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Calvert Projected to Win Reelection in 41st US Congressional District | Page A2
Weather: 73o/41o | Volume IV | Issue XLI
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Book of Golden Deeds to Salute Veterans | Page C1
Thursday, November 17 - November 23, 2022 www.HSJChronicle.com |
A FAITH
CLERGY CORNER Give It Up For The Crazy Ones!
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C VALLEY BEAT
When newspapers speak, readers still listen
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ECONOMY | Page D1
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D ECONOMY
Is the U.S. economy going into a 1930s-style Great Depression See more on page D1
UC workers say they are struggling to survive in California, and fighting unfair system SPECIAL FEATURE| CONTRIBUTED
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or doctoral candidate and single parent Konysha Wade, the financial struggle is daily. More than half of her monthly earnings from her two on-campus jobs at UC Irvine goes toward renting her university apartment, where she lives with her 11-year-old son. She brings home about $2,700 a month after taxes from working as an African American Studies instructor and a graduate student researcher — all while taking at least two classes toward her Culture and Theory doctoral degree and raising her son. She said their rent is more than $1,500 a month, which leaves just over $1,000 a month for all other expenses. “It’s so, so tough,” Wade, 29, said. “We barely make it. We are trying to survive on limited savings. It’s about constant budgeting.” Wade is one of 48,000 University of California academic workers — including postdoctoral scholars,
graduate teaching assistants and researchers — who walked off the job this week in a strike billed as the largest at any academic institution in history. The work stoppage aims to challenge long-held labor practices at the UC and other universities across the country, which have come under growing scrutiny for how graduate workers and academic employees are paid in an era of rising inflation and growing union activism. These workers perform much of the teaching, grading and research across the state’s most prestigious public university system. In some ways, the strike underscores the growing economic strains low-wage employees are facing, particularly in places like California where the cost of living is high. “People are already facing high rents and difficulty making ends meet on the type of pay they have,” said Paula Voos, a professor at the
Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations. “This is a time in which there’s a lot of organizing and a lot of strikes, especially by younger, lower paid workers who have been taking it on the chin for a while.” Significantly increasing compensation for academic workers would definitely alter the budgets of big universities like the UC, where high tuition is already a big issue. But strikers argue California has an opportunity to deal with the economic inequity — and set a better example for other universities. “The university prides itself on our world-class research, yet it’s not evident in the paychecks it issues us,” said UC Irvine doctoral candidate Edward Mendez. “We don’t earn enough to live in the cities where these schools are.” Union leaders are asking for large wage increases for academic workers, noting that housing costs on and near many UC campuses have continued to rise, making the ma-
jority of their members “rent-burdened,” or spending more than 30% of their income on rent. They want to see all graduate student workers — who are teaching assistants and tutors — earn a base salary of $54,000, more than double these workers’ average current pay of about $24,000, according to the union. For postdoctoral employees, the union has called for a minimum salary of $70,000, which would be, on average, a $10,000 increase, said Rafael Jaime, a UCLA doctoral candidate and president of United Auto Workers Local 2865, which represents 19,000 teaching assistants, tutors and other academic workers on strike Surveys by the UAW found that 92% of graduate workers and 61% of postdoctoral scholars were rent-burdened. “We need help,” Wade said as she joined her fellow graduate student workers and other academic employees on the picket line for the second day in a row. “We’re doing
work that’s supposed to be contributing to the larger society — to liberate and to illuminate.” UC officials have offered a salary scale increase of 7% the first year for certain graduate student workers and 3% each subsequent year — an offer that union leaders say falls short. Ryan King, a University of California system spokesperson, said UC believes its current offers are sufficient. He noted most of these graduate employees are working part time while earning a graduate degree. “Compensation is just one of the many ways in which they are supported as students during their time with the university,” King said. But for Safa Hamzeh, a second-year international doctoral student in UCLA’s history department, that baseline salary is far from sufficient. She said she makes about $24,000
See UC WORKERS on page A4
Gathering of the People Celebrates All Cultures SOBOBA BAND OF LUISEÑO INDIANS | CONTRIBUTED
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hen the Four Directions Native American Club at San Jacinto High School began planning its first annual Gathering of the People, it was decided the event should celebrate all cultures. Delia L. Vazquez, the Native American School, Family & Community Liaison for San Jacinto Unified School District for nearly three years, said the parents she works with decided to include other cultures. “In a meeting with our Native American Parent Advisory Council, parents stayed to talk and voiced they would like to do an event for the students during the month of November which is Native American Heritage Month,” Vazquez said. “The parent council said that the Four Directions club could invite other cultural clubs to be included
in the event. One of our parents, Tara Placencia, said, ‘That is how we are as Native People, we are welcoming people.’ It was beautiful that the welcoming and multicultural aspect came from our parents.” Four Directions Native American Club President Su’la Arviso of the Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians said club members wholeheartedly agreed to invite other campus clubs to join them on Nov. 5 from noon to 8 p.m. to share their cultures and club goals. The free event was held at the school’s courtyard where there was plenty of room for guests to sit and view the many cultural exhibitions and to make their way around the perimeter to visit with various club and vendor booths. “We always had the idea in the back of our minds that we wanted to host a day where everybody’s culture could be celebrated,” Su’la, 17, said.
Four Directions club members and their Tribal affiliations are President Su'la Arviso, Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians; Vice-President Rhianna Salgado, Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians/Cahuilla Band of Indians; Secretary Reese Elliott, Woodsinatee Tlingit; Treasurer Andrew Valazquez, Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians; Member-atLarge So’a Nelson, Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians; and Members Roslyn Valenzeulla and Jocie Yepa, both from the Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians. Su’la said planning began the first week of school with the main challenge being with scheduling all the singers and dancers to be there on the same day since they were coming from many different areas outside of the San Jacinto Valley. Four Directions club members collaborated with adults to assist with organizing the different groups that presented cultural
GATHERING: Sheila Blythe, left, serves as advisor for San Jacinto High School’s Black Student Union, which includes president Brooklyn McGruder, center, and Journee Jones. | Courtesy Photos of the Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians.
exhibitions. The main planning committee included SJUSD staff Vince Record, Richard Burton (Four Directions club advisor), Delia Vazquez and Native American Parent Advisory Council members Geneva Mojado (who is also the Soboba Tribal Council Vice Chairwoman), Alishia Fal-
con, Melissa Vera Arviso, Tara Placencia and Rhonda Valenzuella. Additionally, there was assistance from SJUSD staff Autumn Clark and Dawn Lawrence to bring the event to fruition. “We had to plan for everything from logistics to safety, to
See SOBOBA on page D4
Convicted killer slain in California prison attack
Riverside County Man Gets Over 8 Years In $6.6M PPP Fraud Case
AP NEWS | CONTRIBUTED
CNS | CONTRIBUTED
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California prison inmate serving a life sentence has died after he was attacked with hand-made weapons by two other prisoners, state corrections officials said Tuesday. William Quintero, 47, was attacked Monday in a recreation yard at Centinela State Prison and was airlifted to a hospital where he died about nine hours later, authorities said. Two weapons were recovered. The prison is located in Imperial County, north of the Mexican border. Quintero and his alleged attackers, Jose Perez and Juan Serrano, were all serving life sentences without the possibility of parole. Quintero was serving his sentence from Los Angeles County for first-degree murder, kidnapping and robbery. Perez, 46, was also serving a
A William Quintero, 47, died from multiple injuries he sustained in the recreation yard of Centinela State Prison, Monday Nov. 15, 2022 on Monday Nov. 15, 2022. | Courtesy Photo of CDCR.
Los Angeles County sentence for first-degree murder, second-degree murder and kidnapping. He later was convicted of possessing a controlled substance while in jail, and had a prior sentence for being a felon in possession of a gun. Serrano, 34, was sentenced in Santa Barbara County for first-degree murder, along with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and conspiracy to participate in criminal street gang acts.
Corona man was sentenced Monday to 102 months in federal prison for submitting false loan applications that brought him more than $6.6 million in Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan funds. Muhammad Atta, 39, was also ordered to pay $6,643,540 in restitution. He pleaded guilty in August in Los Angeles to federal counts of wire fraud and laundering of monetary instruments, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. “It’s important that the sentence imposed today sends the message that there are serious consequences for defrauding federal relief programs,” U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson said from the bench in downtown Los Angeles. Atta submitted 11 fraudulent
PPP loan applications for seven shell companies. The applications misrepresented the number of employees and the average monthly payroll expenses of Atta’s companies, and falsely certified he would use the loan proceeds for permissible business purposes. Atta also submitted false tax and payroll documentation in support of his applications. In total, Atta received over $6.6 million in loan proceeds even though none of his companies was a legitimate recipient of relief funds at that time. He then laundered loan proceeds to bank accounts in the United States and Pakistan. Atta’s plea agreement details one PPP loan in which he sought about $1.2 million for a company called Envisioning Future Inc. The loan application falsely
See FRAUD on page A4