ELAC Campus News Fall 2021 Issue 12

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Volume 78, Issue 12 | www.elaccampusnews.com | Wednesday, December 8, 2021 | Single copy free - additional copies 50 cents

Homeboy Industries works to break barriers BY PAUL MEDINA Staff Writer Homeboy Industries founder Father Gregory Boyle wrapped up the fall 2021 ELAC Town Hall Series on racial equity and social justice by delivering a talk with the theme of ‘The Whole: Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness.’ The talk was presented via Zoom to an audience which at peak was more than over 400 participants. The talk on December 1 was one of many in the past as Father Boyle has been a featured speaker at ELAC for decades. Homeboy Industries, based out of the Chinatown neighborhood in Los Angeles, is considered the largest gang rehabilitation and re-entry program not only in the City of Los Angeles, but in the entire world. Boyle stressed that its program comes from a holistic approach. “It’s not about delivery of services, it’s about healing and community. The secret sauce is the community, healing, culture, people paying attention, people knowing each other’s names,” said Boyle. “Gang violence is about something else, so you want to find something else. It’s about the lethal absence of hope. It’s about more trauma than I ever had to carry and occasionally it’s about real mental health issues. And so we want to instruct society what if we were to infuse hope to folks who hope is foreign and what if we were sought to heal damage and deliver mental health services in a timely and culturally way, ” Boyle said. Homeboy Industries was founded out of a need to provide services to a gang-plagued community when he was pastor at Dolores Mission

Catholic Church in the Boyle Heights community of Los Angeles, at the time the poorest parish in Los Angeles. Dolores Mission was housed between the Pico Gardens and Aliso Village housing projects, making it the largest public housing conglomerate west of the Mississippi river according to Boyle. “We had eight gangs at war. The LAPD called my parish the highest concentration of gang activity anywhere in the city,” Boyle Said. He also recalled starting a school for the junior-high-school-aged students who were kicked out of their schools and no one wanted to take. Back in the day the kids found themselves selling drugs and wreaking havoc. He asked them if he found a school that would take them, if they would attend. After all agreeing, Boyle persuaded the nuns across the street to vacate their convent located on the third and fourth floor on top of an elementary school which was then converted to a middle school. Boyle would canvas the neighborhood looking for work throughout the community businesses and warehouses who would hire previous incarcerated and gang friendly members. Homeboy Industries would later grow to what it is today. Offering a myriad of services from tattoo removal, mental health, job placement and a place to call a community. “We have therapy in the classes and at any given time, there are 500 trainees who are in an 18 months training program which models how long it takes a child to connect with a caregiver. It’s about attachment

CN/PAUL MEDINA

HOMEBOY INDUSTRIES— Father Gregory Boyle in the middle of telling the sucesses of Homebody Industries. repair and as the homies always say ‘find the thorn underneath,’” Boyle said. “ Yo u w a n t t o c r e a t e a n environment where people feel cherished, that’s what they will remember when they leave you,” Boyle said. Father Boyle spoke about a prior gang member named ‘Bandit’ asked him to bless his daughter before

heading out to college and recalled how his parting words from Boyle was commending him on the man he has become. Bandit said, “All my life people called me a low-life, a good-fornothing.” And he was proud for proving them wrong. “At Homeboy, we are allergic to the notion of holding the bar up and asking folks to measure up.

They don’t need to measure up. Instead, we hold the mirror up and tell them the truth. You tell them they are unshakably good. That they are intensely noble, that they have dignity and then they inhabit the truth of who they are. They become the truth and no bullet can pierce that. No four prison walls can keep that out. And death can’t touch it because it’s huge,” Boyle said.

Boyle lauded the partnership ELAC has with Homeboy Industries participants. “So what you do at ELAC, both as teachers and as students, but as activists is to dismantle the barriers which exclude. That’s the hope,” Boyle Said.

ASU talks finance reports, fundings BY LEONARDO CERVANTES Staff Writer

COURTESY OF MAUREEN CRUISE

UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE IN THE WORKS— Registered Nurse Maureen Cruise promotional flyer for AB-1400 bill from HCA.LA.org.

Healthcare workers fight for AB-1400 BY ANNETTE QUIJADA Staff Writer Healthcare workers came together for the event, “Healthcare is a Human Right,” to promote AB-1400 and the steps needed to be able to give healthcare to all. The California Guaranteed Health Care Act for All Act also known as the AB-1400 bill would create a single payer health care coverage system in California. The system would be called “Cal Care” and is designed to cover the cost of all medical care and would be available to all California residents. It’s the seventh attempt at trying to get universal healthcare in California. Paul Song, oncologist and

News Briefs

president of the California Chapter of Physicians for the National Health Program, said he started to get involved when he realized that the health care system was suboptimal after watching the hardships his cancer patients were dealing with. “Too many of my own patients were going bankrupt, they were spending far too much of their own money. Many of them skipped their needed drugs because of the high cost,” Song said. The number of people who end up using all or most of their savings is up to 63%, Song said. Patients end up sacrificing essentials in order to have money to pay for their medication or treatment. “The number of people who are having financial hardship or ruin is

College Promise Program

roughly up to 19% of the population and it disproportionately affects communities of color,” Song said. Song also cites a study where it was determined that about 40% of the United States COVID-19 deaths could have been prevented if more people had access to insurance. “In the United States it’s alarming that among the Native American population, our black and hispanic communities the rates of potential lives lost is staggering.” These statistics brought in M a u r e e n C r u i s e , w h o ’s a n registered nurse and the Los Angeles Co-Director of Healthcare for All, said “The United States, has an unequal discriminatory caste system that treats some lives more available than others. This is a moral issue, we have a system of penthouse care for

Future Huskies are invited to a College Promise workshop to learn about the program and how to obtain two free tuition years on Friday from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Join webinar at https://lausd.zoom.us/j/83596319128.

some and bargain basement care for others ‘and for the very unlucky’ no care at all.” Cruise believes that CalCare is the solution to the current healthcare system. Cruise said that CalCare would give universal coverage regardless of race, sex, gender, country of origin, and immigration status. “We will burn all medical debt,” Cruise said. AB-1400 currently resides in the rules committee in the Assembly. It’s temporarily frozen and is waiting until January 2022 to reopen and be moved along. For those interested in taking part in the action can check the following link bit.ly/doyoucalcareTK for resources and ways to be involved.

Intersectionality and Identity Workshop

Financial reports and action it ems were the main topic during Wednesday’s East Los Angeles College Associated Student Union meeting. The financial reports total amount of encumbrances is $38,809.75 and the available funds are $118,090.25. The Treasurer report has spent $9500 in club state funds and currently has $20,500 available. Adoption of AB-361 would allow the committee to proceed with meetings in hybrid. The item was approved unanimously. AB-361 allows local public agencies to continue to use teleconferncing without complying to certain Brown Act provisions. Stephanie Dizon explained why she was interested in the vacant senator position. “My main purpose is I really wanted to help the ASU board and staff with their jobs, especially setting up and organizing events and giveaways,” Dizon said. The committee agreed to make her a part of the board. The student nurse association secretary Giselle Gil, wants her club to be officially chartered. “Most of the council members are seniors who will be graduating at the end of the semester. They have been organizing their pinning ceremony; they had Shakey’s and Krispy Kreme fundraisers. The expenses are decorations, pamphlets, pins, nurse uniform dresses and preparing for the nclex exam,” Gil said. The committee unanimously voted for them to be officially chartered. Fall fundings giveaways totalling $650 was another action item.

ELAC success coaches will host a workshop to help others understand their identities and how they interact with each other on Friday from 4 p.m. to 5p.m. Register at https://tinyurl.com/FYE-intersectionality3.

Funds will be used to purchase items and will be distributed to students during finals week. “We have students who have dietary instructions such as vegan and looking at these items, only one item will satisfy their needs, so I would suggest looking into something more towards that,” Alondra Pacheco said. Another funding action item was iMac Adapters in the amount of $55. Funds will be used to purchase adapters for the executive board to fulfill their duties. The iMac computers that the executive board currently have in their office don’t have a USB insert so adapters must be purchased in order for the executive board to access the printers. Both items were approved. ASU will be going on their winter retreat where they will share knowledge and grander goals for the upcoming spring semester. This will include each inner committee presenting their plan going forward into the semester and teach the rest of the board members about the committee and will also discuss ASU, BAC, ICC meetings, campus commit schedule and office hours. For the Winter session at the Southgate campus, free supplies will be provided for students. All they have to do is show up to class. ASU Husky Food Pantry is currently servicing 139 students. On Monday, the winter gift card giveaway will be a $25 digital gift card that will be provided to all students up to 200 students. This is for all currently enrolled ELAC students. Next week at the Monterrey Park and Southgate campuses, the health center staff will be providing the Pfizer vaccine if they want their first, second or booster shot.

ELAC Story Theater Presents

ELAC Story Theater will perform a child production, “The Zombie Code or How Bobbie Z. Beats the Bull’E’s” on Friday from 3:30 p.m. to 8 p.m at the courtyard of the Fine Arts Complex and the Black Box Theater.


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