Vol. CXXXIV No. 6

After Tongva land reclamation, 5Cs refect on Indigenous history, resources

For the frst time in nearly two centuries, the frst people who in habited the Los Angeles area will have land of their own. Owing to an Oct. 10 donation from an Altadena resident, the Tongva, whose ancestral lands extend to the Channel islands, received the first returned plot of land since the mission system ended in 1833, the Los Angeles Times said.

With Los Angeles County land returned to the Tongva for the frst time in almost 200 years, in time for Indiegenous Peoples’ Day, TSL reached out to students and faculty to see how support for local Indig enous communities has transpired at the 5Cs.

The Claremont Colleges were built on land which was previously occupied by the Serrano and Tongva peoples before it was colonized by the Spanish, according to a history of the area on a timeline published by Po mona College. The city of Claremont,

then called Torojoatngna, was part of a group of villages known collec tively as Tovangar.

In recent years, the Claremont Colleges have made eforts to rec ognize the history of the land they occupy through land acknowledg ments at public events and across the campuses, as well as through partnerships with local Indigenous community members, like that between Tongva community mem bers and Pitzer College’s Robert Redford Conservancy.

In 2021, Scripps College estab lished a Native American/Indig enous Studies (NAIS) minor, the only one at the 5Cs. Dating back to at least 2014, the efort to establish a NAIS minor builds on a com mitment made in Scripps’ land ac knowledgement to “work to instill greater respect and recognition for the histories, cultures and contem porary presence of Native peoples in California and especially in the Los Angeles region.”

Pomona dining workers to strike Friday, Saturday

SIENA SWIFT & MARIANA DURAN

Following two months of unsuc cessful negotiations with Pomona College’s administration, Pomona dining hall workers will strike Friday and Saturday to protest for higher wages in their contract renewal.

Dining workers will be picket ing from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. in desig nated areas of Pomona’s campus, including outside Frary Dining Hall, according to Edward Mac, a member of the dining hall union’s negotiations team and the lead cook at Café 47.

Workers’ current ask is an $8.80 raise by the end of this year to total a $28 hourly wage for the following year. Pomona’s latest counterofer, a $5.40 increase over four years, did not meet these demands, prompting this weekend’s strike, according to Mac.

Efren Zamora, who works as a cook at The Coop Fountain, said he is striking because Pomona’s current ofer is not enough for him to make ends meet. Zamora said that due to infation and the high cost of living, he now has to live with his parents.

“Especially in LA County with how everything’s going up, it’s hard

to find an affordable place to live,” Zamora said. “We’re just trying to make a livable wage. I don’t think it’s fair that there’s people here that are working overtime, not because they want to, but because they have to [make] ends meet.”

With the strike coinciding with Pomona’s Family Weekend, Mac called on Pomona students and families to join workers during the picket and to boycot college-provided meals through out Friday and Saturday.

“It would show a huge amount of support if the families and the students say, ‘No, we’re boycoting Pomona College din ing services while the workers

Establishment of the NAIS minor followed a 2019-2020 report from Scripps’ Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access (IDEA) Initia tive that set forth long term goals, including to “collaborate with the other colleges to support a cluster hire of … Native American and Indigenous faculty across several felds, ... Establish an in tercollegiate NAIS department ... [and] Provide not only fnancial support, but also the academic and social support needed to ensure the success of Indigenous students.”

This year, Preston McBride, an Indigenous scholar of Native North America, joined the Pomo na College History Department as its early U.S. Specialist.

“Because of the undeniable significance of the history of colonialism and the subsequent exploitation of Native Americans,

From Green Beach to Whitehall: CMC’s new line to the prime minister

RYA JETHA

Claremont McKenna Col lege now has a direct connec tion to 10 Downing Street. On Oct. 25, Rishi Sunak became Britain’s first leader of color and third prime minister in two months, following Liz Truss’s abrupt resignation. The 42-year-old former banker is married to CMC alumna and trustee Akshata N. Murty CM ‘02.

The couple has supported CMC over the years by starting the CMC in Bangalore program in 2016, endowing a faculty po sition in the Philosophy, Politics and Economics department and commiting $3 million in 2018 to fund the Murty Sunak Quan titative and Computing Lab, a hub for integrating data and computer science into all felds of research and study. Murty and Sunak have also been recognized on Founders Wall at the Bauer Center for their contributions to the college.

Murty grew up in Banga lore, India and is the daughter of N. R. Narayan Murty, the billionaire founder of the in formation technology company

Infosys, and Sudha Murty, an en gineer, author and philanthropist. Murty owns a 0.93 percent stake in her father’s company, which is valued at around $715 million, making her wealthier than mem bers of the British royal family.

Murty graduated from CMC in 2002 with a dual degree in Eco nomics and French, according to her CMC donor profle. She went on to Stanford Business School, where she met Sunak, who was on a Fulbright scholarship to get his MBA afer studying Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University. The pair married in 2009.

In 2011, Murty became a trustee of CMC while also serving on the board of The Exploratorium, a museum of science, technology and arts in San Francisco.

In 2015, a few years afer the pair moved back to the U.K. to launch a venture capital frm, Su nak’s political career kicked of. He was elected as the Conservative MP for Richmond in 2015 and supported Brexit in the 2016 ref erendum on Britain’s membership in the European Union. Under Prime Minister Teresa May, Sunak

MURTY on page 3

Has Fizz fzzled out? New social media app receives mixed reviews

JAKE CHANG & EMMA NEWMAN

Social media app Fizz is cre ating a buzz at the Claremont Colleges after being heavily publicized by 5C student am bassadors upon its arrival at the 5Cs on Sept. 28.

First launched at Stanford University as “Buzz” on July 29, 2021, the platform allows students to anonymously post memes, photos and Tweet-like messages. Co-founded by Stan ford dropouts Teddy Solomon and Ashton Cofer, Fizz operates out of Palo Alto near Stanford’s campus.

The app has expanded its reach to campuses like Rice, Elon, Dartmouth, Wake Forest, Chapman and Tulane. Solo mon stated that 95 percent of Stanford’s approximately 7,600 undergraduates have download ed the app, whereas at Rice, the fgure is closer to 70 percent.

Currently, Fizz has stated that they have plans to expand to more than 1,000 campuses by the end of the 2023 academic year. This follows an Oct. 4 seed round led by investor and CEO Rakesh Mathur that raised $4.5 million for the venture.

Drawing comparisons to Yik Yak, the diferentiating factor of Fizz is the method in which they conduct moderation, according to Solomon. Fizz states that they hire about 15 moderators per school in addition to their AI-based content screening.

The app markets itself as unique as the posts made by stu dents can only be seen by students in their respective college campus es. This means that students at the Claremont Colleges can view and interact with posts that are 5C-exclusive.

Fizz has mainly focused its ad vertising through student hires at the fve schools that post content on Fizz, promote the app on Insta gram, post fyers on spots around the fve campuses and more.

As a lead ambassador for Po mona College, Peter Schwammlein PO ’26 promoted Fizz on his personal Instagram page and encouraged fellow students to do the same. He was paid a total of $265 for the job.

Originally, Schwammlein aimed to recruit fve ambassadors to help advertise with donuts and hats through an in-person launch event. However, these responsibil ities changed when the company did not get certain permissions to

do this event in time.

Schwammlein admitted that his pay was high when compared to the amount of work he put into the job, describing the job as being low-stress.

“My responsibilities were very small, especially since the in-person launch did not follow through,” Schwammlein said. “It was nice, in some ways, that they still followed through with money even though we didn’t have the in-person launch … they were initially planning to pay us $400 total.”

Another Pomona student, who was granted anonymity due to a non-disclosure agreement, served as a moderator for the app until quiting. She stated that the job was time-consuming. As Fizz required 30 to 40 5C-tailored posts on the

This fall for the Pomona-Pitzer men’s cross country team, there is more at stake than the podium. In support of Pomona dining hall workers

UNItY tAMbeLLINI-SMItH • tHe StUDeNt LIFe

MOLLY MURPHEY

the late barbara Drake was a tongva elder who bridged connections between the local Indigenous community and claremont colleges.

JUStIN SLePPY • tHe StUDeNt LIFe

cOURteSY: FLIcKR cMc alumna and trustee Akshata N. Murty shows support for her husband Rishi Sunak, britain’s current prime minister.

cOURteSY: MARIANA DURAN this weekend’s strike comes as a result of months of negotiations and rallies for dining hall workers’ higher wages.

See STRIKE

eMILY bRIONeS • tHe StUDeNt LIFe

Fizz aims to become a presence on college campuses as a widespread anonymous social media platform for students.

STRIKE: ‘A struggle for the soul of the college’

continued from page 1 are on strike,’” Mac said.

Mac said that workers are orga nizing an event at 1 p.m. on Walker Beach this Saturday with tacos and live music for workers, students and families.

“We’re not against anybody,” Mac said. “We’re just sick and tired of being looked at without respect. We deserve respect and dignity. And we’re going to go … we’re go ing to picket, we are going to protest and we’re going to demand just that respect and dignity.”

Pomona spokesperson Mark Kendall told TSL that Family Week end will go forward as planned and the college will continue to “operate the dining halls and strive to maintain access to meals with the minimum level of disruption.”

In response to the upcoming strike and picketing, Jeff Roth, Pomona’s chief operating ofcer and treasurer, emailed students and families on Thursday with updates on the negotiations and alternative dining options for students. Roth’s email to parents included a link to the new page on Pomona’s website dedicated to the union negotiations.

“While both parties share the goal of raising pay in signifcant ways to support employees and their families, union ofcials’ con tinued demand for a 45 percent wage increase over a single year is not a realistic or sustainable path,” Roth said in the email, reiterating previous communications to stu dents.

In an Oct. 21 email to the college community, Roth stated the college was seeking to obtain a third-par ty perspective from an outside mediator. In his Thursday email, Roth confrmed that Pomona had reached out to a third-party medi

ator from the Federal Mediation & Conciliation Service to help in the negotiation process.

“For many weeks, Pomona College has been urging Unite Here to agree to neutral outside mediation to help resolve our dif ferences,” the website said.

Noel Rodriguez PO ’89, an organizer for UNITE HERE! Lo cal 11, told TSL that the union has neither accepted nor rejected mediation. He said that a mediator is not the solution to the current impasse in negotiations and that the colleges’ focus on mediation is a distraction from workers demands.

“The college has mentioned mediation, and we’re not opposed to mediation,” Rodriguez said. “[But] the issue isn’t the lack of a mediator. The issue is the college understanding how hard it is to pay the bills right now, for their employees, to listen to them. A mediator isn’t going to say any thing more persuasive than what the workers themselves have already said.”

Rodriguez also said that Po mona’s language in emails about the negotiations have not centered workers’ voices.

“There is a worker negotiating committee at the table — why don’t they talk about them?” Ro driguez said. “Why don’t they talk about what they’ve heard from the workers in the negotiating commitee, who have spoken to Jef [Roth] directly and repeatedly about how they can’t pay the rent?

Yeah, the commitee of workers took a vote. And [92] percent said that they were authorizing the negotiating committee to call a strike. And the negotiating com mitee called the strike, not union ofcials.”

Hector Melendrez, a utility

worker at Frary, told TSL that the strike is a necessary move in light of the stalled negotiations.

“If we don’t strike, Pomona’s not gonna listen to us, and they’ll do whatever they want,” he said.

In response to workers’ de mands for higher wages and the administration’s reaction, some Pomona faculty members have begun to circulate a leter of sup port for dining workers this week, which now has over 67 signatures, according to Pomona professor Miguel Tinker Salas, who signed the petition and is circulating it among the faculty.

Tinker Salas said that the wage demands made are reasonable, given that the administration was inactive in keeping up with previ ous rises in living costs.

“What may seem for the ad ministration a large sum, in reality is only large because the wages in the past have been so low,” Tinker Salas said.

Recognizing the needs of workers to sustain themselves with higher wages is another re sponsibility of the college that is undermined by the introduction of a third-party mediator into ne gotiation conversations, according to Tinker Salas.

“[Pomona’s response] creates an adversarial relationship, when none needs to exist,” Tinker Salas said. “And this proposal that we should submit to mediation — that’s absurd. Most mediators are former labor relations specialists for corpora tions or for companies, not labor officials. It’s a very one-sided process. This is the responsibility of the college to simply recognize the needs of its staf [and] of its workers and to try to meet those needs of people who don’t have to then hold two jobs and have to

make choices between gasoline and food and taking care of their families.”

Tinker Salas added that the ongoing negotiations represent a disconnect between the stated values of the college and its action.

“I think this is the struggle for the soul of the college,” he said. “Yes, it’s a struggle for economic equity, long overdue economic equity. And it’s also a struggle for the soul of the college and what the college wants that reinforces its values.”

Several 5C student groups have also taken action to stand in solidarity with dining hall work ers this week.

Through a series of online ar ticles, Instagram posts and fyers distributed across campus, the Claremont Student Worker Alli ance called upon 5C students to boycot all Pomona food venues including Frary, Frank Dining Hall, Oldenborg Dining Hall, Café 47, the Coop Fountain and college-sponsored food trucks for the duration of the strike.

“Striking is a last resort. This is a sign to pay atention,” CSWA stated in a strike FAQ docu ment they created and circulated through the community. “We know that workers deserve a livable wage and that a $3.92 billion endowment is more than enough to make that happen. We also know that our schools are terrifed of bad optics and unpre pared for the power of a united student-worker community. Now is the time to show up and show out.”

CSWA announced on its Insta gram that it plans to deliver food to those in COVID-19 isolation who may face a disruption in meal services. Students are also volunteering to drive those with

disabilities to other dining halls or pick up food for those facing acces sibility issues in light of the boycot.

Isabela Piedrahita PZ ’22 said that CSWA is creating a petition for parents to sign to voice support for the dining hall workers. She said workers are taking a “historic step” with this strike.

“I’m entering this workforce here in a few months. So it means a lot to me personally, that I know there are people in my community that are willing to fght for more, not just for themselves, but for the surrounding area here in the Inland Empire,” she said.

Reiterating last week’s ASPC’s resolution in support of dining hall workers, ASPC’s Equity and Inclusion Commitee announced in an email to students Thursday that it will ofer free pizza at the picket line Friday and Saturday along with a card-making station to show appreciation for dining hall staf.

Other groups such as Claremont Challah and Pomona’s Women’s Union Alliance have voiced their support for dining hall workers through Instagram posts, calling on students to participate in the boycot of Pomona’s dining services during the strike.

To Zamora, giving workers a raise is an important step that Po mona can take to ensure all mem bers of its community are content.

“And at the end of the day, it looks good on everybody. Not only are we going to be happy because we get this pay increase that is go ing to help us and our family. But I feel the school is gonna look good from the outside,” Zamora said. “So when people look at Pomona College, [they’ll say] not only is it a great school for our kids, but it’s also a good paying school — the employees are happy.”

Traducido por Sara Garza González

Después de dos meses de nego ciaciones inefcaces con la admin istración de Pomona College, los empleados de cocina de Pomona harán una huelga el viernes y sába do buscando salarios más altos en su renovación de contrato.

Los trabajadores estarán for mando un piquete sindical desde las seis de la mañana hasta las seis de la tarde en las áreas des ignadas del campus de Pomona, incluyendo afuera del comedor de Frary, según Edward Mac, quien es parte del equipo encargado de las negociaciones del sindicato de los empleados de cocina y es el cocinero principal de Cafe 47.

Los empleados piden un incre mento de $8.80 para el fnal del año para sumar un salario total de $28 por hora para el próximo año. La última contraoferta de Pomona, un incremento de $5.40 durante cuatro años, no cumplió con las peticiones, incitando la huelga de este fn de semana.

Efren Zamora, quien trabaja como un cocinero en el Coop Foun tain, dijo que él está en huelga porque la oferta actual de Pomona no es suficiente para sobrevivir.

Zamora nos compartió que debi do a las presiones infacionistas, él ahora tiene que vivir con sus papás.

“Especialmente en el condado de LA con como todo está subien do de precio, es tan difícil encon trar un lugar para vivir que sea económicamente accesible”, dio Zamora. “Solo estamos tratando de tener un salario digno. No creo que es justo que hay personas aquí que trabajan horas extras, y no porque quieran, sino porque tienen que llegar a fn de mes”.

Dado que la huelga coincide con “Family Weekend” en Pomo na, Mac le pidió a los estudiantes de Pomona y a sus familias a que se unan junto a los trabajadores durante el piquete y que boico teen las comidas ofrecidas por la universidad durante el viernes y el sábado.

“Mostrarían muchísimo apoyo si las familias y los estudiantes dicen, ‘No, vamos a boicotear los servicios de cafetería de Po mona College mientras que los trabajadores estén en huelga’”, dio Mac.

Mac también mencionó que los empleados están organizando un evento a la una de la tarde en Walk

FIZZ: Student ambassadors recall

app per day throughout multiple hours of the day.

“They wanted to show of the fact that we could post photos, so photos of dining hall food, what the weather would look like, mass emails, things that people would recognize and know, and they wanted it to be hyper, hyper-specifc to the 5Cs, so inside jokes, things like that that we would know,” the Pomona student said.

She also moderated the app to see if the posts were free of obscene or other inappropriate content. These responsibilities, especially the frequency with which she had to post, prompted her to quit the job, she stated.

“I thought that 30 posts a day was absurd,” she said. “I under stand wanting to increase engage ment, but it was defnitely some thing that was just weighing on my mind all the time. I was thinking about it in class, I didn’t meet my quota to post and I just found that it was overburdening me. It was very tense. It was very strenuous.”

During her work for the com pany, the Pomona student put flyers up on people’s dorms for extra money, an advertising move that Schwammlein found to be problematic.

“A lot of people got really upset about [the flyers], including my roommate, and I was glad not to be a part of that because it did feel like an invasion of privacy in some ways and really blatant advertising, and so I was a litle bit bafed that they did that,” Schwammlein said.

According to Schwammlein, the company’s advertising tactics have been largely successful among three of the fve schools, although their

goals have not been met yet at Pomona and Harvey Mudd College. Their aim, he said, is to reach a majority of the commu nity at the Claremont Colleges.

Solomon reiterated this ob jective in an interview with TechCrunch.

“On any given campus, we’re going to have 50 to 60 percent of our users getting onto the platform every single day,” Sol omon said.

This is a goal that Schwammlein is willing to help them achieve down the road, as he states that this connection is something that could potentially beneft him in the future.

“I fgure I’ll just stay an open contact for them, in a sense, if it’s low stakes and I’m not having to put a lot of thought into it,” Schwammlein said. “You never know if they decide they want to do something bigger with me, and I don’t know if I want that myself, but at least I want that opportunity opened.”

Moreover, Schwammlein said he had a relatively positive learning experience with Fizz.

“It was a very interesting learning experience for me,” Schwammlein said. “I’ve never been contacted directly like that before to start from something that’s still on its ground level, in a sense, and so it was exciting in that way. My experience with Fizz has been something new for me, but the people I was working with were really fne and they weren’t problematic in any sense, as far as I could tell. They just wanted to promote their product and seemed like they believed in what they were doing.”

er Beach este sábado con música en vivo y tacos para los trabajadores, los estudiantes y sus familias.

“No estamos en contra de nadie”, dio Mac. “Solo estamos hartos y cansados de ser vistos sin respeto. Nos merecemos respeto y dignidad, Y vamos a ir, vamos a organizar un piquete, vamos a protestar, y luego vamos a exigir justo ese respeto y dignidad”. El portavoz de Pomona Mark Kendall le dio a TSL que “Family Weekend seguirá con sus planes” y que la escuela seguirá “operan do los comedores y se procurará mantener acceso a comida con un nivel mínimo de interrupciones”.

Como respuesta a la huelga inminente y el piquete, Jef Roth, el director de operaciones y el tesorero de Pomona, le mandó un correo a la comunidad de Pomo na y a los padres de Pomona el jueves con actualizaciones sobre las negociaciones y con opciones alternativas para comer para los estudiantes. El correo de Roth hacia los padres incluía un enlace a la nueva página en el sitio web de Pomona dedicada a las negoci aciones del sindicato.

“Aunque ambas partes com parten el objetivo de incrementar

el salario en formas signifcativas para apoyar a los empleados y a sus familias, la petición continua de los representantes del sindicato de un incremento salarial de 45 por ciento en un solo año no es re alístico o un camino sustentable”, mencionó Roth en ambos correos electrónicos.

En un correo del 21 de octubre hacia la comunidad de Pomona, Roth dio que la universidad estaba buscando obtener una perspectiva de un tercero de un mediador externo. En este correo del jueves, Roth confrmó que habían contact ado a un mediador de terceros del Federal Mediation & Conciliation Service, alguien a quien los tra bajadores también tendrían que aceptar, para ayudar a resolver las diferencias entre los trabajadores y la administración.

“Por muchas semanas, Pomona College ha estado presionando a Unite Here para que acepten la mediación neutral externa para ayudar a resolver nuestras difer encias”, dio el sitio web.

Noel Rodriguez PO ’89, un or ganizador de UNITE HERE! Local 11, le dio a TSL que el sindicato no ha aceptado o negado la mediación. Él dio que un mediador

no es la solución al estancamiento actual de las negociaciones y que el enfoque en mediación de las uni versidades es una distracción de las demandas de los trabajadores.

“La escuela ha mencionado mediación, y no estamos en contra de la mediación”, dio Rodriguez. “Pero el problema no es la falta de un mediador. El problema es que la universidad entienda lo difícil que es pagar las cuentas hoy en día, para sus empleados, y escucharlos”. Rodriguez también dio que el lenguaje de Pomona en los correos sobre las negociaciones no estaba centrado en las voces de los traba jadores.

“Hay un comité de negociación de trabajadores en la mesa, ¿por qué no hablan sobre ello”? dijo Rodriguez. “¿Por qué no hablan sobre lo que han escuchado de los trabajadores en el comité de nego ciaciones, quienes han hablado con Jef [Roth] directamente y repetida mente sobre como ellos no pueden pagar la renta? Sí, el comité de los trabajadores tomó un voto. Y el comité de negociación pidió la huel ga, no los funcionarios sindicales”.

Para leer el resto de esta historia, visi tanos en línea en tsl.news

it is an important commitment for the History Department to ofer courses that focus on Na tive American history,” Angelina Chin, chair of the Pomona College History Department, told TSL via email.

McBride’s past research has focused on deaths of students at Native American boarding schools and reservations in the late 19th and early 20th century.

“As a public scholar with an already deep involvement in indigenous advocacy efforts in the state, Preston McBride will dramatically improve the His tory department’s and the 5C communities’ connection to and engagement with indigenous communities in Southern Califor nia,” Chin said.

McBride did not respond to a request for comment.

To some Indigenous students, although the hiring of Indigenous faculty and the implementation of an NAIS major are important steps, the 5Cs still need to work to ensure beter representation and support for students.

Sara Orr PZ ’25 — a student with Osage and Kaw ancestry and the treasurer of Pitzer’s Na tive Indigenous Student Union (NISU) — spoke about the need for school-funded Native/Indig enous student groups.

“When you realize that [the 5Cs] were built on Native Ameri can land, and we contribute to the erasure of Native Americans ev ery single day by just existing and being on campus, it’s important to allow the indigenous students who are here, just in such small percentages, to have a safe space to be able to talk to other people and realize that their experience is valid,” Orr said.

NISU was founded afer the Indigenous Peer Mentor Program (IPMP) disbanded last year fol lowing a proposal from Pomona’s Associate Dean of Students Bran don Jackson, Orr said.

“[IPMP was] a 5C stu dent-driven collective focused on the communal well-being and de velopment of students identifying with an Indigenous community from across the world,” accord ing to Pomona’s Peer Mentoring Program webpage.

Jackson’s proposal required IPMP and five other mentor groups to accept guidelines — which included ending open enrollment and implementing a mentee-tracking system — as a condition for continued institu tional support.

IPMP decided to dissolve rath er than to accept policies which required student surveillance, Orr said.

Orr added that NISU, which is housed in the Pitzer Hall Liv ing Room, continues to fght for its physical space on campus. According to Orr, Pitzer does not allow NISU to lock its space, forc ing group members to enforce use of their space and resources them selves, while other groups have access to spaces they can lock.

“Not only is this institution on stolen land, but they don’t even give us space that is highly, specifcally ours. We have to share it,” Orr said.

Pitzer communication repre sentative Wendy Shattuck told TSL the college was not able to respond for comment in time for the article’s publication.

Gaby Talbert PO ’25, who is a member of the Dakota and Cahuilla Tribes and co-president of NISU, said having a space to build community was especially important to support Indigenous

students in navigating studying at the 5Cs.

“A lot of Native students come from underprivileged communities, and they don’t have the same bene fts that a lot of the students that I’m around have,” Talbert said. “And I feel like we also have certain racial issues that happen at school … We just need to fnd our own people to relate to.”

Despite past collaborations be tween the 5Cs, Orr and Talbert said that there is still work needed to create a meaningful relationship with the local Tongva community.

Orr said that the April 2021 death of Tongva elder Julia Bogany, who served as Pitzer’s Elder in Resi dence,“fragmented” the relationship between Pitzer and the Tongva.

“I think some people on cam pus are doing the hard work, but the institution itself doesn’t have a relationship with the Tongva,” Orr said. “Specifc people at Pitzer had a relationship with a Tongva, and now they’re not here, or they’re not working in the same capacity.”

Talbert said that preserving a relationship with the Tongva is one step the 5Cs can take to support Indigenous 5C students.

“If they want to get the respect of other Indigenous students and people on campus, they probably should start with the people whose land they’re on,” Talbert told TSL.

Ultimately, the Land Back move ment is one step toward healing for the Native/Indigenous community, according to Orr.

“There’s a saying that you’re only native if you’re on land that people don’t want,” Orr said. “If they want your land, they’re going to do every thing in their power to erase every single aspect of you ever being there. And that’s by erasing your culture, by erasing the physical aspect of being on that land and then harming your future generations so that they can’t reclaim their indigeneity.”

Los trabajadores de cocina de Pomona estarán en huelga este viernes y sábado

TONGVA: 5Cs shed light on current levels of support

Monarch Terrace residents get relief from eviction threats through moratorium

REIA LI

The Claremont City Council voted Tuesday evening to adopt a tem porary urgency ordinance banning “renovictions” — forced evictions for renovation purposes — for six months, beginning Jan. 1, 2023, when COVID-19 tenant protections expire in Los Angeles County.

The vote comes afer months of or ganizing by residents of Monarch Ter race apartments, who faced eviction this summer afer Revere Investments bought the apartment complex.

José Ochoa, a resident of Monarch Terrace and a cook at Pitzer College, atended Tuesday’s meeting and de scribed the approval of the ordinance as a powerful moment.

“We have a really great commu nity,” Ochoa said. “We are really thankful. It was a win.”

Last April, Revere Investments bought Monarch Terrace apartments with the intention of renovating the space and then raising the rent prices, according to the Claremont Courier.

After the purchase, dozens of residents, many of whom have lived at Monarch Terrace for years, were ofered $7,000 dollars if they moved out in 30-60 days, according to the Courier. If they didn’t take the ofer, they were told they would be evicted.

These eviction notices relied on a loophole in California’s tenant protec tion laws that allows for a landlord to evict a resident to “substantially remodel” a unit. Landlords can then raise rent on the remodeled units.

Prompted by Monarch Terrace residents and community members organizing, Claremont City Council members voted at their Oct. 11 meet ing to draf several possible ordinanc es that would provide stronger tenant protections.

The urgency ordinance approved Tuesday establishes a moratorium that will last until July 1, 2023 on no-fault evictions where a landlord

intends to substantially remodel a unit.

Gwen Tucker SC ’25 is a lead student organizer for Inclusive Claremont, a 5C coalition that advo cates for afordable housing. Tucker was at Tuesday’s meeting along with other members of Inclusive Claremont and members of the Cla remont Student Worker Alliance.

“The hope in passing the tem porary moratorium is that tenants get an immediate kind of emotional reprieve from the constant stress and anxiety of dealing with the im minent loss of their homes,” Tucker said, “while the city can take more time to actually investigate what stronger and more targeted tenant protections can look like.”

Under California tenant protec tion law, if a local agency — like the city of Claremont — adopts an ordinance that is “more protective” of tenant rights, then that ordinance supersedes state law for eligible real estate, according to the draf version of the ordinance submited before Tuesday’s meeting.

Ochoa has been working with his neighbors to fght the evictions since September. They atended the Oct. 11 City Council meeting to ad vocate for stronger tenant protection legislation to prevent them from losing their homes.

“I don’t want to lose my house,” Ochoa said. “This is the place we chose to stay.”

Ochoa said he is the only Pitzer worker he knows who lives in Cla remont, which has a median home sales price of $962,500.

“Buying a house is very far from reality for me right now,” he said.

Before Tuesday’s meeting, David Jankowski PO ’87, a principal at Revere Investments, submitted a writen public comment to the City Council saying that the company no longer planned to evict residents.

“Revere is satisfied with the

property’s current status. We have no plans to give notices to vacate due to substantial renovation,” Jankowski wrote. “The costs for the apartments that we renovated were much higher than expected. Our available funds for further renovations are low, and we are in no hurry to do more.”

Ochoa said that Revere’s state ment upset him and his neighbors.

“They were trying to evict everyone. We stopped them from doing so, and now they’re trying to look nice,” Ochoa said, “I don’t want to lose my home because [they] want to be rich.”

Despite Revere saying that it would no longer be pursuing evic tions, the City Council voted to approve the moratorium, citing a broader lack of afordable housing in Claremont.

“[T]he City of Claremont is ex periencing a housing afordability crisis and a humanitarian crisis of homelessness that would be exacerbated by the displacement of renters,” the draf of the ordi nance said.

Tucker said that passing the ordinance shows the power of renters and residents organizing.

“There’s an atmosphere [in Claremont] of renters not feeling like they’re being reached out to and that they have the resources to politically engage,” Tucker said. “And so I think that that frst step of saying, ‘Oh, we actually have power, and we actually have the ability to show up and infuence the votes of these people who are responsible for running our city,’ is really impactful.”

Although Ochoa described the ordinance as a win, he said that he and his neighbors still have work to do.

“We have to keep pushing,” he said. “All of a sudden, we’re involved in politics.”

MURTY: CMC students’ reactions vary to newfound ties to Parliament

continued from page 1 was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Local Government in 2018. Af ter Boris Johnson became Prime Minister, Sunak was appointed Chief Secretary to the Treasury and later became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 2020, a role equivalent to the fnance min ister in other countries.

During his tenure as Chan cellor of the Exchequer, Sunak faced scrutiny when British media found that Murty claims non-domicile status, meaning that she does not pay taxes on the millions of dollars in annual dividends she earns from Infos ys. The news emerged as Sunak imposed tax hikes during a cost-of-living crisis in Britain caused by high infation and energy prices.

Sunak is now the wealthiest prime minister in U.K. history, with a net worth of $830 mil lion, according to the Sunday Times Rich List, an annual ranking of the wealthiest peo ple in Britain. The bulk of his fortune comes from Murty’s shares in Infosys.

He assumed the role of Prime Minister afer the resig nation of Liz Truss just 44 days afer she took ofce. Sunak and Truss faced of just two months ago in a party contest, with Truss winning the conservative party vote.

“Mr. Sunak’s replacement of Ms. Truss represents a move away from economic populism in favor of fiscal conservatism and greater gov ernment responsibility,” CMC government professor Hilary Appel said. “In the previous party election, Truss was able to prevail at Sunak’s expense because she was willing to run on a platform of tax cuts and high spending, whereas Sunak refused to embrace this popular but irresponsible position. He rejected ‘having your cake and eating too,’ as Sunak put it. He said the mar kets would punish the U.K., and he was right.”

Now, as Sunak takes the reins, Britons should expect austerity, according to Nigel Boyle, a professor of political studies at Pitzer College.

“Sunak’s austerity will cause further social crisis,” Boyle told TSL through email. “This time

a disciplined, if rather unimagi native, Labour Party will seek to capitalize on the unpopularity of the policies.”

Boyle also said that he believes Sunak’s experience and worldview will infuence his foreign policy to “revolve around a U.K.-India-Sil icon Valley axis rather than a U.K.-EU axis — and his CMC con nection is certainly a factor here.”

However, Boyle cautioned that the United States is not deeply invested in negotiating a new trade deal.

“While India, and the Indian diaspora, is entitled to a level of glee about someone of Indian origin now serving as premier at the heart of the empire, the U.K. is not a globally important actor anymore,” Boyle said. “Gavin Newsom oversees a bigger, more dynamic and more globally sig nifcant economy than does Rishi Sunak.”

CMC students reacted to the news from Britain this week with a variety of emotions. Marshall Bessie CM ‘23 told TSL that he would love for Sunak to speak at CMC’s commencement ceremony this May.

“Personally, I am ecstatic that the Conservative Party named Rishi Sunak the next U.K. Prime Minister,” Bessie said. “I have deep respect for his service as Chancellor of the Exchequer during the Covid-19 Pandemic, and I think that his experience during the Pandemic should help him as the U.K. faces a profound economic crisis.”

Nisha Singh CMC ’23 said that many students at CMC didn’t know about Sunak and Murty’s connections to the college before this week.

“I don’t think most CMC stu dents knew that Akshata Murthy is a CMC alum and that she is married to Rishi Sunak, let alone that our Quantitative and Com puting Lab, where students get calculus tutoring, is named afer them,” Singh said, adding that she doesn’t agree with his poli cies, particularly his Thatcherite economic policies.

Nevertheless, Singh says there was signifcant buzz in the Indian community this week, in part because of Sunak’s appointment.

“It was a crazy 48 hours for In dian people everywhere, between a crazy cricket win the day before, Diwali and Rishi Sunak becoming prime minister of the U.K.,” she said. “Whatsapp was blowing up!”

HANNAH FRASURE

In June 2020, Pomona College’s Bi ology Department publicly declared its commitment to working toward an end to institutional and individual racism. Two years later, TSL revisited the status of the commitment and what it entailed for the future of the department.

The 2020 statement, signed by all faculty and staf in the department, noted that the STEM feld is “grossly lacking” in diversity and that the history of STEM disciplines is “inter twined with racist practices, such as experiments conducted on vulnera ble Black, Brown and marginalized communities without their consent or, in some cases, knowledge.”

According to fndings published by the Pew Research Center in 2021, Black and Hispanic individuals make up a lower share of STEM graduates compared to their share of the adult population in America. Analyzing federal employment and education data, the center concluded that this gap appeared “unlikely to substan tially narrow” soon.

At Pomona, previous iterations of the introductory genetics class taught about “eugenics and race questions,” according to course catalogs from 1912 to 1959 in the Honnold-Mudd Library’s Special Collections. Two biology electives, which were taught up until at least 1959, also includ ed eugenics: an elective entitled Bionomics and an elective called Problems of Heredity and Eugenics, and Related Questions of Personal Hygiene.

Biology professor Sharon Stran ford, who chaired the department at the time of the 2020 statement’s publi cation, said her interest in publishing the statement came from a desire to confront these issues. She showed TSL a list of the ongoing eforts un dertaken by the department, which other biology professors helped her to compile.

Stranford noted there has been “a real change” in the conversations in the department.

In November 2015, over 1,000 members of the Claremont commu nity marched to show solidarity with Black students at the University of Missouri afer several reported and

alleged instances of racism at the school.

“We didn’t really discuss how to address it in our classes,” Stranford said. “I can remember teaching a class, and literally, the march was going right by my classroom. It seems odd, in a way, to not say, ‘Hey, we noticed this thing is hap pening, and maybe it’s affecting you, and you’re thinking about it. Here’s what I’m thinking about it.’”

Now, biology faculty have be come more comfortable discuss ing social injustices, according to Stranford. For example, in one of their recent department meetings, professors discussed the ongoing negotiations between Pomona dining hall workers and adminis tration over wages.

Besides faculty discussions, Stranford said social justice eforts are being implemented into biology courses, where professors make an efort to “weave” an “anti-bias and social justice perspective” into their coursework.

For instance, Stranford’s im munology course this fall includes a unit on “bias and racism in the biomedical sciences.” Professor Karen D. Parft’s neuropharmacol ogy course introduces the subject

by way of its history, with classes specifically devoted to studying the harms caused by the Tuskegee syphilis experiment.

Another way the curriculum reflects these efforts is through Analyzing Difference courses, with Pomona students required to take one to graduate. While they can be taught in any department, they must “primarily [focus] on a sustained analysis of the causes and efects of structured inequality and discrimination, and their rela tion to U.S. society.” An example of such a class ofered this fall is Science, Power and LGBTQ Iden tities taught by professor Rachel N. Levin.

The department also provides additional support to first-gen eration and low-income Pomona students who belong to Academic Cohorts, groups aimed to ease pre-selected students’ transition to college. As part of a cohort, students attend weekly group meetings, receive regular individual advising and have access to peer mentors.

Eligible students interested in Pomona’s pre-health program or taking biology and chemistry courses in their first semester belong to the Pomona Scholars of

Corrections

Science (PSS) cohort, along with POSSE students majoring in those or similar felds. To support PSS, the biology department opens up sections of introductory biology courses to only those students.

Two former PSS students said they have found a diference be tween cohort and non-cohort class sections.

Daysi Manrique PO ’24 is a dou ble major in Biology and History from the Miami Posse program who identifies as a queer Black Latina woman. She sat in cohort sections for two classes required for frst-years in the major: Intro ductory Genetics and Introductory Cell Chemistry.

Manrique said that the expe rience was “incredibly vital” in making her feel comfortable in being part of that feld of science.

“[In non-cohort sections] there is an air of exclusion, just because we don’t have a lot in common,” she said. “It’s like a barrier that’s just there.”

Bayardo Lacayo PO ’24, a neuro science major, also from the Miami Posse program, who identifes as a non-binary, queer Mestizo person, said the cohort section eased their transition. They sat in the same

cohort-only courses in the biology department as Manrique.

“You can tell cohort classes are catered for people who don’t come from the [same] background,” La cayo said. “It’s something where they’re coming to guide us through the learning process.”

Manrique said while “extending kindness” may be necessary, forc ing interactions between students beyond what is normally required is not. It can lead to “unwanted interactions” and “uncomfortable situations,” particularly for cohort students who are people of color.

However, she said she could not imagine a beter experience with the biology department.

“Not only were they understand ing, but they were kind of like my cheerleaders. I always felt like they were in my corner, and they were rooting for my success,” Manrique said. “So I really do appreciate the bio department and I love working for them.”

She credited her participation in the program with enabling her position as a teaching assistant and course mentor.

“So now I work in the same system that I was scared of geting weeded out from,” Manrique said.

Lacayo added they wish profes sors would take heed of how difcult it can be for students of particular backgrounds to secure the resources necessary to succeed at an institution like Pomona.

“Being a brown immigrant in this country, even though it’s easy to pretend like [the diference between their backgrounds and most stu dents] doesn’t exist, and even though I can perform like it doesn’t exist, you can’t erase the fact that we’re puting in, all the time, double, triple, the work compared to other people who come from well-of or well-educated families,” Lacayo said.

Stranford concluded with her hope that students will be holistic sci entists who “see the world through more than one lens” and look for whoever is being lef out of the dis course wherever they go.

“We have a shared mission,” she said. “To mentor our students [and give them] everything they need when they leave to be successful.”

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Two years later: following up with Pomona biology’s antiracism commitment

eLLA bRADLeY

• tHe StUDeNt LIFe

Pomona’s Biology Department continues to affrm its 2020 commitment in addressing institutional and individual racism.

cOURteSY: GWeN tUcKeR

Monarch terrace tenants, student organizers and representatives from community organizations gather outside the claremont city council chamber after the meeting.

Without A Box Improv throws ‘Midnights’ release party

The sound of Taylor Swif songs led curious viewers of the 5C Without a Box improv show to the lecture hall at the Scripps Hu manities Auditorium on Oct. 21 As people headed to their seats and anticipated the start, the show of fered audience members a chance to foster community together. For an hour of spontaneity, the audi ence was full of laughter, joy and, most importantly, Taylor Swif.

Through a series of mini games, the Without A Box Improv troupe brought the audience on a journey of laughs. With jokes about cover bands, Carly Rae Jepsen, long-lost sisters and “The Perks of Being a Wallfower,” the performance jumped from one joke to the next.

JJ Pendo PO ’24, a member of the nine-person troupe, explained that improv is “acting without a script.” The troupe ofen takes suggestions from the audience, which allows for an interactive ex perience for both viewers and per formers. This style of performance allows the stage to expand and in clude the entire auditorium.

This transformation turns the improv space into a whole new world.

“This is a really good way to be goofy and silly,” Emily Stoutjes dyk PO ’25, another member of the troupe, said. “I think it’s a nice way to get out creative energy and ... let go of your fear of looking weird.”

Both Pendo and Stoutjesdyk joined the troupe in the fall se mester of 2021. Since then, they

described the community they have found and their joy each time they get together with the troupe.

“It’s a space where we can de-stress every single time we practice, and it’s an outlet that is unlike many other outlets avail able,” Pendo said. “We work re ally hard to make our group a safe space.”

This comfort was seen on stage as the performers let their walls down and gave the audi ence a fun show.

“I kind of thought this was their best show,” said Elias Ti

wan PO ’25, an audience member and frequent viewer of Without A Box Improv shows.

Meanwhile, Zariah Folkes PO ’25 watched Without a Box per form for the frst time.

“They had really good co medic timing,” Folkes said. “I thought it was really funny.”

Following the theme of the show, the jokes had a fun focus. Afer the release of Swif’s new album “Midnights” on Oct. 21, the improv troupe felt it fting to devote the show to this release.

“I know that there is a large Swifie population at the Clare

mont Colleges, and myself and other members of the troupe are big Swifies,” Pendo said. “We’re very excited because we haven’t really done a theme like this be fore.”

Viewers were also excited to see the show in action.

The theme “thickened up the show [and] gave something to tie back to,” Folkes said.

Another viewer of the show, Shirley Toribio PO ’25, agreed.

“The jokes were really ac cessible to people who aren’t Swifies,” Toribio said.

Whatever the theme, Without

a Box explores a vast range of ex periences and emotions.

“Improv is a really nice space to be able to escape some of the things that are happening in the world,” Stoutjesdyk said. “I do think it is important to give people the space to be able to laugh about things that are going on in more of a light-hearted way.”

This temporary, light-hearted escape can be a source of relief with the many complicated and stressful factors students face.

“I think [improv] is like a tool for talking about diferent issues but doing it while uplifing every one involved because it’s a joyous art form,” Pendo said.

This mindset can be seen be yond performances, as Stoutjes dyk said that an important lesson from improv has been “learning how to go with what you’ve been given and think on your feet.” A lighthearted, go with the fow mentality can be extremely helpful in any situation in our constantly changing world.

By giving people the space and time to relax, laugh and listen to Taylor Swif, Without A Box Im prov continues to impress audi ences. Within an hour of sponta neous jokes, this troupe is able to help their audience focus on the more nonchalant — but still just as potentially fulflling — aspects of life.

Without A Box’s next performance will take place Oct. 29 on Marston Quad for Pomona’s Parents’ Weekend at 5:00 p.m.

Niketa Kou PO ’25 and her journey of recovery and resilienceOn the move with sweet potatoes

VIDUSSHI HINGAD

When Niketa Kou PO ’25 was injured last semester, she felt like she couldn’t do the one thing she was born to do — dance. But as she began the process of recov ery, she focused not on the inju ry but how to cope with it. Her story is one of resilience.

Kou started dancing when she was fve years old.

“I was really young and like a lot of other dancers I was put into dance by my parents,” Kou said. “But it wasn’t really until sophomore year of high school that I discovered contemporary as a style and that’s when I really fell in love with dancing, and I started to… search for competi tions or performances.”

For Kou, dance helps to re lieve stress.

“Whenever I dance, it’s the only time when I’m super con centrated, and I don’t get dis tracted at all,” she said. “It’s about being creative and ex pressing yourself.”

The meaning of dance ex tends beyond creativity and expression for Kou; it also has helped her gain a community.

“I’ve had such great friends, dance mentors and buddies,” Kou said. “It’s just so much fun because we have a common lan guage, which is dancing, and it’s amazing to see how we can com municate without talking.”

Kou was a dancer in last year’s dance department show, “In the Works,” which also helped her fnd a dance commu nity at the 5Cs.

said. “Simple things like that. But I think going through that period re ally made me appreciate my friends so much more because they helped me even with the most mundane things that I couldn’t do by myself. This was so important to me, some one being there.”

However, Kou accepted this challenge and learned how to work with limitations.

“I questioned ‘what can I still do with those limitations?’ or ‘what can I do diferently?’” she said. “This started my recovery journey.”

While she struggled with these limitations sometimes, she has also found the injury has let her choreo graph in ways that she wouldn’t have explored before.

“Last week, we had an assign ment of choreographing ‘some thing for yourself that makes you feel comfortable and uncomfort able,’ but I had a really tight out er IT band. And I really couldn’t stand, so I thought I couldn’t cho reograph,” Kou said. “But my pro fessor suggested that maybe I could choreograph something siting on a chair, and I ended up choreograph ing something that’s awesome.”

For Kou, feeling lost during her journey was incredibly hard. How ever, documenting her progress on social media helped her gain selflove and kindness.

EMILY KIM

It’s finally starting to feel like autumn. The weather is cooling down, I’m happily dressing in jeans and baggy sweaters and, well, as expected in late October, school feels busier than ever. Fall break was oh-so-restful and needed, but ever since we’ve come back to campus, I’ve been constantly on the move and in desperate need of some on-thego fuel.

The other day I rushed to a phonology mentor session with a to-go cup filled with Frosted Mini Wheats in my hand. Don’t get me wrong — I love Frosted Mini Wheats — but as I crunched the dry cereal, I longed for something more satisfying. Specifically, I was craving goguma , or Korean sweet potatoes — which were my on-the-go snacks of choice growing up.

My earliest memories of goguma are when my five-yearold self would accompany my mother to the Korean grocery store near our house. Right outside the exit of the store, an elderly man whom my mom called the “ goguma man” sold piping hot sweet potatoes out of a little metal cart, and my mother would always buy some for us to munch on as we ran errands. One chilly October morning my mother handed me a massive sweet potato and told me that we had many errands to get done. I remember holding the potato tightly in my little hands and nodding, blowing on it gently before taking a big bite to energize me for the day ahead. As we rushed from Trader

Joes to Target to the UPS store, the goguma came with me. I munched at its sweet, starchy insides as I followed my mother through the endless aisles of produce and greeting cards; I even offered her a bite so that she, too, would have energy to get her through the day.

Looking back, I’m surprised that no one ever stopped me inside the stores. I guess I was particularly charming as a young girl with cheeks full of potato and so no one dared to take it away.

As I grew older, goguma became my go-to on-the-move snack. “Just grab a goguma ” became a common phrase at home: late for school and don’t have time to eat breakfast? Just grab a goguma . Need something quick as you head to the airport?

Just grab a goguma . The morning of the SAT, I packed a goguma as a mid-exam snack along with my pencils and calculator, and even during my gap year in Seoul, I would grab gogumas from the convenience stores before rushing off to catch the bus. The humble goguma has truly been with me through all the busy moments of life.

It is for this reason that, as a college student, I crave goguma all the more. It provided a reliable, satisfying source of energy as a five-year-old “busily” running errands with my mother, as a high-schooler scrambling off to school in the morning and as a wide-eyed foreigner exploring every nook and cranny of Seoul.

While I am grateful for greenboxes and for Frank

and Frary’s selection of prepackaged wraps and sandwiches, I wish that I could buy a steaming, golden sweet potato from the “ goguma man” instead. I can just imagine myself peeling the purple skin off the top ever so slightly and taking a bite, immersing my taste buds in its nutty flavor. As I rush to various mentor sessions and meetings in the chilly evenings now that it finally feels like fall here in Claremont, I crave the goguma that warms my stomach and gives me strength for the work ahead.

As college students who are more than halfway through the semester, there’s no doubt about it — we are constantly on the move. So I pose you this question: what is your goguma ? What is your on-thego snack of choice when you are running from place to place?

If the answer comes to you right away, I hope it will continue to satisfy and power you through the rest of the semester. On the other hand, if you do not yet know the answer, I encourage you to look to a Korean yellow sweet potato, if you can get your hands on one. As for me, I am making do with my Frosted Mini Wheats, but deep down, oh how I wish I could just grab a goguma

Emily Kim PO ’25 is a banana bread enthusiast from Irvine, California. You will always catch her with a scrunchie on her wrist and napping in Lincoln Hall.

“We really got to know each other from the dance and met each other outside,” she said. “It was just so much fun, even out side of dance, and it was a safe space. I could always fall back into that. I know that these are the people that … I can trust.”

However, Kou had an injury in December which changed the course of her dance journey.

“People asked me whether my injury was related to danc ing, and honestly, I slipped on rocks in Hawaii over winter break, and I fractured my right ankle,” Kou said.

She recalls it being a difcult time for her for reasons beyond just dancing, as it challenged her in doing day-to-day tasks.

“It was just hard to get in and out as well and do laundry,” she

“I think, for me, the hardest part of recovery specifcally was losing track of where I am sometimes,” she said. “However, documentation has always been a thing that I love to do. And documenting helped me look back and realize how far I’ve gone … When I started document ing my recovery, I rewatched vid eos two weeks before and it helped me realize I improved in this way. I felt like I was geting beter every day.”

The process of her recovery has given Kou a new perspective on things to focus on afer an injury.

“I think being honest with your self and relying on your friends is the best piece of advice I can give to someone who is recovering from an injury,” Kou said. “Because they want to be there for you. When you want to just cry or when you’re not feeling well, just remember it’s to tally fne.“

While her injury doesn’t defne her, it has helped her grow.

“When I fractured my ankle, it felt like I was actually heartbro ken,” Kou said. “But the things I’ve learned on this journey have made me who I am today.”

WENDY ZHANG

• tHE StUDENt LIFE

Without A box Improv troupe brought the audience on a journey of laughs at their Oct. 21 performance.

MOMENtS tO SAVOr

KAtHErINE

tAN

• tHE StUDENt LIFE

cOUrtESY: NIKEtA KAU

As Kou began the process of recovery, she focused not on the injury but how to cope with it.

Wolf Alice and the craft of a great cover

Covers by established musi cians flop more often than not, for the same reason that so many star-studded collaborations dis appoint: The project’s presup posed promise is undercut by in adequate care, its curation given less intentionality than a typical song might warrant.

Like a long-awaited collabora tion, the artist’s cover is so often taken as destined for greatness. The result is, more often than not, either a slight variation or a note-for-note imitation, leaving the lingering distaste of a famil iar dish not quite cooked correct ly or the forced supplanting of one genre with another, forming an overseasoned new flavor alto gether.

Truly great covers, like The Fugees’ “Killing Me Softly with His Song,” The Chicks’ “Land slide,” Sinead O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” and every song on “Glee” — only half kidding here — are hard to come by: those with the dual effect of invoking the original and creat ing its own sound as an original would. A great cover might catch you off guard and subvert your expectations, while never stray ing so far from its source as to be unrecognizable. A great cover is an exercise in both imitation and overhaul: a balancing act that constitutes an art form in its own right.

The squeezing of one song into another one altogether of ten does not work, unfortunate ly — especially when, as so of ten happens, a lucid song gets belabored by overcompensating vocals, as in Lorde’s cover of Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight.”

Nor does the temptation to sim ply slow down a song that is not slow, to strip down a song that is not acoustic, guarantee a hit, as Taylor Swift showed with Vance Joy’s otherwise spirited “Rip tide.” Some covers with ambi tious, even admirable intentions still go awry, like Dua Lipa’s stiff performance of “The Hills.”

Yet Wolf Alice gets it right each time. The intention and dexterity that the London-based alternative rock band puts into each of their covers — span ning Charli XCX, The Cure, Chris Isaak, Green Day, Camila Cabello, alt-J and more — is re markable. This variety speaks less to their versatility, though undoubtedly helpful, and more to their mastery of the craft of covering. Having absorbed and processed the ethos of each song in its entirety, they were wellequipped for the grand endeavor of blending them with their own musical sensibility.

The group’s cover of Years & Years’ “Desire” well exemplifies the balance a great cover must strike. Their rendition renovates the feel of the dance-pop song while still capturing its tender es sence. The band fosters a dynam ic and emotional variance that the original lacks, even swapping the chorus’s minor chord open ing for a major one. While Years & Years’ “Desire,” sung in the chorus, is a compressed belt well in line with its firm beat, Wolf Al ice’s lead vocalist Ellie Rowsell’s “Desire” rips across tempo and volume, allowing each moment of its utterance to swell. Through its flagrant aching, the cover

draws out the yearning nest ed in what seems straightfor wardly, though is not merely, a dance song.

Covering One Direction’s “Steal My Girl,” Wolf Alice cultivates a louder, crud er sound. As with any great cover, one who has listened to both versions will yearn for the cover in the absence of the original, and vice ver sa. Listening to Wolf Alice’s rendition, one understands, not regretfully but apprecia tively, that it has withheld the crude sweetness, Journey-es que keys and classic-rock aura of the original. Listening to the original, meanwhile, one might smile knowingly, recalling the shoegaze-y po tential that underlies the boy band’s saccharine 2014 hit.

The band’s take on Katy Perry’s “Roar” demonstrates their defiance of a common temptation to imitate all of a song, especially those features that might seem critical to the original version. Notice the flatness of Rowsell’s notes in the newly sparse verse and pre-chorus, her refusal to flare them upward like Perry does so well. While Perry’s vocals come across as declara tive, Rowsell holds fast to her signature: drifting, almost in different words that demand a deeper listen for what feel ing lurks beneath. The instru mentals oscillate between ee rie melancholy and eruptions of noise, offering a generative contrast to, without ever quite overriding, the lively, uplift ing aspect of Perry’s original.

Wolf Alice takes a song and rockifies it, throws in some punk and shoegaze, sings equal parts holler-loud and whisper-quiet. As with their own music, they aren’t afraid to whittle down a poppy mel ody to a searing, stringy one, nor to go all out on the drums in an otherwise mundane chorus or bridge. Nor have they hesitated to attempt new genres altogether, reconfig uring them as they went, as when they covered King Giz zard & the Lizard Wizard’s swingy “Sense” and Alex G’s mournful, bluegrass “Bobby,” both in the past year.

Perhaps most radically, the band’s singers, instead of lath ering once-pure vocals with embellishment and strain, take more coated vocals and skin them raw. While so many others opt to either reshape the surface of a song or raze it to the ground, Wolf Alice takes the time to stroll about and press their ear against its heartbeat, to tweak and trans form a song just above its roots. Their covers feel easy, as opposed to overwrought, in spite of their taking this harder path.

Great covers — and great musicianship — result when artists’ visions properly col lide. A single melody might, with the right care, metamor phose through infinite sonic permutations, while always retaining an echo of that very first feeling.

Becky Zhang PO ’22.5 likes lis tening to music, especially while in a moving vehicle.

Fall into TikTok’s latest indie sensation, Elliott Fullam

HANNAH WEAVER

Aptly titled “What’s Wrong,” Elliot Fullam’s debut album is the type of music you’d listen to on a casual trip to your local cemetery.

Fullam is one of the most interesting new artists I have discovered recently. Although, “discovered” is a stretch, seeing as he blew up on TikTok within the frst week of the album’s release on his 18th birthday.

Inspired by some of his favorite artists, including Duster and Elliot Smith, Fullam playfully ponders sadness — a concept I didn’t know was possible.

“What’s Wrong” starts the ghost imagery of strong with the song “Dolonia,” one of my favorites. The hook is catchy but it’s the lyrics that anchor the song for me, with lines like “I see myself again in the walls / quiet as I fall.”

Fullam’s lyricism ties the album together thematically, though his mumbliness makes the words unintelligible at times. I used to dislike mumbly lyrics, but I’ve grown to appreciate the style for its subtlety. If I want to zone out and let the mood of the instrumental take over, I can easily do so. Or I can take the time to focus on the lyrics and maybe even read along as I listen.

The album’s production value is also quite impressive for an indie artist at his age. In the beginning of “You’ll See My Ghost,” a UFO noise can be made out before the guitar and drum kick in. On “Blend Into Walls,” a sound almost like one of those groan tube toys plays in the background, adding another layer of eeriness to the song.

The album’s high point

comes at the midway mark with a solid four-song streak, starting with “I’m So Happy.” It’s almost, dare I say, akin to Phoebe Bridgers’ “Garden Song.” That is, if you see “Garden Song” as the epitome of growing-up songs — which I’m guessing our college demographic might.

With lyrics like “maybe I won’t be alone,” “Going Alone” simultaneously continues the album’s contradictory nature and gives the listener a glimmer of hope amidst all the gloom and doom. At this point during the cemetery visit the listener might even be prompted to break into a skip, or at least have a litle more pep in their step — who knows?

Though Fullam is clearly very talented, especially for his age, there are a few moments when his youth is made apparent. This is evident particularly on “What’s Wrong,” when he says “fuck” with the shaky confdence of a newly 18-year-old boy testing the swearing waters.

But that just makes Elliot Fullam all the more likable. A huge part of his appeal is his earnest personality, which shines through on his TikTok account. Most of his videos start with an enthusiastic “allll right so … ” followed by his latest life or music-related update. You can tell he is a bonafde music nerd, as demonstrated by his pure excitement when talking about everything from John Coltrane to Metallica to his own album.

It usually takes more than just a likable personality for a song to succeed on TikTok, though. Typically, because of the standard 15-second video format, it also takes catchy lyrics. At least, that’s what it took for indie singer-songwriters like Leith Ross, quinnie and Katie GregsonMacLeod to have their songs blow up.

To be frank, Fullam’s songs aren’t that catchy. Maybe afer a few listens a tune or two could get stuck in your head, but it’s certainly not enough to inspire a TikTok trend. Yet his music has inspired users to make videos reacting to Fullam, saying “this is literally a generational talent,” or “this kid just dropped a masterful frst album and most likely went to geometry class right afer.”

Fullam’s music elicits this reaction because his music is unlike anything being released by his peers — in style, quality and the fact that he did not specifcally craf his music for a TikTok audience. His work is born from a genuine passion for and deep knowledge of music.

To date, Fullam’s TikTok account has amassed roughly 229,000 followers. Two of his songs have been added to ofcial Spotifymade playlists and his top song has accumulated over a million streams. He also recently signed with his self-professed dream label, Kill Rock Stars, with which he released a new EP.

Too ofen it feels that indie artists these days are trying to cater to what they think the TikTok audience wants to hear. A particular nursery rhyme wannabepunk style comes to mind, a style which got old very fast. It seems the secret to success — and to making quality music — is not to do what everyone else is doing. In fact, for the good of the TikTok soundscape and the music world as a whole, more artists should follow Fullam’s footsteps in embracing their unique talents.

Hannah Weaver SC ’24 is a music columnist for TSL. For the full spooky fall experience, she recommends listening to Elliot Fullam while siting/walking/running/biking on the Marshall Canyon Trail.

cLArE MArtIN

• tHE StUDENt LIFE

BECKY ZHANG

cOUrtESY: JUStIN HIGUcHI / WIKIMEDIA cOMMONS

the London-based band Wolf Alice has mastered the art of covering songs, according to becky Zhang PO ‘22.5.

tUNNELS UNDEr cLArEMONt: A WEEKLY COMIC BY BELLA PETTENGILL

How one man became the face of Halloween

TOMI OYEDEJI OLANIYAN

As we inch deeper into au tumn, we expect to see certain imagery decorating the world around us — everything from creatively carved pumpkins to drawn-out spider webs and black ravens perched on tombstones. Naturally, this season seeps into our literature, and we begin fa voring classics like “Franken stein” by Mary Shelley, “Dracula” by Bram Stoker and almost any thing by Edgar Allan Poe.

From “The Raven” to “The Cask of Amontillado,” Poe is known for his love of the maca bre, exploring topics of mortal ity, mental illness and the human condition through an ofen horrif ic perspective. However, the pub lic fascination with Poe extends far beyond his work, resulting in lots of speculation about the man behind the page.

Edgar Allan Poe led a life full of unfortunate events. Orphaned by the age of three, he was taken in by John and Frances Allan. Un fortunately, his relationship with his foster father was fraught with difculty, and Poe found himself disowned by the Allans by the time he was 22. Struggling fnan

cially for the beter part of his life, he also lost his frst wife, Virginia, to tuberculosis. Afer her death, Poe became increas ingly erratic, and he was found two years later in a semi-lucid state wearing clothes that were not his own. Unable to regain consciousness, he died four days later, with the true circum stances of his death shrouded in mystery.

But Poe’s story, dear reader, is more than just the tale of an unlucky author. It also reveals our society’s morbid obsession with pain and sufering. We’d all like to believe we are good people — that we do our best to carry out our moral obligation to our community. And yet we cannot tear our eyes away from a dramatic trainwreck. We fnd ourselves drawn to darkness and when we read the tale of someone like Poe, we begin to wonder, “How can so many ter rible things happen to one per son?”

Afer his death, Poe’s liter ary rival Rufus W. Griswold made it his mission to destroy Poe’s legacy. Later on, gaining the rights to Poe’s posthumous work, he compiled an obituary that framed Poe as a troubled

drunkard and madman, going as far as to forge leters from Poe to complete the tale. And so the image of the miserable and eter nally troubled Poe was born, becoming a symbol of the un fortunate, depraved individual. Poe had been reduced to some thing less like a man and more like a character out of one of his stories.

A quick google search of Poe will quickly reveal some of his most popular work. “The TellTale Heart” opens with a ques tion. “...[W]hy will you say that I am mad?” detailing a man’s descent into madness culmi nating in the murder of an old man. “The Oval Portrait” de scribes an obsessive artist who, while painting a portrait of his beloved, unknowingly drains her life force, killing her. Even “The Cask of Amontillado” chronicles the depths of hu man wickedness as the spiteful Montresor imprisons Fortunato alive within Italian catacombs. Though they cover a variety of topics, Poe’s stories have one thing in common – they leave us overwhelmed with a confusing sense of dread and wonder.

With unsetled protagonists and dark narratives, one might

wonder if the derangement is not only to be found within the characters but also within the author. The image of the mad and miserable Poe is too tempt ing to reject and even more al luring to embrace. However, the issue with choosing bits and pieces of people to immortalize is that it’s not honest — espe cially when it is nothing more than a Frankensteined persona by either the public or the artist themselves.

Yes, Poe led a curious life, but the situations he experienced are in themselves not incred ibly unique. Many of us have or will deal with the grief of losing a loved one. One in fve people struggle with mental illness and substance abuse issues. While not negating the tragedy of such events in one’s life, pathologiz ing such ultimately human ex periences because it’s a more compelling story does a moral wrong to the implicated indi vidual.

The transformation of public fgures from real life people to caricatures also makes it easier to dehumanize the fgure at the center of it all, which Poe is a great example of. During Hal loween, his quotes are displayed

on banners, his poems and stories are read as tales of woe and hor ror and even his last words have been put up on Goodreads as a “horror” quote. But such market ing makes us lazy. We don’t de sire to dig further. We accept the stories we are being told without ever checking to ascertain their truth.

It is important to note that this is not a defense of Poe. He is guilty of a wide range of ofenses from marrying his teenage cousin to the undivorcible racism found in some of his work. Rather, I ask that we question our societal im pulse to whitle people down to a singular aspect of themselves and rebuild them in that image. How do we reconcile the act of turning someone into a scapegoat for public speculation if it denies their humanity? The next time you see a raven during Hallow een, or a tombstone with a Poe quote, take a moment to pause and perhaps remember the per son behind the gothic revelry.

Tomi Oyedeji-Olaniyan CM ’23 is a dual neuroscience and literature major. If you need her, say her name in the mirror three times, and legend says she will appear to give you the perfect book recommendation.

‘Moonage Daydream’ pulls us back into Bowie’s orbit

HANNAH ELIOT

Halfway through Bret Morgen’s new documentary, “Moonage Daydream,” a palefaced and fedora-sporting David Bowie is asked a question by an interviewer as they drive through the California desert. Instead of answering, he giggles, and ex claims, “There’s a fy in my milk!” A few seconds later, the smile fades. “He’s a foreign body… which is kind of how I feel.”

This moment ofers a fresh look at the singer. All we see is a man in a car sharing his vul nerabilities and his quirky sense of humor, not the otherworldly idol we have come to know as David Bowie. This intimacy suf fuses “Moonage Daydream” as a whole, allowing Morgen to ex plore David Bowie’s creative, mu sical and spiritual journey as not only as the godly Ziggy Stardust, but also as a deeply thoughtful artist with dazzling charisma.

Morgen conjures Bowie’s pres ence by frenetically stacking and layering archival material, in cluding concert footage, feature flms, interviews and music vid eos. Earlier this year, he revealed to NME that it took two entire years just to watch all the archival material they’d collected. In the process, Morgen nearly died, fall ing into a week-long coma afer a heart atack.

No two-hour flm could ever hope to capture the intricacies of Bowie’s legacy — and Morgen knows this. While his documen tary relies on plenty of archival material to trace the singer’s life and career, it focuses more on ex periencing Bowie than explaining him.

Bowie himself appears to

narrate the flm. We hear only from the singer himself — noth ing from his collaborators, no talking-head interviews. Bow ie’s voice, along with the ab sence of a linear timeline, gives the flm a sense of intimacy that is rare nowadays in a documen tary.

With so many documentaries and biopics being released that focus on the dramatic events in their subjects’ careers — neglect ing the profound inner lives that defned their art — “Moonage Daydream” breathes new life into the genre by doing the op posite.

But given this, it is best to go

into the flm knowing that Mor gen assumes the viewer already knows a lot about the subject and the context for his evolution as an artist.

Morgen doesn’t rely on Bow ie’s greatest hits to hold the doc umentary together. He opts for footage of his deeper cuts like “Hallo Spaceboy,” the singer’s ’90s collaboration with the Pet Shop Boys. Even the title of the documentary, “Moonage Day dream,” refers to one of Bowie’s lesser-known songs.

Huge chunks of the artist’s life are also lef out. Bowie’s frst marriage to Angie Barnet, for example, isn’t mentioned

at all. The flm merely brushes upon Bowie’s “Blackstar” era, his transcendent fnal years that ended in the “Blackstar” album coming out the same weekend he died. Morgen does, howev er, delve deeply into Bowie’s experiences of restless solitude, ending in middle-age with his marriage to Iman.

The documentary can also feel a bit repetitive. We hear Bowie muse on his need to per petually reinvent himself, with out any other perspective that might illustrate what was so radical about this or how it actu ally manifested in his art. It not only dulls the impact, but risks

becoming boring — something Bowie could never be.

One of the flm’s main themes is Bowie’s use of his art as a form of self-exploration — “I’ve never been sure of my own personali ty,” he remarks, elsewhere noting that “I’ve always dealt with iso lation, in everything I write.” But Morgen reveals litle of how the singer’s intent made him diferent from any other artist or why his screaming, crying fans responded to him so deeply.

While these qualities can make “Moonage Daydream” feel one-dimensional and repetitive, it is still a visually and sonically remarkable flm. It also has the blessing of the Bowie estate, un like a recent Bowie biopic.

In a recent interview, Morgen defended his flm, remarking how “It’s meant to be a mirror so that you, the audience, can see your own Bowie and refect back upon your own life. Because to me, the most exciting thing is that you can go and see a flm about Da vid Bowie and learn how to be a beter parent or learn how to live a more satisfying life — not that he went into the studio one night with Brian May and Freddie Mer cury and did ‘Under Pressure.’”

As Morgen himself notes, “Moonage Daydream” is not for everyone, particularly those who know litle of Bowie and his ca reer. But for those looking to merely be pulled into Bowie’s or bit and to breathe in the traces of his creative spirit, this documen tary is for you.

Hannah Eliot SC ’24 is from San Francisco, California. She likes to surf and is trying (and failing) to learn how to play the guitar.

bELLA PEttENGILL

• tHE StUDENt LIFE

SASHA MAttHEWS

• tHE StUDENt LIFE

community,

On Oct. 12, Pomona College’s Smith Campus Center boomed with Latine music and Salvadorian food from a local restaurant called Linda’s for a catered lunch. Latine students donned fags and spent quality time together in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, which spans from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15.

This event, called Por La Cul tura, was inspired by the Black Student Union’s Blackout event, an annual celebration each February at the Smith Campus Center that brings Black students together through food and dance.

Kira Apodaca PO ’26, a member of PomonaLXA, the Latine afnity group of Pomona, appreciated the energy of Por La Cultura.

“It was also an amazing expe rience seeing everyone enjoying themselves in the midst of their busy schedules,” she said.

Behind Por La Cultura was Po monaLXA, which seeks to create spaces of community and celebra tion for Latine students at the 5Cs.

Co-presidents Kenia Garcia-Ramos PO ’23 and Elisa Velasco PO ’23 lead an executive board of Latine students dedicated to making their presence known on campus and supporting fellow Latine students.

The club meets every Wednes day at 7:30 p.m. in the SOCA Lounge at Pomona and brings Pomona Latine students together to plan events, build community and have fun.

Garcia-Ramos and Velasco both learned about the club during their freshman years and, despite the club being disrupted due to COVID-19, they decided to become part of the executive board for their junior and senior years.

“I … wanted to be on [the execu tive board] again this year to really ramp it up and make our commu

nity stronger,” Velasco said.

Especially when representing a minority group, Velasco and Garcia-Ramos feel that spread ing Latine joy and community is extremely important.

When asked what the core mission of the club is, Garcia-Ra mos said, “Visibility, comfort, safety and then building spaces of community.”

PomonaLXA has put on multi ple events this year in order to cel ebrate Hispanic Heritage Month. One of which was a self-care night for Latine femmes, which included face masks, conchas, hot

chocolate and a viewing of Shrek 2 in Spanish.

“It was a very healing expe rience,” Apodaca said. “It also helped smooth the transition to college and [reminded] myself to take time to take care of my own well-being.”

Just last Saturday, Pomon aLXA hosted their annual !Viva Latinoamerica! party in Edmunds Ballroom. Always a hit, Viva is a night of Latine music, dancing and visibility. Viva aims to bring in the entire community and was ultimately the deciding factor in Garcia-Ramos and Velasco

becoming part of PomonaLXA.

But Hispanic Heritage Month is just the beginning, as Pomon aLXA has many events planned for the rest of the school year.

In the coming weeks, Latine students will paint Walker Wall, as they do each year, in order to mark their presence on campus and make their voices heard.

“Even though the majority of the college’s population is POC, outside of the numbers, we can be invisible, so I like how we are physically going to take up space on our campus,” Apodaca said.

Another series of events the

club will be hosting are organizing talks with professors, in which Latine students discuss organiz ing tactics and ways the club can organize the student body to see change.

PomonaLXA also plans to have snack events weekly in order to create Latine spaces of healing. Snack events can vary from kara oke night to a study session, and all formats hope to foster comfort and Latine joy.

Other actions and ways to help can be found on the PomonaLXA instagram page, @pomonalxa.

Ocupando el espacio: La presencia de Pomona LXA en los 5Cs

Traducido por Young Seo Kim

El 12 de octubre, el Smith Cam pus Center de Pomona College se llenó de música latina y comida salvadoreña de un restaurante local llamado Linda’s para un al muerzo atendido. Los estudiantes latinos lucieron sus banderas y pasaron el tiempo juntos para celebrar el Mes de la Herencia Hispana, que se extiende del 15 de septiembre al 15 de octubre.

El evento se llama Por La Cul tura y tuvó inspiración del evento Blackout del Black Student Union, una celebración anual que se lleva a cabo cada febrero en el Smith Campus Center y reúne a los estudiantes negros a través de la comida y el baile.

Kira Apodaca PO ‘26, miembro de PomonaLXA dice con respecto a Por La Cultura: “También fue una experiencia increíble ver a todos disfrutar aunque estén ocupados”.

Detrás de Por La Cultura estaba PomonaLXA, el grupo de afinidad latina de Pomona College que busca crear espacios de comunidad y celebración para los estudiantes latinos. Las copresidentas Kenia García-Ra mos PO ‘23 y Elisa Velasco PO ‘23 lideran una junta ejecutiva de estudiantes latinos dedicada a dar a conocer su presencia en el campus y apoyar a sus com pañeros estudiantes latinos.

El club se reúne todos los miércoles a las 7:30 p. m. en el SOCA Lounge y reúne a los estudiantes de Pomona Latine para planificar eventos, crear comunidad y divertirse.

Las copresidentas García-Ra mos y Velasco aprendieron sobre el club en sus primeros años a pesar de que el club sufrió inter rupciones debido a COVID-19, decidieron formar parte de la junta ejecutiva para sus años tercero y cuarto años.

“Entonces quise estar en [la junta ejecutiva] nuevamente este año para realmente impulsar y fortalecer a nuestra comunidad”, dio Velasco.

Especialmente cuando repre sentas a un grupo minoritario, Velasco y García-Ramos sienten que difundir la alegría y la comu nidad latina es extremadamente importante.

Cuando se le preguntó la mis ión central del club, García-Ra mos dio: “Visibilidad, comodi dad, seguridad, luego espacios de comunidad y construir una comunidad”.

PomonaLXA ha organizado múltiples eventos este año para celebrar el Mes de la Herencia Hispana. Uno de los varios eventos fue la noche del cuidado personal para mujeres latinas, que incluyó máscaras faciales, conchas, chocolate caliente y una proyección de Shrek 2 en español.

“Fue una experiencia muy curativa”, dio Apocada. “Tam bién ayudó a tener una transición suave a la universidad y record arme a mí misma que debo tomar el tiempo para cuidar mi propio bienestar”.

El sábado pasado, Pomon aLXA organizó su festa anual ¡Viva Latinoamérica! en Edmund Ballroom. Siempre un éxito, Viva es una noche de música latina, baile y visibilidad. Viva atrae a toda la comunidad y, curiosa mente, fue el factor decisivo que García-Ramos y Velasco unieron a PomonaLXA.

Pero el Mes de la Herencia Hispana es solo el comienzo ya que PomonaLXA tiene muchos eventos planeados para el resto del año escolar.

En las próximas semanas los estudiantes latine pintarán Walk er Wall, como lo hacen cada año, para marcar su presencia en el campus y hacer que se escuchen

sus voces.

Apodaca afirma: “Aunque la mayoría de la población de la universidad es POC, fuera de los números, podemos ser invisibles, así que me gusta cómo vamos a ocupar espacio físicamente en nuestro campus”, dio Apodaca.

Otra serie de eventos que el club organizará son charlas orga nizadas con profesores en donde los estudiantes latinos discuten tácticas y formas en que el club puede organizar al grupo de es tudiantes para un cambio.

PomonaLXA también planea tener refacciones semanalmente para crear espacios latinos cura tivos. Los eventos de refacción pueden variar desde una noche de karaoke hasta una sesión de estu dio, pero todos esperan fomentar la comodidad y la alegría latina.

Puedes encontrar otras acciones y formas de ayudar en la página de ins tagram de PomonaLXA, @pomonalxa.

‘Home’ is where your heart is: BIPOC performers own the stage as they perform musical theater

A 2019 report by the Asian American Performers Action Coalition (AAPAC) shows all 41 Broadway theaters in New York City are owned and operated by white people. The Claremont Colleges have instituted various eforts to make the theater envi ronment at the 5Cs more inclu sive, where diversity is celebrat ed.

In eforts to continue this cel ebration of diversity, last year, performer Perrin Williams PO ’22 approached Spotlight Musi cal Theater with the idea for an all-BIPOC musical theater show case called “Home,” directed by Amael Angel PZ ’24.

“When I frst heard about ‘Home,’ I knew I was going to be involved,” assistant stage manag er Isabela Pardo PO ’25 said. “I was just drawn by the concept of having a space for BIPOC people to come together.”

The idea was the team behind the show would be completely comprised of BIPOC students, from cast to crew to creative team. The show aimed to blend incredible songs made for BIPOC performers along with songs from roles that have been tra ditionally cast as white so that BIPOC performers could take ownership of them. The cast per formed songs like “Burn” from Hamilton, “Breaking Free” from High School Musical and “Sea sons of Love” from Rent in solos, duets and ensembles.

“I originally pitched the idea because I have envisioned a safe space for us to perform and show case our talents,” Williams said.

This show primarily focuses on BIPOC communities in hopes of combating type-casting in the atrical institutions and spaces.

“In casting, a lot of times, the BIPOC communities can get shunted to specifc roles, just based [on] how we’d look rather than how we sing or act,” Wil liams said. “It happened to me a lot in high school, where I was

made to feel like I look a certain part. But I defnitely think it’s diferent here at the 5Cs, and I would like to open that welcom ing space to everyone.”

“Home” represents a collec tion of narratives that invites all audiences to come and experi ence them together in one space.

“I think more than anything, ‘Home’ is a safe space to cele brate my culture, and to be able to just do what I love, that’s more celebratory than demand ing,” Vicente Valdes HM ’25 said.

The title “Home” means mul tiple things to the cast and crew

members. Inspired by the song “Home” from the Wizard of Oz, it serves as a place of comfort where one can truly belong.

“I remembered the song ‘Home’ from the Wizard of Oz, and the message behind the show was just a place where there’s love overfowing,” Wil

liams said.

“Home” also aims to foster a collaborative community that cel ebrates theater as a safe space of expression.

“The title ‘Home’ means that we are fnally in a community together as a QT-BIPOC family,” said Aydin Mallery PZ ’24, the musical director of the show as well as a performer.

“We’ve created this space that allows all of us to occupy a space that has been traditional ly white-dominated and to take power in our narratives together, and that’s what makes it home. We’re doing this by ourselves, for us and people like us,” Mallery added.

This showcase not only high lighted the struggle BIPOC artists endure on a daily basis, but also allowed the audience to empa thize with some of the other hu man emotions we all experience, such as joy, love, community, heartbreak, loss and hope.

“There’s something about every single piece that I’ve en joyed,” Valdes said. “I really liked the ensemble member song, ‘Seasons of Love,’ because I feel like it’s the best way to connect with the rest of the cast.”

The aim of the show was to in spire. A lot of the cast found that seeing representation on stage personally resonated with them and refected on how that pro pelled them to believe that they could act as well.

“On a personal note [this mu sical is] for anyone who is of the QT-BIPOC community, especially in the audience.” Mallery said. “I want them to come realizing that this is a space that they can belong to. I had that experience when I was 3 when I saw a show with someone who looked like me. And I thought to myself if they can do that, then I can do that. I think hope is what I want to come of this show, and if the show motivates that for just one human, then I think we’ve done our job.”

rOrIE JOHNSON

StUDENt

VIDUSSHI HINGAD

cOUrtESY: POMONA cOLLEGE LAtINX ALLIANcE

“Home” primarily focused on bIPOc communities in hopes of combating type-casting in theatrical institu tions and spaces.

On Oct. 12, Latine students donned their fags and spent quality time together in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month.

Let’s normalize eating alone in the dining halls

At some point a few weeks ago, I had made plans to meet up with a friend at Pitzer Col lege’s McConnell Dining Hall, as I routinely do. As I was walking up those three stairs that lead to the entrance, I felt my phone buzz in my back pocket. I pulled it out thinking that my friend was giv ing me an ETA, only to read that they had to cancel our plan. At that point my hand was already pulling the door to the dining hall open, and I was too self-con scious to do a 180 degree turn and walk back to my room. And so, I tapped my ID and walked into the dining hall — by myself.

I chose a table in the corner of the room, on the outskirts of the hub of energy in the center of the dining hall. As I sat down by my self, I grew self-conscious. I felt, erroneously, like all eyes were on me. “Why do we fnd it so awk ward to sit alone in the dining hall?” I thought.

The answer boils down to what we’ve been taught: Growing up, we consume images of characters on screens siting in a bathroom stall with a lunch tray on their lap to avoid siting in the cafeteria by themselves. There’s no doubt that we’ve internalized this message. We imagine dining halls as social hubs — places to laugh, to vent and to connect. When we enter this space alone, there’s a palpable combination of shame and awk wardness, especially in a small community like ours where most people know, or at least know of, each other.

It’s easy to say “nobody notices or cares if you eat alone,” but it’s harder to actually believe it — es pecially when encounters seem to tell you otherwise.

A few minutes into my solo din ing hall trip, I decided to entertain myself with something I found re laxing and started binge-listening

to the podcast “Serial.” But right as Sarah Koenig, the narrator of the podcast, was geting to the good stuf, I felt a friend tapping on my shoulder.

“Oh, you poor thing,” she said to me. “Are you by your self?” She plopped down her stuf and sat with me. Howev er, instead of feeling joy that my friend was joining me for a meal, my initial gut reaction was one of embarrassment. I had been perfectly content up until that moment; now, part of me felt like maybe I shouldn’t have been.

This experience points to wards one conclusion: The main reason we fnd it so scary to eat

alone is because we’re afraid that someone will perceive us with pity. Our job, then, is to redefne what it means to eat alone. We shouldn’t assume that siting alone is an involuntary choice. In fact, I would have much pre ferred if my friend asked if she could join me instead of assum ing that I wanted company. If we can recondition ourselves to view siting alone as a valid, vol untary experience, then we can start to perceive others with less judgment.

As college students, we exist in a space of constant social in teraction. We hold ourselves to unatainable standards of stimu lation: atending class, checking

up on friends, participating in clubs, sharing our dorm rooms. We do so much as a community on this campus. We live togeth er, learn together and lounge to gether. It’s difcult to fnd a mo ment for introspection. Lately, I’ve found those moments alone in the dining hall.

Eating by yourself is not pitiful. In fact, eating by your self once in a while can help strengthen your academic per formance, recharge your social batery and equip you with the energy necessary to face the day. Between classes, extracurricu lars and study sessions, meals are ofen the only true breaks in our day. So let’s grant ourselves

The importance of socializing meaningfully

ANNA TOLKIEN your friend group; I’m instead arguing for you to be conscious of your behavior both within and outside your clique. Do you feel personally close to individ uals within your group? Have you made an efort to get to know them on a more personal level outside of group setings?

Navigating college social life is no easy feat. When I frst ar rived in Claremont, I was over whelmed by the many changes happening in my life. My family and high school friends — my support systems — weren’t there for me to lean on. I was facing in tense academic pressure trying to adjust from the lighter work load at my public high school to the demanding Claremont McK enna College curriculum. There was pressure to go out to a ton of parties, make friends and get in volved in the social scene, which led me and some of my peers to form large cliques and friend groups very early on.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with a friend group. It can be a lovely thing that gives people a sense of belonging and acts as a chosen family. But it also has its dangers. For example, with every friend group comes the possibil ity of exclusion — or the lack of close interpersonal relationships within the group. Friend groups can also make someone overly re liant on their clique, so they don’t try to talk to new people.

I want to be clear that I am not atacking the concept of friend groups. I myself enjoy being a part of diferent social circles and love spending time in group set tings. These experiences are al ways fun, and I love the diferent perspectives each group mem ber brings to the table. I treasure dinners where we talk about our hometowns and how some of my friends went ice skating while others were at the beach. Some friends listened to California indie music while others loved Chicago house music. We get into long conversations about slang words — such as “soda” or “pop” and “wicked” instead of “cool.”

I’m not telling you to abandon

If the answer to these questions is no, then consider reaching out to them and spending quali ty personal time with them.

In addition, do you feel close to individuals outside your friend group? Try to go outside your comfort zone and befriend someone who isn’t in your typical social circle. It can be rewarding and help you gain social confdence — and set you on a path towards even more meaningful socialization.

For example, a lot of peo ple form friendships through sports teams, living in the same area as certain people or going on orientation trips together. These are all great ways to bond over shared experiences. How ever, many of these circles form simply as a security blanket and don’t involve branching out to interact with new people.

As sophomore and junior years come, these friend groups break into smaller ones or, sometimes, dissolve all togeth er. People start to form friend ships that aren’t just situational. The initial large pack gets re placed by a variety of individu al friendships.

I know from experience that I’m still really close with my friends from when I frst got to college. We still will grab meals together, hang out in one of our dorms or go to parties. But, now we don’t do every litle thing together. It is diferent from when we all constantly hung out in large numbers. While this change frst felt jarring, it’s

been a good thing overall. It’s allowed us to develop our own social skills and introduce each other to new people.

I also think that forming new one-on-one friendships is a great way to combat ex clusion. When we focus on individual relationships, there’s less room for exclusion from parties and hangouts and more room for personal growth and feeling connect ed to someone else. While spending time with someone you don’t know well can feel awkward and scary, it’s im portant to push through those barriers.

This process of meaningful socialization has led to amaz ing conversations and friend ships that feel genuine. Since I started to prioritize con necting deeply to my existing friends and pushed myself to go out of my main group, I’ve felt more socially fulflled and connected to the 5C commu nity.

I urge younger students to treat college socializing as a chance to seek meaningful re lationships. Don’t be passive and not connect to the peo ple around you. It isn’t high school anymore. We are all just trying to fgure out who we are, what interests us and, hopefully, what we want to do with our lives. Push yourself out of sticking to your friend group, and take the initiative to make new friends as well and connect deeper with the ones you have. Ask people out to meals, text frst and don’t be afraid to talk to someone you don’t already know.

Anna Tolkien CM ’24 is a liter ature and flm dual major. She loves her pugs, creative writing and iced cofee.

time to be alone — not to laugh, vent, or connect, but to breathe, think and refect.

This week, I challenge you to have a meal by yourself. Take a moment out of your busy sched ule to fnd a corner and sit solo, and spend your meal listening to a podcast or people-watching or thinking about the things you’re grateful for. Eating alone might be just what you need to de-stress and supercharge your day all in one. Start now: Trust me, it only gets easier with practice.

Annika White PZ ’25 is from South port, Connecticut. She enjoys hiking, journaling, and making playlists on Spotify.

Editorial Board: Pomona, it’s time to set a new precedent — put workers frst

By the time this paper has been printed and distributed across the Claremont Colleges, the air around campus may feel diferent from your typical Fri day morning — and not just be cause of the early morning chill of fall.

When the sun rose at 7:00 a.m this morning, students and work ers had already been picketing outside Pomona College’s dining halls for an hour. Today marks the frst day of what is anticipat ed to be a two-day walkout, apt ly scheduled in time for Family Weekend.

For those who are just catch ing up, afer weeks of contract negotiations — which, so far, have been nothing but a bust — Pomona dining hall workers are placing an ultimatum on the col lege, picketing to bring a sense of urgency to their demand for a livable wage.

Now, it’s up to the college to decide how to respond. Students, faculty, staf and alumni will be watching. Whether the college will make excuses about obliga tions to pay dues to an archaic and inequitable pay structure or opt to set a new precedent that puts livelihoods frst is on the ta ble.

While exactly what happens at the bargaining table is between both negotiation teams — and not TSL’s area of expertise or posi tion — what happens before and afer afects us all: students, staf and, most importantly, workers.

In the next few days, Pomona will be presented with several options as to how best to proceed. The editorial board of TSL im plores administration to exhaust all possibilities when negotiating with workers — in particular, to not repeat grievous administra tive actions.

Pomona has made head lines for being at the forefront of progress. In 2016, Pomona was heralded for leading the charge to protect DACA recipients from deportation under a fresh Trump administration. Pomona orga nized a leter urging the admin istration to “be upheld, continued and expanded”; over 200 other in stitutions also signed, including leaders of most of the Ivies.

Yet, not even fve years before pledging support for DACA, Po mona was making headlines for its place at the tail end of prog ress. In the midst of one of the most active union eforts to date, a “whistleblower” instigated a mass fring of Pomona stafers af ter lodging a complaint about the college’s hiring practices. Claim ing it was legally obligated to check papers, Pomona ultimately fred 17 staf workers, many of whom had dedicated several de cades of their lives to the college. Fifeen people — including three Pomona students and a Pitzer professor — were also arrested during that time.

Many questioned if the docu mentation checks were connect ed with the ongoing unioniza tion eforts, which then-Pomona president David Oxtoby denied. However, faculty argued that Po

mona had no obligations to take it to the extreme of turning the cases over to a law frm.

Workers, students and faculty were “frustrated that the administra tion was resisting the unionization process,” Pomona history professor Victor Silverman told TSL in 2018 in reference to the incident. “The com munity was becoming educated that there were real problems in the way the college was running the dining [halls] and how the workers were be ing treated.”

Despite having occurred a decade ago, these sentiments are no less sa lient. There is still much progress to be made in improving campus treat ment — but this can and should be achieved without any threat to im migration status, livelihood or safe ty. There is a productive, respectful way to engage in negotiations that doesn’t wield threats of immigration and deportation especially when the asking points hold serious weight.

Time and time again, Chief Oper ating Ofcer and Treasurer Jef Roth has said a 45 percent wage increase over the span of a year is “not a re alistic demand we are able to meet.” What’s more unrealistic, however, is asking workers, who play an integral role on campus, to fnd a way to live signifcantly below a living wage. A living wage shouldn’t even have to be the bare minimum — yet our workers still don’t earn near it.

To make ends meet and aford a modest two-bedroom rental at a fair-market rate, a Los Angeles County resident would need at minimum a $39.81 hourly wage, ac cording to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. While much low er, at $29.02 an hour, San Bernardino County commuters still need a sig nifcantly higher rate than the start ing wage Pomona ofers: a meager $18 hourly wage.

Of the bat, a $9.40 wage increase could seem on the hefy side. But, in consideration of the circumstances, the wage workers want isn’t unwar ranted.

With local gas prices recently firting with $7 a gallon — and most staf members commute to Clare mont — combined with a 9.7 per cent increase in food costs and a 22 percent increase in energy with 25 percent for gas alone, cost of living is rising, according to the Bureau of La bor Statistics. That rounds out to an overall 7.8 percent CPI boost in just the last year — more than meriting a signifcant raise.

Since when was pedagogy con fned to the classroom? It’s easy to say college is all about preparing stu dents for the “real world” and leave praxis out of the picture. But, then again, there’s the reality that, this too, is the real world.

With weeks of organizing well underway, and students up and ready to boycot, there are many ways things can go from here.

Pomona can delay a decision in hopes that student engagement wanes over winter break. Pomona can outright deny the wage increase request and deal with the conse quences. Or it can acknowledge and meet the workers’ demand, placing itself back on the progressive ped estal and transform what shouldn’t have to be unprecedented into the rightful precedent.

GErrIt PUNt

• tHE StUDENt LIFE

LUcIA MArQUEZ-UPPMAN

• tHE StUDENt LIFE

during the spooky season

JADA SHAVERS

cre ated equally. Some Halloween cos tumes are funnier, some more seri ous, some scarier than others and some are more ofensive.

The signifcance of the Hallow een season — and the costumes that come with it — can be accompanied with dangerous forms of appro priation. Costumes such as Hula dancers, Indigenous peoples’ atire or, really, anything representing an aspect of someone’s identity or a ste reotype are extremely harmful.

Such “costumes” perpetuate dangerous stereotypes of a culture or group and can make those who identify with the identity portrayed feel unsafe. This type of harm, known as cultural appropriation, is the inappropriate adoption of the culture of another group of people diferent from your own. This adop tion typically targets marginalized or non-dominant groups.

In summary, cultural appropria tion is the representation of harmful stereotypes of a specifc ethnicity. It carries the implication of exploita tion and cultural dominance as it represents another person’s identity as a costume.

The solution to avoiding this be havior seems simple when it comes to Halloween costumes: Don’t wear as a costume a custom or tradition diferent from your own. Defning this line can be difcult for some, though, as people have argued that everything is culture. Is Halloween, thus, a perpetual appropriation?

This question reminds me of the foundational American signifcance of Halloween. The holiday originat ed from a Celtic festival in which people would dress in costumes to scare of ghosts that entered the living world. However, this concept of dressing up to scare of ghosts changed into a day of dressing up for the sake of wearing a costume. While this is a foundational issue with the holiday, I don’t think that

means every Halloween cos tume is inherently cultural ap propriation — dressing up as the “Stranger Things” kids, or a number of other things, is just fne.

It is also important to note that cultural appropriation is not something that only pertains to Halloween. It is a constant that can occur at any time based on the atire someone chooses. A growing cultural awareness of this is seen in how people are be coming more aware of the harm they are causing, as the term “cultural appropriation” has expanded beyond the world of academia and into the ever-po larizing internet — thus causing much debate and conversation on the topic.

Beyond Halloween, event themes have been a signifcant promoter of appropriation in many ways. Examples of these inappropriate party themes are everywhere, but many arise in college. As fraternities and so rorities across the United States have reported racist, sexist and homophobic themes, colleges are trying to crack down on the ofensive parties.

For example, a fraternity at Arizona State University threw a party allegedly called the “MLK Black Party” in 2014. The party was followed by a series of social media photos of white students posing with gang signs, basket ball jerseys and watermelon cups — racist stereotypes that led to the suspension of the fraternity.

The suspension of the frater nity demonstrates the beginning of an awareness that spread be yond event themes. People are being called out for their ques tionable atire that lacks the sensitivity it requires, and Hal loween is a time to practice this awareness even more.

Refection is a massive aspect of choosing a proper costume, as is contemplating the appropri ateness of dressing up as others.

Dressing up as Disney princesses like Moana or Jasmine, a charac ter from “Squid Game” or any

person that represents a diferent ethnicity, race, gender or sexual ity other than your own can be harmful.

Choosing costumes like these takes the fun-spirited idea of dressing up too far. With the use of blackface, voice chang es or stereotypes of a person and their identity, a costume becomes immediately threaten ing. This “commitment” to the costume is dangerous, ofensive and never okay, as it promotes hate towards a person based on their identity. These actions are examples of racism, sexism and homophobia.

I’m not saying that dressing up as someone with an identi ty diferent from your own is wrong, but there is a sensitivity that needs to be noted. Being aware is the best frst step to take. From there, making more specifc distinctions is necessary. Once you start recognizing all of the forms of appropriation, how ever, the do’s and don’ts become apparent.

Blackface or any type of skin color disfguration is a defnite no. A cat, sure! A geisha wom an, nope. Batman or any Marvel character, go for it! A prisoner of war, 100 percent no. Ghosts, why not! Any transphobic costume, defnitely not. A box of mac and cheese, very creative! Any tradi tional clothing that represents aspects of a specifc culture, no. A Minion — only tastefully.

This list could go on and on, but by asking yourself essential questions about the meaning, purpose and reason behind a costume, you can become more conscientious of your Halloween outft’s impact. If the answer is that your atire will ofend some one, fnding something else is best.

Jada Shavers SC ’26 is from Port land, Oregon, and she is studying writing, rhetoric and anthropology with the goal of becoming a jour nalist. She loves camping, listening to music, and drawing with her younger sisters.

SEOHYEON LEE• tHE StUDENt

CMC is failing its queer students

Should you go to the mentor session?

Should you go to the men tor session for your class? Of course, you might not have a choice. Maybe your class doesn’t have a mentor (a stu dent who took the class be fore and helps the next cohort in various ways). Or maybe mentor session atendance is required.

ask. As a mentor, the questions I am asked most frequently are also the ones I am asked most privately. Mentor sessions are a great place to ask these ques tions because shared confusion can break the ice, spark conver sations and ultimately lead to collective learning.

totally convinced that this one stupid problem will never make sense. But the guidance of your mentors and collaboration with classmates can give you the ex tra motivation to make genuine progress toward your learning goals.

“Anyone who identifes as LGBTQ+, step into the circle.” The silence that ensued in response to this statement at my Welcome Orientation Adventure held an eerie note of awkward tension as not a single person was willing to step up. My mind racing, I knew I had just two options: either step forward and out myself to a group of students I had only just met or choose not to step forward and feel as though I was actively rejecting who I was.

Ultimately, I chose the former and walked into the circle, hop ing to encourage others in my po sition to do the same — but the anxiety and discomfort I felt try ing not to shrink as I stepped for ward alone was only a preview of what my experience would be as a queer student at Claremont McKenna College: isolated, lone ly and uncomfortable.

This year, ASCMC held CMC’s frst annual Pride-Fest in a com mendable efort to celebrate the queer community at the Clare mont Colleges. However, ASC MC’s good-natured atempt at a pride celebration was not suc cessful enough to veil the exist ing campus culture which con sistently fails to create inclusive and safe spaces for LGBTQIA+ identifying folks.

Seeing the contrast between the limply fying pride fags pinned up around the cage the party was held in and the uter lack of queer culture present at the party was discouraging. But, more than anything, it broke my heart to see that even at the socalled “Pride-Party” of CMC, many queer students who chose to express themselves freely were standing at the sides of the cage.

But Pride Party isn’t really the problem; rather, the happenings at Pride Party are just a refec tion of the greater exclusive and alienating CMC culture. When it comes to LGBTQIA+ inclusivity, CMC fails on both the adminis trative and social level.

Claremont McKenna has one club, the Sexuality and Gender Alliance, or SAGA, that supports the campus’s queer students. Though SAGA does work with other organizations to organize parties, events, and mixers, the general trend of such events is that a handful of queer students will show up, but overall campus support of the event is impres sively disappointing. The exis tence of of-campus 7C resources like the Queer Resource Center is not enough either, and though the 5C resource is great, it is high ly underutilized, in part because it is isolated from and unintegrat ed into campus culture.

Although CMC went co-ed in 1976, campus climate ofen still feels driven by a hyper-mascu line culture and its accompa nying homophobia and sexism. Because students who identify as LGBTQIA+ are more likely to struggle with severe mental health issues, the potential ram ifcations of CMC’s hyper-mas culine culture are dangerous. In fact, research proves that queer students display signifcantly more risk factors for suicide than

their cisgender and hetero sexual peers, and 30 percent of queer college students re port that they seriously con sidered dropping out due to mental health. If the comfort of LGBTQIA+ students isn’t enough for CMC to acknowl edge, their mental health and physical safety should be.

Currently, queer expres sion is ofen quietly re pressed at CMC. Many queer students feel that they must disregard their expression of themselves in order to ft in to a severely straight campus climate. Students at CMC are currently far too comfortable expressing discomfort about another student’s sexual identity. The school, and the administration should make it clear to their students that homophobia will not be tol erated.

Furthermore, represen tation maters. CMC needs to take initiative to include more queer representation all across the campus. This is not a request for more pride fags or pride parties. Instead, queerness should be made visible at all levels of the college experience, through more Athenaeum talks which address the queer experience, queer events organized by queer students and spaces for queer expression and con nection.

Above all, students are here to learn, and discrimi nation should not hinder that process. Introducing your self with pronouns in pro fessional and learning envi ronments should be second nature to everyone on cam pus. Professors misgender ing their students should not be excused or brushed past. Faculty should be required to undergo gender-sensitivi ty training so they do not put queer students into uncom fortable and identity-disaf frming situations. For many adults on campus, the issue is not a lack of willingness to be inclusive but more so the lack of awareness on how.

However, this is not an issue which can be solved by administrative changes alone. We, as students, need to make an efort. Show up to queer events. Research what it means to be an ally. Make a conscious efort to respect peers’ sexual and gender identities. If you misgender someone, apologize, correct yourself and then try harder to never do it again. Do not stand by and accept fetishi zation of queer identities and call out peers on their ac tions. Above all, communi cate. Stand in solidarity with your LGBTQIA+ identifying friends, and make it clear that you are a safe person for them to express themselves freely to.

Ashley Park CM ’25 is from Claremont, CA. She loves the outdoors, watching “Communi ty” and fnding the perfect latenight snack.

But sometimes you do have a choice in whether to atend — a difcult one if it’s the frst time you’ve had to think about it. I host a mentor ses sion every week, and I never know how many people are coming. More importantly, I never know exactly why peo ple are coming (rather than to the professor’s ofce hours, their peers, the internet, etc.). For these reasons and more, mentor sessions can be dy namic and unpredictable. With countless other respon sibilities we have as students, this only makes the decision for students to dedicate time out of their day for mentor ses sions even trickier.

So, should you go to the mentor session? To answer this, I’ll share a few recurring experiences and perspectives that many students have pon dered in regards to this ques tion, leading them to decide that they are worth the trou ble.

First, when one person has a question, other people have almost certainly been wonder ing the same thing. This is es pecially true for the questions that feel too embarrassing to

Second, “imposter syn drome” is extremely common and negatively impacts learning and well-being. A mentor ses sion can be a great place to con nect with other students going through the same experiences, and most mentors will freely share the challenges they faced taking the same class. Many students are surprised to learn just how much they have in common with their classmates and mentors. These weekly ses sions may be limited in scope, but we must resist the alienat ing culture of elite higher edu cation whenever we can.

Finally, it’s worth taking a step back to consider how learn ing really happens. A mentor session is usually an intellectu ally challenging environment, and environments like that can sometimes lead to frustration over a lack of initial progress. This frustration may be one rea son why many students turn to easy but inefective study strat egies.

Rather than fall into this trap, we should trust the ro bust empirical fnding that “de sirable difculty” is the key to efective learning, even when it feels like the opposite. In other words, real learning tends to sneak up on you when you least expect it — like when you’re

So, should you go to the mentor session? Hopefully, you can tell by now that I think you should. When it works well, a mentor session is a challenging but collaborative environment where you can connect with oth ers, share common experiences and work toward collective goals. Maybe you just haven’t goten around to atending a session yet. When you go, try asking a few questions you have about the homework, recent lectures or the course in general. Maybe your frst time was a hectic midterm review session. Try going again on a less busy day to see what you think of the space. If you fnd that the environment simply doesn’t work for you, at least you’ll have an answer to the question that’s been in the back of your mind all semester. And if you fnd the environment does work for you, then you’ve increased your ac ademic support network — one session at a time.

Guest writer Henry Peterson PO ’23 is studying geology, but he’s just as happy to talk maps or shapes if you have another favorite “geo.” For in spiring this piece, he is grateful to the Physics 9: “Peer Mentoring in STEM” community, Professor Uma nath’s “Efective Learning Across the Lifespan” course and Professor Prokopenko’s endless “fashes of bril liance.”

WENDY ZHANG • tHE StUDENt LIFE

WENDY ZHANG • tHE StUDENt LIFE

of CMC’s Racial-Ethnic GE proposal underscores t he Board of Trustees’ outsized infuence on

argues Laleh Ahmad CM ‘20.

Pomona-Pitzer cross country uses platform to support wage increases for dining hall workers

Only three Division lll cross country teams have won three con secutive national championships. This year, Pomona-Pitzer could be the fourth.

Accomplishing something only few have done would be extraordi nary. But according to three upper classmen on the men’s team, this year, the Sagehens are competing for a cause that they feel is bigger than a national title.

Since the beginning of the se mester, hundreds of 5C students have united in support of Pomona College dining hall staf’s campaign for higher wages. Calling for higher wages to meet the high cost of liv ing in Los Angeles County, workers are asking Pomona’s administration for an $8.80 pay increase over one year, bringing them to a $28 hour ly wage. Pomona countered the request with a $5.40 increase over four years, insisting that the current ask is not a “realistic demand” for the college.

Sagehens, Athenas and Stags have devised diferent ways to voice support for the workers in the midst of negotiations, which so far have been at a standstill.

Bennet Booth Genthe PO ’24 said that as he watched the move ment gain momentum, he became curious as to how he and his cross country teammates could use their platform as nationally recognized athletes to advocate for the work ers. To start, he asked his teammates to atend an Oct. 5 informational meeting held by the Claremont Stu dent Workers Alliance.

“I’m friends with a leader of CSWA, so I’ve come to learn about all the important stuf they are do

ing in regards to supporting and fghting for the workers,” Genthe said. “What I noticed was that there were no student athletes at these events. Since we receive a lot of atention from our school on line, we knew that we could use this platform to show the school that we are going to support the workers and be vocal.”

Almost the whole team showed up to the meeting that night, according to Genthe. Af terward, Derek Fearon PO ’24 said ideas of how to get involved began to circulate — that’s when Fearon sprang into action.

“We got some white T-shirts and wrote simple slogans in sup port of the workers,” Fearon said.

“Me and the other guys hoped that if other Pomona-Pitzer stu dents saw the shirts, they would want to get involved. Someone had to start the conversation, and we knew that with the publicity we got, it had to be us.”

Just three days afer they went to that strike teach-in, the team hosted the P-P invitational. Know ing that many classmates would atend the meet and that photog raphers would post pictures of the team on school websites, the team planned to use the home race as a chance to protest.

Colin Kirkpatrick PO ’24 fnished in third. Before stand ing on the podium, Kirkpatrick changed into a white T-shirt with the words “Support POM dining hall staf” writen across his chest. He said his frustration with his school’s stubbornness compelled him to wear it.

“When you drive onto campus, you see three words inscribed on the front gate: eager, thoughtful

Foxes center acceptance, team in womxn’s rugby

and reverent,” Kirkpatrick said. “This is what this institution wants us to be as people once we grad uate. In our classes we are being taught compassion, social progress and ethics. Why don’t we see that in our administration?”

The cause has broken rival boundaries. In their commit ment to raising awareness, the Sagehens’ biggest rival, Clare mont-Mudd-Scripps, has become P-P’s biggest ally. Afer winning the P-P Invitational, Natlie Biteti CM ’24 agreed to wear one of the shirts Fearon PO ’24 made.

“It was a really cool 5C mo ment when Natalie decided to wear the shirt,” Kirkpatrick said. “We can’t thank the CMS team enough for their support. It goes to show how many people are now becoming aware of what’s going on.”

The movement has continued to grow since the P-P Invitational. In an Oct. 20 vote, Pomona din ing hall staf voted 84-7 in favor of authorizing a strike, which the union has set for Friday and Sat urday.

The strike overlaps with the

SCIAC championship and parents weekend at Pomona-Pitzer, and the team hopes to use the increase in atention this weekend to spread their message.

“There is palpable tension be tween us and our athletic director, but with the SCIAC championship and parents’ weekend at our home court, we can continue to voice our frustration with the results of the recent negotiations,” Genthe said. “Wearing the pin on race day makes me feel like I’m running for a cause that’s bigger than a personal best or a team victory.”

Athenas salt the Banana Slugs with a 1-0 victory on senior day

KOCH

Friends, families and school spirit all gathered for senior day and a resounding victory last Saturday at Prit zlaf Field, where the Clare mont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS) women’s soccer team beat the UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs 1-0.

ly. Just 12 minutes into the game, UC Santa Cruz missed an oppor tunity to clear the ball from their defensive third, allowing it to roll to Cate Lewison HM ’26 at the top of the 18-yard box. Lewison knocked it just inside the lef post to give CMS a quick 1-0 lead.

gling with sluggish legs. Neither team was able to hold possession for long, but the Banana Slugs seemed to fnd their footing with just three minutes lef.

The Foxes are women playing contact-heavy sports, champi onship-winning athletes that are competitive but not cut-throat and fearsome teammates but also best friends. Breaking down stereotypes is what they do best.

Expanding on their impressive track record, the Claremont Foxes Womxn’s Rugby won the 2022 Dll national championship last spring and are in pre-season for the spring. The team is hoping to build on last year’s success while still cultivating a welcoming environment, accord ing to Sage Fletcher PZ ’23.

“We do want to repeat a nation al title, but at the same time, we are trying to build a really strong foun dation with our rookie players,” Fletcher said.

Welcoming new players is a core part of the Foxes culture, and for Asia Anderson SC ’23, it was love at frst practice. When she was a frst year, an upperclassman she met through Scripps’ Communi ties of Resources and Empower ment (SCORE) convinced her to join.

“I played a lot of sports in high school — I was a three sport athlete. Coming into college, I didn’t really know what my place was [without sports],” Anderson said. “I went to a lot of SCORE meetings … and one of the upperclassmen who I was friends with talked to me every day about joining rugby. I was kin da ify about it, but then I went to my frst practice, and the next thing I knew I was buying cleats … ever since then I’ve been addicted to it.”

Caroline Bullock CM ’24 had a similar experience. An athlete throughout high school, Bullock said as a frst year, she was looking to play sports and build commu nity. A former coach of the Foxes spoted Bullock at the club fair in Fall 2020 and convinced her to go to her frst practice.

Just like Anderson, she was hooked.

“Growing up in sports, I was al ways a very physical player to the point where a lot of people made jokes about me joining the football team, me being a man — and al most [in] a derogatory sense,” Bull ock said. “Rugby was the frst time I felt like I was accepted as a female athlete entirely for who I was.”

According to Bullock, rugby allows women to be “feminine ba dasses” due to its nature as a po tentially dangerous, physical sport. As a result, Fletcher said many peo ple create sexist stereotypes about women who play rugby. However, she added that being able to play

such a sport and break-down these stereotypes is empower ing.

“A lot of people believe that women can’t play contact-heavy sports,” Fletcher said. “I think it’s really, really empowering that we get out there, and we hit people hard, we tackle people low [and] we have a good time.”

Although the team is com petitive, they fnd a way to strike a balance between focus and fun, according to Anderson.

“Our club is very competi tive,” Anderson said. “We want to build a culture of winning but with our best friends next to us. Rugby taught me how import ant it is to have a community. School demands so much of you, but you have four hours a week where you’re just dedi cated to rugby and hanging out with your friends and [you] get out all of your energy.”

The team practices on Mon days and Thursdays, with an optional team lif once a week. Anyone is welcome to join, re gardless of skill or past experi ence. Because the team is “nocuts,” members are sorted into A and B teams, allowing players of similar skill to play together. The roster for the diferent teams, however, is not set in stone, as players on the B side can work their way up to the A team.

Bullock said she appreciates the team being open to anyone be cause it produces a diverse group.

“The best thing about a club sport is that you get girls that are absolutely dedicated to the max, and you have girls that are just there for the social part — and literally every single person on that spectrum is welcome,” Bull ock said.

The community cultivated on the feld transcends the weekly practices and games through so cial events scheduled regularly to increase bonding. Along with hanging out casually, the Fox es plan trips such as camping in Joshua Tree, beach days and parties.

Bullock said the Foxes com munity is beter than she could have imagined.

“I think rugby has been the most beautiful, welcoming team that I could ever hope to be a part of,” Bullock said. “As a woman who has been looked down and teased upon for her muscular body, it’s been phenomenal for me to fnally fnd a place that’s safe and a place where I can continue to break stereotypes of what a female athlete is.”

All seven seniors — goal keeper Athena Manthouli SC ’23, defenders Sam Ree CM ’22, Taylor Arakaki SC ’23 and Ol ivia Tufi HM ’23, midfelders Lizzie Iwicki CM ’23 and Nicole Oberlag CM ’23 and forward Caelyn Smith CM ’23 — start ed the game on the feld afer a team celebration.

An annual tradition, senior day sees the CMS community come together to give its veter an athletes praise for the years of work they have given to the team, which Ree found quite moving.

“It was really touching to see the incredible support from our families and all of the alum ni that made the trip out,” Ree said. “The upbeat atmosphere was another reminder to me of how much I love being able to play soccer with my team.”

With emotions running high, players such as Arakaki refect ed on their careers and what the Athenas will look like once they have passed the torch.

“I am going to miss playing with everyone, and I want to thank the team for making my last year as an Athena so spe cial,” Arakaki said. “The future is bright for the Athenas Soccer program, and I am excited to watch the team grow and domi nate in the coming years.”

Still, there was a game to be played, and despite the poten tial to be overwhelmed, CMS was unfazed.

The Athenas set the tone ear

Just fve minutes later, the Ba nana Slugs took control with a cross to a midfelder who was un marked inside the box. Despite a wide open chance, her header missed, bouncing of the post and out of bounds, maintaining the Athenas’ lead.

Afer defenders Ree, Tufi and Emma Fogg SC ’25 repeat edly thwarted the Banana Slugs’ subsequent atacks, UC Santa Cruz’s forwards looked disillu sioned the rest of the frst half.

There wasn’t much action on either side until, with just 15 sec onds lef, Nithya Yeluri HM ’25 looked poised to extend the CMS lead. Dribbling the ball up the lef fank past multiple defenders, she managed to force the goal keeper to come out, but her cross was just of target, falling out of bounds as the frst half ended.

At the start of the second half, the Slugs went on the atack. A couple of minutes in, a long ball sent across the feld to switch the point of atack landed at the feet of an open UC Santa Cruz for ward, but failed to convert, sail ing the ball high.

CMS responded when Kaitlyn Helfrich CM ’25 played a through ball behind the Slugs’ defense to Yeluri, who nearly chipped it in, but the goalkeeper came of her line to deny the goal.

Continuing to apply pressure, Riley Zitar CM ’26 led another rush by the Athenas in the 67th minute. Dribbling past multiple defenders up the center of the feld, she sent a barely-heavy through ball to Lewison, who couldn’t quite catch up to it.

In the late stages of the game, both teams seemed to be strug

Afer a CMS handball just out side the box, Manthouli saved a UC Santa Cruz free kick, but the Slugs regained possession quickly and responded with a quick at tack that led to a corner kick. Both teams were tense for the last two minutes of the game as UC Santa Cruz looked to fnd the equalizer, but the whistle blew at 90 minutes, with the Athenas sealing another victory.

Their seventh of the season, the win improves the Athenas’ record to 7-5-4. The shutout — jointly achieved by goalkeepers Man thouli and Sadie Brown CM ’26 — marked their ninth of the season.

Securing the victory was crucial not just for the team’s veterans, but also for its underclassmen.

“[The] win was very special be cause it was our senior game and a great way to celebrate our se niors who have put so much into the program and have worked so hard,” Ivy Doran SC ’26 said. “Ev eryone was playing for them, and it’s always nice to come out with a win.”

Head coach David Nolan said he hopes Saturday’s win will set the tone for the last few games of the season.

“Our goal is to get into the SCI AC playofs for the frst time in over fve years,” Nolan said. “This game against UC Santa Cruz gives us good confdence and momen tum going into our fnal two SCI AC regular season games.”

The Athenas returned to action Monday with a 1-1 draw versus Cal Lutheran, concluding a game which was suspended on Oct. 15 due to lightning. They tied again on Wednesday in their meeting with Whitier, this time 3-3, and will play their fnal game of the regular season at home against Oc cidental tomorrow at 7 p.m.

cOUrteSY: eVAN JOHNSON

the Pomona-Pitzer cross country team, many adorned in handmade shirts, poses for a photo in solidarity with Pomona dining hall workers ahead of their strike.

Defender Ivy Doran Sc ’26 looks to kick the ball past a U.c.

Santa cruz player on the way to a 1-0 victory for the Athenas.

ANSLEY WASHBURN

Adeena Liang PO ’23 sprints ahead with the ball as an opponent attempts to tackle her en route to the Foxes’ National championship victory over San Diego State University last spring.

cOUrteSY: cLAreMONt FOXeS WOMeN’S rUGbY

Natalia Molina, PhD

“In a world that sought to reduce Mexican immigrants to invisible labor the Nayarit was a place where people could become visible once again, where they could speak it, claim space, and belong. In 1951, Doña Natalia Barraza opened the Nayarit, a Mexican restaurant in Echo Park, Los Angeles. Historian Natalia Molina traces the life’s work of her grandmother, remembered by all who knew her as Doña Natalia - a generous, reserved, and extraordinarily capable woman. Doña Natalia immigrated alone from Mexico to L.A., adopted two children, and ran a successful business. She also sponsored, housed, and employed dozens of other immigrants, encouraging them to lay claim to a city long characterized by anti-Latinx racism. Together, the employees and customers of the Nayarit main tained ties to their old homes while providing one another safety and support.”

Sponsored by the Ena H. Thompson Fund and the History Department at Pomona College. Event is open and free to the Public. Attendees are required to wear masks inside Rose Hills.

at 7:15pm Rose Hills Theater

“How The Nayarit Built a World: Feeding Los Angeles and Becoming Mexican-American”

A Reading and Conversation with Natalia Molina, PhD, MacArthur Fellow Awardee (2020)

Ena