The Cityzine

Fall 2016

The Cityzine

FRESNO CITY COLLEGE | A PUBLICATION OF THE RAMPAGE | Fall 2016

Environmental Apocalypse

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The CityZINE

FALL 2016 STAFF

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Cresencio Rodriguez-Delgado MANAGING EDITOR Ashleigh Panoo PHOTO/LAYOUT EDITOR Ram Reyes REPORTERS Larry Valenzuela Jasmine Yoro Bowles Michael Ford Jesus Sepulveda Jose Orozco CONTRIBUTORS Frank Lopez Aly Honore Samantha Vang ADVISER Dympna Ugwu-Oju Front Page Model Alfredo Moreno III

CITYZINE CITYZINE

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The Rampage

The Cityzine is the magazine of the Fresno City College Rampage, the studentmedia@therampageonline.com 1101 E University Ave run newspaper of Fresno, CA 93741 Fresno City College.

© 2016 The Cityzine Magazine. All Rights Reserved. No part of the Cityzine may be reproduced without permission.

CONTENTS

Fighting Breast Cancer One Final Bow Eric Swain: A Life in Sports A Janitor’s Hidden Tune 9/11 Responder’s Message Generation 1.5 Immigrants Black Lives Matter Trump’s America Revival of Ruby Red Environmental Apocalypse Street Harrassment Odyssey of Hopelessness Hope in Politics #RelationshipGoals Yosemite’s Beauty College Resources

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04 08 10 14 16 20 24 28 32 38 44 48 54 56 60 62

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Stricken with Cancer, She Heals Others Battling the Disease with her Own Faith STORY CRESENCIO RODRIGUEZ-DELGADO PHOTOS LARRY VALENZUELA/CONTRIBUTED

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hen Sherol Naguiat, 44, logs onto Facebook, she does not do the typical posting or liking.

Instead, her social media presence consists of asking for prayers and bringing hope to ill people, she says.

Anywhere there is a chance to offer a prayer, “There I am, and I will message them,” Naguiat says.

Anyone in the world will typically receive a kind message of hope from Naguiat, who prays for people’s cancer recovery. She never knows beforehand the people she meets on social media, and some of her messages have gone as far as the Bay Area, Chicago and even the Philippines.

In her yearly travels to the Philippines to see her family, she will often meet with the very people she prayed for online. As long as it’s cancer, she says, she can relate.

Naguiat never thought about breast cancer until the moment she felt a lump on her breast.

“I was shocked,” the Corcoran, California native said. “I said, ‘wow, that’s not normal’.”

She quickly hurried out of her shower and raced to her husband, Gener Naguiat, 48. She then showed her sisterin-law. One week later, Naquiat was getting checked by her personal doctor.

Everything was moving so fast, and a few months later, she was starting chemotherapy. Naguiat had been diagnosed with stage four cancer.

“Not too many people are surviving stage four,” she admits. “I’m one of the blessed ones.”

After chemotherapy, it was time for surgery. Naguiat’s cancer was spreading to different areas of her body, including her neck and liver. She had never stopped to think about the consequences of treatment.

When she was first diagnosed, she had asked the family doctor, “‘OK, what are we going to do?’”

She knew her hair would vanish, her weight could shrink and her appetite could diminish. But Naguiat said nothing was stopping her from making drastic changes to her lifestyle.

“I think my faith has something to do with it,” she says.

“For me, it’s mind over matter.”

So, Naguiat decided to eat despite very little appetite.

She said she even gained 30 pounds at a time when when she didn’t even taste the flavors of the food. She recalled having a “see food” diet, meaning she ate what she saw just

Sherol Nagulat’s family in the Philippines.

Photo courtesy of Sherol Nagulat

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to remain healthy.

Cancer never seemed to faze her. She said her faith in God gave her all the strength she needed.

“I know cancer; I might die in the process,” Naguiat says. “But I said, ‘I am going to put my 110 (or) 115 percent trust in the Lord.”

Naguiat had strong faith that God would one day heal her. In the meantime, treatment for Naguiat is done every 21 days. She travels approximately 50 miles to Fresno every 21 days for treatment at St. Agnes Medical Center. During the same trip, Naguiat sees her oncologist at the California Oncology.

In October, Naguiat was taking Kadcyla, a targeted treatment for metastatic breast cancer. Doctors switch her medication every year to find the best treatments for her cancer, which has now been around for 10 years. The cost of treatment every time Naguiat visits Fresno is around $16,000.

On Oct. 15, she had undergone her 50th treatment, a radiation to contain the cancer which had spread to her neck and femur bone, she says. The cancer has spread to about nine different areas in her body.

When she was diagnosed, her daughter Genshel Amber Naguiat, 17, was in the second grade. She’s now 17 and has helped her mom battle breast cancer too.

Generally, her entire family has been

supportive, she said.

Naguiat said her parents and family in the Philippines have been supporting through the process, even when some in her family like her dad, who is 72, don’t understand her condition.

“It’s too much for everybody,” she says.

“We have to explain it to them, how the treatments are going to go (and) how I am going to look.”

Her dad doesn’t ask about her cancer directly. Naguiat says he will often turn to her mom, who is 67, to ask about it.

Naguiat chooses to console her dad when he doesn’t want to think about her cancer.

“If God wants me, he will take me,” she says she tells her dad.

Naguiat has one brother in the United States and has two more, along with a sister, in the Philippines. But she considers many of her close friends and doctors “fambam” or family.

Naguiat says there is little she can do but go through treatment and pray for recovery. She says that allows her to live normally and even travel to the Philippines once a year. She will go there in December alone.

“For some people they think when we have cancer, it’s like they’re going to stop living,” Naguiat says. “For me it’s like, I’m rejoicing. It’s like, live life to the fullest.”

She believes one day, her cancer will go away. With her trust in God, Naguiat

“For some people they think when we it. Neither her sister, nor her hairdresser would cut it for her. she found a barber, Louis. He have cancer, Until finally decided to help her, despite feeling bad that while Naguiat it’s like they’re also had cancer, it would be him who help her lose her hair. going to stop would But for Naguiat, there was nothing to feel bad about. She her hair would one day fall living. For me new out when she underwent her first treatment and she it’s like I’m chemotherapy wanted to be ready.

Cancer was never something Naguiat thought about before she rejoicing. It’s was diagnosed.

But now, every 21 days she is in Fresno, she is like, live life to reminded of her journey. She has also found several other cancer who have chosen to call the fullest.” patients her “chemo buddy.”

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says there is a purpose why she was diagnosed with cancer.

“I always tell (friends and family), maybe God has a purpose for why this happened,“ she says. “One day, it will disappear.”

In 2006, Naguiat was enrolled in College of the Sequoias in Visalia, California. She was studying nursing and had hopes of becoming a registered nurse. When she was diagnosed in the fall semester, she had to leave school.

She had been enrolled for about three years and had trouble getting into courses that were in high demand for her nursing focus.

“By the time I got in, in August, then in October I found out I had cancer,” Naguiat said. “So, I’m in, but I got sick and I had to stop going to school.”

Naguiat likes the praise and agrees that she She now lives her daily life helping others heal helps others get through it. For her, though, God and spreads her own story for another to hear. is the only chemo buddy she needs.

She volunteers at Our Lady of Lourdes church in After all, her faith is so strong that, “they Corcoran where she sings in the choir, is a lector called me crater catholic, since birth,” she says. and teaches catechism classes.

And it is God’s will for her to reach out people “You can put that suffering into something, online as well as reserve time to spend and help and that is what I did,” Naguiat said. friends heal. She teaches about trusting in God. She’s had many names through her journey “I never question him, I always accept him,” with cancer like, “sunshine” she says. and “light, thanks to her Every year, she tunes positive and optimistic into Channel 24 to watch attitude. news anchor Stefani That same attitude is Booroojian announce the what she needed to face the annual Breast Cancer reality of having to lose her Month activities, some hair, she explains. she takes part in like the “When i first walk into Susan G. Komen Race for the infusion area, you see the Cure. different people, I told my Naguiat wants people doctor, I refuse to look like to understand there is them,” Naguiat says of the life during and after notable change in weight cancer, and “don’t and look. give up, don’t change She took matters into her whatever you love to do.” own hands and decided to In her 10 year battle cut her own hair before the with the disease, she has heavy treatment did it. learned to hope for one “I said, you know what, I thing about others. am going to lose it anyway,” She says, “I just hope she says. people will be more like From left: Gener Naguiat, 48, Genshel Amber Naguiat, 17, and Sherol Naguiat, The only problem was me, happier.” 44. Photo courtesy/Sherol Naguiat she had trouble finding someone who would do

ONE FINAL BOW: DALE EN STORY ASHLEIGH PANOO

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hen Dale Engstrom raised his baton on Dec. 7 for his final performance at Fresno City College, he left behind a 16year legacy at the college.

The band director conducted the wind ensemble in his final performance in the FCC theatre along with his colleagues before retiring.

Engstrom described the cumulation of his last few weeks at FCC as bittersweet. “I’m going to miss the kids and miss doing everything,” he said.

Growing up as the child of two music teachers in Kingsburg, music was always in the cards for Engstrom. He attended Kingsburg High School and played in the school band. “I was one of the few students who knew what they wanted to do,” he said.

He would eventually land his dream gig of being the Kingsburg High School music teacher after graduating from Fresno State in 1977 with a bachelor’s degree in music education.

Engstrom stayed at Kingsburg High for 17 years where he taught band and choir. He earned his master’s degree in music performance in 1993 from Fresno State.

During his time at Kingsburg High, he was asked to come teach at FCC, and he accepted the offer. Teaching has stayed in the family, with his daughter Katie working as an international music teacher in Switzerland and his son working as a fifth grade teacher and instructing a communications class at FCC. Engstrom has also taught music at Fresno State, Reedley College and high schools in Tulare and Selma, in addition to directing the choir in the Kingsburg Community Church.

Engstrom’s grandfather played in the Kingsburg Community Concert Band, and his father directed the band until he passed it onto Engstrom when he was 21. Both Engstrom’s children have played in it as well. This summer will be his 40th year conducting the band, which is a big family tradition, he said.

Engstrom plays the trumpet professionally in addition to playing with the Fresno Philharmonic, the Tulare County Symphony and Orpheus. He has also played with musicians and artists such as Johnny Mathis, Mel Torme, Henry Mancini, the Temptations, Four Tops, Kenny Rogers, Natalie Cole, Wayne Newton, Regis Philbin, Don Rickles, Red Skelton and Frankie Vallie.

Engstrom said working with well-known artists is always great. Red Skelton, an entertainer who hosted a variety show from the 30s to the 70s, was someone who especially stood out to him because

Engstrom’s parents watched his show. “Red Skelton was the nicest man,” Engstrom recalled of the nowdeceased entertainer.

Engstrom is also familiar with conducting local honor bands, which is where Jesse Altamirano, a clarinet player in the wind ensemble, met him. Altamirano was part of the Fresno/Madera High School Honor Band in seventh grade when Engstrom directed it.

“He’s actually the reason I wanted to come to Fresno City and do music,” Altamirano, who has been in the FCC band for three years, said of Engstrom. “He’s passionate about what he does, active and animated and knows how to get us motivated.”

Altamirano has followed Engstrom on trips to Stockton, Disneyland and the San Francisco Symphony.

He also described Engstrom’s departure as bittersweet. “I’m happy for him, but it’s kind of sad to see a good teacher go,” he said.

Anthony Arias, who plays the clarinet and saxophone, has played with Engstrom since 2013 and says he enjoys Engstrom’s calm temperament.

He will be sad to see him go. “It’s the end of an era,” Arias said.

Both Arias and Altamirano were excited for the performance.

“He’s pulled out all the stops for this performance,” Altamirano said before the show.

“It’s going to be a really big show. He’s pulled all of his favorite pieces that are hard, fast-paced, energetic, and it takes a really good group of people to play at the level he’s requiring for these pieces.”

Altamirano said it’s the best group of students they’ve had and they were eager to show Engstrom they could send him out with a bang. “Everyone just really wants to put on a good show for him.”

Upon retiring, Engstrom and his wife, Lucretia, will begin resolving their bucket list, which he said includes a lot of traveling. ”I’m a big believer in traveling,” he said, adding that some of his favorite memories at FCC include traveling with the band.

In 2013, students from the band played at Carnegie Hall in New York, and in 2015, they played in the Sydney Opera House in Australia.

“One of the coolest things about that was on my 60th birthday, I got to conduct in the Sydney Opera House,” he said. “When I turned 50, I climbed Half-

NGSTROM BIDS FAREWELL

had nothing but great memories and he maintains that his colleagues are a reason his career has been so fulfilling.

“One of the best parts about teaching here is all the great people I work with,” Engstrom said. “That’s why I’m featuring all of them in my last concert.”

Music faculty Larry Honda, Mike Dana, Julie Dana, Brandon Bascom, Kevin Cooper, Joe Lizama, Nye Morton, George Ramirez and Aarne Kela performed alongside students in the concert.

Engstrom was excited about the show and looked forward to featuring each instructor in his or own piece on stage.

He said, “I’ve always wanted to do it, and I’m going to do it at my very last concert.” Photo courtesy of Dale Engstrom

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Dome with my kids. I don’t know what I’m gonna do when I turn 70.”

Although Engstrom may not have composed his birthday plans yet, he knows that when he retires he will get to spend more time with his wife, kids and two grandchildren.

He also wants to golf more. “I’m going to lower my handicap,” he said, smiling.

Over his last semester, Engstrom taught concert band, brass ensemble, music fundamentals and convocation. He is not sure who’s replacing him next semester, but he knows it will be an interim while FCC reprises the role Engstrom leaves behind.

Reflecting on his career, Engstrom has

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E r i c Swain: a life in sports STORY MICHAEL FORD PHOTOS LARRY VALENZUELA

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ric Swain has spent nearly his entire life associated with athletics. Whether playing, coaching or administrating, Swain has always had a passion to better the lives of young athletes.

Little did he know that passion, combined with hard work, would land him the job of athletic director of the nation’s premier community college athletic program at Fresno City College.

He has fond memories of playing basketball as a kid.

“My earliest memories were sitting on the bench of the teams my dad coached. Riding the team bus was a big deal as well,” he said. “I remember how loud the gym was; how hot it was inside because of all the people.”

“I played basketball through junior college and never really considered a career in sports until I started coaching junior varsity basketball,” Swain said. “I was going to the University of Nevada-Reno and working towards my accounting degree.”

Within a year, Swain came to the conclusion that accounting was not the right career for him and instead

“This is a big time community college athletics program and I feel fortunate to jump to a major athletic program like this, I know I have a great situation.”

-Eric Swain

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decided that he enjoyed coaching enough to change his major.

Swain’s family lineage of coaches and educators helped lead him to the decision that following in their footsteps would ultimately be the best career choice.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in general studies from the University of Nevada-Reno and a master’s in education, including a teaching credential.

He was the head coach of the boys’ basketball program at Buchanan for seven years before moving on to become Clovis North High School’s athletic director.

While he enjoyed his times coaching some very successful programs, he eventually got to feeling that being a great coach was not worth the sacrifices he was having to make.

“I didn’t want to be on the road away from my family the way that coaches have to so often,” said Swain.

“What became hard was missing events that my kids were involved in because of my coaching. “Once my son finished playing high school, it was a great time to step away. I got to see my daughter compete in high school and watch my son play in college.”

That was when he decided that it was time to switch gears and try something else. Even after spending nearly two decades on the sidelines and in huddles, coaching up some of the finest high school athletes in California, the decision to stop coaching was not a difficult one for him to make.

“I was a high school head coach for 17 years at four different schools

in two different states. I had a great experience at all the schools I was at, coaching outstanding players,” Swain said. “Coaching was a great experience but my goal when I got into education was ultimately to become an administrator.”

In 2013, an opportunity of a lifetime knocked right on Swain’s door when long-time athletic director of Fresno City College Susan Yates retired, leaving the position vacant.

Swain was immediately interested in the position and decided that he had nothing to lose by throwing his hat into the ring to try to get the position.

He was not exactly the most optimistic about his chances of getting the job, despite his qualifications. Still, Swain never doubted that he had the skills that he needed the perform the duties of the position.

“It wasn’t something that I honestly thought I had a chance at but as I looked into it, I started to compete.”

“I thought I was qualified, but I didn’t have the college experience. I thought I had the coaching experience,” Swain explained.

“I had the administrative experience and I thought that I had a connection to the local community but I just had never been a college person and I really didn’t know if that was going to be a deal breaker.”

He decided to apply and landed the job, “a dream job for a high school person.”

It is not hard to see why he wanted the job so much either. Fresno City has the oldest, most storied and arguably the most successful community college program in

QUICK FACTS •Born in Wellsville, New York •Moved to Carson City, Nevada at age 6 •Holds bachelor’s in general studies and master’s in education from University of Nevada-Reno and CSU Fresno, respectively •Coached high school basketball at Buchanan and served as Clovis North High School’s athletics chief • Started tenure as FCC athletic director on June 22, 2015 • Manages 20 sports programs

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California. A program that has won the Learfield Cup multiple times. The cup is awarded to the best community college athletics program in the entire nation.

“This is a Cadillac job,” Swain said of FCC athletics. “This is a big time community college athletics program and I feel fortunate--I feel I put in my dues at the high school level--to jump to a major athletic program like this, I know I have a great situation,” Lorraine Smith, FCC’s dean of athletics and health sciences, was impressed enough to offer Swain the position of athletic director.

“I definitely think that we made the right hire,” she said, citing his experience as a successful coach and administrator, a quality that is not as common as people might think.

“I do think being a coach as well as being an administrator really is what we needed,” Smith said.

“We needed somebody who knows what [coaches] are going through; he has been

a coach and has been there and has done that but has also been an administrator and understands that the processes might not be quick and some policies we might not exactly understand why they are here, but we still have to do it.”

Swain said that no matter the job, “you have to be able to communicate and you have to be able to maintain relationships” when you are in any leadership position, whether it’s in sports or in a classroom or as a school administrator or in a business.

But just as important is cultivating new relationships, being available and listening. Fresno City’s newest volleyball coach Kieran Roblee said she appreciates the way she has been treated since her arrival.

“Coach Swain has been a great asset and resource for me to transition into my new position.,” she said. “He has taken the time to assist me as a new coach/faculty member, and I appreciate his patience with the numerous questions that I ask as a new staff member.”

Swain has also gained the trust and respect of Brian Tessler, the long time head coach of FCC’s women’s basketball team. Tessler said that Swain is committed to doing all he can to ensure that he and other coaches have the requisite things to have a successful program.

“You know, if we go and ask for certain things, if it’s possible for us to get them, he is going to go to bat for us,” Tessler said.

Swain isn’t in this business though for the adulation and adoration from his colleagues, although he does appreciate it. Rather he wants to be known for being able to make a difference in the lives of the athletes, coaches and the athletic program as a whole. That is what he wants his legacy at Fresno City College to be.

He wants people to be proud of being alumni of the oldest community college in California, and through his first 16 months on the job, he is well on his way to accomplishing just that.

“I would love it in 20 years if former studentathletes are coming back and not only watching but supporting our programs. I would feel very good,” Swain said.

“I don’t foresee anything being named after me or anything like that, and honestly, I think if you do your job and are able to look in the mirror and know you did the right thing, that is satisfaction enough,” Swain said. “My legacy would be, let’s take it from good to great.”

Janitor’s Me

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elodies - a Fixture on Campus STORY LARRY VALENZUELA PHOTOS SAMANTHA VANG

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he typical Fresno City College janitor often cleans classrooms and college buildings.

But in the middle of the art building at the college, John Luna, in a gray janitorial uniform, sits on a folding chair as he performs a melody with an acoustic guitar.

He plays alone, the sound of music permeating the empty concrete hall ways.

Luna works for Building Services as a janitor and has been working at FCC for 11 years starting in 2006.

Luna spends his 30 minute breaks in the Art Building courtyard practicing his guitar.

“A lot of people will go out and work out during their lunch, or read a book, do a puzzle or play spades,” Luna said. “You’ll see people do things like that or play Pokémon Go or something. This is what I like to do. I play my guitar and try to improve my abilities.”

Luna began playing at the age of 12 and has been playing ever since. Now he is 58. Luna spends his time working on different genres.

“I like to play a lot of songs from the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s but I’m trying to do more style like Bruno Mars, or Keith Urban, or John Mayer; trying to do something more contemporary, more modern,” Luna said.

Luna says he has received a number of different reactions to his guitar playing.

“It depends if I’m playing well,” he said. “Some people will come around

or get a double-take,” he said. “I get people looking over the balcony or even draw a crowd, but I know around this time everyone is in a rush.”

Luna said he grew up learning to play by watching his father and older siblings play the guitar.

“I remember watching my dad and older brother playing and just watching them and imitating them to learn how to play,” Luna said. “This is just a way to just relax and unwind.”

Luna was born in 1957 in Firebaugh and moved to Madera when he turned 21 years old.

As he began his adult life, he worked as a hairstylist for both men and women’s hair for 25 years. He stopped doing hair because the field was becoming too saturated with people doing hair and decided to move on to something more.

Luna then began working in maintenance for a place in Madera called Heartland Opportunity Center. He applied as a sub-custodian for Madera-Unified School district and began working his way through the ranks.

Then in 2006 Luna says he got contracted to work FCC and has been working at the college since then.

Luna says he’s able to connect with other musicians on campus and has been asked to join their bands at some point.

But at the moment Luna says he spends his time playing with with his adult son, who is a drummer.

“Right now, we are a two-piece band,” Luna said. “One guitar and one drum, so we have a tight kind of sound and I’m happy with that right now. Though would be nice to get a bass player.”

“I REMEMBER WATCHING MY DAD AND OLDER BROTHER PLAYING AND JUST WAITING AND IMITATING THEM TO LEARN HOW TO PLAY.”

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E

ric Field sat in the emergency room of a New Jersey hospital around 2:30 in the afternoon on Sept. 11 2001. Field noticed the nurses, orderlies and doctors staring at him and the other patient in his room. Dazed and feeling self-conscious, Field asked the doctors and nurses why they were staring at

them.

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A nurse told Field that he and his roommate were the only survivors of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center who were admitted to the hospital. The doctors had been waiting for more survivors to come into the hospital since the first plane hit the North Tower at 8:45 a.m. but had seen no others.

For most Americans, it is quite daunting and extremely confusing to comprehend what has been said about 9/11 in the 15 years since the tragedy -- the fury of blind patriotism that swept the nation after the attacks; the invasion of Iraq; the rising fear and mistrust within the population and the politics of hate.

But for New Jersey native, Eric Field, relating his experiences as a first responder in the 9/11 attacks remind Fresno City College students about the human element of a historic tragedy that took nearly 3,000 lives. Field’s love

A 9/11 RESPONDER’S MESSAGe oF LOVE AND HOPE STORY AND PHOTO FRANK LOPEZ

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for God, his sense of justice, his empathy for others, and his sensitivity is powerfully relayed when he recounts his life story and what he went through on that September morning.

Born in the early 1960s, Field recalls his childhood with his four siblings was a typical suburban and religious upbringing. His parents divorced when he was about six and remarried other people. “It was a good move; they did not do well with each other at all,” Field said.

“Things happened in their lives. They found other people, married them. They have had awesome marriages since.”

He grew up in the Tri-State area during the the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and 70s. Field said he was aware of the social and political upheaval that was shaking the nation at the time. His parents instilled in him a sense of fairness and responsibility for others.

“I was raised by my parents in a very multicultural sense,” Field says. “Even though I have prejudices and things will always come out in the family and people will say things— we have always been raised to respect people and help people.”

Field and his family moved to a number of little towns near New Jersey, Philadelphia, and New York. He moved to Philadelphia in the 1980s to attend the Philadelphia College of Art to study figure painting and sculpting. Field admits that he had a hard time explaining to the elders of his church that he was leaving to “draw naked fat people.”

He eventually lost interest in art and wanted to start working with people so he decided to study journalism. He quickly found out that he was not suited for journalism because it is “math with words” and began to get into more social work.

He continued to work in diverse fields and situations so he could help people. He worked as a missionary, a lifeguard, in healthcare, and in mental health services. In the mid-90s, he was also attending Nayak University in New York to become a priest.

In 2001, Field was living in a small New York town near the woods where the Tri-State points met. He liked the quiet seclusion that

the woods brought him, and he was also just a train ride away from Manhattan. On Sept.

10, 2001, he received a call from the city of New York notifying him that he had overpaid a speeding ticket by a few dollars and that a bench warrant would be issued for his arrest if he did not pay the exact amount.

He said he was on the train to Manhattan the next morning to pay off his ticket. He talked with a regular rider named Frank, whom he had met on the train. They did not know each other very well but they would always greet each other and make conversation on the ride into the city. They reached their stop, Frank said goodbye and headed to work in the WTC. It would be the last time Field saw Frank.

After exiting the traffic court building, Field noticed burning papers falling from the sky. He called his work and they told him that a plane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers. The buildings were too high for Field to get a clear view and he simply thought that a pilot had accidentally crashed a small plane into the building.

He remembers a lady in a work suit walked past him in a state of shock, mumbling, “It’s gone. The whole 95th floor is gone.”

Field could not make sense of her statement and continued towards the post office to send a money order.

As he left the post office, a large man was running down the street yelling, “We’re being bombed!” The second plane had hit while Field was inside the post office.

Field pulled out his cross, ran towards the WTC, and said aloud, “God, please don’t let me f##k this up.”

The first thing Field tried to do was meet up with the other chaplains and get into the building. He met up with an Italian priest who could not speak English, and they went inside together. Many people still in the building were of different beliefs, but everyone was scared, believing they were living their final moments.

Field thought that if he couldn’t save them, he could be with them when they all died.

“When I asked people, ‘Can I pray with you?’ nobody said no,” Field said. “We all figured, we’re probably going to die, and we just need-

“When I asked people, ‘Can I pray with you?’ nobody said no,” Field said. “We all figured, we’re probably going to die, and we just needed to know God was with us in the middle of this horrible thing.”

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“It was not my turn to die on 9/11.

I am in a way, kind of a tribute. I’ve had dead people in my lungs.” that he has to continue his life after having survived such a horrible ordeal because the people that lost their lives that day would want him to.

“My being born at a certain time, and my dying at a certain time are appointments,” said Field.

“They’re appointments that I have to keep. I’m not going to get out of it. It was not my turn to die on 9/11. I am in a way, kind of a tribute. I’ve had dead people in my lungs.”

Field continues to wrestle with what he went through but keeps moving forward. He came to Fresno in 2005 for a girl he had known since his college days back east. She was from Clovis, and they had kept in touch over the years. They began dating but after about a month, they broke up and Field never saw her again.

Field began taking classes for nursing at Fresno City College and was taking a political science class taught by Professor Mark Trezza. When he offered to share his experiences on 9/11, the instructor gave him the entire class session.

Though Field doesn’t tell his story too often, he recounts the WTC attacks the only way he knows how -- as a human being who survived the horrific event. He tells students what he and other people went through, even if it is extremely morbid and graphic.

“Before I talk to anybody, or give a lecture, I’m praying God will remind me of stuff that will tear me up,” says Field. ”Because I can’t just let it be stale history. I can’t just let it be a historic event that happened 3,000 miles away. I’ve got to connect with it, and convey it, and it’s got to be personal.”

Field was developing his own business in the manufacturing of bicycles, gym-sets, and playsets, when a back injury prevented him from that work, and he is now shifting gears towards more clinical work. He plans to continue his social work, get back into chaplaincy, and working with people at risk.

Field’s bravery in the face of horror is rare and genuine. Though he is modest, his courage and love for other people is what is truly inspiring.

“People call me a hero. I’m not a hero,” Field says.

“I’m a regular guy who’s helping people out. There is no hero thing here.”

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ed to know God was with us in the middle of this horrible thing.”

Because of speculation about a third plane heading towards the building, people were forced to evacuate. Field said he picked up the Italian priest he was with and carried him out of the building against his will just before the first tower fell.

Field said he ran from the cloud of dust and debris that swallowed the streets and escaped the cloud by running into a building.

He then ran outside to pull people from the debris. He would drag them into the safety of the building and head back outside to bring more people in. With the help of some other people, Field pulled in 300 to 400 people.

A few hours later, Field was rounded up, hosed down, and admitted to a hospital in Hoboken, New Jersey. He sat in a numb state of shock as the doctors and nurses desperately looked in on them. The room’s second occupant had worked in the WTC and so did his daughter. Field was with him when he received the call that his daughter was alive.

After being released from the hospital, Field rode the train all the way home curled in the fetal position. Even months after the tragedy, Field would suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The sound of UPS truck coming down the road would send him cowering behind the toilet.

He says that since then, he pays a lot more attention to his surroundings and people in it. The U.S. was in shock after the attacks on 9/11. After the initial mourning, anger, fear, and unbridled patriotism began to cultivate around the event. Field condemns the spectacle that has been built around 9/11, the following war, and the rise of hostility towards Muslims, and people that appear Middle-Eastern looking.

“People who were in the WTC attacks generally don’t hate other beliefs,” says Field. “We realized there is just no room in life for that. We’ve been through it. We were all attacked together. We all cried together. We all died together.”

Field has also dealt with issues of survivor’s guilt, and has been asked by people if he had wished he had died that day so he could be with God. He said

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Between Two Worlds:

The 1.5 Generation Filipino Experience STORY AND PHOTO RAM REYES

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eing the new kid in school is never a good feeling.

The uncomfortableness of this strange and new environment takes a while to get used to -- new school, new teachers and new classmates. But for the 1.5 generation immigrants, it’s not just moving to a new school, it is moving to a new country. New country means new culture, new people, new way of life.

Jemimah Barba, along with her mother and sister, immigrated from the Philippines to the United States and settled in Fresno, California on Oct. 15, 2006. She was only 12 years old.

“I came here in seventh grade. I basically came into school and people were already settled,” Barba remembered. “Back in the Philippines, I was already in high school, so the mentality in itself was different. Everyone was, I would say, very immature.”

On Dec. 21 of the same year, Sherai Innah Bisquera, aged 9, immigrated with her parents and younger sister from the Philippines to the state of New York, where she stayed for five years before moving to Fresno.

Bisquera remembers being surprised by how her classmates interacted with her teachers. “We treat our teachers here as friends,” Bisquera said. “That was a culture shock for me. It’s just so different. How they ask questions. That was a huge thing.”

Barba and Bisquera, now 22 and 21 respectively, both experienced, at an early age, how starkly different they were perceived by their peers. Their Philippines upbringing gives them a unique perspective melding their Philippine and American values which are often in conflict. Their identity is right between the two venn diagram of their Filipino heritage and American lives. They are 1.5 immigrants.

The 1.5 Generation

The term 1.5 generation is a rather new concept in sociology. In 1999, UCLA anthropologist Kyeyoung Park used the term in the Amerasia Journal in reference to young Korean Americans. Park described how many of the child immigrants were often called “1.5ers, or what is called ‘ilchom ose’ within the Korean-American community.”

One of the key defining characteristics of a 1.5 immigrant is the duality of their identity between their home country and America.

They have characteristics and traits of both first and second generation immigrants.

For example, most 1.5 immigrants speak English fluently and serve as bridges for their first generation parents but they may not have the same sense of belonging as a second generation person, who would’ve been born here in America.

The in-between nature of being a 1.5 immigrant is that the more time they spend here in America, the more they change the values they acquired from their home country while still feeling like outsiders in America.

“Second generation born here see their own identity as more Americanized,” Asian-American Studies Prof. John Cho explains. “They sense their identity more as that. Whereas, 1.5 are more wavering between the two. Then it becomes a dilemma. I think it’s much more of an individual dilemma.”

In Barba and Bisquera’s case, although they have similar origins, they described themselves differently when they were asked if they were more American or Filipino.

“I’m an American,” Barba proclaimed. “I’m American in a way that I don’t have restrictions of a Filipino in me. But I’m also Filipino

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“There was a period when I first moved here when I didn’t talk to anyone at all, even my parents. I was mad at them. It was like ‘why did we move here? We don’t know anybody?’ I don’t have any friends. I didn’t understand why I moved here.”

-Sherai Innah Bisquera

in a way that I’m conscious of who I am, my difference.”

“I’d say Filipino,” Bisquera said. “But I do have American values. For me, identity is who I am and first and foremost, I am a Filipino.”

They had in common the acknowledgement of their difference in America, a difference that they had to struggle to overcome when they first arrived here.

A Modern Filipino Tale

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Barba reflected on the journey that her family went through before she and her family immigrated to America. Her mother had already been working in Saudi Arabia as a nurse and her father was already in Arizona. Her whole family was separated from each other before they were reunited when they immigrated to America “That’s the modern Filipino tale,” Barba reflected.

According to the Migration Policy Institute, Filipinos are now the fourth largest immigration group, right behind Mexico, China and India. Of the 1.8 million Filipino immigrants, 45 percent live in California, and of the 617,000 children residing with one Filipino immigrant parent, 36 percent were born in the Philippines.

Most immigrant parents make the hard decision of uprooting their life and moving elsewhere. They want better opportunities for their children than the Philippines can offer. But for a young mind, it could be hard to comprehend why they were leaving the only place they knew to call home, where all their friends and family were.

“There was a period when I first moved here when I didn’t talk to anyone at all, even my parents,” Bisquera said. “I was mad at them. It was like ‘why did we move here? We don’t know anybody?’ I don’t have any friends. I didn’t understand why I moved here.”

Barba on the other hand, knew of the reason at the time why they had to. She recalls an article she recently read calling the Philippines “a land where they train people to leave.” And she agreed.

Barba’s mother and both Bisquera’s

parents immigrated as nurses and still are to this day. A common occupation that Filipino immigrants have and the U.S. Census Bureau in 2011 cites that Filipino men were most likely to report working in the healthcare sector and 18 percent of Filipino-born women 16 to 64 reported working as a registered nurse.

The opportunity that the U.S. offered in attaining a higher quality of life was obvious. But at the cost of leaving everything behind in their home country, even they won’t leave their Filipino identity behind.

Coming of Age in America

The most striking and authentic characteristic of a 1.5 immigrant is the feeling of being an outsider, especially during their formative years and going into their preteen, teenage years where being different can be isolating.

“I became more conscious of the differences at that early age,” Barba remembering her 7th and 8th grade years, her first two years of school in America. “You’re already growing physically different. Culturally, being visible was even more of a struggle. Because I was already different.

My color was different.”

Barba remembered the times where she would get embarrassed of her mom speaking Tagalog to her in public and trying to blend in more in school.

“I didn’t like having that attention.

I wanted to blend in,” Barba said. She laughed as she remembered asking her mom to buy her Uggs shoes.

“I wanted to be like everybody else. I bought Uggs and I don’t even like Uggs!”

Barba said with laughter.

Bisquera was rather more passive in her interaction with her new environment as her transition was eased through a Catholic private school that had other immigrant students. But she did still feel very different from the rest of her new country.

“I remember during middle school in our history class there was this banner that said ‘We are all Americans.’ and my friend and I said ‘noooo, we’re not all Americans!”

Bisquera recalled.

“I’m in the sky, in between America and the Philippines. Not belonging anywhere. You go out where the people are, and people are still different”

-Jemimah Barba

Dueling Cultures

In Between

Barba and Bisquera are both just two of the many 1.5 immigrants in this country. They have the great ability of adapting and blending in within this country. It’s how they survived socially, to feel a sense of belonging But still they still feel in between these two cultures. For both Barba and Bisquera and many other 1.5 immigrants, they have an internal conflict. They however choose how “Filipino” or “American” they want to be. It’s an active exercise, to seek out their identity and forge it.

“We don’t have a sense of belonging,” Bisquera reflected. “I think we’re always going to be right in this middle, no matter what.”

Barba mustered trying to describe how she felt about being a 1.5 immigrant before she knew of the label. Being an aspiring writer and poet, she wanted to write more about her experiences being in the Philippines and America.

“I’m in the sky, in between America and the Philippines. Not belonging anywhere,” Barba said. “You go out where the people are, and people are still different.”

23 Fall 2016

Throughout the years they lived in America, both Barba and Bisquera have learned to forge their own unique cultural identity as both Filipino and American.

“I tried so hard to blend in that I started to forget who I was,” Barba said. “But the thing is, I don’t want to do that. I want to be different; I want to acknowledge my difference.”

Both Barba and Bisquera acknowledge their broadened worldview and sensitivities because of their upbringing in the Philippines.

“The biggest advantage is our empathy,” Barba said. “Empathy in our way, our ability to relate to first world country problems.”

Bisquera observed, “Some people just take things for granted here; the fact that I have a car and I could drive anywhere, I don’t take that for granted.”

They do not however just take what America offers at face value; they are more attuned to criticize what American society have.

“But at the same time,” Bisquera said, “I see things that I don’t like about this country.”

Bisquera said that the racial injustices that the Black Lives Matter movement has suffered causes her to sometimes question why she’s in the U.S. in the first place.

“There’s times that make me wonder why America?” Bisquera said. “It’s a great country, but there’s still certain things wrong with it.”

Barba noted how hard it is being a person of color and a woman in the U.S. She said she is fearful that her race or anybody else’s race could be used against them in important areas like employment and careers.

“You’re already brown and you’re also a woman in this man’s world,” Barba said. “You have to say things twice or more, so it’s really annoying.”

Their much more liberal views makes it harder to relate to their Filipino relatives who are largely much more conservative.

When she went to the Philippines during her junior of high school, Bisquera noted how much she had changed culturally compared to her friends back home.

“I was much more outspoken. I was hanging out with some of my friends and they were talking about how much more outspoken I was compared to before,” Bisquera said.

Barba expressed the same sentiment and attributes it to why she feels detached from her family back in the Philippines.

“I feel like I’m too liberal,” Barba said and explained how sometimes her conservative grandmother would leave comments on her Facebook feed.

Even though with a time where we can be connected to anyone from anywhere around the world, both have trouble trying to communicate to their relatives back in the Philippines, feeling as though they feel too different.

“I dunno. It’s hard to keep in touch,” Bisquere said. “They have their own lives. We have Facebook but you don’t know what to say.”

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B L M

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STORY AND PHOTOS ALY HONORE

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possession. In fact, considering the rates at which black males are being incarcerated, one in every three black males born today can expect to spend some amount of time in jail or prison during their lifetime.

For those who believe systematic oppression or police misconduct do not exist, here’s some perspective.

According to the December 2015 Assessment of Culture and Performance of the Fresno Police Department by Michael and Edna Josephson of the Institute of Ethics in, “a significant minority (often more than one in five) of sworn officers and civilian employees believe that the amount of misconduct has reached serious or severe levels is a genuine cause for concern and further inquiry.”

Considering the disproportionate rate at which African-Americans are stopped, searched, and arrested to Whites, one might think that being Black is enough to be considered probable cause. For example, According to the Fresno Bee, from April 1, of 2016 to June 30, 1,625 discretionary field interviews were conducted. More of the interviewees were black (396) than white (341). Taking into account that only 8 percent of Fresno’s population is black while 30 percent identify as white, the amount of black people officers feel compelled to question as opposed to white is troubling.

The report also says, “two-thirds of sworn officers (68 percent) [who chose to participate in the survey] believe the low morale problem presents a serious or severe threat to the ability of the FPD to perform its mission.”

25 Fall 2016

eople are taught to see racism simply as individual acts of meanness. The problem is that people are not taught to see racism as an overall presence in law, policing and the judicial system as a means of oppressing one group for the prosperity of another.

While America is historically known for its racial hierarchy, the reason its society is unable to move past its antiquated racial tension is because too many people fail to acknowledge that it still exists. The Black Lives Matter movement is an attempt to dismantle this hierarchy through the resilience of Black Americans. The backlash this movement has been met with is the byproduct of a lack of universal knowledge.

Black Lives Matter is an empowering movement meant to dismantle systematic oppression and finally bring justice to the black community that is so often neglected, mistreated, and devalued.

Restrictive covenants, exploitative contract selling practices and an overall resistance from white and wealthy communities have delayed communal integration, leaving Black Americans with just 2.7 percent of the country’s wealth while white Americans hold more than 88 percent according to Demi’s analysis of Federal Reserve data. This has created unequal school systems, rendering the children of black communities subject to poorly funded schooling.

Though the National Survey on Drug Use and Health proves that whites generally use drugs more than black people, black Americans are still three times more likely than whites to be arrested for drug

“BLACK LIVES MATTER” SHOULD A TOPIC

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NEVER BECOME OF CONTROVERSY

A portion of Fresno Police Department staff declined to take the survey, an indication of a, “pervasive kill-the-messenger culture in their unit that causes many employees to conceal or distort negative information,” according to the cultural assessment.

What are often referred to as “the good cops” are apparently intimidated by their superiors to reveal misconduct within the department and patrol divisions.

Although Fresno civilians are victim to police misconduct and racial discrimination, the problem is prevalent around the nation. A recent study published in The New York Times discovered that Black people in America are 3.5 times more likely to be killed by cops than armed or unarmed White people.

Black victims nation-wide never asked to become martyrs for the Black community. Their families never asked for their deaths to become viral videos. It has simply taken over media platforms as of late because of the simplicity of modern technology.

However, oppression, in all of its different forms, is not new to the black community. It’s only just now being filmed.

Police misconduct is not the only system of control negatively impacting the Black community.

Dreanna Brooks, a local 24-year-old whose family members have been wronged by the justice system can attest, saying, “there’s no way I can believe that there is supposed to be ‘justice for all’ because I sat in the courtroom multiple times for my brother’s case.”

Brooks goes on to explain that the testimony which convicted her brother of armed robbery was that of a cashier who claimed the suspect was, “a 5’5” Mexican man.” The injustice Brooks’ family has to endure is a 12-year prison sentence for her brother, “a 5’10” black man.”

Brooks says, “Somewhere out there a 5’5” Mexican man got away with 60 dollars and a pack of cigarettes while my brother pays 12 years of his life for a crime he was never proved guilty of.”

Brooks attributes this not only to the judicial system’s relentless targeting and lack of empathy for the average black male, but a jury that was too quick to convict because of racial profiling.

It is because there are too many cases such as this one, too many black lives taken for granted and underappreciated because of social constructs and antiquated beliefs that the Black Lives Matter movement is so vital.

Justice Medina, a local artist who organized a Black Lives Matter march in July 2016, is deeply offended by anti-BLM advocates who rebut the movement with “All Lives Matter”.

According to Medina, considering, “We’ve continued to fight for our lives and rights for years after being slaves to this country, after building this country ,” it’s frustrating that people still can’t, “say that our lives matter as well.”

Although the protest Medina organized this summer was met with extensive media backlash, Medina says he is unapologetic because, “There’s a problem here in America, the evidence to which is being overlooked by most, but the information is there. It’s just a matter of it being acknowledged.”

The irony of the conflict is that, “All lives can’t matter until Black lives matter,” says Medina.

The movement is not to say that non-Black lives do not matter, it is to make clear that Black lives are being treated as though they don’t matter, and that needs to change. The conflict that this incites is because too many Americans do not know or decline to absorb this information about the historical and modern disenfranchisement of Black people. Because the historically disenfranchised are beginning, again, to resist systems of oppression, societal peace is being wavered.

Pride and resilience in Black people is not an offense or an excuse to criminalize. To value Black lives is not to devalue White lives.

We are only making up for hundreds of years of oppression.

So why does the Black resistance make some people mad? Why is it frustrating that a group of people value their own lives as much as the next?

Why do government officials, police chiefs, hate groups, and some of my own peers want so badly to silence Black empowerment?

The words “Black Lives Matter” should never have become a topic of controversy.

The Black Lives Matter protest in Fresno on July 9, 2016

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The Threat of Trump’s america STORY AND PHOTOS JOSE OROZCO

D

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onald Trump is the president-elect, and will be sworn into office as the 45th president in the inauguration ceremony on Jan. 20, 2017.

Trump shocked the world and defied all polls and doubters on Nov. 8 when he won the general election in a hard and long fought campaign against Hillary Clinton.

Although the Trump family and supporters celebrated their victory, millions of Americans, including many women, undocumented immigrants and muslims were reportedly saddened and skeptical about the new Trump presidency. His victory also affected many minority and immigrant communities.

Throughout the campaign leading up to the presidential election, Trump was protested in almost every major city he visited due to his rhetoric regarding undocumented immigrants, muslims, and women.

Hundreds of protesters held signs in front of the Selland Arena in Fresno and chanted, “Dump Trump” during Trump’s visit on May 27, 2016.

In many speeches, Trump promised to build a wall between the U.S and Mexico as well as deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country. Those statements

“I gave the United States both of my children, my son and my daughter; they sent my son to war, but they want to send me back to Mexico.”

-Ruben Almaraz

Pictured: Jorge Cruz and his father, Eliodoro Cruz

29 Fall 2016

lead Latinos across the nation to protest in anger, and on many occasions, violence broke out.

Since Trump’s victory, he has pledged to keep his promises regarding immigration. During his most recent interview with CBS 60 minutes, he told host Lesley Stahl that he planned to deport 2 to 3 million undocumented immigrants immediately upon taking office.

“What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers, where a lot of these people, probably 2 million, it could be even 3 million, we are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate,” Trump said. “But we’re getting them out of our country; they’re here illegally.”

This statement and many like it throughout Trump’s campaign has caused a massive wave of fear among Latino communities nationwide.

Jorge Cruz, a senior at Washington Union High school and also a son of an undocumented immigrant, says he’s scared about what’s going to happen in the next four years during the Trump Presidency.

“I’m scared for myself, and for my family,” Clemente said.

“My dad brought me and my mom from Mexico when I was 4 years old; this is the only place I’ve ever known and called my home.” He said that he feels like an American.

“He calls people like me and my family criminals and drug dealers, just because we came to America for a better life,” Clemente said. “My dad works in the fields everyday; I just want to go to college and graduate, we’re not bad people; we’re not criminals, Mr.Trump.”

Ruben Almaraz, an immigrant from Zacatecas, Mexico and

Ruben Almaraz and his son, Ruben Almaraz Jr. Almaraz Jr. is currently a staff sergeant in the USMC.

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father of two U.S. Marines, said that he felt very ashamed of Trump’s statement.

“I came here with nothing. I worked the fields until I became a citizen,” Almaraz said. “I gave the United States both of my children, my son and my daughter; they sent my son to war, but they want to send me back to Mexico.”

In addition to the Latino community, Trump also attacked muslims and muslim immigrants. “Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on,” CNN reported from a campaign press release in December 2015. His comments came after the December 2015 San Bernardino terrorist attacks in which 14 people were killed and 22 were seriously injured.

Since Trump’s election, there have been a wave of hate and discrimination towards muslims, even in California and Fresno. The Nov. 28 issue of the Fresno bee reported that The Islamic Cultural Center of Fresno had received some sort of chain letter which threatened genocide against muslims and praised Donald Trump.

According to the Fresno Bee, the letter had gained national attention after it was sent to three different mosques in California as well as one in Georgia. What’s most frightening about the letter is that it says Trump will do to Muslims what Hitler did to the Jews -- a very powerful statement that has many Muslim communities on edge.

Marissa Sandoval, a Fresno City college student who protested Trump in May during his visit to Fresno, said she decided to join the protest because she had friends

who were Mexican, and being a Latina, she felt that Trump had not only disrespected women but all Latinos alike.

“Donald Trump is a bad man; he has no respect for women; he wants to ban all muslims and start surveillance in their mosques; he wants to deport all undocumented immigrants,” Sandoval said. “He made it OK to disrespect women, and that’s not OK. It’s not OK for minorities to feel scared and have fear of a new president.”

The Washington Post released a video earlier this year in which Trump was recorded disrespecting women in a 2005 conversation with “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush. In the video, Trump bragged about kissing, groping and having sex with women.

The now President elect was recorded saying “Grab her [women he desires] by the p***y.” Words that have made women across the U.S. weary of the Trump presidency.

He also talked about his failed advances with an unnamed woman during the recording, just months after he had married his current wife, Melania Trump.

“I did try and f*** her. She was married,” he said. “’And I moved on her very heavily.

In fact, I took her out furniture shopping.

She wanted to get some furniture. I said, ‘I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.’”

Trump continued, “I moved on her like a b****, but I couldn’t get there. Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony t**s and everything. She’s totally changed her look.”

Hillary Clinton retweeted the video along with the statement “This is horrific, we can’t

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allow this man to become president.” sexual advances made by Trump.

Trump defended his actions captured on the video.

In addition to immigrants, women and muslims, “This was locker room banter, a private conversation minorities have reported an increase in hate crimes that took place many years ago,” Trump said. “I apolosince Trump won the candidacy, as middle class white gize if anyone was offended.”

America can finally come out of the shadows and reMany women were reported to have been sexually wind years of progress against racism. Prejudice, hate assaulted and harassed following the release of the and racism is now represented at the highest levels of New York Post video. government with Trump as the president-elect of the Women all across the nation have also reported beU.S. ing harassed by Trump throughout the campaign and In “A wave of harassment after Trumps victory,” the after his victory.

New York Times reports that “hundreds of incidents Prior to the video in which Trump gave those stateof harassment and intimidation have been reported ments he has also been accused of unwanted sexual across the country since Election Day.” advances towards at least 17 woman, many but not The story reported that students put signs above all of the allegations came from water fountains that read Trump’s ownership of the Miss “Whites only” and “colored” at USA, Miss Teen USA and Miss First Coast High School in JackUniverse pageants. sonville, Fla. Since the early 1980s, several The same story reported that different media outlets have pubin Columbus, a man approached lished the alleged incidents. a Muslim woman and her family The New York Times reported while their car was at a stop that a woman by name of Jessica light. He hit the car and yelled Leeds was groped by Trump on at the woman, “you don’t belong a first-class airplane flight to in this country.”

New York in the early 1980s. In Immediately following the second allegation, published Trump’s victory, major cities in the Times, a woman named including Oakland, Los Angeles, Rachel Crooks accuses Trump of Philadelphia and New York had forcibly kissing her in the Trump a wave of protesters who made Tower in 2005. their way to the streets to proAlso in 2005, People magatest Trump. The Trump tower in zine reporter Natasha Stoynoff lower Manhattan is under heavy said Trump forcibly kissed her security following Trump’s victoTonya Cortez and her daughter, Marissa Sandoval during an interview at Trump’s ry which includes secret service, Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, during an interview that armed police officers, roadblocks and bag checks as a was supposed to be about Trump’s new marriage to result of heavy protest in front of the tower.

Melania Trump.

KFSN-TV ABC Channel 30 in Fresno, Ca reported The Palm beach post reported that Trump had that even 22 days after the election, many Americans groped Mindy McGillivray’s buttocks while she aswere very unhappy with the results. sisted her friend who was a photographer working at They reported that thousands protested in Los AngeTrump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in 2003. les, and nearly 400 people protested in Fresno.

Buzzfeed reported that at least five beauty pagMany Latinos say they are scared that their families eant contestants alleged that Trump entered dressing might be gathered through massive raids if Trump rooms while girls ages 15-19 were changing. Donald keeps his promise of creating a deportation task force. trump owned Miss Teen USA , Miss USA, and Miss Women are being harassed daily and feel threatened Universe from 1996 to 2015 and publicly denied those that a man with an misogynist past will soon be the allegations. chief executive of the country. Minorities are being In 1992, the Chicago Tribune published a story titled singled out and harassed as the Trump wave takes “Such a Comedian.” In the story, Trump walks up over America, and racism is reborn once again in a to two girls who were singing Christmas carols with country that had moved away from prejudices. a youth choir outside Manhattan’s Plaza Hotel. “He Years of progress with immigration and civil rights asked two of the girls how old they were,” the report may be threatened under the Trump administration, reads. “After they replied they were 14, Trump said, but one thing is certain, many are determined to resist “Wow! Just think -- in a couple of years I’ll be dating his divisive approach. you.”

“It’s people like me who give birth to the soldiers Rolling Stone and the Guardian also published stothey send away to fight for the rights of this country,” ries detailing different women’s accounts of unwanted Almaraz said. “I hope he knows that.” 

RISE OF RUBY ROSE

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STORY ASHLEIGH PANOO PHOTOS RAM REYES

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THE REVIVAL OF RUBY RED

Ruby Williams with her mother and throughout her childhood. Photos courtesy of Ruby Williams.

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uby Williams found herself lying on the floor in a house in Fresno, a McDonald’s hamburger in hand, gunshots ringing out around her.

The home was dilapidated with no running water or electricity, the domain of countless drug deals and drive-by shootings.

She didn’t have her daughter or even a car. She was barely holding onto a job. Now this.

The then-21-year-old turned numb as she watched the scene play out like a movie for nearly 20 minutes: her cousins firing guns out of the window, and returning gunfire hitting the home, just missing her on the floor with her hamburger still in hand.

It was then that Williams realized she had reached her lowest point.

“I’ve been through so much I don’t even care,” she remembers thinking. “If a bullet hits me, at least I’ll have this burger.”

While a bullet didn’t hit Williams that day in 2011, a realization did, she says.

“I was just tired. I was fed up,” she says. “I knew I wanted better for my life.”

She says about a week later she witnessed the gunning down of her cousin by Fresno police.

“They shot him, dragged him out the car, beat him,” she said. “They put a gun to my head and said they would kill me too.”

Williams felt helpless. “That really did something to me,” she said. “I was like, ‘I gotta leave this house.’”

Now 26, in a bright blue floral-print dress and a smile, Williams holds a notebook in her hand as she sits down at a table in the student lounge at Fresno City College.

Williams, an English major, is a returning student trying to finish up what she started in 2008. It’s been a long road since then, she says.

Williams is articulate, a trait that has gained her both a job as a radio host and a passion for writing. To some, she goes by Ruby Red, her stage name.

Williams got her start in radio at Central Valley Talk, where she was a talent and event coordinator. She later moved to 88.1 FM but things didn’t work out.

“Some people don’t believe in the same things you believe in,” she says. “So I left.”

Soon after, she got a call from 103.3 The Voice, an African, R&B and old-school station headquartered inside the Pacific Southwest Building in downtown Fresno.

Now she hosts her own radio show Monday through Friday on The Voice.

“It’s a black-owned radio station which is awesome,” she says. “You don’t really have too many of those here in Fresno.”

On Tuesdays, Williams hosts “The Local Block,” which features a local artist who gets to promote themselves and their music for an hour.

She has met the likes of local celebrities like singers Marques Anthony and Tyrell Williams. She

also met rapper Young Joc when he came through Fresno.

Not only does Williams have her own show, but she is helping to shape the up-and-coming station as well.

“When I first started off, they wanted just funk music, but now I’m kinda blending in local, mainstream and also positive influential music,” she says. “We play hip-hop but we don’t play derogative hip-hop.”

Station manager Jamila Harris describes Williams as hardworking and dedicated. She explains the nonprofit is run solely by volunteers and Williams comes in five days a week on top of being a single mother and a student. “She slides right in there like ‘nada,’ no nervousness,” says Harris. “That’s why she’s here.”

But Ruby Red isn’t just a DJ name. She also sings, and has performed all over California, most recently at the Fresno Fair in the Next Big Thing Talent Show. She has a few recorded songs under her belt, and hopes to record more in the future.

People are surprised to hear that Williams has two unpublished books, she says.

One of them is a poetry book that includes a poem she wrote when she was just six years old.

The other she describes as an non fiction urban story. It’s about different characters whose lives collide, she says. “There’s a character who is going through domestic violence, [one] who is homosexual, [one] that’s a prostitute,” she says.

Another is in prison. Despite slight

Ruby Williams’ grandmother, daughter Aleezah, and Williams. Photo courtesy of Ruby Williams realized something had to change.

“I’m not gonna better [myself] drinking and crying about it because it’s not gonna bring her back.”

Still, a piece of Jackson is in everything Williams takes on.

“Recently I was working on a project where I was going to reenact her death with a song that I wrote for her,” she says. “I wanted to live that moment again. It’s like you’re an actor. I wanted to play her to get that [feeling] of losing your life unexpectedly [and] being at the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong person.”

Williams eventually realized the project was too much for her. “It kind of took a toll on me,” she says.

“I felt it would’ve taken a toll on my family, so I let it go.”

“It’s my obstacle,” Williams admits about her mother’s death. “It’s what has made me stronger.”

Growing up in Caruthers with her grandmother, also named Ruby, Williams had never experienced city life before becoming pregnant at 17 and moving to Fresno.

Racism was a common occurrence at her small-town high school, where only a handful of African-American students attended, she says. Dead animals ended up in

her locker after band practice and a few girls would call her the n-word.

Williams kept the bullying to herself because there were more pressing matters on her mind.

“There’s people actually dying every day. Some people can’t even go to school,” she says, adding that it was harder to speak out back then.

“They’re in a small community,” she says, shrugging. “Maybe if they stepped outside the box, they could see that there’s more to it.”

But the racism eventually drove her to Washington Union High School in Easton where she took an offer to play basketball. At the time, Williams believed that was going to be her way out. “My whole goal was to be in the WNBA,” she says.

Williams’ basketball dreams weren’t meant to be, and she eventually landed in continuation school and became pregnant with her daughter, Aleezah, at 17.

Despite her hardships, Williams graduated early and was a speaker at her own graduation.

She began attending FCC while she was pregnant and got her own apartment.

“I wanted to major in sociology/ psychology,” Williams says. “That takes up to 8 years.” She would drop out two years later.

35 Fall 2016

similarities, she says the story has nothing to do with her own life. ”It’s about things I’ve seen and things I’ve heard,” she says.

She wants to learn more about the “ins and outs” of publishing before she goes forward, but hopes something can be done with the books next year.

When Williams was four, her mother was shot to death in Fresno.

Denise Jackson’s boyfriend was shot first, execution-style, before she was chased and gunned down, Williams says, adding that the killer was never prosecuted. The fact that the case isn’t closed has left a hole in her heart, and she has spent many years trying to fill it. ”I just remember she was real loving to me,” Williams says. “I used to remember her smile, but not that much anymore.”

Williams seems reserved about the topic, but insists she has come a long way from where she was about accepting her mother’s death.

She is quick to say that she spent a lot of time dwelling in the past, like spending Mother’s Day crying at the cemetery and using alcohol to numb the pain.

“When she died, I tried to jump in the casket,” she says. “I used to have dreams about that.” But she

“They shot him, dragged him out the car, beat him.

They put a gun to my head and said they would kill me too.”

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Her main obstacle was her boyfriend at the time, Aleezah’s father.

“He had an alcohol problem,” she begins. Williams picks her words carefully in describing the abuse she says she endured by her ex for three years. “[It was] just -- being hit on, yelled at, not respected; having your apartment destroyed everyday,” she says. “He would crush everything in my living room.”

Williams eventually left the relationship when she was 19, after one of her instructors at FCC called her out.

“One day my face was bruised and she pulled me over and she was crying,” says Williams. The instructor had seen her bring her daughter to school and threatened to call CPS on Williams if she didn’t leave the relationship.

“At that point I was like, “wow, this is not just affecting me, it’s affecting my child; it’s affecting my school. So I stopped going to school. I actually left him after that,” Williams says. Although it was the right decision, the move led her to become homeless.

She left her daughter in the care of her grandmother in Caruthers, and without a car, Williams left to live in Fresno with her cousins and to find work. “It was the ‘trap spot,’” she muses about where she lived.

As for her ex, the last time she saw him was earlier this year after he was hit by a car while intoxicated.

With both legs broken and his “intestines hanging out of his stomach,” Williams gave him the benefit of the doubt when she visited him, but was left disappointed that they still couldn’t get along.

“He still has that bitterness about him,” she says.

Williams’ quest leads her to love in an unlikely place -- Wasco State Prison.

Jesus Jones, Williams’ fiance, is an inmate at the facility, likely to be released next year, but she hopes sooner.

on a “Just Keke” episode named “Cypher” that was taped a few years ago in Los Angeles.

She was invited on the show by a friend, but when that friend dropped out, Williams knew she couldn’t let the chance slip away from her, so she went alone.

When Palmer noticed she was wearing the wrong undergarments for the taping, she had workers go buy her the correct ones. Williams laughs, “She was like, ‘Girl, you know people are going to see this!’”

Williams still has her sticker from auditioning for America’s Got Talent in Los Angeles. Although she didn’t make it onto the show, it still made a great impact on her.

“That day forward I was like, ‘I gotta move out here.

I’ve got to make something of myself.’”

Shortly before her wake up call in the “trap spot,” Williams began going to open mic nights at the nowclosed Babylon Club in the Tower District. That’s when she met her producer that she worked with until 2014.

When he saw how she was living, he begged her to leave the house, she says. Williams remembers receiving a frantic call from him one night -- a premonition.

“He was like, ‘I don’t want to scare you [be]cause I know I haven’t known you that long, but I had a dream and you should leave that house,’” she says. Days later, she would find herself amid the gunfire.

A stroke of luck hit her when an opening came up in an apartment complex she had put in an application for and she was called. Everything began to look up from there. She got her daughter back and a car. Then she enrolled back in college.

Williams knows she’s lucky to be alive, and she doesn’t take one day for granted.

Building her own empire is at the top of her to-do list, along with raising her daughter and future children in a two-parent household. Williams is desperate to do all the things for her daughter that her mother wasn’t able to do for her.

“Raising my child is a blessing because I didn’t grow up with my mom or dad,” she says.

Williams knows she is where she belongs career-wise.

“I love the feel of talking to people and performing in front of people,” she says. “I love people watching me.”

She looks forward to her open mic nights on Wednesdays at Martin’s Bar in Clovis, where she invites anyone with a voice for singing, poetry or the spoken word to step up to the mic.

Williams has felt her revival in a myriad of ways, and her self-esteem has benefitted.

“From being in an [abusive] relationship, from people telling you you’re nothing to actually being something,” Williams says, describing her change. “It took me from losing everything to find that I was special, that I have a voice, that I influence people.”

After reaching success, she wants to come back to Fresno, and be a symbol of hope for other kids struggling with the loss of their parents.

As she’s proven with every morning she gets up, “just because your parents are gone, you can still make it.

You can still survive.” 

37 Fall 2016

“It was a ‘Love & Hip Hop’ story,” Williams insists, smiling. “I fell in love with him at the same time I was going through a lot of stuff. I really didn’t know who I was at the time,” she says. “Honestly, he’s the one that kind of got me singing.”

Before landing in prison, Jones encouraged Williams to visit her cousin that had a studio and that’s when the couple realized she had a talent.

“One night I was drunk and I started recording,” she says. “He [Jones] was sitting there on the couch and I was crying. I was really, really... emotional. I had been with someone since high school, so it was kind of different.”

Although she says they had chemistry, the two split after a period of time. “We were young and reckless,” Williams says.

Jones was eventually picked up for a probation violation, and was involved in a prison fight, which led to more time added on to his stay.

They reconciled while he was in prison and plan to marry when he gets out.

Although it’s difficult to maintain the relationship, Williams says it’s definitely doable.

“If you have patience, you have loyalty,” she says.

They write to each other everyday without fail.

Williams has maintained her celibacy for two years, and says it’s easy compared with what she’s already been through.

“When you’re at a point [that] you lose everything, [sex] doesn’t matter. What matters is a place for your child, a place for you to lay your head, having money to provide, having a car, being stable. That’s what matters.”

Jones and Williams plan to work on a few projects together, although she won’t reveal just what they are.

She did say she wants to lift him up spiritually, and says he is working on getting his high school diploma while behind bars.

“That’s another reason I want to move out of Fresno -- to give him a different outlook. A lot of people go to prison and when they come out they don’t really have a lot to look forward to,” Williams explains. “That’s why they go back to the same thing.

Williams encourages others to leave Fresno. “Not forever, but just go experience it,” she says. “Go live somewhere for a year.”

Williams’ ultimate goal is to leave Fresno. She longs to get away from the suffocation of the valley, she says.

She doesn’t want to get stuck in the small-town life and forget the big picture.

“I feel sometimes like I’m going to die here because of the stuff that goes on,” Williams says. For a long time, she was terrified she would perish at the same age her mother did.

“That was one of my fears growing up,” she says. “I thought, ‘Oh God, I’m going to die when I’m 21.’”

Williams has developed a love for southern California and Los Angeles in particular while traveling for her singing career.

Meeting KeKe Palmer of BET fame is one of the highlights of Williams’ travels. She is in the background

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Can We Avoid an Environmental Apocalypse?

STORY CRESENCIO RODRIGUEZ-DELGADO PHOTO ILLUSTRATION RAM REYES

Fall 2016

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A

key threat to California and the Central Valley after five years of drought is easily identified as dangerous air quality conditions.

The latest State of the Air report from the American Lung Association lists the Fresno and Madera area as the No. 1 place for bad air quality. Fresno County is given an “F” rating in its air quality for particle pollution within 24 hours and has failed the annual pollution test.

Nearly 300,000 children under the age of 18 are at risk due to the menacing air quality that exists.

Nationally, more than 35.6 million children under the age of 18 live in counties that have received an “F” rating for pollutants, and 6.7 million live in counties where all pollution tests were failed.

Are we headed into an environmental apocalypse?

The die-off of over 102 million trees in the California forests has left the state on the brink of massive fire eruptions as well as other threats to people. Some though, like biomass plants, have taken advantage of the dying wood and have used it to produce mulch.

As more and more trees are susceptible to wildfires around the state, forests could become deforested and barren. The Humane Society says forests are crucial to fight climate change and global warming.

Deforestation has the potential to lead to about 2.4 billion tons of CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions worldwide annually because the trees are not there to trap it. Their nonexistence allows the CO2 emissions to reach the atmosphere and become absorbed by the heat from the sun and lead to warmer conditions across the globe.

35.6 MILLION CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF 18 LIVE IN COUNTIES THAT HAVE RECIEVED AN “F” RATING FOR PULLUTANTS

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In “The Post-Carbon Reader: Managing the 21st century’s sustainability crises,” edited by Richard Heinberg and Daniel Lerch, a section titled “A New World” examines the new environment that we live in.

Environmentalist and writer Bill McKibben writes that Earth has changed in profound ways, saying that every day the planet loses its oasis feel. And “this is not some mere passing change,” McKibben warned.

A NASA study currently holds the world’s current carbon dioxide emission at roughly 500 parts per million.

That means that the heat-trapping (greenhouse) gas that being released due to human activities like deforestation and burning fossil fuels -- as well as natural processes like respiration and volcanic eruptions -- have risen to the highest levels in history, according to NASA’s 2016 finding.

McKibben writes that since the Industrial Revolution, “we’ve been steadily increasing that total, currently raising it more than two parts per million annually.” McKibben write that for many years, the danger point was never known.

“Paul Roberts, in his superb book The End of Oil, was able to write quite correctly that ‘most climate models indicate that once concentrations exceed 550 parts per million we will start to witness dangerous levels of warming and damage, especially in vulnerable areas, such as low-lying countries or those already suffering drought’,” McKibben writes.

The largest fire that burned in the state this summer was the Soberanes Fire in Monterey. About 132,100 acres of wildland was burned between when the fire started in July and was contained in October.

California has taken initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions throughout the state. Governor Jerry Brown made a stop in Fresno to sign what some called “sweeping” legislation to combat climate change.

Brown signed into law Assembly Bill 1613 and

Senate Bill 859. Both bills detail how $900 million in cap-and-trade funds will be spent. Bee reporter John Ellis writes that the funds will also help gain biomass energy from the Sierra Nevada’s dying trees.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says an over-accumulation of the natural and humanmade gas emissions have greatly contributed to global warming. Warming within the planet is caused when greenhouse gases absorb infrared radiation. NASA estimates that 97 percent of scientists believe climate change is manmade.

Changing our ways $900 MILLION IN CAPAND-TRADE FUNDS COULD COME FROM BILLS SIGNED BY CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR JERRY BROWN

41

Fall 2016

On a hot summer day, Fresno City College Jeannine Koshear was looking forward to getting home after a trip to the Bay Area, but she had come to a sudden stop on her way to Fresno along Highway 99.

What appeared like a serious accident halted traffic for miles and Koshear could only sit in her Toyota pickup, which lacked air conditioning and was something she could have counted on to overcome the day’s heat.

Neither the wait nor the hotness, which she dealt with as she drove 60 mph down the California highway by rolling down her two front windows, bothered Koshear as much as something she spotted during her stop in the traffic jam.

“Next to me was one of those transport trucks that takes caged chickens to the slaughterhouse,” Koshear said.

Koshear remembers seeing cages upon cages stacked on the truck, and a steady drip of thick chicken poop coating the birds in the lower cages and unto the sides of the truck. Some of the birds were dead; others were slumped in their cages, Koshear said. She was witnessing the pain the chickens must have been enduring right before her eyes.

The towering chicken carrier cascaded air from above, down to Koshear’s truck, overwhelming her with the stench. She could not get over the cruelty of the way the chickens were being transported; it continues to bother the Fresno City College geography instructor to this day.

Koshear had heard of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and had now come face-to-face with the harsh reality that is poultry production.

Thousands or tens of thousands of animals are typically crammed in tight spaces, unable to move, breathe or see light of day under that type of operation. She recalls the cages in the chicken transport truck on Highway 99 to be about 8 ½ and 11 inches.

The Humane Society of the United States says out of the nearly 10 billion land animals raised in the

country, a great number of those animals are kept in the country’s nearly 18,800 CAFO factories.

“Faced with the reality of poultry and other CAFO production, I immediately became a vegetarian,” Koshear said, but admits that the switch was a little more complicated than converting solely to vegetable products. “I still eat meat, but I eat considerably less of it, and I really try to delve into how it was produced.”

The lifestyle changes Koshear made following the sighting was part of a bigger way of thinking -- a way of thinking that benefits the environment. The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that about 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from animal production, either from producing feed crop, creating fertilizer or shipping products.

She asked herself, “Do I want to be part of this system?” and “Do I want to be on the consuming end of this system?” Her answer to both of these questions was a simple one: “no.”

“The truth of the matter is the way we produce food is extraordinarily damaging,” Koshear says.

Much of the CO2 [emissions] that is generated from the animal production industry is primarily from the utilization of fossil fuels, according to a report from the University of Georgia.

“This may be from purchased electricity, propane use in stationary combustion units...and diesel use in mobile combustion units such as trucks, tractors and generators that are used on the farm,” the report states.

Koshear compares the conventional ways of American consumerism to that of indigenous and Native American cultures, realizing the latter group is much more connected to the land. She tries to explain of American ways that, “In a way we have made an artificial distinction between the environment and ourselves, by setting ourselves apart.”

The protests in North Dakota over a pipeline that was proposed to cross sacred Native American land is an example of how the land is treated differently by different people. The 1,172-mile, 30-inch diameter pipeline would run from North Dakota to Illinois, carrying up to 570,000 barrels of oil a day.

Opponents fear water supply to millions could become polluted. But seeing little action from law enforcement to protect sacred land and the environment from dangerous oil production is what angers environmentalists.

Man-made climate change, Koshear believes, leads to planetary and environmental effects. The Central Valley may be one of the hardest-hit places in ongoing drought. She says people and businesses in the valley must begin to rethink their way of living and work with nature, not against it.

“If we are going to build healthy economies, healthy societies, healthy individuals, healthy communities, we have to found that on the basis of a healthy environment,” Koshear said. “If we are doing things that are destructive to our environment, it comes back.”

SB 859, signed by Brown, is also expected to help

“WE HAVE TO RECOGNIZE THAT THE LIKELIHOOD IS THAT WHAT WE’VE EXPERIENCED FOR THE PAST FIVE YEARS, IS NOW THE NEW NORMAL. THAT IS A VERY TOUGH REALITY FOR US TO GRAPPLE WITH IN CALIFORNIA AND ESPECIALLY IN THE CENTRAL VALLEY.” - JEANNINE KOSHEAR FCC GEOGRAPHY INSTRUCTOR

lower greenhouse gas emissions created by farms and dairies.

Making Fresno a focus

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A focus in cleaning up the air and reducing greenhouse gas emissions is built around Fresno in two other bills the governor signed. Assembly Bill 1550 and 2722 will direct cap and trade funds toward disadvantaged communities. Cap and trade funds are funds that come from the taxing of highpolluting companies as incentive to lower their emissions.

In September, outgoing Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin announced the governor had put aside $70 million out of $140 million in funds to help communities fight pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. That was half of the funds and the other half were to be split between two other cities.

AB 2722, which created the Transformational Climate Communities Program, made way for these funds to come to Fresno and Assemblymember Joaquin Arambula of Fresno is a co-author of the bill. With the third-highest poverty rate in the state, Fresno was chosen as one of the cities to lead efforts to reduce emissions while helping residents find work and live in cleaner, greener spaces.

In West Fresno, the tragedy of dangerous environmental effects are visible. In a Fresno Bee report by writer Mark Grossi, a close look is given to West Fresno, where “high asthma rates, widespread poverty and low birth weights” have been linked to the dirty air.

Nearly 300,000 people live in poverty in Fresno County. Those communities often face a much harsh burden of climate change affecting conditions.

Nine of the 12 worst places to live with bad air quality are in the Valley.

Rampant misinformation and ‘greed’

In a world feared to have rampant misinformation and obscured perceptions of facts, Koshear

encourages her students at FCC to search for information and make their own fact-based investigations; She sees that as part of her responsibility as a college instructor.

There is no going back to the California of the 1830s and 1850s, Koshear admits; neither can the California return to the 1950s. Those days are gone, and the added stresses of climate change have increasingly made it harder to maintain a healthy environment, Koshear says.

“Our sustenance comes from the environment in a multitude of ways and by destroying and overtaxing ecological systems on earth,” Koshear said, “we are laying the groundwork for our own destruction and that is really, really sobering.”

Uprooted trees have sprung in the Valley due to five years of drought in California. Water has become scarce in many communities and concerted efforts have brought fresh, clean water to many impoverished communities who have gone without water for months at a time.

“We have to recognize that the likelihood is that what we’ve experienced for the past five years, is now the new normal,” Koshear said. “That is a very tough reality for us to grapple with in California and especially in the Central Valley.”

Koshear calls the state’s water problem the most pressing issue of our time. She adds that it is the most serious issue the nation and world face as a result of a changing climate which has diverted naturally-made resources and depleted the muchneeded natural resources that have allowed the planet’s diverse ecosystems to survive.

“There has been a concerted disinformation and misinformation campaign that has been carried out by heavily entrenched fossil fuel interests,” Koshear said.

She warns it could continue with special interests continuing to fund political campaigns for special privileges. “When we have one of our nation’s major political parties that eschews any notion of sciencebased information informing policy, we have a big

problem.”

In a bleak report in Vox, reporters David Roberts and Brad Plumer believe the American people are underestimating the damage a Donald Trump administration could have on progress made for the environment. They write such administration could vanish the U.S.’s presence in climate deals, like the Paris Climate Deal, and that pollution regulations could be reversed.

In a New York Times meeting with Trump, the newly elected politician says however that there might be link between climate change and humans, something of a major difference to his comment that global warming was a hoax.

Trump’s website claims the U.S. will become energy independent, and reverse Obama’s “job-destroying executive actions” on the environment -- many of those executive actions have received praise for efforts to protect the environment.

“Rather than continuing the current path to undermine and block America’s fossil fuel producers, the Trump Administration will encourage the production of these resources by opening onshore and offshore leasing on federal lands and water,” the Trump website on energy independence states.

The favorite to become the head of the EPA in the Trump Administration is a noted climate change denier. Myron Ebell, the selection to head the agency, leads the Cooler Heads Coalition, whose mission is to dispel the “myth” of global warming.

PBS reports that Ebell has been dubbed the No. 1 enemy to the climate change community by Greenpeace. A report of PBS’s Frontline says Eboll has a leading force in crafting challenging research to contradict the idea that climate change is caused by humans.

The Frontline report notes that Ebell said he had helped propel a shift in the political debate around climate change. That shift later contributed to the collapse of cap-and-trade legislation in Congress in 2009, the Frontline report says.

Ebell, who says the global warming idea is based on politics and not science, told Frontline, “We need to keep banging away on the science.”

In the Vox report, the writers suggest that perhaps Trump’s lack of understanding of the climate change

issues may lead the legislations being crafted by the GOP held Congress.

“His ignorance on policy is near total and he’s shown no desire or willingness to learn anything about it,” Roberts and Pumer write. “So in practice, environmental policy under Trump is likely to be run by the GOP apparatus.”

Perhaps filibusters can prevent the GOP apparatus from acting against the climate, Roberts and Plumers write. The 47 incoming Democratic Senators in 2017 could refuse to support any anti-climate legislation, they write.

“If the filibuster survives, Republicans will be significantly constrained in what they can do, though they still have options,” they write. “They could, for instance, try to slip environmental measures that affect the federal budget into budget reconciliation bills — those only need 51 votes to pass.”

Koshear says key government figures have declined to endorse the idea of climate change or that carbon dioxide emissions, even as they continue to climb to catastrophic levels, are a problem; Ninety-seven percent of scientists have agreed it is an issue. Yet, funders like the Koch Brothers have invested heavily in an agenda of electing politicians to further a plan that isn’t always favorable to the environment.

Scientists, documentarians and informed politicians are urgently trying to get the message out, Koshear says. But a system degraded by Citizens United can no longer function properly to address the issues, like climate change, which have severe effects on the nation and world. Koshear calls the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court the “death knell” of America.

Could politicians listen to climate scientists and, better yet, see the danger extreme pollution of the climate causes to children, our future?

“We have built our economic and philosophical foundation as a nation on the idea that facts are important and that facts matter; Now we have an entire political party that is trying to tell us that that isn’t the case,” Koshear says.

McKibbin reminds us of our final destination by saying, “Don’t let your eyes glaze over at this parade of statistics. These should come as body blows, mortar barrages, as sickening thuds.”

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STREET HARASSMENT WOMEN’S EXPERIENCES SEXUAL HARASSMENT

F

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WITH MEN AND ON THE STREET

STORY RAM REYES

resno City College student Kat Campos was going about her day on campus as usual. Suddenly, someone grabbed her hand and kissed it. You would assume that this would-be romantic assailant was her significant other surprising her with this gesture.

Instead, however, the kiss was from a man she barely knew. The only interaction between her and this man was from a week before when she had complimented his hair. Neither of them even knew each other’s names at that point.

“He was just a guy I told that I liked his hair,” Campos recounts.

She posted the incident on Facebook with other women chiming in on how creepy and unwanted the move was.

There was one man in the comments, though, defending the actions as “gentlemanly” or “sweet.”

Many men do not understand. From their point of view, the act of kissing a woman you barely know might seem “gentlemanly” or “sweet,” but from a woman’s point of view, it can be disgusting or unwarranted.

Women in public have to go through many other forms of sexual harassment, ranging from catcalls, unsolicited looks or advances. Often, men do not have a point of reference because it doesn’t often happen to them and do not understand how it makes women feel angry,m helpless and violated. “[Men] don’t get it at all. A lot of times you tell people these stories

and guys say, ‘nah that didn’t happen’ or ‘oh, you must have misinterpreted it,” Campos explains. “I say, ‘no I’m not exaggerating; this is exactly what happened.’”

What is Sexual Harassment and street harassment?

FCC instructor Karen H. Mosely, who teaches women’s studies and sociology of rape courses, outlines in her class the definition of sexual harassment: Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual advances, requests for sexual favors and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature.

Sexual conduct is unwelcome whenever the person subjected to it considers it unwelcome. Whether the person in fact welcomed a request for a date, sexually-oriented comment, or joke depends on all the circumstances.

Sexual harassment can occur anywhere with anyone, male or female, but on the streets in particular, the problem acutely affects women more often than men.

Street harassment is “unwanted comments, gestures, and actions forced on a stranger in a public place without their consent and is directed at them because of their actual or perceived sex, gender, gender expression or sexual orientation,” according to “Stop Street Harassment (SSH),” a non-profit organization dedicated to documenting and ending gender-based street harassment.

In a 2,000 person study commissioned

{

unwanted comments, gestures, and actions forced on a stranger in a public place without their consent and is directed at them because of their actual or perceived sex, gender, gender expression or sexual orientation

65% OF WOMEN HAVE EXPERIENCED SOME FORM OF STREET HARASSMENT

by SSH, 65 percent of all women had experienced some form of street harassment. In contrast, only 25 percent of men have reported to have experienced street harassment and most are LGBTidentifying men.

Among women, 23 percent had been sexually touched, 20 percent followed and 9 percent forced to do something sexual.

Many of the different actions considered sexual harassment are leering, honking, whistling, sexist comments, vulgar gestures, being followed and at the worst being grabbed or assaulted.

Incidents of sexual harassments are not uncommon on the FCC campus. Shayna Boyles, recounts one of her worst incidents when she was in a crowd at a concert leaning over a fence. A man came up behind her and put his hand at either side of the fence and said, “your hair smells nice.”

“It was really creepy and disturbing,” Boyles said, “I just can’t believe that happened.”

Harassment Here, There & Everywhere

45 Fall 2016

Boyles and Campos cite that they have been harassed on campus. For Boyles, a majority of incidents have happened on campus.

“It actually stopped happening as often when I stopped having as many classes here,” Boyles said. “Most times it has been on campus or places around campus.”

Even though women are not in immediate danger of something more

serious such as rape, the social setting of the campus lets harassment go on.

Especially in populated areas such as the main fountain area and the cafeteria on campus, it is hard for women to object as the attention is now on them.

“One of the things we found out was that the cafeteria was one of the most exposed areas because people sit down and talk and somebody comes up and puts their arms around you,” Moseley explains. “It’s really hard to openly object to something because there’s so many people around. It’s centered on you all of a sudden.”

Women feel helpless in these situations.

Oftentimes, harassment happens fast, like catcalls.

“It just catches you off guard,” Campos said. “You get wolf-whistled or people tell you ‘you have a pretty ass’ and they just keep walking. I mean, what are you supposed to do with that?”

Other times men try to be innocuous through “friendly” conversations that turn into harassment.

“There was this guy trying to get me to sign a petition and he started hitting on me,” Boyles recalled. “I shot him a dirty look and he said, ‘I like that look, I need that in the bedroom.’

“He asked me if I had a boyfriend and I told him that I did. He then said, ‘damn, are you planning on leaving him anytime soon?’” Boyles said, laughing about how ridiculous it was.

Most encounters are very outlandish and unbelievable in what men will do to attract women. Campos and Boyles admit that it is flattering at first but become unbearable.

“When it first started happening I was flattered,” Boyles said. “Because I thought that somebody actually thinks I’m attractive, but then it started getting old fast.”

Boyles noted that when she was growing up, she had poor self-esteem up until she was in college and so deterring harassers was harder.

“If you have low self-esteem, of course you’re not gonna be like ‘get away from me’ when someone starts complimenting or hitting on you,” Boyles said.

Campos agrees that it is somewhat flattering but examines the implications of their intentions.

“It is flattering the first time, but then you start thinking about what it actually means,” Campos said. “They’re not just saying that you’re pretty, they are telling you that out of some form of ownership. They are imposing themselves on you.”

The more serious offenses such as rape and assault are often rooted in that form of ownership. Men often feel a sense of entitlement that leads them to think they can do this without much thought.

“They think they have a right,” Moseley said.

“When it comes to sexual assault or rape, it’s about a sense of power, control and dominance.

It’s the sense of entitlement that you can what you want to do and nobody’s going to respond.”

Of course, sexual harassment isn’t as severe as sexual assault and rape, but it is still rooted in the same sense of entitlement.

Why Men Do It

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Societal expectations and upbringing often drive men to often ignore a woman’s perspective on subjects such as sexual harassment. The answer to the question of why these men do these aforementioned things is coated in many layers such as societal expectations, upbringing and many other factors. Moseley offered an explanation to one aspect of the problem.

“We’ve had centuries of gender differences and gender inequalities,” Moseley noted. “Men have been catcalling women for centuries.

They’re still in this masculinity mode. When you watch [around the campus], it’s not a single male that does it. Usually, they are in groups of three or more.”

Boyles notes that this is one of the reasons that sometimes she does not want to completely turn down men, like she rightfully should. “I don’t want to embarrass them. Sometimes their friends are there and so I don’t want them to feel like I shut them down in front of their friends.

“I personally hate my reaction to it,” Boyles continued,. “I feel like I should be more like ‘get away from me.’ But I just don’t want to seem mean. I feel like I’m always too nice. I don’t say enough ‘I told you no already, please get away from me.’”

Social pressures and politeness often stops women from immediately reprimanding these men on the street, often just ignoring it or just waiting for it to end.

“You’re kind of taught to grin and bear it and hope they go away,” Campos said. “You’re really nice and polite and you try not to give them too much information.”

“I mean, I’m not a guy so I can’t exactly say what has imposed them to, but I do think they are taught not to empathize with women,” Campos continued. “So when they see a woman and [see her] as an object of their desire, ‘oh, I would like them to like me.’ It is ‘I want to attain that, I want to gain that’ and ‘I can do that by claiming it.’

Moseley notes that it is this culture that perpetuates the problem with women having this fear of possible harassment, assault or rape.

“The fear of rape and sexual assault is installed within women since the time they take their first breath,” Moseley said. “It’s not installed necessarily by their dads. That fear of rape and assault by their mothers, aunts and grandmothers. From the time a women is a very small child there is that possibility, and that’s not installed in men.”

“We have a culture that allows certain activities and certain events to occur and not see them as actual crimes. It is ingrained in our population and legal and social system.”

The Solution?

The short-term solution to this would be mostly what women already do to try and deter the attention of men. Ignore them, have headphones on, reply politely or tell them they have a boyfriend.

When asked what was the weirdest thing they had done to avoid harassment by men, it would sound ridiculous to men but to women it is perfectly normal.

“I regularly pretend to talk on my phone when I’m out by myself,” Campos said. “If I see somebody following me or they look at me a lot, I will pick up my phone and I can have a 20-minute pretend conversation with myself.”

Boyles notes that she does something similar, often texting someone she knows like her boyfriend, to call her immediately to have an excuse to exit an interaction with a man. She

“I hate that literally anywhere, no matter how I look, no matter where I am, it can happen.

-Shayna Boyles

If you are a male and the next time you think of coming up to women, just imagine from their perspective what that would feel like and how they would feel.

Of course, it is a huge generalization that all men do this. But it happens enough times that every woman experiences this. There are plenty of different social situations much more conducive if you want a legitimate relationship with a certain woman without offending them.

“If a woman is alone, just leave her alone. And if she says something like ‘I’m not comfortable giving you my number’ or say she has a boyfriend, just believe them,” Boyles said.

“There are certain cues that men need to pick up on that mean ‘no.’”

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notes the hopelessness, that no matter what she does, it will continue to happen and she often doesn’t like doing what she does.

“It makes me feel shitty. I hate that literally anywhere, no matter how I look, no matter where I am, it can happen.”

Moseley’s solution is for both parties to communicate and try to have men own up to their inappropriate behavior and for women to question men and all the harassment on the street.

“Respond [to unwanted comments] in such a way that it’s positive,” Moseley said. “In a way that it’s not nasty but it requires them to answer your questions. Turn around and ask them ‘are you talking to me?’ or ‘did you say something to me?’”

an Odyssey of

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f Hopelessness STORY LARRY VALENZUELA PHOTOS RAM REYES

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S

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outh of downtown Fresno is a place most people usually avoid. Desolate and littered with trash, most of its inhabitants are either homeless or are the few small-business owners who have stuck around through the years.

The place is Chinatown, and it is home to one man and his dog. In a small, run-down former business front, Larry Rodriguez, 63, and his canine companion Zapata, live in a cramped hallway on the second floor.

The space is littered with miscellaneous items; old toys, broken flashlights and glass bottles are strewn about the room.

The fridge, located on the far end of the room, is filled with rotten food. Power had been shut off in the weeks prior.

A broken glass bottle and a candlestick sit on a TV tray in the middle of the room and is his only source of light, Rodriguez says.

The Fresno City College student says his life wasn’t always like this.

Originally from New Mexico, Rodriguez lived his young life on the Mescalero Apache Indian reservation until the 60s, when he arrived to South Central Los Angeles as a fifth grader.

“I grew up in a rugged neighborhood in South Central LA which is considered one of the worst neighborhoods in the area,” he said.

Rodriguez said that around the time he entered high school, he became a violent person and found himself in the California Youth Authority, now known as the the California Division of Juvenile Justice, which educates and trains serious youth offenders.

Things seemed to be looking up for Rodriguez, but after a couple of years at Los Angeles City College, he again found himself on the wrong side of the law.

“This dude was jumping some of my friends and there just so happened to be a crowbar there, so I went in swinging. I wound up doing some damage and was sentenced to prison for about three years for assault with a deadly weapon.”

In 1975, after doing his time, Rodriguez says he worked as a counselor for violent teens in Los Angeles.

After a year of working, Rodriguez says he decided to move to Albuquerque, New Mexico to pursue a job as a counselor for inmates in a half-way program.

“During that time, I used to work with judges, police, lawyers, prosecutors and psych staff. I was used to all these suits and ties and nice shoes. Look what I got now,” he said, surveying the room.

Rodriguez didn’t last long in the counselor

that Zapata was given to him four years ago by a neighbor and friend who had passed away from cancer.

“He had cancer [and] asked me, ‘Larry, do me a favor, can you take care of Zapata for me?’”

Still, his bad luck followed him and his companion to Fresno City College.

On Sept. 8, Rodriguez received a letter from the V.P. of student services which informed him that he and Zapata were suspended from the college campus for failure to follow orders to keep the dog under control and off campus. “[Zapata] poses a threat and danger to the population at [FCC],” The V.P. stated in the letter.

“On numerous occasions, Zapata has growled, barked aggressively, chased students, and has been left unattended on the [FCC] campus.”

The ban meant Rodriguez was suspended from all his classes for the fall semester.

Rodriguez said that his financial aid and grants were also being taken away due to his suspension.

“My life has just been destroyed. For the last two and a half years, that’s my only survival,” he said in September. “I will become homeless and, most likely, become a danger to society.”

“Why have I been denied due process?”

Rodriguez would later write in an appeal letter to fight the college’s suspension. He also stated

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position before landing in jail once again, due to a fight.

He lost his job because of his jail sentence, and instead of staying in New Mexico, he made his way to Fresno to be closer to his mother who had become ill.

He struggled to get a job due to his notso-clean record and started to work as a telemarketer.

Rodriguez says he was living pretty comfortably after moving up in the company, but eventually lost his job due to drug use.

“I had money in my pocket, but I winded up getting into drugs, and I lost my job on that,” he said.

Rodriguez then began to struggle to find another job to meet his needs in Fresno.

Yet again, he was sent to jail after another assault and spent three years there and put himself into rehab afterwards.

“I told them that it was for that [drugs and alcohol], but really it was just so I had a place to stay because at that point, I was homeless.”

After getting out of rehab, Rodriguez moved into Chinatown and began attending Fresno City College. He acquired Zapata, a chihuahua-mix, one of the rare positive things that has happened to him.

Rodriguez told a Rampage reporter last year

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“Zapata makes things a lot better. He’s like my kid.” brief visit on Sept. 13 and warned him he could be arrested for being on campus, but did not arrest him.

“I am fully aware that my Zapata could be arrested,” Rodriguez said while on campus. “I was hoping for that result; this way, I would have an audience.”

Rodriguez told the Rampage he would not be able to pay his rent in the following months and would have to live on the streets. He said he has no resources and no access to a lawyer to guide him in this situation.

And as his life has proven, when it rains for Rodriguez, it pours.

About two weeks after the suspension, Zapata went missing from his home in Chinatown.

While out searching for Zapata, Rodriguez said he was attacked with a tire iron by someone on the street, leaving him with a broken arm and a stitched up forehead. Frustrated and frantic, Rodriguez wondered how deep his bad luck could run.

Miraculously, 37 days after he went missing, Zapata suddenly appeared on Rodriguez’s door step, thinner, but seemingly unharmed.

“I swear I almost broke down in tears,” Rodriguez said. “He [Zapata] was just so happy.”

“I was about to give up and hang up the towel,” he said.

Although the ban dropped him from all his fall classes, the letter stated that Rodriguez would be able to attend classes in the spring on one condition--Zapata stays away.

Rodriguez is looking forward to beginning classes in the spring again, but he is still continuing his fight to get Zapata back on campus as his service dog.

He said he will do whatever it takes, including petitions, protests and stand-ins with Zapata.

Rodriguez said almost losing Zapata forever had made him want to quit his attempts to return to Fresno City College after his suspension on Sept. 8, but is now encouraged.

Maybe, finding Zapata is the turning point Rodriguez needs.

“Zapata makes things a lot better,” he said. “He’s like my kid.” 

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in the appeal that he was illegally harassed and discriminated against as described in Administrative Regulation 5530 and that the college administrators were not listening to his story or considering the impact a suspension will have on his and Zapata’s lives.

“Both of us have been in class together; no one has had a problem with his [Zapata’s] behavior; teachers, as well as students, have had no difficulties,” Rodriguez’ appeal letter stated. “How can one person have the power to give an order to make a life unsound?”

Rodriguez insisted that the V.P.’s letter ignored the fact that Zapata is licensed by the city of Fresno as a service dog and is very essential to his wellbeing. A representative for the city of Fresno said that service dogs are allowed to go anywhere their handlers go unless they are deemed “out of control.”

The person is still welcome, however; only the dog is banned.

According to information on service animals, posted on the website of the Disability Rights Section of the U.S. Department of Justice, the American with Disabilities Act does not overrule legitimate safety requirements such as those cited in the suspension letter to Rodriguez.

According to the ADA website, “If a particular service animal is out of control and the handler does not take effective action to control it, or if it is not housebroken, that animal may be excluded.”

Immediately following the suspension, Rodriguez asked students to write letters to Goldsmith, Parnell and Interim Director of Student Services Sean Henderson asking to reverse their decision, to no avail.

“He [Zapata] doesn’t bother anyone anyway. I [have] him on a leash,” Rodriguez said, insisting that his dog is not a threat to students. “I’m a student.

I’m entitled to an education, and they are denying it to me.”

Despite the ban, Rodriguez came to campus a few times with Zapata, hoping to meet with President Carole Goldsmith, Interim Vice President of Student Services Rojelio Vasquez and Paul Parnell, chancellor of State Center Community College District.

SCCCD Police approached Rodriguez during his

A Renewed Hope in Politics

STORY AND PHOTO JESUS SEPULVEDA

W

ith a Trump presidency looming over America, it seems like U.S. politics might be dead. However, the end is not nigh. There is still hope, and there are still good politicians. I learned this first hand.

Working on Supervisor Perea’s mayoral campaign, I have learned that there are politicians who still care about the region and the people they were elected to represent. I did not see a politician, who ran for power. When I worked with Supervisor Perea, I saw a politician that wanted to make a change within the City of Fresno.

I saw a politician who believed in people, especially those who live and work in Fresno, including the artists, the children and the local businesses. When I worked as a photographer for the campaign, I was proud to work for a candidate who truly loved his city and wanted to make a difference.

So much of a difference that Supervisor Perea was the first candidate in several years who lived south of Shaw Avenue, talked with the different unions within city limits, shook each hand and thank everyone that came to his campaign to help get voters out to their polling places. Being around such a politician made me glad that I had a chance,

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no matter how brief, to work for a campaign that was truly about the city.

Working on such a campaign gave me a different perspective on this year’s election. While most people were worried whether we were going to have a Trump presidency or whether we were going to have a Clinton presidency, I was worried more about Fresno’s mayoral race. I knew that no matter who won the presidency, there would be a sense or worry in the United States.

However, with the mayoral campaign, I was truly hoping that the candidate that I was working for would win. I say this because I am reminded of the words that Mark Twain was once quoted by, by stating, “Loyalty to your country always. Loyalty to your government when it deserves it.”

With Trump winning the presidency, I know that Americans would go through a difficult time. It is all disconcerting -- a president who once stated that he grabs women by their privates. I do not see how an enlightened people could elect someone with such disregard for human life. I guess that is why we can go and enjoy our Trump steaks and forget about our problems.

With the mayoral race, I knew that I was able to have a deeper respect for the City of Fresno,

“We should take a chance, get involved, be a part of something bigger than yourself. This does not mean we should all run to be the mayor. Start small; get involved in your community; talk with your district representatives, and volunteer with any of the numerous charities within the valley.” is bigger than yourself.

The lesson from my experience is that we should take a chance, get involved, be a part of something bigger than yourself. This does not mean we should all run to be the mayor. Start small; get involved in your community; talk with your district representatives, and volunteer with any of the numerous charities within the valley.

I have learned that the person who fights for something greater than himself/herself will inevitably gain a greater respect for the community around them.

According to Joseph Campbell, an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion, “I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.”

Remember, things will never change if you sit around and complain about it. We have to be willing to make the change. We have to be willing to put in the work and effort. We have to be greater than what we were yesterday.

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and the people who would be in charge. In this instance, the government that would have ran Fresno, deserved its trust from the people living in the city. That’s why I am glad I got the chance to work for Supervisor Perea and got the chance to know one of the men who was running for mayor.

While the election has ended, and Lee Brand will be Fresno’s new mayor, I am OK with the turnout. While my guy lost, but both sides fought a good fight. But that’s politics. Sometimes you win, sometimes you do not.

If you do not win, do not give up. From what I have learned, the government needs people who care about the city and country they live in. Now, more than ever, America needs its Lincolns, its Roosevelts, its Kennedys, and its Washingtons.

No one knows how Lee Brand is going to do as Fresno’s mayor or how Trump will do as President. We cannot see the future.

Unfortunately, I am just a guy with a camera, who got a chance to see the other side of campaigning and what it takes to be a part of something that

#RelationshipGoals

stop romanticizing Harley Quinn and the Joker STORY JASMINE YORO BOWLES

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H

arley Quinn is rapidly becoming America’s anti-sweetheart since the most recent variation of the harlequin and her live-action movie debut by Margot Robbie (Wolf of Wall Street) in the DC Cinematic Universe’s “Suicide Squad.”

The internet fawned over Quinn and her boyfriend, the Joker with FanFics, art, memes, and couples costumes galore! This is where the #RelationshipGoals phenomena was born.This was further encouraged by Bioworld Merch selling rubber bracelets with the hashtag printed on it at Hot Topic, along with other questionable merchandise, according to Uproxx.

The Joker has been a prominent supervillain in the DC Universe from Batman’s series since the caped crusader’s own comic debut in 1940 in “Batman #1.” The psychopathic sadist has no powers but is a criminal mastermind, holds expertise in chemistry and relies on weaponry to defeat those who stand in the way of his maniacal path. His one central origin story is unclear, not due to there being several, but because the character himself is thought to be unsure of his villainous beginning.

The Joker has been through many character evolutions since the ‘40s; some have depicted him as the insane super genius, while others have portrayed him as just your simple prankster in an essence of comedic relief, like Cesar Romero’s version for the 1960s “Batman” series.

Heath Ledger played a much more sinister Joker in Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight,” his penultimate film before his death in 2008 from an overdose of several prescription drugs. It’s speculated that this could have been caused by taking on the role of the Joker, supposedly the character’s reminiscence haunted the actor-among other potential causes.

Jared Leto was given the honor of being the next clown prince since “The Dark Knight Trilogy.” “Suicide Squad”’s had a very different visual take on on the a-typical Joker. Leto’s version had a much more modernized feel and was inspired by cartel Instagram users, but still retaining some classic characteristics in certain costume aspects and color schemes.

Harleen Quinzel, a former psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum, made her character debut in the TV show “Batman: The Animated Series” in 1992 as the Joker’s girlfriend. Harley Quinn’s first appearance was in season one episode 22 “Joker’s Favor” and voiced by Arleen Sorkin, who took on the majority of Harley Quinn’s appearances in other animated series; later

played by Mia Sara (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) in the short-lived “Birds of Prey” series from 2003. Sorkin shared the role of voicing Quinn with Tara Strong during the Arkham-verse video games.

After her popularity spiked, Quinn began appearing in DC comics, eventually gaining several of her own comic series where her classic harlequin costume evolved with each each new series. She was created as the Joker’s on-again offagain accomplice, companion and lover.

Quinn’s evolution led to a few different backgrounds, although they remain on very similar grounds.“Mad Love,” a popular graphic novel from 1994, tells character’s first origin story where Quinn is Harleen Francis Quinzel, M.D., a model student psychiatric intern, who was seduced by and falls in love with the Joker, her patient at Arkham Asylum.

She doesn’t necessarily have any legitimate powers, but has an immunity to most toxins, is a skilled gymnast and is exceptional with handto-hand combat. Quinzel attempted on several occasions to help her beloved escape, which led to suspicion from Arkham Asylum’s authorities and eventually was why Quinzel had her license revoked as well as becoming an inmate at her former place of work. She later escaped during an earthquake in Gotham, where she then became Harley Quinn.

Right: “Batman Adventures: Mad Love”/rebloggy.com Left: FibbleDecal, Etsy

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Since “Suicide Squad” was building hype after its announcement, teasers and the like during the end of 2015, the newest Harley Quinn took over the internet.

She was one of the most popular Halloween costumes in 2015, a year before the film was even released. For 2016, the new Joker and Harley Quinn were two of the most

Left: (Top) “Batman Adventures: Mad Love”/ rebloggy.com (Center) photo/getcoloringpages.com

“You’d think after living with Mr. J, I’d be used to a little pain.”

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-Harley Quinn in

“Batman: The Animated Series,” Episode #47 “Harley and Ivy”

popular couples Halloween costumes of the year.

“Suicide Squad” is most likely the main culprit of the #RelationshipGoals malarkey. First off, a sizable chunk of Jared Leto’s scenes were removed from the final theatrical cut, much to fans and Leto’s surprise. Leto was marketed as a very prominent and main role in the film, much to moviegoers dismay, he only had maybe 15 minutes at best out of the two hours and 16 minutes of its entirety.

Leto told NME that this may have had something to do with the negative response after the film’s release. While it is unclear exactly what kind of content regarding the duo’s relationship was cut, an unofficial and unconfirmed list was published by Reddit user NayDawwwg. Eight of 22 cut scenes listed were interactions between Harley and the Joker.

The most vague, yet important, being number 20, which read “Removed several scenes with the Joker to repaint his relationship with Harley as more loving rather than abusive.”

It was speculated by Movie Pilot that the filmmakers made the drastic change because it “[couldn’t] accurately reflect Joker and Harley’s tumultuous relationship without glorifying abuse and violence against women,” Movie Pilot reported.

However, this could have been an excellent opportunity to use the comic it-girl to raise awareness. This also fails to make much sense due to Joker’s personality and psychology, which would further show how villainous he really is had their relationship been left explicit.

Creators simply can’t take away the controversy from a very controversial relationship and it should not be reduced to minor villainous antics. While it should not be taken as far to call it censorship, it feels like it sits right on that line. But the creative staff took what would have been an excellent R-rated couple and played them down to a mere PG-13.

This couple is the poster child of misogyny, stockholm syndrome, dysfunctionality and domestic violence. Harley is more often than not simply disposable to the Joker, but so madly in love that she won’t stop coming back.

In an episode of “Batman: The Animated Series,” Harley Quinn said “You’d think after living with Mr. J, I’d be used to a little pain,” while Poison Ivy is giving Quinn her toxin

immunity shots. Ivy asks “Why do you put up with that clown?” which Quinn responds with “Sure, my pudding is a little rough sometimes but he loves me, really.”

In this episode, Ivy is driven crazy by Harley being willing to jump back into the Joker’s arms at his every beckoning call. Ivy then tells her she is a big forgiving doormat, “If you had a middle name, it’d be ‘Welcome.’”

She’s often practically on her knees for the Joker’s approval, let alone a moment of his attention. Harley is often reminded of how worthless she is to Joker.

Warner Bros. is giving Quinn her own spinoff film, which is already under development,

“It’s more like the Nancy to your Sid.” one can hope that Robbie’s reprisal and involvement within the spinoff production will right the wrongs that “Suicide Squad”’s director, David Ayer, messily spewed onto DC fans.

Maybe it’s the partner-in-crime idea, the Bonnie to your Clyde, so to speak. But once you do your homework, it’s more like the Nancy to your Sid. Could it be the us-againstthe-world mentality or the subconscious desire for the ultimate bad boy? 

Right: (Top) FibbleDecal, Etsy (Bottom) “Batman Adventures: Mad Love”/rebloggy.com

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I have been through Yosemite National Park hundreds of times over the past five years, working as a deejay for weddings and celebrations in resorts located in the area. My view of this magnificent beauty has been limited through a layer of glass.

I have mostly stayed near the roads, driving through the forest and over the hills, passing cliffs, all the way down to the valley where the granite walls surround the valley floor.

I have driven through Yosemite many times but I’ve never had a chance to visit for recreation. Yosemite is a work of wonder.  PHOTOS LARRY VALENZUELA

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Fresno City: Fully Equipped for Student Success STORY JOSE OROZCO

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ith more than 20,000 students enrolled each semester, Fresno City College has a ratio of faculty to students at 26-1, according to usnews.com The college offers a variety of programs and resources to ensure each student is successful throughout their college career.

Getting through college is a difficult and challenging goal for many students, but paying for college can be an even more stressful and difficult. According to usnews.com, the in-state tuition for each semester at FCC comes to $1,142 while out-of-state tuition is a staggering $6,782.

Eighty four percent of full-time first time students receive financial aid at FCC. Only 4 percent of students at FCC receive federal student loans. Students can also apply and receive grants and scholarships awards in order to help cover the cost of college tuition, books and supplies.

Information on how to apply for financial aid, scholarships, and pell grants is available at fresnocitycollege.edu.

Once the cost of college tuition is covered, the next step is actually getting through college itself.

FCC offers a variety of extended opportunity programs and services that help students get through college and reach their goals.

According to an EOPS flyer, “We are a comprehensive program that actively assists students pursuing academic and vocational goals who require additional financial and academic

assistance.�

The program is also designed to make the college experience accessible and rewarding to those facing linguistic, social and economic challenges. The EOPS services include academic and personal counseling, financial assistance, career guidance, transfer workshops, tutorial assistance and CARE services for single head-ofhousehold students.

In order to become an EOPS student, you must apply for the program. Visit the EOPS office, ST 101 to apply, or call 559-442-8231 for more information.

In addition to EOPS, the Student Support Service program, or the SSSP, is a free federal TRIO program that serves first-generation, low income and disabled students. According to the SSSP brochure, their services include academic advising, student success workshops, financial aid information, cultural events, transfer assistance and lots of encouragement. For more information and to apply, visit the SSSP room in SC-216 above the bookstore.

Other programs offered at FCC include SYMBAA, PUENTE, IDILE, USEAA, RAIN and REACH. These programs target a more specific group of students. For example, the Puente program attracts more Hispanic and Spanish speaking students, while SYMBAA attracts more African American students, RAIN attracts Native American students and USEAA attracts southeast

“It’s really about providing resources to students to better help them manage that transition and also go to the four-year university and not end here.”

Matthew Watson, Chicano Latino Studies Instructor

Many of the students who come into the CEC are unsure of the major they want to pursue and oftentimes have trouble typing a formal resume or filling out a job application, Dunn said. “Students can come in and we will help them work on their resumes.”

Dunn, or one of the many staff and faculty members at CEC, assists with everything from career counseling, guidance with education planning, assessments for college major selection, job search, typing, printing and faxing resumes and job related documents, mock interviews and on some occasions even go as far as providing proper attire for job interviews. For more information about the CEC please visit their office Room Li-147 or call them at 559-442-8294.

FCC also has a DREAM center, which is a resource center for the students identified as Dreamers, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) or those seeking AB 540 status.There are approximately 770 undocumented students at the college.

According to information on the FCC website, “The Dream Center is designed to provide information and academic counseling to new and continuing undocumented students at Fresno City College.” Counselors and staff at the Dream Center assist students to overcome challenges of access and completion of vocational or transferlevel goals in higher education.

Fresno City College takes pride in helping students succeed and there are programs and resources available to each and every student regardless of ethnicity, economic background, race, age, gender or nationality. Each and every current and future student is encouraged to seek guidance and to take advantage of any of the programs they feel may be beneficial to their success during their college experience.

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Asian students.

These programs help students be more successful in college by providing classes with other students who share similar interests, obstacles and backgrounds. Special programs like Puente offer additional counseling and assistance to students by providing additional counselors that are available to students who also share similar ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Although special programs target certain groups of students, all students are welcome to join any of the programs.

Mathew Watson, a Chicano Latino Studies instructor who works with the Puente program explained,“The word ‘puente’ in Spanish means ‘bridge’, so the idea of the program is to create a bridge between the junior college and the fouryear university.”

Watson added, “It’s really about providing resources to students to better help them manage that transition and also go to the four-year university and not end here.”

Puente and the other special programs share the same goals. They want to help students succeed at FCC. The college also provides a career and employment center. The CEC “helps students select a major, identify a career path and find a job,” Cindy Dunn, the coordinator for the CEC, said.

Located in Room LI-147, the CEC is a great resource for all current students and graduates who need career guidance. Alumni have lifetime privilege and access to the CEC. The CEC offers career assessments which give students an advantage when choosing career paths and a related college major.

“We take the time to talk to people and pull that information out,” Dunn said about CEC staff’s proactive approach in assessing students. “It takes that personal interaction to get people to open up to you.”

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