The Nueva Current
Vol. 1 Issue 4
THE NUEVA SCHOOL | 131 E. 28TH AVE. SAN MATEO, CA 94403 | TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 2018 | THENUEVACURRENT.COM
Prediction of big earthquake sparks preparations
Founding faculty members bid farewell
BY JORDAN M. When an earthquake happens, windows shatter, buildings collapse, and often people panic. An earthquake is inevitable in San Francisco, a city that the San Andreas fault line runs through, and many teams have conducted research that shows there will be a big one in the next 30 years. According to EarthquakeSafety.com, the future earthquake is predicted to have a magnitude of 6.7 or above, which is dangerously close to the magnitude of the devastating 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in the Bay Area. The city has launched several programs over the past five years to educate citizens about emergency preparedness (specifically for earthquakes) and require building owners to retrofit their property for earthquake safety. Past earthquakes have become part of San Francisco’s rich cultural history; and while we fear earthquakes because we know their devastating impact, we also celebrate them as part of San Francisco’s past. In 1906, at five in the morning on April 18, a 7.9 magnitude earthquake shook cities from the California-Oregon border to Los Angeles, and from the Pacific to central Nevada. In San Francisco alone, the death toll reached over 3,000, more than 28,000 buildings were destroyed, and 250,000 of the city’s 400,000 residents were left homeless. The resulting fires broke out all over the city, and destruction of the city’s main water line left firefighters powerless to contain the fires. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), damages were estimated to be about $400 million—approximately $10.6 billion now—and it was all because of a one-minute shake. Although devastating, this earthquake allowed the reconstruction of the old boomtown into the big city that it is now. CONTINUED, PAGE 10
INSIDE Café Review A review of the best of our Nueva Café foods, including tacos and hamburgers. PAGE 4
News .......................................02 Culture ...................................04 Features .................................06 Opinion.....................................11 Sports ......................................13 Entertainment.......................15
page 7
BY WILLOW C. Y. & ELIZABETH B. P.
After planting and tending seeds in the young minds of Nueva thinkers, the departing founding faculty share their favorite memories of cultivating the school we know and love today.
Cost of womanhood The financial aspect of gender discrimination BY ELIZABETH B. P. When I was little, I would sit by the counter in the dry cleaner’s near my house as my mother dropped off her clothes to be cleaned. I would make silly faces in the mirror a little way away from the counter as the clothes circulated around the place, artificial light clashing with sunlight on the top of the candy bowl I always took a handful of peppermints from. The place smelled like soap and bleach, cologne and perfume, and I didn’t learn until later that my mother was paying far more for her clothing to be washed than my father would have, just because it’s assumed that shirts owned by women are “drenched in perfume” and therefore take more to clean. How come, despite the wage gap—an average of 86 cents to every dollar, which means a given California woman will lose an average of $7,227 per year—women are still required
to pay far more for their daily expenses than men? And no, this isn’t just on things that are exclusive to people who need to pay extra for tampons, bras, and all those other commodities many people refrain from discussing because of the social discomfort they bring. Here’s a couple numbers. A good bra, sized properly at Nordstrom, costs around $72, if you’re shopping smart. Most people who wear bras have at least two (bralettes don’t count; as cheap as they are to buy, they serve little purpose for anything except aesthetic), so you’ve got to be willing to spend about $144 minimum every couple years—and that’s if you’re shopping smart. The Guardian wrote that the average woman owns nine bras at any given time. That’s somewhere between $658 and $900, depending on what kind of bra you need. It goes up a lot (and bras get less pretty, of course) if you’re in the DD+ range, and
Drawing by Amalia K.
it’s recommended that you buy a new bra or couple bras every nine or ten months. While the average Silicon Valley salary is admittedly in the six figures, the pay gap in San Francisco is around $15,000. If you’re out almost a thousand dollars for something you’re often required to wear by social standards, something is wrong. Speaking of things you’re required to wear (or not wear), we move on to the bleeding. Admittedly, this doesn’t apply to all women, but it’s still an issue for many. In many states, we don’t tax chapstick, dandruff sham-
poo, or Viagra. Thirteen states in the United States don’t tax tampons at all, and five have no sales tax. California is not in either of these categories. If you put all those weeks of bleeding—from around ten or twelve years old to somewhere in your early fifties—together, the average woman spends a total of about six years of her life on her period; that’s a lot of money. Considering that about seventy percent of women in the U.S. prefer tampons or, at least, use them regularly, it’s hard to argue that the tampon tax doesn't have a broad impact. CONTINUED, PAGE 11