Prime Spring 2021

PRIME

reclaiming hope from the daily bruin SPRING 2021

What is The Tiverton?

by Abigail Siatkowski

A conversation with @westwoodcovidstats

by Ashani Sharma

On Tovaangar

by Rania Soetirto

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PRIME CONTENTS

|

SPRING 2021

FEATURE

Q&A

and student life

@westwoodcovidstats

written by MEGAN FU

written by ASHANI SHARMA

OnlyFans, a platform often used for selling nude photos, has boomed during the pandemic. Meet one Bruin who has made $75,000 in less than a year.

Hear from the student behind the popular Instagram account that has kept the Westwood community informed about COVID-19.

6 11 The naked truth: Sex work A conversation with

COMMENTARY

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Reform, defund or abolish? written by MEGAN TAGAMI

UCLA community members, including student activists and the chief of police, reflect on the current movement surrounding law enforcement.

CAMPUS

HEALTH on the cover photo by KANISHKA MEHRA

20 A history of hands written by CHARLOTTE CHUI

Students have made strides in pushing for American Sign Language classes at UCLA. Still, Deaf and hard of hearing Bruins feel more can be done to raise awareness and promote inclusivity.

25 What is The Tiverton?

written by ABIGAIL SIATKOWSKI

The Tiverton is not like other hotels. So what is The Tiverton then – and more importantly, who is The Tiverton?

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PRIME CONTENTS

|

SPRING 2021

COMMENTARY

CAMPUS

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44

Demystifying Depop

Tutoring through troublesome times

written by BREANNA DIAZ

Thrifting has gained popularity and is paraded as a solution to fast fashion – and Depop is largely to thank. But just how ethical is the app in reality?

written by SARAH CHOUDHARY

Online learning has left many grade school students stranded, jumping over technological hurdles for their education. UCLA’s student-led tutoring groups are trying to help.

35 On pause:

Research travel during COVID-19

written by ALEXA CYR

Many graduate students looked forward to traveling while working on their dissertations. Then came COVID-19.

FEATURE

PERSONAL CHRONICLE

48 Together, alone

written by KATE GREEN

In the wake of losing her grandfather during the pandemic, writer Kate Green began to feel surprisingly closer to him.

39 On Tovaangar written by RANIA SOETIRTO

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“The dominant American narrative can be wrong. ...

(Indigenous) people still exist, live and thrive today.”

BRIDGETTE BARON / daily bruin

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS

Dear reader, Thank you for picking up a copy of PRIME’s spring issue. After a tumultuous school year, we offer you a collection of stories that reflects the highs and (many) lows of this time.

In this issue, we explore how two online platforms – OnlyFans and Depop – have changed the ways students are making money during the pandemic. Although many Bruins have been at home this year, there are still important conversations happening in the UCLA community. We explore different perspectives on law enforcement on campus, the history of activism for Deaf and hard of hearing students and stories from the Indigenous Tongva community, on whose land UCLA stands.

If you look hard enough, each article contains a kernel of hope. There’s hope for research activities to return to normal, hope for the pandemic to get better and hope for the strength to overcome immeasurable tragedy. This issue explores the action of reclaiming hope after a year of uncertainty and loss. With vaccinations on the rise and plans for an in-person fall quarter, there seems to be glimmers of hope all around now. At PRIME, hope motivates us to tell the important stories in the Westwood community.

We hope you enjoy the issue!

Justin Huwe PRIME content director

Anushka Jain PRIME director

Samantha Joseph PRIME art director

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THE

N AKED ED N AKED N AKED NAKED TRUTH: SEX WORK & STUDENT LIFE written by MEGAN FU illustrations by CAT NORDSTROM designed by ARCHIE DATTA

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ex work and pursuing a college degree have never been mutually exclusive – but especially not now.

The pandemic, and the massive job losses it has brought, have left many college students scrambling for alternative sources of income. Enter, OnlyFans.

OnlyFans, a social media platform on which users pay a monthly subscription fee to access content creators’ photos and videos, has skyrocketed in popularity since the pandemic began.

People are flocking to the site to become content creators

With unrelenting tuition prices to account for, many college students are especially in need of extra revenue at this time. Sentiments of becoming a stripper, finding a “sugar daddy” or becoming an OnlyFans creator to help pay bills have gone viral on social media.

One student posted on the UCLA Reddit page in August asking who else would be interested in starting an OnlyFans to pay for tuition, receiving 222 upvotes and a few eager replies.

OnlyFans sets the minimum monthly subscription fee at $4.99 and the maximum at $49.99, allowing creators to set their own price within this range. The average person on the platform reportedly makes around $180 per month.

While top earners on the site rake in millions monthly, many creators struggle to earn the equivalent of minimum wage.

Some UCLA students have seriously begun considering digital sex work as a viable way to cover the cost of tuition.

Recently, I spoke to one of these creators.

Since starting her OnlyFans account in August, Student A, a fourth-year student who requested anonymity because of the stigma that often still surrounds sex work, has earned a sizable $75,000.

After UCLA transitioned to remote learning and she lost her on-campus job, Student A decided to become a content creator to improve her financial position. While her main source of income comes from working with one of her parents, she hopes to invest the money from OnlyFans into

N AKED NAKED NAKED NAKED ANYONE OLDER THAN 18 CAN SIGN UP TO BECOME A CREATOR: PORN STARS, CELEBRITIES AND COLLEGE STUDENTS ALIKE.

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in order to earn either an additional source of income or replace the income of a lost job. In 2019, OnlyFans had merely 60,000 content creators. As of December, the platform now boasts more than a million creators and more than 90 million registered users.

When you visit the OnlyFans website, you’re immediately greeted by an invitation: “Sign up to make money and interact with your fans!” The loading screen prompts examples of fitness, makeup and photography accounts, but blatantly ignores the main type of content flooding the site: nudes.

Although not directly marketed as a platform for selling explicit content, OnlyFans has become synonymous with digital sex work. The site has made both accessing and selling X-rated content easier than ever before. Anyone older than 18 can sign up to become a creator: porn stars, celebrities and college students alike.

her financial future.

Upon realizing that the stay-at-home order would keep her mostly indoors, Student A felt it was the perfect opportunity to start her account and earn money from the bikini pictures she was already posting on Instagram.

“I’ve always been very open with what I post on social media already, posting bikini pics and stuff like that,” she said. “So I’m like, ... why not make money out of it?”

As she got more comfortable posting to the site, photos in bikinis escalated to photos in lingerie and then fully nude content.

At her most active, Student A said she was posting four to five times a week, spending around four hours a week doing photoshoots and filming content. But the most time-consuming part of managing her account is actually responding to messages from her subscribers, she said. It gets so hectic that sometimes she even has her friends help

N AKED NAKED NAKED AT THE PEAK OF HER ACCOUNT WHEN SHE HAD AROUND 1,000 SUBSCRIBERS, SHE RECALLED EARNING ROUGHLY $20,000 IN JUST TWO DAYS.

reply to these messages.

Chatting to her subscribers about topics as mundane as how their day was, she has earned up to $200 in tips for these paid private messages.

Student A laughed as she described the stark contrast between her OnlyFans persona versus her personality in real life. While she markets herself as extremely sexual and provocative online, Student A said she’s rather modest and reserved in person.

“That’s obviously not who I am in real life, and if anyone were to meet me, they would never guess that I have an OnlyFans,” she said.

Over the past year, she’s had a total of 2,500 monthly subscribers and posted 154 photos and videos, garnering nearly 60,000 likes. Charging each subscriber $13.99 per month, her profit quickly entered the thousands. At the peak of her account when she had around 1,000 subscribers, she recalled earning roughly $20,000 in just two days.

In her profile, Student A advertises herself as a college student selling nude pictures and explicit videos among other sexually provocative declarations.

According to a recent research article from the International Journal for Equity in Health, female sex workers still face many stigmas and get mislabeled as “criminals, immoral troublemakers, sexual deviants and vectors or reservoirs of disease.”

Challenging these misconceptions, Student A said she’s been thriving academically the past four years and plans to attend graduate school in the hopes of starting a career in the medical field.

“There are (creators) that do many different things: they run businesses, they’re engineers and they have OnlyFans,” she said. “I don’t think that having an OnlyFans means that you’re lazy or uneducated.”

However, she is currently taking a break from OnlyFans, having not posted since October. Consequently, she now only has about 250 subscribers.

When she explained the reason behind her recent inactivity, I quickly realized my preconceptions about who I was interviewing were wrong.

I expected a brazenly confident person, unapologetic about their decision to start an OnlyFans. Instead, I met someone plagued by her own dilemmas about staying on the site. She blamed this uncertainty for her recent inactivity.

“There’s phases that I go through where I don’t even log

in for weeks,” she said. “Because sometimes I’m like, ‘Is what I’m doing right?’”

Although Student A said she enjoys the freedom and flexibility of the job and how easily she can earn money from home, she worries about people’s judgments.

Although the anonymity of the platform protects her to a certain extent, she fears people she knows from real life will find the account and recognize her.

These moral conflicts affect her mental health, she said, leaving her questioning if the money she’s earning now justifies jeopardizing her future career plans. Although she’s confident that doing OnlyFans will not be a longterm source of income, she fears it could have long-term consequences and hinder her ability to work in the medical field.

“I don’t know if what I’ve done has ruined that for me,” she said.

The platform has also caused her to reevaluate her relationship with her body. She credits her breast augmentation surgery for the initial surge in Instagram followers that led her to create an OnlyFans in the first place.

Having one source of income entirely dependent on her appearance has shifted her perception of her body, she said. The shift has been both positive and negative – a double-edged sword of sorts. Earning money and constant praise for her photos has allowed her to appreciate her body’s beauty and improved her confidence, she said, but the constant scrutiny also begets an incredible amount of pressure.

“Because I have so many people looking at me, there are a lot of times where I do feel like, ‘Oh, my God. I need to look better,’” she said.

In order to maintain a figure she feels is desirable and marketable, Student A said that she is currently trying to lose weight. While she’s never received negative comments about her size, she finds it difficult to film content when she feels she looks fat.

This pressure to maintain a certain body type is very prevalent in the OnlyFans community, she explained, with some creators even resorting to plastic surgery to earn more followers. She even admitted to considering more surgery herself, but ultimately decided against it out of fear of ruining her physique.

Despite these anxieties about both her career and her body, Student A said she’s still hesitant about leaving the site for good. Although she hasn’t fully

N AKED NAKED NAKED I DON’ T KNOW IF WHAT I’ VE DONE HAS RUINED (MY CAREER) FOR ME.

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N AKED NAKED N AKED NAKED BUT IT’ S NOT REALLY FAIR TO ASSUME THAT JUST BECAUSE WE’RE HERE AT UCLA DOESN’ T MEAN GIRLS WON’ T GET INTO THESE THINGS – IT HAPPENS A LOT MORE THAN PEOPLE THINK, AND NO ONE SHOULD BE DEGRADED BECAUSE OF IT.

committed to the idea yet, she knows she has to quit eventually and aims to resign once she graduates.

“I want to have time to get my life back on track to my career,” she said. “But I’m not sure. ... It all depends on what path I take – that’ll decide if I’m going to quit or not.”

As our conversation came to a close, Student A revealed her initial hesitation about being interviewed even under the veil of anonymity. Although her boyfriend and close friends are aware of her OnlyFans work, her family is not.

She worries about their reaction, constantly playing the scenario in her head of the moment she tells them the truth.

Her family would never suspect that she has an OnlyFans, so she must decide on her own when to disclose the news, she said. While she does plan to eventually let them know, she said she wants to make as much money as she can beforehand in order to justify the risks she’s taken.

Thus, sharing her story could potentially put both her

familial relationships and future employment at risk if someone were to expose her account. Even her friend, another UCLA student with an OnlyFans, warned her against being interviewed for this story for fear of someone revealing her identity.

If this were to happen, Student A worries future employers could be reluctant to hire her or even fire her because of the stigma. Moreover, if her family hears the news from a source other than her, she would lose control over her own narrative and their reactions may be adversely affected.

However, Student A said she hopes her story can continue the work of destigmatizing sex work as a college student.

“I’m a little scared,” she said. “But it’s not really fair to assume that just because we’re here at UCLA doesn’t mean girls won’t get into these things – it happens a lot more than people think, and no one should be degraded because of it.” ♦

written by ASHANI SHARMA photo illustrations by MADDIE RAUSA designed by TRISHA PATEL

A CO NVE R S AT I O N WI T H

@westwoodcovidstats I

n late February, PRIME writer Ashani Sharma spoke to the student behind the popular Instagram account @westwoodcovidstats. The account, which has now amassed more than 4,000 followers, has been a consistent source of information about COVID cases in Westwood. The student, who requested anonymity because of fear of online backlash, posted daily updates on new cases, total case numbers and total deaths from the virus in Westwood, in addition to general public health information.

The following is a Q&A between @westwoodcovidstats and Sharma with edits for length and clarity.

On launching the Instagram account: I started Westwood COVID Stats because, during the summer second wave of the pandemic, I noticed that many people my age were either actively flaunting the rules or they

weren’t really grasping the severity of the virus. And I think part of that was, at the time, there was some fatigue from being locked down during ... the whole spring quarter, and it was summer so people naturally wanted to go out and enjoy the school break.

But I also think there was a larger problem, especially among young people in particular, who were growing desensitized to the data coming out of the county and the country as a whole. Because when you hear these countywide or statewide data that’s in the thousands and millions month after month, it can be very far fetched, especially when you’re also hearing that young people are the least vulnerable to

the virus.

I wanted to publish daily cases on a smaller scale, in a way that people could easily identify with, and inform UCLA students living in Westwood on how the coronavirus was impacting our neighborhood. These aren’t some obscurely large numbers you read in headlines or hear on the news; every case registered is a potential friend, classmate, neighbor or a worker you interact with at Ralphs. ...

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These aren’t some obscurely large numbers you read in headlines or hear on the news; every case registered is a potential friend, classmate, neighbour or a worker you interact with at Ralphs.

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As a rising senior at the time, there was also a sense of urgency to the matter because I was still clinging on to what now would be considered a kind of naive belief that there would be some hybrid or in-person instruction or even like graduation, and I knew the only way that would happen is if students got it together and helped curb the pandemic.

On compiling data and case numbers: We live in an age where information is very instantaneous in nature, and people also want information that’s easily shareable. ... Few people our age willingly read press releases or listen to press conferences, so by distilling those lengthy health orders and public health advice into easily read, shareable graphics, I am conveying what the experts have been saying all along but in a way that is more communicable to young people.

The day-to-day motions of posting the data starts with going to the

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LA County Department of Public Health website, going to the COVID-19 dashboard, and then heading to the locations and demographics tab. LA County actually publishes neighborhood-specific data every day, but it doesn’t track daily changes – so if I visited the site today and it said that Westwood had 3,000 cases, tomorrow it would just say 3,014, so had I not checked the day before, I would not know how many new cases there were. I think that’s also one of the great things about the account because it kind of fills the gap of what the county site doesn’t have space to include.

But the great thing was that by continuing the project, the data would speak for itself.

On receiving backlash from other Bruins: There are times when the account has also received backlash, especially in the beginning. ... Initially there were more instances where sometimes

I would see comments like, “Well, isn’t this just the flu?” (or) “Oh, these cases don’t mean anything,” just all sorts of denying the severity of the pandemic.

But the great thing was that by continuing the project, the data would speak for itself. ...

There were a lot more mixed responses in the beginning just

because the following base was more diverse – and now, time has passed and people know what the account does.

And that’s the sad thing too, about social media, people who don’t want to see this stuff just unfollow. ...

That’s the challenge that everybody’s facing now – sometimes it’s hard to get people to listen to what you have to say because they just don’t agree with the fundamentals of it. There’s not much more I can do about that.

There’s a mixed response to it.

Sometimes there are people who also DM and say slightly more

hateful and inflammatory things, and in the beginning it’s a little bit hard to deal with that because you’re just starting out. This is your initiative, of course you want to protect it. And that’s also why anonymity is important to me, just because I’m starting an initiative, not a war. I want to protect myself to some extent.

What I told myself at the time was that as this goes on, things will change and the account’s merits will speak for themselves.

On UCLA’s response to the pandemic: I think there are a number of things UCLA has done in terms of informing the student body that have been effective – maybe a little bit slow towards the beginning. They did have a COVID dashboard, but in

the beginning it was infrequently updated and also there wasn’t much detail to show. That was actually the main reason why I used the county data because the county data was a lot more comprehensively represented than the UCLA data.

Sometimes I do get questions about this, “Why don’t you just focus on UCLA students?” … Westwood is also not just students. There are elderly (people) living there, (and) there are workers. These people are our neighbors. They may not be students, but they are still our neighbors.

accountable as I think most students would like.

While they seem to have put a structure in place – there’s a whistleblower hotline, the two-tier offense system – there have been just so many incidents where the evidence is overwhelming. There are time-stamped videos of people having parties, oftentimes posted by the violators themselves, so you can see the name of this person who’s making the infraction. Students see this and they think, “OK, if I report this, surely something’s going to happen,” ... but

If they get COVID, every case still matters. There are cases where people have died in this neighborhood, and that’s your neighbor dying, not some remote number or remote figure. ...

In terms of handling (social distancing) violations, I definitely think that’s one major thing the school has fallen short of because they have not been holding students who have been violating COVID rules as

still nothing happens.

The lack of action on UCLA’s part is really disappointing, especially when other universities like NYU or Northwestern have taken way more decisive action. Because it’s not really about punishment. There is no amount of suspension that would absolve someone of spreading the virus that (could) potentially cause someone’s death. ... People can die.

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People are dying because of your actions.

On running the account as an international student: There have been moments of selfdoubt because I felt like, I’m not an American, so what kind of credibility do I have or what position am I in to tell Americans how to fight the pandemic? And the first thing I quickly

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I know people who are mask deniers. I know people who don’t take this seriously. I have my own family members who think this way.

realized was just because I am an international (student) or an immigrant, doesn’t mean I care any less about Westwood or the place I live in.

In many ways, immigrants and foreigners often don’t get a voice in America.

We don’t get to vote.

We don’t get to shape how things are, so I am grateful that I’ve founded this thing where my voice can make a contribution to my community. ...

I am originally from Hong Kong, which had a SARS coronavirus outbreak in 2003, so I’ve lived through this even though I was very small. The city of Hong Kong tackled this very quickly, and life returned to normal within a year. ... When I see that and I think back on my experience and I look at what we’re facing now and the experience I have

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now, it’s a much starker picture to me.

It was that kind of perspective that gave me the drive and the urgency to really let people know that the pandemic is happening at an alarming rate. Even now as cases are going down, America should never have been in this position. We absolutely cannot afford to normalize this at all. So I think also having that perspective keeps me going sometimes because I see the way that my family (is) living back home. That’s the other side, and I want us, I want Westwood, to get to the other side too.

On personal relationships changing after creating the account: I know people who are mask deniers. I know people don’t take this seriously. I have my own family members who think this way. Seeing that as well, with all the information I have, I definitely take it a lot more seriously than they do. But also it’s really cool because when I try to convince them or argue with them, I have this huge bank of information that I can point-by-point list out.

Usually by halfway, they’re like, “OK, we’ll wear the mask probably” or “OK, we won’t go have dinner with those people,” so I think that’s also a good thing.

On communicating with people directly about COVID-19 concerns: I do get a lot of DMs on Instagram as well, where people are just asking for neighborhood advice. I try to help them as much as I can, like sometimes I do extra research on whatever concerns these people who are DMing me have, but there are times when there are just answers that I cannot give.

Some people will be like, “Do you know why deaths are increasing?” ...

Or there are people who will maybe sometimes go into some very personal roommate situations and I do feel like I’m kind of a Grandmother Willow, struggling to really be helpful in those scenarios because I know some things are not mine to say.

On the account’s trajectory for the remainder of the pandemic: @westwoodcovidstats will be here until somebody from the (World Health Organization) says that the pandemic is over. ... Even though I’m graduating, I do have plans to have UCLA students take this over and continue these efforts. I’m actually still going to be living in Westwood next year, so this will still be very, very personal for me. I have no doubt that this will continue to give necessary information and let whoever needs to see it, see it. ♦

REFORM, DEFUND OR ABOLISH? written by MEGAN TAGAMI photos by LAUREN MAN designed by EMMA COTTER

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fter seven and half hours of detainment, Jodi Scofield stepped out of a hot bus and into a desolate Jackie Robinson Stadium. It was 2 a.m., and only UCLA’s signature blue and gold street signs looked familiar. Otherwise, she was completely disoriented.

“We ... didn’t realize that we were on UCLA property until we happened to see the colors,” Scofield said. “I remember looking up and seeing that street sign and going, ‘Am I at UCLA? Where am I?’” Scofield, a graduate student, ended up at Jackie Robinson Stadium after being detained by LAPD on the afternoon of June 1. Scofield had attended a Black Lives Matter protest in downtown LA, intending to use her privilege as a white woman to shield protesters of color, she said. She soon found herself cornered by the LAPD and was subsequently handcuffed and sent on a bus to an undisclosed location.

For almost eight hours, Scofield was then left to wait – and worry. As a masters student and mother, Scofield feared that, if arrested, she would not only be unable to continue her academic career, but would also have to explain her detainment to her child, who is seven years old and half Native American.

In addition to detainment, other students dealt with physical harm inflicted by police at the summer protests.

Joshua Abrams, a third-year public affairs student, attended Black Lives Matter protests in San Bernardino and Riverside in May and June. Police shot rubber bullets at him while he marched, he said. Though Abrams was

angry, he was not surprised. This conflict was not the first time he had been targeted by the police.

Abrams, who is Black, first encountered the police at age 16, when an officer approached him as he left his high school campus. At the time, Abrams did not understand why the officer stopped him to ask if he had gone into a nearby liquor store. Later, he found out that the police were looking for a white man and woman who had caused a disruption in the store.

“That was my first instance when a cop was supposed to be looking for a white male in a hoodie, but ... targeted a 6-foot-1 Black kid on a skateboard,” Abrams reflected.

Abrams encountered the police once more in high school and an additional time when he was a freshman in college.

Abrams felt the police were targeting him, especially when

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they pulled him over for a relatively minor issue: not having a license plate light in Newport Beach. Abrams said he was never aware a car had a license plate light, much less that not having one was an offense.

Abrams said he believed the police officers who previously stopped him likely assumed that, because he is Black, he was doing something illegal.

“I was so mad at the time, I was like, ‘They’re not supposed to be doing this, they’re not supposed to be doing this,’” Abrams said. “But, you see, Black kids like me on the news, they’re getting shot for aggressiveness and disobeying the officers.”

Alicia Virani sees experiences like those of Abrams and Scofield as signs that the law enforcement system needs to change. Virani, the director of the UCLA School of Law’s criminal justice program, has seen firsthand how the criminal legal system has negatively impacted a family member who struggled with substance abuse.

Virani, who is South Asian, said she strongly supports divesting from police forces and reinvesting in traditionally underserved communities. Over the summer, this idea became popularized under the phrase “Defund the police.”

Calls for defunding the police have taken different forms throughout the country. In November, LA County voters approved Measure J, which allocates 10% of the county’s locally generated, unrestricted funding to social services supporting communities affected by racism. The money cannot be spent on prisons, jails or law enforcement agencies, according to the Los Angeles Times. The People’s Budget LA has also called for greater cuts in the LAPD’s budget in favor of greater investments in universal aid and crisis management.

At the university level, Virani hopes to invest more money in Black scholarship, Black faculty and student counseling services. After learning about LAPD’s use of Jackie Robinson Stadium to detain protesters over the summer, Virani joined the UCLA faculty’s Divest/Invest Collective, which advocates for the removal of police forces from all UC campuses.

“UCLA is a small city in and of itself,” Virani said. “If we can show that there’s another way for us to both define safety and then to really uphold safety ... rather than relying on law enforcement, I think it would be an incredible way of showing the rest of the country that this is possible.”

While many students and professors called for fundamental and external changes to police forces, UCLA

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chief of police Tony Lee saw the summer protests as an opportunity to create positive change from within the UCPD. Lee, who is Asian American, is currently working to have Counseling and Psychological Services respond to mentalhealth-related issues, rather than police forces. He also hopes to develop a public safety ambassador program to address lowlevel incidents, such as vandalism or stolen property, that do not require uniformed officers.

Lee said his dedication to student safety stems from his role as both an officer and father of two former UCLA students.

“One of the things I looked at, and this is the parental hat that I wear, is that I’m sending my children to UCLA, and I want to make sure that they’re safe, that they’re going to be learning in a very safe environment,” Lee said.

Lee said he was infuriated after learning about the death of George Floyd and supported people’s rights to protest peacefully in response. But he also felt hurt when he saw students’ strong pushback against UCPD. While he has previously encountered public opposition to policing, Lee said the most recent calls for change have been the strongest he has ever seen.

Lee was disappointed when he saw a banner over Ackerman Union this summer with the abbreviation, “ACAB,” which stands for “All cops are bastards.” Lee found the banner especially disheartening because he knows that many of his officers are UCLA graduates and take pride in protecting the community.

On the other hand, Scofield sees a pressing need to address how local police forces

At the end of the day, no one should have to feel unsafe ever on our campus.

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undermine UCLA’s claims of creating a diverse, welcoming community.

“As students, I understand we have a different set of ways that we approach equity, but at the end of the day, no one should have to feel unsafe ever on our campus,” Scofield said.

Following her detainment at Jackie Robinson Stadium, Scofield was furious.

“Standing there, being forced to stand there, being held captive by the state, that experience should never happen,” Scofield said.

Scofield’s strong support for the abolition of the police goes beyond the events of the summer. At the age of 14, Scofield witnessed the death of her brother, who was half-Black, at the hands of the police in Washington, D.C. Watching her brother as she was unable to help him shaped Scofield’s stance against the police.

“There was no reason for his death, outside of his race,” Scofield said. “There was no reason for (the police) to leave him lying there for as long as they did, to bleed out, essentially.”

Abrams said he feels unsure about abolishing the police altogether. However, he supports reappropriating some funding away from police forces to underserved communities, particularly to support education instead.

Abrams also wants people to look beyond the deaths and incarceration of Black individuals and understand the institutional problems underlying police forces.

“People are looking at the condition, but they’re not looking at the roots,” Abrams said.

“The roots are the unconscious bias that police have.”

Abrams’ calls for action not only stem from his personal experiences with the police, but also from his memories of Alton Sterling. Sterling, a Black man, was shot in 2016 by two Baton Rouge police officers while selling CDs outside of a convenience store. Officers

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understanding of the racial biases in police forces.

“It always hits home, every time you see a Black person (who) gets shot or killed,” Abrams said. “But knowing that you might work face-to-face with the person and you interact with the person, that’s when it’s like, wow, you know this is real.”

While Abrams and Scofield’s views on police forces have been informed by personal experiences, they have both faced opposing arguments from their peers.

Scofield, who is also in a graduate program at California State University, Los Angeles, noticed her peers at UCLA and Cal State LA diverge in their ideal approach to policing.

While her classmates at Cal State LA strongly support abolishing the police, her UCLA peers tend to favor diversifying and reforming existing law enforcement systems. Scofield does not always agree with her UCLA peers’ pushback against abolition, but she also recognizes the importance of speaking mindfully and considering the impact of her words on people of color.

“When you speak a rhetoric that is anti-police, kind of anti-institution, especially if you’re white ... your words carry weight,” Scofield said.

“They are going to incense or upset the police or the institution, and the folks who will feel that burden will be the folks of color.”

Abrams also faced challenges to his views on the need for racial justice and reform. Some of his friends made excuses for the recent deaths of Black people at the hands of the police.

Enraged by their dismissive attitudes, Abrams said those who opposed the 2020 protests could not understand what it is like to be a Black man in America. He said protesting felt akin to fighting back against a bully after being punched again and again.

“You’re crying, you’re yelling, nobody’s saying anything,” Abrams said. “So you fight back. ... You act crazy. And you want something done.”

Tyler Chute recognizes and understands calls for change, he said. However, he had a hard time hearing strong rhetoric broadly condemning police officers over the summer. Chute, a second-year political science student, is the son of a police commander in the Pasadena Police

You see, Black kids like me on the news, they’re getting shot for aggressiveness and disobeying the officers.

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claimed Sterling was reaching for a handgun in his pocket when they began shooting.

Abrams remembers buying a CD from Sterling — Lil Wayne’s “I Am Not a Human Being” — around 2010.

Although Abrams was in California when he learned of Sterling’s death, the news of the shooting reinforced his

Department.

“When I hear things like all cops are bad, it’s hard when I understand the intention behind it, but my dad is also part of that community, and I know he’s someone that has always supported the proper administration of justice,” Chute said.

At the same time, Chute, who is white, voiced his full support for the Black Lives Matter movement and believes some police units acted with excessive force against protesters over the summer. To show solidarity with the movement, he delivered water to protesters in his hometown over the summer.

However, neither Chute nor Lee support the abolition of the police. Lee said he does not support defunding the UCPD, citing significant increases in crime in cities that have cut their police budgets.

He also said that, despite the growing UCLA population, the size of the UCPD has remained the same, and that cuts in funding would only exacerbate the challenges of recruiting officers and maintaining services.

Chute supports providing more funding to mental health and rehabilitation services to lessen the burdens and demands placed on police officers. He also hopes to create his own change within the justice system by pursuing a career in the field of law.

“As someone that’s been on both sides of the issue, it’s just hard to pick. It’s not such a black and white issue,” Chute said. “You hear both sides, but it’s trying to find something that meets in the middle, that gets the most positive results for everybody involved.”

Although Virani favors defunding the police, she also wants to find a solution that can support all community members.

She said defunding the police includes not only shrinking police departments but also committing to a just transition.

A just transition, Virani explained, includes helping officers relocate to new careers, thus ensuring

they are not without jobs and their families are not left unstable. She also said it is important to recognize the trauma that members of law enforcement have experienced, while also discussing how transitions away from police forces can realistically happen.

“I would hope that as people learn more, ... we really see that there are other ways of doing things,” Virani said. “I hope that students who are within families that have law enforcement don’t get mired in inactivity or in guilt ... but that they really choose to take action.”

Scofield has also learned to navigate opposing views and experiences that contradict her

“

I hope that students who are within families that have law enforcement don’t get mired in inactivity or in guilt … but that they really choose to take action. own ideas about law enforcement. Rather than feeling discouraged, Scofield sees conversations with her peers as an integral learning opportunity.

“The biggest growing experience I’ve had over the summer is really ... being conscious in what you say and how you say it and representing your own ideals and separating yourselves from organizations or people around you,” Scofield said. ♦

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A HISTORY

two pag

20

Y OF HANDS

ge illo

written by CHARLOTTE CHUI

illustrations by MADDIE RAUSA designed by ANNIE BOU

I

n the rectangular Zoom window, American Sign Language lecturer Benjamin Lewis held up his open right hand in front of him, with his pinky closer to the camera. He splayed out his five fingers – or at least, that’s how it appeared on the laptop screen.

“If I sign this, you only have one view of this,” Lewis signed, which was interpreted by ASL interpreter Mariam Janvelyan. “I have to turn to the side, so you have the other view of it because you can’t actually tell what I’m doing.”

He turned to the side, revealing that what looked like an open hand was actually his first four fingers splayed out, thumb folded in. He touched his pointer finger to his chin, signing “speak” in ASL. When he reverted back to facing the camera head-on, the sign for speak was almost indistinguishable from the sign for mom – he demonstrated the latter with an open hand and his thumb touching his chin.

In the 2D world of Zoom, teaching a 3D language like ASL can be challenging. But even without new difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, ASL classes have greatly evolved from UCLA’s ASL class offerings 10 years ago.

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“EDUCATION” The calls to action to have ASL classes at UCLA started in fall 2010, when UCLA alumnus Asad Ramzanali wrote a Daily Bruin Opinion column calling upon the university to offer ASL. The column led to an interest survey, and soon, Ramzanali had collected enough student signatures to submit an appeal for ASL classes to thenDean of Humanities Tim Stowell, a professor emeritus of linguistics.

In 2012, UCLA hired Lewis, who is Deaf, and the linguistics department began offering introductory ASL classes in the fall.

Janvelyan, who is a UCLA alumna, took the first three courses in the ASL pilot program with Lewis. After her first year of ASL, Janvelyan planned to continue with ASL to fulfill the two-year language requirement for her linguistics major but then hit a roadblock: UCLA had no ASL classes for levels four to six.

Janvelyan, who is hearing, spoke with Ramzanali and then started her own change.org petition, demanding that UCLA offer intermediate ASL classes. The petition eventually garnered 336 signatures. In fall 2013, UCLA began offering ASL 4, with ASL 5 and ASL 6 following in winter and spring, and permanently funding ASL classes.

However, before UCLA began officially offering ASL classes, one organization attempted to fill that niche. In 2011, UCLA alumnus and former Daily Bruin copy editor Moses Sumney founded Humans Establishing Awareness Regarding Deafness, or HEARD. According to Janvelyan, who joined HEARD as a freshman in 2011, the club focused heavily on teaching ASL. During meetings, HEARD leadership picked a different theme each week, such as family, and taught signs relating to the theme. Janvelyan said while these club activities may seem innocuous to people not in the Deaf community, she pointed out the club’s controversial beginnings: nonnative, hearing people teaching ASL. Although Lewis believes anyone can learn and use ASL, he questioned how a nonfluent, hearing person without knowledge of Deaf culture can fully teach it. He strongly cautioned against teaching ASL without this knowledge – especially if someone culturally appropriates or seeks to

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profit from it.

In his own ASL classes, Lewis’ perspective as a person who is Deaf comes into play, as he infuses Deaf culture and customs into lessons, rather than only teaching the language.

“Learning the language isn’t really complete without actually experiencing the language in real life,” Lewis said. “And to be able to do so, you have to have a basic understanding of what it means to be Deaf, what it means to hang out with Deaf people.”

When UCLA began offering ASL in 2012, the club shifted its focus from teaching to practicing and socializing in ASL instead. As a social club, they attended Deaf coffee chats, invited a deaf comedian to UCLA and held fundraisers. Janvelyan also changed the name from HEARD to Hands On. “A lot of time, the Deaf community doesn’t like to focus on the hearing aspect of being deaf,” Janvelyan said. “Deaf people don’t really care about that part, so I felt like Hands On was more representative of using your hands to sign.”

Given the absence of ASL classes in 2011, Hands On’s creation reflected students’ interest in ASL and the need for a space that didn’t exist in the UCLA community yet.

Ten years later, Hands On remains a unique space on campus, as the university’s only ASL club. Mark-Anthony Valentín, a second-year pre-human biology and society student and current Hands On president, was drawn to Hands On when visiting the club fair during his freshman year.

Hands On provides resources for people interested in ASL and Deaf culture, but the club doesn’t teach ASL, Valentín said. They aren’t certified interpreters or instructors, so they encourage people to sign up for ASL classes instead.

Additionally, Valentín checks in with Lewis to ensure the club isn’t overstepping its role.

“Essentially, (the club’s) purpose was meant to sort of fill a void,” said Valentín, who is a CODA – child of deaf adults – and is hard of hearing.

It’s not to say that Deaf students don’t come to UCLA,” Janvelyan said.

“It’s just, it’s not as welcome or inclusive or inviting as a place like CSUN, which we’re working to change.”

“Please don’t assume that one deaf person represents all deaf people,” Lewis said. “I love being Deaf, I’m very proud of being Deaf, but there’s another person who might not have that strong pride or identity as I do. It’s not that they’re wrong or I’m wrong or right or what have you – it’s just our perspectives vary because of our individual experiences.”

“AWARENESS” Second-year sociology student Monique Sims, who is deaf, said she’s received many backhanded or ignorant comments about deafness during her time at UCLA. Some comments she’s received – such as “I would never be deaf” and “I don’t know how you do it” – laud Sims for her strength as a deaf person and rest on the assumption that her deafness is a burden.

“It’s more that we’re in a society that just isn’t accessible to us,” Sims said. “Obviously I have my struggles with it, but in my opinion, I love it so much. I have my community.”

Once, for a creative writing class, she wrote a story about a deaf person, sharing her own experiences from a thirdperson perspective. During the critique session, a classmate offered her some advice: “‘If you’re going to write about a deaf person, make sure to do your research.’”

Because Sims attends UCLA, does well academically and speaks “decently,” some assume she is smarter or can hear more than other deaf people. This comparison discredits their struggles, Sims said, and reveals how others have a difficult time conceptualizing how deaf people learn, function and act.

First-year physics student Christy Ma, who is deaf, said people are largely ignorant about disabilities. Some have asked Ma if she needed a wheelchair – which she was baffled by – and a restaurant offered Ma’s sister, who is also deaf, a Braille menu. Others asked if she can tell when people are yawning, how she drives or how she gets dressed in the morning.

“I say ignorance, but I don’t mean that in a derisive way – it’s just sincerely that kind of not knowing,” Ma said. “It’s not something that ends. It’s in personal conversations or just talking with people, getting to know them, posting about it.”

While discussing their views, Lewis, Ma and Sims were all careful to note the heterogeneity among deaf people and emphasize that they only speak for themselves, not everyone in the Deaf community. While Lewis was born deaf to deaf parents, which shapes his own views and experiences, he pointed out that some people become deaf later in life or may be born to hearing parents, for example.

“COMMUNITY” According to an emailed statement from the Center for Accessible Education Director Norma Kehdi, approximately 45 to 55 deaf and hard of hearing students are registered with CAE as of February. Additionally, Kehdi reported that this year, the “number of deaf students (or students with severe hearing loss; those who qualify for, and use captioning or ASL) roughly doubled in comparison to last year and prior years.”

Despite an increase of deaf students in the past year, this number pales in comparison to a school such as California State University, Northridge, which has more than 220 hard of hearing and deaf students, despite its smaller student population.

Janvelyan said the vast majority of the students in ASL classes are hearing people who want to learn ASL – that’s not where Deaf community goes. Valentín added most Hands On members are hearing as well, estimating that only about 15% of this year’s members are part of the Deaf or hard of hearing community.

In hopes of gaining a sense of community, Sims contacted CAE and asked them to pass along her phone number to any other deaf and hard of hearing Bruins. She said her own initiative is the only reason she ended up meeting her deaf and hard of hearing friends at UCLA. Is there another way to meet deaf and hard of hearing people at UCLA? If there is, Sims said she doesn’t know of one.

“It’s not to say that deaf students don’t come to UCLA,” Janvelyan said. “It’s just, it’s not as welcome or inclusive or inviting as a place like CSUN, which we’re working to change. That’s why we want to offer more classes, so more people know sign language, so it becomes a deaf-friendly space.”

Given the diversity within the Deaf community, Lewis

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stressed the importance of hiring more ASL instructors.

Just as any language has regional accents or slang, ASL has the same heterogeneity that reflects the diversity of the Deaf community and culture.

“I’m one white male representative,” Lewis said. “That’s not good enough. We need diversity. It’s not enough to represent the community. We need more people of color, we need people with different identities, different backgrounds.”

Hiring only one ASL instructor also limits the number of students who can enroll, which is further exacerbated by the high demand for ASL classes. For example, ASL 1 is only offered in the fall, with only 40 seats spread across two lectures.

Janvelyan said that while ASL 1 through ASL 6 laid the foundation of her ASL education, two years aren’t enough to get a student fluent in any language, especially if they hope to one day become an interpreter, as she did, or communicate with deaf family members.

Lewis compared UCLA’s program to CSUN’s, which offers a bachelor’s degree in Deaf studies, and University of California, San Diego, which employed nine ASL instructors as of 2018 and offers a language studies minor with a concentration in ASL. UCSD is the only other UC school besides UCLA to regularly offer ASL classes. No UC campus offers a full ASL program.

In addition to hiring more instructors and adding more ASL classes at UCLA, Lewis hopes to eventually offer an ASL major or start by offering an ASL minor first.

Third-years statistics student Abby Irby, world arts and cultures student Molly Vendig and art student Rowan O’Bryan – a group comprised of hearing and hard of hearing students currently taking ASL – set up an appointment with Dean of Humanities David Schaberg to discuss creating an ASL minor and department and also sent out a petition to gauge student interest, Irby said.

24

“

Each language has its own place to be, so why doesn’t ASL?” According to their survey, 95.3% of respondents wanted more ASL classes to be offered, with 64.5% expressing interest in an ASL minor and 36% in an ASL major. On March 5, they presented this data to Schaberg, who provided logistical information and next steps for an ASL minor and program, Irby said. At best, it could take around two years before an ASL minor comes to fruition, Irby added.

Lewis said he appreciates the support of the linguistics department, which currently houses ASL, but added that he thinks the ASL program is starting to outgrow the relationship.

“Spanish and Portuguese has its own department,” Lewis said. “Each language has its own place to be, so why doesn’t ASL?” In addition to ASL classes, Lewis also teaches ASL M115: ”Enforcing Normalcy.” Lewis said because UCLA has a strong medical school, this perspective seeps into how the UCLA community often views deafness: a medical condition that needs to be cured. Lewis shares a different lens to view disability in ASL M155, and after taking his class, Lewis said many of his students said he changed their perspectives. “(The UCLA community’s) vision of disability, their perspective of disability is that disabled people have to be cured, they have to be fixed, whereas those of us in the Deaf community do not want to be cured,” Lewis said. “We want to be different. We love and cherish and value our identity.

We like being Deaf. We do not want to become hearing. We don’t want to eradicate our deafness.” ♦

What is The Tiverton? written by ABIGAIL SIATKOWSKI

T

photos by KANISHKA MEHRA

he Tiverton hides about halfway between Ralphs and the Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden.

On the outside, it’s plain. It’s not big, nor does it stand out to passersby. It only has 100 rooms, and it’s hidden behind an array of leafy trees. The offwhite exterior with seafoam green accents is muted in comparison to the harsh red brick buildings on the other side of the intersection.

Inside, the hotel offers amenities such as a continental breakfast, an art collection, a library and a lounge featuring a big-screen television. According to its guests, it’s pretty great. Sixty-five percent of Google reviews for The Tiverton award it five stars.

“It’s almost as good as staying at home,” wrote one reviewer.

“The staff are always so nice and willing to help with anything you may need,” wrote another.

Peter Ji, the general manager of The Tiverton, is humble about his work. When talking about his job, he hardly refers to himself. It’s always about the staff and residents.

“We will do everything we can to accommodate people

designed by INDYA DONOVAN

who really need our service here,” Ji said.

To be clear, The Tiverton is not a resort – or any type of place that would be frequented by vacationers, for that matter. It’s a hotel designed for patients and families receiving medical treatment at UCLA. So when Ji says he always strives to accommodate residents, he’s referring to much more than room service and housekeeping. His eyes are on bigger tasks, such as providing an extra refrigerator for a guest whose medication must be kept cold or securing financial assistance for a patient who needs to stay there but can’t afford it on their own.

Ji has worked in hospitality for around 30 years but said The Tiverton is different from other hotels.

A native of China, Ji began his career in the hospitality industry in his home country. When he moved to the United States in 1990, he continued to work in the field, including a run in the hotel mecca that is Las Vegas.

But in 2004, Ji began working at The Tiverton, which is one of several hotels belonging to UCLA. When the previous general manager left in 2010, Ji ascended to the

25

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position.

The Tiverton isn’t where patients go for doctor’s appointments and surgical procedures – it’s where they stay in between them.

Donna Iverson was one such patient.

For Iverson, The Tiverton served as an intermediary residence while she recovered from acute myeloid leukemia. She was discharged from inpatient care at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center on Dec. 9 after receiving a bone marrow transplant.

However, she had to stay within 30 miles of the hospital until Jan. 30, because of the high risk of complications associated with her condition. Her home in Ventura,

California, sits about 55 miles away from the medical center.

That’s where The Tiverton comes in. During December and January, it was Iverson’s home.

Iverson said she appreciated a number of The Tiverton’s amenities, from the hospital shuttle to the outdoor patio where her daughters took her dogs to visit her as she recovered. Iverson is a dog lover, after all. She cares for dogs professionally when she’s at home through her business Walkabout Ventura.

When Iverson was diagnosed with leukemia in June, it was the fourth time doctors detected cancer in her body. The first was in 2002, when she wrestled with breast cancer. Her

youngest daughter, Julia Iverson, was two years old at the time. Then in 2009, it was metastatic breast cancer and, in 2012, incurable nonHodgkin lymphoma.

“I don’t really remember a life where my mom wasn’t dealing with some sort of illness,” said Rachel Iverson, Donna Iverson’s eldest daughter.

However, Donna Iverson recalled being impressed by UCLA’s care – in her words, “over-the-moon impressed” – from the start.

Iverson said she’s never had to wait long for responses to emails she sends her team of physicians, and whenever she’s needed an emergency appointment, they’ve always made sure to fit her in the

“

To be clear, The Tiverton is not a resort. Or any type of place that would be frequented by vacationers, for that matter.

27

schedule. In fact, at the hospital, she considers herself a VIP. Frequently, Iverson describes herself as more than just a patient.

At The Tiverton, patients stay with close friends and family who can serve as caregivers. She and her caregivers are like sorority sisters, Iverson said.

Iverson’s doctors worked with The Tiverton to ensure that she always had access to the care she needed.

Her oncologist, Wanxing Chai-Ho, said that The Tiverton allows physicians to keep high-risk patients close enough to the hospital to accommodate their frequent appointments.

Because Los Angeles is so spread out, she said, it wouldn’t be possible to make sure patients are always safe if they go directly to their own homes

28

after treatment.

As a physician, Chai-Ho is constantly in a position of caring for others and enjoys forming lasting relationships with many of her patients. Her relationship with The Tiverton is that as well – lasting.

“So we have this contract between the hospital administrative and (The Tiverton) to support our patient,” she said. “This is a long-term partnership.”

Ellen Haddigan Durgun, the senior executive director of development and hospital initiatives at UCLA Health, said that The Tiverton helps patients feel their lives are closer to what they would be at home with its kitchen.

Instead of going out to eat every night, residents can use the kitchen to cook their own meals. As the UCLA

employee who coordinates with hospital donors, she said she’s also helped distribute gift cards for grocery stores such as Ralphs to patients staying at The Tiverton.

Sometimes, donors are the families of former patients at the medical center who want to give back to the hospital. Noah Green, the assistant director of patient care programs, said The Tiverton’s game room was funded by such a donor.

The contributor set up a memorial fund for his son, specifically to benefit The Tiverton as a thank-you for accommodating the child during his illness, Green said. The money the donor gave was used to purchase a foosball table, an air hockey table, a basketball hoop and a PlayStation for

“

Well, I don’t know who’s the patient and who’s the caregiver here.

29

“

So we have this contract between the hospital administrative and (The Tiverton) to support our patient,” she said. “This is a long-term partnership.”

residents to use.

In a typical year, The Tiverton’s staff hosts events where residents and their families can gather, such as Christmas, Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day parties, Ji said. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, The Tiverton has had to halt such activities for the foreseeable future.

But Iverson still found ways to make her stay at The Tiverton enjoyable, she said. She’s had what she refers to as “high tea at The Tiverton.” When one of her caregivers brought over a tea set, they decided to have their own tea party, complete with not only beverages but finger sandwiches, fruit and cookies as well.

Because her immune system is so severely damaged and she was so exhausted, Iverson was hardly able to leave her room, she said. The occasions she could leave, however, were always exciting. Because of ongoing construction at The Tiverton in January, her daughters weren’t able to see her much, but on Christmas Day, they came over and sat on the patio for a full Christmas dinner, Iverson said.

“It was ... as normal as it could be,” Rachel Iverson said.

“And I really appreciated that.”

Though the COVID-19 pandemic has affected their ability to physically be with their mom every step of the way, Iverson’s daughters make a point of doing what they can, whether that be by trying to understand her disease and treatment or driving her to appointments, Julia Iverson said. Rachel Iverson said, when her mom was at The Tiverton, she particularly enjoyed video chatting with her to show her their dogs’ latest shenanigans.

There are times when watching their mother’s fight with the disease is hard for the girls too.

There’s always something to worry about, Julia Iverson said. Being apart from her mom meant she was always wondering how she was doing and whether she was well taken care of, she said.

While she was at The Tiverton, Iverson lived with two, somewhat nontraditional, caregivers: Julie Russell, her sister-in-law, during the first half, and Debbie Boross, her

30

friend, for the latter half.

Although they spent most of their time in the room, which was small and packed to the brim with their belongings, Boross said that she and Iverson made their stay fun. They weren’t living as caregiver and patient, but rather, as sisters, she said. Specifically, the kind of sisters who stay awake until 2 a.m., talking about life, politics, children, grandchildren and men, Boross said.

“Well, I don’t know who’s the patient and who’s the caregiver here,” Boross said.

Although Iverson has used her fight with cancer to bring her closer to her friends and family, Chai-Ho said how isolating it can be to have the disease during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Currently, patients are only allowed to have one essential family member with them for their appointments, which means that many receive their diagnoses in the absence of some of the people who are the most important to them.

But at the same time, emotional support from friends and family is crucial in a battle with cancer, Chai-Ho said.

Over at The Tiverton, Ji tries to maintain relationships with his residents, even as he juggles the daily stressors that come with being the general manager. As he walks the halls, he always says hello to those who are passing through, he said. However, fewer people are leaving their rooms now because of the pandemic, he said.

But this hasn’t stopped him – he just makes sure to remain socially distant from patients as they converse.

Even without a pandemic, Ji’s relationships with residents at The Tiverton are never quite the same as his relationships with guests at a typical hotel, namely because the phrase “We hope you stay with us again soon” is not a part of the vocabulary.

“Here, people have had a lot to deal with at the hospital, and the most difficult part, the saddest part is that, when they check out, I cannot tell them that they will come back,” he said. “I don’t wish to say that to them because they really don’t want to come back.” ♦

written by BREANNA DIAZ illustrations by KATIE FREI designed by GEORGIA SMITH

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P

icture this: You’re standing between the racks of your neighborhood Goodwill, lit up by the overhead fluorescent bulbs. If you’re lucky, rifling through old and somewhat unsightly clothes pays off when you find that one-of-a-kind garment, something that rides the line between vintage and trendy for a low price. Maybe a pair of perfectly worn-in vintage Levi’s makes its way into your hands, or you find a real leather jacket that was once a cherished part of someone else’s closet.

Even before it became “cool,” thrifting often sustained low-income families who made their money stretch with the affordable prices at local thrift stores.

But buying secondhand, a practice that was a marker of low socioeconomic status for generations, has been recently popularized primarily by younger consumers. There is no shortage of “thrift hauls” – people displaying armloads of clothes purchased at affordable prices – on YouTube and TikTok, showing viewers how they, too, can get trendy pieces for a few bucks.

The fast fashion industry, which mass produces on-trend clothing items rapidly and sells them at inexpensive prices, has also been met with increasing criticism.

In particular, the wastefulness and highly questionable ethics behind big-name fashion brands have led people to seek out more ethical shopping alternatives. And no longer is thrifting restricted to brick-and-mortar stores – online platforms have even made thrifting from your phone possible.

Among the major online retailers for second-hand clothing are sites like Poshmark and thredUP – but Depop, a United Kingdom-based app, has become one of the biggest digital platforms for reselling clothes. Claiming to unite more than 21 million users to “buy, sell, discover and explore the most inspiring and unique things in the world,” the 10-yearold app is essentially a massive global online thrift store, through which individual users can sell and ship their used, vintage and handmade items to buyers across the globe.

While tales of sellers who make a living from Depop are enticing, the reality is that real profits require a serious commitment. With millions of other sellers as competition, selling on Depop is not always the glamorous side hustle some might think it is, but many do make the most of it. Third-year philosophy student Luka Gidwani, for instance, turned their virtual storefront into a creative endeavor that caught the eye of Depop’s higher-ups.

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Sourcing clothes from their own closet, plus their mother’s and grandmother’s old wardrobes, Gidwani went from casual buyer to prominent seller in 2018. With the self-timer on their phone, Gidwani posed and modeled clothing items for sale in their backyard.

Their shop soon began to gain traction, and Gidwani found themselves featured on the “Explore” page – where standout items are curated and highlighted by the Depop Editorial Team.

“

When I showed up, I was one of the only Brown people there.

It was a really white space, and Depop is known for that.

“That kind of caught a lot of attention on Depop’s part,” Gidwani said. “And I got not like a huge following, but I noticed that a lot of people were following me. And on Depop, it’s kind of hard to get a larger following.”

Now, Gidwani’s shop has more than 2,000 followers and more than 300 sales.

Hanna Yocute, a UCLA alumna, launched her own shop in January 2020 and has since gained more than 800 followers. Yocute has been shopping at thrift stores – one of the only places her family went to when they needed clothes – since high school. When she decided her wardrobe needed an upgrade, she took to Depop to give her old favorites new homes.

During the pandemic, Yocute found the perfect opportunity to devote herself to her shop as she was figuring out her post-graduation plans. Running a Depop shop is not unlike running your own business, Yocute said. She developed her photography and modeling skills as she tried on and took pictures of each item. Yocute also learned how to creatively market her products by formulating detailed captions for each post and colorful Instagram stories advertising her shop.

In any given week, she chooses 20 to 30 pieces to list, then styles each piece as part of a complete outfit and photographs each one before posting on Thursdays or Fridays. Measuring each item as well as writing a caption for it, is also time consuming, Yocute said.

“When I joined Depop, I would buy from other vintage sellers, and I was really inspired by their pages,” Yocute said. “And I was thinking:

OK, I can do this. I would learn from other top sellers, and I think that was part of the reason why I started to grow a little bit faster than people who just jump in.”

But even with newfound interests in buying used and vintage pieces – things aren’t necessarily becoming more ethical. Apps need to make money, and to make money, individual sellers’ prices need to go up. “(Depop) prioritizes ‘Top Sellers,’” Gidwani said.

“Smaller businesses don’t get much attention from Depop. It’s more about profit.”

In February 2020, Gidwani received an email from a Depop employee inviting them to participate in the company’s Level Up program – a workshop intended to teach sellers how to become Top Sellers. The program promises access to mentors and insider tips for users hoping to make selling on Depop a full-time job, Gidwani said.

“I guess they selected buyers they saw quote-unquote potential in,” they explained. “They claimed I had some kind of potential to become a Top Seller.”

To become a Top Seller, Depop lays out specific criteria that sellers must fulfill. Sellers must make at least 50 sales a month and maintain a rating of at least 4.5 from their customers for four straight months. Then, they must meet the quota of 200 or more items sold every four months and average $20 per item in order to

With millions of other sellers as competition, Depop is not always the glamorous side hustle some might think it is.

”

Depop is known for that.”

Held in Silver Lake, California, the Level Up program introduced Gidwani to white sellers from outside California who seemed to dream of coming to Los Angeles to start their own businesses or be artists. Depop encouraged program attendees to buy clothing in bulk from specific thrift stores to resell for at least $20 on their own shops, Gidwani said. “(Depop was) treating it as some trend, just

ignoring that there are people who really depend on thrift stores for clothing, especially in low-income communities,” they said.

Although Depop recommended sourcing items from thrift stores, Gidwani chose to avoid doing this, they said. Upselling – where people take inexpensive goods from thrift stores and sell them at large markups – is common within the app, Gidwani said, who personally disagrees with the practice.

“The bad thing is ... this encouragement of kind of stealing from low-income communities,” Gidwani said. “I don’t know what type of impact it’ll have on the future of thrifting, but that might mean higher prices.”

According to Kimberly Miranda, a graduate student in Chicana/o studies, gentrification is a phenomenon in which typically low-income or working-class people are displaced from their homes when those in higher social

maintain Top Seller status.

According to Depop’s website, Top Sellers get their own account managers and a coveted blue tick mark on their profile, denoting their elite status. But Depop’s methods for recruiting and training Top Sellers were troubling, Gidwani said.

“I wasn’t a fan of (the Level Up program), because it’s kind of like another form of gentrification,” they explained. “When I showed up, I was one of the only Brown people there. It was a really white space, and

33

classes move in and reap the benefits of the community, whether that be the community’s real estate or its proximity to popular regions.

There seems to be a connection between gentrification and cultural appropriation, Miranda explained, where the resources and culture associated with working-class people and people of color – such as thrift shops – become trendy to those with more capital.

“This quote-unquote culture of poverty gets romanticized or becomes a trend,” Miranda said. “Which is unfortunate because then it trickles down to these things becoming inaccessible. So where does that leave people?”

In July 2020, Yocute attended a different Level Up program herself and found that the rigorous requirements for Top Sellers were not achievable for her. Other sellers might be able to invest in a lot of high-quality vintage pieces to resell and meet the quotas, she said, but sellers like her don’t necessarily have the funds to constantly replenish their stock.

“For a person of color who might not have the ability to keep buying and posting stuff, I need to make sure I sell out of these pieces (I already have) before I can invest in new pieces,” Yocute said. “Other people ... can just keep finding items and posting and growing. That’s the challenge.”

It’s unlikely that thrift stores will run out of clothes anytime soon, and the ability to build a miniature thrift store from your own home has facilitated a platform for creative expression as well as income. Despite the pitfalls of owning a shop on the app, both Yocute and Gidwani

34

were able to find supportive communities within the online marketplace. Gidwani, who now focuses on selling handmade jewelry on the app, said they were able to find and make friends within the white-dominated space.

Similarly, Yocute said she found Depop offers a tight-knit community for creatives.

Instead of trying to adhere to Depop’s requirements, Yocute said she was more intent on growing at her own pace and remaining consistent in posting quality pieces and content. The $20 pricing requirement did not sit right with Yocute either. Selling an item like a regular T-shirt at $20 felt strange, she said.

Rapid growth was never the goal, Yocute explained.

Instead, it was building a business for herself that she actually loved.

Because there is an overabundance of clothes out there already, Yocute said she feels using her thrifting skills – including identifying quality brands and materials – to resell clothes is OK and helps bring quality vintage clothes to more people. Yocute was well aware of the controversy surrounding reselling but saw it as a way to tackle the unsustainable amount of clothes produced and discarded.

Admittedly, apps and social media do make buying used clothes accessible in some ways, Miranda said, and they allow people to make extra money on the side, as with any other side hustle. But Depop still has its drawbacks.

“It shouldn’t be about just money,” Yocute said. “It should be about the community. We’re all here supporting each other.” ♦

ON PAUSE: Research travel during COVID-19 written by ALEXA CYR photos by ASHLEY KENNEY designed by CLAIRE SHEN

ASHLYN FORD

A

shlyn Ford thought 2020 would be the year she finally returned to Moorea, Tahiti.

She had visited the South Pacific island in 2018 during her undergraduate studies and was anticipating her return to the white sand beaches and crystal clear waters for her dissertation research on disease ecology.

Then, the COVID-19 pandemic surged throughout the United States – leaving UCLA graduate students unable to travel for research.

Ford, a graduate student in ecology and evolutionary biology, is now conducting local research on barnacles and rocky intertidal zones in Los Angeles beaches – a far cry from the beaches of Tahiti.

Many graduate students look forward to traveling for research, said Phil Hoffman, a graduate history student.

Amid dissertation proposals and defenses, comprehensive exams and teaching assistantships, research travel is a highlight for many graduate students in master’s or doctoral degree programs.

For over a year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised against international travel, noting that it increases the chance of obtaining or spreading

36

COVID-19. Thus, many graduate research programs have moved fully online, meaning no more jet-setting across the globe to conduct research.

Jeffrey Dymond, a graduate student in European history, has had trouble accessing the archives he needs to continue his studies on the political and intellectual history of the Italian Renaissance. Much of his research on Italian humanists and theorists has been stalled because of COVID-19.

“Many of the sources that we need to do our research ... are handwritten – not printed – and there are very few of them in existence,” Dymond said. “Most of them are preserved in European libraries.”

However, Hoffman said that many foreign libraries are hesitant to simply give out or digitize their archives because of the rarity of the documents in their possession.

Even if the documents have been digitized, students still have to ask libraries for specific permission to access them.

The inability to travel has drastically reduced the amount of available material many graduate students can use for their dissertations, Dymond said. Students are having to do more with less – which is challenging when

“

Students are having to do more with less – which is challenging when trying to craft a convincing dissertation.”

- JEFFREY DYMOND

trying to craft a convincing dissertation, he added.

Hoffman, on the other hand, traveled frequently before the pandemic, having spent five years before his program living in Turkey, Jordan and Iraq working on humanitarian aid projects. Now, he is hoping to write his dissertation on the framing of land reform in modern Syria. His research on the region utilizes popular media from the 1950s and 1960s, including newspapers, magazines

and various other periodicals.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the archives Hoffman was hoping to access for his research are closed, as they are housed in the American University of Beirut.

In addition to their research plans being disrupted, for students who are also acting as teaching assistants, having to play the dual role of both student and teacher has been particularly challenging.

“I had to take a couple of online sessions to see what techniques and uses for Zoom work to engage my students,” Ford said. “I wanted to make sure they got what they needed from the class.”

She noted the difficulty of ensuring her students were involved over Zoom, while also constantly having to juggle her own graduate school workload.

Evidently, this year has been different than anyone expected, and these students are having to adjust to a variety of obstacles.

Many graduate students applied for and received grants or funds that are now being postponed or even canceled, Dymond said.

Dymond was selected by the UCLA Social Sciences

PHIL HOFFMAN

37

division to attend an exchange program in Pisa, Italy, through the Scuola Normale Superiore to further his studies of Renaissance Italy. The program – which he was supposed to attend spring 2020 – has now been postponed to spring 2021, and he has little hope of attendance

“

The summer of 2020, many of us had these plans, and we had funding allotted to us for the purpose of going to travel, and many of those had to be canceled.”

38

- DYMOND

considering the current travel restrictions.

Hoffman applied for and received the Graduate Summer Research Mentorship grant, but personally chose to defer it for a year because of the pandemic.

“One of the sources of funds for the summer came with the stipulation that ... (we) had to travel to go do research,” Dymond said. “The summer of 2020, many of us had these plans, and we had funding allotted to us for the purpose of going to travel, and many of those had to be canceled.”

Thus, many graduate students have had to turn to local research. However, this transition has made finding departmental funding more difficult for students.

For example, Ford is the recipient of a fellowship from the University of California-Historically Black Colleges and Universities Initiative; however, she still found it difficult to find enough funding from the university for her research in the Los Angeles area as well.

Ford mentioned that she actually had to find her own funding through her department in order to conduct her local research projects.

“I still have those funds luckily, ... but it’s definitely been different than I’ve imagined my experience as a third and second year would be.” ♦

On Tovaangar On Tovaangar

“People of the land.”

The natural setting of Kuruvungna Springs feels as if it resists LA’s urban landscape.

Tucked between tight asphalt streets and a high school football field, the entrance to the springs sits between rows of buildings and apartment complexes of West LA. The springs are part of an ancestral village site of the Tongva, the Indigenous people of the Los Angeles Basin. Currently, Kuruvungna Springs is under the care of the Gabrielino Tongva Springs Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving and educating the public about the area’s history.

Located only a few miles away from UCLA, it takes just 10 minutes to drive from campus to Kuruvungna Springs. The campus’s close proximity to the springs is a reminder that UCLA stands on Tovaangar.

In its original language, Tovaangar means “the world.”

Tovaangar, which encompasses all of Gabrielino-Tongva territory, covers the Los Angeles Basin, half of Orange County, parts of Riverside County and San Bernardino County, and the Southern Channel Islands of San Nicolas, San Clemente, Santa Barbara and Santa Catalina.

Despite common misconceptions, Kuruvungna Springs is not a tribally owned property. Instead, it belongs to the Los Angeles Unified School District and is part of the nearby University High School.

written by RANIA SOETIRTO photos by LAUREN MAN designed by NICOLE ANTICONA ARAUJO

The GabrielinoTongva tribe has yet to receive federal recognition from the United States government. To this day, they still do not have their own land base.

In the early 1900s, the word Tongva was used by Narcisa Rosemyre, a Native American woman, to describe the Indigenous people of the Los Angeles area. Traditionally, Tongva means “people of the earth” or “people of the land.”

Meanwhile, the name Gabrielino comes from the name the Spanish called the Native Americans who were associated with the San Gabriel Mission.

Mishuana Goeman, the inaugural special advisor to the chancellor on Native American and Indigenous affairs, has worked closely with people from the Gabrielino-Tongva tribe to create the land acknowledgement from the university.

“UCLA acknowledges the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples as the traditional land caretakers of Tovaangar (the Los Angeles basin and So. Channel Islands). As a land grant institution, we pay our respects to the Honuukvetam (Ancestors), ‘Ahiihirom (Elders) and ‘Eyoohiinkem (our relatives/relations) past, present and emerging,” one

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“The Gabrielino-Tongva tribe has yet to receive federal recognition from the United States government.

To this day, they still do not have their own land base.”

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acknowledgment excerpt reads.

Goeman, of the Tonawanda Band of Seneca and a professor of gender studies, said she began working on the land acknowledgments after she was selected as special advisor to the chancellor on Native American and Indigenous affairs in October 2018. It was one of the first things she did as special advisor.

However, Goeman said she had established a tribal relationship with the Gabrielino-Tongva tribe well before her appointment as special advisor and had discussed the land acknowledgement with tribal elders and cultural leaders before 2018. For years, Goeman said she has always followed the Indigenous protocol of giving a land acknowledgment to the places she visited.

“People have to know whose lands they’re on before they can actually engage in a relationship with them,” said Goeman. “And previous to the land acknowledgment, nobody had any idea whose lands they were on.”

“This is sacred land.”

On a Saturday morning in late February, Bob Ramirez, the president of the Gabrielino Tongva Springs Foundation and a descendant of the Tongva, was working with a number of volunteers at the springs.

A large Mexican cypress stands by a pool of spring water and gives a protective shade from the hot Los Angeles air. The tree is not a native species. The 200-yearold cypress had been planted by the Spanish during their expeditions in order to mark the presence of water, said

Paulina Sahagun, the vice president of the Gabrielino Tongva Springs Foundation and a descendant of the Tecuexe and Wixarika nations.

Next to the pool sits the spring. From below the clear surface, bubbles can be seen rising from the bottom, signaling the spring is still producing freshwater.

Ramirez said he has measured the spring’s flow and found that it produces 56,000 gallons of freshwater every day.

He pointed to a single spot under a tree where he said ancestral remains of an adult and child had been found and reburied.

“This is sacred land. This is a burial ground as well,” he said. “You’ll find all sorts of artifacts from the people that used to live here for thousands of years.”

When LAUSD began building University High School in the 1920s, developers found many ancestral remains and artifacts – signs of a significant village site. However, many of the discovered artifacts have since disappeared because of inadequate archeological protocols to protect them, Ramirez said.

Kuruvungna means “place where we gather in the sun” in Tongva, Ramirez said. Kuruvungna had been a thriving village and the center of a vast trading network, built around the sacred springs, he added.

history. She was also the president of the Gabrielino Tongva Springs Foundation before Ramirez.

Bogany had been involved in several projects with UCLA. She contributed to the development of UCLA’s land acknowledgment and was a collaborator at the Diverse Perspectives on Water Project – a research initiative investigating the best ways of using Indigenous protocols to solve water issues.

Bogany’s website showcases the Tongva people’s history, culture and artistic sites. Bogany was inspired to make the website when her great-granddaughter, Marissa, asked her how it felt to be a Tongva woman, she said.

“I said, ‘I felt invisible,’” Bogany said. “And (my greatgranddaughter) said, ‘I feel invisible too,’ and I said, ‘No, you cannot be invisible.’ So then I opened my website to be visible.”

“The dominant American narrative can be wrong. …

These people still exist, live and thrive today.”

“No, you cannot be invisible.”

Ramirez and a group of volunteers were also working on building a kiiy, the traditional domelike houses of the Tongva, at the springs that day. Ramirez said they had started building the kiiy last summer, but the project was temporarily halted.

Julia Bogany, a cultural officer for the Gabrielino Tongva Band of Mission Indians until her death on March 28, said that the structure of the kiiy is traditionally made of willow reeds while its covering is made of tule reeds. Meanwhile, a kiiy at the coastlines would use whale ribs as its structure instead of willow reeds, she added.

The kiiy only serves as a place to sleep, Bogany said.

Unlike today, when people often spend long stretches of time inside their homes, the Tongva did all of their activities outside, she said.

Bogany, who also was an elder-in-residence at Pitzer College, served as the cultural affairs officer for the Gabrielino Tongva Band of Mission Indians for more than 20 years. In addition to her work as an educator, lecturer and activist, Bogany was also the author of her website “To Be Visible,” on which she wrote about Tongva culture and

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“My family was still alive.”

When Desiree Martinez was in fourth grade, she had gone to the Southwest Museum of the American Indian for a class field trip to learn about the Mission Indians. During the field trip, the docent told her class that the Tongva were extinct.

“I knew that not to be true because my family was still alive, and other young people were still alive,” Martinez said.

“So I thought, ‘Well, this can’t happen.’”

Martinez, a Tongva archeologist, said it was only later in sixth grade that she realized where the misinformation on Indigenous peoples had come from. Docents and museums had learned about Native Americans through the work of anthropologists and archeologists.

Based on Martinez’s article, “Returning the tataayiyam honuuka’ (Ancestors) to the Correct Home: The Importance of Background Investigations for NAGPRA Claims,” false perceptions of the Tongva had been based on studies by anthropologists who had limited knowledge about the tribe.

Wanting to correct the public and academic misconceptions about the Tongva, Martinez was inspired to become an archaeologist herself.

Martinez said the Tongva’s lack of federal recognition comes from their historical exclusion from treaty signings with the U.S. government due to the lobbying of Southern California ranch owners.

In the mid-1800s, three special

commissioners authorized by the U.S. Senate came to California to sign treaties with the Indigenous tribes of California, Martinez said. These treaties, which would later become known as the “18 lost treaties,” forced Native Americans to hand over their land in exchange for reservations, a designated area where Native Americans were relocated to.

Martinez said the Tongva were never present in these treaty-making discussions. After the secularization of the missions, many Tongva people were forced to work as laborers on ranches. Many ranch owners, who were afraid of losing their workers, claimed there were no Native Americans in Los Angeles to avoid having to hire other workers for a higher price.

In order to survive, the Tongva hid in plain sight and were often mistaken for Mexicans, Martinez said.

Local governments in California put bounties on Native Americans’ heads and scalps, which escalated the danger of being identified.

Because the California missions had prohibited the Tongva from speaking their traditional languages, they ended up speaking Spanish on the ranches and eventually English after the language became the common language of the U.S., Martinez said.

“Because we were the labor on ranchos, and we spoke Spanish, and in some instances wearing the clothes of a Mexican peasant, we weren’t identified clearly as Native people,” she said.

“Los Angeles is on Traditional Tongva Land.”

In early 2020, the UCLA American Indian Studies Center commissioned River Garza, a Los Angeles-based Tongva artist, to draw a poster of Tovaangar for UCLA. Garza said Goeman had asked him to create a visual guide map to give people a spatial awareness of LA’s indigenous lands.

“Los Angeles Is On Traditional Tongva Land” is written in bold letters on the base of the poster, which depicts a map of the Los Angeles Basin and three of the Southern Channel Islands.

On the poster, UCLA is written in gold with a gold star, making it starkly visible against the blue gradient of the map.

Garza said he drew inspiration for

the poster from a mural he had previously worked on with another Native American artist, Jaque Fragua. The mural is located on Winston Street in Downtown Los Angeles – a street nicknamed “Indian Alley.”

For the UCLA poster, Garza said he adapted it to reflect contemporary cities in the Los Angeles Basin alongside traditional Tongva village sites. For example, Westwood is written between Kuruvungna and Komiikranga on Garza’s map.

He also designed the map’s color scheme to reflect the blue and gold colors of the University of California campuses. The blue in both his Winston Street mural and the UCLA map also symbolizes the Tongva’s connection to the ocean and water.

“I think blue just represents the ocean and water,” Garza said. “As coastal tribal people, we have such a unique connection to moomat, the ocean. It’s our ancestor, and it really helps us define our existence as a people.”

“We’re here to be caretakers of the land.”

In the future, Martinez hopes that the Tongva have their own land base with the freedom to gather more frequently and freely.

Martinez’s dream, she said, has always been to open a Gabrielino-Tongva cultural center, a place where the Tongva community can learn about themselves, their culture and history, while also sharing this information with the public. She believes this will allow the Tongva community to be in charge of its own narrative.

Ramirez’s son, Daniel, said he is happy to see more people coming to Kuruvungna Springs and spreading the news about it. He has been coming to the springs since he was young and is excited to see the springs become a cultural hub where people can be educated about the Indigenous people living in the area and a place where Indigenous people can feel like they belong, he said.

“I think that’s what really defines us as Tongva – we’re here to be caretakers of the land,” Garza said.

“I think the most important step is just to acknowledge that this history exists. These different histories exist for people and that the dominant American narrative can be wrong. ... These people still exist, live and thrive today.” ♦

“(My great-granddaughter) said, ‘I feel invisible too,’ and I said, ‘No, you cannot be invisible.’ So then I opened my website to be visible.”

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Tutoring through troublesome times written by SARAH CHOUDHARY photos by ALEX DRISCOLL designed by SAMANTHA JOSEPH

I’

m in breakout room five. On my Zoom screen, I see boxes the size of postage stamps, one of which contains a soft-spoken sixth-grade boy from Berendo Middle School. His webcam is disabled.

Relatable, I remember thinking to myself.

Tristen Fabre, a fourth-year mathematics for teaching student at UCLA, was teaching the boy the order of operations in a tutoring session. For two years, Fabre has been a member of Los Angeles Student Educational Outreach, a UCLA organization that provides academic support to grade school children in Koreatown.

As Fabre reviewed the algebra lesson, she guided a Fortnite world warrior profile picture with the voice of a small child.

"

First, the student screen-shared a homework problem.

Then, Fabre screen-shared a digital whiteboard for step-bystep PEMDAS instruction, though unable to see her student’s work. Instead, Fabre asked her student multiple questions via the call’s audio, the only other option of measuring his progress. This ultimately led to a selection of choice B – their exchange continued in this manner for over an hour.

Months into the pandemic, LASEO and similar studentrun community service programs still face numerous challenges adapting to virtual learning.

If a student leaves their webcam off, Fabre said she cannot always tell if her student understands the material or does work on a piece of scrap paper.

On some days, Fabre feels as though she's speaking into thin air.

As I sat in breakout room five, quietly watching Fabre tutor her student, I’m somewhat skeptical of the student’s affirmations.

“Does that make sense?” she asked, circling an answer with her cursor on the Zoom whiteboard.

A reserved “Mm-hmm” followed suit.

On some days, Fabre feels as though she’s speaking into thin air. Though sometimes frustrated, she refrains from requesting that her students have their webcams on because she doesn’t want to invade anyone’s comfort zone, she said.

Technological issues make tutoring extremely challenging, said Merzia Subhan, a fourth-year psychobiology student.

Subhan is the co-executive director of Project Literacy, a student-run organization that offers mentoring and educational services for lower-income Los Angeles communities with systemic illiteracy.

Poor Wi-Fi connection and malfunctioning Zoom features often interfere with Subhan’s lesson. A one-hour session with high schooler Abram Magdaleno can turn into two or more hours because of technical challenges.

“I don’t want to, you know, abandon Abram when the hour is up,” Subhan said. “I don’t know who he’s going to ask for help.”

Subhan said a must-see TikTtok can intermittently disrupt her explanation of a homework problem. But she empathizes with her student’s lack of focus, considering her own exhaustion as the session continues, she said.

Both PRO-LIT and LASEO experienced a reduction of returning children after transitioning to a virtual format — since last winter, there’s been about a 56% average decline in membership.

Technological inequity might be responsible for these changes, said Chris Mauerman, a third-year sociology student and Project Literacy’s co-executive director.

Mauerman said many nonreturning students potentially face technological barriers that hinder participation in online tutoring activities. For example, some Project Literacy students don’t have access to a Wi-Fi signal or have a signal that’s too weak to support video conferencing, he said. The student Mauerman typically tutors endured three months without online classes beginning in March because the student did not have sufficient access to technology.

According to a survey by the EdWeek Research Center, 21% of K-12 students were absent from online school throughout

45

the country after initial school closures in March.

Mauerman’s student did not have a computer he could use to attend Zoom classes, leaving the fifth grader with nothing but a school-provided worksheet packet and little help to learn the material. Left without many options, the student resorted to using his mom’s phone to FaceTime Mauerman. Mauerman said frequent frozen screens and dropped calls arising from inadequate Wi-Fi could interrupt these lessons. At most, they were able to cover a few pages of the packet every week.

Sadly, Mauerman and his student’s struggles are not unique. According to a Los Angeles Times survey published in August, Southern California school districts with a higher number of students who qualify for free or reducedprice lunch were behind on starting online classes. About 30% of students in low-income districts lacked access to digital devices.

More than ever, it seems students need the additional support that tutoring offers.

For some parents, online tutoring pales in comparison to the joys of in-person tutoring. Anayenci Magdaleno’s children attended PRO-LIT tutoring sessions at Alma Reaves Woods Library in Watts, Los Angeles, for the past 14 years, a tradition overturned because of COVID-19.

“My kids would say ‘Mommy, let’s go to UCLA!’’’ Anayenci Magdaleno said, describing her children’s past excitement for times spent with PRO-LIT tutors. Sessions at UCLA meant fun science experiments that motivated her kids to learn, she said.

Subhan has tutored Anayenci Magdaleno’s son for four to five hours every week since January 2020. When even Subhan can’t help Abram, like the time the school’s homework

"

Mauerman's student did not have a computer he could use to attend Zoom classes, leaving the fifth grader with nothing but a school-provided worksheet packet and little help to learn the material.

46

software malfunctioned, she tells him to email his teachers.

Anayenci Magdaleno said she worries about Abram spending many mindless hours sitting in front of a computer screen. But her tone when speaking about Abram’s grades suggests she’s at ease with his academic success thanks to Subhan’s help.

In turn, Subhan appreciates being close with Anayenci

Magdaleno’s family. “(Anayenci Magdaleno) always spends a few minutes talking to me no matter what she’s doing,” Subhan said. “It’s very heartening. She shares her struggles and I share my struggles ... with the pandemic and everything that’s going on.”

Subhan worked with Abram throughout quarantine, spending days going over concepts like DNA replication and mnemonics for complementary nitrogenous base pairs. Helping Abram understand that adenine bonds with thymine – because A and T are hard-edged letters – reassured Subhan that she was doing something worthwhile throughout isolation, she said.

Although tutoring has changed during the pandemic, working with students like Abram has given Subhan a sense of normalcy.

“All, you know, my senior year plans were kind of falling apart,” she said. “(But) I tutor these kids and I make a difference.” ♦

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Together,

alone written by KATE GREEN photos by ARIANA FADEL designed by SAMANTHA JOSEPH

“I

’ll drive us down to LA,” my older sister said.

“I know we can’t spend time with him, but it’d be worth it to wave goodbye.”

She was still dressed in the navy blue scrubs she wears to the clinic, having just finished her last day of work before time off for Christmas. Standing in the foyer, with the keys to her Toyota Corolla dangling from her pocket and a hand on her hip, she looked ready to go – prepared to immediately embark on the six-hour car ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

“We can’t, Em,” my mom replied. “They told us we shouldn’t try and visit.”

My mother had waited for my sister, Emma, to return home before delivering the latest update on my maternal grandfather’s health. He was moving from a hospital to a nursing home to receive hospice care because of his rapidly accelerating dementia, and COVID-19 protocols barred us from seeing him. Despite this grim reality, the idea that his final days would be marked by loneliness, away from his familiar home and loved ones, felt unacceptable to us.

I found myself drifting away from the family conversation while Emma and my mom anxiously discussed the possibility of traveling to Los Angeles, exchanging whispered fears over my grandfather’s condition. I had nothing to add – no insight into the correct medical course of action for my grandfather, no plausible travel plans, no soothing words of reassurance.

I left the dining room and spent that night trying to make myself useful by searching through boxes of photo albums and dusty binders in my garage, rummaging for pictures and records from my grandfather’s life.

We stayed in San Francisco, and a week later on Dec. 30, I received the news that my grandfather had died.

The exact cause of death was not immediately pinned on COVID-19, but my family was told that he struggled with breathing and that the virus had spread to his vulnerable Los Angeles nursing home.

New Year’s was quiet, and I sat alone in my bedroom – a twistedly fitting end to a year defined by loss and isolation.

My grandfather’s death was a sobering dose of perspective as I bid 2020 goodbye. I chastised myself for bemoaning the pandemic’s theft of trivial events before I knew what else it could take.

The cancellation of my senior prom was the first time I felt COVID-19 stole something from me. Early last spring, the gravity of the pandemic was only beginning to set in, and I basked in the naivety of a newly turned 18-year-old determined to achieve the perfect denouement to my high school story. The lockdown and death counts hadn’t fully set in, leaving me to daydream of corsages and photoshoots.

I remained convinced that in just a few weeks I’d be dress shopping downtown and reserving a table for 10 at some fancy restaurant. When I found myself isolated at home on the night of my would-be prom, I felt robbed of my rightful coming-of-age.

The pandemic stretched on past my canceled prom and past my canceled high school graduation. Like the rest of the world, isolation set in as my social life dissipated. Lockdown eventually stretched even further, past my canceled college move-in day.

During the first week of September, I found myself standing in an empty Westwood apartment among scattered bankers boxes and piles of disassembled Ikea furniture. But I wasn’t moving into my first college apartment; instead, I was moving Emma out of her last one. I was excited to reunite with her, yet I could not shake the looming sense of loss as I dutifully packed the car. The college I worked so hard to matriculate at was tantalizingly close to where I stood sweltering in the Westwood heat. Each minute of carrying boxes added insult to the injury of not being able to take my turn attending Emma and my mother’s alma mater.

I sulked in the backseat as our SUV stuttered through Los Angeles traffic, and I mentally added my college experience to my ever-growing list of losses during 2020. Though I knew many people’s struggles were far more serious than my dejection about freshman year via Zoom, I wallowed in the unfairness of my goals unraveling. I felt as if I had lost my tenuous grasp on the future I envisioned for myself.

When four months later I sat in bed on New Year’s Eve, grainy black and white photographs of my grandfather

49

50

Solitude is not an ideal commonality, yet I savored the sense that this thread of shared experience connected me to my grandfather.

51

The idea that his final days would be marked by loneliness, away from his familiar home and loved ones, felt unacceptable to us. sprawled before me on the duvet, I was crushed by the realization of the unimportance of my previous losses.

That September trip to Los Angeles marked the last time I saw my grandfather. After moving Emma out of her apartment, my family cautiously paid a quick visit to my grandparents’ home 30 minutes away in Gardena, California.

Social distancing marred our interactions as I hovered six feet away from where my grandfather sat in the kitchen.

I wondered if his dementia and my mask made me unrecognizable, and I spent a regrettable amount of time staring at the family photos in the living room rather than risk talking with him and finding out the answer. Despite the awkwardness and the palpable anxiety our family shared, there was a comforting familiarity simply in seeing him in person. As long as I knew him, my grandfather always had this soothing effect. His gentle personality and generosity drew everyone in the family together, usually in the kitchen.

When I visited Gardena as a little girl, I always looked forward to breakfasts with him. I would rise with my sister from our shared bed in my mother’s old room and toddle to the kitchen where he toiled over breakfast for us. I was a picky eater, so he would make special, mini squares of buttered toast just for me. He also had a knack for picking the ripest fruit, and I would watch him, fascinated, as he masterfully sliced up oranges and melons. We would share these snacks on paper plates during the long summer mornings as he played UCLA

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basketball games on the TV. Since his death, the most frequent stories told by family members are how he would similarly spoil everyone else in the family with culinary signs of his love. My relatives reminisce over how decades ago he would hide candy in his pockets so my mom and uncle could search for the sweets when he arrived home from work. My mother also recalls how he introduced my father to different types of Japanese food when my parents were in law school and found immense glee in preparing feasts for my dad’s starving-student appetite.

When my aunt in Los Angeles called to share the news of his death, she told my mother about taking him to the hospital for the last time. He was disoriented and unclear on where he was being taken, and why he could no longer stay at home. Despite the fogginess, he handed her an envelope of money and said, “Take everyone out to dinner when all of this is over.”

My mother and my aunts allege that his disposition mellowed with age – that before he was the quiet, doting grandfather I knew, he had a firecracker personality. I was intrigued to learn more about the dimensions of him I never got to meet, so I spent the January weeks after his death poring over the papers I unearthed from my garage.

The opportunity to revisit joyful anecdotes was a welcome distraction from my speculations regarding his final days in December.

The most insightful document I found was “The Biography of Shigeo Kawamura,” which my maternal grandmother wrote as a record of her husband’s life. The short book details the turbulence of his 95-year journey as a nisei – secondgeneration Japanese American – with vivid descriptions of military service as a G.I. in Germany and the various jobs he worked to support his four children. Stories of him mischievously selling cigarettes to fellow soldiers and playing music for my grandmother’s social club in the 1950s betrayed flickers of his rumored feistiness and made me smile through my grieving.

I voraciously ate up my grandmother’s words while sheltering in place in San Francisco – the world outside my window still embroiled in the surging pandemic. It was 10 months in, and my reading added value to the days of stifling isolation from all but my closest family.

Her stories also distracted me from the barrage of headlines regarding Los Angeles’ status as a roaring epicenter of the virus and the tragic nationwide milestone of 400,000 deaths from COVID-19. I could not stand to keep up with the news; pandemic statistics felt more painfully vivid having lost a loved one of my own so recently. There was constantly the reminder that because of the pandemic, people like my grandfather were passing away all alone, separated from their families when they needed them most. It was overwhelming to think of how each death across the country corresponded to its own biographies and pictures in someone else’s garage.

Scanning through the text, my eyes settled on a passage about my grandfather’s years at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center during World War II. The camp was one of the locations where Japanese Americans were interned via executive order during the war. My pandemic experience was once more knocked into perspective. He turned 18, my age, during his internment at Heart Mountain before being drafted into the Army. The losses he incurred of his family’s business and home, as well as his mobility and rights as an American citizen, dwarfed my losses of prom and a UCLA dorm to an absurd extent. I read about how he and his friends worked for months in the fields of a sugar beet farm outside the camp.

“At the end of their contract, after their back-breaking labor, the farmer refused to pay them,” my grandmother wrote.

The struggles of isolation in the comfort of my Wi-Fiequipped San Francisco home became instantaneously less daunting when compared to the horrible experiences he endured while confined on an arid Wyoming field. I was struck by how 77 years ago, he likely felt the type of loss and isolation that his death was now unveiling to me.

Solitude is not an ideal commonality, yet I savored the sense that this thread of shared experience connected me to my grandfather. I staved off the worst pangs of isolation and futile regret over our December separation by clinging to the feeling that lockdown was helping me relate to him like never before.

As I spent the gray early-January days splitting my time between Zoom classes and talking to my grandma on the phone, dozens of questions about the shared circumstances between my grandfather and I bloomed in my brain. I fervently wanted to ask my grandfather: What was it like emerging from your time of isolation? How did you manage to adjust back into normal life, as if your young adulthood was

not stolen? Will I be as resilient as you?

I pondered my grandfather’s 95-year life, punctuated by historical bouts of loneliness – the unfairness of it all. My imagination flitted between oxygen tanks, black-and-white images of barbed wire and the Interstate 5 highway which carried me to him each Christmas for 17 years. The curiosity, which grew out of grief, hardened into anger before waning back into longing.

I wished I could drive myself down to Los Angeles, where I ought to have been all along, and go to his old house in Gardena. Not the 2021 house, where my aunt and grandmother were discussing urn engravings, but the house of years prior. I would walk through the kitchen where he doted on me and the living room where he watched every UCLA basketball game, and I would sit and talk to him in the back sunroom he had built. I’d ask my questions without wearing a mask. He’d respond with fluid sentences not stilted by memory loss. Before I left, I would tell him that reading the stories of his youth was carrying me through my own time of isolation. ♦

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