Volume 72, Issue 19
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Wednesday, April 29, 2015
www.elaccampusnews.com
ELAC Alum inducted into National Film Registry BY JESUS FIGUEROA Staff Writer
UNITED
CN/IVAN CAZARES
Domestic violence court closing sparks protest BY IVAN CAZARES Staff Writer Members of the Feminist Club put on a puppet show on April 24 outside the West Covina Courthouse in protest of the closing of a courtroom dedicated to domestic violence cases. “What do we want? Reopen the court,” the protesters said. Nicole Castro, a Feminist Club member, said this issue is important to her and the rest of the club. She also said they wanted to support some of their members who live in the community. Domestic Violence cases have been spread among all judges since February 9. The domestic violence court was initiated in 1994. It has received awards and praise from officials across California. “The National Organization for Women is in disbelief that the judges have dismantled the Domestic Violence Model Courtroom,” Darby Mangen, San Gabriel Valley and Whittier chapter president of NOW, said in a recent newsletter.
The judges at Citrus Municipal Court disbanded the courtroom in 1999. The decision was highly criticized and the court was reopened a year later. For the last 15 years, the Model DV Court provided victims and their abusers with experienced judges and prosecutors. Judge Rolf Treu presided over at Citrus Court while Judge Peter Meeka presided over at Rio Hondo Court. A single courtroom in each courthouse was dedicated to domestic violence cases. The DV Court ensured that a victim advocate accompanied victims for emotional support. “Diane Franklin with the West Covina Police Department is the first advocate of her kind in the country,” said Mangen. Franklin continues to accompany victims to their court hearings. However she can’t accompany as many as she could in a courtroom dedicated to this crime. If convicted, defendants would be placed on supervised probation that would include frequent monitoring by the judge, mandatory counseling for the defendant and protective orders for the victim.
Another judge may still implement this. However, the DV Court would ensure it. “Judges are trained to handle all crimes including domestic violence. However, the experience that a judge and prosecutors gain in a dedicated courtroom is indispensable,” said Mangen. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Scott Gordon said “judicial burnout” is the reason the court closed. President of the San Gabriel Valley chapter of NOW Michelle Geil proposes rotating judges as alternative solution. “Domestic violence is a complex social problem that affects each individual in society, either directly or indirectly, amounting to economic costs of billions of dollars each year in medical costs. These costs are eventually passed on to the taxpayers through Medicare and other health agencies,” Los Angeles Supervisor Michael Antonovich said in a resolution passed in 1999. “The uniquely successful courtroom is a model for all domestic violence courtrooms, and should be opened immediately,” Denise Brown, advocate against domestic violence and sister of Nicole Brown Simpson whose murder made headlines, said.
East Los Angeles College alum Efrain Gutierrez used his reallife experiences to inspire his nationally recognized film “Please, Don’t Bury Me Alive” (1976). The film was inducted into the Library of Congress National Film Registry as the first Latino-directed feature film. The film will be shown at the Vincent Price Art Museum, S1-room 112 on Thursday at noon. Gutierrez will be helping out his son to produce a new film, written by Gutierrez about 20 years ago, by touring the west coast screening his films. “This is a film I want to see made, even if it’s not me directing it,” Gutierrez said. Latinos filmmakers in Hollywood have gained recognition in recent years. For the past two years the Academy Awards’ movie-of-theyear recipients have been movies directed by Latinos. “I don’t see anything different,” Gutierrez said. Gutierrez said that even now the same actors are always representative of the Latino culture and the same stories get told over and over. UCLA professor Chon Noriega searched for the Gutierrez film for many years to be able to archive “Please, Don’t Bury Me Alive” in the UCLA Film and Television archives. Noriega finally found the film in 1996. “Please, Don’t bury me alive,” once thought to be lost, was found in 16mm format by luck and just in time. “The film was in a garage at a friend’s house,” Gutierrez said. He said the film was recovered and archived about a month before the friend’s garage burned down. If Gutierrez had not been contacted by Noriega, the film might have been lost in the fire.
FILM Continued on page 4
Architecture Club members exceed expectations BY IVAN CAZARES AND STEPHANIE GARIBAY Staff Writer For the first time, members of the East Los Angeles College Architecture Club were awarded the most habitable award at the 2015 Design Village. The winning team Circadian Rhythms included members Ivan Hu, Saul Navarro, Matthew Rivera, Eddie Ramirez and Thomas Gin. Circadian Rhythms was one of three ELAC teams included in the competition, but was the only team to win an award. The Design Village, held this year from April 17-19, is a yearly competition hosted by Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s prestigious undergraduate architecture program. Design Village is held in the natural environment of Poly Canyon. The competition takes place on Poly Canyon Village. The site is full of experimental structures built by previous Cal Poly San Luis
News Briefs
Obispo students. Participants choose a site on a first come first serve basis, but they may not incorporate any of the existing structures into theirs. The teams must assemble their structure on the first day of the competition. They must have a poster board explaining their structure ready to present to the judges the next day. They must clean their site and remove any stakes, wires or any other material before they leave on the third day. Competitors are required to hike up a mile long trail while carrying the shelters they built. They are not allowed to use any type of transportation besides their two feet. Shelters can be carried up assembled or unassembled. “It was a lot of teamwork. We had five people working in tandem. Perfect teamwork, I would say that’s why I love my teammates,” Ivan Hu said. “We had one person in the front, one person in each corner
Take Back The Night
and one person in the back holding their spring break doing. They both corners and then we walked might have spent a couple weeks up the mile long trail.” before coming up with a plan, Teams must consist of 2-6 but their spring break was students, and they must all check building this,” Adviser James in before any of them enter the Kawahara said. canyon. A l t h o u g h They are not Kawahara is the allowed to alter adviser for the club, “We had five the site by grading he has minimal or excavating, but people working involvement in the they are allowed projects. in tandem. to reposition rocks “This is all the Perfect and flatten tall grass. students. Of course They may not I can tell them teamwork, I use a gas-powered no this idea is not would say that’s good, or something generator and no outlets are like that, but why I love my provided. However, ultimately this is teammates” participants are all the work of the allowed use of students,” Kawahara IVAN HU batteries, or solar said. power. The current board Team Captain The shelter or judges of this created by Circadian year’s design village Rhythm took the team two weeks consists of third year architecture to complete, which they did majors. during their spring break. “When everything is on “These guys didn’t have a spring display and all the pieces are break. This is what they spent being judged, we cannot show
The East Los Angeles College Women’s Center will host “Take Back The Night” at the G3 Auditorium foyer on Thursday from 6-8 p.m.
First Friday Jazz Series
our school name. They only give us team numbers, which makes it fair for all of us. There (were) a lot of third and four year students so it was a really tight competition. (It was) really excruciating, but a lot of fun,” Hu said. Each year the competition has a different theme, but its main focus is for competitors to design and build shelters in which they must live in for two days. This year’s theme was called clockwork. As the design village’s website describes it, clockwork “explores the changing perceptions of time and space and the dialogue between organic systems and the technological ones developed to situate humanity within the environment,” Hu said. “Every team has to do their own (interpretation) of clockwork and ours was about time. And what time means to every individual, which is daylight and nighttime. So we built a structure that controls how much sunlight and wind a person gets.”
The Music Department will host the First Friday Jazz Series on Friday at 8 p.m. at the S2 Recital Hall. Admission is free.
Correction
Design Village is a nationwide competition where the architectural department of any school can participate, although most of the schools in the competition are schools in California, such as the University of Southern California. For the members of Circadian Rhythms this was their last year being able to represent ELAC at the Design Village. “We are all transferring in the fall, so this was our last representation for our department and to see what our skill level is compared to other schools,” Hu said. This year was particularly special for the Architecture Club, since all the funding came from family, friends, some ELAC alumni and some advisers. “We want to thank a lot of our families, friends, professors and some ELAC alumni. With all their support, we have been able to fund enough money to support this project,” Hu said. The total cost of the project was an estimated $4,300 to build and construct their piece.
In last issue, the story “Badminton’s Conference woes continue” identified Head Coach Qui Nguy as Qui Mgui.