PRIME Spring 2023

SPRING 2023

from the daily bruin

24 hours at Denny’s by Martin Sevcik

Exeunt the artists

by Matthew Beymer

letter from the editors

Dear reader,

As winter has blossomed into spring, our team of writers has been hard at work. With our theme of “outside the box,” we focused on telling the stories of Bruins who are moving to the beat of their own drum.

Our cover story hearkens back to a story of the past. Last spring, we published an article detailing why students leave STEM majors at disproportionately high rates. This quarter, theater student and PRIME writer Matthew Beymer meets Bruins at the crossroads of artistic passions and academic pursuits, finding out why many choose to leave arts majors as well.

Spring, of course, also brings new growth – and new growth is exactly what’s happening in Westwood’s cannabis industry. With more dispensaries opening than ever before, the industry is welcoming a new demographic of consumers and employees: college students. Read along as PRIME explores this development in “Growing influence” on page 38.

This quarter also started off with an outside-the-box assignment for PRIME writer Martin Sevcik: staying at the Westwood Denny’s location for a full 24 hours. The diner – which rarely closes – is well-known for its variety of food and wide range of customers it attracts. In his day at Denny’s, Sevcik learns about it all.

With the school year coming to an end, this issue marks our last as PRIME’s editors. Though we’re sad to leave, we’re over the moon about our new team and all they will bring next year. Thank you for reading.

Megan Tagami PRIME content editor

Abigail Siatkowski PRIME director

Megan Fu PRIME art director

6

History to sip on

written by KATY NICHOLAS

Boba shops in Westwood attract a plethora of UCLA students each day. But how did this drink reel in the college demographic?

PHOTO GALLERY

9 Ephemeral instants, eternally inked

created by CHRISTINE KAO

Across campus, Bruins with tattoos wear their stories on their sleeves.

CULTURE

Searching for sapphic spaces

written by ALYSSA BARDUGON

A user on the r/ucla subreddit was wondering where to find lesbian communities at UCLA. PRIME writer Alyssa Bardugon decided to find out.

CAMPUS

19

Legacies left untold: the story of the Divine Nine

written by ALICIA CARHEE

Few know how to join the coveted group of Black fraternities and sororities. But why do these organizations keep their robust legacies hidden in the shadows?

COMMENTARY

24

24 hours at Denny’s

written by MARTIN SEVCIK

PRIME writer Martin Sevcik never understood the appeal of Denny’s. So he spent 24 hours straight at the Westwood Denny’s to see what he was missing.

30 WESTWOOD

Beyond the bus stop

written by JUSTIN HUWE and RAMONA MUKHERJI

CONTENTS | SPRING 2023

A lot has been said about Los Angeles’ public transportation. How do the people waiting at Westwood’s bus stops feel?

PRIME CAMPUS 34

Exeunt the artists

written

by

MATTHEW BEYMER

Every year, some Bruins reconsider academic pursuits of their artistic passions. What lies behind their choices?

on the cover illustrated by KO CARLOS

38

Growing influence

written by MALLORY COOPER

In the expanding cannabis sector, one group is helping to plant the seeds for success: college students.

43

Skate brain

written

by

LAYTH HANDOUSH

Los Angeles is a cultural hub for skateboarding – and UCLA is no exception.

History to sip on:

how boba became a college staple

Around UCLA, the sound of straws popping into a fresh cup of boba tea fills the air. With boba shops lining every avenue, the drink has become a Westwood staple.

The phenomenon is a perfect example of a boba corner, explained Angel Trazo, a doctoral student in cultural studies at UC Davis. Just as gas stations tend to cluster in one place, boba stores follow a similar trend. Trazo said she first noticed this pattern in San Jose while attending middle school in the early 2000s.

written by KATY NICHOLAS illustrated and designed by TARA DESAI

“Now, it’s even more – there’s such a big explosion,” she said.

Trazo, who graduated from UCLA in 2020 with her master’s degree and wrote her thesis on boba’s relationship with Asian American youth, said that where college students gather, boba shops follow.

Westwood Village alone boasts six boba shops, surpassing the number of ice cream shops and grocery stores. Other colleges have seen similar trends, with boba shops around UC Berkeley even inspiring a line of merchandise. But the question remains: How did one drink come to dominate college towns?

Boba doesn’t take long to make, but its explosive entrance into American society has taken decades to brew.

According to Food and Wine magazine, boba emerged in Taiwan in the 1980s, although the exact year and precise location are contested. By combining Taiwanese milk tea, tapioca pearls and shaved ice into one cup, the drink’s creators had a winning recipe.

Trazo said making boba in the United States began as an avenue for many Asian American immigrants in the late ‘90s to start small businesses. These businesses not only provided a source of income but also served as a safe haven for Asian Americans. She added that

Boba in Numbers

In a 2021 California Land Surveyors Association survey, 94% of respondents between the ages 29

20

and

said they bought boba in the past three months.

Annually, consumers in Southeast Asia spend

$3.66

on boba every year. billion

boba shops doubled as community gathering spaces, as parents felt comfortable leaving their children at the family-owned shops and flocks of students purchased inexpensive drinks after school.

“People forget it used to come out of small businesses, and there’s actually a cultural aspect to it,” Trazo added.

Jean-Paul deGuzman, a lecturer in the Asian American studies department, explained that boba shops emerged as what is known as a counterspace for Asian Americans. As racial minorities face stereotypes and discrimination, deGuzman added, these counterspaces can celebrate communities’ cultures and center the identities of minority groups.

Jack Lin, internal vice president of the Taiwanese American Student Association at UCLA, said nearby boba shops allow students to share their culture in a small, easy way. He added that the closest Taiwanese restaurant to campus is all the way in Koreatown.

“It’s a really nice presence that boba is so prevalent in Westwood,” said the third-year computer science student. “It’s nice to see that Taiwanese culture is able to influence other people in this kind of way.”

bruins and boba

UCLA’s connection to boba runs deep.

Alan Yu, an alumnus who graduated in 1993, co-founded

Of boba tea types, black tea is the most popular, making up over

41%

of the global market share.

Garden Grove, California, has the greatest number of boba shops per resident in the US, at

5,200 citizens per store.

“It’s nice to see that Taiwanese culture is able to influence other people in this kind of way.”

Lollicup, one of the earliest boba shops in Southern California. Since its founding in 2000 in the San Gabriel Valley, this boba chain has spanned across California and beyond.

Recognizing a promising business venture after graduation, Yu traveled to Taiwan to research boba. He then spent the year learning how to run the business and exploring popular recipes. After Yu established his own store, Lollicup became so popular that it opened more than 60 stores in under three years.

Lollicup now distributes its product to 6,000 stores globally, including the Lollicup branch that resides in Ackerman Union today. Yu attributes his company’s success to the novelty of boba back when he opened his first location.

“You don’t see any boba shops in the U.S. back in 2000, and that’s how we’re able to grow so fast,” Yu explained. “Because everywhere, if you open up one boba shop, people would just come.”

Shi Morgan, a third-year linguistics student, can attest to the widespread popularity of boba as an employee of It’s Boba Time in Westwood. Growing up, she noticed that boba culture was a large part of Asian communities. Her Asian friends often frequented boba shops, Morgan added, and she eventually joined the boba community herself. Morgan said working at It’s Boba Time has immersed her in an inclusive and diverse environment.

“It’s opened up a lot more to a lot of different types of people,” Morgan said.

Yu has also noticed a shift in the customer demographic of boba. Back in the 2000s, he and the other founders of Lollicup expected boba to only be successful among Asian Americans. They strategically established Lollicup’s first location in the San Gabriel Valley, where the Asian American community comprises more than 60% of the total population.

Little did they know the degree to which their business would explode.

bursting into pop culture

In 2013, the Fung Bros celebrated “living that boba life” and invited over 2.4 million viewers to join them.

In a parody of Owl City and Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Good Time,” the “Bobalife” music video showcased local boba shops in San Gabriel and Arcadia. The video hailed the drink’s rising popularity among Asian American teens, illustrating how boba shops were

quickly emerging as go-to hangout spots for the younger generation.

A few years later, deGuzman said, boba also received national attention during Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

“There was even a very humorous and memorable moment where presidential candidate Secretary Hillary Clinton went to a boba cafe,” deGuzman said. “I think that it is becoming more and more widespread, more and more accessible.”

According to Food and Wine magazine, the rise of cafe culture also helped to popularize boba. As cafes were redefined from fast food joints to gathering places for teens and young adults, boba shops fit perfectly into the trend.

Trazo added that, as boba hit the mainstream market, some of the significance of boba shops for Asian American communities has gotten lost, reflecting the larger trend of boba liberalism.

“It’s (Boba has) become really popularized, and it’s all sugar, no substance,” Trazo said. “It’s a term people throw at apolitical Asian Americans because it’s become a symbol of Asian American consumer culture nowadays.”

Boba was not the only food fad at the time. But unlike other once-popular snacks like frozen yogurt, boba has outlasted its 15 minutes of fame, deGuzman said. He added that consumers’ ability to enjoy boba anywhere and anytime has contributed to its long-lasting success.

Issy Southern, a first-year business economics student, said “getting boba” is synonymous with a fun outing with friends. She added that since starting her studies at UCLA, she has tried every boba shop in Westwood.

Fong Lieu, a second-year business economics student who works at It’s Boba Time, stressed that the shop’s customer demographic is as diverse as the drinks she serves. She added that the menu has something for everyone, from UCLA teaching assistants on their way to campus to older adults visiting Westwood’s weekly farmers markets.

“I’ve seen some of the most unique combinations,” Lieu said. “Everyone’s just enthusiastic to just try something new.”

But Yu believes boba’s rise to fame isn’t finished, adding that he envisions his brand expanding to include new products and being sold in different restaurants. Although he and his co-founders did not predict the way in which boba would blow up, he has a simple explanation as to why it did.

“I guess that people just like it now,” he said. ”Something you can chew on.” ♦

“Everyone’s just enthusiastic to just try something new.”

Ephemeral instants, eternally inked

written and photographed

designed by EMMA COTTER by CHRISTINE KAO

Storytime with Dad. A solo trip to Oregon. The search for a thimble around Grandma’s house. Through their tattoos, UCLA students and faculty seek to preserve precious, fleeting moments.

Elizabeth Schiffler arrived outside a tattoo studio in Chinatown minutes before noon. Her tattooist, Rylee Sky, unlocked the bright red door under the flaming spring sun, leading Schiffler to the leather couch in the waiting area. The doctoral candidate in theater and performance studies signed a consent form as she prepared to add another tattoo to her sleeve of animals.

Schiffler has lost count of her tattoos since getting her first one – a lion on her forearm – at 24 years old. She took inspiration from the stories her father told

her growing up, recalling an image of a big cat leaping across a field in one of her storybooks. After her father died during her first year of college, Schiffler got the tattoo to honor him. She fondly remembered how he dressed up as the Cowardly Lion from “The Wizard of Oz” for her elementary school fundraiser.

“He had this big beard and big red hair,” Schiffler said. “That story, that very childlike memory of this animal –lion – bouncing over a field … felt like him.” ***

Butterfly tattoos run in Avalon Sweetland’s family.

The third-year psychology student’s first tattoo was a butterfly on their right forearm, paying tribute to their father who died when they were in high school. Sweetland’s father also had a tattoo of a butterfly flying between her first and middle name on his forearm, she said. And while Sweetland’s tattoo commemorates their father, it also connects them to their mother, who was the first in the family to have a butterfly tattoo.

After the butterfly, more bugs followed. Sweetland now dons more than 30 tattoos, including a bee, a scorpion and a centipede. Once she realized the bug theme emerging on her arm, she decided to run with it, Sweetland said.

One tattoo on the back of their right shoulder stands out from the swarm of insects – a golden ratio shell. Sweetland shares the matching tattoo with her mother and her aunt, who is a math teacher. The trio often spends time observing the spiral in wildlife together in the form of pinecones and seashells, discussing the science behind the beauty of the natural world, Sweetland added.

Expecting to get more tattoos inspired by their family, Sweetland said they believe tattoos are a unique way to honor important people in their life.

“It’s cool to pay tribute to other people,” Sweetland said. “I love them, so I want them to be with me forever.”

“It’s cool to pay tribute to other people. I love them, so I want them to be with me forever.”

Music journalism lecturer Allison Wolfe holds a photo of her mother, whom she describes as a free-spirited and humorous lesbian feminist. A banner that reads “MOM” – in a traditional pattern that sailors would often get to remember loved ones at sea – is inked on Wolfe’s left arm crossing over a rose.

Raised in an underground music scene, the lead singer of the punk band Bratmobile said many of her friends had already received tattoos by the time she decided to get her first one at 29 – the year she returned to Olympia, Washington, to care for her mother. After her mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer, Wolfe was determined to keep a symbol of her.

“She was always real fun and rambunctious, total tomboy,” Wolfe said.

Reminiscing on her childhood, Wolfe explained how her mother never laid down strict rules for her and her twin sister – except not to visit businesses that support causes against their values.

Wolfe’s mother was also a health practitioner who dedicated her time to operating the first women’s health clinic in Olympia. But beyond her career, Wolfe remembers her mother for her candor and realistic vision. She recalled how her mother was once called to Wolfe’s high school because Wolfe and her sister were failing their driver’s safety course, which used automatic cars as primary examples. Wolfe’s mother argued with the school administrators, asking why they weren’t teaching students how to operate the manual cars families, including Wolfe’s, practiced with at the time.

“I love it – she kind of blamed them,” Wolfe said. “She’s like, ‘You don’t even teach them how to drive a stick shift, and that’s what most people have.’”

Back in Olympia, Wolfe had planned to get her first tattoo from a friend nearby, a sailor-style tattooist. Her mother was surprised when Wolfe returned home with “MOM” inked on her shoulder – but, Wolfe added, it’s hard for a parent to argue against a tattoo honoring them. She

“Even the fact that it’s so faded sometimes makes me feel sad because you’re like,‘Oh, do memories fade?’”

said her mother died not long afterward.

Two decades later, the color of the tattoo has begun to wear off. Wolfe said she wonders if the memories of her mother will eventually fade the same way.

“I was 30 years old when my mom died. … Your life is never really the same, so that really commemorates that,” Wolfe said. “Even the fact that it’s so faded sometimes makes me feel sad because you’re like, ‘Oh, do memories fade?’”

For fourth-year philosophy and political science student Austin Riggs, tattoos are a way of documenting nostalgic memories.

The thimble tattoo under Riggs’ left thumb represents a game he used to play with his two younger sisters. He said they would take turns hiding and finding their grandmother’s thimble around the house in carefree and innocent times that he tried to capture in his tattoo.

“(It kind of reminds) me that life can get all jumbled. … But sometimes, just play Hide the Thimble,” he said. “Sometimes, just remember the childhood joy that you can have towards things.”

Another tattoo on Riggs’ left forearm is a protein structure dedicated to his grandfather. A former geneticist at City of Hope, an organization researching treatments for chronic conditions, Riggs’ grandfather helped synthesize the human genome for insulin.

Riggs said the tattoo honors his grandfather’s work, which not only advanced public health but also provided Riggs with opportunities to pursue higher education.

“It’s a good way to pay homage and remember him and to remind myself that you have these fantastic opportunities and all these things because of the hard work that he

did,” Riggs said.

Shekinah Lucas’ mushroom tattoo symbolizes her solo journey driving from Los Angeles to Oregon in 2021. The fourthyear psychology and sociology student initiated the trip as they dealt with the difficult transition of losing friends and moving back home. The 10-day road trip spent camping along the coast allowed her to practice spending time with herself, find peace and realize her fondness for nature, Lucas said. The butterflies flying around the mushroom tattoo represent not only the growth they experienced at the time but also the new beginning that awaited them in the new school year, they added. Now in her last quarter of college, Lucas said the tattoo helps her challenge her selflimiting fears.

“I’m about to graduate college, and the post-grad life was very scary to me,” Lucas said, “The tattoo is my reminder that I can do so much more than I think I can.”

Tattoos can also be a means of self-expression, helping people feel more comfortable with how they present themselves, said third-year philosophy student Mateen Bahai.

Bahai, who writes and produces music, has a tattoo on his waist that reads “blond/blonde,” inspired by Frank Ocean’s 2016 studio album “Blonde.”

The album’s cover art features the alternative spelling “blond,” which sparked fan speculation that the dual versions reflect the bisexual artist’s fluid sexuality. In response, Bahai got the tattoo to signify their own spectrum of femininity and masculinity, they said.

Since his brother introduced him to Ocean’s music at 12 years old, Bahai said he has grown to appreciate the artist’s avant-garde lyricism and subtle messages about queer experiences. They added that Ocean’s music has inspired them to explore their gender expression and be more outspoken and expressive.

“It’s (the tattoo is) just an interesting part of my identity,” Bahai said. “I’ve come to understand my masculinity and femininity more through the recognition of the idea that there can be an artist out there who is able to express themselves and able to express their experiences as a queer man.”

“The tattoo is my reminder that I can do so much more than I think I can.”

Schiffler’s tattooist outlines Schiffler’s latest tattoo before inserting the needle. Eight years after she got her first lion, Schiffler plans to add two antelopes on her right upper arm.

Drawn to the antelopes’ whimsical depictions, Schiffler said she now chooses some tattoos for their aesthetics rather than symbolisms.

As a performance artist and scholar who spends considerable time examining art, Schiffler said getting tattoos has become a meditative experience. The process helps her rest an analytical mind, reminding her that the arts can simply be appreciated for their visual appeal.

***

Sweetland plans on eventually getting more tattoos symbolizing their mother and siblings. Riggs said his sister got a thimble tattoo that matches his own. He now waits for his youngest sister to join them when she turns 18. Lucas begins their post-graduation job search, emboldened with the courage that emerged from the road trip immortalized on their arm.

Tattoos not only decorate students’ bodies, but also allow them to keep pieces of their history close as they face uncertain futures, Bahai said.

“Obviously, there’s the aesthetic way I see it (the tattoo),” Bahai said. “But I also feel more independent and more connected with myself and the muses and inspirations that have made me the person I am today.” ♦

Searching for sapphic spaces

written by ALYSSA BARDUGON

illustrated by NIKOLE LIANG

designed by ARCHIE DATTA

Last fall, Reddit user Pineapple-Squirrel4 posed a serious question on the r/ucla subreddit.

“Where are all the lesbians???? Trying to find my people,” she posted.

Olivia Real, the face behind the Pineapple-Squirrel4 account and a doctoral student in political science at UCLA, hoped to find the lesbian community after moving to Westwood. But she said this required more effort than first anticipated, so I decided to look into it further.

While there were around 200 lesbian bars in the United States in the late 1980s, this number has shrunk to 27 bars nationally, with only two located in all of Los Angeles. Beyond these bars, it seemed to me like safe spaces for the lesbian community in LA were few and far between. And for those who prefer to socialize without alcohol or are underage – including many college students – I thought the options would be nearly nonexistent. But I discovered that Bruins have remained undeterred, seeking and creating their own spaces to celebrate a diverse range of lesbian identities.

My journey started with a trip to the UCLA LGBTQ Campus Resource Center, a space for LGBTQ+ Bruins that offers education, advocacy services and communitybuilding events. I walked to the LGBTQ center on a rainy

incredibly welcomed attending the event for the first time. We sat together eating snacks and making crafts, chatting with each other for two hours.

Ibarra, who identifies as a transmasculine lesbian, understands from personal experience the importance of welcoming the diverse voices in the lesbian community. Although Let’s Go Lesbians! does focus on lesbian attendees, Ibarra said the event has also attracted Bruins who identify as bisexual or generally sapphic. While there is not a hard-and-fast rule that only lesbians are allowed to come to the event, Ibarra added, the event’s main goal is to create a safe space for lesbians at UCLA. He also added that the light, social environment of Let’s Go Lesbians! has attracted transgender, cisgender and nonbinary lesbians throughout the event’s history.

“I think it’s been really good just for the lesbian community on campus to have some sort of representation,” Ibarra said.

Aside from sharing her personal experience, Ibarra pointed me to Bianca D.M. Wilson, a senior scholar of public policy at the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute who specializes in research on LGBTQ+ representation.

Wilson recently co-published a study titled the “Health

Thursday afternoon, seeking out an event aptly named “Let’s Go Lesbians!” While the event’s namesake references a popular meme from the show “Billy on the Street,” its participants see it as more than a lighthearted television reference and rather a space to meet other lesbian students at UCLA.

Evan Ibarra, a third-year film student and the creator of the Let’s Go Lesbians! event, said his idea initially stemmed from popular demand. Over the past two years working at the LGBTQ center, she found that many lesbians on campus had no idea how to connect with other community members.

“It was like a bajillion lesbians telling me, ‘Oh, I don’t know any lesbians,’” Ibarra said. “And I know a bajillion of them, ... so I just pitched the idea.”

The quarterly event, which first took place in May 2022, gives lesbians in the Bruin community a place to come together for an afternoon of crafts, food and genuine conversation.

Kelly Doherty, a fourth-year communication student, regularly attends the event. Although Doherty acknowledged it can sometimes be difficult to start conversations with other attendees, she made me feel

and Socioeconomic Well-Being of LBQ Women in the US.”

According to the 2021 report, a higher proportion of LBQ women reported feeling like they lived in communities that were less accepting of marginalized identities than GBQ men, particularly in terms of race and ethnicity.

“Historically, Black LGBT people do experience racism, whether it’s minor microaggressions that might seem harmless and yet are still nonetheless impactful to more major events,” Wilson said.

Wilson added that the queer community is by no means an escape from the racism that permeates the rest of society. This can lead many lesbians of color to seek out LGBTQ+ spaces where people share similar backgrounds and experiences as a way to avoid this racism in the greater LGBTQ+ community.

Given the challenges lesbians of color face in the wider LGBTQ+ community, I saw how the Let’s Go Lesbians! team works to provide a space where lesbians of all identities and backgrounds can come together and find happiness within their community. The first step in bringing this joy for many is to reclaim the word “lesbian.”

“There’s such a disdain towards the label ‘lesbian.’ ... It’s

“It’s been really good for the lesbian community on campus to have some sort of representation.”

kind of a dirty term,” Ibarra said. “So I kind of just want lesbians to feel community and kind of joy in their own identity.”

Real also shared the importance of taking pride in her identity as a lesbian. Before moving to Westwood this year, Real found it difficult to embrace her identity in her home community.

“Something internal in me could not accept the idea of being a lesbian,” Real said. “Hearing how people would talk about lesbians around me – I think that internally built a lot of self-hatred.”

Today, Real said she fully embraces this part of her identity with a little help from TikTok, crediting the app with opening her eyes to the welcoming lesbian community online.

“Having gone through that cycle of realization that there’s an online community, I think that really incentivized me to sort of look for something on campus,” Real said.

With her newfound confidence, Real began searching for lesbian-centered spaces at UCLA. On her Reddit post from fall quarter, Real received many responses encouraging her to look into the club women’s rugby team. The Reddit community seemed to lead her in the right direction, as Real said she still fosters many rewarding friendships with the team members.

Using the internet to connect with the lesbian community is not an isolated experience – the search “lesbian TikTok” has over 14 billion views. TikTok even led Doherty to discover Queer Field Day, a popular lesbian-

“I want lesbians to feel community and joy in their own identity. ”

and queer-centered beach meetup.

Doherty’s description of the meetup intrigued me. Eager to learn more about the event that has gathered thousands of lesbians in Southern California, I reached out to the Queer Field Day team and met co-creator Adrianne Casey.

Casey credits the event’s origins to social media and her friend, Lilly Brown. Brown, also known as @lilly27sings on TikTok, currently has more than 320,000 followers and regularly posts an assortment of videos on topics such as queer-centered media, her personal experiences as a lesbian and her group of queer friends. Casey said questions about how Brown made friends with so many queer-identifying people are common in the comment section of Brown’s videos.

One comment suggested Brown host a meetup in LA for followers wanting to connect with people in the queer community. In May 2021, Brown turned that idea into reality. Surrounded by some of her close friends, Brown posted a video acknowledging the difficulties of making queer friends and announced her plan to hold a meetup at Venice Beach’s rainbow lifeguard tower. Unexpectedly, the video received about 500 comments serving as informal RSVPs to the event, Casey said.

Drawing on her experience as a former camp counselor, Casey, along with her wife and Brown, created games for the event that centered around fostering connections between participants. Playing games like queer Guess Who? and bingo, many of the around 500 attendees

socialized through the low-pressure, engaging activities, Casey said.

The first event was a smashing success, Casey said, with many participants requesting another event. As people struggled to find their community in person after the COVID-19 lockdown was lifted, Queer Field Day became a place to socialize with other queer Angelenos face to face, she added. In June 2021, Queer Field Day held its second meetup, this time with more than 1,000 attendees.

Almost two years since Brown’s viral TikTok post, Queer Field Day LA continues to hold events every few months for queer Angelenos of all ages. Some meetups have even yielded romantic success stories. Casey fondly recalled the February meetup, an ax-throwing event called “Meet Your Next Ax.” She added that Brown recently ran into two Meet Your Next Ax attendees who met each other at the event and had gone on four dates since.

When I heard that story, I couldn’t help but smile. It seems like people are committed to growing and sustaining the lesbian community in LA.

So where are all the lesbians? In the end, Real answered her own question.

“The community is out there – I just got to look for it,” Real said.

“Having gone through the reali online community, I think that in something on c

It wasn’t long before I realized this story didn’t want to be told.

As the crowd grew at the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority centennial celebration, I searched for audience members willing to share the secrets of the Divine Nine. Amid the throngs of people, I could spot alumni catching up like there was no tomorrow and children witnessing their mothers’ legacies. It reminded me of a Black family cookout, with aunties cackling at gossip and dancing their little two-step to “Wipe Me Down” by Boosie Badazz. With such a joyous attitude in the air, certainly someone would speak with me.

But everywhere I went, attendees turned down my interview requests. One even warned me to stop looking into the matter. As my questions garnered scoffs, shrugs, polite “nos” and even dirty looks, I left the event with one key takeaway: The secrets of the Divine Nine did not want to be revealed.

For decades, conversations surrounding the Divine Nine’s membership intake process have sparked hushed whispers and apprehensive looks. Few even know how to express interest in joining the highly coveted group of Black fraternities and sororities. With no distinguished start or end date, the membership intake process can take months on end. I was determined to find out why.

Prior to the early 1900s, only white Greek organizations existed on college campuses, leaving many Black students feeling racially isolated. It wasn’t until Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity was formed at Cornell University in 1906 that there was a surge of Black fraternities and sororities all over the East Coast. Twenty-four years later in 1930, the National Pan-Hellenic Council was formed to govern these organizations. Its purpose was to foster Black brotherhood and sisterhood through the Divine Nine groups under its jurisdiction.

In 1923, the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority

promote its fraternities and sororities.

Furthermore, prospective NPHC members must prove that they’re in it for the long run. Once joined, members dedicate a lifelong commitment. They often join alumni chapters after college, continuing community service initiatives and offering a support system for other NPHC members.

Marcel Martin, a second-year cognitive science student and fall initiate of the Gamma Xi Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha, finds it beautiful how members still embrace their organization after college.

“They really rep it to the day they die,” he said.

According to JP Peters, the

“We take these initiatives very seriously so that we can advance our people.”

Jerica Watson, a fourth-year African American studies student and the president of the Nu Lambda Chapter of Zeta Phi Beta, said the NPHC intake process differs from others partially because of a lack of resources.

Without traditional sorority and fraternity houses, NPHC organizations are not able to invite students to preview their organization in the same fashion as others.

The lack of housing among the NPHC organizations reflects systemic racism, Watson said. She explained that the relatively small amount of generational wealth within the Black community – an average net worth of about 70% less than non-Black households – has likely limited alumni’s ability to fund housing in expensive neighborhoods such as Westwood. While houses are a goal for the NPHC, Watson said the NPHC prioritizes serving communities in need and putting forth action toward local community service projects rather than simply donating money.

“Even if we’re not in the same Civil Rights Movement era, we still have a disproportionate amount of Black people in poverty, a disproportionate amount of Black people uneducated,” she said. “We take those initiatives very seriously so that we can advance our people.”

At the same time, fewer students are interested in membership in NPHC organizations than in other Greek life groups because of the small Black student population at UCLA. For reference, the Black student population only makes up 5% of UCLA’s total undergraduate student population, according to a UCLA report. While other organizations use rush weeks to quickly evaluate large numbers of interested students, NPHC organizations focus on deeply familiarizing themselves with a smaller group of prospective members, Goldstein said.

Martin shared that the membership intake process is especially selective in order to protect the prestigious image of NPHC groups.

“You can’t just let anybody into such an illustrious organization that upholds itself on academic excellency, brotherhood, scholarship, community service and advocacy,” he said.

Watson agreed, explaining that the intensive process helps her find the most dedicated potential members. To prove their commitment, applicants are expected to attend events ranging from community service activities to yard shows, she said. Without a specific period of time designated for intake, students often express their interest for months – and sometimes quarters – on end, she added.

“We essentially want to observe who is interested in our organization, who comes around and who wants to learn about our history,” Watson said.

With such a long process, it can be challenging for

“There’s some honor that’s sacred to us.”

students to keep up their morale. For Watson, the rigorous procedure led to her own rejection by the sorority.

“I could have easily taken that rejection and have been like, ‘They’re weird. I don’t want to be in this organization,’” she said. “Or I could have been like, ‘You know what, they’re right. I’m taking accountability for that, and next year, I’m going to go harder.’”

But for others, the secrecy surrounding the membership intake process is too much to bear. Student A, a first-year psychobiology student who wanted to remain anonymous because of their interest in joining the NPHC at a later time, recalled attending an informational event in October.

“It’s always been known to be very secret,” Student A said. “You kind of sell yourself to them. …We thought that they (NPHC members) would be talking to us, but you have to put the effort in and put yourself out there.”

Student A had been attending intake events with a friend, but eventually, they postponed any efforts to join despite their desire for Black community. Although they felt like the NPHC was one of the few places where they could find the community they desired, the process was ultimately too strenuous.

For Student A, it was surprising that they had to market themself to the NPHC sororities since other recruitment processes often have them reaching out to prospective students first. To add on, Student A said they didn’t feel like they clicked with any NPHC organizations and that intake expectations were not communicated with transparency.

“You don’t really know how to even go

about it, and no one really tells you,” Student A said.

Although the membership intake process may be intimidating for some, NPHC members feel a strong moral and social obligation to honor the history of their establishment and protect its legacy. James Smooth, a second-year psychobiology student and the president of the Nu Delta Chapter of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, emphasized the need for exclusivity in legacies.

“There’s some honor that’s sacred to us,” Smooth said. “We don’t just offer that to anybody.”

Smooth recalled his first intake event before joining Phi Beta Sigma. He realized that his fraternity was the right place for him after a day of handing out essential items such as clothing, water and food to people experiencing homelessness on Skid Row.

Martin agreed that the process was encouraging. As a first-generation student, he didn’t know much about fraternities beyond the stereotypes of white-centered parties that involved alcohol. However, he found that the initiation process at Alpha Phi Alpha consisted of engaging workshops on risk management, financial responsibility and academic expectations held by the organization. Although he struggled to balance the demands of joining a fraternity alongside his job and schoolwork, he added that he received support from his future brothers to help him push through.

“Iron sharpens iron – you’re being hardened into a better person,” he said.

But similar to other Greek life organizations, the NPHC has faced scrutiny from critics of Greek culture.

Lawrence Ross, a UCLA alumnus and lifelong member of Alpha Phi Alpha, is the author of “The Divine Nine: The History of African American Fraternities and Sororities.” Published in 2000, this book celebrates the history of Black fraternities and sororities. He is also a lecturer, with his popular “Blackballed” lecture opening up conversations about racism on campus. Following his extensive research on the NPHC, Ross acknowledged that hazing still runs rampant in the membership intake process nationwide.

Ross said he is unsure of how to address the NPHC’s history of hazing throughout the nation, which has led to violence and even deaths within organizations. In order to effectively curb hazing, he believes the entire culture of the NPHC must have a revolutionary change. Expelling those who commit hazing is necessary, he argues, and there needs to be a no-

“Iron sharpens iron –you’re being hardened into a better person.”

tolerance rule for hazing within the NPHC

“I pray because I don’t want to see anybody else hurt,” Ross said. “That, at some point in time, we’re going to figure it out. We haven’t come to that point.”

UCLA’s FSL office understands that hazing is an unfortunate reality in fraternity and sorority culture, Goldstein said. The staff is working to mitigate hazing and establish a safe environment for all members, students and faculty involved, according to UCLA’s Individual and Student Group Conduct Codes.

At UCLA, members of the NPHC are already taking it upon themselves to create safer environments. While hazing is a pressing issue within the NPHC’s history, new generations of members are working to rectify a future for pledges and members alike.

Watson said the NPHC organizations at UCLA avoid hosting parties with alcohol and drugs out of concern for both police presence – with police brutality disproportionately affecting the Black community – and hazing

crimes. Rather than throwing parties, the NPHC heavily emphasizes community service, she added.

Smooth added that the purpose of Phi Beta Sigma is to help shape its members into better men through their community service initiative – not with alcohol.

“Making someone drink a gallon of alcohol is not making them a better human,” Smooth said.

Along with implementing a stricter stance on hazing, NPHC organizations are also working to increase accessibility for students. UCLA NPHC President Debrina Collins, a fifth-year African American studies and sociology student and treasurer of Delta Sigma Theta, wants to make the membership intake process easier to navigate.

“We would love to see more people be interested in D9 organizations, and we hope to be more accessible to people,” Collins said. “We are going to continue to just be advocates in Black spaces and try and forge the path for Black students.”

In partnership with the FSL office, the NPHC installed plaques near Kerckhoff Hall to recognize the original founders of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity for recently achieving their centennials. In addition, FSL and the NPHC will install wooden plaques in the Black Bruin Resource Center, Goldstein said. These plaques will feature a QR Code for students to scan and learn more about the organization. To increase awareness about the intake process, the NPHC is also working to hold an informational panel where students can ask questions to members in a public space, Collins said.

For years, the membership intake process of the NPHC has been hidden

in the shadows. The organizations operated in secret to protect their legacies. After receiving repeated “nos” to many interview requests at the Delta Sigma Theta centennial – something my social anxiety didn’t like – I was starting to think I was in

over my head. But as I looked among the crowd, I saw a familiar face. Smooth came over and gave me a hug, thanking me for coming to the event. He asked how I was feeling.

“Nervous,” I said, “How are you?”

“Cold,” he replied, shivering in his shorts emblazoned with the Alpha Phi Alpha logo. He then told me I shouldn’t be nervous – I had a place here. This story should be heard, he said, and the legacy of the Divine Nine uncovered. ♦

24HOURSATDENNY’S

HOURS DENNY’S

written by MARTIN SEVCIK

The Denny’s waitress could tell I was miserable. I slouched in a corner booth, donning a bright blue suit and tie as I stared out the window. A few other patrons chatted and laughed, acting as though they wanted to be there. But not me.

The waitress wanted to know what had brought me to the diner at 4 a.m. I told her I had mistakenly set my alarm for 3 a.m. instead of 7 a.m. and did not notice my mistake until I had driven all the way into town for a mock trial scrimmage. Denny’s was the only place open and, therefore, my only refuge. After topping off my coffee, the waitress left me alone. I took a sip and looked out the window again, waiting for the central California sunrise.

I was 16 years old at the time. Four years later, I would spend another very early morning at a different Denny’s. But this time, I would not let the sights around me slip by. I wanted to peer into the 24-hour world of Denny’s and see what I could learn about its food, culture and patrons. My own experiences with the national chain had been hit or miss, with most trips occurring when I lacked better options. I wanted to learn if my middling opinion

was justified and hear from other patrons about why they chose Denny’s over anywhere else to dine.

So I made plans to spend 24 hours straight at Denny’s. I figured there was no better way to understand the restaurant than to spend a whole day there. To preserve my sanity, I asked friends and Daily Bruin colleagues to visit me. But while they were allowed to come and go freely, I would be trapping myself inside, making the most of my very long visit.

I arrived at the Westwood Denny’s at noon on a Saturday. The beige exterior walls matched the dullness of the overcast sky, which felt like a bad omen. After greeting the hostess, I claimed a table in a hidden back corner of the restaurant, out of sight from the waitstaff and other customers.

A friendly waitress laid a menu on the table. With 24 hours ahead of me, there was no better way to start my journey than exploring the full slate of Denny’s offerings. For the time being, this meant looking beyond its iconic breakfast options and instead tasting its overlooked lunch and dinner entrees. After a few minutes of deliberation,

photographed by JEREMY CHEN and JOSEPH JIMENEZ designed by KERI CHEN

I selected the Bourbon Chicken Sizzlin’ Skillet. I was attracted to the verdant forest of mushrooms, broccoli and squash that sat underneath the chicken, hoping to find vital nutrients that could sustain my body and mind.

Instead, I received a dessert masquerading as dinner. The bourbon glaze served as a gloopy, sugary base for the entire meal, overpowering everything with its sweet flavor. The ostensibly grilled chicken became a mere vessel for the sauce, with very little of its natural flavor powering through. The vegetables also tasted disastrously sweet, and the mushrooms were conspicuously absent.

As I finished my skillet, I checked the time. It was 1:17 p.m. Without a meal in front of me, time began to move rather slowly. To pass the hours, I began to browse the Denny’s menu once more.

I quickly discovered the Denny’s augmented reality experience. By scanning a QR code on the menu’s cover, my phone brought the laminated paper to life, highlighting featured items and displaying fun facts. As I turned to the “Signature Breakfasts” page, I helplessly watched the menu burst into flames on my phone. Then the Spicy Moons Over My Hammy sandwich arose like a phoenix emerging from its fiery rebirth. I noted the sandwich for later before promptly closing the AR experience.

I quickly became bored of the menu and its gimmicks. Time slowly crawled forward until several Daily Bruin colleagues arrived to keep me company. We relocated to a table in the center of the main dining area. Before long, we were alone in the restaurant.

Without anything to do, I relied on my visitors to fight my burgeoning boredom. Our behavior was nothing less than what one would expect from young adults in a Denny’s. We ravenously feasted on every kind of food imaginable, from greasy chicken fingers to surprisingly flavorful mozzarella sticks. As we answered The New York Times’ 36 questions that lead to love – sourced from a 1997 study on

interpersonal closeness – we delved into honest discussions about our character flaws, parents’ divorces and deepest insecurities. I left that restaurant with brand-new friendships.

Starting at around 6 p.m., a trickle of customers began shuffling in. Zachary and Yvonne Hill were part of the dinner crowd but only came for dessert. Zachary, a newly admitted UCLA student, enjoyed an ice cream and cookie concoction. Yvonne, his mother, sampled an acceptable piece of cheesecake.

The treats came after the Hills attended Bruin Day, UCLA’s annual event for newly admitted students. They had already attended the American Indian Student Association’s admission event the weekend prior, which Zachary had nothing but praise for.

“I just knew after that evening – UCLA was my place,” Zachary said. “We had already planned to come back for Bruin Day, and it’s just sold it even more for me.”

While Denny’s was a convenient choice, it was also symbolic for the Hill family. Yvonne’s father was a Denny’s enthusiast before his death, making every Denny’s meal sentimental for the mother-and-son pair.

“Eating at Denny’s – it encapsulates part of my dad,” Yvonne said, tearing up as she told me this.

When I approached the Hills, I expected to casually discuss the dubious quality of their desserts. Instead, I gave Zachary advice about UCLA meal plans and discussed my own grandfather’s death with his mother. It was a heartfelt conversation I never expected to have at a Denny’s. I felt a twinge of sorrow as I left their table.

Before my conversation with the Hills, I had found it difficult to imagine such a profound attachment to a place like Denny’s. I had always seen it as a last resort –the restaurant you visit when you have no other option.

Some of my Daily Bruin companions disagreed. Daily Bruin photographer Christine Kao and Assistant Photo Editor Joseph Jimenez both told me that Denny’s was their first meal after arriving in Westwood. This initiated a roundtable conversation about the restaurant’s merits that evolved into an endless stream of anecdotes, quips and lighthearted arguments. As more colleagues dropped by, we slowly transformed the Denny’s into a social club where conversation and camaraderie mattered more than the menu.

But I could not ignore the food forever. The conversations made me hungry, so I

absentmindedly ordered a Quarter Pound Cheeseburger from the All Day Diner Deals value menu around 8 p.m. For $10.49, it seemed like a decent deal.

It was. The veggies felt crisp, the bun tasted mildly sweet, and the American cheese perfectly complemented the juicy patty. It was the kind of burger that anyone could appreciate. The burger surpassed every other meal I ordered during the 24 hours but only because it had no major flaws. It excelled by being perfectly average, just like Denny’s itself.

The restaurant grew busier as the late hours of the night approached. College-aged patrons rolled in from nights out, dressed up in shades, sequins and jewelry. Many appeared drunk. I watched one table erupt in laughter as several men smacked each other with menus. Across the restaurant, a woman bit into an onion ring but separated the onion from the batter as she pulled her teeth away. She spent 30 painstaking seconds trying to reinsert the onion entrails with her long, flat acrylic nails before giving up.

Amid the chaos, a party decked out in peculiar garb grabbed my attention. One member wore clown makeup and a birthday hat, and another sat dressed as an Uncle Fester doppelganger. At the end of the table, a man sported an outfit ripped straight from a Nu-Goth Pinterest board. In my heart of hearts, I knew what they were: Frank-N-Furter’s convention guests.

Alessandro Signorini confirmed my suspicions. He told me the group was part of Sins O’ The Flesh, a shadow cast of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” that performs at the

Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles. The shadow cast, founded in the late 1980s, pantomimes the cult-classic film as it plays in the background.

The thespians were visiting the Denny’s at 2:30 a.m. for a post-screening meal, a tradition familiar to any high school theater student. When I asked the group why they chose Denny’s, Signorini gave me a blunt response.

“I genuinely believe there’s no reason to go to Denny’s before midnight,” Signorini said.

I asked why.

“There are better options that are open,” Signorini said in reply.

The group was making the most of their visit. One of them sipped a birthday cake milkshake, while another ordered a grilled cheese sandwich. I was too afraid to ask why their colleague had been served a bowl of limes. They told me all these items were part of the Denny’s secret menu. Their superior knowledge of the restaurant made me embarrassingly jealous.

When I confessed to the group what brought me to Denny’s, Shaylaren Hilton paused for a moment before asking a pertinent question:

“Are you on drugs?”

I wasn’t, but I did feel the buzz of caffeine in my blood. I am not a regular coffee drinker, but I knew this trip would be impossible without it. I acquiesced around 2 a.m.

I had decided to order a meal to accompany my first cup of coffee. I had been eyeing the steak entrees since I arrived, intrigued to see how the diner might mishandle such an elegant cut of meat. I allowed morbid curiosity to

“EatingatDenny’s–it encapsulatespartofmydad.”

WeslowlytransformedtheDenny’sintoa

socialclubwhereconversationandcamaraderie matteredmorethanthemenu.

take hold as I ordered the Sirloin Steak.

The steak itself was juicy but unnaturally tender. I foolishly poured the accompanying country gravy –seemingly a mixture of powdered milk and watery ranch – onto the entire steak before sampling it, which tainted the whole dish. The side dishes were no better. The Red Rustic Mashed Potatoes were a salty, flavorless mash, while the Fresh Vegetable Medley felt like a watered-down imitation of real vegetables. Yet it was the best part of the meal.

I people-watched as I slowly pecked at my steak. As more party dresses and sweaty cut shirts streamed through the door, the restaurant became incrementally louder. A nearby table was loudly celebrating a girls’ night out. Someone behind me was listening to a sports broadcast at full volume on their phone. When one conspicuously silent patron lifted their shades, I could see my reflection in their dilated pupils.

The pervasive noise reached its peak at 3:26 a.m. when shouting erupted from the table behind me. A group of men had entered the restaurant and approached a table of women. One man sat down, initiating an argument with a woman he seemed to know. When the men aggressively stood up and left the restaurant, the women gathered their things and chased after them. Nobody paid.

That incident marked the end of Denny’s rush hour. By 5 a.m., I was once again alone.

The staff took advantage of this sudden calm. They bussed tables, refilled syrup bottles and cleaned the bathroom. They never acknowledged my presence, even

when they cleared my table. I felt like an ephemeral observer, watching the employees restore the restaurant to its original state.

I was tired. The coffee helped, but it was more than exhaustion. Boredom had set in. There were neither patrons to observe nor any visitors accompanying me. Even worse, my stomach began to hurt. The stomachache persisted for the rest of my journey, preventing me from eating any more food.

I found myself staring at a black-and-white photo of a beach on the wall of the restaurant. It presumably depicted Santa Monica, but it could have been anywhere. Florida? Bermuda, perhaps? The lush isles of Greece? I did not know what exactly I was looking at. All I knew was that I would rather be there.

As my mind wandered, customers began plodding into the restaurant for their morning meals. They ordered their breakfast platters – referred to as “slams” on the menu – and quietly minded their own business. They seemed to want a peaceful morning without any trouble.

This was especially true for William Stanley, a logistics officer for the United States Army. He was hesitant to speak to me and asked – for the first time in my student journalism career – that I prove my association with the Daily Bruin. After earning his trust, he explained his unique connection to Denny’s.

“I happened to meet my wife there,” Stanley said. “Denny’s has been near and dear to me ever since.”

Stanley had just graduated from college when he visited the fateful Denny’s. When the waitress asked if he needed anything else, he responded that he wanted one more

thing: her number. She wrote it down on the receipt, which he still has to this day.

Stanley eats at Denny’s about once a month, partially because of these fond memories but also because he enjoys the food.

“I’ve never been displeased with any of the slams I’ve had,” Stanley said. “Now, I can’t speak to this place, but I will tell you this spread looks very delicious.”

He looked down at the French Toast Slam before him. I took the hint and ended our conversation.

To escape boredom, I turned my attention to the Denny’s menu and performed some rudimentary calculations. How many calories had I eaten? At least 3,500. How many entrees listed on the menu had fewer than 15 grams of fat? Two, but both required at least one substitution. How many Build Your Own Grand Slams could I hypothetically create? 330 by combining any four regular options, but up to 1001 using the premium options such as seasonal fruit or a ham slice.

The arrival of my friends pulled me away from mathematics. Time went much faster with good company. For the first time, I felt no different from other guests enjoying a pleasant Sunday morning.

Before long, it was noon. As I crossed the 24-hour mark, I got up and checked my belongings. Then I doublechecked them. I could not find my debit card. I did not care.

I lifted my backpack onto one shoulder as I approached the exit. A waitress I recognized from Saturday afternoon

was clocking in. She smiled at me. I think she knew.

I walked past the table where the fight broke out, past the booth where Zachary Hill reminisced about his grandfather and past the register where I had paid for three square meals. I had made some fond memories, such as late-night people-watching and bonding with colleagues, and I had met people with even fonder memories of the restaurant. But, despite others’ praise for the establishment, my middling opinion of Denny’s was no different than when I began my expedition. I was more than ready to leave.

There was a QR code on the door asking patrons to take an exit survey. I took the opportunity, hoping to leave thoughtful feedback about my extended stay. The questions were mostly mundane, asking about restaurant cleanliness and staff amiability. But the final question made me stop and think.

“Please share more about your experience by rating your agreement with the following statements,” the survey read. One of the options was: “I would come back again.”

I was standing on the sidewalk, facing away from the restaurant. I was smelly, I was tired and I was distressed. At that moment, I felt like I had seen enough of Denny’s for a lifetime. The restaurant was perfectly fine, but I doubted I would ever muster the wherewithal to return. I skipped the “Strongly Disagree” button, typing a custom response instead:

“I am never going back to Denny’s.” ♦

“Denny’shasbeennearand deartomeeversince.”

Michael Schneider spent much of his Los Angeles childhood in a car. He and his family drove almost everywhere, including to his school. The distance of the journey? Three blocks.

“I essentially was told from a very young age –whether it’s through movies or TV shows or just personal experience – that you have to use a car to get around Los Angeles,” said Schneider, who now serves as CEO of Streets For All, a transportationfocused political action committee.

While this automobile-centric vision of LA is a reality for many, the city boasts a multilayered patchwork of transit agencies, operating at the countywide to citywide level. Despite complaints about crime on public transportation in the media and at recent town hall events, LA’s public transit is crucial to many residents. According to LA Metro, the agency saw more than 250 million passenger boardings last year alone. And the system is continuing to grow, with the Purple (D Line) Extension Transit Project connecting downtown LA to Westwood set to open in 2027.

More than a dozen bus routes currently serve UCLA, acting as a throughline between Westwood and the rest of LA. Signs list the routes available to transit

takers, flashing between the Culver CityBus Line 6 or the Santa Monica Big Blue Bus Rapid 12. These are just some of the routes available to UCLA community members, including the 22% of commuter students who use public transportation to reach campus according to recent data.

But that number may grow in coming years. With a recently approved Undergraduate Students Association Council election referendum, undergraduate students will soon be able to ride fare-free on LA’s main transit systems for a small quarterly fee.

Students aren’t the only ones drawn to the convenience and low costs of LA’s public transit systems, however. Nurses, doctors, researchers and workers wait at Westwood’s bus stops to travel all over LA, with commutes ranging from 15 minutes to an hour and a half.

Hsin-Hui Lin had to wait at the UCLA stop three or four times a week to take the Big Blue Bus or Culver CityBus home. Lin, a visiting graduate researcher from National Chengchi University in Taipei, Taiwan, lived in LA from September to April and traveled 20 to 30 minutes to get to campus.

Reluctant to buy a car for a short stay, Lin relied mainly on LA’s bus system to get around. While she

said public transportation was a convenient option, the car-centric nature of the city made the experience of taking the bus feel isolating. When Lin first moved to the United States in 2022, she found herself waiting at bus stops amid the city’s record-breaking summer heat wave.

“Standing at a bus stop and waiting for the bus, which you don’t know when it’s going to come in or when it will appear – it’s unbearable,” Lin said.

Lin also noted the differences between Taipei’s and LA’s public transportation. Buses are often delayed in LA, she said, but her main issue was the infrequent service. When the bus route schedule was reduced at night, she said that waiting at stops felt unsafe.

Some of these differences stem from the sometimes dismissive perspective on public transportation in LA, Lin said. In cities such as Taipei and New York, buses or trains are the norm. But in LA, she added, public transportation is often seen as a backup option for those who don’t have the resources to buy a car.

“The ways of transportation in LA is very hierarchical,” Lin said. “In New York, everyone is taking public transportation. ... People ranging from the super rich to the poor, from every class, every race, every gender – they all take public transportation.”

While New York is famous for its subway system now, Schneider said LA was once renowned for its public transportation. In the 1920s, Southern California had the Pacific Electric railway, a system of streetcars and buses. While the system was privately owned, he added, it was used extensively by the public.

“We’re the only major city in the world that had such an extensive rail system where you didn’t need a car to get around,“ Schneider said. “We snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. We dismantled that space. We gave it over to cars.”

In the present day, however, LA transportation policies only cater to automobiles, Schneider said. Painting more bus-only lanes would greatly increase the efficiency of transit service in the city, allowing buses to become untethered from the daily slog of LA traffic. While this decision may increase ridership, he said policymakers have not prioritized this proposal because it would take away lanes currently used by cars.

“Every decision that’s made in Los Angeles is viewed with a specific lens: Is this going to delay someone in a car?” Schneider added.

Multiple transit takers in Westwood expressed the same frustrations with LA’s public transportation: infrequent

service, long routes and delays. Jimmy Tu, a graduate student in engineering who commutes between UCLA and his university apartment in Sawtelle, said his frustrations boiled down to one main reason: “A lot of wasted time.”

But materials science and engineering graduate student Blair Huang said her daily bus commute allows her to avoid paying the university’s costly parking fees. Because her apartment is located near a major transit line, the bus takes her from the front steps of her building to UCLA in under 20 minutes. And with her Bruin Grad Pass, she never has to pay the bus fare when she climbs aboard.

The pass, funded by a $25 quarterly fee imposed on graduate students, allows them to take public transportation anywhere and anytime in LA without paying a fare. But Lin, who was not a registered UCLA student while completing her research, was disheartened to learn she did not qualify for a transit pass like most of her fellow graduate students. Other transit takers in Westwood, such as employees, do not currently have universal access either.

The Bruin Grad Pass came into being after a 2020 referendum passed by the Graduate Student Association. However, it was scheduled to sunset in 2023 and was not on this year’s ballot, leaving the fate of riders like Huang uncertain.

But with the passage of the Universal Access Transit Pass referendum by USAC last month, undergraduate Bruins will also have unlimited access to LA’s public transit system starting in the next academic year. The $3.30 quarterly fee represents the cost of one roundtrip fare on a Metro bus, said former USAC Facilities Commissioner Phoebe Chiu, whose office was in charge of the referendum. Nearly 94% of voters in the 2023 USAC election were in favor of the pass.

“It’s really a public good. It’s a public service,” said Madeline Brozen, deputy director of the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies. “It’s a way that you can contribute to making sure everyone at the campus has access to affordable transportation.”

Prior to the referendum’s success, UCLA was the last UC school without a zero-fare transit pass for undergraduate students, said urban planning professor Donald Shoup. However, this pass is not the first of its kind at UCLA.

Between 2000 and 2003, the BruinGO! transit program

gave all UCLA

“Standing at a bus stop and waiting for the bus, which you don’t know when it’s going to come, ... it’s unbearable.”

students and staff fare-free access to the Big Blue Bus. Unlike the current referendum, the university covered the full cost of the program during those three years. The program caused substantial changes in campus culture almost overnight, Shoup said. Data showed Big Blue Bus ridership rose dramatically, and single-driver commutes went down correspondingly. Entire dorm floors would take trips to Santa Monica together, Shoup added.

But beyond offering cost-effective access to weekend activities, Shoup said BruinGO! motivated students who live farther from UCLA to commute by bus and avoid paying high campus parking fees. Shoup said these daily savings added up.

outside of West LA while benefiting from more consistent travel times to campus on the rail. This shift, she added, will require infrastructure changes in Westwood Village, such as widening sidewalks for increased foot traffic and expanding the bike share system, so those arriving by rail can get around easier.

Growing up in LA, Schneider spent a lot of time in Westwood Village, but the evolving neighborhood will look a lot different than the one he and his family used to visit. While the Westwood of his childhood was always a car ride away, he feels a more accessible city is now closer in sight.

“In the next few decades,” Schneider said, “LA will be dramatically different in public transportation.” ♦

“A lot of students made the case that this was an important part of their financial aid at UCLA,” Shoup said. “That it saves them enough money to be able to eat or to buy textbooks.”

Brozen said public transportation first and foremost functions as a social safety net – it supports people who can’t afford cars, as well as those who are too young to drive or who have a physical disability that prevents them from driving. Oftentimes, college students fall under one or more of these categories.

While access to LA’s public transportation will soon become easier for some Bruins, the system has a ways to go in terms of improvements.

According to Brozen, riders may feel unsafe because of insufficient lighting at bus stops and infrequent service. Brozen said increasing bus frequency is one way to mitigate these feelings of discomfort while simultaneously providing riders with a greater sense of reliability.

Christina Godinez, an administrative specialist with UCLA’s Semel Institute for Neuroscience, said in an emailed statement that she would appreciate increased frequency of Big Blue Bus routes, which she often takes to get to her home in West LA. Her commute, which mainly uses buses and occasionally the rail, takes anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour. Godinez has noticed heavy overcrowding on her route, leading to drivers bypassing stops and leaving passengers without a ride. She said she believes overcrowding would be solved with more frequent service.

With the Purple Line only a few years away from opening in Westwood, Brozen said Bruins will have more opportunities to live in less-expensive neighborhoods

“Every decision that’s made in Los Angeles is viewed with a specific lens: Is this going to delay someone in a car?”

EXEUNT THE ARTISTS

written by MATTHEW BEYMER | illustrated by KO CARLOS | designed by SOPHIA GONZALES

Areni Panosian always knew she was destined for creativity. Her early exposure to Armenian dance – paired with her parents’ backgrounds in creative writing and film – shaped her into an arts enthusiast. It was no surprise when Panosian entered UCLA as a world arts and cultures student in 2021 and fell in love with her first class, World Arts and Cultures 1: “Intro to World Arts and Cultures.” The weekly calls to the Victorville prison made it the least traditional class she had taken in her life, she said.

But nearly a year later, Panosian made a hasty exit from the School of the Arts and Architecture.

“It’s more like … that sort of pendulum swing in every creative person’s head,” she said. “Do I pick a more creative career or do I do something more quote-unquote practical?”

Panosian began the process of switching to the English major this fall, noting how she felt the program could provide her with a more practical skill set.

If I had a dime for every time I’ve witnessed a parent or peer exalt so-called practical majors over the arts, I would be filthy rich and could possibly retire at 25. But none of my wealth would shield me from the frequent stereotypes associated with being an arts student.

In spring 2022, PRIME published an article discussing the challenges students in STEM programs face. I noticed arts students face similar pressures, as well as the looming uncertainty of careers in the arts. Every time I mention my theater major, I face the inexorable question: What are you going to do with it?

Visual artist and design media arts lecturer Erin Cooney recognizes that this infamous question is tied to the United States’ high expectations for all workers – including artists.

“Everything is about production, and one’s identity gets equalized into your production,” Cooney said. “I am one who wants to push back against that and realize that one’s sense of self worth, as a person and an artist, does not have to be directly tied to production.”

The UC undergraduate alumni outcomes data shows that UCLA arts graduates make a median income of $32,900 two years after graduation. In comparison, UCLA’s computer science program – the behemoth of STEM adoration – prepares its graduates to advance into careers that yield a median income of $109,400 on the same timeline. However, some artists are able to make enough money to support their families. Samea Derrick, a former music performance student, said her father has supported her family throughout his career as a professional artist and hosted weekly art parties on Sundays to stimulate his children’s creativity. Growing up, she found herself drawn to the arts world, particularly as a cellist.

When she came to UCLA, Derrick sensed her waning passion for pursuing the cello in spite of her strong artistic upbringing. She noticed that her busy schedule and developing tendinitis took some of the joy out of her music. Before the COVID-19 pandemic,

the second-year student practiced the cello for nearly eight hours a day, an injurious routine that continued at UCLA.

“Definitely the worst of it was just being in a practice room for so many hours, and then looking at myself and being like, ‘What am I doing?’” Derrick said.

After realizing her passion for planning sustainable events, Derrick recently switched into the environmental science major and started working with the UCLA Sustainability Zero Waste initiative. Her parents initially challenged the decision since they had encouraged their children to explore the arts from such a young age.

“When I decided to switch my major, they were actually like, ‘We would really love you to stay in the arts’, which is not usually the response you get from a parent,” Derrick said. “Usually they’re like, ‘Oh my God, go with something that’s safe, something in the sciences, something like a normal college education.’”

On the other hand, Panosian felt the pull of an English degree from her parents’ experiences.

“Both of my parents have English degrees,” Panosian said. “Just talking to them about what their experiences were like studying English in college really made me realize that this is probably a better fit for me.”

My acting teacher once told my class that even passionate artists sometimes leave their fields because of the economic pressures of the industry. When the strain of a lower-paying career reveals itself, an actor may feel forced to explore job opportunities they never would have initially considered. The thought of another career crosses my mind sometimes, but the fire in my heart for the arts continues to blaze, so fierce and inextinguishable.

conducting lecturer, also shares my feelings. His family of musicians inspired him to stay dedicated to his love for music, leading him to become an officer in the U.S. Army Music Program. Given his military background, Milburn has traveled across the globe and has come to believe that American views of art diminish its complexity.

“You’re playing an instrument, so therefore you’re having a good time, so it can’t be a challenge,” Milburn said.

General support of the arts does exist. In a 2015 survey, 88% of Americans said arts education was a necessary facet of a well-rounded education. Yet proposals to defund arts programs remain rampant, even if they have faced varying levels of success. Milburn said these trends build off of a decadeslong legacy of devaluing the importance of arts education. Arts endowment budgets in the 1980s, for example, fell more than $7 million short of the Carter Administration’s $175 million budget presented at the beginning of the decade.

The COVID-19 pandemic took its toll on UCLA arts program funding. Total expenditures for the School of the Arts and Architecture and the School of Theater, Film and Television respectively fell from $73 million and $40 million, in the 2019-2020 school year to $59 million and $34 million in the 2020-2021 school year. However, the 2021-2022 expenditures showed an increase in the schools’ funding by $3-5 million each.

UCLA spokesperson Katherine Alvarado said in an emailed statement that these decreases were a result of the transition to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as a reduction in personnel for the School of Theater, Film and Television. She said both schools often see year-to-year fluctuations in funding due to availability of state funds, changes in enrollment and budget proposals submitted to Chancellor Gene Block. But Milburn, who served in the army for 20 years, said the U.S. does not fund the arts nearly as much as other countries, specifically those in Europe. In Germany, government arts funding does not have the same commercial component as in the U.S. – preeminent musicians get paid as civil servants. While the National Endowment for the Arts does fund select arts education programs and research opportunities in the U.S., this is not always enough to cover project funds substantially. Private organizations thus have to fill a void for producing accessible arts, Milburn said.

Do I pick a more creative career or do I do something more quote unquote practical?

“The United States, for the most part, is hostile to art,” he added.

From my perspective, part of this hostility may come from stereotypical images conjured of actors and other artists as vain and arrogant. With the increasing prevalence of social media, strong self-marketing skills are a necessary part of being a professional artist. The potential for self-promotion to slip into arrogance can interfere with an artist’s values, which has often made me hesitant to promote myself throughout my career.

Media artist and design media arts lecturer Yuehao Jiang recognizes the importance of balancing her artistic goals with her pedagogy.

“Being an artist is so much about investing into yourself, it’s in a way a very narcissistic job,” Jiang said. “I think teaching is very giving and generous and very much paying a lot of attention on the students.”

The pressure individuals face to invest in themselves can leave them to reconsider their relationship to their artistic passions. As a somewhat shy theater student– as paradoxical as that seems – I have often questioned whether I see myself remaining on the track to becoming a performer or deciding to pursue arts management instead. The uncertainty of so many arts industries is a major point of preoccupation for my friends and myself. Despite the challenges, some students push back against the stigma of pursuing the arts and transfer into arts majors, even if they were not enrolled in such programs to begin with.

“When I told my parents that I was going to pursue arts in college, they were very skeptical,” Li said. “They really didn’t agree with it, which I understand because it comes from a place of wanting to defend, wanting to protect, because they don’t see it as a very ‘safe’ route for life.”

As they prepare for graduation, Li said they now need to prove to their family they can find stable work that will cover the bills.

Even after students alter their initial academic plans at UCLA, many continue to stay involved with their original interests. After all, a passion is a passion. For Panosian, this means being an active member of the UCLA chapter of Delta Kappa Alpha, a film fraternity. For Derrick, this means participating in a band with her friends and performing at open mics.

Fourth-year design media arts student Liz Li entered UCLA as a pre-microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics student before deciding to pursue her interest in print design. Li felt even more empowered to pursue an arts career because they took art classes in high school and were even encouraged to attend art school by their teachers. She said the design media arts program has given her ample opportunities to discover a medley of techniques for shaping her artistry, such as 3D modeling and game making. But their choice to change majors came with some pushback.

Meanwhile, Milburn has stayed resolutely involved in the Herb Alpert School of Music since receiving his doctorate from UCLA in 2009. He said the pandemic helped reframe how our society thinks about the arts. Milburn believes the worldwide quarantines – which caused a dearth of performances – led countless people to realize their appreciation for live arts. At the height of the pandemic, he asked his students about where they thought the music industry would land.

“They didn’t think that, ‘Well, music is gone, and now it’s going to evaporate’,” Milburn said. “They felt like people were going to be more encouraged to take advantage of it than they had been before.” ♦

The United States, for the most part, is hostile to art.

GROWING INFLUENCE

written

MALLORY COOPER

UCLA was sparking up and showing out. Neon green light oozed into the backyard party, tinting everyone’s faces a slight shade of lime. Booths of all kinds flanked the swaying partygoers: A flea market pop-up was nestled between tables offering $50 canvas paintings and cannabis-infused potato chips. The night had just begun, and energy was already running high. It was 4/20, and Cannaclub at UCLA had delivered its promise to the people.

While attendees casually enjoyed the events of the night, the party represented a shifting trend in the cannabis industry: A growing body of college students has emerged as potential consumers and entrepreneurs. UCLA is only one part of this larger change.

California legalized medical marijuana in 1996, which permitted the possession and cultivation of physicianadvised marijuana. The legalization of recreational marijuana followed in 2016, expanding general marijuana access to Californians over the age of 21 or those over 18 in possession of medical cards.

Cannaclub, founded in 2018, seeks to educate the UCLA community about cannabis use, research and entrepreneurship. Cannaclub co-director Wilson Porteus has recently focused on the organization’s social justice opportunities, such as helping expunge marijuana possession charges from Los Angeles community members’ criminal records.

“We’ve provided information about expungement to people in LA,” the third-year molecular, cell and developmental biology student said. “We’ve given them (people with marijuana possession charges) resources to see if they’re qualified for expungement because the government makes it really difficult to do.”

Along with its efforts to advocate for social justice, Porteus said Cannaclub aims to expose its members to the growing cannabis industry. Cannaclub frequently partners with local cannabis businesses, such as Cookies dispensary in Brentwood. In exchange for financial support from these partnerships, Cannaclub advertises these businesses in its newsletter and offers activities such as tours of dispensaries for Cannaclub members.

While Cannaclub serves as an on-campus liaison to the cannabis industry, its members have expanded their engagement off campus.

At The Farmacy Westwood, a select handful of employees are UCLA students by day and budtenders – experts who sell cannabis products – by night. Opening its doors in 2006, the business became the only permitted dispensary in Westwood following the 2011 passage of city-specific restrictions on dispensaries.

As a former student employee at The Farmacy Westwood, Michael Mattingly has been learning about budtending since childhood. Growing up alongside family members in the cannabis business, the fourth-

year economics student gained an understanding of the chemical composition and various uses of cannabis early on. Mattingly’s budding dream of working in the cannabis business blossomed last summer when he was hired at The Farmacy Westwood.

For Mattingly, helping customers alleviate symptoms of anxiety or troubled sleep was one of the most rewarding aspects of working at The Farmacy Westwood. Mattingly added that he has advocated for the medicinal use of cannabis, as he believes the applicability of the plant can bring a better sense of overall wellness in users’ lives.

“I took a different kind of approach to being a budtender,” Mattingly said. “Instead of trying to sell the product, I was trying to match people’s needs.”

Working alongside two other UCLA student budtenders, Mattingly said his interactions with classmates as customers blurred the line between his social and professional worlds.

“I started getting recognized more as the guy who sells weed at a dispensary and less as the guy who promotes medical use,” Mattingly said. “But I’m still trying to

educate people whenever I talk to anyone.”

Although Mattingly left The Farmacy Westwood in January, he remains an active member of Cannaclub as co-director of events and logistics. Mattingly said cultivating a sense of community between cannabis users and industry insiders has been a highlight of his time in Cannaclub.

Since the establishment of The Farmacy Westwood nearly two decades ago, other dispensaries have made Westwood Village their home. For Rebud, taking root in the university cannabis scene came after years of reinventing its business model and working to operate in person.

Rebud is a dispensary and cannabis delivery service founded in 2017. Although it started as an e-commerce site under the name Golden Leaf, it has since expanded to two storefronts and three delivery locations. Since opening its Westwood location in March, CEO Arman Siradeghyan said Rebud has hired two UCLA student employees.

When Rebud rebranded in 2020 to expand beyond

“Instead of trying to sell the product, I was trying to match people’s needs.”

e-commerce, Siradeghyan said the path for delivery-based cannabis businesses was relatively unexplored. Rebud distinguished itself from other businesses at the time by operating as both an online and in-person cannabis retailer.

According to Siradeghyan, one of the most pressing challenges in opening a brick-and-mortar dispensary was finding affordable real estate and obtaining necessary licensing. The few real estate properties with the appropriate licensing for cannabis businesses often charge a premium for the land, Siradeghyan said.

“Cannabis operators are paying two, three, sometimes even four times more expensive price for the rent than any other business,” Siradeghyan said.

Although Rebud is able to balance storefront and delivery cannabis sales, some companies solely inhabit the delivery niche. Without physical storefronts, cannabis delivery services use creative marketing techniques to attract customers.

Using eye-catching graphics and word-of-mouth advertising, UniBud is an enigma in the UCLA cannabis community. The mystery of UniBud stems from passedon anecdotes. The UniBud snapbacks worn by students across campus and the giant plastic joint supposedly riding atop its green delivery truck remain immortalized in UniBud folklore.

Willie Jeng hadn’t planned to be a piece in UniBud’s

mass advertising machine. But on his walk home from class one day, free merchandise from a UniBud booth enticed the third-year linguistics and computer science student to sign up for an account. After his first order, Jeng received UniBud’s own form of a golden ticket: a personalized promo code.

After receiving the referral code, Jeng took to Reddit and TikTok to promote his code. The distribution of UniBud promo codes follows a chain-mail style marketing strategy: Jeng received free UniBud products for each order placed under his promo code, and promo code users then received their own promo codes. Jeng recalled how he once received 20 free joints in a day by the grace of UniBud’s promo code system. He said the ability to order from UniBud wherever and whenever he wants has made him prefer cannabis delivery services to in-person dispensaries.

The need for fast, reliable cannabis delivery has driven many companies to streamline delivery logistics. Weedhurry, a Westwood-based cannabis delivery service, is another business looking to break into this growing market with its promise of delivering products in 20 minutes or less.

Starting his cannabis business in his former college town, UCLA alumnus Kenji Kelly founded weedhurry in March 2020. Because of cannabis-specific municipal licensing restrictions, Kelly decided to keep weedhurry

“

“When you’re commissioned, you provide more independence.”

strictly a delivery service. Part of the appeal of this model is that Kelly can give delivery drivers a sense of autonomy over their own income by providing commissioned wages.

“When you’re commissioned, you provide more independence,” Kelly said. “You recruit your own customers. (There’s) more autonomy and independence.”

He added that the business also stands out from other cannabis delivery services because it sources all of its product in-house rather than relying on outside vendors. By only selling its own products, weedhurry affords drivers the ability to possess their own inventory and quickly fulfill orders without stopping at a facility along the way.

The cannabis delivery service model can help a business overcome real estate and licensing challenges, and in many cases, determine its overall success, Siradeghyan said. He added that Rebud has been able to accept orders from a variety of locations around Westwood, providing it with greater flexibility and business prospects.

With college students serving as a key consumer demographic at Rebud’s new Westwood storefront, Siradeghyan said he has adjusted his marketing plans accordingly. Because many college-age consumers are recreational users, Siradeghyan said Rebud will likely invest more money in marketing and education to ensure first-time customers have the knowledge to choose products wisely.

Siradeghyan also said he has considered partnering with a company specializing in providing medical marijuana ID cards in order to expand the legal purchase of cannabis to Westwood customers under 21 with medical reasons. He added that he hopes to provide resources for students seeking medical cannabis to better understand the process of acquiring medical marijuana ID cards.

“We’re trying to be mindful and trying to make it (cannabis) more accessible for those people that can’t access it,” Siradeghyan said.

Weedhurry is similarly interested in marketing to college students. Kelly said he has worked to design advertisements specifically aimed at UCLA students. Weedhurry QR codes are just one way the cannabis delivery service is making its presence known on the UCLA campus.

Cannabis companies are eager to sow the seeds for long-term collaboration with UCLA students; but for now, they are rooting their networks of support within the Westwood community.

“We’re just excited to be here,” Siradeghyan said. ♦

“We’re trying to be mindful and trying to make it (cannabis) more accessible for those people that can’t access it.”

BRAIN SKATE BRAIN

SKATE

written by LAYTH HANDOUSH

designed by SHIRLEY YAO

photographed by MYKA FROMM

In the eyes of Max Dubler, UCLA’s campus is the ultimate skatepark. The many staircases students loathe offer flat rails to slide down, and when it comes to speed skating, nothing beats the sloping hill by Pauley Pavilion.

“Everything that is in Los Angeles was approachable on a skateboard from a different perspective,” said Dubler, an alumnus and skater.

While this playful use of campus is far from the architect’s original intent, it’s a common practice across LA – also known as the home of skateboarding. Since the 1950s when Santa Monica surfers used skateboards to practice while the ocean’s waves were flat, the activity has grown into a worldwide competitive phenomenon.

This summer, the 2023 X Games and Street League Skateboarding, two highly popular competitions, will be held in California and Tokyo, respectively. Yet despite its global success, skateboarding’s impact on its founding city remains unique, permeating all realms of skaters’ lives.

Dubler first set out for LA as a recent graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, with no concrete plans aside from skating. When he first arrived in the sunny city, Dubler lived in a hostel called The Skate House, where he met hundreds of traveling skaters from all over the world. Dubler spent much of his time longboarding the mountain roads of Malibu and eventually became a sponsored skater for skate product companies while also posting about his expeditions on The Skate House’s YouTube channel.

“It (Skateboarding) was never easy for me, but I worked really hard at it and got pretty good at it,” he said. “It was a way to learn how to do things in the world.”

While skaters come to LA for the laid-back culture and diverse urban terrain, few are able to stay because of the city’s unaffordability. As Dubler watched high rent

prices push his friends out of the city, he was inspired to pursue a master’s degree in urban and regional planning at UCLA in 2020.

“It (Skateboarding) gave me a very physical understanding of the city and opened up this way to think about the built environment – the roads, the buildings, the landscape architecture,” Dubler said.

Now a resident of San Francisco, Dubler continues to work as an urban planner, advocating for housing affordability and skating the death-drop hills of the city. Dubler’s career path was partially made possible by a scholarship he received from the College Skateboarding Educational Foundation, an LA nonprofit dedicated to aiding young skaters with their academic and professional goals.

Keegan Guizard, the co-founder of CSEF, started the foundation in hopes of lifting some of the financial obstacles young skaters face when pursuing their own academic aspirations.

Guizard began skating at the age of 7 when his parents promised him a skateboard if he earned good grades. He kept his end of the bargain and is still skating 25 years later as he works with other student-skaters.

“It’s funny how it came full circle, and now I’m ‘the college skateboarding guy,’” Guizard said.

CSEF has evolved from a pet project into the nation’s only scholarship fund for student skaters. Guizard said that while the foundation’s original intent was to financially assist college students, it is now helping people understand the importance of skateboarding by sharing the success stories of young skaters.

“Skateboarders’ relationship with failure provides a really strong personality trait to get through anything and succeed in the end, no matter what,” Guizard said.

After living at The Skate House, Dubler was inspired to return to school and learn how to find more affordable, sustainable housing solutions for young adults that allowed them to pursue their skating dreams without worrying about unaffordable housing costs.

Skating can also complement academics, said Clifford Gant, a fourth-year English student. He added that skating has been an excellent way to relax in the midst of a demanding school schedule.

“It’s a few hours to forget

“Everything that is in Los Angeles is approachable on a skateboard from a different perspective.

about other stuff, so it’s a good way to relieve stress and anxiety about the future,” Gant said.

Guizard added that skating can build students’ confidence and perseverance while also providing a safe space for LGBTQ+ skaters and skaters of color. But while skate culture has become more inclusive in recent years, Guizard feels that more can be done to create a welcoming community.

At Neighbors Skate Shop in Leimert Park, co-owner Cleon Array is creating a safe space for young skaters of color.

“You’re treated like a Black person before you’re treated like a skater,” Array said about his own experiences in other skate shops.

As a Black-owned skate shop, Neighbors Skate is dedicated to serving the young skaters of Leimert Park, a predominantly Black and Latino area in LA. Tré, who co-owns the shop with Array, said the store has evolved into a platform for all of their passion projects, from filmmaking to clothing design. But the main inspiration for the shop, both owners said, was the lack of local skating resources

at the time of its

“This neighborhood doesn’t have anything like that,” Tré said. “There’s a lot of kids over here who need a

Array added that he wants kids who are interested in skating to learn about the sport in a familiar environment among “Let’s create that space here and keep all of that energy and activity down here and base it around a world that looks like ours,

Guizard said he has seen LA become

skateboarding as a pandemic hobby years, skating groups celebrating underrepresented communities

Crenshaw Skate Club and Boos Cruise, a collective of BIPOC

neuroscience student Noe Cazares Jr. said he feels it is necessary for UCLA to also embrace skateboarding as a part of LA’s vibrant

Growing up in a multigenerational Moreno Valley, Cazares learned how to skate

older cousins. Without an established community

Skateboarders’ relationships with failure provides a really strong personality trait to get through anything and succeed in the end, no matter what.”

community in his hometown, he became accustomed to riding alone. Upon arriving at UCLA, Cazares was pleasantly surprised to find other skaters.

“Ever since skating with friends, I can’t believe I did it alone,” Cazares said.

The welcoming community Cazares found on campus inspired him to reestablish the UCLA Skate Club. While his efforts mark the third time students have tried to create a campus skate club since 2013, Cazares is hopeful that this attempt will stick. Although Cazares anticipates pushback from administration because of the potential risks of skateboarding, he said the process of establishing the club went smoothly.

“Skateboarding is obviously very susceptible to injury, and ... it seems like universities are a business first and then a public education institution after,” Cazares said. “They don’t want lawsuits happening, and I’m sure they care about our safety.”

As the newly established club made its debut in May, Cazares hopes to make camaraderie and fun the hallmarks of the campus skateboarding experience.

However, from his own experiences, Gant said UCLA has not always encouraged skating on campus.

“The other day, we got kicked out of a parking lot while it was raining,” said Gant, who was asked by UCPD to leave while skating in a campus parking lot. “There was nowhere else to go.”

Gant said this was his fourth instance of being evicted from a public space by UCPD while skateboarding. He said he finds it odd that UCLA

would discourage the activity when it remains a prominent part of LA culture. But, he added, there is a prevailing stigma that portrays skateboarders as lacking respect for public spaces.

“I think it’s because of a lack of control,” Gant said. “Basketball players are confined to the court. Same thing with most other sports. With this sport, you can go anywhere, and I don’t think the school necessarily likes that we can skate wherever.”

In 2009, UCPD and UCLA Transportation placed “No Skateboarding” signs along Bruin Walk and other busy areas of campus, citing concerns about public safety. Students who are caught skating in these dismount zones risk facing a $200 fine.

Disputes about skateboarding extend far beyond UCLA’s campus, with stereotypes portraying skaters as rebellious delinquents who hold little respect for public authority. Dubler believes skateboarding has become a symbol of trouble for those who believe skateboarders take advantage of public spaces.

“I think people get upset about it because skateboarding is a way that young people are allowed to be in public,

having fun in ways that sort of defy the expectations for acceptable uses for urban space,” Dubler said. “The power relationships and dynamics of who’s allowed to be where and when, and what they’re allowed to do there, are brought to the surface by skateboarding.”

Skaters like Dubler and Gant, however, believe the positive impact of skateboarding outweighs its negative associations.

With the Olympics now hosting skateboarding events every four years, Gant said he would like more people at UCLA to see skateboarding as a source of enrichment and community. Dubler added that he wants UCLA to add more facilities for student skateboarders in the future, emphasizing that the community could benefit from more campuswide acknowledgement.

“I think UCLA is full of radical skateboarders who would benefit from some form of recognition from the school,” Dubler said. ♦

There’s a lot of kids out here who need a safe space.”

Abigail Siatkowski [PRIME director]

Megan Tagami [PRIME content editor]

Megan Fu [PRIME art director]

Katy Nicholas, Christine Kao, Alyssa Bardugon, Alicia Carhee, Martin Sevcik, Justin Huwe, Ramona Mukherji, Matthew Beymer, Mallory Cooper, Layth Handoush [writers]

Anika Chakrabarti [photo editor]

Jeremy Chen, Joseph Jimenez, Megan Cai [assistant photo editors]

Christine Kao, Anika Chakrabarti, Jenny Xu, Jeremy Chen, Joseph Jimenez, Brandon Morquecho, Ethan Manafi [photographers]

Isabella Lee [illustrations director]

Tara Desai, Nikole Liang, Ko Carlos [illustrators]

Maya O’Kelly [design director]

Emily Tang, Helen Quach, Tyler Cho [assistant design directors]

Tara Desai, Emma Cotter, Archie Datta, Mia Tavares, Keri Chen, Justin Huwe, Emily Tang Ramona Mukherji, Sophie Gonzales, Mia Lodwig, Shirley Yao [designers]

Isabelle Friedman [copy chief]

Ramona Mukherji [assistant copy chief]

Alexander Berry, Antonio Bayucan, Caroline Meisel, Ella Messing Kimmy Rice, Natalie Agnew, Shreya Dodballapur [slot editors]

Elaine Lin, Kaylyn Phan, Jiahe Yan, Tracy Zhao [online directors] Richard Yang [PRIME website creator]

Alexa Cyr, Breanna Diaz, Iman Baber, Justin Huwe, Kate Green, Martin Sevcik, Rachel Rothschild, Zinnia Finn [PRIME staff]

Alicia Carhee, Alyssa Bardugon, Carlos Gabriel Ramirez, Dylan Tzung, Emily Kim, Esther Myers, Katy Nicholas, Keira Feng, Layth Handoush, Mallory Cooper, Mitra Beiglari, Sarah Choudhary, Tea Shulga [PRIME contributors]

Victoria Li [editor in chief]

Olivia Simons [managing editor]

David Rimer [digital managing editor]

Jeremy Wildman [business manager]

Abigail Goldman [editorial advisor]

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