$5 McDonald's gift cards for the homeless

The up-to-no-good vato standing outside the Union Station is the ultimate danger sign lingering around the minds of people who fail to recognize their hidden prejudices. The African-American man next to him talking to the homeless guy is probably enough to keep some people walking.

As soon as I crossed Cesar Chavez Ave. towards their direction, I noticed their t-shirts. The 2009 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count was sprawled across their chests.

"There's a lady with a baby asking for money," a man told Draper Hughes--the guy chatting with the homeless guy.
He finished up his conversation with the homeless guy and walked up to the woman, who was accepting a bill from a young girl.

After a short conversation, he went back to his formal spot and this time I noticed the clipboard. Turns out that Hughes and his friend (who's name I failed to catch because I was in a rush and he was on his cellphone) work and also volunteer for the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority through the Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count.

During our even shorter conversation, Hughes explained that his job consists of asking homeless citizens a couple of questions regarding their situation (why are they homeless, health issues, etc.) The surveyed people get a $5 McDonald's gift card after answering the questions. More information on Hughes and the 2009 GLAHC on a later blog.

Lakers (101), American journalists in North Korea (12 years)

As I made an (illegal) run for the Transit Long Beach bus No. 5, I was sadden to find out that the sentencing news of American journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling to 12 years of hard labor was pushed to page A 14 of the Los Angeles Times. Meanwhile bearded man Pau Gasol of the Lakers was featured on the cover. Must be nice to be a Lakers' player right now! Not so nice to be a passionate journalist.
Maybe I'm being too biased here. Who am I kidding, I'm totally being biased. I don't necessarily hate sports, but I just have never been a fan. Bad memories of being a chubby 12-year old getting picked last for flag football may have something to do with it. But to know that there are two individuals who are potentially facing "extreme labor under extremely brutal conditions" just for doing their job and pretend like this is just another bit of "world news" is very frustrating for a journalism student.
We live in a very strange world. Why aren't we crying out in the streets about this injustice the same way that we'll be rallying when the Lakers win the NBA Finals. Most importantly, why is the L.A. Times pushing such important stories to its middle pages? Is it money? Of course. Is it bad journalism? Claro que yes. There's a new breed of journalism out there that is probably answering this questions. Current TV, the San Francisco-based cable news outlet Lee and Ling were reporting for when they got arrested, is an example of the development of journalism. Is it good or bad development? I don't know. Former Vice President Al Gore co-owns the station and everyone should fear politicians. All I know is that good journalism is dying and we, as the heirs of an exploding mother Earth, must keep our ears and eyes open to what is really important. Or whatever.

Latino Graduation at CSULB

Rosa Carrillo gave me an skeptical look when I informed her that I was a reporter with the Daily 49er trying to cover the 20th Annual Chican@/Latin@vGraduation Celebration.
Why wouldn't she? After all, there were many people outside Cal State Long Beach's Walter Pyramid trying to get into the sold out event. Thank God for my validation via Student Life and Development assistant director Brett Waterfield, who congratulated me for a profile I'd written about him and the rest of the Cultural Graduations.
Carrillo, like many of the students working on the event, was volunteering her time and creativity to try and make this celebration a successful one. The Long Beach City College counselor had been in charged of the celebration in the past and was asked to return with her keen sense of organization and dead-on coordination skills.
"I think the language brings everyone together," Carrillo said about the bilingual celebration in between trips to the exit doors where graduates were lining up and arranging last minute details with security--apparently they had an issue with air horns inside the place.
As the 214 graduating students--including 30 Master's candidates--walked into the basketball court, the 4,000 plus guests stood up and began clapping and snapping photo after photo.
Women that looked like my grandma and men with Stetson hats screamed out the names of their graduates. Children would lean against the bleacher rails--which was decorated with Latin American flags--and jumped up and down with excitement as their brothers, sisters and cousins waved their zarape-embroided sashes.
Right before the celebration, I "bumped" into CSULB President F. King Alexander. With the economy throwing up on itself, I asked Alexander to level with the students and tell them what realities they will be facing in a job-less market.
"I'm really pushing students to go to grad school," he said. "The job market is tight, but once the economy recovers, they will be prepared."
Sugarcoat anyone?
After a couple of minutes on the stage, Mr. President and Vice President Douglas W. Robinson had to leave to attend other activities. On a Sunday.
I really wished they could have stayed behind and listened to Chicano Studies Professor Jose Moreno--this year's graduation Marshall--and his heart-felt speech to the graduates asking them not to be too happy just yet because the number of Latino college graduates is not big enough.
"I'm nervous, excited and angry," Moreno told the audience. "But we have to celebrate because too many of our accomplishments are not celebrated."
According to Moreno, out of 100 Latino kinder gardeners, eleven manage to graduate from the California State University system. Bittersweet celebration for the masses!
Photo by Maria Ventura

"Gay, straight, black, white, marriage is a civil right!"

Alex Aguayo was holding on to his boyfriend's arms as he approached Long Beach's Bixby Park. The young college sweethearts listened as Long Beach Equality co-founder Tom Crowe rallied up the hundreds of marchers who showed up to protest the California Supreme Court's validation of Proposition 8 after a march along Broadway Blvd.
Aguayo is a film student at Cerritos College and the president for the school's chapter of the Queer-Straight Alliance.
Marchers from all walks of life (students, mothers, hippies, etc.) proudly held rainbow flags and signs that expressed the sentiments of people that were also marching across the Golden State.

"We want to march already," a man screamed from the parking lot of Long Beach's Hamburger Mary's, where all participants gathered before the march through the popular gayborhood.
"This was the ruling I was expecting," Aguayo said in a near matter-of-fact joke.
This seemed to be the popular belief amongst the attendees and the people who spoke at the park's band shelter.
Long Beach's First District Councilman Robert Garcia, who spoke at the rally, is hopeful that this decision won't be a step back in the fight to grant marriages to gay couples.
"I think that within the next two or three years this will happen," Garcia told me as fans of the guy came up to him to shake his hand or ask if he had a Facebook account. Which of course he does.
The openly Latino, I mean, gay politician, is making history at his own pace in the city of Long Beach. He is the the youngest elected City Councilmember, bringing with him a fresh breath of air to Long Beach politics.
As far as accepting other human beings, this country is a bit far behind.
Towards the end of the event, when people began to make that walk home and empty the park, Crowe mentioned that he and another LB Equality member were gay bashed while scouting the place for the event.
"We were assaulted on our own fucking turf,"Crow said.
The people who assaulted him were later detained.
As we made our way back home, a car passed by and screamed "faggots!"
I asked Aguayo if he thought gay marriage would ever become a reality.
"If I didn't believe in that, I wouldn't be here." Well said.

Photos taken by Valerie Kelly for LBPost.com

YOURS TRULY QUOTED ON THE BBC!

After finding a cartoon that yours truly drew for California State University Long Beach's Daily 49er http://media.www.daily49er.com/media/storage/paper1042/news/2008/05/08/Opinion/Our-View.Arizona.Bill.To.Evict.Minority.Student.Groups-3367315.shtml, BBC Mundo reporter Jose Baig contacted me to give my humble two cents on a current legisltation that would ban Chicano/Latino, Asian American and African American Studies from Arizona schools. According to the bill, these classes promote anti-American values. What are some of those values? According to an article found at East Valley Tribune's Web site, some of those values include democracy, capitalism and pluralism. This law is specifically going after groups that are race-based. Groups such as MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan or Chicano Student Movement from Aztlan), Black Student Associations and any other group that supports anti-American values. Now, I've taken some of the Chicano courses at CSULB, and never have I been thought to hate this country. Nonetheless, I been informed of some of the things this country has done to various minorities (Stone Wall riots, Mexican repatriation in the 30s, not letting women vote!), but never have I been told to hate it. So if you can't read Spanish (the article is from BBC Mundo, the Telemundo of the BBC), that's the gist of the story!
BBC article http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/mundo_usa/newsid_7391000/7391237.stm

CLASH OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS

Last week was Palestine Awearness Week. Various key note speakers and other activities took place throughout the whole week. The interesting part about the whole issue was the reaction by some members of the Jewish community here at CSULB. When author Anne Baltzer, a Jewish American Columbia graduate that has visited with people in Palestine and has toured different college campuses in the country to talk about the illegal occupation of Palestine by Israel, Rachel Bookstein, CSULB's Hillel director, was very disappointed on the alleged misleading information that Baltzer was giving in her presentation "Life In Occupied Palestine: Eyewitness, Stories and Photos."
According to Bookstein, Baltzer was not presenting the whole picture and that she was simplifying a much rather complicated issue. Bookstein questioned why Baltzer wasn't showing the pictures of terrorists and the ones who wish death to the people of Israel.
But Bookstein missed the whole point. Baltzer was trying to show a different picture than the one we are used to seeing on our local TV news. When was the last time that Palestine school girls are shown taking the bus at 3 a.m. just to make it in time to school because they have to cross the many check points.
Bookstein also mentioned to the reporter (me) that she wasn't surprised that a Jewish person would think that way and that Baltzer should be more careful with this type of information.


Media Credit: Chay Chhuon
Jewish author Anna Baltzer discusses "Life in Occupied Palestine: Eyewitness, Stories and Photos" at the Beach Auditorium Tuesday afternoon. In this slide, she describes the discrepancy between international outlets concerning Isreali-Palestanian conflicts.

FROM RUSSIA WITH HATE

Current TV is a fairly new cable station that features a lot of "citizen journalism" if you will. Some of the subjects that these pods deal with are very interesting issues that don't usually make it to mainstream media.
Check this pod about the racism that is going on in Russia and the neo-Natzi movement among Russian youth. The cruelty commited agaisnt different immigration groups is very graphic, so beware.