the briefing, he said, officers were told members of

“Antifa” (anti-fascist) wore red shirts.

Antifa activists usually wear all black.

Tennebaum said SDPD officers were told Chicano Park demonstrators were predominantly Antifa, which was untrue.

White nationalist leader Roger Ogden’s role in the so-called “Patriot’s Picnic” was also kept from the jury. Border Patriots, an alt-right organization, teamed up with Ogden with the stated purpose of “removing” Chicano Park’s iconic murals and “reclaiming the park for real Americans.”

“Chicano Park is racist against whites and excludes Americans,” read Ogden’s blog “Patriot Fire”.

The Feb. 3 gathering was the second time in five months white nationalists summoned demonstrators to Chicano Pa rk . Mo re t h a n 1 , 0 0 0 c o u n t e r protestors repelled them in September.

Ogden appeared at each of Jefferson’s court hearings leading up to the trial, as well as the first days of the trial.

He presented himself as a member of the news media and posted frequent blogs about the trial. Ogden does not work for any professional news media organization.

Ogden repeatedly violated court restrictions of interacting with potential jury members during the selection process. He was removed during the first week of trial after passing the judge a note claiming the jury was “corrupt.”

He also sent out a series of emails illegally identifying a juror. Ogden claimed the juror was sympathetic to Chicano causes and should be removed from the panel.

“I have tried to write this in a way that the Judge won’t have me arrested,” he wrote in a mass email to his followers.

“A leftist, Chicano political operative and activist was allowed to be seated on the jury. This person works for a certain progressive Democratic senator as a field agent. He said that he also works frequently with a far-left activist in San Diego named Mark Lane, who is expected to be a witness in the trial.”

The juror disagreed. During jury selection, said the Senator worked with Lane and he would not recognize Lane if he saw him on the street.

‘Following the law’

District Attorney Michael Reilly argued throughout the trial the Jefferson case was about “following the law.”

Reilly said Ruggiero and officers acted within the bounds of the law and Jefferson did not.

“Jefferson wanted to play by his own rules and continued to step outside the law,” Reilly said. “(Ruggiero and Tennebaum) can’t just walk away.

They have to take him into custody.”

Reilly questioned each officer about “the Force Matrix,” a scale developed

by law enforcement designed to guide police officers response to resistance.

“Force plus one” is the action officers take when trying to subdue a person being detained, Reilly said. Ruggiero and Tennebaum both said separately during the trial that Jefferson resisted by backing away and officers have the legal right to use touch or impact weapons.

Ruggiero said detaining a person is not meant to be a “boxing match.”

“We’re not trained to fight fair,” he said. “We’re taught to win. We don’t lose fights. We can be killed if we do.”

Self-Defense Argument

At Jefferson’s preliminary hearing, San Diego Superior Court Judge Sharon Majors-Lewis criticized Ruggiero and Tennebaum for provoking the fight and said Jefferson had a case for self-defense.

“The Court cannot believe that this escalated to this level,” she said.

Majors-Lewis said she would have dismissed the case outright had the officer not been “badly injured.” She also scoffed at the officers’ assertion that Jefferson was “signaling aggressive intent” by pulling up his shorts before he was struck by officers.

Rodriguez said Jefferson acted in self-defense and the officers provoked a brutal fight over a harmless case of jaywalking. He told jurors their job was to determine whether excessive force was used, and urged them to pay attention to the initial contact officers had with Jefferson. Rodriguez said Jefferson responded out of fear, not anger.

“This is about courage to defend yourself,” he said. “Courage to stand up to abusive police, courage to come to court and tell your story.”

Jefferson said he told Ruggiero and Tennebaum he did not understand what they were trying to say when they shouted “Sidewalk, bro!” and did not comprehend that they wanted him to walk on the other side of the street.

They ignored his questions, he said, and began to assault him for no reason.

“I didn’t feel like they were going to help me,” Jefferson said in court. “I feel like I was getting jumped on and I don’t understand why you’re doing this when I just got finished asking for directions pretty much.”

Ruggiero disagreed.

He said he and Tennebaum were not trying to hurt Jefferson. Their goal was to end the fight quickly and he insisted he did not aim for Jefferson’s head, which would have been against SDPD policy.

After he was punched by Jefferson, blood poured from Ruggiero’s nose and mouth. Even so, he joined the group of officers after they took Jefferson down.

Jefferson said Ruggiero’s blood was dripping into his eyes, nose and mouth

making it hard to breathe and causing him to feel like he was suffocating. “(Ruggiero) came back over and got on top of me, and just sat there like a mad man,” Jefferson said. “He was just sitting on me, bleeding on my eyes and everything. At that point I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t see. That worried me.”

Jefferson said he struggled out of panic after being pinned down by five officers. Civilian video shows one of the officers twisting Jefferson’s head to face an officer out of frame, who shot pepper spray into his open eyes.

Officers were carrying a higher grade of pepper spray on the day of the Patriot Picnic, according to SDPD Defensive Tactics Coordinator Michael Rhoten.

MK-12 pepper spray is typically used for crowd control, he testified, while officers normally carry less powerful MK-4 on their belts.

Rhoten also said it is protocol for officers who pepper spray a person to initiate medical attention. Jefferson received none.

Former El Cajon Police Chief Jack Smith said numerous SDPD and California law enforcement policies and procedures were violated that day. He said the officers escalated the situation by not giving clear commands, by grabbing Jefferson without warning and not attempting to deescalate the situation without resorting to violence.

“Officers are trained to do their job right,” Smith said. “We can come up with all kinds of excuses as to why they don’t. But the fact of this case is that they used improper tactics that the results show for themselves. They didn’t use proper tactics and they lost control and excessive force was used.”

Conviction, sentencing and rape charges

Jefferson was convicted by a jury of seven men and five women, none were black. Consensus among jury members after the trial was Jefferson broke the law and police were within their rights to detain him in the manner they did.

Jefferson was sentenced to seven-anda-half years in state prison.

Before he was led away, however, prosecutors announced that Jefferson’s DNA was a match in a 2008 rape case in Baltimore. San Diego prosecutors agreed to extradite Jefferson to stand trial for the rape of a then-18-year-old woman.

Jefferson was found dead 17 hours later. The sheriff’s official statement said they have not been able to locate any Jefferson’s family. Medical examiners said they could not provide information about the disposition of Jefferson’s remains until after the conclusion of an active investigation.

ew Southwestern College Chief Dave Nighswonger has his work cut out for him.

Nighswonger takes over for former SWCPD Chief Michael Cash, whose five-year tenure was filled with controversy, coverups, misuse of funds and equipment and neglect of his basic duties, according to an 18-month investigation by The Sun in 2017.

Nighswonger said he wants to make the police department indispensable.

“My goal for the communities we serve is to have a sense that we need the police department because of the services they provide,” he said.

Before joining SWCPD, Nighswonger had a 30-year career in the Orange County Sheriff ’s Department. He climbed the ranks and left the department as a commander who worked directly with the sheriff. He retired in 2014 and taught for the California Police Officers Association. In February, Nighswonger took over as SWCPD’s acting chief of police.

“Certainly there is some uncertainty when a chief leaves,” he said. “They probably thought, ‘who is this big weird guy with a weird name?’”

When Nighswonger first started as acting chief the department used outdated statistical tracking and records management systems. It also had multiple policies and procedures that needed updating.

Sgt. Benjamin Gess, a 12 year SWCPD veteran, said Nighswonger is working hard to get everything within regulatory compliance and customizing procedures to meet SWC’s needs.

“He read through the whole policies and procedures manual and updated the whole thing,” Gess said.

“There is a lot that he is doing to push the department forward.”

Gess said there was no trouble in getting to know the new chief and working together as a department.

“A lot of people say they have an open door policy, but he actually enforces it,” Gess said.

Nighswonger said he wants to improve SWCPD’s support with the community.

“In municipal law enforcement, you are frequently tied running from call to call and when you help someone, you may never see that person again,” Nighswonger said. “Here we have the ability to develop relationships with people.”

Nighswonger said he pushes his employees to go the extra mile because having a close knit community creates more collaborative solutions with faculty and staff.

Chief Public Information and Government Relations Officer Lillian Leopold said Nighswonger brought a lot of great ideas and stability to the college police department.

“He has really been reaching out to speak with students and staff so he’s trying to build a really collaborative relationship among the police department and the college,” Leopold said.

N

By Brittany Cruz-Fejeran Assistant Photo Editor

Nighswonger named new police chief

SWC’s new chief of police, tells students the dangers of driving under the influence at a drunk driving awareness event on campus.

RAISING AWARENESS – Dave Nighswonger,

Brittany Cruz-Fejeran/Staff

A6 Oct. 25, 2018 — Vol. 62, Issue 1

NEWS Siobhan Eagen, editor Tel: (619) 482-6368 email: news@theswcsun.com

October 25, 2018 — Volume 62, Issue 1

VIEWPOINTS

The Southwestern College Sun

A7

Editorials, Opinions and Letters to the Editor

The mission of the Southwestern College Sun is to serve its campuses and their communities by providing information, insights and stimulating discussions of news, activities and topics relevant to our readers. The staff strives to produce a newspaper that is timely, accurate, fair, interesting, visual and accessible to readers. Though the “Sun” is a student publication, staff members ascribe to the ethical and moral guidelines of professional journalists.

SIOBHAN EAGEN

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Katy Stegall

Time to close the orgasm gap

PRODUCTION MANAGER

Alyssa Pajarillo NEWS

Siobhan Eagen, editor Jordyn Bryant, assistant Mikayla Moore-Bastide, assistant Sabrina Wu, assistant CAMPUS

Ramona Lopez, editor Sydney Stanley, assistant VIEWPOINTS

Brin Balboa, editor ARTS

Marty Loftin, editor Paola Labrada, assistant SPORTS

Justin Dottery, editor ONLINE

Brianna Juarez, assistant Jahaziel Valencia, assistant PHOTOGRAPHY

Victoria Sanchez, editor Marco Figueroa, assistant SENIOR STAFF

JoseLuis Baylon Jaime Pronoble STAFF WRITERS

Kateley Boardman

Rosa Noriega

Melissa Cocom

Ale Nunez

Alan Cazares-

Luis Orantes

Monterrubio

Alejo Rosete

Zi Flores

Andrea Rubio-

Vanessa Gutierrez

Mireles

Matthew Leksell

Marla Raudales

Tania Magallon

Daniel Wieber

PHOTOGRAPHERS

CARTOONISTS

Rodizza Baytan

Marty Loftin

Ailyn Dumas

Siobhan Eagen

Adriana Frias-Ruiz

Ramona Lopez

Aileen Orozco Arturo Garcia Alex Nunez Jamie Ramirez Moses Turner Aide Valdez Karelly Vidrio ADVISOR

Dr. Max Branscomb

AWARDS/HONORS

Student Press Law Center National College Press Freedom Award, 2011 National Newspaper Association National College Newspaper of the Year, 2004-17 Associated Collegiate Press National College Newspaper of the Year National Newspaper Pacemaker Award, 2003-06, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012-2017 General Excellence Awards, 2001-17 Best of Show Awards, 2003-17 Columbia University Scholastic Press Association Gold Medal for Journalism Excellence, 2001-18 California Newspaper Publishers Assoc.

California College Newspaper of the Year, 2013, 2016 Student Newspaper General Excellence, 2002-17

San Diego County Multicultural Heritage Award Society of Professional Journalists National Mark of Excellence, 2001-17 First Amendment Award, 2002, 2005 San Diego Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards 1999-2017 Directors Award for Defense of Free Speech, 2012 Journalism Association of Community Colleges Pacesetter Award 2001-17 General Excellence Awards, 2000-18 American Scholastic Press Association Community College Newspaper of the Year San Diego County Fair Media Competition Best of Show 200103, 2005-2017

Marty Loftin/staff

editorial

Brittany Cruz-Fejeran, assistant

The Issue: Reporters were removed from public meeting at Southwestern College because they “posed a threat.”

Our Position: Southwestern College administrators owe students and staff transparency within their policies and actions.

Sun staff kicked out of ‘white dialogue’ meeting

Protecting the press is in the First Amendment of the Constitution, but journalists are often treated as second-class citizens.

Jamal Khashoggi was killed for his journalism.

He was harassed online, censored by the Saudi government, blacklisted and now that he is dead the enemies of the free press seek to ruin his reputation.

President Trump has called the news media “the enemy of the American people.”

On June 28, five employees of the Capital Gazette, a newspaper in Annapolis, Md., were shot and killed.

Journalists are an important check on the balance of power of the government, even at a community college like Southwestern College.

When administrators refuse access to The Sun, they are contributing to a toxic culture that puts the lives of journalists at risk.

Barring student journalists from public meetings at SWC reignites memories of the corruption that plagued past administrations. Death threats, harassment and intimidation were aimed at journalists at The Sun for doing their job. When members of the administration work to prevent The Sun from covering important events and issues on campus, it is a giant red flag to the community that something is seriously wrong.

Recently, reporters were barred from public meetings explicitly for their connection to The Sun. Following the release of USC’s Racial Climate Report, an invitation was sent out to many people on President Kindred Murillo’s email list. Administrators, faculty, current and former governing board members and student employees were among those invited.

Professional Development Program Coordinator Patricia Hinck barred Katy Stegall, The Sun’s editorin-chief, from attending the “Improving our Racial Climate: The White Dialogue” meeting regarding the Racial Climate Report.

In an interview with the The Sun’s editorial board the next day, Murillo said the student was barred from the meeting because she was a journalist.

More meetings were held on campus for non-white groups. Six Sun reporters were not allowed to attend any of these meetings.

The initial email invitation sent to Murillo’s current and former employees made no distinctions on who would be allowed to attend.

Online Comments Policy

USC Race and Equity Center Executive Director Dr. Shaun Harper reported that SWC had one of the worse climates of anti-blackness he had ever seen.

Investigating the issue of anti-blackness is incredibly important to The Sun. The Governing Board is emblematic of the problem, it has never had a black member.

Arbitrarily blocking journalists signals hostility from the administration.

There is a long history of SWC administrators removing journalists from public meetings.

In 2014, Dean of Academic Services Mia McClellan had campus police chase journalism students out of a grievance hearing they were invited to by one of the parties involved. Even though the meeting was not private, McClellan cited a nonexistent policy that said grievance hearings were private.

In the Southwestern Community College District Procedure No. 5530 AP, both parties involved in a grievance procedure can call for witnesses. They may also wave any confidentiality if they so wish.

In this case the student who filed the grievance invited journalists to witness the meeting. McClellan later amended her story to say that the policy was vague and that she had the power to interpret it.

Despite the ways the college has improved since the fall of the Raj Chopra administration in 2010, many in the community still remember the rampant corruption. In the minds of many people, not much has changed except for a few new buildings.

Chopra and his inner circle of crooks were removed from office after years of misconduct, but their actions still stain the college.

Governing board members have since campaigned on promises of transparency, but other administrators’ intentions are not so clear.

Administrators should treat faculty, students and media as allies, not enemies.

It falls upon the Governing Board to make certain that promises of truth and openness are actually reflected by the actions of the administration. Despite the names the president of the United States may call the press, the work of The Sun speaks for itself. The Governing Board must reign in administrators who still pick fights with The Sun and play games with policy and rules.

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The Sun reserves the right to republish web comments

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will not consider publishing letters that arrive unsigned.

Science and society have yet to get on board with women “getting off.”

The clitoris is the only organ with the sole function of sexual pleasure. It has an astounding count of at least 8000 nerve endings, more than anywhere else on the body and twice the amount of the entire penis. Still, many health textbooks and sexual education curricula don’t even rub the surface of the organ’s potential. Elusive education about the clitoris and female pleasure is one of the many ways that society upholds what some experts are calling the “orgasm gap.”

The socialization of women and men plays an important role in a pleasure positive sexual approach. Sexual politics writer and civil rights activist Susie Bright said “let me put it this way: I never met a man who didn’t know where his penis was and hadn’t had an orgasm.”

Many women struggle to orgasm into adulthood, however. Heterosexual men aren’t the only ones who struggle to find or properly utilize the pleasurepowerhouse of the clitoris - women do too.

Sex educators cited that they were banned from talking about the clitoris or oral sex in schools throughout the United States, including California in last 10 years. In one extreme case, The Merriam-Webster Dictionary was banned from Riverside County’s Menifee Union School District for its definition of “oral sex.”

Parents and educators join DJ Khaled in his negative feelings about cunnilingus. The popular music producer recently stated on a radio interview with The Breakfast Club that it wouldn’t be okay for a woman to deny her partner oral sex, but that men have no obligation to reciprocate.

The lack of access to information and negative attitude toward female pleasure is concerning when studies show that as few as 25 percent of women can orgasm through penetrative sexual acts alone.

Oral sex is one of the main ways women achieve orgasms with partners.

Studies of sex and sexuality have yet to break from implicit sexism of academia. Entrepreneurs Lydia Daniller and Rob Perkins are dedicated to creating a guide to de-mystify female masturbation and pleasure with their website OMGYES – which is supported by extensive research compiled by the Kinsey Institute and Indiana University’s School of Public Health.

They pinpoint one of the complicated issues regarding the lack of information available to women in sexual education.

“There aren’t words for the important ways touch can vary,” the website reads.

“There aren’t specific words for the kinds of detailed techniques that matter so much. There are vague, clinical words like ‘stimulate’ and vague, pop-culture words like ‘fingering’ and ‘rubbing.’”

To close the orgasm gap we need to take matters (and mirrors) into our own hands.

Sex therapist Lisa Thomas said the road to orgasm is often closely linked to personal growth as well. She recommends a woman first understand her attitude toward sex. Sexual attitudes are created by a cornucopia of factors.

Understanding one’s relationship with sexuality involves deconstructing and understanding their religious upbringing, previous sexual experiences (consensual or not), perception of marriage, understanding of birth control, and sexual health.

The other half is getting comfortable with their body to find the touch they like. Women should grab a few books, a mirror, and get to know (and love) their bodies a little better. If “it” does not come right away, do not fret.

Good things come to those who wait.

Siobhan may be reached at sexandthesun@theswcsun.com

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Brin Balboa, editor

VIEWPOINTS

Oct. 25, 2018 — Vol. 62, Issue 1

Tel: (619) 482-6368 E-mail: viewpoints@theswcsun.com

Gender inclusiveness cannot wait

By Brin Balboa A perspective

Southwestern College prides itself on its diverse student population, but still overlooks the needs of LGBTQIA students – especially transgender and nonbinary students.

With a lack of safe spaces on campus, gender-normative driven classes and little emphasis on gender inclusion overall, SWC is not taking proactive measures to ensure the voices of LGBTQIA students are being heard.

SWC cannot claim to “provide services to a diverse community of students,” as quoted in the school’s motto, while picking and choosing what policies and rights these students deserve to have. LGBTQIA folk are people, not a number for college statistics.

The most SWC has provided for nonbinary and trans students are gender-neutral bathrooms (which are often locked or inaccessible), a small cubicle in a shared place for SWC’s Sexuality and Gender Acceptance club, and “safe-zone” stickers stuck on office windows around campus to promote the message that this is a safe and LGBTQIA friendly environment.

But the LGBTQIA community deserves more than bathroom rights and stickers.

Guadalupe Corona, Director of Diversity Inclusion and Equity and Liaison for LGBTQIA Needs, said she is working on making campus safer and more inclusive by holding workshops and events that promote LGBTQIA rights and tolerance.

“National Coming Out Month is held all throughout July, but because students are not on campus during this time, we hold it in October,” Corona said.

“We have a lot of events and workshops where we talk about identity, privilege, and gender inclusiveness, and invite guest speakers like Gretta Moreno to talk about the importance of accepting and understanding differences.”

Gretta Moreno is a trans woman who suffered abuse and harassment under the prison system and now advocates for LGBTQIA rights.

However, just because these events are available does not mean that the college

Siobhan Eagen/staff

is a safe place. Attendees that voluntarily go already understand and sympathize with this group and their struggle.

“When you make it mandatory, you get resistance, pushback, and I don’t think it feels genuine,” Corona said. “I think because we’ve made it optional and we’ve really encouraged it, people feel left out that they’re not doing it and I think that’s a really good place to be.”

Letting people “feel left out” implies that respecting people for who they are is a passing fad. Trans and nonbinary people should not give up their safety for the sake of others who feel uncomfortable or troubled having to learn how to respect a person. Respect is

mandatory, not a trend.

Advisor of SAGA and instructor of human sexuality Shannon Pagano said that she believes discussions about inclusion and safe zone training should be mandatory, especially for employees.

“When we make these things optional, what we get is a room full of people who are already allies and who already support the community,” Pagano said. “The people that need to hear this message the most are the people who wouldn’t come to these things unless they are required to.”

Allowing inclusivity to be an option makes trans and nonbinary students feel like they are not a priority and

negatively impacts their academic performance. This puts them at a higher risk to drop out compared to cisgender or heterosexual students. A 2009 report by the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) found that 33 percent of LGBTQIA students of color avoided attending class at least once or missed at least one day of school over a one-month period because of safety reasons. GLSEN also found that these students’ overall GPAs dropped as a result of harassment based on sexual orientation and/or race/ethnicity.

Classrooms are an even bigger nightmare for trans and nonbinary students.

Alecs Cooley, a trans male student, said he has never felt comfortable or safe on campus.

“A lot of teachers on campus set up an environment where it’s very exclusionary,” Cooley said. “I rarely say my pronouns just because it’s too complicated and messy, and when I do, I find myself lowering my voice as if it’s a bad thing or as if I’m inconveniencing them.”

Corona said SWC has a policy allowing students to register with their self-given name, rather than their legal name, so that they can be referred to properly in class.

“We have an option for new and returning students on campus where they can choose their preferred name so that it would show on the roster of their classes until they legally change their names,” Corona said. “I think that’s a big piece in supporting an individual’s identity and we have had several students use that already.”

Calling students what they want to be called is not a reason for SWC to pat itself on the back.

SWC has to educate teachers on gender identity and sexuality. Using preferred pronouns and removing gender-driven words from dialogue is not enough. People need to sympathize with these students and understand their daily challenges.

Pagano said it is important for teachers to see trans and nonbinary students as actual people.

“When we’re comparing the work –

Landscaping a better tomorrow

By Marty Loftin A perspective

California’s landscape is under siege.

A battle between ethics and aesthetics is determined to shape not just the physical makeup of the region, but its very future.

Climate change is progressively making the world more hostile to human life. A devastating cycle of drought, heat waves, wildfires and storms is getting worse, but the effects of these mindless forces of nature are exacerbated by an unintelligently designed landscape.

Invasive plants meant as decoration, and those that have travelled the globe as stowaways, have spread their roots all over California. Ever since the Spanish first arrived, native biomes across the entire region have been transformed by waves of settlers bringing with them plants not native to the region.

In the 1840s and ‘50s the California Gold Rush created a huge demand for lumber. At the time, Australian eucalyptus was touted as a miracle tree that could solve not only the need for timber but also serve as a source of fuel, medicine, wood pulp and versatile oil.

But it turned out to be too good to be true.

Millions of trees were planted as a quick cash crop, but it was discovered that it took 75 to 100 years for the wood to become high-grade timber and the quality of the oil did not compare to that which came from Australia.

It is already bad enough that the trees produce flammable oil, but some species like the blue gum shed their bark and create a layer of detritus that increase the risk of wild fires.

Clearing out invasive species and promoting native plants is a good start, but environmentally friendly landscaping is also making the best use of land.

There is one species of plant that has come to dominate the California landscape even more than the eucalyptus.

California and palm trees are synonymous.

Palm trees are so associated with California that many of the world 2,500 species of palm or palm-like plants have found their way here. But even the California fan palm, the only palm native to the western United States, is problematic. It is a species adapted to desert oases and found along rivers, but they also have been overplanted. These

desert-adapted plants actually require more water than hardwood trees and provide less shade.

A lot of effort has gone into transforming California into a West Coast paradise, but these modifications have consequences.

Man-made changes to the environment have destroyed civilizations before. At its height, the ancient Mayan civilization consisted of 40 cities and about 2 million people. This led to significant deforestation across the Yucatán Peninsula.

Fewer trees meant less rain. Less rain meant less food.

Unable to feed its people, the Mayan civilization crumbled.

But if the Maya knew their giant stone temples and farming practices were to blame, would they have changed their ways in order to survive?

Californians must act to avoid the same fate by developing an environment that will resist the most dangerous aspects of climate change.

That means creating a living space that is not dangerous to its inhabitants and actively contributes to the wellbeing of everyone.

Living in a concrete jungle can be hot and miserable. Although none of the recent San Diego heat waves have been deadly, steps should be taken to reduce their impact so this remains the case.

Miles of heat-amplifying asphalt can be 5060 degrees hotter than the air when in direct sunlight. In many places there is a dearth of shade and greenery to help cool down the air to less dangerous temperatures. An “urban heat island” is an urban or metropolitan area that is much hotter than the surrounding region. An abundance of concrete, asphalt and dark building surfaces contribute to making cities and towns hotter than they should be.

But it is not enough to just plant more trees on sidewalks, though that is a good start. A big part of this process will be reclaiming land used for automobiles to create more liveable space. No matter how many roads or highways are built, it doesn’t solve the problem that there are simply too many cars. More land needs to be converted for the use of pedestrians, or “pedestrianized,” to help thermoregulate urban areas.

San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and the city council have recently won a legal

battle to proceed with an effort to remove automobiles from the center of Balboa Park. They hope to improve the Plaza de Panama by building a bypass road and parking garage and make the plaza friendlier to pedestrians.

But this strategy of reclaiming space should not just be restricted to public parks. Streets and sidewalks should be converted en masse to green spaces.

Green spaces, however, does not necessarily mean places with lush carpets of grass.

Even ignoring the water requirements necessary for keeping grass green, the use of pesticides, fertilizers and gasoline-powered lawnmowers gives each blade of grass a huge carbon footprint. When grass absorbs the nitrogen-rich fertilizer, it produces Nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 300 times more effective than carbon at trapping heat in the atmosphere.

Alternatives include rock gardens, planting clover or “xeriscaping,” a method of landscaping intended to minimize the need for watering and promote native species.

Xeriscaping is named from the Greek prefix xero-, which means dry.

Given the catastrophic dryness that much of California, especially Southern California, suffers from, it makes almost too much sense that yards, parks and other green spaces should be designed in a way that best suits the local climate.

If homeowners associations can be convinced to change to an environmentally friendly model for lawns, then fighting climate change will be easy.

Marty loftin/staff

emotional, physical and psychological work – that trans and nonbinary folk have to go through to be at this institution to the work a teacher has to do to make them just a little more comfortable, it is a drop in the bucket in comparison,” Pagano said. “It is the least we could do as employees of this institution to honor names and pronouns in the classroom setting. It is the least we could do.”

These policies and rights would have been implemented long ago if SWC had an inkling of care for the wellbeing of these groups and did not see them as diversity points for college statistics.

SWC is not doing enough to protect its LGBTQIA community, especially trans and nonbinary students.

Appeasing the intolerant and allowing inclusion to be an option accomplishes nothing. It makes LGBTQIA students feel even more invisible and marginalized.

Trans and nonbinary students already live in a society where the president can legally classify them out of existence – they should not hear that at school.

SWC needs to be the safe place for them when they have nowhere else to go.

There needs to be more policies that protect and represent trans and nonbinary people. There needs to be more open doors that tell trans and nonbinary people they are safe and accepted.

There needs to more accessibility to safer and hygienic bathrooms. There needs to be environments that do not force students to out themselves if they are not ready.

There cannot be tolerance for people, especially SWC faculty, who cannot respect a person’s identity.

There needs to be more from SWC. Trans and nonbinary students need to be given a sliver of hope that they are heard and recognized. SWC needs to take action and help before it’s too late.

They cannot wait for the death of a student and have blood on their hands to realize their negligence to this community.

But hey, at least LGBTQIA folk will get a float from Corona to show support during the Pride Parade.

The Southwestern College Sun

VIEWPOINTS

Oct. 25, 2018 — Vol. 62, Issue 1

A9

Letters to the Editor

Vote yes on Prop 10: Prioritize people over property

Siobhan Eagen staff

Chicano Park and Frederick Jefferson, an Editor’s Letter

By Katy Stegall A perspective

I wish the tragic case of Frederick Jefferson was more unbelievable.

Could Jefferson possibly have imagined when he rolled out of bed on Feb. 3 that he would be manhandled by police for jaywalking, savagely beaten on a bloody sidewalk and sentenced to seven years in prison for punching a cop? Did he ever imagine he would be dead seven months later?

Those are things we will never know. What I do know, however, beyond any shadow of a doubt, is that the story of Frederick Jefferson has been misrepresented by the San Diego Police Department and much of the county news media. The convenient story is that he was an angry criminal black man who sucker punched an innocent cop while leaving a violent protest by unruly Mexican-Americans in seedy Chicano Park. SDPD PR trotted out on TV that police legally detained him and treated him humanely in jail. He was given legal counsel, they insist, and a fair trial.

Problem is, none of that is true. Not even close.

There was no violent protest in Chicano Park that day, but a completely peaceful rally. Jefferson encountered the police more than 200 yards outside of Chicano Park, across an intersection impenetrably sealed off by a wall of police motorcycles and a phalanx of cops.

No cops were sucker punched. In fact, police body camera and witness video clearly show that police initiated the confrontation, grabbed Jefferson from behind and delivered the first blows with metal batons.

He was backing away when they repeatedly hit him.

He was then beaten, tasered and pepper sprayed point blank in the eyes while pinned to a bloody sidewalk by five police officers while a woman screamed, “Stop, you’re hurting him!”

Eight months have passed since that afternoon and I still hear her words every day.

He was unlucky to jaywalk on the wrong day. Cops were told that morning to beware of anyone wearing red and black because of the “immigration protest” in Chicano Park on Feb. 3. Senior police officials mysteriously told officers that the fascist protesters were “pro-government” and Latino counter-protesters were “anti-government.”

Feb. 3 never was an “immigration protest.” White nationalists had come for a second time in three months to deface the historic murals of Chicano Park.

They failed. As a gaggle of cops were protecting Roger Ogden and his make-shift Klan members, a couple of cops were swinging their batons at Jefferson. He was scared and defended himself. The tapes showed it. Watch them yourself. Jefferson was backing away, hands open, keeping distance from the officers.

He said he feared for his life and I believe him.

Nationwide, more than 140 black people have been killed by the police so far in 2018. Jefferson told me he was afraid the cops were going to “Rodney King my ass” that day.

Jefferson might have also been killed that day had there not been witnesses and camera phones watching.

SDPD spokesperson Scott Wahl stood before the TV cameras and lied. He said there was violence in Chicano Park. He said a protester started trouble. He said a cop had been sucker punched by a protester. He said Jefferson was not hurt.

His gullible boss, former San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman, believed him and parroted the lies to reporters from NBC, ABC, FOX, KUSI, the Los Angeles Times, San Diego Union-Tribune and numerous other news media. It was a low point in her career and a black eye for many journalism professionals too lazy to check out their source’s narratives to see if they were true.

They were not true. We were there. Wahl was not, nor was Zimmerman.

When the battered Jefferson was pealed from the pool of blood on the sidewalk and pushed into a patrol car, his ordeal was just beginning. For weeks he was not treated for injuries. He was denied visitors. Reporters were not able to speak to him for days, and then only after numerous attempts to chase us away.

I refused to be chased away and returned three times to Bailey Detention Center to speak to Jefferson for my story. Jefferson and I picked up the phones at

Bailey and they did not work. It was the only line in the room that would not connect. The folks around us were chatting away.

“You know why,” were the first words he ever said to me. I could not hear him. For 30 minutes I wrote questions in my notebook and held them up to the glass. Jefferson nodded yes or no, smudging out longer answers letter by letter with his finger on the glass as I traced them and wrote brief phrases down to decipher what he was trying to tell me.

He showed me the bruises on his ribs and told me how afraid he was of the correctional officers retaliating because he had struck a cop.

We published our story soon after. SDPD wasn’t happy. Wahl called our newsroom and screamed hysterically at me for 15 minutes and my adviser for 20 more. He called us “idiots,” “morons,” “a disgrace to journalism,” “cop haters” and “fake news.”

Unbelievably, some news media professionals joined in. A prominent TV reporter called us “suckers” and scolded us to “look at both sides of the situation.”

Good advice, too bad he did not follow it. He was not the only one. Several reputable reporters were lazy that Saturday afternoon and were spoon fed a load of nonsense by an ill-tempered cop defending his buddies.

We kept reporting the story. We reported the racist, anti-black Facebook rants of the officer who provoked the incident. We used satellite photography to show that Jefferson and the cops were nowhere near Chicano Park. We meticulously assembled video, eyewitness accounts and historical information to create a complete picture of what happened that day on Logan Avenue.

Many people noticed. Some of the most important people, however, had the information kept from them.

That would be Jefferson’s jury.

A skillful district attorney blocked the racist police social media comments, eye witness testimony and our coverage. He packaged an angry, homeless black vagrant for the mostly white jury of senior citizens that he carefully crafted. It was also not representative of the truth.

Hope is dangerous, especially if you’re trying to find it in the justice system with a black man. What transpired that day on Logan Avenue was police brutality and once again the bad guys got away with it.

Jefferson is no saint. Prosecutors announced that DNA evidence collected for his San Diego trial linked him to an alleged rape in Baltimore. Maryland law enforcement officials requested his extradition for trial. It was admittedly bewildering to members of The Sun who had spent eight months defending his basic human rights only to find he may have severely violated an 18-year-old girl.

Jefferson may or may not have been convicted for rape, and we will never know. He was convicted, however, for hitting a cop who unnecessarily provoked a fight over jaywalking. He was convicted in the news media with a false narrative. He was convicted in court in a circus trial. That he did not deserve.

Jefferson is dead, but Chicano Park lives on. That is why the news media reporting this story needs to get it right and stop smearing the reputations of the park, its creators and its defenders. It is a form of racism to assume that a large gathering of Chicanos and Latinos must inevitably be a violent riot, anti-American or anti-police.

SDPD and the mainstream media owe an apology to the Chicano Park Steering Committee and all the people who gathered for a peaceful event on Feb. 3.

Each story that paints Jefferson as a violent protestor does a disservice to the park and to journalism. They were wrong—and no one is owning up to that.

Jefferson is dead, but the malignancies of his story remain. Two violent SDPD officers were not punished and are back to work. Zimmerman rode into the sunset with her gold watch untarnished. Wahl – unbelievably – remains a police spokesperson. No media organizations have corrected their inaccurate reporting. Our flawed justice system stumbles along free of self-examination. Everything is back to the way it has always been.

It’s great that the mainstream media is now reporting on Frederick Jefferson, but where was everyone when he was alive? History loves to document a hanging black man.

Only this time it was in a cell and not from a tree.

We are two students who are concerned about the continuance of Costa Hawkins. Rent is just too damn high. Over 70 percent of our Southwestern College students are living off financial aid. A large percent of them are self-supporting or vulnerable to manipulative and money hungry landlords. Removing Costa Hawkins is the first step to giving power back to the renters. Half a million people signed a petition to place Prop 10 on the ballot, but it will take more than that to get the proposition passed.

This is a working class issue, do not believe the rhetoric spat at the masses from the TV ads.

Those are funded by the rich, by our landlords. Money is not on our side; we have to combat the $62,000,000 being used against the people.

We are paying rent. We are working. We are going to school. But we need to fight to remove Costa Hawkins on November 6th too.

Hello, I am Cristian Mejia. There is a grand consensus that the state of California is in an intense housing crisis. Since 2000, our wages are decreasing while rents are increasing. A minimum wage worker needs to work for 92 hours per week to afford a 1-bedroom rental without paying more than 30% of their income. Thousands of renters are evicted a year, and when they are unable to afford anywhere to live, many are forced to be houseless. Houseless folks are much highly vulnerable to disease, sexual violence, and discrimination. These problems are symptoms of the Costa-Hawkins Act, which essentially bans rent control in the state. Rent control is vital to applying a symptom to the vast systemic issue of our housing crisis. Spreading awareness of this issue around campus is vital because faculty and students alike are renters, and quite simply, the rent is too damn high! Vote YES on Proposition 10, and for National City residents Vote YES on Proposition W. We have a tangible chance of making the change we want to see for this election on November 6th. Housing is a basic human right, and we need to put people over profit.

Hello, I am Elisa Chavez. I am a second-year student at Southwestern College, and am a life-long resident of San Diego. I think it’s super important that we talk about the housing crisis here in California but more importantly how we can affect it in the state election this upcoming November. Prop 10 is a ballot that if we get passed, will repeal Costa Hawkins and bring back rent control. Costa Hawkins is an act which banned rent control, protecting landlords. In order to not have communities displaced and to stop rent from skyrocketing even more, we need rent control. Since 2000, wages have been decreasing while rents are increasing.

A minimum wage worker needs to work for 92 hours per week to afford a 1-bedroom rental without paying more than 30% of their income. California has the 2nd highest hourly wage needed to afford a 2 bedroom ($30.92). My sister just got evicted and now can’t even find a place to live anymore. Rent control is vital to surviving in California. It’s important we spread awareness around our campus because housing is a basic human right. My friend Bernie put it well when they said, “By allowing renters to charge what they want, and cater to who they please, by prioritizing the needs of the landlords and housing corporations over the needs of our friends and neighbors we have condemned people to struggle daily just to feed themselves and stay out of jail. Repealing Costa-Hawkins is the first step toward undoing this. It is our moral obligation to fight until our people are safe.”

Vote Yes on Prop 10 for the state of California and Yes on Prop W specifically for National City. It’s up to us to be the change we want to see this election November 6th 2018. Put people before property and make housing affordable.

Cristian Mejia and Elisa Chavez

SWC students upset at Mexican American Studies professor hire We, the students of Southwestern College are disheartened by the events that have transpired recently over what was intended to be the first Mexican American Studies full-time faculty position in the history of Southwestern College. What was a long awaited victory for our community, and what was meant to be a victorious celebration to witness a member from our very own community pave the way for a long overdue Mexican American Studies department, did not happen. Unfortunately, this opportunity was sabotaged and stolen by those in higher power, ironically strikingly similar to what American history textbooks teach us.

The results of aforementioned hiring process has undoubtedly outraged the student body. In fact, the results of the hiring tell us that there was a lack of attention and thought put into how students would be affected by the recent decision made by the hiring committee while electing the new Mexican American Studies professor. Furthermore, there is a community of students that extend far beyond the Mexican American Studies (MAS) Scholars; for example, Puente, BSU, BAYAN, MEChA, and UMOJA/TELA. Such programs have been working in unity – sacrificing on campus as well as within the community for the last several years, to build the Mexican American Studies program as the model program of Ethnic Studies at Southwestern College as well as in the South Bay; where ethnic representation in education has not existed.

The fact that the Mexican American studies position barely opened up after the program’s thirty year existence, while also being under the category of a Hispanic Serving Institution is not only disappointing, but disregards any respect for our culture. We the students feel misrepresented by the selection process, particularly considering that in Fall 2017 the continuing Latino student total stood at 68% (CCCCO Data Mart, Enrollment Status Summary). With such a large LatinX student population, it’s difficult to understand why we have come last or not been seen as important.

The presence of Mexican American Studies has been historically oppressed despite the fact that we are; one, so close to the US-Mexican border; two, have transborder students; and, three, are illustrated in these points alone make us feel disrespected, and discouraged. We are more than just enrollment numbers and statistics.

The profile of SWC’s MAS on campus, in high schools, and in our community, is now prevalent more than ever becfore and viewed with resepect because of two specific adjunct faculty members who have cared enough to sacrifice his and her time engaging stduents, other faculty, and community members. For instance, in relation to our efforts, and networks, we know we have qualified and visible instructors/advisors on campus, as well as throughout the community, who advocate for the importance of student equity, student success, ethnic studies; and most notably Mexican American studies. Any person who attends our events on or off campus knows it is a small community – similar to a family, where visible activists are known; more importantly respected for his/her work. Hence, we were struck by the selection of the new professor, as he is unknown throughout our community, have never been involved or participated in MAS events that have occurred on and off campus; or at the very least made an attempt to introduce himself to the MAS Scholars, or any other person involved in the support network for Mexican American Studies.

For us students, having someone who is actively involved with our MAS community is extremely important but feel that unfortunately this was not prioritized in the hiring process. Seeking a possible positive outcome, we have come across new information that leaves us (the students, and the community) questioning the financial possibility to fund a second MAS position. The recent financial state budgeting grant of $50 million to be distributed amongst all 114 community colleges to specifically hire new full-time faculty on campuses, has been announced. Thus, given the recent events that have transpired along with the outrage from students and surrounding community members, we demand remedy to what damage has been done by college personnel. We ask for true representation of the students and community by filling the position with an academically qualified individual, subject matter expert in the specialized field of oppression of the MAS program, and Mexican American students, if there is anything we have learned in our Mexican American Studies courses, is that we matter, that we are smart, capable, that if we work hard enough we can make positive change, and that we are Proud of who we are. Despite feeling absent from the decision in the MAS hiring process we the Students, Faculty, Classified, and South Bay Community say; enough is enough, we want justice!

Enclosing, we, the undersigned students and community, ask Southwestern College and the Governing board to seriously consider the damage done, and to make this situation right.

Very Respectfully, Mexican American Studies Scholars, Southwestern College Students, Faculty, and South Bay Community.

Joel Ojeda

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Oct. 25, 2018 – Volume 62, Issue 1

?

Thinking Out

Loud

How do you feel about the police presence on campus?

CAMPUS HAP

The Southwestern College Sun

Y A PY BIRTHD JoseLuis Baylon

Take hold of time, do not let age define it

“I definitely do feel more secure having police and if something does happen we have the peace of mind knowing that first responders will be there right away.”

Alejandro pena, 18, Biology

“They make me feel a lot safer. I feel like even in high schools or elementary schools there should be some kind of law enforcement or security because it has a better effect on everyone in public schools.”

Karelly Vidrio/Staff

Austin Arguirre, 18, Criminal Justice

“I mean they do watch over the school, the students.

There is security in school and has a good cause in it.”

Andrea Noreiga Del Cid, 18, Psychology

“I only see the cars, I don’t see them doing anything. I work at the bookstore and they came in once to take care of a guy that was just harassment. They took a while to get there so it’s kind of a problem right now.”

Lucas Denton, 20, English

“Well, I think it makes me feel safe. They are capable of protecting us from something that can happen.”

Maria Hernandez, 21, Kinesiology

Follow us on: The SWC Sun Theswcsun @theswcsun

Theswcsun

Theswcsun

Karelly Vidrio/Staff

CHEERS TO 57 YEARS — SWC celebrates over five decades of serving the community with sparkling cider and cake (top). Samson the police dog takes part in the festivities by posing for photos outside the Student Center (bottom).

SWC celebrates 57 years of education

By Kateley Boardman Staff Writer

Southwestern College’s main campus was built on a former lima bean farm in 1964 and this year marks the school’s 57th birthday. Architecture has replaced agriculture and linguistics has shoved aside lima beans.

After nearly six decades, though, the mission remains the same.

Student Services specialist Jenny Marasigan has worked at SWC for 13 years and has seen great change in the college.

On Sept. 13, the day of the oncampus celebration, she expressed her appreciation for the college and South Bay community working together for the students’ education and success.

“The college has adapted programs to succeed and reach students’ goal,” Marasigan said. “Having that guided pathway gives the college more structure, and for me that is the most important thing. This birthday is a celebration of student success that we continue to cater to in the South Bay area. It has become the students’ safe haven. We welcome them with open arms. Even the MTS

and trolley station are working with us to help the border students.”

SWC’s positive impact on prior staff and alumni showed through retirees participating in the celebration, greeting students and sharing old experiences.

Kathy Tyner worked at SWC for 28 years and retired in 2017 as the VP of Academic Affairs.

“The biggest changes I have seen throughout the years at SWC are the new construction, new staff and streamlined curriculum,” Tyner said. “I just love the college. It is family to me and I love the students, the great impact on the community, and the commitment to our students and community.”

Music played and the Jaguar cheerleaders performed, lifting the spirit of the students and administrators in attendance while conversation and laughter filled the ears of people passing by.

First-time attendees were amazed to see the close knit community. Veteran Resource Center coordinator Jonathan White has worked at SWC for three years and enjoyed his first Jaguar birthday celebration.

“I enjoy watching the campus grow

with the new construction, increase of student programs, and the support system for Dreamers”, White said. It is wonderful and shows the community what this college symbolizes.”

Catherine Hall, who is undeclared, said she attended the celebration to see what the college had to offer to its community members.

“So far I am loving the environment and community here at SWC,” said the 18-year-old. “It feels welcoming and a fun way to get to know stuff. Today we got some cake, cider and got to pet the police dogs.”

ASO Vice President of Public Relations Jazmine Escamilla, 19, communications major, encouraged students to sign birthday cards and share personal experiences while being a student at SWC. She said the purpose of public celebration was to ensure students are interacting with faculty and learning about the resources the college offers.

“I think this celebration is something special considering the fact that a lot of people did not have the opportunity to be educated and sometimes others do not really understand the difficulties of being a student here today,” Escamilla

In an episode of “The X-Files,” Fox Mulder and Dana Scully square off against a monster that uses words as spells over people. Mulder could not convince a jury that words could kill. Some scientists, however, believe words can wound and kill. The monsters are people who too often say “I’m old” or “you’re old.”

In 1969, gerontologist Dr. Robert N. Butler coined the term ageism, regarding it as a “disease” that leads to discrimination and prejudice against one age group by another. He found widespread discrimination against older people then that still lingers today.

Age is the butt of a lot of jokes and a poorly understood concept in the U.S. College students, for instance, too often seem to believe “old people” cannot attend school. Many quit because they believe they are too old to attend college, even though there are no rules on age.

It is understandable. Americans have for centuries created a dysfunctional and mythological stereotype about aging. Body dissatisfaction lends itself to the sociological theory known as stereotype embodiment. Stereotypes can be learned at a young age and become internalized. This means, unfortunately, that almost everyone has a precursor for believing anything.

An origin story proceeds every reaction. Drawing from prevailing culture, a stereotype can operate unconsciously, gain salience from self relevance and be internalized across a life span. People repeat or mimic detrimental stereotypical behaviors that target an individual’s age, including their own. Mimicking is a powerful social force that influences perception. Stereotypes about time and age in American society can be harsh, but they should not be.

During an interview on Dutch TV the host asked music superstar Prince if he really believed in not counting the years or his birthdays.

“I don’t celebrate birthdays,” Prince answered. “So that stops me from counting days, which stops me from counting time, which allows me to still look the same as I did 10 years ago.”

Prince was on to something.

Neuroscience theorists generally agree humans have two types of time: cognitive and physical. One is the neurological age of a person and the other is the body. Most people think time is clocks, calendars and birthdays. Scientifically, clocks are good for keeping schedules and logistics, but biologically clocks are irrelevant.

The clock we rely on worldwide runs on the Prime Meridian, a spot on a map established in 1884. The Greenwich line was drawn at the International Meridian Conference held in Washington D.C. to be the starting line where all time begins to tick. Move left or right on the globe and one creates a different time zone.

This kind of time is an artificial construct. Humans created clocks and chartable time. There is nothing cellular, wet or alive about that.

Prince did not worry about getting old and stayed young. He did not buy into the American stereotype of aging and did not age as fast as others. Age truly is just a number. And, to use another cliché that happens to be true, we are as young as we feel.

JoseLuis may be reached at plutotoplato@theswcsun.com

Ramona Lopez, editor

CAMPUS

Tel: (619) 482-6368 email: campus@theswcsun.com

Oct. 25, 2018 – Volume 62, Issue 1

Mora overcomes detainment, doubt

He was depressed and had suicidal thoughts, but Mora realized he was wrong in assuming people would not support him. People pushed him down Three times Luis Mora came to Southwestern all his life, he said, but he did have people who College with the hope of enrolling as an uplifted him. undocumented student. Each time he was sent Mora learned from this experience and uses the home for not having a Social Security number. publicity to advocate for undocumented students.

Mora attempted to enroll one last time the day “If Luis Mora wasn’t going to UC Berkeley and before he was scheduled to get on a plane and wasn’t known for his participation in organizations, leave the country. This time he got in thanks to what happened might not have transpired,” said Assembly Bill 540 and a caring faculty member.

Improving Dreams, Equity, Access &Success AB 540 allows nonresidents to only be charged (IDEAS) Club President Miguel Mellado. “It in-state tuition as long as they meet certain would have been another undocumented student conditions. in jail and nobody would have ever known.”

“I’m grateful for the opportunities SWC was able Mora was very involved with IDEAS while to give me,” Mora said. “I always get at SWC, he said. He emotional when I talk about when I became the club president first came to SWC mostly because I and helped organize I always get came with no hope.” events to raise awareness emotional when I talk on what it means to be Mora returned Sept. 13 to the place he said he once felt unwanted undocumented. about when I first to spread hope to SWC students. In “He was always a came to SWC mostly person a speech honoring Latinx Heritage who engaged in because I came with his academics,” Month, Mora spoke about how his IDEAS mother emigrated to Ecuador from Club advisor Javier no hope Columbia due to the war on drugs.

Madrigal said. “He was Mora immigrated to the U.S. in 2011. humble and down -Luis Mora very He did not become undocumented to earth. As president of SWC Alumni IDEAS he was always until his junior year at Otay Ranch High School when his visa expired. looking for resources to “When I met with my counselors, help his community.” all of them told me ‘you’re not going to SWC faculty inspired college, you’re not going to go to university. You’re and encouraged Mora to continue his education, better off going into the working field,’” Mora said. he said. He could not say the same about some Mora, who ended up transferring to University of the counselors. When Mora expressed that he of California, Berkeley, did not truly learn to wanted to transfer to UC Berkeley some would accept himself until he was detained last winter ask him how he was going to achieve that. They after a birthday party. He and his girlfriend, implied that even if he got accepted he would not Jaleen Udarbe, missed a turn on Highway 94 be able to afford tuition. driving home and went through an immigration Mora said not to worry, he would figure it out. checkpoint by mistake. He complied and admitted And he did. that he was not a citizen, but explained that he was Mora said he still receives similar questions to a student at UC Berkeley. He was held at the Otay this day. During the Q and A portion of his Sept.

Mesa Detention Facility for two-and-a-half weeks. 13 speech, he was asked how he can make a living Mora told his girlfriend about his status only a being undocumented. month before the incident. Nobody knew Mora “The issue is not just about taking action was an undocumented student aside from her. and going to the capital and showing them “I was personally embarrassed and ashamed to be what the reality is,” said Mora. “But more so it’s who I was when I realized the realities,” Mora said. about communicating to the community what “I didn’t want anyone to know. It was something I undocumented really is. Even my own girlfriend, never wanted anyone to know. I was just hoping to the person I love the most, thought I was a receive the highest education I can. No one would criminal. She thought that all of us who were find out, judge, or criticize me. That was perhaps undocumented were criminals. That’s not because one of the biggest mistakes I made.” she’s racist or ignorant, but because society puts Although the process was not easy, Mora said the that mentality (in us) and they’re stereotyping. She’s detention center allowed him to accept himself not the only one.”

“First day of prison I thought all my friends were Mora is graduating from UC Berkeley in 2019 going to hate me and leave me,” said Mora. “I and said he wants to attend law school at Harvard thought my partner was going to be disappointed or Yale. He said he would not be at this point in in me. It was a sense of anxiety and uncertainty of his academic career if he listened to people telling what was going to happen to all the people I made him to quit and listened to stereotypes about connections with.” undocumented students.

By Ramona Lopez Campus Editor

“

.”

Brittany Cruz-Fejeran / Staff

ADVOCATING FOR EQUALITY— Luis Mora visits SWC in honor of Latinx Heritage month to motivate immigrants of all backgrounds to not let the system push them down.

Math adjunct’s journey anything but linear

By Ramona Lopez Campus Editor

Southwestern College adjunct math instructor Brad Bolton’s childhood aspirations to be a teacher were almost cut short after he was injured in a knife fight at Chula Vista High School.

In 1995, a student pulled a knife on Bolton’s friend before getting in an altercation with Bolton. He stabbed Bolton’s leg six inches deep and sliced open his calf.

Bolton was put on probation with strict restrictions for the remainder of the year. He was later expelled for being tardy to a class because he forgot his book in his locker.

“If it was SDSU or you don’t go to school, I wouldn’t have made it because I got kicked out of high school,” said Bolton. “I didn’t take the SATs. No four-year would have touched me.

I honestly believe that if it wasn’t for SWC I wouldn’t have made it. I needed those chances.

I needed a moment to figure myself out. I needed that time.”

He finished his high school credits at Mar Vista Learning Center and earned his diploma.

“One of the hardest days of my life was watching all my friends walk at Chula Vista High, because I ended up graduating in the summer after in a rainbow graduation,” Bolton said. “I remember sitting in the stands when I was supposed to be the one walking in the field.”

Bolton spent the next seven years at SWC getting his associate degree. He initially relied on his smarts and coasted through classes. He now tells his students that would not cut it.

“College is different,” Bolton said. “It’s not about coasting. It’s about excelling because you need this information for the next class and the next one. Sometimes in high school you’re just trying to get the diploma and get out of there. College you’re choosing to be here.”

Bolton changed his study habits when he started dating his wife, Melyssa Bolton, who already had a son. Their son was 2 years old when he came into the picture and Brad started taking care of him more. It changed his whole viewpoint, he said.

“It’s different when you’re a student and it’s just you,” he said. “But when you have

Brittany Cruz-Fejeran / Staff

HOME ON THE RANGE AND DOMAIN — Adjunct math instructor Brad Bolton feels at home explaining range and domain to his Math 60 class.

someone counting on you to succeed, it puts things in perspective. My son at the time wasn’t counting on me to succeed. He was two and didn’t know better, but I felt different.

Coasting wasn’t enough. I was a father and husband and had to figure this out.”

Brad transferred to San Diego State University with his experience at SWC, but his life as a student did not get any easier.

He worked as a manager at Nike and had 50-hour workweeks. He would study until 2 a.m. and wake up at 6 a.m. for work.

He spent late hours at the library because he did not have the heart to look his kids in the face and say he could not spend time with them because he needed to study.

His wife said she knew he would not graduate if he kept up this routine. She suggested he quit work and focus on school.

“I knew he could do it and it would benefit us as a family in the long run,” Melyssa said. “I knew I had to take one for the family.”

They moved in with family members, but this solution only lasted while Brad was getting his bachelor’s degree.

“There were times where we had negative bank accounts,” Brad said. “My wife would be crying and we sold our car because we had no money. We were paying money to send our kids to a certain school and it was hard. Those were lean times.”

Brad earned his Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics, but he needed his master’s for his dream job of teaching in college.

Not working was no longer an option, he said. He maxed out student loans. Brad needed a job that did not require a lot of hours so he could still focus on classes. He applied to

be a math tutor at SWC and was immediately hired by District Tutorial Coordinator Elizabeth Kozel.

“When I interviewed him, he was very frank and open about the challenges he had faced,” said Kozel. “He expressed how he was turning his life around and finally focusing on what he wanted to do and the career path he wanted to take.”

Kozel said Brad assisted students before his interview, which proved he was a perfect match for the program.

Brad wanted to enter the master’s program at SDSU for pure mathematics but needed a professor to allow him in the program.

He asked his advisor for his honest opinion.

The advisor looked at his transcripts and said, based on his grades, Brad should not be a professor. He said Brad should quit and consider being a high school teacher or an online math tutor.

Brad used the negative feedback as motivation. He reads that letter to this day when he feels discouraged to fire him up.

Tutors who worked with Brad saw him work and study hard while in the master’s program.

Shahir Sikder, a former math tutor and current SWC math adjunct instructor, said he saw it firsthand.

“Back in the days when we were both tutors, Brad would pick me up and we’d go to the library at 10 p.m. and he would do his work there,” Sikder said. “He did go through struggles and he was busy raising a family, but he was determined.”

Brad became an adjunct instructor at SWC and has been working at what he calls the best job he has ever had for the past 10 years. His passion to help students understand math and continue the road to their education is displayed in his teaching style and dedication to students. He fought hard to be able to stand in front of the classroom, he said, and takes his job seriously.

“I’ve been kicked down my whole life,” Brad said. “All those bad things happened to me in my life. I’ve had a gun put to my head. I’ve been stabbed. I was expelled from high school.

It gave me perseverance and I keep coming back for more. You can’t stop me.”

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N E V E R G I V E U P

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Ramona Lopez, editor

CAMPUS

Oct. 25, 2018 — Vol. 62, Issue 1

Tel: (619) 482-6368 email: campus@theswcsun.com

Courtesy Photo

PERSISTENCE – Holocaust survivor Ruth Sax reminisces about her life in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia from her current home in National City. Sax was interned in three concentration camps: Thereienstadt, Auschwitz and Oederan.

Though she only spent one week at Auschwitz, she came face to face with war criminal Josef Mengele six times.

Sax is a survivor

By Andrew Perez Staff Writer

T

hud, thud, thud, left, right, left.

Ru t h Go l d s c h m i e d ova Sax remembers seeing the hundreds of Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS) soldiers marching outside her house, down the streets of her hometown of Brno, Czechoslovakia. Even after all these years, at age 90, living in peace and safety at Paradise Village Retirement Community in National City, she still gets a shiver down her spine recalling the deafening stomp of those black rubber boots.

Thud, thud, thud, left, right, left.

Early life

Sax was only 11 when the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia on March 15, 1939. She would survive three concentration camps and endure one of the darkest chapters in mankind’s history. Yet all the horrors that Hitler and his henchmen threw her way could not break her hopeful spirit.

Born on July 6, 1928 in moravsky Šumperk, Sax was the only child of Oskar and Erna Goldschmied. The family moved to Brno in 1934, when Sax was six.

“Life was really beautiful and simple those first couple of years,” she said. “I went to school, I played with friends, everything a normal child does.”

Early life for Sax was uneventful, she said, but around the time she turned 10, in 1938, she began to notice people acting strangely around her.

“The non-Jewish neighborhood children would avoid me,” she said.

“They were afraid to play with me. My parents told me that if I really cared about my friends I would let them go because they could get into very serious trouble being around me. So, regrettably, I did.”

Nazi invasion

Then came the day that changed

everything.

March 14, 1939 started out happily enough. It was her grandmother Klara’s birthday and the family spent all day celebrating. When evening approached and the festivities began to wind down, the family hunkered by the radio to listen to some music. Instead of soothing melodies, a loud and brash voice rattled the tiny speakers, telling listeners Hitler was invading Czechoslovakia.

“I remember my mother waking me up, telling me to get ready, that there was an emergency,” Sax said. “So we rushed into a taxi and went to the factory where my father worked at because we didn’t know where else to go.”

The factory director greeted the Goldschmieds at the entrance with a swastika on his lapel and a sour look on his face. The man looked at Oskar dead in the eyes and told him in a gruff voice to go home.

“The two of them had known each other for years,” Sax said. “The man had always been so friendly and nice. But all of that kindness was gone in an instant, replaced with hate.”

Sax and her family tried hailing a taxi to get back home, but found it was a whole new world for Jewish citizens.

“The driver refused to take us home,” Sax recalled. “Not because he hated us like my father’s employer, but because he was afraid. He was afraid that he would be caught giving us a ride. So he dropped us off at the train station, which still allowed Jews to travel, and we got back home that way.”

Home was not safe anymore.

Two SS officers with revolvers were waiting at the Goldschmiedova’s front door demanding entrance.

The family stood on the curbside feeling helpless as the officers ransacked their house, helping themselves to whatever they wanted.

“A couple of days later, my father told a customer of his who was not Jewish that the officers had taken his car,” Sax recalled. “The customer marched right up to the SS’s office and got the car back

— not for my father, but for himself. He told the Germans that my father had given him the car.”

Life was turned upside down for 11-year-old Sax, her family and the rest of the Jewish community of Brno.

They were forced to pin the Star of David, emblazoned with the word Jude (German for Jew), onto their clothes.

If a Jew was caught without the star they risked being killed. Groceries were severely rationed and stores could only sell to Jewish customers between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. Jewish workers lost their jobs or had their businesses taken over by the Nazis, and they were forced to move into ghettos.

Sax’s family was lucky enough to be allowed to stay in their apartment because it was already paid for by the factory her father worked in.

Life was not any easier for the family, however. Routines like Oskar’s weekly visits with his cousin Viktor came to an abrupt end.

“One day Viktor was walking down the street, minding his own business, when a German officer came up to him and called him a ‘dirty Jew,” Sax said.

“Viktor spat at the officer, who took out his revolver and shot him dead. That shook us all.”

Thersienstadt

On the night of December 5, 1941, Sax, her family and hundreds of other Jews were forcefully crammed into a single compartment of a train car. The ride was long and the conditions poor.

They had to sleep on the floors and were given meager servings of coffee, bread and soup.

When the train finally stopped, everyone on board had to walk two miles in the blistering winter cold to a train station. No one knew where they were. The train was driven in circles and made frequent stops to keep passengers disoriented and confused.

At the station, everyone was pushed into filthier and more dilapidated transport trains. Everyone felt tired and

“They knew we knew about the gas, and they would have us stand there for 10 minutes in utter anxiety and anticipation waiting to see if water came out of the spout, or gas.”

-Ruth Sax

frightened. Many were at their wit’s end.

The train delivered Sax to Theresienstadt, a concentration camp in Terezin in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia.

It would remain in operation for three and a half years, from November 24, 1941 to May 9, 1945. The camp was billed in Nazi propaganda as an area of safe, comfortable resettlement for elderly Czech Jewish citizens.

In reality, Theresienstadt served as a transit ghetto, where Jews were evaluated and sent to other camps based on their perceived usefulness.

“The Nazis wanted only the best of us,” Sax said. “If you were sick, or too young or too old, they took you to the side and shot you. They only wanted eighteen to thirty eight year olds so I had to lie about my age in order to stay alive.”

Theresienstadt was comprised of five barracks. Sax and Erna were separated from Oskar and would not see him for four years.

Sax remembers the conditions at the camp being terrible and harsh.

“The cots were full of thousands of bedbugs and you could feel them crawling on you in the night,” Sax said.

“There was a lack of food and drinkable water. The toilet was simply a cut out box

that was placed over a hole in the floor.

It was very unsanitary, to say the least.”

When she first arrived in Theresienstadt Sax ran into her former gym coach, Fredy Hirsch, who gave her and her mother a valuable tip on how to survive in the camp.

“He advised us to find a job that worked around food because you could always sneak a bite of what you were working on,” she said. “He told us that if you worked in the camps you could easily get 800 calories a day, but if you didn’t you would only get 300.”

Sax’s mother worked as a potato peeler and would sneak bits of peeled skin back to her daughter. Erna then worked her way up to a supervisor position, and she and Sax would bathe in the potato water after closing the kitchen for the day.

Sax worked in the children’s garden growing vegetables. She was under constant supervision, and if anyone was caught stealing food they would be killed on the spot. Sax met the wrath of the officers one day after attempting to shake an apple out of a tree. She was put into 24-hour isolation.

While Sax and her mother were relatively safe time at the camp, others in the family did not fare so well.

The Southwestern College Sun

CAMPUS

Oct. 25, 2018—Vol. 62, Issue 1

Sax’s uncle Zikmund, his wife and children were forced to dig their own graves before being brutally shot to death. Bodies were quickly burned in the camp’s crematory. The acrid odor of burnt, searing flesh hung in the atmosphere for the entire day.

couple of days later, the supervisor found a way to transfer Oskar out of Auschwitz and into another camp, Blechhammer, and he would then be transferred to Gleiwitz.

Gleiwitz was a sub-camp of Auschwitz built on a rolling stock repair yard in Gliwice, Poland. The prisoners built roads and repaired damaged cars.

On January 18, 1945 the camp was evacuated and the prisoners were marched back down to Blechhammer, in freezing temperatures. Many died from exposure, malnutrition or being shot for holding up the line.

Oskar, along with three other prisoners, avoided this fate by hiding in the kettles in the kitchen for 24 hours. When they slid the lids off of their makeshift refuges, they found the camp entirely empty. They scavenged clothes and a few supplies and fled into the mountains.

Oskar found his stepbrother Manfred Konka, who avoided the camps through a mixture of bribery and hiding. Konka graciously provided Oskar with money, free meals and a place to stay.

Oskar had seen firsthand the worst mankind was capable of, and the hatred that the Nazis had for the Jewish people.

Yet he held out hope that his wife and daughter were still alive.

Auschwitz

After spending three and a half years in Theresienstadt, Sax and her parents were transferred to Auschwitz on October 20, 1944.

Auschwitz was an extermination camp, its sole purpose was death and destruction. An estimated 1.3 million people would be sent to the camp, 1.1 million died.

“Everyone was forced to strip and be shaved from head to toe,” she said. “I felt humiliated, having someone shave my most intimate parts. The Nazis would stare at our bare bodies and snicker and laugh, mocking us.”

Everyone was then marched single file to a tall man wielding a crop whip.

Sax remembered his gap-toothed smile, neatly parted black hair, and pristinely pressed Nazi uniform.

The man was war criminal Dr. Josef Mengele.

“We were still naked, and he would inspect every inch of us,” Sax said. “He would then point his whip either to the left or to the right. If he pointed left, you were safe. If he pointed right, you were sent to the gas chambers. I would survive six encounters with Mengele.”

One particular encounter almost proved fatal for Sax’s aunt Elfie and cousin Dita.

Elfie was not feeling well and Mengele was on his way to inspect the woman’s barracks. Sax’s mother was incredibly worried, and hit Elfie on the cheeks to bring back some color. She then took a red wrapper from an imitation coffee product and smoothed it onto her sister’s cheeks, which brightened them up considerably and gave her a healthy glow.

Just as Erna finished applying the concealer, Mengele stepped into the room.

Mengele ordered everyone to strip and he began what he called his “appeal.” The women feared he would see through their ruse, but he did not even offer a second glance.

Elfie and Dita lived another day.

Sax only spent a week in Auschwitz, but the camp burned an indelible impression into her memory.

“They treated us like animals here,” she said. “They made us stand naked in a cold field for hours at a time until we were exhausted. When we went to take showers, they would taunt us. They knew we knew about the gas, and they would have us stand there for 10 minutes in utter anxiety and anticipation waiting to see if water came out of the spout, or gas.”

The barracks were even worse. Up to seven people slept in a single bunk with one small blanket shared between them.

Their bathroom was a small bucket in the corner, which was always overflowing. If someone was sick to their stomach, had diarrhea and did not have the energy to get up, they would simply evacuate their aching bowels in the shared bed.

Oederan

After only a week and a half at Auschwitz, Sax and her mother transferred to Oederan, a labor camp in Saxony, Germany.

Life at Oederon was not as demanding and deadly as Auschwitz. Numbered tattooing was not used and there was no uniform for the prisoners. Instead, a giant white letter and stripe were painted onto prisoners’ clothes every week. Sax still has the long black dress her mother wore, the huge X and line crudely scrawled in fading white paint.

Now 16, Sax took a job at the camp’s factory, producing bullets. When no one was looking she would clog the bullet machines with sand, making the ammunition useless. In the winter there was not be enough power for the whole camp, so Sax volunteered to lay electrical cable in the street.

On April 11, 1945 Sax and her mother were awoken by German soldiers and told to grab their belongings.

“I remember as we went outside there was a group of Nazi youth standing there, pointing bayonets at us,” Sax said.

“I asked one of them how old they were, and they weren’t much older than I was.”

The prisoners were counted, hosed down and led onto trains bound to Flossenberg, an extermination camp.

The path to Flossenberg was in disrepair.

Roads were bombed out and bridges were broken. The Nazi regime was in its final days.

Most of the soldiers went on the run, taking what they could and going into hiding. Those that stayed disguised themselves in the garish striped pajamas of the prisoners, hoping to blend in and go unnoticed.

The Russians eventually found their way to the train carrying Sax and 500 other prisoners, offering them food, water and medical supplies.

“The soldiers were nice to me, giving me chocolate,” Sax said. “Though not all of them were so gentle. Some of the Russians felt that since they liberated the Jews they were entitled to some of the women. Many women were raped, but my mother helped me by swaddling me up in a blanket and pretending I was a baby.”

Since the rails were bombed out, Sax and the rest of the prisoners walked and rode open wagons back to Terezin. The trip took two agonizing weeks, and they could hardly contain their joy as they rounded the corner to the entrance of the citadel.

But they weren’t free yet.

Everyone was forced into typhoid quarantine just a stone’s throw away from freedom.

Oskar’s journey

Sax’s father fared even worse.

Oskar was utterly humiliated and dehumanized. He received the customary numbered tattoo for identification (Sax and her mother would not receive one because they were in Auschwitz for only a short period).

Sax’s daughter, Sandra Scheller, said her grandfather always avoided talking about his tattoo, but on occasion he would use humor to liven the gloomy atmosphere.

“A favorite joke of his is very darkly humorous,” Scheller said. “An old Jewish guy in the United States won the lotto jackpot of $120 million. While being interviewed by the local news, he was asked what he was going to do with the money. ‘First thing I’m going to do is give half the money to the Nazi Party in Germany.’ Somewhat surprised by this response, the news guy asked, ‘Why the hell would you do that after all the things they put you and your family through during the Holocaust?’ He said, ‘Well, fair’s fair’, and rolls up his sleeve. ‘They did give me the winning numbers.’”

Back at Auschwitz, Sax’s father had a friend who had bad case of diarrhea one night. The Nazi officers became disgusted with the man and threw him onto a toilet and started to beat him. The man laid in his own blood, vomit and excrement as they mercilessly kicked his face. Oskar rushed to the man’s aid, but he was too late. The man was already dead.

The Nazis grabbed Oskar beat him as well, nearly killing him. A Jewish supervisor found him, cleaned him up and covered his cuts and bruises. A

A13

Reunited

Courtesy Photos

MEMENTOS – (top) Sax had to make her own toys at Oederan Labor Camp. (bottom) Sax still has the Stars of David she and her mother were forced to wear when the Nazis occupied her hometown of Brno in what is now the Czech Republic.

Time went slowly in quarantine, but there is one day in particular that Sax remembered clearly: “I was in the kitchen working and someone yelled at me, ‘Ruthie, there is someone at the gate who wants to talk to you.’” Sax said. “So I ran to the gate and I saw this really thin, clean-shaven man. At first I didn’t know who it was, but then the man smiled at me and said, ‘Don’t you remember your own father?’”

The truth was Sax did not recognize her father. Oskar had always worn a moustache and malnutrition thinned his once portly frame. Sax said she was in shock when she finally recognized him.

“All these years I had thought that my father was dead, but here he was standing on the other side of the gate,” Sax said. “I Continued on pg. A14

A14

Oct. 25, 2018 — Vol. 62, Issue 1

Ramona Lopez, editor

CAMPUS

Tel: (619) 482-6368 email: campus@theswcsun.com

Continued from pg. A13

wanted to hug him, but the gate was electrified. I ran to my mother, yelling, ‘Papa is at the gate!’ She was so happy to see him. He had found us by looking up our names through the Red Cross list.”

On June 15, 1945, after 30 days in quarantine, The Goldschmieds and thousands of former prisoners were told they were free to go.

Czechoslovakia was in shambles and supplies were still scarce. Sax and her family had to rebuild their lives from scratch.

“Everything we owned was gone,” Sax said. “The only thing I had was a blanket. My parents and I made our way from Terezin back to Brno, and we relied on the hospitality of strangers and what little food and shelter we could get at the Red Cross stations scattered throughout Czechoslovakia.”

When they finally reached Brno, the family found that their former home had been turned into offices for the Nazis. Since Sax’s father had gotten a month’s head start, he had procured another apartment, though the furnishings were minimal. The former occupants had a daughter Sax’s age and, for the first couple of weeks, Sax wore the clothes she left behind. The family ate at a local soup kitchen in a hotel basement across from the train station.

“At first the soup was very bare, just broth,” Sax said. “Then as the weeks went by and the kitchens got more supplies, the soup grew heartier.

Potatoes, leftovers, canned food. It wasn’t much, but food is food.”

The Jewish children were finally able to return to school, and Sax eventually completed her primary education. She then enrolled in a local designing school and studied the history and design of clothing.

“I have always loved clothes and sewing, ever since I was a little girl,” Sax said. “My dream was to live in Paris and follow in my father’s footsteps and work as a tailor. When I came to America, I became a factory worker, but I would still always be sewing, creating.”

Leaving Europe

Sax began to have correspondence with her second cousin, Kurt Sax, who frequently played with Ruth when they were children.

Kurt fled Austria at the start of World War II and ended up in Northern Italy. After being sponsored by a family in America, Kurt immigrated to the United States and opened a successful newsstand in Anderson, South Carolina.

After getting Ruth’s picture and address from a friend, Kurt wrote letters to her. Soon a romance blossomed.

Kurt travelled to Brno to marry Ruth, and the newlyweds spent their honeymoon in Czechoslovakia while Ruth finalized her passport.

“We arrived in America at Ellis Island in New York City,” Sax said. “We lived there for a while and then moved to San Diego on the recommendation of a friend and we’ve lived here ever since.”

Ruth saved every penny she could to bring her parents to the U.S. They would go on to try several business ventures, including opening a café and market, and lived a quiet, peaceful life.

Erna Kohn died on February 27, 1982, and Oskar Goldschmied died on August 10, 1988.

Ruth and Kurt had two daughters and lived a modest life thanks to Kurt’s successful turn as a stockbroker later in his life.

Kurt died on May 11, 2012, one month after a major stroke. Ruth and Kurt had been married for 63 years.

Sharing her story

Sax never liked talking about her experiences in the war, but now that she has turned 90, she feels her story must be told so the past does not repeat itself.

“Ruthie enjoys meeting with young students and she has received numerous letters, awards, cards, flowers, and tears from people who found her story incredible and moving,” Scheller said.

Scheller said she wants to work with the City of Chula Vista to create a museum dedicated to her mother’s experiences in the Holocaust.

“Anybody can sit here and deny that the Holocaust happened, but we have the letters, we have the dress, we have the Stars of David, we have proof that it happened,” Scheller said. “Our goal is to get as many people as we can to see these things, and to perhaps get a sense of what it would have been like to live through this.”

Scheller wrote a book about Sax’s story, “Try To Remember – Never Forget: From Holocaust Hell To Paradise Village.” She is hard at work on a follow up containing the hundreds of love letters written between Sax and her late husband.

Sax is finally getting her story out, exorcizing years of pent up anxieties and fears. She used to spend her days fearing for her and her family’s lives.

Now she plays bingo, talks about the stock market to her friends and makes jewelry. She is happy now.

But sometimes, in the dead of night, she can still hear the deafening stomp of those black rubber boots.

Courtesy Photo

MARKED – Nazi’s printed an X and stripe on Ruth Sax’s mother’s dress at Oederan Labor Camp to mark her as a Jew.

“Anybody can sit here and deny the Holocaust happened, but we have the letters, we have the dress, we have the Stars of David, we have proof that it happened.”

-Sandra Scheller, Sax’s daughter

The Southwestern College Sun

SPORTS

became SWC’s head coach in 2007.

“We have kind of cycled our way back through, just a different paint job,” he said. “It n community college football, success brings was during a time where we were up and down, major turnover. For the Jaguars, that means then we got really good.” replacing 65 members from the 2017 American In recent years Carberry turned the Jaguar Mountain Division championship team— all football program into a consistent winner. while moving into a tougher division.

In fact, an early 40-7 win over Victor Valley This new generation of Jaguars led by College put Carberry ahead of Bob Myers returning starters linebacker Cameron as the all-time wins leader in Southwestern Hanson, quarterback Demonte Morris and College football history with 75 victories in five linebacker Duran Miller looks to continue its fewer seasons. recent success and become predators in their The Jaguars lost their first conference new jungle. game against Saddleback College (4-3, 2-0 The Jaguars moved to the National-Southern National-Southern), which currently sits at Division. Head coach Ed Carberry said the the top of the division. However, a 37-20 move will result in the team playing higher level win over Grossmont College has set up a of competition. crucial game against Riverside City College “Teams in this new conference are better (6-1, 1-0 National-Southern) on October coached and more disciplined,” he said. “Now 27, which is ranked third in California. we are not going to be able to rely on mistakes.

They may be in a tougher division than We have to knock guys over to score.” before, but the program has transformed over These new conference opponents are not the years into a quality football team well new foes to Carberry. He explained the teams equipped to handle the rigors of the Nationalare actually programs he faced when he first Southern Division.

Oct. 25, 2018 – Volume 62, Issue 1

A15

FOOTBALL

I

MEN’S SOCCER

C

[ 2 0 1 8 • FA L L U P D A T E ]

JAGUARS

By Justin Dottery / Sports Editor

MEN’S WATER POLO

T

he water polo program scored a big win in the offseason with the completion of the new Exercise Science and Wellness Center equipped with Olympic-sized pools. Unfortunately, that victory did not translate to triumphs during the season, as it took the men’s team 18 games to land in the win column.

Head coach Jorge Ortega admitted early in the season that he is more concerned with his team’s effort than wins and losses “A successful season to me will not be defined by numbers, but from within us,” he said. “I expect us to play hard and be competitive in every game, no matter the score or result.”

With a high seed in the Pacific Coast Athletic Conference tournament out of reach for the 1-19 Jaguars, Ortega said the team’s focus has turned to finishing strong and extending their season.

“The winner of that opening game against Miramar gets to play two more games, and the losing team is out of the tournament,” he said. “For us we are not ready to end the season with a loss.”

Though the program is not where they hoped to be, Ortega said he expects the new pool to ramp up recruiting for the Jags, hopefully setting them up for long-term success.

“I think the pool helps because we are going to play before the local high school games,” he said. “The way that I coach and the way we play, plus the new facilities will make this a place kids want to come and play. Not feel like I am asking them to, or they have to.”

CROSS-COUNTRY

T

he men’s cross-country team has enjoyed major success in the past years. A lot of that success has come from recently graduated standout Agustin Barreto.

Barretto left a huge void, which was originally to be filled by Osvaldo Felix, who unfortunately left the program to join the Navy.

The Jaguars are in a rebuilding stage. Yet head coach Toni Campbell mentioned there is still talent on the team. Two runners in particular, Abisaia Magana and Ricardo Murrillo, separated themselves as key members of the team.

“Even though he is only a freshman, Abasai has stepped up to be our de facto leader,” said Campbell. “SWC is legendary for outstanding runners, so he has big shoes to fill. Luckily he has a mature co-captain like Ricardo. Both individuals are hard working and dedicated to the effort, and in time those efforts will blossom.”

While the men’s team had some success, losing last year’s state finalist Xeomara Villalobos was a crushing blow to the women’s team as they have yet to place in a meet this year. Villalobos exhausted her eligibility to participate in meets for the program this year because she was previously a part of the cross-country team at Mt. San Antonio College.

That absence has been felt this year as the women’s team struggled to reach full numbers. In fact, Campbell mentioned they were still recruiting up until two weeks before their first meet.

The lack of numbers hurt the women’s team. SWC failed to place in any of its meets. Campbell pointed to the scheduling of athletic classes conflicting with academic classes as a key factor behind those lack of numbers.

“I have lost eight really good girls and five guys this year alone,” he said.

“They want to come out and join, but cannot because of a class mandatory to their major conflicting with practice times.”

WOMEN’S SOCCER

P

ropelled by an elite attack, Southwestern College women’s soccer is undefeated in Pacific Coast Athletic Conference play.

Sitting at 10-5-2, (4-0 PCAC), the Jaguars are tied for 12th in the state with 53 goals.

Led by freshman Kimberly Mederos and sophomores Damaris Aguila and Daisy Gonzalez, SWC has won handily in their conference games, outscoring opponents 17-3.

Aguila, a midfielder, is a key returner from last year’s 17-1-5 (7-1-2 PCAC) team. She had 22 goals last year, which tied for the team lead. This season, Aguila is second on the team with 10 goals behind Mederos’s 14.

Head coach Catherine Soto said Aguila has been and will continue to be a big part of the team’s production.

“She has the ability to create plays and score from things that are magical,” Soto said. “She has these spurts where she can change her pace and shoot from anywhere on the field. With the season just starting, she has not found her rhythm quite yet. But she is working on that and we are getting that from her little by little.”

Soto also said the sophomores led the team through the offseason.

“The offseason was really strong and the work ethic is really high,” she said. “We have really had a lot of our sophomores who set the tone from the beginning.”

The Jaguars face second place San Diego Mesa College (7-3-5, 4-1 PCAC) October 30 with the conference championship potentially on the line. With offensive firepower and experienced returners, the Jaguars are poised to be contenders

VOLLEYBALL

2018

has been a year of injury, growth and development for Southwestern College Volleyball.

After a grueling 4-20 record last season and losing players to graduation, head coach Jennifer Saleaemua has floored an entirely new unit. Saleaemua said with so much youth coming from different programs, building chemistry and developing their talents has been the biggest challenge for this team.

“They are all brand new and straight out of high school so they have a lot of weaknesses, and strengths but not as many,” she said.

“My goal is to get them as much repetition, and for them to bond as one, play together and know who they are.”

With hopes of a conference title all but gone, the focus of growing as one has been emphasized. Saleaemua said the team is finally beginning to come together after a rash of injuries and misfortune.

“There was a big disconnect because a lot of girls were hurt or missed time due to sickness,” she said. “Our whole team has not been together until now, minus one person. Now heading into the second round of conference play, we want to grow and develop in the team aspect and grow into the offense.”

Though this season may statistically be rough, there is plenty of optimism about the direction of the team. Saleaemua said the newly erected Wellness and Exercise Science building poses as a big recruiting tool for the program.

“When they look on the outside, they want to see what is inside,” she said. “The facilities on all floors and the locker room especially could be really big tools for us.”

onference championships are the expectation for the men’s soccer team.

Though the Jaguars let the 2017 championship slip through their fingers after a late season loss to Cuyamaca College, head coach Cem Tont’s confidence has not wavered.

“Other teams have gone up and down and there are big jumps every year,” he said. “We have been consistent in our standards and level of play. No question we will play for a conference championship.”

Those expectations may be unmet once again as the men’s team has struggled with a (6-11-1, 6-5-1 PCAC) start to the season. This currently places them fourth in the Pacific Coast Athletic Conference.

Their place in the standings gives them an uphill climb to catch the top two teams San Bernardino Valley College (7-7-3, 7-1-3 PCAC) and College of the Desert (8-2-5, 6-0-5 PCAC).

To have a chance to win the conference, the Jaguars need to finish the season strong and get outside help from SBVC and COD’s opponents. Although SWC is a longshot to win the conference, Tont hopes lessons from last year can apply down the stretch as the Jaguars look to climb out of the hole they have fallen in to. Tont said his players were a little too cocky after a hot start, which came back to bite the Jaguars late in the season.

“Then we got too confident and it was a letdown at the end,” Tont said. “I do not want to see them taking anything for granted, every game, every minute counts.”

WOMEN’S WATER POLO

W

ith a new home pool, a new coach and an almost entirely new team, the Jaguars women’s water polo program has entered a new chapter.

The Jaguars won their inaugural home game in the Exercise Science and Wellness Center in entertaining fashion, holding off a late comeback

by San Diego Miramar College for an 8-7 victory.

Unfortunately, that was their last win of the season as they have gone on to lose seven of their last eight games, dropping their record to 3-11.

Though this may only be her first year in charge, head coach Alissa Mashburn set the tone early in the season that this team will compete, no matter the scoreboard result.

“A successful season for us would see us being competitive in conference and playing with 100 percent effort every game,” Mashburn said.

Mashburn praised her team’s growth, while adding that this year’s effort is laying a strong foundation for the program moving forward.

“As a team in the short season that it is, the effort has been getting better and better each day,” she said. “I do think we are heading in the right direction and gaining a lot of traction.”

Though the team has not seen the results they hoped for, sophomore Aleigha Binda has been a bright spot for the Jags. Binda has been a key part of their attack as she leads the team with 13 goals, eight assists and 14 steals. Mashburn said Binda’s impact has been invaluable to the Jaguars.

“She has had a huge impact on our team in terms of her scoring and her positivity,” Mashburn said. “As a co-captain, I could not have asked for more in my first year of coaching.

Her strong ability to lead the team, motivate the team and to steer us in the direction we need to go.”

Though they will be losing their leader and leading goal scorer, they will head into the offseason with the next best thing in their second leading goal scorer and co-captain Nickie Torres, along with goalkeeper Josie Fiokla. With leadership and experience on their side, the Jaguars hope to rise from the depths of the Pacific Coast Athletic Conference to ascend to being a quality program.

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Justin Dottery, editor

SPORTS

Oct. 25, 2018 – Volume 62, Issue 1

Tel: (619) 482-6368 email: sports@theswcsun.com

Alejandro Nunez/Staff

BACK IN COMMAND — Women’s water polo head coach Alissa Mashburn returns to SWC after a six-year break from the pool. Mashburn played for the Jaguars and was an assistant coach from 2006-2012.

POOL MOTHER Athletic Accomplishements

• 2000 U.S Marines Corps Distinguished Athlete • 2000 All-Metro team at Bonita Vista High School • 2000 All Pacific Coast Athletic Conference • 2004 First Team AllAmerican • All-Tournament Team Honorable Mention 2004 • Helped lead Cal State East Bay to second place finish in 2005 National Championship

Former assistant coach returns after six years of raising children to raise the level of play Luis Orantes Staff Writer

W

omen’s water polo head coach Alissa Mashburn is back at Southwestern College after a six-year hiatus from coaching. During that time, she took a break to raise her children while her husband battled fires as a wildlands firefighter.

Mashburn returns to the sidelines ready to take on the challenge of being the head coach.

“I have just really fallen in love with the level of play, this level of competition,” Mashburn said. “The balance of being a student and an athlete, working and commitment to the team.”

Assistant coach Andrea Alexander said she admires Mashburn’s approach.

“The way she explains things is very patient,” Alexander said. “She bonds with the players and she knows the sport really well.”

Alexander added that a lot has changed from last year and the team has a new energy.

“We only have one returner on the team, basically a brand new team and a brand new head coach,” Alexander said.

“The dynamics of the team, the coaching staff and the pool. It is just a brand new water polo team.”

Expectations from Mashburn lie less in wins and losses and more in the competive spirit game in and game out.

“We want to be competitive and not be a team that gets walked over,” Alexander said.

Freshman Nickie Torres compared Mashburn’s impact to that of a mother.

“We are all comfortable with her, I think of her as a mother figure and everybody thinks that too,” Torres said.

Mashburn is a local product and enjoyed success at every level of competition. She graduated from Bonita Vista High School, where she

was named All-Metro team, co-captain, and the United States Marine Corps Distinguished Athlete award in 2000.

Mashburn re-enrolled at SWC in 2003 following a three-year break. During her community college career, Mashburn was named All-Pacific Coast Conference team in 2000.

She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication from California State University, East Bay. Mashburn also excelled in water polo at Cal State East Bay. She was awarded firstteam All-American and Western Water Polo Association All-Tournament Team Honorable Mention in 2004. In 2005, she helped lead the Pioneers to a second place finish in the Division III National Championship.

Mashburn hopes to instill that winning attitude into all players. With the team in knowledgeable and caring hands, optimism runs high for the Jaguars’ future.

The Southwestern College Sun

ARTS

Oct. 25, 2018 — Volume 62, Issue 1

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Rubbish Re-Animator

Brittany Cruz-Fejeran/Staff Brittany Cruz-Fejeran/Staff

By Marty Loftin Arts Editor

It is not a poltergeist that haunts the Southwestern College Art Gallery, but the art of Joe Yorty. His work aims to channel the spirit of consumerism through the medium of found objects assembled in strange ways.

Yorty’s work, displayed under the name “The Ghost I Love the Most,” is a reference to the article “The Etymology of a Ghost” by Angella D’Avignon, in which she analyses how music changes hands over time, evolving over the years as the song is passed along. Despite shifts in lyrics and context, the spirit of the original song remains. Yorty seeks to unlock this same spirit from the objects he utilizes in his artwork.

Yorty received a Master of Fine Arts in Visual Art at the University of California, San Diego in 2013. His influences include both 20th century artist Marcel Duchamp and contemporary artist Haim Steinbach, a Professor Emeritus and artist at UCSD whom Yorty studied under.

Duchamp revolutionized the art world when he unveiled “Fountain” in 1917 and popularized readymade art with a urinal signed R. Mutt. At the time, presenting a found object as art was unheard of and unthinkable. It was only displayed (but hidden from the main show) because Duchamp could not be refused as board member of the Society of Independent Artists. Although few were willing to call it art at first, it is now widely recognized as one of the most influential pieces of of the 20th century and the forerunner of conceptual art.

Readymades coincided with the creation of assemblage art, which much of Yorty’s work can be classified.

Steinbach’s artwork makes use of found objects, but where Duchamp made use of bottle racks and bicycle wheels, Steinbach creates shelves of composite material to display objects like basketball shoes, lamps, boxes of cereal, toys and other items produced by a mass-produced civilization. Yorty said Steinbach’s work is not so much a critique of anything, but a formal analysis of color, shape and texture through the grouping of items presented on custom-made shelves crafted from a wide variety of materials.

Yorty’s pieces combine elements from Steinbach and Duchamp, but his work is not an imitation of either. Yorty said he

wants his work to be political and to make people think by recycling contemporary artifacts.

“I don’t want to make anything new,” he said. “We should re-contextualize what already exists.”

Yorty’s artwork makes heavy use of discarded items from second-hand stores, estate sales or simply found in the trash (such as the several collages made from discarded carpet). What others no longer want or need, he collects in an art studio.

These objects may not hold much monetary value, but Yorty’s is able to tap into a forgotten level sentimentality or emotional energy that the items still hold.

He can take different objects and spin their meaning around, like looking at action figures in a different light.

“A lot of what I use has some ties to classical sculpture,” said Yorty. “I like using figures, like this Star Wars character.

They have the same kind as idealized masculinity.”

“Warm Shelf,” “we chunky dunk,” and “Arrangement with Slash” are each a collection of seemingly random objects arranged on a shelf. They range from action figures, various holiday decorations, spent Amazon gift cards, plastic flowers and dozens of items that could be found at any garage sale, thrift store or left to gather dust in one’s own attic or basement. Knick-knacks of all sorts spill off of the shelves and onto the floors, climb up the walls and occupy an awkward amount of space.

Individually, each object holds little meaning, but together they create a bizarre shrine to consumerism that gets stranger the longer one looks at it.

Consumerism is a social and economic mind set that came from the overproduction of the industrial revolution as a way to get people, or consumers, to continue to buy stuff.

Yorty takes those mass-produced things, reveals the shallowness of their origin and the remaining kernel of truth.

Items that once brought people joy are collected together and transformed through the strange alchemy of art.

Although the true sentimentality of the objects is lost to time, Yorty is able to create a compelling illusion with his artwork.

Yorty said he served in the navy and left in 2006. He said his experience was very troubling and led him to detest war.

“I remember during the first few

months of the campaign in Iraq, we were sent to the Persian Gulf and began bombing,” Yorty said. “And as the missiles were leaving the ship I could hear hooting and hollering and cheering from all around. They weren’t thinking about the destruction that would be caused when they landed.”

Yorty said he is not anti-military, he just came out of it horrified by the devastation it wrought. Neither does he demonize the soldiers, many of whom Yorty said he identified with as fellow blue-collar workers.

But Yorty said the armed forces are not a subject matter he intends to explore with his art, except perhaps as a side effect to critiquing consumerism (such as toy guns, soldiers or military paraphernalia sometimes appearing in his assemblages).

A tower of VHS tapes about six feet high entitled “Carving (for Eleanor)” resembles that of a block of marble. This monolith made of hundreds of workout tapes bearing titles like “Total Sculpt Plus Abs,” “Buns of Steel,” “Bellyshapers,” and “Walk Away the Pounds,” combines to capture a cultural phenomenon of obsessive athleticism.

This piece stands like a monument to the thousands of people who have been trained by society to hate their bodies, to sculpt themselves into a more perfect form. It is easy to imagine a muscular sculpted form hidden within, the collective wish of a generation of fitness freaks for a perfect body.

“Friday Black Friday” is a set of five monitors each looping footage of the ceilings of big box stores filmed during Black Friday. “I was interested in the geometry of it, the roofs of the stores [were calm] while there was so much chaos around me.”

Each monitor depicts the ceiling of a different store, but they each share with them a sterile metal environment made of pipes, sheets of steel and evoke a sense of loneliness and isolation, as if the videos were taken from the moon or a satellite.

In a small dark side room of the Art Gallery lit only by a projection and a flicker-flame bulb from the piece “Black Lamp,” a sculpture made from multiple lamps stacked on top of each other and coated in rubber. It appeared like a dark totem of an unknown cult, topped with a bulb whose light was dimmer than a candle.

But in this dark room, it was impossible

Brittany Cruz-Fejeran/Staff

OLD STUFF, NEW SOUL—Artist Joe Yorty’s works include collages made of different cuts of carpet and assemblages of objects collected on shelves (top) that combine toys, holiday decorations and numerous items that could be found in a thrift shop or attic (bottom).

to draw attention away from the disturbingly hypnotic projection of “Hole (out).” This piece was a video projected on the wall of a hole. From that black hole, fuzzy bathroom floor mats are pushed out in succession by a nearly hidden hand behind the wall. It evokes both the imagery of defecation and birth at once, and created a paradoxical image that is both sacred and profane. Inanimate bath mats are given an illusion of life as an unseen hand works to push out the small

rugs out of a hole only a bit larger than the hand.

Whatever meaning one might ascribe to “Hole (out)” is perhaps secondary to the visceral and disgusting pleasure that comes from a hole throwing up old bath mats.

Though not a sculpture, this projected video still fall in line the spiritual and consumerist themes of the other works.

Yorty’s artwork is definitely haunted by the past.

But so is everyone else.

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Marty Loftin, editor

ARTS

Oct. 25, 2018 — Volume 62, Issue 1

Tel: (619) 482-6368 email: arts@theswcsun.com

Chicano Park museum gets the OK in Barrio Logan

By Jahaziel Valencia Staff Writer

Barrio Logan is a bastion of Chicano culture with much of its history preserved by Chicano Park’s murals.

But soon stories, photos and artifacts of cultural importance will be available for the public to enjoy at a newly constructed Chicano Park Museum and Cultural Center.

Plans for the center, which is slated to be built next to the park, include educational courses to help Barrio Logan residents develop new skills and interests, and afterschool programming for K-12 students.

“Unless we write our own history, it will not be written or told,” said professor Alberto Pulido, vice chair of the CPMCC. The center aims to teach Chicano history by providing an in depth look

at similarities and differences between the many cultures that helped bring the United States together.

While many museums in the San Diego area provide knowledge of sciences and art, this will be the only multicultural center in Barrio Logan.

Priorities for the center lean more towards educational purposes such as archives, lectures and a multifunctional space to view art and historical education films. It will also have a shared communal workspace and rooms to rent like conference centers.

While it currently occupies a small office space in Via International, the museum hopes to occupy an 11,000 square foot space on National Avenue.

The center will help inform visitors and locals alike about the legacy of Chicano Park, which was recently recognized as a national landmark.

“Chicano Park is the corazon of

Barrio Logan,” said Chicano muralist Salvador Barajas.

Significant events in Chicano history, like the L.A. Moratorium or the origins of Chicano Park are unknown to many people.

Josephine Talamantez, chair for the CPMCC said part of the problem is gentrification.

“The people who helped build Chicano Park had no other recourse,” Talamantez said, “The city had already decided to displace 75% of the population that was living there because it wanted to build Interstate 5.”

In the past, non-white people have been encouraged (sometimes through force) to conform to white culture and forget the history. The Chicano Park Museum and Cultural Center is another example that the face of the United States is rapidly changing.

Courtesy of the Chicano Park Steering Committee

Marco Figeuroa/Staff

PRESERVING CHICANO CULTURE — An artist depiction of the upcoming Chicano Park Museum and Cultural Center (above), showing how the museum will also serve as a public space for the community to enjoy various activities. It will be the first such facility in Barrio Logan, a community hungry to connect with its heritage (left).

Photographer wants world to recognize grandfather

By Matthew Leksell Staff Writer

GRANDDAD HAS GOT A GIFT, GRANDSON TOO — Photographer Mauricio Lopez (right), grew up admiring his grandfather’s paintings (bottom left) and now wants the whole world to know. His grandfather Luis Herrera (top) took up art simply to survive, and over the years he has developed his own style.

Courtesy of Mauricio Lopez

Courtesy of Mauricio Lopez

For Luis Herrera, art was a matter of survival.

Now his grandson, photographer Mauricio Lopez, is working to get the 95-year-old oil painter the acknowledgement from the art community Lopez feels he deserves.

Herrera’s fascination with art began as a child. Lopez said his grandfather’s relationship with art began at five years old when he saw abstract art. Because of Lopez’s own experience growing up alongside Herrera’s art, Lopez said he wants to share his grandfather’s paintings.

“Travelling exposes yourself to different situations in life,” Lopez said. “He travels a lot and observes different moments. It gets him the inspiration to create [his art].”

After Herrera lost his father, he took to art to support his family. It took him across South America and eventually to San Diego.

Herrera had his work displayed throughout his career as a painter, but never on the scale of a huge gallery.

Lopez, a 27-year-old design major, looked to Southwestern as a way to exhibit his grandfather’s art, but he said the seemingly never-ending waiting list put a halt to his dream. He also tried La Bodega near Chicano Park

and galleries in Tijuana. He started showcasing his grandfather’s works on an Instagram page titled @ laspinturasdelabuelo to get the word out.

“It’s something you don’t see everywhere,” Lopez said. “The strokes of his brush are way different than anything that you see and it’s abstract.”

Herrera uses his life experiences as fuel for his art. His painting “Peleos de Gallos” shows two roosters in the midst of a cockfight. Cockfighting, although a cruel and often looked down upon business, is one of the longest running traditions in Peru

and is regulated by the government there.

One of Lopez’s personal favorites is “Genesis.” As the title suggests, “Genesis” shows the beginning of life: a mother giving birth to her child. Although it is a bit raw and difficult to make out because it is so abstract, Lopez calls it his favorite because it alludes to how the human experience can be the same.

“He portrays a lot of the human condition,” Lopez said. “He talks about schizophrenia, arguments, family problems and there is the other side that is more mellow, a little more easier for the audience.”

Herrera’s style influenced Lopez’s photography. Like his grandfather, he portrays social issues topics relating to his culture. His grandfather encouraged Lopez to create art as well. Lopez said he knew he would always pursue a career in art.

Displaying Herrera’s works would show the hard work and dedication of a 95-year-old artist who, to this day, continues to grow in his artistry.

“He keeps creating new art and it gives me the question of ‘Should I do this?’” Lopez said.

“Of course I should. If he can do it, I can do it.”

Courtesy of Mauricio Lopez

ARTS

The Southwestern College Sun

Oct. 25, 2018 — Volume 62, Issue 1

LOVE WINS IN SOUTH BAY— The annual South Bay Pride festival. It began with 200 people and now brings in 7,000 attendees to celebrate LGBTQIA pride.

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Marco Figueroa/Staff

Festival brings pride to South Bay

By Matthew Leksell Staff Writer

South Bay Pride is like a piña colada. The local art and music represent the white rum and coconut cream and the community becomes the pineapple juice, the ingredient that gives it its flavor.

The celebration took place at Chula Vista’s Bayfront Park on Sept. 9, one day after Chula Vista city hall commemorated LGBTQIA Day. “South Bay Pride is to show that there is a community here, it’s welcome and it has space,” said Leo O’Driscoll, youth partner for Our Safe Place.

Turnout increased from 200 in its original 2007 run as the South Bay Alliance’s “Gay Day in South Bay,” to 7,000 at this year’s celebration. This is smaller than San Diego Pride’s 300,000 on a single day, but shows the South Bay’s growing representation.

Rick-Arlo Yahlira, community and civic leader for San Diego Pride, said he believed it was important to have Pride celebrations.

“Although San Diego Pride is great to have in the city, I think it’s important to have visibility in every single place in San Diego,” Yahlira said. “Having this

pride festival is really important for a lot of people to feel that they belong.”

South Bay Pride is not as a separate being, but a branch of the movement to give a platform for the underrepresented to have a voice. Festivities kicked off at noon and gave the community a chance for residents to experience a normalized celebration of everything LGBTQIA. Vendors throughout the festival lead to the main stage, where local performers showcased their talents.

Attendees showed up with glitter lining their cheeks, flowers in their hair and most notably, political statements across their shirts. Many shirts blasting President Trump were accompanied by rainbow lanyards and buttons with various Pride flags.

Along with art and music, the festival was a way to shed light on programs that help the community.

Our Safe Places collaborates with San Diego Youth Services and the YMCA of San Diego County to create safe places for LGBTQIA youth support for alcohol and drug abuse, family relationships, transitioning and resume writing. The facility also offers fun activities for the youth aside from the support.

Leo O’Driscoll, youth partner for Our Safe Places, said seeing LGBTQIA acceptance from the community was one of the most fulfilling parts of his job.

“We’ve had a bunch of parents and caregivers who have their youth attend the program and they have been really instrumental in spreading the word about the program and helping to build and guide it,” O’Driscoll said.

Given the increased spotlight on the LGBTQIA community, which has historically been targeted by violence, heightened police presence patrolled the event. Though some protest the presence of police officers in this context, the protection could represent a shift in inclusivity.

Together with Stonewall Citizens Patrol, the event felt like a safe space.

Sean Redmond, executive director of Stonewall Citizens Patrol, is a retired from the Air Force and a gay man. Redmond said growing up in rural Washington gave him an appreciation for the importance of community. After the Air Force, he was led to a life of activism. Redmond assisted a former colleague that worked for the Pentagon to

help rewrite “don’t ask don’t tell” for the Air Force branch after its repeal.

The Stonewall Citizens Patrol calls itself a “neighborhood watch,” which focuses on three main objectives: Patrol, educate and raise awareness. They mainly cover northern San Diego neighborhoods like Hillcrest, North Park, University Heights, Normal Heights and Banker’s Hill, but that does not mean that they could not show their support for South Bay Pride.

“A community is their community is our community which is everybody’s community,” Redmond said.

It also rings true to allies in the community.

Redmond said people that identify as straight have approached him.

“They’re here for multiple purposes,” Redmond said. “They’re here to share their resources.

They’re here to share the services they provide to a community.”

Although the night passed, the celebration still goes on all year round. We can only look forward to the drink packing a larger punch, with an even more colorful umbrella.

Blind student finds his flow with painting

By Brittany Cruz-Fejeran Assistant Photo Editor

Albert Jordan Arguilla, a blind Southwestern College Arts Major, uses watercolor to translate his vision to others.

“Let it all flow,” he said. “Let it explode like fireworks. Let the pigment and the paint do what it needs to do and then we will see what happens.”

Arguilla was born with septo-optic dysplasia, a disease that left his right eye nonfunctional and reduced vision in his left eye. Arguilla said he challenged his limits and took on painting to soothe his troubled mind. He said he wants to use art therapy to help others cope with their struggles.

Arguilla said he could not participate in simple everyday activities growing up.

Teachers constantly underestimated him and his potential was never recognized. Arguilla said art became his calling as he weighed his options for his future. At first Arguilla experimented with tribal-style tattoo designs, but he found a medium suited for him when he learned about watercolors in high school.

“When I first started, it was kind of fun, overwhelming and frustrating at the same time,” he said. “I was going the same path as a normal beginner would but twice as hard.”

Arguilla made the same mistakes as many first-time artists. He occasionally bought the wrong materials and had to learn how to use them correctly.

“I ended up fighting the materials and a lot of my works turned out really

Brittany Cruz-Fejeren/Staff

PAINTING WITH HEART — Even though Albert Jordan Arguilla’s visual impairment makes creating art difficult and slow, his patience and ability to flow like a watercolor has allowed him to develop his own style of painting.

good,” he said.

Arguilla said he loves how watercolors seem to have a mind of their own but his disability makes it difficult to overcome this and other simple tasks. He often fills a trashcan with paintings he deems subpar, keeping one or two that make him proud.

Other times, there are obstacles that are just too big for him. In his ceramics class, his assignment was to make six pieces using the pottery wheel. It required precise movements to get a successful piece. Arguilla’s disability prevents him from having that kind of precision.

“This is the time where I need to step up and advocate for myself,” he said. “I am really slow so my motor functions are not that great.”

Arguilla said his family is his lifeline and supported him mentally and physically through the struggles and triumphs of his self-exploration. He would not have made it this far, he said, without his family’s help.

His grandmother and aunts spread the word and the commissions for new paintings came pouring in.

His father Albert Arguilla said it is an honor to see the progression of his son’s passion, but also said he admitted to being skeptical when Jordan first started painting.

“He wants to get into something that even sighted people have a difficult time doing,” he said. “We were comparing his art to someone else’s art instead of appreciating his individuality.”

Albert said he did not realize the potential his son had until other people noticed it too. He said himself and Arguilla’s mother had a hard time thinking with an artist’s perspective, so it meant a lot when his aunts, who were also artists, praised him.

“What we should have saw was what Jordan sees,” Albert said.

His father said there were many

obstacles his son had to overcome, but Jordan’s journey continues to be nothing short of amazing.

“Not a lot of people get to see the amount of hours it takes to produce one of those (paintings) for him,” he said.

“Jordan will have one painting completed and a hundred that were thrown away out of frustration.”

Albert said Jordan is persistent in all things he commits to and when he fails, his dad is there to motivate him once more.

“No matter what, he wants to perfect,” he said. “If he cannot perfect it he will feel like he did not do his best.”

Arguilla said he looks to Helen Keller to remind him of his passions.

“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision,” he said.

Arguilla’s disability also has physical tolls that he would neglect if it were not for his parents.

Arguilla takes six pills and two shots each day to stay alive. Double that amount is taken when he is sick. He said it is overwhelming for him to remember his medication with so much on his mind, but it is yet another challenge he conquers constantly.

Aside from the many battles Arguilla fights, he said he dedicates his passion for painting to show the community what he sees.

Arguilla’s former art teacher, Nicholas Mueller, said Arguilla had everything he hoped for in a student. Arguilla expressed his disability and dedication to Mueller who said he saw all the motivation he hoped for in a student.

“We do a lot of observational drawing where you sort of assume that to some degree, everyone sees things similarly,” Mueller said. “Although I’m always interested in how that’s not the case for anybody disability or not. Because we see a lot with our minds and not just with our eyes.”

Arguilla said art got him through a lot

Courtesy of Albert Jordan Arguilla

of pain and depression. Art welcomed him with open arms where regular activities failed to involve him.

“Art gives me the opportunity to express myself, share my life experiences and struggles as well as my interpretation of the world I see through my paintings,” Arguilla said. “I am a stronger, more confident, and positive person because of that.”

Arguilla said he has been able to find the healing power of art with his painting.

In his journey to become an art therapist, Arguilla is on a path to share this gift with others.

“The only thing I’ve wanted more than becoming an artist is helping people,” he said. “Whether it’s to help people through their hardships and struggles, helping them find their way in life, or helping them reach their dreams and goals through art or not. I feel like I can do all that and more by pursuing art therapy.”

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Design by Marty Loftin

BACKPAGE

Childhood Lost Oct. 25, 2018 — Volume 62, Issue 1

Tel: (619) 482-6368 email: arts@theswcsun.com

By Katy Stegall Editor-in-Chief

Phil Pressel had seen this before.

He watched in horror as the government separated children from their parents and imprisoned them.

He saw this during the Holocaust.

Pressel, 81, survived the Nazi concentration camps of World War II and spent the next 73 years speaking out against human rights abusers. He was among the thousands who protested in the South County against the Trump Administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policies that have separated children from their parents. More than 12,800 undocumented children were in detention centers as of September, bringing capacity to an all-time high.

“It reminded me of my own experiences and the terrible, awful feelings in my heart that I had in those days,” he said. “I was separated in 1944. I was so overwhelmed with loneliness and homesickness, crying every day and night. It was awful. I cannot think of anything worse for a child and a parent to be separated forcefully.”

Pressel is a regular at immigration protests in one week and said he will continue to speak out.

He is not alone.

San Diego County led a national wave of protests.

Almost 500,000 marched in at least 750 rallies. San Diego’s human rights group Indivisible organized two rallies of about 15,000. Speakers called for the abolishment and prosecution of ICE and the Border Patrol before marching to a nearby ICE office. There was a solemn, but resolute air in the crowd.

People chanted.

People cried.

People clung to their children.

Human rights attorney Mark Lane said he spends his days transiting Mexico and the U.S. working on behalf of those affected by Trump’s immigration policies. He said he spent Mother’s Day away from his own family to spend time with mothers and fathers stripped of their children.

“I spoke to a full-grown man who through tears begged me to help him get out of there to help him find his 12-year-old son,” Lane said. “His son was taken from him by our government and sent to a shelter. He doesn’t know where. They assured him he would go to a cousin. That never happened.”

Lane recalled when he was arrested for feeding the homeless during El Cajon’s food ban in January. His children were with him at the time of the arrest. He said there was a double standard undocumented children face.

“My children were with me,” he said. “They were not put in cages. I could commit a felony right now and they would not be put in cages. Why are we putting other children in cages?”

Special education teacher Marco Valencia said the fear of deportation lingers in the classroom. He said he makes a daily promise to his students that he will protect them from ICE, Border Patrol or police by not permitting them in his classroom. He said hearing his students express their fears of deportation has motivated him to be their advocate.

“How could I chose anything less than a revolutionary spirit when I have students telling me they fear coming to school?” he asked. “You can’t teach a student that just crossed the border and has been assaulted on that border on their way to school. The only way a student is going to learn under those conditions is if the student understands that the teacher has their back. I have their back.”

Activists with Generation Justice staged an action outside of the Otay Mesa Detention Center. Protesters chained themselves to a barred metal fence and sat in the street in an attempt to prevent employees from leaving. Supporters showed solidarity by bringing food, water, sleeping bags and blankets to support the demonstrators. Seven were arrested.

Civil Rights activist Mohamed Elnakib was one of the seven arrested. He said the demonstration was to please see Immigration pg. A4

Victoria Sanchez/Staff

FIGHTING FOR FAMILY — Thousands of people came together in downtown San Diego to protest the separation of families at the U.S.-Mexico border in late June. Anger and frustration towards the injustice of innocent children fueled people from all sorts of backgrounds and ages to stand in solidarity against the Trump administration.

Victoria Sanchez/Staff

Victoria Sanchez/Staff