NEWS Elan express herself through costume design.
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Fans mosh, sing and dance at the Sixth Annual Skanking Reggae festival.
Baseball loses two games after win.
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Volume 73, Issue 16
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Wednesday, march 23, 2016
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Elans to tour California universities BY STEPHANIE GARIBAY Staff Writer
Central American Studies
First program of its kind BY DORANY PINEDA Staff Writer
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new Central American Studies Program is now offered at East Los Angeles College, the first of its kind in California’s Community Colleges. The program comes after decades of talk and attempts to offer the program to the growing population of Central American students in ELAC. The population makes up 13% of its Latino student body. “For years there was no support from the administration,” Assistant Professor in the Chicano and Central American Studies department, Andrew Monzon said. The program gained momentum with the arrival of the current Chicano Studies department chair Eddie Flores four years ago, and was launched last Fall with the support of president Marvin Martinez. The only college in California that currently offers a bachelor’s degree in Central American Studies is California State University, Northridge. There are currently two known classes in the program offered at ELAC and two more that will be offered. The classes offered this semester are The Central American Experience and Introduction to Central America Studies. The Central American Studies Program will offer an associate’s degree to students within the next five years. All of the courses offered are California State University and University
of California transferrable. “Latinos are the number one ethnic group in the United States and Central Americans are the third largest population of Latinos and a continuously growing demographic,” Monzon said. “Students that know the issues in the Central American community are not only more marketable and stand out, but their knowledge will help in their future well-being and that of our country’s,” Monzon said about the importance of the Central American Studies program. Flores said that the implementation of the Central American Studies program is a significant step in the college institution and a small step in a much bigger vision. Several ELAC professors have teamed up with the nonprofit organization CARECEN, the Central American Resource Center, and are doing outreach at Jefferson High School among other local high schools with predominately Latino student populations. “Studies have shown that when students see themselves reflected in the curriculum they’re being taught, they do better in school,” Monzon said. Monzon said that historically Chicanos and Central Americans have been portrayed as being at odds with each other and hopes that providing Central American classes to the students at ELAC can bring both communities together. For more information on ELAC’s Central American Studies Program, visit https://www. elac.edu/academics/departments/chicano/.
The Northern California University Tour, hosted by the accounting club, will take East Los Angeles College students on a trip to University of California, Berkeley; Stanford University; San Jose State University and University of California, Santa Barbara to learn about applying for transfer. The trip will take place during spring break on April 4-6. It includes a guided tour and presentation at each school. “This is a really good way for students to get information on transferring. It’s really cool because on the tour students really get to learn a little bit about the history of each building,” inner adviser club member, Arthur Tu said. Students interested in going do not have to be accounting majors or club members. “We started planning this in the winter. The vice president of the club and I would get together after class and start making phone calls to different schools to see who could accommodate us,” President of the accounting club, Henry Jimenez said. Although the tour is sponsored by the Associated Student Union, the club still had a lot of fundraising to do for the trip. “When you charter a club, ASU gives every club a match funding which is $5,000 for each year in total, but the accounting club members used more than half of it last year on a banquet. We also went to visit the Ronald Reagan library and only left us with about $1,000 so because of that we had to do a lot of food sells to raise more money,” Jimenez said. At first, the club was having trouble getting students to sign up. Only a handful of students are
interested in going. This made it difficult for the club because if they didn’t get 57 students to join, the trip would have been cancelled. “We put up flyers all around campus and made sure everyone knew all majors are welcome and really tried to tell everyone about it, but even then people were not signing up,” Jimenez said. Jimenez decided to contact all the clubs on campus so they could help spread the word. “We contacted every club and I didn’t know this but we contacted the Asian American club and it just so happened the adviser of the club is Song Su, the (employee) in charge of emailing every single student at ELAC. He sent me a message that said he would sent out an email to everyone,” Jimenez said. The following morning, Jimenez saw the email that had been sent to everyone. That same day he received multiple messages and phone calls from students wanting to sign up for the tour. “In the email he had sent out, he put my contact info and I remember my phone would not stop ringing that day. I was getting messages and phone calls non-stop. And that same day we actually sold out,” Jimenez said. The tour sold out last Thursday. The club now has a waiting list, which currently includes 16 people. Those on the waiting list will only get a chance to go if someone backs out. The tour, which is a $400 value, will cost students $65 if they are active accounting club members. This means they participate in food sales, presentations and other activities. It is $85 if students are non-active club members, $105 for non-club members and an extra $10 if the student is not an ASU member.
Multilingual education comes back to California BY JULIE SANTIAGO Staff Writer Voters will get a chance to vote for SB 1174, a Senate bill put in place to bring back multilingual education in California on the November 2016 ballot. Governor Jerry Brown signed SB 1174 in 2014, which added the proposition to the November 2016 ballot. If passed, this proposition will repeal much of Proposition 227, first passed in 1998 that has since put restrictions on multilingual teaching. This prop went into effect around the time many millennials,who are now in college, were in or just
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beginning grade school. The ones particularly affected by this law were English as a Second Language learners who are also known as ESL students. “I was never told to not speak Spanish, but I was told to try my best to say everything I could in English,” former ELAN and ESL student Gabriela Martinez said. She attended Nimitz Middle School in Huntington Park at the time. Martinez immigrated with her family in 2005 when she was nine years old. SB 1174, which is supported by Senator Ricardo Lara will allow public schools to decide whether they want to have multilingual instruction. Currently, Prop 227
requires ESL students start in a special class with their first language and are pushed to classes that are only taught in English in usually no more than a year. Prop 227 also requires government to supply $50 million for English classes over the next ten years. Those who attend the classes must promise to tutor ESL students. People who plan to teach English as a second Language classes can benefit from this. The purpose of Prop 227 was to educate ESL students in a fast one-year program that would help them learn English faster through immersion and by limiting the use of non-English languages in public schools, but it was controversial.
Zumba Session The Adelante FYE program is hosting a zumba session today at the E3- 470 from 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. All students are welcomed to come and there is no cost.
According to national media `many people believed it was a political move to counter its Latino majority Spanish-speaking problem by assimilating them and therefore doing away with their culture. Today, according to the US Census 2010, Latinos are the majority ethnic group of California. The US Census also projects that the number of Spanish speakers is expected to rise, due to new Latino immigrants. However, Hispanic Research at the Pew Research Center believe that the number of Hispanic Spanish speakers will drop by 2020 and the number of nonHispanic Spanish speakers will
rise. Researchers believe this is due to third-generation Hispanics not speaking Spanish at home because they grew up in a place where speaking Spanish is just not necessary. Studies show that many cultures who immigrate to another country lose their native language by the 3rd generation. Immigrants assimilate and over the years, the generations after know less of their native language, especially by the third generation. If SB 1174 is passed and schools choose to teach in Spanish and are successful in bilingual teaching, then the number of Spanish speakers who lose their native Spanish language will be
Hide-and-seek With Easter around the corner, members of the ELAC Huskies 101 Facebook page will hide Easter eggs around campus. The eggs will have prizes inside, including money.
less.“Repealing 227 can help, but only if we confront the challenges,” Chair of the Modern Languages Department Norma Vega said. “The proper implementation of a bilingual program,such as dual immersion, is pivotal. If California is to develop school districts with dual immersion programs, for example, the state will have to invest in heritage languages and teacher-training,” Vega said. This would be especially beneficial for heritage speakers.
ESL LAW Continued on page 3
Emergency Evacuation Steam from hot food being cooked on the 5th floor in room 508 set off the fire alarm in the E3 Building last night. No fire was reported. For more on this story visit elaccampusnews.com