Photo Focus

BY SERINA HAYNES

Over 300 people rallied against anti-Asian violence in Little Tokyo on March 13 at a place of special historical significance: It is where the government rounded up Japanese Americans during World War II before they were sent to internment camps.

Organizers originally billed the event as “Stop

Asian Hate,” but rebranded it to “Love Our

Communities: Build Collective Power,” to address a myriad of topics that cause frustrations within the community.

Chinatown Community for Equitable

Development (CCED) organized the march that included support from Ktown4BlackLives, Nikkei

Progressives, Asian Pacific Islanders Equality

LA, Progressive Asian Network for Action and others who made their presence known with placards and signs. A prayer site featured carefully arranged photos, flowers and other mementos to commemorate victims of racist violence across different ethnic groups.

Former L.A. County Chief Executive Officer Bill

Fujioka spoke to the crowd and urged city officials to do more to stop the violence.

“Ignoring it, denying its existence, or refusing to speak up is almost as bad as participating in this disgusting behavior,” Fujioka said during a live stream of the event. Organizers say the goal was to make space to

“meet, collaborate, and build with grassroots organizations doing direct work in Los Angeles

Asian American communities.” The event broadened the conversation beyond anti-Asian hate crimes into a myriad of collective issues regarding housing, political failure, over-policing, lack of support and health services. Speakers at the march expressed frustration over the failure of the city of Los Angeles to follow through with promises of support, hot meals for seniors and COVID-19 resources. Some accused politicians such as Mayor Eric Garcetti of using

Chinatown residents as props in photo-ops. Tiffany “TiDo” Do represents CCED. She made an impassioned speech of solidarity with all

Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), addressing the mainstream media’s emphasis on

Black-on-Asian hate crimes as being divisive, while starkly contrasting against the lack of mention of racism in violence perpetrated by white people.

“The harm against our elders will not be used to advocate for more harm against our black and brown communities,” she said at the rally according to LAist. “We are here to tell the world: don’t you fu**ing dare use our community tragedies to fund the police.”

1. A Woman stands next to the “Wall of Solidarity,” a board where attendees can leave notes of support and well-wishes for the Asian community. The “Love Our Communities, Stop Asian Hate” march happened in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, March 13, 2021. 2. Attendees wave signs displaying the message “End Racism and White Supremacy and Hate.” The “Love Our Communities, Stop Asian Hate” protest took place in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, on March 13, 2021. 3. A young woman smiles behind her colorful mask and holds a placard that reads “We are our ancestor’s wildest dreams.” She attended the “Love Our Communities, Stop Asian Hate” protest in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, March 13, 2021.

4- Woman poses with handmade dolls celebrating various ethnicities in front of a large Black Lives Matter banner at the, “Love Our Communities: Stop Asian Hate rally held in the Little Tokyo/Arts district at the Japanese American National Museum, Downtown Los Angeles, Saturday,March 13, 2021

5- A masked woman displays sign with personal message against racism at the Japanese American National Museum, where the “Love Our Communities: Stop Asian Hate rally was held in the Little Tokyo/Arts district in Downtown Los Angeles, Saturday,March 13, 2021

When it comes to higher education rankings, community colleges are usually a non-factor. L.A. City College ranks sixth in the nation using a system powered by artificial intelligence technology.

BY ANGELA JOHNSON

Conventional wisdom about rankings in higher education suggests the college with the most money employs the best professors, will have the most powerful alumni, will attract the most academically accomplished students, and therefore have the most influence, and rank the highest. That is how most college classifications stack up.

But the ranking method used by AcademicInfluence.com (AI) seems to trump all of that. AI broke all the ranking rules when it released its first-ever list of the 50 best American community colleges in the country earlier this month.

The InfluenceRanking Engine, a proprietary tech tool that was created for AI, cuts through the layers of data that other rankers use to provide a barebones yet substantive ranking.

Consider then how an urban school like City College in East Hollywood ranked sixth and sister school L.A. Valley in Valley Glen came in at No. 26, out of a field of 839 community colleges in the United States. LACC ranked second in California behind College of Marin, one of the wealthiest communities in the state. Marin County California median household income as of 2019 was more than $110,000, according to the most recent data from the Census ACS, 1-year survey reports.

The AI team says their method churns through the data to deliver a more precise measure of the quality of education offered by schools on the list.

Two members of the AI core team discussed the main reasons the InfluenceRanking Engine rates differently than U.S. News and World Report, Money, Forbes or The Princeton Review.

Dr. Jed Macosko is the president of AI, and a professor of physics at Wake Forest University.

“The main difference is that U.S. News and World Report includes a component that is human-driven,” Macosko said. “It’s based on opinions . . . they asked for the opinion of people that they think might be experts in that field which schools they think are the best.”

Dave Tomar is the managing editor and an expert on plagiarism and contract cheating in higher education. He says the AI approach to rankings is unique for a couple of reasons.

“The best institutions are defined by great professors and successful alumni,” Tomar said. “And that’s why LACC made our list. According to our machine learning algorithm, City College ranks high among its peers for the influence of its instructors and its alumni.”

Tomar says the ranking metric stands alone on the higher education landscape.

“(It) is free from bias, immune to manipulation, and equates academic excellence with real world achievements,” he said.

The InfluenceRanking Engine drills down and mines the information that is already out there, not create new data by surveying students, parents, professors, alumni about their opinions. It mines data sources, specifically Wikipedia and Crossref, to identify billions of mentions or references to scholars, educators and thought leaders in a particular discipline or subject.

“We don’t ask the Wikipedia editors directly ‘Which school do you think is important?’” Macosko said. “You kinda have to use the back door method to find out which ones are the best, and we think our back door method does a good job.”

Wikipedia contains an ocean of data where the academic careers of professors are on display, where they have attended and have taught. It is a free, open-collaborative online encyclopedia that is maintained by an army of volunteer contributors.

Crossref.org is a foundational infrastructure that makes research easier to find, cite, link, access and reuse, according to its website.

The InfluenceRanking Engine calculates a numerical score for people, institutions and disciplinary programs that are mentioned and documented on Wikipedia and Crossref. Where professors taught and attended school is also figured into the score.

“We also use a database of newspaper articles and other forms of publications that people publish and then other people reference,” Dr. Macosko said. “So, we kind of calculate up all those references and figure out who’s providing the most influential stuff.”

AcademicInfluence.com was created with funds from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in October 2016. AI is a partner site within the Education Access LLC group, which includes Influence Publishers, Intelligent Education and Success Partners among others. Education Access is located in Shiner, Texas. Go to academicinfluence.com/articles

BY WHITNEY GIBSON

Shirley Chisholm was the first black woman elected to Congress in 1968. Determined to represent the millions of Americans she felt were overlooked, she did what was at that time unthinkable— she ran for the highest office the nation.

LACC hosted a virtual viewing of “Chisholm ’72: Unbought and Unbossed” on March 18. The 2005 documentary was directed by Shola Lynch and reflects on Chisholm’s historic 1972 bid for the presidency as both the first black person and first woman ever to run.

The film portrays Chisholm--in vintage clips from her candidacy and interviews from later in her life-as a woman facing insurmountable opposition head-on because she believed everyone should be represented.

The film is speckled with interviews from many notable figures, like acclaimed writer Octavia Butler and California Congresswoman Barbara Lee. It highlights the steep climb black women endure on their way to Capitol Hill.

Following the viewing, there was a discussion lead by moderators and LACC professors Christina Heisser and Anika Jackson. The topics ranged from intersectionality to the erasure of black women from historical retellings.

The sentiment that Chisholm’s story is under-told seemed to resonate in the discussion forum. One anonymous person in the chat asked, “Why have I never heard of her before?”

History professor Heisser put it bluntly.

“Well, racism,” she said.

Heisser went on to expand upon black women’s erasure from the feminist movement, noting a historical trend of black women in America having a great political sway but receiving little credit for it.

Jackson, a political science professor, spoke about the electability conundrum wherein people don’t vote for women because they believe women cannot win. She also talked about advocacy groups for women who want to run for office, like Emily’s List.

What’s clear after the film and discussion is that while trailblazers like Chisholm have paved the way, women, particularly black women, still must work incredibly hard to succeed in the U.S. political system.

Kamala Harris became the first woman and first black person elected to Vice President and those intersections, being both black and a woman, carry history with them. In Vice President Harris’ election there are echoes of Chisholm’s work and what she did for the imagination of the American electorate by daring to imagine herself electable.

“Chisholm ’72: Unbought and Unbossed” is available to view on AmazonPrime.

PHOTO BY ALLIN ERIS

Food 4 Less at 5420 W. Sunset Blvd., is located 1.3 miles from LACC and will close May 15, 2021. It is one of three locations Kroger will shutter in response to the Los Angeles City Council’s March 3 vote to mandate “hero pay” for workers.

BY COLLEGIAN STAFF

The Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA) awarded the staff of the L.A. City College Collegian a 2020 Silver Crown Award. The awards recognize overall excellence in a publication. CSPA announced the awards at Columbia University via a Zoom presentation on March 19, 2021. More than 40 Gold and Silver Crowns were presented to member colleges and universities for the 2019/2020 school year. The competition began in 1982, and this is the first year the Collegian has won a Crown Award. Judges meet once a year at Columbia University to review entries in print newspaper, online, magazine and yearbook categories. There are more than 800 member schools eligible for the competition. This is a reward for all the hard work that writers, designers and photographers produce during the year. Collegian staff members have also received 18 individual Gold Circle awards for design, writing and photography since 2014 from CSPA.