Warrior Life - Spring/Summer 2024 issue

Dax Corcoran, a drummer with Los Angeles-based bands Willowake, and XYZPDQ plays the drums dring a house show in Mayfield. Photo by Delfino Camacho To read the full story, visit eccunion.com

MEET THE STAFF DESIGNER Dylan Elliot

PHOTOGRAPHERS Greg Fontanilla Delfino Camacho Rapahel Richardson

EDITOR IN CHIEF Brittany Parris

Elsa Rosales Dayana Rodriguez Monroe Morrow Jamila Zaki Erica Lee

MANAGING EDITOR Greg Fontanilla

STAFF Emily Barrera Delfino Camacho Emily Gomez Tommy Kallman Erica Lee Kim McGill Amanda Niebergall Angel Pasillas Alondra Peza Camarena Maddie Selack

Amanda Niebergall Kim McGill

ILLUSTRATORS Dylan Elliot Leyna Kobayashi Nikki Yunker Kim McGill Ingrid Barrera Jeremiah De La Cruz Angel Flores

ADVISERS Stefanie Frith Nguyet Thomas Kate McLaughlin

CONTENTS SPRING/SUMMER 2024

ALL ABOUT THE BASICS STYLE WITHOUT A BUDGET PLATONIC PASSAGES TRAPPED WHY BRAZILIAN JIU-JITSU IS CRUCIAL PUNCHING BARRIERS AUTOMOTIVE AMBITIONS PURSUING EXCELLENCE

6 14 15 18 20 22 26 28

35 36 BUILDING BONDS MY FATHER, THE PIRATE 38 THE BEAUTY IN EVERYTHING 41 BREAKING BARRIERS AND 44 BUILDING DREAMS TOP 5 CALIFORNIA ROLLS 49 PRIDE IN PROGRESS 50 FRONT COVER PHOTO-ILLUSTRATION BY DYLAN ELLIOT COLD BROWN AND ALONE BACK COVER PHOTO- RAPHAEL RICHARDSON 54 SYMBOLS OF PAIN 56 MAYHEM ON THE METRO GREEN 64 JOIN THE TEAM LINE Warrior Life is a student-run magazine located at El Camino College, 16007 66 A SOBERING REALITY Crenshaw Blvd, Torrance CA 90506. El Camino College students interested A TASTE OF THAILAND

in being a part of the magazine must enroll in Journalism 9 for fall 2024 or contact student media adviser, Stefanie Frith at sfrith@elcamino.edu for more information.

I’M MEXICAN, BUT I DON’T FEEL MEXICAN

RINGING IN THE YEARS RAISED BY DOGS

68 70 76

Letter from the editor

I

’ve always been a sentimental person.

Cleaning out my closet has always been a struggle because every piece of clothing I’ve owned holds some special memory.

From the pink and white polka-dotted dress I wore for my 8th-grade graduation to the pink glittery heels I wore for my senior prom, I’ve held on to them as long as possible to keep the memory alive.

This is why it’s hard to accept that my time in the journalism program is ending.

However, I can’t think of a more appropriate send-off than being able to be a part of this magazine for the second semester in a row and watch this talented staff grow into their own.

My heart is whole, knowing the trust bestowed upon me by my advisors and peers to help make this magazine happen.

Of course, it takes a village to get this far.

Thank you to our sources for taking the time to be vulnerable and share their stories.

Thank you to our advisors for all their unconditional support and for guiding us through this process.

Last but certainly not least, thank you to my staff, who took on this months-long process and who I have watched grow as writers and designers. I am so proud of every one of you and all that you will accomplish in the future.

In a time when I felt lost, this department, this magazine, gave me hope, and my wish is that you grow to love it as much as I do.

All the best, Brittany Parris

ALL ABOUT

THE BASICS A Basic Needs Center coordinator’s role is to help student reach their potential. For Sharonda Barksdale the calling goes beyond the job

Story by Delfino Camacho

7 | Warrior Life

C

hance Williams was giving his thanks.

The 23-year-old El Camino College student-athlete was in a Sacramento Grand Sheraton Hotel attending the 2024 California Community College Athletic Association Conference.

It was Wednesday, March 27 and Williams, along with other students, were being honored at the Scholar-Athlete Luncheon. He was receiving a Student-Athlete Achievement award.

The football player with the short braids, broad chest and deep southern drawl was 400 miles from the new home he had built at El Camino. He was 2,000 miles from his hometown of Nashville, Tennessee which he had left years ago, alone, to pursue his football dreams.

Following his award there was a Q&A. When asked who helped him overcome his obstacles and thrive, Williams’ eyes scanned the back of the room.

He recalls telling the audience to turn around. “‘Raise your hand’ I said and she raised her hand and I said ‘That’s the woman, right there, that helped me through my whole journey,’,” Williams later said. “That’s the reason that I’m here in front of you.”

Sitting there, near the back was El Camino College Basic Needs Coordinator Sharonda Barksdale, the only one who had made the 400-mile sojourn to support Williams.

Officially El Camino’s Basic Needs Coordinator since 2022 her role involves managing the resources and staff to provide “basic needs” such as food, clothing, housing and transportation to atneed and qualifying students.

Barksdale works directly with students like Williams, who lack support and need guidance.

The 48-year-old Barksdale has a good poker face and wears it liberally. She speaks quietly and with confidence. Short braids that just reach her shoulders frame her dark features; including her ever-observant brown eyes.

Often clad in an El Camino T-shirt or sweater and some comfy pants, sneakerheads might appreciate the quality Jordans frequently found on Barksdale’s feet.

Barksdale works a 4/10 schedule. 10-hour days, four days a week at El Camino.

On weekends Barksdale teaches foster parents over Zoom for two other colleges.

It’s all in a week’s work for the South LA native who still lives in her home city.

“I always liked helping people so I knew whatever I got into was going to somehow morph into me being able to help people,” Barksdale said.

Barksdale and her team lead a persistent mission on campus to remove obstacles that block students’ education, whether that is lack of housing, food or support.

Looking back, she considers herself one of the lucky ones. She had two loving parents that provided for her. Her parents were married 26 years, until her mother’s death.

Her dad was originally from Texas and her mom from northern California. After getting hitched they moved down to L.A. Barksdale’s half-siblings on her dad’s side were older and lived apart. She was her mother’s only child and grew up with that mentality saying she was “spoiled rotten.”

Part of that “spoiling” was private education.

Attending a Christian School from K-6, she was exposed to a wide variety of cultures.

Warrior Life | 8

Barksdale’s parents both valued education, in different ways.

A microbiologist with a master’s degree, her mother worked at Baskin Robbins for 20 years developing flavors.

Dad worked for the LA Unified School District. An upholsterer by trade he also taught the craft at a LA Unified adult school.

“Education was very important,” Barksdale said. “That was something that was always stressed in my house.”

As she grew up Barksdale’s college plans were almost squashed when her father had a stroke, leaving him a paraplegic and her mom a caregiver. Barksdale struggled with a yearning to break free while also wanting to help her parents.

As a compromise, she ended up attending Concordia University, a small Lutheran College in Irvine. She spent her week taking classes and exploring interests but always came home on weekends to help.

“At that time, social work was not, like, a huge degree, so they had a bachelor in behavioral science program with an emphasis in social work,” Barksdale said. “That’s what I gravitated to.”

As part of her major, Barksdale had to join an internship and was accepted into a program through the Orange County Department of Probation.

She was placed in a juvenile hall, her first experience working with youth.

She worked with kids who had repeat experience in the system – tutoring, reading and helping them.

“A lot of it was just spending time there,” Barksdale said. “They could talk to me, I wasn’t a probation officer.”

She bonded with a 14-year-old boy who was smaller than the rest, “but had a mouth on him.” On what was supposed to be his last day Barksdale said her goodbyes and told him, in the best possible way, she hoped never to see him again.

Four months later he was back.

She was upset. The boy calmly explained to her that he had taken a gun charge for a gang-affiliated brother, to come back.

Barksdale’s was boggled. Why would you ever want to come back?

He explained life was better here. Not good, but better.

Here he got food, shelter and an education, which was not guaranteed outside. Barksdale tried to argue but couldn’t. It was a key moment.

“It wasn’t even ‘what can I do to help,’ it became, ‘something’s got to change and how are you going to play a part in this,’” Barksdale said. “I finished school and thought I’m going to put my superhero cape on.”

A second key point came when she became a social worker with the Department of Child and Family Services in LA, convinced she would change the world.

Instead, she found herself unable to sleep at night.

Frequently she would be put in harm’s way but perhaps worse was the mental toll. Barksdale recalls having to take crying kids from their mothers in all manner of situations, even serving a mother already in jail.

She began to get more involved with nonprofit organizations that intervened before families were separated.

In 1999 she was working for the Los Angeles County of Education in a family preservation unit funded by the DCFS. While working there Barksdale met Alexis Estwick who trained educators and social workers how to work with foster youth using a “trauma-enforced lens.” The classes were hosted at El Camino.

Sharonda Barksdale and Chance Williams inside Murdock Stadium, The El Camino College football field. Photo by Delfino Camacho

9 | Warrior Life

After completing the training Estwick offered Barksdale the opportunity to teach independent living skills to foster youth and their parents. It was part-time, contractor work, in the evenings but as of 2001 Barksdale was now working at ECC. “That is where I found my happy place,” Barksdale said, imitating the hallelujah sound effect. “In working with families.”

This was also when Barksdale first met David Brown, current assistant director of financial aid and her future boss.

Brown, who first began working at ECC in 1998, was working for EOPS at the time, helping foster and underprivileged youth apply for grants/financial aid.

Realizing they were on the same team and impressed by her hard work, Brown began collaborating with Barksdale.

Seemingly simple things like FAFSA and enrollment can be incredibly complicated for foster youth and people like Barksdale would help them navigate the bureaucracy.

“That’s what I’ve always respected about Sharonda,” Brown said. “The incredible amount of empathy she has, just her willingness and ability to just help.”

After some years Barksdale went back to school to get her master’s degree. She graduated from Argosy University, from the Inglewood campus, in 2015.

After failing to get a full-time position she left ECC and in 2016 began working at Hathaway-Sycamores Child & Family Services full-time, another youth nonprofit as a community wellness specialist. The job allowed her to stay in the Torrance area, although travel was frequent.

After two years a friend and coworker, Lizet Salazar, left Hathaway-Sycamore for a full-time role back at El Camino. Salazar soon called Barksdale telling her there was a position perfect for her.

In 2018 Kristina Martinez was working as the foster youth and homeless liaison at El Camino.

First hired in 2015 as assistant director of financial aid, Martinez became the foster liaison almost out of necessity.

The role involved interviewing students to help prove housing insecurity and teaching them to become independent.

Martinez knew two things – the role needed room to grow and whoever they hired needed to understand at-risk youth and be able to justify decisions that didn’t just take money into account, but the Warrior Life | 10

human element as well.

There was only one problem. Barksdale didn’t know financial aid.

Salazar said to apply anyway. Her argument was she could learn financial aid, but they couldn’t teach her years of firsthand experience.

Brown agrees that the job was “very different” from a standard role.

“Because of the interaction with the students, because of the minutia, the demand and the high touch that’s involved with working with this population,” Brown said.

Martinez was in the room during Barksdale’s interview and was impressed by how quickly Barksdale verbalized a plan.

“She was captivating in terms of her vision for student support,” Martinez said.

Martinez and others were also impressed

by Barksdale’s contacts and the relationships she had fostered after years of social work.

She was hired.

Sixteen years after her first contractor job Barksdale was working full time at El Camino, in a role that suited her skills.

By 2018 former Student Development Director Greg Toya was leading the U-Pass Initiative while Paola Villareal worked with Cal-Fresh. Before it became a part of the Basic Needs Center, Special Services Professional Kim Cameron managed the Warrior Pantry. Barksdale and others in financial Aid and Guardian Scholars provided resources and guidance for foster and underprivileged youth.

But Barksdale and Martinez wanted to do more.

The way Martinez tells it, the snowball for what would become the Warrior Closet began with both women wanting to offer students interview clothes. The two women began donating their own, but it wasn’t enough.

Through her contacts, Barksdale connected with a colleague who was offering a donation.

Expecting a few crates, Barksdale visited her colleague only to be led to a giant warehouse overflowing with clothes.

She was going to need a bigger car.

Returning to ECC Barksdale told Martinez about the offer. They quickly got the now-former Vice President of Student Services Ross Miyshiro on the phone and asked permission to get a rental.

Next thing Martinez knows she, Barksdale and another colleague were in a U-haul racing down the road.

“We went to this place, and it was like a bungalow full of clothing on racks,” Martinez said. “So we just got the racks and we’re rolling them and I’m like, where are we gonna put all this and Sharonda says it doesn’t matter, this is too good of an opportunity we’ll deal with later.”

Sharonda Barksdale is all smiles at the Basic Needs Center on Thursday, April 26. Photo Photo by Delfino Camacho

The group dashed back to campus and began stashing their donations in the Communications Building. Now they had plenty of clothes to give away, but no space, workers or infrastructure.

“So then I’m like what are we gonna do, we got to tell the administration about this, they’ve gonna give us something,” Martinez said. “I told them we’re gonna start this closet and we need space for all these clothes.”

While it still took some time, Barksdale and Martinez’s donations misadventure inadvertently led to the Warrior Closet’s first iteration, the Warrior Closet popups.

With no permanent space, the pair took inspiration from thrift stores and would create temporary shops when available.

But they were working “off the grid,” with little to no budget.

Martinez moved to counseling in 2019, but in her time with Shronda they had acquired stock that would last years and a semi-permanent space for the closet in the old MMBM 130 bungalows building, next to the pantry.

Then Covid happened.

As the college shuttered down, resources remained, but distanced. The pantry offered drive-through food giveaways while Barksdale herself continued to work with foster and underprivileged youth online.

One of those students was Chance Williams who first met Barksdale when they were 500 miles apart.

Williams said he had a troubled upbringing, with a mother who suffered from addictions and an engineer father who prioritized himself.

William grew up fast and he latched onto football as a way to improve his lot.

Following the death of his mother who had been living in Nevada, Williams decided to try and join the University of Nevada, Las Vegas football team, as a walk-on.

He reached Nevada in early 2020 only to find the team didn’t offer walk-ons.

Shortly after the lockdown happened, leaving Williams stuck.

He began looking for community colleges and after connecting with a coach and looking through the ECC website found himself in a Zoom meeting with an actual person. Barksdale.

She broke down for Williams how to enroll and helped him fill out the proper paperwork. She told him it was up to him to get to Torrance and she would help him with everything else. Before the Zoom ended Williams asked her for her phone number, which Barksdale gave him.

He promised she would see him again.

Months later, the two met for the first time on campus.

“She’s been my girl since before day one,” Williams said. “I love her.”

Amid COVID-19 big changes were happening, locally and statewide.

Program Specialist for the California Community College Chancellor’s Office Colleen Ganley has over 20 years experience working in resource services with nine of those years in the Chancellor’s Office.

Growing up using the same kind of services she now advocates for, Ganeley says she is “a believer.” Some who work with her lovingly refer to her as the CalFresh lady.

“I work with 115 brick-and-mortar schools to help them provide services and establish basic needs centers,” she said.

“That’s my core function at the Chancellor’s Office.”

In general Ganley said colleges have known for years that some students struggle to meet their basic needs. But in the past, some viewed college’s responsibility as ending only with education.

“In more recent years, there’s been a lot of attention on this topic,” Ganley said. “What we came to realize is that everybody needs to be supporting the students.”

In 2019 the CCCCO in partnership with the Hope Lab conducted the first systemwide basic student basic needs survey. The survey data articulated that a significant amount of students were indeed lacking what was considered basic needs, like housing or food.

“We were able to use that data in an advocacy capacity to say, look, we have a lot of students who have reported that they have these needs,” Ganley said. “This is something that needs to be resourced and the state stepped right up and resourced that.”

In 2019-2020 Califonia got its first legislative dollars meant for community college food pantries. $ 2 . 5 m i l l i on w as distributed between 115 colleges.

Chance Willaims wears his El Camino football shirt while inside Murdock Stadium April 26. Photo by Delfino Camacho

11 | Warrior Life

Basic Needs Coordinator Sharonda Barksdale and specialist Kim Cameron strategize for the day prior to the opening of both pantry and closet shops on March 11. Photo by Delfino Camacho

The next year $10 million was split between the 115 colleges for pantries.

Covid exacerbated the need for further basic needs but also forced a funding pause.

In 2021-2022 state legislative talks began to develop the idea of basic needs centers with a full-time employee (or equivalent) across all California Community Colleges, with $30 million given to help begin development statewide.

A 2023 deadline was given.

Fast forward to today and the state gives $43.5 million to be split between the 115 colleges to expand basic needs centers and grow staff.

Ganely said one of the few problems money can’t solve is space.

There are few options when colleges run out of geography.

Before legislation made basic needs a requirement El Camino already had the programs, they were just splintered. With the chancellor’s office now asking for one central hub they needed to find a person who could manage it all.

In early 2022, as ECC opened back up, new President Brenda Thames was holding open office hours. Barksdale made sure to be the first in line one day and asked Thames for a bigger, permanent space for the closet, stating that coming out of Covid, there was going to be an increase in need.

Thames agreed and gave Barksdale a space above the Bookstore.

That same summer she was offered and accepted the role of Basic Needs Coordinator.

Warrior Life | 12

Now with a new space the Basic Needs Center umbrellas the closet and the pantry to provide not just food but other necessities like diapers, toothbrushes, etc. The center is also in charge of other student-centric resources including transportation and housing.

Regina Lee is an ECC advisor and now leads the Waarrior Resource Program helping to link students with even more resources like legal, metal and technical help.

Cameron, who managed the pantry before it became a part of the Basic Needs Center still works with Barksdale to manage the pantry.

She calls Barksdale the glue that keeps everything together.

Barksdale insists she is not a one woman show and says her team, including volunteers and student workers are the real glue.

For now, together with her longtime colleagues like Brown, Cameron, Paula Villareal and a plethora of student and part-time workers, the team works hard to keep the center stocked and running.

The center receives an impressive amount of quality food and clothes.

Tuesday through Thursday are “shop” days, meaning the pantry and wardrobe are open and busy serving students and community members.

The center is now a beehive of activity. During business hours the center is full of student workers, all busy helping customers or working on back stock.

While there is no offcial date yet, there are future plans to built a bigger designated space for the Basic Needs Center.

Sharonda Barksdale and Chance Williams share a laugh while on the El Camino College Murdock Stadium bleachers. Williams calls Barksdale “mom”, she calls him Chance the Rapper. Photo by Delfino Camacho

Student workers Rebecca Aquino and LaMeisha Brown are relatively new to the center but already love working with Barksdale and the rest of the team.

“I feel like we’re the heart of El Camino,” she said.

Although the work gets done Aquina said it never “feels” like a job.

Barksdale said the work helps keep her “connected.” She believes as much as life can be beautiful, it’s not all roses and people need the skills to handle that.

“Life is learning how to navigate where your resources are, life is learning, how do I get around this speed bump,” she said.

Williams still visits the center. He unashamedly calls Barksdale, among other center workers, his “moms.”

They’ve dubbed him Chance the Rapper.

Williams said Barksdale is “a beautiful soul” and he’s grateful to have crossed her path. While Williams believes he and Barksdale share a special relationship he insists his story is not the only one.

Barksdale is a beacon for many, he said – students like him who needed help.

“That’s what bridges the gap in between, are those Miss Barksdale’s out there that offer resources, that go the extra steps to make sure kids have what they need,” Williams said. needed help.

“That’s what bridges the gap in between, are those Miss Barksdale’s out there that offer resources, that go the extra steps to make sure kids have what they need,” Williams said.

The El Camino College Basic Needs Center is located above the Bookstore.

Students can fill out the intake form online by visiting Basic Needs Center page at elcamino.edu.

Assistance is offered in-person.

The Warrior Pantry Hours Tuesday: noon to 5:00 p.m.

Wednesday: 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Thursday: 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

The Warrior Closet Hours Tuesday: noon to 5:00 p.m.

Wednesday: 10 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Thursday: 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

13 | Warrior Life

Style without a budget Top 5 wardrobe essentials available at the Warrior Closet at El Camino College Story by Angel Pasillas

L

imited on funds, the Warrior Closet, located above the bookstore, is there to help. The Warrior Closet is open on Tuesdays from noon to 5 p.m. and on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

5. Accessories There is a wide variety of accessories to accentuate your outfit. There are baseball caps, scarves, beanies and ties.

4. Blazers

3. Shirts There is one rack of different kinds of shirts available at the Warrior Closet. From tees, long sleeves, button-ups, polos, and sports jerseys.

For those looking for something formal and professional, the Warrior Closet has got you covered. Whether you’re going to a wedding or a job interview, there is a wide selection of blazers.

2. Pants The Warrior Closet contains different types of pants. From jeans, chinos, trousers, dress pants, and corduroy. Brands such as Carhartt, Dockers, Calvin Klein, are available.

1. Socks The most popular item at the Warrior Closet is socks. They ‘re so popular that there were none available to photograph. Students are limited to 3 socks a week.

Warrior Life | 14

Steph Ishimatsu models the wardrobe essentials from the Warrior Closet.

Photo by Delfino Camacho

Platonic Passages

Story by Emily Gomez

Learning to navigate my friendships - from girlhood to adulthood Illustration by Ingrid Barrera

15 | Warrior Life

T

he feel of synthetic bristles on my cheeks as my closest friend attempts to do my makeup.

The compactness of my bedroom when my friends and I huddle to exchange whispers.

The support of a shoulder when my head needs somewhere to lay.

Today, the friendships I have with other women remain the foundations of my growth as I navigate through young adulthood and learn to define who I am.

However, the value of my friendships was not something I had always paid mind to when I was younger.

Many friendships in my youth were interrupted by the surgance of internalized misogyny, jealousy and our culture of often pitting women against each other.

It was not until high school that it dawned upon me how vital the role of my female friends had become.

When I began to really struggle with anxiety, I knew that at the very least I could share what I was going through with someone who understood me. I would get so overwhelmed and in my head that I struggled to articulate how I felt, yet somehow, my closest friends recognized without fail if I felt off.

While the trips to the mall and the inside jokes among friends were formative in their own way, the aspect of friendship that most uplifted me was this common ground of understanding.

“

An understanding for change prompts me to make conscious efforts for my friends, helping me carve out the time for them and be willing to try for them.

As I entered these stages of adulthood, I had to recognize the value of human connection, while also becoming aware of the additional effort required with the introduction of responsibilities.

Especially now, when the social sphere amongst my age group appears to be stunted and put off by vulnerability.

It’s become clear to me that one of the hindrances of the pandemic which is affecting people is the rise of loneliness.

According to a 2021 study led by the U.S Public Health Services, loneliness amongst younger individuals has become an epidemic.

The study uncovered that 79% of people ages 18 to 24 reported feeling lonely, an issue which was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, however the numbers had been surging prior to the pandemic regardless.

The pandemic affected many demographics in a variety of ways, but it specifically impacted the formation of friendships among young adults, who faced limited social experiences, and instead faced an influx in online interactions and communication.

I, similarly to other young adults my age, dealt with the social repercussions of the pandemic. I feel stunted in my growth from having a formative year taken from me, as well as facing lingering loneliness from isolation.

However, the pandemic once again brought to surface the importance of my friendships and the pillar of support that my connections have provided me.

When I returned to school following the pandemic, I was a senior in high school, and recognized the importance of my friendships.

My time attending a community college has allowed me to experience the commitment of being a full time student, unveiling how responsibilities can create a form of distance within my relationships, but also teaching me firsthand how I can put in alleviating efforts.

I am at a transitional point in my life where I have to make active choices for the sake of my relationships, communicating, staying in touch – despite the challenge of distance, and learning to schedule around our commitments.

One of the hardest undertakings in young adulthood is the realization that intentionality is necessary - the efforts and the time invested into someone else is important.

I make sure to grab lunch with my friends in the spare moments in between classes.

In a world dwindling in connection, I hold onto the love and support that only a close friend can provide me.”

My introduction to vulnerability was within the friendships of my girlhood.

My friends and I could all relate to one another and have conversations about the issues that plagued us – my strained relationship with my mom, Andrea’s struggles with mental health, and Dayana’s indecisiveness regarding her future. We had found an understanding within each other that was ultimately the most beneficial to our development.

Fostering and maintaining these friendships has been a priority as I’ve gotten a bit older and entered a stage where friendships are no longer kept up through the close proximity of school.

Being a college student, I am reminded of the importance of having someone by your side as you grow – not only when you’ve triumphed a c a d e m i c a l ly, but t he emotional aspects of being in college as well – overcoming self-doubt, tackling imposter syndrome, and dealing with the anxieties of the “real world”.

The growing pains of adulthood materialize themselves into busy schedules and efforts which were once not necessary – but the remedy to this presents itself as an understanding for change.

Warrior Life | 16

However, the pandemic once again brought to surface the importance of my friendships and the pillar of support that my connections have provided me.

When I returned to school following the pandemic, I was a senior in high school, and really understood the importance of my friendships.

My time attending a community college has allowed me to experience the commitment of being a full time student, unveiling how responsibilities can create a form of distance within my relationships, but also unveiling how I can put in alleviating efforts.

I am at a transitional point in my life where I have to make active choices for the sake of my relationships, communicating, staying in touch with friends – despite the challenge of distance, and learning to schedule around our commitments.

One of the hardest undertakings in young adulthood is the realization that consistency and availability are incredibly important to friendships as you grow.

Being intentional with one’s efforts and the time invested into someone else is important.

I make sure to grab lunch with my friends in between classes.I initiate study dates when we have exams. I call with the intention of

catching up, and most importantly, I try to communicate. If another responsibility takes up my time, I am transparent about my commitment to my friends so that they understand my circumstances and understand where I am coming from.

However, I refuse to let those obstacles become the culminations of my friendships.

As I age into my early twenties, I enter a newfound slate of navigating through my life which can only be done with the presence of a support system.

In a world dwindling in connection, I hold onto the love and support that only a close friend can provide me.

While the nature of my

“

One of the hardest undertakings in young adulthood is the realization that consistency and availability are incredibly important to friendships as you grow.”

17 | Warrior Life

Y

ou can’t see. You can’t hear. You can’t speak.

The world is dark and quiet.

You have no choice but to feel lost, scared and confused. Your five senses have been stripped.

Everyday tasks are impossible without the luxury of sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste.

In the summer of 2022, I was diagnosed with a rare type of migraine that causes stroke-like symptoms and could potentially kill me.

Hemiplegic migraines cause paralysis on one side of the body along with a migraine headache. It also creates auras, which are changes in vision, speech and sensation.

According to the National Library of Medicine, 0.01% of people get hemiplegic migraines and only 0.002% of people get sporadic hemiplegic migraines.

Although I experienced these migraines throughout middle school, the rarity of them led to doctors to chalk it up to dehydration.

Since the migraines subsided in high school, it wasn’t until this past year that I started taking them seriously.

One July morning, I began to feel the auras instantly. My tongue felt foreign in my mouth and as I rubbed my fingers together, I realized I couldn’t feel them. When I opened my eyes, I was hit with a wave of excruciating pain.

It’s like a golf ball was lodged in the center of my brain, continuously expanding and trying to break out of my skull. The searing pain behind my eyes felt like someone was trying to rip them out.

I was paralyzed in my bed, unable to get up and unable to call out to my roommate Leah.

After a few minutes, I picked up my phone to text her. Through my tunnel vision, I attempted to type in my passcode.

Every number I tried to press, I missed.

Simple motor functions were nearly impossible for me at this point.

Forcing myself out of bed, I stumbled toward Leah’s room. My body didn’t belong to me. It was like I was operating a machine and I hadn’t read the manual.

“Leah I need help,” I tried to tell her. What came out was complete gibberish. She began to laugh, thinking I was messing around.

I broke down in her room sobbing, trying to get any real word out. I used what little strength I had to . I took a drink and felt it pour out of the side of my mouth.

Every muscle on my right side had stopped working, including in my face. I was trapped inside my body.

Hemiplegic migraines can cause blackouts.

The next thing I knew, I was lying in a hospital bed being wheeled into a room to get a CAT scan done.

Leah took me to the emergency room, where they poked and prodded to figure out what was wrong with me. The rest of the day was a blur, which I assume was because of the mixture of the drugs they injected me with and the blackouts caused by the migraine.

For days and sometimes weeks after a migraine, I found myself in a constant state of dissociation. I was a stranger in my own skin.

It felt like I was watching someone else’s life through my eyes. I suffered from severe anxiety for months.

The doctors eventually referred me to a neurologist, who diagnosed me with sporadic hemiplegic migraines.

My neurologist explained that foods, smells, lights, stress, too little or too much sleep, physical activity and head trauma could cause a migraine. Other times, I might get one for no reason at all. He said these can be

dangerous migraines. They can lead to stroke, coma, memory problems, permanent disability. And death.

Sporadic hemiplegic migraines are just that – sporadic. This means they can happen at any time for any reason. I may have these migraines for the rest of my life or I may never have another one again.

Even after trying multiple different medicines, I was still stuck with these migraines that seemed to control my life.

When I could barely see, I still had to get in my car and drive my 20-minute route to work every other day. I still had to go grocery shopping when I couldn’t grip the grocery cart. I still had to fold my laundry when my head felt like a bowling ball.

Some days, I had no choice but to stay home since I couldn’t stand. I was forced to call out of work more times than my manager liked, even with a medical diagnosis. I was fired.

The thought of never knowing if you’ll feel normal is depressing. I felt like a helpless, unemployed kid who would never be able to live a fulfilling life.

It wasn’t until my dad gave me a different perspective that allowed me to turn my mindset around.

“The pain you’re feeling is only fueling your courage,” he said. He was right. Even though I was going through something, it helped me realize just what I can endure. If I can handle being fired and losing my senses while still earning A’s and B’s in college, I’m a lot stronger than I think.

Although I have been migraine-free for almost six months now, I still practice the perseverance that I was forced to learn two summers ago. This way, I know I can handle whatever life decides to throw at me next.

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How my rare migraines changed my view on life Story by Maddie Selack

ped Illustration by Leyna Kobayashi

19 | Warrior Life

Illustration by Nikki Yunker

Why BraziliaN jiu-jitsu is Crucial for law enforcement Reducing use-of-force rates starts with understanding leverage and arrest position

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uring a sparring session simulating a street fight that starts standing up and later goes to the ground, I find myself on my back. My training partner grabs both my legs and takes me down to the ground after driving his knee down to the mats, while his shoulder drives into my chest. Pinned.

I’m trying to get out of the bottom position while he drives his weight onto me from the top, preventing me from recovering. I’m able to move my legs until he immobilizes one of them by holding onto the material of my training pants while feeling the crushing pressure of weight onto my torso.

During the scuffle, I feel defeated after numerous attempts to escape the entanglement. I eventually throw in the towel and call it quits by tapping out.

This is what untrained suspects feel when police officers who train Brazilian jiu-jitsu apply techniques during a street fight or arrest situation in which he or she would fight back.

Brazilian jiu-jitsu, a martial art that focuses on leverage combined with ground fighting, grappling, joint locks and submission holds is a way to manage and control a subject in a street fight.

It could be effective in decreasing the police brutality rates. Various police departments across the United States have established a reputation for an abuse of power. Before Brazilian

Story by Greg Fontanilla jiu-jitsu made its way to police departments and its officers, most did not receive the proper training to restrain suspects without injury.

According to the Police Brutality Center, a Washington Post database has shown that law enforcement officers have killed 2.3 million white people per year since 2015, while Hispanics were killed at a rate of 2.5 million, and blacks at an alarming rate of 5.8 million per year. Deadly force methods have included using their fists and kicking, baton striking, pepper spray, rubber bullets, or firing their service weapon when restraining or subduing a subject in an ecounter.

With proper de-escalation training through Brazilian jiu-jitsu, police departments as a whole can reduce the number of deadly force incidents. A 2022 BJJ World article revealed a police department in Georgia saw a 48% decrease in injuries to officers, 53% injury reduction to arrestees, and 23% less in using taser guns.

As a practitioner who has been doing Brazilian jiu-jitsu for two and a half years now, I have found this martial art effective, because I have tried using restraining and compliance techniques on friends and relatives who are not trained in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, while they attempt to escape me.

Effective, because controlling another human being with leverage and technique when the fight goes to the ground can break the

mindset that is allowing the offender to fight back. For instance, catching my training partners in armbars or collar chokes are two of my go-to submissions during sparring sessions. However, I need to understand the position, learning to apply control and technique. It is crucial before taking the steps to submit an opponent while grappling.

It is difficult for the untrained individual to escape from a position where a trained practitioner can use leverage, along with easily distributing body weight to prevent these people from transitioning into a recovery position that will allow them to throw attacks.

Brazilian jiu-jitsu could be used by police to defend themselves when they’re on duty and restrain subjects without injury.

Police departments across the nation could gain the trust of the general public because of training in de-escalation and restraining tactics and techniques. Officers and police departments as a whole have the capability to learn and incorporate Brazilian jiu-jitsu because it is a valuable tool that can be used in everyday situations.

Officers can learn how to defend themselves from not only punches and kicks, but headlocks and chokes from various positions which include standing, mount, side control, guard, and back control. With proper control, officers will have the ability to use submissions, comprised of numerous techniques that can

potentially injure a person as they’re maintaining control.

In addition, using pain compliance during the process of a submission is enough for a suspect to comply with commands an officer gives.

One basic submission is an armbar, in which the submitter catches another person’s arm in between their legs as they’re laying down to hyperextend, or potentially break the limb while raising hips up in the air. From this position, officers can transition into a handcuffing position and take a subject into custody.

The general public, people of all occupations including the military, medical professionals, can equip themselves with these training tools in order to not only defend themselves, but others as well.

Catching my training partners in armbars or collar chokes are two of my go-to submissions during sparring sessions. However, I need to understand the position, control, and technique is crucial before taking the steps to submit an opponent.

Officers need to understand this too, to ensure deescalation, because an arrestee may use brute strength to disengage from a fight.

Technique and leverage are crucial in ensuring strength is not even used.

With Brazilian jiu-jitsu in the arsenal of officer training, police departments around the globe can reduce the rate of violence and use of force on the job.

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PUNCH BARRI

A coach’s plan to take El Camino b Story by Angel Pasillas

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HING IERS

boxing to the national stage

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arly 2000s hip-hop plays on the speaker as students learn the fundamentals of boxing. The music is interrupted by the sound of a boxing bell, which indicates when to change exercises.The students practice head movement, footwork, punching combinations and shadow boxing.

Whenever students arrive late to class, they are forced to do pushups for every minute they miss.

The boxing class is taught by coach Rachel Pittock, who has been at El Camino College since summer 2019 as an adjunct professor. In a male-dominated sport such as boxing, many assume she is male.“Every email I get is like, ‘Hi Mr. Pittock I want to take your class,’” Pittock said. She said that at least once a semester she will get asked if she is the boxing coach.

A recent recipient of the Distinguished Women Award from El Camino College in March 2024. Pittock plans to take El Camino boxing to the national stage. During her time at El Camino, Pittock said there has been a slow increase in female students taking boxing classes. “I’m seeing more participation from females, I think when I first started there was maybe only one or two females in my class now all my classes have three or four,” she said.

Pittock said she wishes that more women feel comfortable and confident joining the boxing class.“Boxing is for everyone, it’s not just for men, it’s not just for people who work out, lift,” she said.

Her boxing journey began while she was attending UC Santa Barbara. She began training at Duke’s Boxing & Fitness in Isla Vista, at age 18 and coached at Duke’s boxing gym to pay for the gym membership at 19 — a sign of what was to come later in her career.

Eager to get in the ring, Pittock said she would train and spar with the men at her gym. She got her amateur card to compete not long after joining Duke’s. She said did not feel intimidated being a woman in a male-dominated field.

But her opportunity at competing in amateur boxing never came, due to the lack of women of a similar size in her area to compete against. “I trained in quite a few fight camps but I never got my first fight, I was never matched during my time there and it was pretty disheartening,” Pittock said.

Pittock describes herself as a tomboy and said that she has always been into athletics. She comes from a large family. Her mother is Filipino-Portuguese from Hawaii who moved to the South Bay after graduating high school. She raised Pittock in Hawthorne. Pittock said she was also raised by her mom’s side of the family and is very close to them. Her grandma would pick her up from school when she was little.

She used to play football during elementary and middle school but was told by an athletic director that girls were not allowed to play football. From there she pivoted to playing volleyball, beginning from the sixth grade and throughout high school. Pittock said she had the opportunity to play volleyball in college but felt “burnt out” by her volleyball coaches. She said that she stopped playing sports altogether and went to UC Santa Barbara.

From there she would find Duke’s boxing gym and reinvigorated her passion for sports. After graduating from UC Santa Barbara with a degree in communications, she began to train her friends and family how to box because she could never find a gym she liked. Pittock said that a lot of the gyms were cardio-based, while she was looking to fight.

When she moved back to the South Bay, she trained with a group of Muay Thai fighters. Although she did not train in Muay Thai, she studied their movement and technique and incorporated some of the skills she learned into her boxing.Today, she trains at Sweet Science Boxing & MMA in Hawthorne when she has time.

Outside of the gym, Pittock’s passion for sports made her gravitate toward a career in athletics.

Pittock said she began working in database management at the Special Olympics after being a teacher’s assistant and having a couple of different jobs.

Pittock said she did not think it was possible to have a job in athletics due to her family suggesting she become a teacher or secretary.

23 | Warrior Life

“From my predominantly Asian background, it was always expected that I was going to be a teacher or secretary, that was kind of like what my grandma was like,” Pittock said.

While working at the Special Olympics, Pittock returned to school and received her master’s in coaching and athletic administration from Concordia University.

After spending a decade working at the Special Olympics Pittock oversaw all the sports programs in Southern California. Just before she left in 2018, she was the sports manager for the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley.

Pittock said she felt exhausted during her time at the Special Olympics because she worked 80 hours a week. She was married and considering having a baby. She has been married since 2013 and 3-year-old daughter.

Even now, Pittock said she volunteers for large-scale events at the Special Olympics and runs the volleyball venue.

Pittock said the long working hours had made her go into education where she began teaching at St. Catherine LaBoure in Torrance.

Pittock was a PE teacher and is now the athletic director at Saint Catherine LaBoure Middle School.

While working at Saint Catherine LaBoure, Pittock came across a faculty Volunteer assistant coach for the El Camino College’s Women’s Beach member from El Camino College who referred Volleyball team, Rachel Pittock, demonstrates the proper form to her her to an opening as the college’s boxing coach. players, April 1. Photo by Monroe Morrow When she first arrived in the summer of 2019, Pittock said that the boxing program at “I think it’s nice how she is willing to be the representative for El Camino was much larger than it is now. the boxing club so the students have a place to go and box,” Krysti “Before Covid the boxing program was huge, there were two Rosario, El Camino boxing instructor since 2005, said. other teachers, then they brought me on,” Pittock said. In spring Rosario praised Pittock for dedicating her own time to being 2020 there were eight boxing classes at El Camino. While in spring the Boxing Club adviser.

2024 there are 6 boxing classes.

“It’s her own time that she is giving Most of the people taking her class are up when she’s so busy with everything new to boxing and are looking to get into else in her life. With her daughter and her shape or learn a new skill, she said. teaching and her volleyball coaching and Amber Galloway, 22, a fashion design she’s giving the time for the club and also and production major, said that her first the fight nights she’s giving her time so boxing class was with Pittock. Galloway said that these athletes, these boxers have a she had wanted to take boxing classes since place to showcase their talent,” Rosario high school. Galloway describes Pittock as said. funny, dedicated, professional, and skilled.

Outside of being a boxing coach at El She said Pittock “puts in that work.”

Camino, Pittock also is an assistant volunteer coach for the El As the adviser for the El Camino Boxing Club, Pittock said that Camino Women’s Beach Volleyball team at El Camino. the club has helped El Camino have more boxing classes since the The Boxing Club has organized two fight events since its pandemic. The Boxing Club began in the spring semester of 2023. inception in the spring semester of 2023. Pittock said she is proud of Chris Garcia, a kinesiology major, one of the founding all her students participating in the boxing club’s fight night events. members and a trainer for the Boxing Club said his original idea for Fight nights organized by the Boxing Club are culminating creating a club on campus was a weightlifting club. Garcia said that events that showcase skills that students have learned in a sparring Thanos Sarreas, a co-founding member of the Boxing Club, bout? to family and friends. Twelve fighters participated in the first suggested they create a boxing club at El Camino and said Pittock fight night and 14 fighters participated in the most recent event on told them that she would be the adviser.

Feb. 24. Pittock said 186 people had paid for tickets to attend the

“

Men and Women can both be good at this sport.” - Rachel Pittock

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Rachel Pittock, El Camino College boxing coach, demonstrates the next set of punching combinations to a student on March 21. Photo by Monroe Morrow

event at Sweet Science in Hawthrone.

During sparring sessions, Pittock keeps a keen eye on the students, guiding them, giving them tips and making sure no one gets injured. Students volunteer to spar with each other and are required to wear mouthguards and headgear.

One of her goals is to compete against other schools. “The ultimate goal would be to take fighters annually every spring to the collegiate national tournaments that USA Boxing puts on,” she said.

Rosario said Pittock is a “go-getter.”

“Whatever she wants to accomplish, to me, she seems like she’s going to accomplish it,” Rosario said.

In spring 2025, Pittock plans to take six fighters to compete in the collegiate nationals. Pittock said it would be El Camino’s firstever collegiate national boxing team.

Kevin Martinez, 25, a philosophy major, said he took boxing classes before the pandemic with coach Shihan Mitsuru Yamashita.

Yamashita died in 2021.

Once the pandemic was over, and he returned to college Martinez said he took Pittock’s intermediate boxing class and another boxing class with Rosario. Martinez trains outside El Camino at Sweet Science gym.

Martinez is one of the fighters Pittock plans to take to compete at the collegiate nationals next year.

Rosario said that women’s boxing still faces challenges. She said that women’s boxing fights are not allotted the same time duration as men’s boxing. Women are only allowed two-minute rounds and a maximum of ten rounds. While male boxers compete for twelve rounds and each round lasts three minutes. Rosario said that Women’s boxing at the Olympics did not exist until summer 2012.

Pittock said that she thinks that boxing is something that many women are interested in and hopes to foster a welcoming environment for them.

“As more people are taking the class, and the popularity is growing, having female teachers, and the adviser of the Boxing Club is female. I think it’s making, hopefully, more females are feeling more confident and comfortable, joining the class,” she said.

Sophia Watari, 19, a chemical engineering major, said she took Pittock’s class in fall 2023. Watari said she wanted to take it in spring because she enjoys it and it motivates her in the morning.

“I felt very welcomed here, a lot of people are of different skill levels here,” she said.

Pittock said that society has conditioned people to place men and women into preset roles and that she loves that she and Rosario are breaking that boundary.

“Seeing her be the coach instead of like, I don’t know a guy or something, makes me feel like I want to be like that too,” Watari said.

One of the reasons why Pittock thinks boxing is important is because it keeps people in shape and teaches them new skills, discipline and introspection. Pittock said competing against someone else in a ring and how one handles adversity forces one to learn about oneself.

The El Camino Boxing Club meetings take place at the South Gym at El Camino College on Fridays from 9 to 10 a.m.

Instructions to join are available at @eccboxing on Instagram.

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Automotive ambitions Story by Greg Fontanilla

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nlock the power of technological innovation! El Camino College boasts a variety of different programs within the Industry and Technology Division, paving the way for a career in the industrial technology field. These programs include construction and automotive technology. Warrior Life stopped by a few of these classes to get a glimpse into the kinesthetic learning opportunity students receive with tools and equipment. Here is what Warrior Life discovered!

Jeremy Duque, an automotive technology instructor, shows a student how to hold the hood of a car open during a lab class on Saturday, April 20 in the Center of Applied Technology work area. Photo by Greg Fontanilla

Automotive technology students Gerardo Diaz (left), Leah Braly, and Charlie Leon attempt to locate a sensor in the engine of a Ford F-150 during a lab session for an Electrical, Electronics and Computer Controlled Systems class on Monday, April 22 in the Center of Applied Technology Building. David Gonzales, dean of the Industry and Technology Division, said the automotive program can prepare students for a smog license exam. Photo by Greg Fontanilla

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Juan Pantoja, an automotive technology student, checks for hot and cold readings on an OBD scanner during a lab session on Monday, April 22 in the Center of Applied Technology Building. Pantoja took an electrical and computer controlled systems class in the automotive technology program to learn how electrical functions work in automobiles. He plans on working for a European car dealership upon finishing the program. Photo by Greg Fontanilla Domingo Castro, a construction student at El Camino College works with wood in order to build a bookshelf during a cabin-making class on Saturday, April 20, in the Construction Technology Building.

Photo by Greg Fontanilla

Students in the working area in the Construction Technology Building on Saturday, April 20. Photo by Greg Fontanilla

27 | Warrior Life

Freshman catcher Anahi Pintado takes practices catches on the softball field. She has represented Mexico on the junior national softball team, and is looking to compete in the Olympics in 2028.

Photo by Greg Fontanilla

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Pursuing Excellence From the junior national team, to community college, softball player has sights set on Olympics

A

Story by Greg Fontanilla

nahi Pintado is eyeing down dance for about 6 years. the pitcher.

Born in Inglewood, Pintado started It’s early in the Warriors’ ballet when she was just 2. On the way game against Chaffey College and home from a dance recital, she and her Pintado, a 5 foot 3 inch freshman father, Sergio, who is the current head catcher is taking practice swings from coach for Mexico’s junior national team, the on-deck circle as she awaits her turn drove by a park in Manhattan Beach. at bat.

She saw girls wearing pink bows and It’s her turn to step up to the plate. helmets playing softball.

Pintado makes her way to the Pintado, who was 8 at the time, told diamond as her name is announced her father she wanted to play softball. through the loudspeakers at El Camino “Softball was fast paced, it was College’s softball field. Mariachi music moving, everybody was cheering, plays over another loudspeaker. everybody was loud,” Pintado said.

With a bat in hand and helmet on her “That’s what I loved about it.” head, she stands at the ready. Her face is Her father was hesitant to let his focused and determined – looking for a daughter play because he did not want ball that is about to be pitched her way. to see her to experience the kind of As she has done countless times since tough coaching her older sister had she was 8 years old, the now 19-year- experienced as a softball player. old psychology major takes a swing at Pintado was adamant though. the ball and connects for a hit, her long, Adamant to play. brown ponytail flying.

Her father eventually gave in to her While balancing life taking classes at request, telling her if she wanted to El Camino and playing for the softball compete, hard work would be required. team, the Golden Glove Award winner “It’s been very humbling, because is also balancing as a softball player for there are a lot of kids in Mexico that an international team, which is rare for really look up to her [Pintado], and a community college athlete. they want to model the way she Pintado has also competed as a disciplines herself toward the sport and member of Mexico’s Junior National toward school,” Sergio Pintado said.

Softball Team under Jorge Araujo, who That hard work, along with grit and is now head coach of the women’s perseverance, led to Pintado earning a national team and also serves as an chance to tryout in West Covina with associate head coach at California State the Mexican national softball team at University Fullerton. She is eyeing a age 13, competing for a spot with other spot on the team that will comprise of athletes ranging from 15 to 20 years old.

20 players for the Olympics that will Additionally, she played under take place in Los Angeles in 2028. longtime coach Tom Tice for Rosary While she is looking to don the Academy in Fullerton during high colors of Mexico’s flag on the Olympic school, playing catcher and the third stage, her childhood was rooted in b as e p osit ion. The elig ibility 29 | Warrior Life

requirements for the national team includes Mexican citizenship, as well as the ability to speak Spanish. Pintado holds dual citizenship in the U.S. and Mexico, where her father was born. Her father speaks fluent Spanish.

Secondly, a selection committee of five members conduct observations and evaluations of players based on performance at workouts. The committee selects players they feel are best suited for the national team. Another requirement is that the player has to be of Mexican descent, or of origin.

She eventually earned her spot on the national team after a tryout, Warrior Life | 30

becoming the youngest player on the team.

“I wanted to get something more physical than being in a tutu,” Pintado said.

Araujo, who has been coaching with Mexico’s national team for the women’s team and junior team since 2013, discovered Pintado after the young softball player attended a workout, with aspirations to qualify for a national team.

While watching her play, the veteran coach quickly took note of her on-the field abilities, which included good command behind the plate, as well as her work ethic and drive.

“She was just really eager to be around the game,” Araujo said during a phone interview with Warrior Life. “She was just like a sponge just wanting to soak everything up from the older players.”

He described Pintado as a coach on the field, highlighting her skillset, on-the-field IQ, as well as her communication and leadership ability. He recalled a moment when she displayed that leadership during a game in Lima, Peru after an injury to Mexico’s third baseman. Pintado replaced the injured player, but felt the batter from the opposing team was about to execute a bunt at the diamond.

“She comes up to me and she says ‘coach Jorge, there’s 100 percent I’m feeling that this batter is going to bunt,’” Araujo said.

Pintado’s intuition was correct – the batter not only bunt the ball, but it also led to a defensive play.

In addition, he praised her for her work ethic and drive.

“She gets the best out of herself, day in and day out,” Araujo said. “Whether it’s in the classroom, on the field, or as a teammate, she’s always the best that she can be in all those areas.”

Pintado competed in several tournaments at the junior national level, which have included PanAmerican tournaments, playing against the U.S., Chinese Taipei, Czech Republic, and Puerto Rico. She has also competed in The World Cup, against Puerto Rico, Peru, U.S., and Colombia.

She has traveled to Colombia with the U-19 junior national team, taking home a silver medal against the Colombian team. Pintado and her team placed fifth in Peru as well.

She was the youngest player on the squad when she traveled to Ecuador with the U-15 team.

At her position, catchers are generally taller, and require a strong arm. As a member of the national team and club softball, Pintado was criticized for her height and arm strength by opposing coaches who believed that she didn’t have the frame or physical abilities to succeed as a catcher, one of the most demanding positions on the field.

Pintado took this as motivation after being angered by the comments and the attitudes, refusing to let her critics define her.

“I’ve had a lot of people say ‘you’re too small to be a catcher,’” Pintado said. “It gave me a reason to prove them wrong.”

Pintado said she brings passion and dedication into her sport.

Catchers require communication with teammates, pitchers, umpires and coaches, as well as controlling the pace of the game, which is a trait she said she brings as a player.

While facing criticism for her size, she also faced criticism for her cultural background. While playing in Mexico, Pintado said she

Anahi Pintado donning her Mexican national team jersey. Photo by Greg Fontanilla

Anahi Pintado after a game against Fullerton College on Saturday, April 20. She began playing softball when she was 8 years old, and has played on Mexico’s junior national team. At age 13, she was selected to play for the junior national team, playing with girls older than her. “It really did make me as a person,” Pintado said. “I couldn’t act my age. I had to act and be like them as if I was 19, 20 years old, when I was only 16.” Photo by Delfino Camacho

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Anahi Pintado celebrates a win over Fullerton College, on Saturday, April 20 at El Camino’s softball field with her friend and teammate, Malia Martin (#14). Photo by Delfino Camacho

heard comments from fans, parents and even from people online regarding her light-skinned complexion.

The fans said that Pintado was “not Mexican enough” to represent Mexico. Her father was born in Empalme, Sonora in Mexico and grew up in East Los Angeles, while her mother was born in Santa Monica and raised in Inglewood.

“It made me want to prove not only myself, but prove them wrong,” Pintado said. “It didn’t matter what I look like, but how I play.”

Her mother and brother are alumni of El Camino, graduating in 2000, and 2018, respectively. Pintado’s aunt also attended the college.

Araujo has been in Pintado’s corner since she was 14 years old and has supported her throughout her journey. So have her softball teammates and coaches at El Camino College. One of those coaches is Jessica Rapoza, the head coach of the Warriors softball team and a kinesiology professor at ECC. Before attending the college, Pintado committed to California State University Dominguez Hills, but did not play for the university because she said there was limited roster size. She ended up playing at El Camino because she felt Rapoza gave her an opportunity to play softball.

Rapoza also praised Pintado for her on-the-field abilities, which include being versatile at different positions on the field.

“Her work ethic is really good, her skill level is really high, her softball IQ is high, she’s coachable, she has a great spirit, she’s super competitive, she’s gritty,” Rapoza said. “She plays multiple positions, which has been really huge for us this year. Her arm is elite and she’s a good teammate.”

Pintado has been seen playing multiple positions, which have included the left outfield position at ECC during a game against

Chaffey on March 20.

Rapoza said it is rare to have a community college athlete play at the junior level as well as the national level. In her 14 seasons as a head coach, Rapoza has had 55 softball players advance to play at the four-year level, as well as the professional level. Thirty five of those players have played at ECC, while 20 came from Santa Ana College, where she was co-head coach before taking the reins at ECC. “It’s a special situation that we have, and I feel very fortunate to get to coach her [Pintado],” Rapoza said.

Cruz Rolando Guerrero, who has been president of the Mexican Softball Federation since 2016 said it is a regular occurrence for a community college student-athlete to qualify for Mexico’s national team at the junior level.

“It’s common. I started looking for young women with Mexican grandparents or parents who played softball and who were at a high level of softball,” Guerrero said in Spanish during a phone interview with Warrior Life. “Right now, we have about eight players from this side [U.S.] that got a scholarship from high school and now they are there with a coach in Miami to raise their level of play.”

Araujo has also said it is common at the junior level to have softball players competing outside of the national team to be part of a high school team, as well as club teams. The exception would be the players who play in Mexico.

The Mexican Softball Federation is the governing body of tournaments to represent Mexico in softball and is the main softball organizer in the country. Expansion within the federation has come to fruition, with additions of different age-group categories ranging from age groups under 6 years old to under 14.

While there have been different age-group categories been added 33 | Warrior Life

Running from second to third, Anahi Pintado attempts to score during a conference game on Tuesday, April 23 at El Camino’s softball field. Photo by Greg Fontanilla

to the organization, the country has also reached several milestones – a creation of its first professional league, first time qualifying for the Olympics [2019], medaling for the first time in a Central American, as well as in a PanAmerican competition, and competing in its first World Cup. Guerrero said 15 players from the senior national team in preselection come from different American colleges, which include players in Utah, Arizona, or Washington. He said there are nine players on the youth team who are from Mexico, while another nine of those players were born in the U.S., but have Mexican roots.

Pintado is in a transitional phase in which she can qualify for the women’s Olympic team in 2028, but would first have to qualify for the team in 2026.

Guerrero added that there are six professional leagues, and is looking to expand to 10 teams. The leagues will start their second season on January 25.

Pintado would have to stay with the junior national team in order to transition to making the women’s team. Araujo and Rapoza have no doubt that Pintado will continue to work her way in order to qualify for the Olympic team.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that she’s going to go after it and earn a spot on that team,” Araujo said. “I do not see her shying away from the tryout process and competing against other players that are trying to make the team.”

*Delfino Camacho contributed to this story Warrior Life | 34

Playing at the left field position on Wednesday, March 20 against Chaffey College, Pintado stays ready on defense. Photo by Greg Fontanilla

Taste of Thailand

Delicious lunch specials under $12 are just a short walk from El Camino

L

Story and photo by Erica Lee

ocated across the street from El Camino on Crenshaw Boulevard, Noodles Noodles’ lunch specials offer a diverse range of dishes from fried rice and salad to noodle soups and curries for a reasonable price.

At first glance, Noodles Noodles is inconspicuous from the lineup of storefronts populating the strip mall it resides in. Visitors are greeted by a cheerful, airy dining room where colorful paintings of boats and elephants hang on saffron yellow walls. Pots of white and purple orchids and leafy tropical plants wait by the door while soft music wafts in from the television mounted in the corner.

From 11 a.m. until 3 p.m., from Monday to Friday, diners have their pick of 11 dishes for the lunch special ranging from pad thai to fried rice, soup to four kinds of curry for $11.95.

Each lunch special comes with steamed, fluffy white rice and a side of crispy wontons fried to a golden brown crisp and enveloping the tender chicken center or a green salad garnished with shoestring slices of carrot and tossed in a tangy dressing.

The green curry is a springtime-colored medley of colors and flavors. The medallions of carrots, slices of red bell pepper and green beans remain crisp and crunchy as it swims in a soup of creamy coconut milk flavored with spicy green curry paste, lemongrass and whole mint leaves. The broccoli florets that had sunk to the bottom added a pleasant surprise while thick strips of tender white meat chicken floated on the surface.

The thin rice noodles of the pad thai are sweet and slightly spicy, with a shock of red cabbage on the side and sprinkling of slices of long green onions on top. The soft noodles are enhanced by the crunchy d i c e d peanuts and

bean sprouts.

The Thai fried rice is fluffy and fragrant with an abundance of velvety chunks of tofu, translucent slices of onion, medallions of carrot and green onions and golden fried eggs.

The richly spiced Thai ice tea ($4) is tempered by the sweet milk poured on top that seeps its way through the gaps in the ice to the bottom of the glass. A couple of revolutions of a spoon transforms the two-toned drink into a burnt ochre beverage that balances the rich spices of the cardamon and star anise with the creamy milk.

The Thai iced coffee ($4) is so strong, it can perk up even the most sleep deprived El Camino student. The condensed milk floating on the surface takes the edge off the bitterness from the strong black coffee while keeping its caffeine-packed punch.

Noodles Noodles is an up-and-coming lunchtime destination for El Camino students looking for filling, delicious food at a reasonable price. The diverse flavor profile of rich spices and refreshing herbs adds a whole other dimension to familiar Thai comfort food such as pad thai and curry. Even during its busiest lunch rush, the employees are friendly and fast.

Come stop by anytime before 3 to try out a taste of Thailand. And tell Daisy and Macky that Warrior Life sent you.

Location: 15900 Crenshaw Blvd. Unit C, Gardena, CA 90249 Phone: 424-266-9564 Hours: Monday-Sunday 11 a.m. - 3 p.m./4 p.m.

- 8:30 p.m.

We b s it e : w w w. noodlesnoodlesthai.com

35 | Warrior Life

Illustration by Kim McGill

Building Bonds How the fading memory of my mother made me grow closer to my nephew Story by Angel Pasillas

M

y father was driving me, my mother Silvia and my older brother Daniel back home in his Toyota pick-up after attending my maternal grandmother's funeral in

Texas.

During our trip back, our truck hit something on the road. The truck veered off the road and rolled over multiple times.

Both my brother and mother were ejected from the truck. This is the last time I saw my mother. The last memory I have of my mom is her lifeless body laid out on the gravel beside the road.

The death of my mother occurred more than 16 years ago, just days before I turned 7 years old.

Because my mom died such a long time ago, the memories that I have of her are beginning to fade.

Last year, my father asked me if i still remember my mother. I had to be honest and tell him I couldn’t remember a lot of things about her. It happened such a long time ago that I no longer feel the sorrow I once felt. It has been a long time since I have cried about her.

They say that time heals all wounds, but time is now eroding my memories. I don’t remember what it was like to have a mother.

I have lived more years without my mother than with her.

I can’t bring her from the dead. The only thing i can do is preserve the little memories that I have of her. With my mother Warrior Life | 36

gone, it was just me, my older brother and my dad.

There was a big void in our family. But that changed Oct. 19, 2022, When my nephew logan was born. Logan and I share the same birthday, only 22 years apart.

For the first six months of his existence, I felt awkward around him. I didn’t hold him, carry him or interact with him. I only greeted him with a “hi” or “hey.”

Both my brother and father asked me multiple times why I acted so coldly toward Logan. I could not explain to them why there was such a lack of interaction on my part.

I was too nervous to hold him. He was small and brittle and I thought I would hurt him if I did something wrong. My fear of hurting him prevented me from playing, holding and interacting with him.

I didn’t know exactly why i acted that way. I would see him every day as we lived on the same property but we were still worlds apart.

Something eventually shifted though.

We took a family trip to Idaho in April 2023 with my father, older brother and his girlfriend. By now, Logan was 6 months old and starting to show some personality.

He was becoming a little person. He was tiny when he was born, but by 6 months, he was chubby with big cheeks.

There wasn’t a singular moment where things just clicked, it just took a while for me to warm up to him. I began to play with Logan, carrying him, and at times keeping an open eye on him while his parents were out.

Now, whenever I carry him he feels like a bundle of joy, always putting a smile on my face. As I began to play with him more, I saw

him discover and learn his surroundings.

He enjoys playing with the refrigerator magnets and loves to play hide and seek. He began walking back in late December and at 16 months old he knows a couple of words already.

He says “hi" whenever he sees me and says “bye” whenever I leave. He also walks up to me so that I can carry him and play.

While my nephew can be a lot to deal with at times, I also see the joy he brings to my family. As his uncle, I want to be a positive role model for him and be the one he visits on the weekends.

I want to see my nephew grow and mature.

I wish to implant memories that will last a lifetime.

Something that I do not have with my mother.

37 | Warrior Life

Y M

F A T H ER ,

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Illustration by Kim McGill

T HE

PIRATE

How music both hurt and helped following the death of my dad Story by Delfino Camacho

J

ohn Fogerty made me cry.

It’s not like he hit or yelled at me.

He sang a song. I heard it while walking through a swap meet last December.

Fogerty was the singer for the 1960s American rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival.

They were my father’s favorite American band.

My dad died in 2022—from complications from cancer.

His illness and eventual death felt sudden, and ever since, I haven’t been able to listen to the band.

Following his death, I didn’t cry as much as I thought.

I cried when he died and at his funeral. The immediate week following his death was a haze of sobbing until I dry heaved.

But after that, I hardened.

I threw myself into schoolwork and tried to keep busy as best I could.

While normally quite open, I was now avoiding my feelings.

I was avoiding my father.

Avoiding his memories and the hurt they caused. Avoiding the music that reminded me of him.

I was getting sick of avoiding.

That was part of why I came to the Roadium Open Air Swap Meet that day.

My father had worked at swap meets, and I had been avoiding them, too.

By now, it had been over a year since his death, and my mom had asked for a specific item for Christmas. One I knew was sold at the swap meet.

Two birds with one stone, I told

myself. I’ll get mom’s gift and I’ll get over myself.

While hunting, I passed a vendor who sold music, like my father did. As I hurried past, the vendor began playing a mixed CD I recognized.

The song playing was a Spanish cover of the song “Cotton Fields.” I knew as soon as it ended, the Creedence version would start.

I knew this mix.

It was my father’s CD. I won’t cry, I lied to myself, even as I could feel the burning tears welling up. ******* Growing up, Sundays were swapmeet days for my dad and me.

He was a vendor at the now-defunct East Los Angeles College Swap Meet.

At first, Dad sold a little of everything: clothes, electronics, tools, etc.

After a workplace injury cost my dad his day job (he was a welder), he decided to invest more time into the swap meet, now working Saturdays and Sundays.

Eventually, the East LA Swap Meet closed, and my father found a new home at Golden West Swap Meet in Huntington Beach.

But sales were dwindling.

“I need something new,” he said.

“Something unique, something that will sell.”

It became our project. During the week, we researched other swap meets.

My dad saw that the best vendors specialized in something—clothes, food, movies, tools.

At the Santa Fe Springs night swap meet, we found a vendor selling CDs.

Nothing modern, but a variety of older music, both English and Spanish.

“No one sells that type of music at Golden West,” he told me as we were driving home.

Dad did not immediately resort to piracy.

He visited yard sales and estate sales and bought out entire collections of CDs. He haunted thrift stores and auctions and bought music by the boxfulls.

He redesigned his vendor spot to be all about music. Under the shade, we had tables displaying the CDs along with boxes of vinyls and tapes on the ground. He brought a portable boombox and played music to attract customers.

He was afraid people would complain about the noise, but his fellow vendors and the customers loved it.

Sales increased.

But soon, people wanted more variety.

People wanted compilations and mix CDs instead of original LPs. Finding the original releases was becoming harder and more expensive.

“This Teen Tops CD only has nine s ongs,” I rememb er s omeone complaining. “Why don’t you just mix them all together?”

Later that night, I overheard him talking to my mom.

“But isn’t it illegal?” she asked. “What if you get caught?”

“I’ve seen other people do it, I’ll just be smart about it,” he assured her. “It’s paying the bills. I think I can make something out of this.”

39 | Warrior Life

Again, he did research.

Through his “contacts,” my father got the address of a couple of bootleg pirate “plugs.”

We drove to a decrypt old building bordering S outh C entral and Downtown LA. Walking past the broken elevator, we trudged up flights of creaky stairs until we reached the piracy room.

It was an empty apartment filled with simple desktops and the constant whirring of computer fans, all burning and churning out CDs and DVDs. Bootlegs.

The floor of the apartment was filled with scattered, waist-high piles of CDs and DVDs. It was the kind of music my dad sold, but instead of originals, these were compilations with over 20 to 25 songs per CD. Jackpot.

They became his suppliers until one day, they just disappeared.

Such was the uncertain world of music bootlegging.

My dad had been buying for a few years already, so he had a good stock.

“If we buy the computer, can you teach me how to burn my own copies?” he asked.

“Sure,” I replied. “As long as when we get raided we say it was all your idea.”

After being fairly tech-illiterate for most of his life, my dad managed to master the lost art of CD burning.

He was also organized. He kept track of what sold and determined the number of copies he burned weekly by monitoring sales trends.

Sales eventually plateaued, but my father had built an established clientele and it was enough to get by.

More importantly, perhaps, he enjoyed it.

Years later, my father lay in a hospital bed plugged into all sorts of whirring and buzzing machines.

He died Dec. 10, 2022. We played “Proud Mary,” his favorite Creedence song.

He flatlined right as the song ended.

If I hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have believed it.

After he died, I asked my mom why he resorted to bootleg CDs, basically Warrior Life | 40

stealing music. I told her my theory that after the injury, Dad was desperate and was looking for anything to keep us afloat.

Mom said I was overthinking it.

“He liked music, he liked people and he loved spending time with us,” she insisted.

She said pirating and selling music, legal or not, allowed him to spend his time doing what he loved with the people he loved.

I think Mom was right.

Deep down, I think Dad wanted his real record store.

But it didn’t happen. He pirated. I can’t judge.

Hell, I was a participant. ******* In 2019, I was reading about the origins of the East Side Story Collection, a 12-volume mix set of oldies music that is well-known in the Chicano communities of Los Angeles.

The 12 volumes were illegally pirated by a mysterious “Mr. B.” While never owning the rights to the music, he would press vinyls at home to sell at swap meets.

I told Dad the story. A fan of the collection from way back he got a kick out of it.

“I want to make my own CD,” he said a few days later, “I want to pick each song and make my own cover.”

My father loved classic American rock but was also a fan of the Mexican covers that played in his hometown growing up.

So he mixed both.

The Spanish cover of the song would play first, and next, the English version would play. With my help, he curated the song list and then created the CD. The first song on his mix was a Spanish cover of “Cotton Fields” by the Mexican rock group Los Apson, immediately followed by the Creedence version of the same song. ******* While his CD never sold well my dad gave it away to other vendors when visiting swap meets, like some sort of pirate, Johnny music-seed.

This was the CD that was playing while I was walking by.

As Los Apson gave way to Creedence, I began to cry.

Clear as day, I could hear my dad singing in his thick Mexican accent.

“When I was a little bitty baby, my mama would rock me in the crib.”

The dams burst and I was weeping.

Strangers stared.

The song was prying memories of my father out of my head.

It was too much, too fast.

I saw him unashamedly dancing in place to the music the way he would when manning the tables. I heard him singing at the top of his lungs during car trips to annoy us. I felt his course hands on my shoulder, steadying himself as we walked the swapmeet rows.

While sobbing, I had two clear thoughts.

I miss my dad. I miss this music.

I had been avoiding both so strongly because I wanted to avoid the hurt.

But standing there crying, I realized I couldn’t avoid my dad or the music anymore. I needed to feel my feelings.

I still avoid the band.

But I knew then that in the not-toodistant future, I would turn up the volume instead of turning off.

I would be OK remembering my dad.

I would be OK. And standing there, with tears streaming down my face as John Fogerty sang about his mom, I began to smile.

Illustrations by

Dylan Elliot

41 | Warrior Life

Story by Dylan Elliot

I

t has gradually become clear to me of the deficit of introspection within my own life.

Rare like the gold that lies on the beaches of California have I valued such things within

my own space as small and as miniscule as an empty plastic bottle.

Its unclouded, gauzy cylindrical structure.

Pretty unremarkable in features other than its ribbed form and red graphical label that includes the brand name and other elements. Yet as it sits there next to my desk, not even a swigful left in the bottle, I smile.

A younger man, lesser, with hazy simple thoughts merely traversing through the streets after another day of work. Gusts of wind blew pushing and pulling after a day of heavy rain. I stood there waiting on the light to turn so that I may cross the street when a familiar bright warmth came upon me.

The clouds parted and the sun beamed. Like an angelic form guiding my eyes I looked to where the light was pointing. It was a bench. Silver and blue wet from the rain. Tiny holes lined evenly all around and a soft silver glow emanated from it.

Missing my light, I stood there. Staring.

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You see – I’ve come to realize that this plastic bottle, as utilitarian and unnoticeable as it may be and that. That this this bench, as common and orthodox – was designed.

We don’t perceive that even with such a simple conclusion to draw from, the implications that conclusion has within our own lives. For something to be designed it must have been envisioned.

Being as essential as hydration, or as common as public benches, there is a level of ornate planned experience in which we partake in.

There was a group of radical thinkers in the age of extremes of the 20th century. Artistic minds who sought to change the world as the world changed around them. In the age of extremes of the early 20th century, they sought to simplify.

The rise of the decorative and embellished clashed with the new techniques of the modern age.

No longer were things hand milled and pressed.

Production lines and new giant machines billowed and plumed within the warehouses to assist with the creation of the city’s in which we reside.

These radical thinkers saw these structures. These giant detailed and highly ornamental buildings and minutely crafted furnishings within them. They recognize that the production could be streamlined even more.

That form and function can be simplified to its truest essence. From that The Bauhaus school of design was created. Other styles followed. Swiss international style being the most notable.

Bauhaus held a focus on more geometric and simpler forms. Its artistic philosophy circled around the function of design.

Vivid pops of red and daring usage of yellow.

Bauhaus was not void of color but rather embraced it for what it is. Allowing these shapes to command attention with its mathematical pointedness and acute fidelity. These designs serve a purpose.

Bauhaus, the progenitor, with function over form and Swiss international style with its authentic pursuit of simplicity. These design doctrines do not exist within a vacuum, but rather exist because of the movements before them.

Despite Bauhaus being 100 years removed,. We still see its effects in design today. Minimalism is not a dreary lazy form of the absolute bare minimum.

It’s the radical cultivation of a concept given to us pushed to its absolute limits.

These minimal, minute forms that scarcely occupy the forefront of our mind. It is these objects I learn to celebrate and adore.

The paperclip. Its silver metallic shape sits in a cup full of its brothers and sisters. Its function is simple. To clip paper, and to this I cheer. Adjacent to that, Sitting in a cluttered shelf is a square green plastic cube. Its utility is unknown as it appeared to be a part of something long forgotten due to a worn sticker attached to it.

Each step on the timeline of human ingenuity and invention gives way to greater strides and bounds.

This phenomena is bound to humanity even on a micro scale. As within our own lives are we tied to the existence of others.

It is this, where I realize the comfort of the world I exist in. No longer do the skyscrapers of steel and glass that suffocate my surroundings choke me out.

I see the progress of ingenuity and invention.

This disposition where one judges the world for what it has achieved. For the amazing accomplishments that envelop our every moment. Where there is charm in the mundane, allure in the banal.

Where there is Beauty.

In everything.

43 | Warrior Life

Architecture professor Reuben Jacobs showcases a few architectural models made by the students from classes he teaches.

Photo by Greg Fontanilla

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B r e a k i n g barriers &

building dreams

For 31 years, Reuben Jacobs has given his students the education they deserve Story by Brittany Parris

R

euben Jacobs is running late again.

Jacobs, 59, discovered his passion for architecture With a bag of takeout in one hand and at a young age after witnessing his father pursue it his phone in the other, he ascends the as a career. steps to the second floor of the Information and His father, a military veteran, picked up the Technology Building before rushing to Room 202. hobby of building intricate plane and train models.

“Late again, professor Jacobs!” someone yells That hobby manifested into an interest in behind his back, followed by a few laughs, building design, which his father pursued after including his own. receiving total disability, which he used to fund his Another student dribbling a comically small architecture and urban planning degree. basketball passes it to Jacob, who fakes a slam dunk. “I got to see that firsthand, and it was life“I was the original Steph Curry,” he boasts before changing,” Jacobs said. “I knew what architecture passing the ball back. was about. All of a sudden, home was where it was Pleasantries out of the way, Jacobs sets about getting done, so from then on, I knew that’s what I getting the projector going. wanted to do.”

The bulb’s dim light slowly projects the El Jacobs saw his future in the architectural Camino College Architecture Club logo. magazines and sketches spread across his dining It is here that Jacobs starts with making a room table. difference.

His father managed to turn their Brooklyn After 5 years teaching computer-aided drafting at apartment into an architectural haven.

ECC, he aims to give his students a university- Now, entering his 31st year of teaching, Jacobs is based education as the club adviser, professor, etc., taking all he has learned to help inspire the next all while balancing his own architecture projects. generation of architects.

45 | Warrior Life

His desire to teach at community In 1999, he started teaching at El change if there is something more to colleges was made after he spent five Camino but left in 2010 due to guide students through a rigorous years learning computer-aided drafting, scheduling conflicts while working in program for the average student. which emerged after he graduated from the architectural field.

El Camino C ollege’s student the University of Southern California in He decided to come back after keeping population is just more than 12 percent the 1990s. in contact with his colleagues.

African-American, according to data While this is only his fifth year at El “When a position became available, all from the California Community Camino College, Jacobs worked the way in 2017, I came back long term Colleges Chancellor’s Office. previously at Santa Monica and Mount and I’ve been back since then,” Jacobs Jacobs is trying to create a connection San Antonio Colleges, teaching said. “Funny enough, as I tell students, with students who were once just like computer-aided drafting. you’re always learning.” him.

Originally from Inglewood, he spent As a Black architect, Jacobs makes up “I take education seriously, and I think most of his adolescence in Brooklyn, the small pool of Black and African it’s important that I get my students New York, after his parents decided to American architects in the U.S. more prepared than I was even at the move in the 1950s.

Each year, the National Council of community college level,” Jacobs said.

In his late teens, his family moved back Architectural Board (NCARB) releases To do this, Jacobs takes every to the West Coast so Jacobs could finish the “NCARB by the Numbers,” a data opportunity to provide his students with high school and begin college report that showcases architectural the resources to advance in architecture. preparations. The goal was to play licensure in the U.S. Ja c ob s c re d it s t he Nat i ona l college football while also In 2022, there was an estimated report Organization of Minority Architects studying architecture, but a of 121,603 licensed architects, with 9,000 (NOMA) with crucially influencing his high school game injury candidates starting the path to their early years after graduating from USC. put that goal on hold. architectural license.

He emphasizes the value of such He jokes that his There are only 2,492 Black architects. organizations in providing support and mother’s prayers Of that, only 566 are Black women. opportunities for underrepresented were answered.

Jacobs believes this could dramatically architects.

Founded by 12 Black architects, the idea was put in motion after they attended architect conventions similar to those of the American Medical Association and noticed the need for more inclusion in the early 50s and 60s.

“There was really nothing for us,” Jacobs said. “We don’t get that type of work, we’re not celebrated, we’re not included.”

In turn, they devoted themselves to starting their organization, which spanned the country, but met once a year in the Bahamas. In 1972, NOMA chapters Reuben Jacobs gives critiques on students projects during began to develop and class on Tuesday, April 23. Photo by Elsa Rosales

Warrior Life | 46

now there are more than 40 chapters across the country.

The world of architecture is broad, so he believes in networking and allowing students to discover if this is what they want to do.

“If you start now and seek out people who do that, you will find out sooner that’s really what you like,” Jacobs said.

The current president of NOMA, Craig Atkinson, echoes the same sentiment.

“If you’re a student, get to know some of the professionals, get to know people, because the most important thing that we are as a professional organization is the most familial organization that you will be part of,” Atkinson said.

After graduating from USC in 1988, Jacobs got his big break a year after working for HOK, one of the most Reuben Jacobs accepts the award for part-time distinguished significant global design, architecture, faculty at the El Camino Distinguished Faculty and Staff engineering, and planning firms.

Reception on April 24. Photo by Dayana Rodriguez From there, he launched his first malls around New Jersey, Iowa and architects, urban designers, project project, designing high-rise buildings. managers, and interior designers, to Hawaii.

A project, he jokes, that never got the Some other notable works include the speak on various topics. opportunity to be built.

The influence of these students is chain restaurants Tony Roma’s, Burger “It’s funny. The client was a high-rolling King and the LA County+USC Medical already making an appearance on Japanese investor and it was going to be Center along the I-10 freeway, which campus. in Vegas,” Jacobs said. “They were was rebranded to the Los Angeles Getting to Zero: Architecture minus building that basically as a goodwill Medical Center in May 2023.

Carbon included the work of the gesture to Vegas because they were Based in Inglewood, Jacobs now runs Architecture Department Students at the trying to get their gambling license to his residential design firm, Modern Art Gallery on campus. open a Casino.”

The exhibition and event series Designs Unlimited, specializing in home Ultimately, the project was scrapped additions and accessory dwelling units. centered around decarbonization within after the license couldn’t be obtained, Back on campus, Jacobs spends his the design and building industries. and the company donated the project Tuesday afternoons as the faculty adviser Students designed sustainable and land to the city. for the El Camino Architecture Club, strategies to generate minimal or zero Despite the minor hiccup, in his seven urging his students to get involved with carbon and waste in a world where years at HOK, Jacobs had the the program. construction and operations of buildings opportunity to work on many other “There’s no requirement that you join a c c o u n t f o r nearly 40% of projects, some with a familiar face.

NOMA, but I try and show students the t he “I moved into working on doing advantage of being involved in that,” Disney stores for only about a year,” Jacobs said.

Jacobs said. “That was when Disney was This isn’t the first initiative that rolling all those stores out and putting Jacobs has spearheaded to get his them in every mall all over the place, all students more involved. over the country, even internationally.

In 2021, he initiated the ECC Jacobs’ firm at the time primarily Architecture Program Guest Speaker focused on California locations and he Series, inviting industry professionals, helped bring Disney’s vision to life in including architects, landscape 47 | Warrior Life

total carbon emissions.

In class, Jacobs is not without a smile or a laugh.

While critiquing students’ work, he ensures that he is reassuring and encouraging and that his students walk away with positive feedback.

Something that doesn’t go unnoticed by vice president and treasurer of the Architecture Club, Michael Lambert.

Lambert, 31, found interest in architecture after discovering the Netflix series “The World’s Most Extraordinary Homes” while on deployment.

He admires Jacob’s enthusiasm, knowledge and willingness to provide guidance.

“He’s the happiest person around,” Lambert said. “It’s good energy. He’s very knowledgeable, so it’s a pleasure to learn from him.”

The dedication to his students doesn’t go unnoticed.

On April 24, 2024, Jacobs was honored with the distinguished faculty and staff award for demonstrating the highest commitment to his students, college and profession.

Jacobs stood at the podium in a room filled with colleagues, friends, family and students, sharing his passion for architecture, perseverance and support.

“Architecture is not what I do,” Jacobs said to the crowd. It’s who I am.”

As his speech ended, he was joined by his wife of 32 years, Syeeda.

She embraced him from the back as he started to choke up, giving thanks to his colleagues Dan Richardson and Mark Eber.

“Without help from people like that, it doesn’t work,” Jacobs said.

Ultimately, he stands firm in his goal for the years ahead.

“We are not a community college education,” Jacobs said.

“We are a university that gets people out in two years and I am determined to make this work like a university.”

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Top Five Grocery Store California Rolls Looking for a quick bite that is both delicious and inexpensive? Here are the top five sushi rolls available at your local grocery store, hassle free Story by Amanda Niebergall

W

ith prices rising and options seemingly being reduced to fast food for a cheap and timely lunch, it can be difficult to find something both new and quick to eat.

It’s especially hard to do this if you want something like sushi, which is typically eaten at sit down restaurants. Grocery stores are the last place you might expect to find a great sushi roll, but they are home to some of the best and quickest rolls at your own convenience.

1. Whole Foods Poached salmon ($10.99), crunchy shrimp tempura ($14.99), and spicy salmon avocado ($11.49) are just a few of the many flavorful rolls you can grab. There is even a mango yuzu California roll ($12.49) and a plant-based tuna California roll ($14.49). Their crab meat California roll is made with real crab and has a great blend of savory flavors. It is salty and tastes of real quality so the price is reasonable for eight pieces ($11.49).

Address: 2655 Pacific Coast Hwy, Torrance, CA 90505 Phone number: (310) 257-8700 Website: wholefoodsmarket.com Instagram: @wholefoods 2. Ralphs Fluffy rice and perfectly portioned rolls come from Ralphs. Their California salad roll is the perfect bite and perfect price ($6.99).

This roll is mouth watering with the flavorful, creamy crab and avocado. You also get the most bang for your buck, with a whopping 10 pieces for the small price.

Address: 5035 Pacific Coast Hwy, Torrance, CA 90505 Phone number: (310) 378-0295 Website: ralphs.com Instagram: @ralphsgrocery 3. Smart & Final Watch out– these rolls are seriously thick. Packed to the brim with crab and huge cut rolls, the crab is sweet and the amount of rice on the roll makes this a heaping delight. This roll comes with eight pieces ($7.95).

Address: 1516 S Pacific Coast Hwy, Redondo Beach, CA 90277 Phone number: (310) 540-6157 Website: smartandfinal.com Instagram: @smartfinal

The Vons California roll comes with a classic side of wasabi, ginger and soy sauce. Photo by Amanda Niebergall

4. Vons A perfectly balanced California roll with a great amount of each ingredient comes from Vons. There is a perfect amount of cucumber and avocado and the rice is delicate. It comes with nine pieces ($7.49). You can’t go wrong with this standard selection.

Address: 245 Palos Verdes Blvd, Redondo Beach, CA 90277 Phone number: (310) 378-7434 Website: vons.com Instagram: @vons 5. Sprouts These rolls come with sesame seeds on top, something that is absent in the other stores’ options. The roll is crispy and crunchy with this being the only place with whole pieces of crab ($7.99).

Sprouts also has sushi Wednesdays where select rolls are only $5.

This is a deal to definitely take advantage of.

Address: 4230 Pacific Coast Hwy, Torrance, CA 90505 Phone number: (424) 903-7062 Website: sprouts.com Instagram: @sprouts 49 | Warrior Life

Representatives of the El Camino College Pride Center from left to right: Joe Holliday, Angela Simom, Kenny Simkins, and Alec Lyons. “We just really want to help the students succeed, achieve their goals, and achieve their potential,” Simon said.

Photo by Dayana Rodrigez.

Pride in Progress

Story by Emily Gomez

How El Camino cultivated a community for its LGBTQ+ members Belonging

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lec Lyons was drifting.

Lyons had lost all sense of who he was.

He was facing one of the most difficult times of his life, as he grappled with the combination of a physical health issue, a persisting knee injury that kept him “bouncing around” between the hospital, home and the decline of his mental health.

His mental health issues were fueled by the intense gender dysphoria he was experiencing.

Lyons knew he was transgender by the time he was in the 11th grade and had begun to socially transition. However, the process of physically transitioning is what plagued him during his time as a student at UC Riverside.

“It’s hard to explain [dysphoria] as a feeling to people who don’t experience it,” Lyons said. “It’s like you’re fundamentally incompatible with the form you exist in, but you cannot escape it.”

Lyons had driven himself into the ground, overwhelmed and having given up on the idea of his education. He decided to take a year off “out of necessity,”withdrawing his enrollment at UC Riverside and instead using his time to attend therapy and figure out his future.

In 2022, Lyons re-enrolled in college and quickly involved himself with El Camino college’s Gender Sexuality Alliance Club Warrior Life | 50

(GSA) and Pride Center, starting as an activities coordinator for the club and working his way up to be president.

According to the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network, Californian LGBT students and their allies who have a GSA in their schools are more likely to feel safe in school than their peers (76% compared to 69%).

According to the El Camino College Institutional Research, in the fall 2023 semester there were 1346 students who identified themselves as LGBTQIA+ out of 22,343 total students.

Lyons’ reasoning for joining GSA was mostly because he was queer himself and sought a space with other queer people. He said it’s nice to have a dedicated space where people can be who they are without any mixture of hatred.

“I find that often just being out in the world, the kind of people you encounter- it’s a mixed bag…some people you will encounter are queer, some are allies, some are just good meaning people who don’t know that much, and some people are kind of actively not so happy with you or your existence.” Lyons said.

According to The Williams Institute, LGBTQ people were nearly twice as likely to report unfair treatment by teachers, staff, or school administrators (22.1% vs. 11.7%) and hearing slurs or negative comments about LGBTQ people at their community college as their non-LGBTQ peers (24.0% vs. 12.7%).

“

Being visible is important to me, especially now at this time when there’s so many states trying to put anti trans bills into place,” Lyons said.

creating clubs for the communities that lacked them.

“As a LGBT member myself, I was shocked and disappointed that there wasn’t a club for this group,” Holliday said.

Alec Lyons, 21, poses in front of the Social Justice Center. Lyons is the GSA club president, a role that has allowed him to connect with Holliday said that the impact of community is other queer students. “Having a space [such as the GSA] is good for “key” to combating the prevalence of mental health students to come and decompress,” Lyons said. Photo by Dayana issues within LGBT students.

Rodriguez “If [LGBT individuals] dont have a sense of community, if they dont find their tribe, they have a El Camino’s GSA serves as a safe space for students to find very high a very high suicide rate and depression,those kinds of community, and the college does a good job of not “othering” its things,” Holliday said. students, Nancy Zeeb said. Zeeb,19, is a biology major and serves According to The Trevor Project, LGBTQ youth who live as the Inner Club Council representative, a board position for the in a community that is accepting of LGBTQ people reported GSA club.“When you connect with people who are sharing similar significantly lower rates of attempting suicide than those who do experiences as you are, or seeing the world through a similar lens, it’s not make an attempt. very reciprocated – everything you’re feeling,” Zeeb said.

LGBTQ people are not at inherent risk due to their orientation and identity, but insead due to the stigmatization within society.

Holliday said that fortunately for him, Simon came along within Community a couple years in 1996 and helped foster this community. They would go on to advise the club together for 20 years.

The GSA Club’s existence can be traced back to the late 1970’s, “She helped the club grow and to be what it was…she was however, the club went through restructures and name changes, instrumental in bringing it up from amateur status to a really ranging from Gay Student Union, Gay and Lesbian Association, good one,” Holliday said. as reported by The Warwhoop in Vol. 32 in May 1978 and Vol. Simon, a full-time psychology professor at El Camino and 34 in 1979. The GSA Club had existed once at El Camino but advisor for the GSA, said she has witnessed the evolution of was dormant, an inactive club that left a vacancy in the support resources available for students in the LGBT community from available to students – until professors Joe Holliday and Angela when she first started.

Simon came along. “[In the early days] We tried to get the staff and the faculty and Holliday, 66, recalls when he began working at El Camino the employees involved, we tried to [create] like a little network, in 1992 under a one-year temporary contract to teach geology. but it wasn’t successful,” Simon said. “It was such a different time He was full of ambition and seeking to prove himself. Clubs then, than it is now.” were his passion, he said and he felt compelled to work toward 51 | Warrior Life

Simon said many employees were not yet “out” and the level of support twenty years ago was quite different from how it is now. She recounts that in the early 2000s it was still a challenge for students to be who they were and be successful, prompting her to support the LGBT community.

“I wanted them to have a place where they could feel safe and be themselves,” Simon said. The common goal for Simon and Holiday was the drive to help students succeed academically and get through school without having their personal hardships related to sexual orientation and gender identity stopping them. Holliday said that the efforts put into promoting visibility for the GSA were much different too. There was no social media, there was no online advertising, and for a long time the GSA was limited to flyers found on kiosks around campus.

“Put that into perspective…it’s why the club was so important. There was no way for people to meet online until this century,” Holliday said. Simon said the evolution of resources available for students in the LGBT community has “just really taken off.”

However, Simon credits the LGBT committee formed in 2018 for bringing forth so many new initiatives. “There was just so many other people that were very energetic and excited, and that’s what you need, a group of people who have great ideas and have the energy to pull together,” Simon said.

Doing it for the Love - Out of Love

Navarro helmed the group initiative, a previously formed committee that would meet to talk about the change they wanted to see on campus, which was now reinvigorated. “We started spending our time trying to build a community on campus, the GSA club, they had already existed, but that was about it,” Sarah Leinen, ECC adjunct English and human development professor said. “There were no classes, no programming, nothing.” The committee started with creating LGBTQIA+ Safe Zone Trainings for faculty, administrators, and staff, as well as initiating Pride Week on campus in 2019, Leinen said. Then, in 2020, she reached out to the El Camino foundation and helped establish the “Queer is Love’’ scholarship.

“A lot of this work was done outside of our work hours, our 9-5, we would meet in the evenings, all for the love of this community,” Navarro said. And then, in 2021, there was an opportunity to receive funding from the state for LGBTQI+ initiatives.

Navarro, alongside Hong Herrera Thomas, ECC history professor, and Nayeli Ovilas, director of Student Equity & Achievement, wrote the proposal for a grant which was awarded to the college and helped fund the Pride Center.how much was the grant? “We have Pride Week, we have Lavender Graduation, we bring students to the LGBT California Community College conferences…the evolution [of resources] is just about making sure students feel safe on campus, and to ensure that they thrive,” Herrera Thomas said.

Pride

The resource of an LGBTQIA+ counselor, such as the likes of Navarro, is one of many resources that Joe Holliday and Angela S A small group of six El Camino College employees is offered through El Camino’s Pride Center, a was a Godsend,” Holliday made up of counselors and faculty, found their network that stands out to many as the first LGBT Rodriguez committee vitalized with an initiative under the related help that they have ever received. Kenny guidance of a new spearhead.

Simkins, the LGBTQIA+ student success to navigate their sexual iden Salvador Navarro, ECC’s LGBTQIA+ counselor, led coordinator at El Camino College said growing up and “There’s an awareness now the committee which was founded to provide visibility watching the evolution of resources and opportunities wasn’t there 20 years ago,” Si available to students and the LGBT the late 90s, early 2000s, and population as a whole has been “beautiful.” gay marriage being legal in a Simkins started his role at El Camino in things that weren’t put in pla October 2022, working part-time as an person.” One of the many go LGBT coordinator, while working as a aiming to provide LGBT aw counselor and professor at Los Angeles City the ECC community, which College. workshops and by building and expand the support available for LGBT students However, Simkins left his role at Los Angeles City Kassia Wosick, professor and the college community at the time.

College once his role at El Camino became full time, as is one of the professors at EC Navarro, 39, was in search of a “home” when he it was “a once in a lifetime opportunity.” curriculum with an LGBTQ initially took on his job as a FYE counselor, and steadily, “I get to open up a Pride Center on our college campus Sociology of Sexualities, and he found his community and calling within serving the – a California community college campus– from the first began teaching the class LGBT community at El Camino College. ground up. I couldn’t say no to that,” Simkins said. when sex research and talks “I’m meant to serve my community,” Navarro said.

Simkins said growing up as a young gay person there heteronormative.” The lack o “Because it also serves me, it helps heal me… I help was not a lot of opportunity to take up space and be out commitment early on to edu others but in the process, I also help heal that inner comfortably with one’s sexual identity. Simkins said he normalizing the fluidity and child within me.” appreciates the difference in how students are now able sexuality. “Visibility creates Warrior Life | 52

“

Visibility creates inclusivity,” Wosick said.

Simon co-advised the GSA together for 20 years. “[Simon] y said. “She saved me and she saved the club.” Photo by Dayana

ntity. w on the community that imkins said. “I came out in d I’ve seen the evolution of all 50 states…and these are ace when I was a young oals of The Pride Center is wareness and education for h it has done by facilitating an LGBTQ+ curriculum. r of sociology at El Camino, CC that teaches her Q+ lens. She teaches d Wosick says that when she s, in 2009, it was at a time s of sexuality were still “really of diversity prompted her ucating with inclusivity and d expansion of gender and inclusivity,” Wosick said. “I

think that’s part of this class, by sharing the possibilities of our sexuality, our identities, our behaviors, our orientations, students are able to really identify and cultivate who they are in the process.”

Identity

Back at El Camino College, Alec Lyons said that he feels like a fundamentally different person than who he was at 18 while attending UC Riverside. Lyons now, after having found his community on campus, feels proud and secure in his identity.

“Being visible is important to me, especially now at this time when there’s so many states trying to put anti trans bills into place,” Lyons said. “Just existing and having people see me exist, I think is really valuable.”

53 | Warrior Life

Illustration by Leyna Kobayashi

Warrior Life | 54

Cold, Brown and Alone: What I learned on the East Coast I left home to pursue my academic dreams at an elite boarding school.I quickly discovered what it meant to be elite, and that I was not Story by Alondra Peza Camarena

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t 14, I clutched the gold cross around my neck at LAX, promised my crying mother I’d be okay and headed to the private east coast boarding school I received a scholarship to attend.

For the 2,869 miles to Connecticut, I envisioned the Taylor Swift posters I’d hang in my dorm, the weekends I might spend in new friend’s Hamptons homes, and the ivy league college I was surely bound for.

I’d done it.

As a first generation, Latina, lower income student, I understood that my parents sacrificed everything they knew in Mexico in order to chase their child’s access to opportunities across the U.S. border.

And so early into my lifelong plight to make their sacrifices worthwhile, I’d made them proud. I was scouted as a “high performing student” from Will Rogers Middle School in Lawndale, CA, invited to be interviewed by admissions officers in suits and granted a full ride to one of the best high schools in the country.

My preteen ambitions were fulfilled and validated. But they never accounted for my identity beyond my hometown.

I never knew I was a minority. I didn’t know I was poor. I never found it strange that my mother didn’t speak english.

Not until, I was so jarringly different from everyone I was surrounded by. Not until Connecticut.

I dove into a foreign world of wearing slacks to class and reciting school songs. It was difficult to stay afloat when everyone else seemed to have lifeboats of legacy, tutors, and commonality.

I drowned.

I’d always excelled in school before and my preeminence not only led me to the 1800s brick buildings that have housed former presidents and children of industry leaders, but was also intimately linked to my self perception and worth.

It was like visiting a wealthy friend’s house; I was told the school was my new home but never felt like more than a visitor, deeply aware of my movements and that the things in the house did not belong to me.

For two years I tiptoed around my instructors’ expectations.

The straight-A student my parents knew was calling home in tears during paralyzing panic attacks because I was failing

classes and too tired to complete my sports and extracurricular commitments.

I was convinced everyone else was simply more intelligent and stronger than me.

Naively, not understanding the familiarity that private middle and elementary schools, even preschools and nurseries had equipped them with.

They’d experienced academic rigor and I had not. They’d quickly acclimated to living without their parents and I had not. Their annual ski trips to Aspen made then no sranger to the snow, I’d never felt the frigid air of the East Coast.

Recognizing that I’d been unprepared, I decided to return home.

At 16, I labeled myself wasted potential. Unmotivated by the stench of failure, I went through the motions at Lawndale High School.

Still believing I’d forfeited my spot in academia, paralyzing anxiety struck again and I failed Professor Sandra Uribe’s History 101 course during my first college semester.

Failure wasn’t unfamiliar, but something was different.

While listening to her lectures, I began to believe I deserved to seek the knowledge she spoke so pationately about.

The next semester, I showed up to her class again. I had weekly conversations with her throughout the duration of her office hours. At the end of the semester, she asked me to become a Pass Mentor for the same course. For the first time in years, my biggest insecurity about my academic ability seemed to be dispelling right in front of me.

It’s been three years of trial and error at El Camino. But I now know how to search for answers and learn from mistakes.

With newfound confidence, I connect with professors. I take advantage of the library research and writing center. But most importantly, I set goals, and map out a plan in order to accomplish them.

In the fall I’ll be transferring to the University of California, Berkeley. I’m no longer intimidated by ambition because I trust my ability to persevere. I’ve taken it upon myself to overcome academic traumas and become someone I am proud of.

I continue to seek academic opportunities at El Camino but am now knowledgeable enough to build a raft of skills and talents to navigate them.

55 | Warrior Life

Ms. Yellow’s mural at the Del Amo Plaza Swap Meet in Rancho Dominiguez celebrates Indigenous cultures. In this issue, Warrior Life investigates ECC’s struggle to determine it’s identity. Since the college’s founding, students, staff and faculty have debated its name, various logos, mascots and student publications while Native American leaders - both on and off campus - have criticized ECC’s use of stereotypical and disrespectful names and images. Photo by Kim McGill

Warrior Life | 56

Decades of debate, one fired donkey, a missing statue and a newspaper that lost its name: El Camino College’s search for its warrior identity Story by Kim McGill

T

he fight started 78 years ago.

No blood was spilled.

No fists thrown.

But the debate has been brutal.

And, the conflict? It’s still not settled.

Early in the fall term of 1946 – before the official founding of El Camino College in 1947 – the student body chose “warriors” as the college mascot, and a Spanish conquistador was first used as ECC’s symbol.

But “the question has constantly arisen,” wrote Student Body President Bob Wright in the Nov. 18, 1948 issue of the El Camino College News,“What type of warriors are we?”

Unable to make a decision, the student council used the newspaper to raise the question with the campus community. They asked student council members Margaret “Margie” Evans and Don Cadoo to present counter arguments.

“When I hear the word ‘warrior’ spoken in connection with our school as a motto, I immediately visualize a fierce, war-painted Indian who is prepared to remove the scalp of anyone who might be standing in the path of victory for himself or his tribe,” Cadoo argued. He added that the college should not be represented by a conquistador that fought under a “foreign flag.”

Evans argued that a Spanish conquistador better represented El Camino.

“Someone drew a little Indian clothed in hardly more than a loin cloth, detachable pedal-pushers and one limp feather,” Evans wrote.

She asked if future graduates imagined their diplomas with a “shivering, thinly-clad little character grinning up” at them. “If the Spanish didn’t fight, how did they conquer the Indians? Are we going to simulate the conquered or the conquerors?”

In the same issue of the paper, student Herschel Dean is credited with the alleged disappearance of the college mascot, Dusty, a burro selected to reflect the conquistador theme.

In a student body election, Cadoo’s side won, and from 1948 on, El Camino was represented by stereotypical and often racist images and terms – caricatures of Indigenous people and culture.

Today, in 2024, ECC has no official mascot.

All three of the original college symbols remain integrated into campus culture - the conquistador, Native American imagery, and a Spanish mission bell.

In the bookstore, El Camino caps are sold with an arrowhead symbol.

Both the name of the college and the bell logo that saturates El Camino’s social media, signs, sweaters and souvenirs, represents “El Camino Real” – The King’s Road or Royal Road – an imagined 600mile route that connects the 21 missions in California.

On the college’s original seal, a Spanish conquistador is depicted beneath a mission bell with the words “the road to knowledge.”

El Camino College’s name and various logos – rooted in decisions that were made in the 1940s – continue to uplift some people, crush others and leave many more confused.

ECC’s warrior identity remains elusive.

“A white-washed, romanticized and distorted history” In 1946, the Centinela Valley Union High School District, Redondo Union High School District and the El Segundo Unified School District established a new junior college to serve the South Bay. On Sept. 19, 1946 the newly formed college board voted to name the college El Camino after El Camino Real.

At the time, the symbolism of the missions and their bells was popular in California. In an effort to draw tourism into the state, beginning in the early 1900s and continuing through the 1950s, communities throughout California erected iron bell markers. The bells commemorated their invented version of El Camino Real, a modern imagining of a pathway connecting the 21 missions in California from San Diego to Sonoma.

57 | Warrior Life

The mission system was built by the Catholic Church and Indigenous people of California” and represent a “white-washed, enforced by Spanish conquistadors resulting in the colonization, romanticized and distorted history.” enslavement and genocide of native people throughout California.

Both the City of Santa Cruz and the University of California at Various Indigenous communities challenged the mission system Santa Cruz removed all the bells in their communities, dismantling through escaping the mission grounds, work stoppages, and the last marker on Aug. 28, 2021. uprisings. In 1785, a medicine woman named Toypurina united 6 “Maybe El Camino was seen as the path to knowledge,” Carla of the 8 the Kizh / Tongva / Gabrieleno villages across what is now Cain, El Camino College archivist, said.

Los Angeles County to rise up against Mission San Gabriel.

“You have the conquistadors and the monks establishing the On the night of the rebellion, Toypurina and the other leaders missions, but you also want to identify with an Indian brave? It was were ambushed and captured. all kind of a mish-mosh. It wasn’t really researched. It was a mess,” In her trial, Toypurina said, “I hate the padres and all of you for she added. trespassing on the land of my forefathers and despoiling our tribal domains.”

“The warriors had on their war paint as they scalped a According to the National Park Service, when the Spanish band of renegades.” founded the first mission, the Indigenous population in Warrior Life searched the California was approximately Schauerman Library’s El Camino 310,000, representing 64 distinct College archives, including a languages. During 52 years of UCLA doctoral thesis on the Spanish rule from 1769 - 1821, founding and early history of the 68% of California’s Indigenous college published in 1971 and population – 210,000 people – sports pressbooks from 1950 to died due to massacres, disease, 1980; available ECC Board of or loss of food sources through Trustee meeting agendas and forced removal from their land. minutes from 2016 to 2023 on The U.S. annexation of the www.boarddocs.com; and the southwest through an illegal ECC Journalism Department war with Mexico hastened the Student Media Archives including genocide - and near extinction - of scanning through 1,548 issues of California’s original people. the school newspaper from 1947 In the early years of American to 2012, nine issues of Warrior Life rule during the Gold Rush, Magazine from 1963 to 1967; and nearly 100,000 more Indigenous the college yearbooks published Californians were massacred and between 1947 and 1962. thousands of children kidnapped Several facts emerge. and sold into slavery.

The initial debate on the college’s California’s Native American logo and mascot excluded many Heritage Commission reported people on campus and in the that by 1900, 96% of California’s community.

Native people were wiped Wright, Evans and Cadoo were out by Spanish and American Brandon Molina Berrios works as an academic advisor white, as was the rest of the student colonization. leadership in 1948. at ECC’s Student Services Center. He is Maya Kaqchikel “For me, the Catholic Church of Guatemala. “For me, the Catholic Church had a huge There is no evidence that anyone had a huge role in the colonization role in the colonization and genocide of Indigenous criticized their arguments or their and genocide of Indigenous people,” he says. Photo by Kim McGill rights as white people to debate people,” said Brandon Molina the use of a conquistador versus an Berrios, part-time advisor and graduate assistant with the El American Indian warrior as the school’s mascot.

Camino Student Services Center.

The guidance, experiences and opinions of Indigenous rights Molina Berrios is Maya Kaqchikel, one of the many Maya nations groups and tribal leaders were absent from the documents and in Guatemala. college media coverage searched, despite the existence at the time “But, there are also Indigenous people who are Catholic, and of numerous local and national tribal governments and Indigenous use that as a method to continue their own traditions. And a lot of rights organizations. people use it as a survival method. That doesn’t make them any less The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) was Indigenous than people who practice [Native] ceremony,” he added. founded in 1944 and established at its first Constitutional In 2018, the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band called for the removal Convention that one of its core purposes was to “protect American of all El Camino Real bells across the state. In their campaign to Indian and Alaska Native traditional, cultural, and religious rights.” successfully dismantle the bells in Santa Cruz, California, the Tribal In the 1940s and 50s, “the college was 99.9% white,” Cain said.

Council issued a petition stating that the mission bells “glorify “Nobody thought anything about it, or expressed an issue with it.” and celebrate the domination, dehumanization and erasure of Once the “American Indian warrior” theme was selected, it was Warrior Life | 58

Examples of past mastheads, headlines and columns published by El Camino’s student-run newspaper. Photo illustration by Kim McGill

59 | Warrior Life

reflected frequently on the pages of student publications, as well as bodies back as proof was impossible, and scalps were encouraged in student activities and sports. as proof of a kill.

Between 1946 and 1948, the newspaper went through six name The names of the Warwhoop’s ongoing editorial and sports changes – El Camino College News, La Campana (TheBell), columns also reflected stereotypical American Indian references Warwhoop (with a hand-drawn masthead and mimeographed including In Injun Territory, Tomahawk Talk, The Medicine Man, copies), El Camino Press, The War Whoop and The Warwhoop.

On the Warpath and Smoke Signals.

The Warwhoop remained as the newspaper’s name until 1997.

Various yearbook covers included illustrations with an American On Nov. 4, 1948, a reference in The Warwhoop is made to “Dusty Indian Warrior, feathers and The ECC bell. the Burro” making his debut as El Camino’s mascot at a football The sports press books published by ECC’s Athletic Department game where he pulled a cart full of cheerleaders across the field. But from 1972 to 1975 had offensive caricatures of American-Indian the donkey was allegedly kidnapped as the conquistador theme was warriors. dropped and never appeared as the mascot again.

On April 27, 1956, the Warwhoop published an article as to “It’s hard to be an Indian.”

Dusty’s fate: “Sports in Warriorville had a distinctly rustic odor with Dusty, a burro, acting as team On May 20, 1977, the South mascot in the early days… In Bay Daily Breeze reported that El 1947, a big issue was whether the Camino College’s American Indian EC Warrior was to be a Spanish Club was demanding that The or an Indian. A student body Warwhoop change its name. election was held, and the Indian Unable to move the newspaper’s won the day… From that date, the s t u d e nt s t a f f o r c o l l e g e Indian motif has predominated in administrators, the club pushed for college activities.” a vote among the student body. (A White students filled similar vote had been organized in Warwhoop pages dancing at 1971 where students voted 3-1 in a “Tom Tom Hop,” decorating favor of keeping the paper’s name.) functions with teepees and American Indian Movement dressing in fake feathered founder Dennis Banks traveled to headdresses.

El Camino on the first day of the The terms “scalp” or “scalped” election and spoke before hundreds referencing the violent detaching of students, urging them to vote in of a person’s hair and skin from favor of a name change. Several their skull appear at least 77 times published letters to the Warwhoop in the newspaper in both sports editor backed the American and news coverage over more Indian Club. Despite these efforts, than 40 years. changing the Warwhoop name was On October 20, 1950, the again voted down on campus by a Warwhoop reported that “A narrow margin of 17 votes. capacity throng of more than Student editors wrote about 7,000 packed Griffith Stadium to The Warwhoop name that “It’s watch an old-fashioned cowboy El Camino archivist Carla Cain maintains ECC’s not a putdown of the Indian and injun battle. The Warriors had historical documents. “You have the conquistadors and culture. It’s held a positive image on their war paint as they scalped the monks establishing the missions, but you also want for years, especially in the student to identify with an Indian brave? It was all kind of a a band of Renegades 27-7.” journalism field. We would not A few additional examples mish-mosh” she says. Photo by Kim McGill support any name which we include: 1947 – Braves scalp thought might be distasteful, Pepperdine; 1954 – Unbeaten Pirates clash with Injuns, a vengeful injurious or inappropriate.”

Ventura squad will probably try to scalp the green Warrior eleven; Twenty years later, in the fall semester of 1997, ECC again 1954 – San Diego’s scalps most certainly feel loose these days; debated the Warrior mascot.

1959 – Indians invade border city (San Diego) in hopes of scalping At the time, the Los Angeles Unified School District had just Knights; 1963 – Compton scalping party, the win-hungry Compton passed a resolution ordering the elimination of team names and College Tartars are sending their scalping party to tomorrow’s mascots referencing Native American people and cultures. season opener with El Camino; 1987 – Fullerton College scalped That move sparked similar conversations on El Camino’s campus. the Warriors; and 1989 – …were scalped three times by the On Oct. 16, 1997, The Warwhoop reported that in the previous Warriors. month’s Associated Student Organization elections, El Camino Referring to scalping as a traditional practice among Indigenous students voted to “remove Native American references from warriors is a familiar American stereotype. Scalping was actually campus,” including the removal of the arrowhead symbol from introduced by the English and French colonies in North America sports uniforms. that paid bounties on the murder of Indigenous people. Carrying The name “Warriors” would continue.

Warrior Life | 60

Gene Engle, football team offensive coordinator, blamed the name change on people being “politically correct rather than taking into full account everybody’s feelings.”

To this day, ECC Football’s social media accounts on Instagram and X retain the arrowhead logo. The arrowhead still decorates El Camino football helmets.

Jimmy Macareno, one of the Division of Facilities Planning and Services’ two painters, started at El Camino in August of 1979.

He doesn’t remember the college having a logo at that time. “We did have the warrior emblem of the P.E. Department,” he said. “It was a warrior Indian with a bow and arrow.”

On Jan. 30, 1997, The Warwhoop published a photo of the 1959 installation of a 12-foot, aluminum statue of a man with a mohawk, wearing a breechcloth and shooting an arrow that hung on the North Physical Education Building since it was installed.

Later that same year, The Warwhoop ran another photo of the statue’s installation. The caption read, “After more than 50 years of tradition, EC may be changing the look of the Warrior mascot due to outside pressures from Native American groups.”

Not long after, El Camino students voted for the mascot change, and the statue disappeared.

“Who took it or where, I don’t know,” Macareno said.

The NCAI developed a National School Mascot Tracking Database of more than two dozen different Native “themed” school mascots used by K-12 schools. The Database also reports on progress in eliminating Indigenous-themed mascots.

As of April, 2023, “warriors” was used by at least 236 school districts and 406 school districts across the country.

Warwhoop as an argument against changing the paper’s name.

The NCAI, the American Indian College Fund and other Indigenous rights organizations had asserted for decades that references to scalping, tomahawk chops, war whoops, fake Indian dances and accents were offensive and inaccurate Hollywood portrayals of Native American culture.

Stefanie Frith, then student news editor, said “Changing the name of the paper will be hard because it is a big part of the college. But as much as I would like to see the newspaper’s name stay, I realize that in order not to offend anyone once the college changes its mascot, our name has to go.”

“I don’t think we should be appeasing the few people who complain,” Jaimie Calhoun, assistant editor, said in the Warwhoop on Dec. 4, 1997. “I think it’s sad that people are so thin-skinned.”

Frith added, “Yes the name is derogatory to Native Americans.

But this name has been around for 50 years. I’m sad to see it go.”

In that same article, campus and community news editor Angela Woods said changing the name was the “right thing to do,” for everyone involved, not just those who expressed concerns.

On Nov. 20, 1997, The Warwhoop ran an editorial.

“Changing the name is in good faith. The name of the newspaper is derogatory and implies violence and relates poorly to the diversity of the college… We expect that 1998 will be a true beginning of this college’s next 50 years – years of dialogue and diversity – with the students’ publication leading the way.

On Feb. 12, students published the first issue of the newspaper under The Union.

In 2005, the American Psychologica l Ass o ciat ion Student and Iraq War veteran Jovanni Soto stands at (APA) published a resolution the entrance to ECC’s Veterans Resource Center. Soto “1998 will be a true beginning says he’s still a warrior. “I’m fighting my own war “recommending retirement of this college’s next 50 improving my life, keeping my sanity and helping other of American Indian mascots, years – years of dialogue and veterans.” Photo by Kim McGill symbols, images and personalities diversity – with the students’ by schools, colleges, universities, publication leading the way.” athletic teams and organizations.

The APA argued that “symbols, images and mascots teach nonThe change in the mascot renewed concerns on campus about Indian children that it’s acceptable to participate in culturally the newspaper’s name. abusive behavior and perpetuate inaccurate misconceptions about On Oct. 23, 1997, The Warwhoop reported on its front page American Indian culture,” as well as create an “unwelcome and that the student “vote to change mascot makes name of paper often times hostile learning environment for American Indian questionable.” students that affirms negative images/stereotypes that are promoted Jolene Combs, journalism professor and faculty advisor to the in mainstream society.” newspaper, was quoted as saying “Warwhoop refers to certain Martin Leyva, full-time sociology professor at El Camino College American Indian tribes who, after a successful scalping of a foe specializing in criminology, warned against cultural appropriation during a battle, would let out a victorious shout or “whoop” to in the selection of educational and sports identities. celebrate their accomplishment.

“It’s really important for El Camino to know history, especially as This inaccurate depiction was repeated by student editors in the we talk about being inclusive,” Leyva said. “We need to understand 61 | Warrior Life

peoples’ cultures, so we’re not pressing harm on anybody, even if it’s just a word or a symbol.”

Camino’s warrior identity.

In the 1940s when El Camino was founded, many students were soldiers returning home from WWII or women who had worked in “The warrior code is taught from the start. That code munitions and other South Bay factories fueling the Allied forces. means everything, because it’s what keeps us alive in On Dec. 7, 1948, The Warwhoop noted that 500 students The country.”

Warwhoop noted that 500 students – 25% out of a total ECC population of 2,012 – were military veterans. But, Warrior Life Since he was 11-years-old growing up in Carson, Jovanni Soto found nothing in the ECC archives highlighting their involvement wanted to be a soldier. He participated in a military cadet program. or opinions in the selection of the college’s name or mascot.

“I thought it was cool and I also wanted to be of service to the According to Soto, the values of a warrior include honor, courage, country,” Soto said. commitment, integrity and dependability.

In 2003, he enlisted in the Marine Corps.

“In the Marines, the warrior code is taught from the start,” Soto He was deployed to Iraq where he worked in aviation electronics. said. “That code means everything, because it’s what keeps us alive.”

Even though he wasn’t directly involved in combat, he and his He feels proud of El Camino’s Warrior name, but also said there fellow Marines took on regular needs to be an open forum open to mortar fire and lived with the everyone on campus to discuss the constant fear that life was not college’s mascot. promised.

“I do still consider myself a Soto doesn’t agree that the warrior, Soto said. “Even though U.S. should have gone to war I’m done with fighting in that against Iraq. He said there was no war, I’m fighting my own war – evidence Iraq was involved in the improving my life, keeping my 9/11 events. sanity and helping other veterans.”

“For anybody that’s been in any Across from the Veterans theater or any conflict, it’s hard to R e s o u r c e C e nt e r i n t h e question the cause,” he said.

C ommunications Building, He focused on the job in front Francisco Lopez works with of him each day. “Even though students who are attending college I’m tired, there’s people out there after decades of incarceration. who need air support as quickly as As coordinator of El Camino’s possible.”

Formerly Incarcerated Students He came home from Iraq strong Thriving (FIRST) Program, Lopez physically but mentally fractured. speaks regularly with people who “Getting out of the military and have suffered violence on the assimilating back into civilian life streets and within California’s is very difficult,” Soto said. “In the prisons and jails, students who military, you get a lot of support. have often been expected to You have your brothers and sisters serve as soldiers in a conflict that in arms right beside you – that predates their birth. security blanket – three square “Growing up, this thing about meals a day, a roof over your FIRST Program Coordinator Francisco Lopez helps being down for your homies, students attend college. “I learned head, you’re provided equipment, system-impacted for your community is the most what a warrior meant based on what my relatives did... uniforms. You leave as a kid and to make sure that the people you love are being taken ultimate valued thing,” Lopez said. you come out like what am I going care of.” Photo by Kim McGill “If someone is disrespecting your to do?” homie, or somebody is jumping For years, he was lost in his them, as a warrior you have to go head, depressed and drinking heavily. and back them up, even if that means getting into trouble for the His family was more concerned about his safety now that he was people you care about.” back in Southern California than when he was in Iraq. “They often Lopez grew up with the graffiti culture in the 90s and early 2000s. worried if I’m gonna come home, and if I do, will I be in one piece,” The majority of people that were tagging “illegally,” Lopez said, were Soto said. people of color because they didn’t have access to “legal” walls or He was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, but it took permission. him years to seek help.

“This concept of a war on a culture – graffiti culture, gangbanging Now two decades later, Soto is attending El Camino and serves as culture, low-rider culture – it impacts communities that are more a student worker at ECC’s Veterans Resource Center. vulnerable,” Lopez said. “I learned what a warrior meant based on He is surrounded by students half his age in “Warriors” gear who what my relatives did – taking care of your loved ones, sacrificing have never been in a battle. your well-being to make sure that the people you love are being Like the absence of Indigenous voices, the voices of the actual taken care of.” warriors on campus have also been left out of the debate on El Both Soto and Lopez exist on a campus with a schizophrenic Warrior Life | 62

warrior identity championed by students, staff and faculty most of whom have never experienced war.

“There’s no use keeping a logo and name that reminds us Californians of a terrible part in American history.”

“The squirrels on campus are...pretty loving of people, but they will attack you if you try them. A squirrel would be an amazing mascot.”

In an open-ended question, people were asked to suggest mascots for ECC. In an effort to reflect on El Camino’s warrior past and chart a “Change the logo to the Chevy El Camino (1970 model, blue possible future, Warrior Life implemented several engagement color),” suggested student Maple Groves. strategies.

Other ideas included a 1970 Chevrolet El Camino, Xena the Warrior Life, The Union and ECC’s Social Justice Center also Warrior Princess and various animals including an elephant, eagle hosted a campus-wide discussion on Nov. 28, 2023 attended by or roadrunner. more than 50 people.

Two people suggested Marvel Comics’ X-Men. Warrior Life also distributed a survey to the college community Several people felt El Camino should abandon any link to warrior that was completed by 139 people. The comments below credit the symbols or mascots because of the promotion of violence or armed contributor when they included conflict. their name on the survey.

Gold wrote, “I’d like to get rid of In response to a survey question “Warrior” because it is historically asking if ECC should change its connected to racist depictions in name and logo, 37 (27%) felt that our college history. I’d like us to neither the college name or bell move on to something less violent logo should be changed. and aggressive.”

One full-time professor urged The most popular idea with no change to the college name eight responses was a squirrel. and bell logo, writing, “No. END Part-time professor Annette WOKENESS AND CANCEL Owens wrote, “A warrior squirrel.

CULTURE!!!”

It’s funny and it’s classically Elco.

Thirty-three people (24%) felt Who run the world? Squirrels,” both the college name and bell ending her comment with a nod logo should be changed. to “Bey,” [Beyonce] for the lyrical “Now that I’ve been informed of inspiration. the unfortunate history behind El Owens also sent Warrior Life a Camino’s name and logo, I believe squirrel logo she created in Adobe it’s only reasonable we’d change,” Illustrator. wrote student Deja Andrewin in Wiley Wilson, El Camino Social her survey. “There’s no use keeping Justice Center student services a logo and name that reminds us specialist, said he has always Californians of a terrible part in thought about having a squirrel as American history and an action El Camino’s mascot. that’s still felt in Indigenous and “We have so many dang Latino communities today.” squirrels around campus. If UC Fu l l - t i m e f a c u l t y A z u l Wiley Wilson, ECC Social Justice Center student services Santa Cruz can have a slug and Rodriguez suggested that the specialist, has thought about having a squirrel mascot. “If there’s literally a school that has a name be South Bay Community UC Santa Cruz can have a slug and there’s literally a school beer keg - I don’t know how or why that has a beer keg... then we can have the squirrels.”

College with a pelican as the logo - then we can have the squirrels.”

Photo by Kim McGill and mascot.

Wilson shifted his stance, tilted Twenty-seven people (19%) his head and laughed. responded that the college should keep its name but change the “The squirrels on campus are extremely confident,” Wilson logo. added. “They are pretty loving of people, but they will attack you Behavioral and Social Sciences Dean Christina Gold wrote, “I if you try them. A squirrel would be an don’t think it is feasible or a good idea to change the college name, amazing mascot to have.” but we could emphasize the term road, pathway and try to pull The values and symbols that away from connections to the mission system. Absolutely, ditch the define El Camino - whether bell. A road or a path leading to a star may symbolize El Camino as heroic animals or humans a pathway to success for students.” might eventually represent all Thirteen people (9%) were unsure about changing the college the communities that make name or logo, or had no opinion. Twelve (9%) commented but were up the college and the land on unclear on whether to change one or both the name or bell logo. which it stands.

One said more discussion was needed, and two left the question And that just might be a blank. squirrel.

63 | Warrior Life

Mayhem on the Metro Green Line I have ridden on public transportation all over the world. My worst experiences were closer to home Story by Erica Lee

Illustration by Ingrid Barrera

Warrior Life | 64

L

adies, please be careful when riding L.A. Metro. I just had to file a police report for battery.

Stay safe.”

My hands shook so hard, I almost missed the “share” button.

There was a foul prickle on my lips that countless toothbrushing, mouth washing and even a few shots of vodka later that night couldn’t get rid of.

It took a few fumbles, but I did it. Within seconds, my story was up on Instagram.

From there, for the next 24 hours, people would see the post.

Hopefully, they would take it as a warning.

It was after 10 p.m. on Sept. 27, 2022. One hour ago, someone tried to grab me on the Metro Green Line.

I was not having a good day when I lost my favorite travel mug on my commute that morning. It was a cheap thing from Target, but it could keep two cups of coffee warm for hours. Without it, I didn’t have the caffeine I needed to get through my workday.

At the time, I was an airline customer service agent at the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). It was the end of the summer travel season, but my work still ran five flights a day to Europe.

By the end of the day, after checking in hundreds of passengers going as far away as Frankfurt, Tel Aviv and Delhi, I just wanted to go home and sleep.

I got on the train at the Aviation/LAX Station just after 9 p.m. The car was empty and filthy. Crumpled fast food containers and spent sunflower seed shells crunched underfoot as I took a seat near the driver’s door. I put my earbuds in and pulled up Instagram, settling in for the 10 minute commute back to Redondo Beach.

The next thing I knew, hard and calloused fingers clamped down over my mouth. The eye-watering stink of stale urine and B.O. filled my nose.

I freaked out.

“What the f--- is wrong with you,” I shrieked.

The man who grabbed me stumbled backward.

He was disheveled, with a patchy beard, a tattoo scribbled on the right side of his face and dirty checkered pants sagged low enough to expose a pair of bright green shorts underneath.

I continued to scream like a banshee straight out of a nightmare, hurling insults and swinging my Hydroflask like a club. He screamed back, but never made another charge at me.

Maybe he didn’t expect me to fight back.

The car was empty, except for me, him and the driver, who was safely insulated in the little cabin at the front.

As soon as the train pulled into the next station, I sprinted outside and grabbed the nearest Metro employee. “I need to file a police report.” I jerked my finger at my assailant. He stumbled out the sliding doors, screaming garbled nonsense at me from across the platform. “That guy grabbed me.”

By the time two officers arrived on the scene, my assailant had fled on a departing train. Still, they took my report and promised to call back if they found anything.

That night, I became one of the 1,290 violent crime police reports filed on the Metro in 2022.

Aside from a follow-up call from a detective months later, I

haven’t heard back from the L.A. Sheriff ’s Department.

Two years later, they haven’t caught the guy who grabbed me.

The following morning, I was back at the Redondo Beach Station platform and unsure if I was ready for the day ahead.

I didn’t come back as a show of bravery. I had to go to work. The Metro was one of the few reliable ways I could get to LAX. There is a LAX employee parking lot. However, parking passes start at $60 and there is a months-long application process.

Skyrocketing gas prices and a need for a sustainable lifestyle also made me mindful of my commute.

L.A. Metro reported that ridership increased to over 23 million passengers in October 2022. However, a 2022 Customer Experience Survey found female ridership dropped from 53% in 2019 to 46% in 2022.

The biggest issue facing female riders on the Metro is safety, or the lack thereof.

My attack wasn’t the only incident I’ve experienced. I’ve ridden the Metro from Santa Monica to Torrance and I’ve seen things.

There was the time I was late to work because the driver had to call in sanitation to remove an overflowing trash bin. I’ve seen fights and screaming matches erupt. I’ve been threatened. I’ve seen commuters immediately get off a train and wait for the next one because the car reeked of rotting garbage in the middle of summer. I once saw a woman urinate on a seat.

Riding the L os Angeles public transportation system is like taking a trek on Fury Road.

A month after the incident, I was back on the light rail from the airport. This time, I was in Seattle.

I was jealous.

There was no trash, no weird smells, no graffiti or zombie-like riders staring vacantly into space with glassy eyes. Just a clean car and riders keeping to themselves while a Sound Transit employee checked tickets.

I’ve ridden on public transportation in London, Tokyo and New York City. While each city’s rail line has its quirks, they all had one thing in common. They all felt safe.

What was it that these cities were doing that Los Angeles wasn’t?

In September 2022, L.A. Metro announced its Metro Ambassador program. While riders reported that they feel safe since the program began, I’ve only ever seen the ambassadors near Downtown Los Angeles.

The farther away one gets from Los Angeles, the wilder and more unpredictable the Metro Rail Line becomes.

It remains to be seen what the long-term effects the Ambassador program will have on Metro’s ridership. Although riders surveyed have said they feel safer, I have yet to see ambassadors make an appearance on the Green Line that connects the city to the airport.

I still take the Metro to work. Only now, I have to stand with my back to the driver’s door. I can’t leave my back unguarded anymore.

The other day, my roommate came up from behind me to ask a question and I panicked.

I don’t look at my phone anymore. I hate that I have to sacrifice my post-work ritual of Instagram and podcasts to make myself think I was safer this way.

Until the L.A. Metro makes some long term and lasting changes, I am constantly looking over my shoulder.

“The biggest issue facing female riders on the Metro is safety, or the lack thereof. “

65 | Warrior Life

n

A soberi g reality I abused alcohol to help me find a personality but I struggled to function without it

A

fter a few shots and 10 rounds of beer pong, I stumbled to put on my shoes before being carried and put in the back of my friend’s car.

Then everything went dark.

I should’ve known I had a problem when I couldn’t remember how I got home.

Drinking became my entire personality, and I struggled to find myself without it.

My first taste of alcohol was when I was seven years old at my aunt’s wedding.

What I thought was a chocolate cake was a Jamaican Black Cake saturated in dark rum and cherry brandy.

A Jamaican Black cake batter is refrigerated for at least two weeks to three months so the juices can soak in. Once it’s baked, another layer of rum brushes on top.

I spat it back on my mom’s plate.

Once I hit my 20s, my drinking came in cycles: a weekend of heavy drinking, following a regretful week after and then a stint of sobriety.

Most weekends, I bar-hopped around Los Angeles or went to a house party I learned about through word of mouth.

Absolut Vodka with a large McDonald’s Coke was my go-to before any outing.

Five shots in between doing my hair and makeup and I can get a good buzz going.

Alcohol became my social lubricant.

Making friends has always been challenging, especially at CSUN, my alma mater, a campus of 30,000, after graduating f r o m h i g h school in a class of 46.

A little Warrior Life | 66

By Brittany Parris liquid courage changed that.

With three shots of Patrón, I was flirtatious.

With a few cranberry vodkas, I could dance until my feet blistered.

Give me a tequila sunrise and I could talk your ear off.

Unfortunately, Sunday through Thursday is when reality slowly wormed its way into my brain.

After a weekend of drinking, the days following clouded in a fog.

Aside from the splitting headache and nausea, I had the anxiety of an animal hunted for sport.

I’m aware it could’ve been worse.

According to the National Institute on Abuse and Alcoholism, researchers estimate each year, 1,519 college students between the ages of 18-24 die from unintentional alcohol-related injuries.

Six hundred ninety-six thousand students are assaulted by another student, with an estimated 1 in 5 women experiencing sexual assault involving alcohol.

I depended on the highlights from sober friends and my Snapchat stories to piece together moments from the previous night.

Questions bounced around in my head as I wondered if I had said anything to embarrass myself, been too loud, or talked about something I wasn’t supposed to.

With that came the fear of how I was being perceived.

When friends introduced me, the first thing discussed was my drinking.

In a joking manner, they brought up the times I had gotten so drunk that they

debated taking me to the hospital for fear I was blacking out or how I’d run off with strangers in a crowded club.

I could laugh about these things, but I also became self-conscious that this was the reputation I was leaving behind.

There had been a conscious effort to try and go out sober, but it wasn’t long before a drink was thrust into my hand after being too overwhelmed with small talk without a drop of liquor to loosen my tongue.

My desire to be approachable overpowered all the signals telling me to stop.

Now, at 29, I enjoy a cocktail now and again, but my days of binge drinking are behind me.

The first time I blacked out should have been warning enough, but factors such as age and finances seemed to have made that decision for me.

I could spend almost $50 on drinks on a typical weekend alone.

If you’re in Hollywood, the bar charges $10 just to get in and a bottle of water costs $16 in a Las Vegas club.

There was also the stark reality that the “friends” I made in college were only around to drink.

Now, I have a close-knit group of friends with whom I can enjoy the company without the need to numb myself with liquor.

I’m not anti-drinking, but the desire to have moments I can remember and not feel ill afterward trumps the impulse of impressing strangers who won’t give me a second glance.

Illustration by Ingrid Barrera

67 | Warrior Life

I’m Mexican, but I don’t feel Mexican Story by Emily Barrera

How the American lifestyle led to confusing sentiments of identifying with my heritage

(Top) Emily Barrera, 7, ready to perform a jazz routine to Kid’N Play’s “2 Hype.” Photo courtesy of Emily Barrera (Upper Right) Emily Barrera at age 16 modeling for a high school portrait. Photo courtesy of Emily Barrera

Warrior Life | 68

S

ome of the most vivid memories I have of growing up are of my family eating dinner with a Univision 34 telenovela Unfortunately, that’s pretty much the extent of my “Mexicaness.”

While both sides of my family hail from Mexico, I was first-generation on my dad’s side and secondgeneration on my mom’s.

My mom was born and raised in California and more familiar with Westernized culture. In turn, that created an interesting crossover in the way I was raised – Westernized with Mexican values.

I resemble what many would consider to be Mexican traits – brown skin, brown eyes, dark hair, wide nose and I am fluent in Spanish.

However, my physical traits are overshadowed by my personality and lifestyle, which make me feel like an imposter in my culture.

In 2017, the Pew Research Center reported that 5 million Mexican Americans feel a separation from their culture.

It’s a little hard to feel Mexican when your dad gives you one of the most American names possible, Emily, because he himself was trying to be more “American.”

Emily sounded unnatural to Spanish speakers, so instead my family opted to call me by my middle name, Alina.

Hearing my sister and cousins go by their first names always triggered some jealousy because their names were pronounceable enough. Unlike me who had to go by a different name to fit into my family’s native language.

As a child, I was put into an Americanized form of dance, commercial dance. This included jazz, tap, lyrical, ballet, hip hop and other styles.

I became a competitive dancer, something no one in my family had ever done. Though I loved it, my paternal side of the family never fully understood my style of dance. My grandma often verbalized how uncomfortable she was watching me raise my legs and parade around onstage in two piece costumes.

My cousin was also a dancer, but she was training

Illustration by Jeremiah De la Cruz

in folklorico. Since this style originates from Mexico, my family connected with it and my aunts grew up performing folklorico.

Seeing their genuine reactions to her routines, traditional outfits and hearing the constant adoration for representing Mexican culture made me feel disconnected and as if I was not representing my family the way I should.

As a way to try and feel “more Mexican” and to have common ground with my aunts and grandma, I asked my aunt to sew me a folklorico skirt.

With joy on her face she made me a big, bright, red and green skirt.

My cousin began teaching me basic steps so I could better understand why my family loved it so much.

Even with this effort, the life I was and continue to live is a different world than what my aunt’s, uncle’s and even my dad lived.

I cannot relate to living life on a ranch, having knowledge of Mexican politics and pop culture or experiencing the Mexican education system – making it difficult to join in on familial conversations and feel connected to my culture.

Even my food preferences separate me from my family and culture.

Trying new foods has never been my strong suit and Mexican food is no exception.

When I was younger, I often refused to eat traditional Mexican meals such as chile relleno, mole, menudo and others because they “smelled weird” or “looked funny.”

Rather than being forced fed the meal, my sweet maternal grandma, who loved to spoil me, would make me a separate meal.

So, while everyone was eating chile rellenos, Miss America was eating steak with rice and salad.

My preference of American food over Mexican often results in disappointed or disapproving looks from my family members, along with comments like “aren’t you Mexican?”

To my sister it seems that I’m not, as she loves to remind me that I’m not “Mexican enough.”

She teases me for my California vocal fry, calls me “basic” for listening to Beyoncé and Ariana Grande rather than Mexican artists like Los Tucanes de Tijuana and nags about my fashion taste.

“You’re such a white girl,” she says when I come out of my room wearing jeans and a crop top, a pretty typical 20-year-old American girl outfit.

While I’m used to it, it only fuels that disconnection I feel with my Mexican heritage.

As I juggle through the feelings of disconnect, I must remember that my family immigrated to the United States for one purpose – to give me a better chance at life.

And that, they have.

Slowly, but surely I am understanding that my American life will not fully coincide with my family’s struggles, experiences, and preferences, and that is OK. I need to be proud of my American life, but also make an effort to learn more about my Mexican heritage. Whether that be through asking family members for stories, or doing my own research, it is important to act now while I still can.

I may have American customs, but it does not discredit my Mexican heritage.

Now turn on some Beyoncé and take me straight to In-N-Out. 69 | Warrior Life

RINGing in the Years

After heading El Camino’s oldest program for almost 40 years, jewelry designer and fabrication professor Irene Mori looks back on the past and forward to the future Story by Erica Lee

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Jewelry design and fabrication professor Irene Mori leans against one of the workstations in the new Jewelry Studio 131. For over 70 years, jewelry classes were held in Room 133 at the old Arts and Behavorial Science Building before moving to the newly opened Arts Complex in 2023. Photo by Jamila Zaki

alk past the open door of Jewelry Studio 131 on a Friday afternoon, when the campus is nearly empty and one could pick up on the flurry of activity inside.

Inside, over a dozen students stand in a semicircle. Each one clutches an empty saw frame, intently watching their instructor for the next step.

At the front of the room, professor Irene Mori delicately threads the needle-like blade into her saw frame and tightens it into place. Her crystal clear voice and quick, purposeful hand movements carry years of experience.

On her careful guidance, Mori’s beginner jewelry design students slowly, carefully mimic her movements as they put together their tools.

To make sure they have matched her instructions, Mori has them test the blades.

Not by sending them back to their workbenches with orders to saw pieces of aluminum into two.

But by plucking at the blades.

What follows next is a chorus of gentle twangs that ring off each other.

“It’s like angels’ harps,” Mori said, smiling before moving on to their assignment: how to make a jump ring.

Since 1985, Mori has taught jewelry fabrication, design and metalsmithing at El Camino College.

In that time, she has seen the program through a pandemic that saw students learning remotely and a move to a new arts facility.

But there was a time where Mori didn’t even consider a career in the arts.

Growing up in a Japanese-American family in Los Angeles and attending classes at the Japanese Institute of Sawtelle, where her grandmother was a principal, art didn’t play a big role in her life.

“I guess in a lot of ways, looking back, it was a little bit more Japanese-American,” Mori said.

“But, you know, what was really wonderful about how I grew up was that there was a great sense of community and I think I truly benefited from that.”

While studying mathematics at San Diego State University in the early 1970s, Mori enrolled in a jewelry making class to meet a course requirement.

“I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” Mori said. “I needed 12 units, as a lot of people these days do as well. And I needed to have a class that fit my schedule. So I looked at the schedule and I saw this class called jewelry that looked really interesting.”

As it turned out, the class was taught by legendary artist and jewelry maker Arline Fisch.

Fisch, who taught from 1961 until she retired as professor emerita of art in 2000, founded the jewelry and metalsmithing program at San Diego State University. She pioneered the use of weaving, knitting and crochet metal wire into elaborate collars and headpieces. Her work was exhibited in galleries in the United States and abroad.

The moment Mori knew she wanted to make 71 | Warrior Life

at El Camino College. The campus officialy opened the year before in 1947. The course later expanded into two classes in 1954.

Today, students can obtain a certificate of achievement in jewelry design and fabrication after taking a beginner and intermediate jewelry fabrication course as well as jewelry casting. In addition, students have to take to three other classes offered by the Fine Arts department.

Others who join the class do so out of a desire to learn new skills, flex their creativity or to try something different.

El Camino College is one of four community colleges in Southern California that offers a certificate of achievement in jewelry design and fabrication program.

Fifteen of 29 community colleges in Southern California do not offer jewelry making classes and the campuses that do include it as part of studio arts. jewelry for a living didn’t come with the slight, sharp click of “I like that we have specialty programs revelation under Fisch’s mentorship. that offer something a little different to our students,” Assistant It came with the raspy drags of a jeweler’s needle file.

Dean of Fine Arts Walter Cox said. “It’s a speciality within art that As she sat hunched over a workbench, meticulously filing away is not in a normal drawing, painting, sculpture subject area.” at the sharp edge of a brass piece, Mori marveled at how the brass As the first instructor, Oliver set the precedent for how the changed under her carefu pulls of the file. What was once a piece jewelry studio should be designed and operated. The original of raw material soon morphed into a smooth, shiny decorative studio, based out of Room 133 in the old Arts and Behavioral piece.

Science Building, was built with space for forging, hammering “I thought, ‘oh, this is really cool,” Mori said, looking back on and casting metal. that day. “Like wow, this is really great. And I want to pursue this.”

Decades later, when the Fine Arts department moved to the Taking Fisch’s class opened up the world in a way Mori never new Arts Complex in 2023, steps were taken to make sure Oliver’s could have imagined as a girl learning the Japanese language and legacy would carry over to the new facilities and not be left behind customs in Sawtelle. with the now-deserted Arts and Behavioral Science Building.

It also forged a friendship that has endured over the decades.

The new tool room, a few paces from the main studio, carries “I’m still in touch with [Fisch] and we celebrated her 92nd the physical remnants of the old jewelry design studio and, to birthday,” Mori said. an extent, Oliver’s legacy. The steel anvils mounted on wooden After graduating from San Diego State with a bachelor’s in stumps arranged in a quasi-semi circle in the center of the room fine arts and from Cal State Long Beach with an MFA in jewelry go back as far back as the 1960s. design and metalsmithing, Mori spent the rest of the 1970s and The move came just after in-person learning resumed at El part of the 1980s holding down a variety of jobs. These included Camino following the Covid-19 lockdown. selling designs to manufacturers in downtown L.A. and teaching “We had to limit what we were able to do,” Mori said about at colleges across Los Angeles county. remote schooling as a jewelry instructor.

“I was a true freeway flier,” Mori said.

Because of the restrictions found in virtual learning, students An average day as an adjunct instructor would find her zipping had to make do with tool kits assembled by Mori and Christianup and down the vast Southern California freeway system, from Kelly while working in limited spaces in their homes. campus to campus, in her Volkswagen. Mornings would begin in Although the students found ways to work around these Mission Viejo at Saddleback College before moving on to other limitations, when the college asked who would like to return, campuses before finishing the day at Cypress College in Cypress. Mori was one of the first to volunteer.

But it was in 1985 that Mori found herself in Torrance, at El “I knew that I couldn’t do what needed to be done without a Camino College. proper environment for the students,” Mori said.

Richard Oliver, the previous jewelry construction and design The tool room doubles as a communal space where the beginner instructor at the college, had recently retired , leaving a vacancy and intermediate classes work together on Friday afternoons. that needed to be filled for the first time in the program’s history.

One group huddles together around a hexagon-shaped table, “I heard about El Camino College and never thought I’d be chatting and laughing as they stamp imprints into teal, amethyst, here,” Mori said. “The regional reputation is as one of the best in ruby red and golden aluminum sheets. Another two sit at the Southern California.” anvils, earplugs and headphones in place to buffer the repetitive First appearing in the 1948-1949 course catalog as “Art tapping as they hammer copper wire into graceful loops and 21-Metalcraft,’ jewelry making is one of the oldest courses offered curves.

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One woman makes tiny indentations into a bangle-like Chunky blue glasses sit on top her head and a brightly patterned confection of polished copper swirls and loops. She pauses, scarf sits wrapped loosely around her neck. Then there is the slipping it onto her wrist, twisting this way and that before taking jewelry she wears. it off her arm and hammering more improvements into the design.

A silver ring with a piece of polished agate as big as a knuckle “Isn’t it nice? They’re all doing stuff. They’re so focused,” Mori sits comfortably on her middle finger. Mori likes to switch up her said, scanning the room with her hands on her hips, a wash-worn look with a rotating array of colorful earrings. black apron tied around her waist, before checking to see how her One week, it is a pair of lacy pink earrings resembling papel students are doing in the next room. picado, a Mexican paper pennant.

That is where the main studio is located, an airy industrial space Another week, it is a pair of marble-sized golden gyroscope. dominated by four long workbenches which could comfortably This week is a pair of enameled fish with brightly patterned ribs. sit six people each and equipped with torches and overhead lamps These were chosen in honor of the lesson of the week: enameling. to aid in more detailed work. Off-white roller blinds are cast halfMori goes from workbench to workbench, checking on the way down the windows, muting the sunlight pouring in from the progress of her beginner and intermediate students. Helping her courtyard outside. manage the mixed class is lab technician Kristina Christian-Kelly, The room hums with chatter and soft jazz from the laptop Mori has set up at the front of the classroom. A quick glance at the screen shows a YouTube page for a video titled “NY Blues.”

In this industrial space of stainless steel fixtures, white walls and pale wooden cabinets, Mori is a splash of color.

Right: Advanced jewelry student Liam Messer shows off two rings inlaid with glass cabochons he made during class on March 29. His inspiration comes from fantasy card and tabletop games including “Magic the Gathering” and “Dungeons and Dragons.” Photo by Jamila Zaki Bottom: Finished works from previous classes are on exhibit in Jewelry Studio 131. Beginner jewelry students learn how to operate machines such hydraulic presses and sandblasters and techniques like enameling and etching. Photo by Jamila Zaki

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a kind woman with frizzy blonde curls piled into a bun fanned out like a halo, who has worked at El Camino College for 15 years.

As she checks in on her students, Mori’s movements become more animated. She cracks wry smiles and lets out soft exclamations as she sees how much her students have progressed.

She compliments a returning student, who is wearing a silver ring inlaid with a blue stone he had made the previous semester and offers input into the “Coraline”-inspired brooch design of a beginner in the class.

“Oh, you put it together,” Mori says when she sees her intermediate student Li Diaz holding a crown aloft.

Diaz, 36, is a welding major who has found a way to fuse their skills as a welder into jewelry design. Their creation has manifested into a steel circlet trimmed with bronze.

“It reminds me of Cersei at the end [of “Game of Thrones”] when she has short hair and is hating everyone,” Diaz said, twisting the Warrior Life | 74

crown this way and that in their hands. The simple circlet trimmed in bronze is more Stark-like but serves as a testament to their skill.

“You really can do anything, she’s so lenient,” Liam Messer said.

He picks up a golden talon-like mechanism and slips it over his finger, flexing the claw-like appendage he has created. A studio arts major taking the intermediate Art 274 course, his inspiration comes from fantasy and tabletop games such as “Dungeons and Dragons.” His body of work turns out copper variants of “Magic the Gathering” cards, a dagger and silver rings inlaid with glass cabochons that resemble dragons’ eyes.

On the opposite side of the room, Alejandra Garcia, who returned to El Camino to get her certificate in jewelry design, sits hunched over her project, a metal file in one hand, as she carefully scrapes down the molten silver nubs holding her project together.

“It’s a lot of patience,” Garcia said before pausing, lifting the pendant and holding it up to the bright lamp light. “Teeny tiny,

almost there.”

Then she gets back to filing down the nubs. Silver filigree scrollwork fills the empty space of the pendant’s frame, breathing life into the Hebrew “chai”-shaped outline. She pauses, then holds the pendant up to the light.

“I should have done it the opposite way, to clean it up, but…” she shrugged. “You live and you learn.” The biggest challenge to the jewelry fabrication and design program isn’t adapting to a new studio space or fixing projects gone wrong. Instead, it is something currently unfolding outside of the classroom.

After June 2024, Mori will be retiring after almost 40 years of service to El Camino College.

“There is a tradition at El Camino College started by Richard Oliver and continued with me,” Mori said. “Hopefully, there will be enough support for the program’s continuation. We have a new facility and lots of tradition that needs teaching and nurturing.”

The new jewelry design and fabrication instructor has yet to be

announced but Dean Cox is hopeful.

“My hopes would be, in a perfect world, finding a new fulltime instructor. Someone fun with experience in contemporary practices,” Cox said.

Although still in its planning stages, there are talks with the ITECH department for a future collaboration in using computeraided drafting 3D printing technology.

In the meantime, Mori is looking forward to what retirement will bring. The time she can spend with her husband of 32 years and their two grown children. There are so many countries she would like to visit: Ireland, India and Bhutan.

Then there are hobbies she would like to get back into.

“I have so many projects,” Mori said. “I have a workshop at home that is nothing like this workshop. And so I want to get back there.

You know, I have an [orchid] garden whose needs have been neglected. So I want to get back to that.”

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What dogs have taught me about being human Story and illustration by Kim McGill

T

he first time I remember falling in love, I was four-years-old.

I was at a community carnival thrown by SoCal Gas and discovered a fenced-in patch of dirt filled with puppies. There was nothing I wanted more than one of those dogs.

My dad had sternly warned my mom and me that morning. Bring home a goldfish or even a parakeet.

But – no – puppy.

Still, the promise of carnival rides and cotton candy could not get me to leave that puppy pen. My mom finally gave up and left me there for the day.

Throughout the event, people applied to adopt a dog. If approved, their name was announced over a speaker. One by one, puppies were taken from the pen and handed to their new families.

My heart broke again and again with each adoption.

At the end of the day, there was one puppy left.

Like all frantic toddlers desperate to get what they wish for, I clung to that puppy and felt the tears welling up in my eyes. The volunteers struggled to get me to release it, and returned the puppy to the ground where it wriggled excitedly, happy at the chance to run and breathe.

But then – miraculously – I heard my name broadcast over the carnival sound system. My mom’s friends had secretly applied for me to get a dog.

I sat on the grass with my new puppy, a fuzzy light brown mutt with remnants of the dark brown markings, pointed ears and long nose of a Shepherd mixed with who-knows-what.

“What’s her name,” asked my mom. “Tippy,” I said, looking at the white tip at the end of her tail.

Lesson 1: Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer When we got home, my dad issued an angry ultimatum. “That dog can stay the weekend, but it’s going to the pound first thing Monday.”

A tiny ball of fur no more than 10 weeks old, Tippy Warrior Life | 76

followed my dad everywhere for those two days.

She returned over and over to cuddle at his feet, even as he kicked her away. She sat and watched TV sports with him all day Sunday. She cried when he left the room without her, and jumped up excitedly when he reentered.

On Monday morning, my dad mumbled gruffly that Tippy could stay another week. That was the last time he ever spoke of her not having a home with us.

Once she won over my dad, Tippy turned all of her attention to me.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but she had taught me a valuable lesson about subduing your adversary and picking your battles.

I grew up in a family suffocated by silence, held hostage by unspoken issues too complicated for me to understand.

Looking back, photos of my dead brother that hung on the wall hinted at the untreated grief and guilt that tore at my parents’ ability to be with each other.

My mom was exhausted holding down a fulltime job, at times one or two part-time jobs, transporting kids to and from school, and cooking, cleaning and doing laundry late into the night.

She struggled to find her place in a world that both required her to work while also remaining subservient to my dad. He criticized her daily and made jokes at her expense despite the fact that she was contributing far more financially and emotionally.

My dad was crusted over by anger and disappointment – hating the life, community and family he ended up in – and mourning the loss of the life he imagined for himself. He was plagued by a deep homesickness for a culture and community that had disappeared.

Until he was 14, he grew up in a logging camp deep in the woods of the Pacific Northwest and he seemed happiest reminiscing about lumber mills and freight trains.

As I got older, I wish I had handled my dad more like Tippy did.

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In order to keep the peace, Tippy faked acceptance of my dad’s position as ruler.

By comparison, I challenged his every command. The more I was punished, the more I fought back. The greater his attempts to control me, the more rebellious I got.

I have carried that stubborn commitment to my own sense of fairness and independence until this day. It can be admirable when challenging injustice. But it has made me unwilling to consider other people’s realities, and I grow impatient with people I disagree with.

I inherited my father’s quick anger and his need to win at all costs.

I wish I could be more like Tippy and seek to understand – rather than crushing – my opponents.

Lesson 2: Best friends are loyal and protective The house we lived in when I was little only had two rooms – a living room area connected to a kitchen and a bedroom. I had a small bed on the side of where my parents slept.

I snuck Tippy inside as often as possible, and she fell asleep hiding under my blanket.

On weekends and holidays, the two of us left the house at dawn and returned when the street lights came on.

Tippy protected me from other dogs, neighborhood bullies, possums, raccoons and other common L.A. street dangers. Once, in a dry river bed, she backed away from a rattlesnake and warned me to walk around to avoid a deadly encounter.

Tippy sat with me during every time-out my mom gave me. She hugged up on me after every yelling or beating from my father.

To avoid criticism, punishment and worse, I stayed out of sight as much as possible, existing in the world of my parents only when I was forced home by darkness or for the occasional family meal.

Like a kid from a Peanuts cartoon, I lived just above ground level, while my parents existed in another dimension above me – “Wah, wah-wah, wah wah.”

The tension would build steadily into sudden eruptions of anger and violence. People would disappear – always emotionally and sometimes physically – and leave me on my own.

People, especially children, need companionship and comfort.

For me – starting with Tippy and continuing for my whole life – a dog always filled that role.

Left alone for hours and sometimes days, I came to love that time with just me and a dog.

I learned to cook foods that were not only my own, but my dog’s favorites, especially fried peanut butter and bologna sandwiches.

I never cried in front of my dad no matter the physical or emotional pain. I was prideful. I didn’t want him to see me as weak or give him any sense that he could hurt me.

Tippy was the one I cried with.

Scientists, including Stanley Coren, author of The Intelligence of Dogs, have determined that “dogs are sensitive to emotional contagion, responding to the emotions of another without fully understanding what they are feeling.”

I first learned this from Tippy, that dogs sense and comfort humans in distress.

Lesson 3: People need dogs and dogs need people The relationship between humans and canines dates back at least Warrior Life | 78

15,000 years, and we have relied on each other for security, work, service, hunting and companionship.

Both dogs and humans release oxytocin when they are together, in the same way that the chemical is exchanged between infants and the people they bond with.

Dogs also teach us to enjoy life and appreciate the small things.​​ They never care if you’re perfect, or look good or come in first.

They are just happy to be included.

When I was nine, me and Tippy attended a dog training class run by the Parks Department. Because the class was free and I was the only kid – all the other students were adults – I felt no pressure.

That also meant I didn’t pass any anxiety on to my dog. We just laughed and tried our best and enjoyed learning new things.

Unbelievably, we came in first in the class.

The instructor suggested that we enter a dog training competition at the L.A. County Fair in Pomona.

When the day came, I had never felt so nervous. The large crowd that gathered at the fairgrounds made it worse.

When it was our turn to run through the required off-leash exercises – heel walking, heel running, stay, come, fetch and return – we barely survived the excruciating fifteen minutes. Fear oozed from every pore of my body and enveloped me in an invisible, toxic cloud.

I fumbled through the course. Poor Tippy didn’t know what to do. She gave me troubled looks and struggled to understand my commands.

We came in dead last.

I have failed at many things. Nearly always, I have had the skills and knowledge to succeed but allowed anxiety about being perfect, especially in front of others, to override the joy I got from the experience.

Lesson 4: Men are not dogs When my dad left me and my mom, I was relieved. But my mom fell into a spiral of anger, depression and shame.

In an attempt to cheer her up, I bought her a T-shirt that said “The more I know men, the more I love my dog.”

The world often refers to men who cheat or lie as dogs.

But, even at the risk of abuse or neglect, dogs remain loyal and attached to their people.

Men who lie and cheat are not dogs. Cats maybe. But not dogs.

Lesson 5: Be the person your dog thinks you are Tippy modeled many life lessons.

Over time, all my dogs have been my teachers.

They have taught me about patience and fairness and justice and joy.

But I haven’t done a very good job of incorporating their lessons into my own thoughts and practices.

So, this year I bought a shirt for myself.

It says “Be the person your dog thinks you are.”

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