LA Beez

LGBT Community Squares Off Against Pacquiao

2012-05-17T10:00:00Z

Who knew that Manny Pacquiao's toughest opponent wasn't Floyd Mayweather Jr. or Timothy Bradley, but the entire lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender (LGBT) community?

As far as gay-rights advocates are concerned, it's a knockout.

The consensus on the Net is that the Filipino boxing champion has fallen from grace because of his rant against gay marriage. It has also ignited an online petition for Nike to drop Pacquiao as endorser. An Internet report claimed Pacquiao is now barred from The Grove, a shopping mall in Los Angeles, where the TV show "Extra" is taped, because of his "bigotry."

In a recent interview in the US newspaper National Conservative Examiner, Pacquiao likened gay marriage to "Sodom and Gomorrah" and quoted a biblical passage that said "gays should be put to death."

Pacquiao denied saying that in a statement read on the network news in Manila last night. He also said he did not know the text in Leviticus that prescribes death for homosexuality.

But earlier in the day, his website quoted him as standing by what he said.

Gay activists have weighed in and found Pacquiao wanting.

Anna Leah Sarabia, anthropologist and gender and development specialist, told the Inquirer: "He has lost many fans, unfortunately, and gained many critics. He is trying to make up for lack of knowledge on social issues by being self-righteous and quoting the Bible out of context, and parroting the brainless statements of homophobic and misogynist priests and politicians."

Danton Remoto, chair of the Ladlad LGBT political party, also told the Inquirer: "Like Miriam Quiambao, Pacquiao speaks with the zeal of the newly converted about things he knows nothing about. His reading of Christian teachings is narrow-minded, bigoted and, I am sorry to say, ignorant."

(Quiambao, a former beauty queen, also got in trouble after posting on Twitter that homosexuality is a "lie from the devil." She later apologized.)

After expressing his sentiments against same-sex marriage in the Examiner, Pacquiao has been deluged with criticisms in the American media and on social networking sites frequented by his countrymen.

Not a few Filipino fans have pointed out: From national hero, he has become a national heel.

It's an "embarrassment," said a netizen on Facebook. "Not our proudest moment," said another.

Another netizen wrote: "I think philandering husbands who flaunt their mistresses and then spout words from the Bible are the ones who deserve to be put to death."

Another was more straightforward: "Manny needs to worry about his own marriage first before he meddles into everyone else's."

It's rumored that Pacquiao's marriage to Jinkee Pacquiao is constantly tested by persistent rumors of his womanizing.

Online Petition

The Courage Campaign website described Pacquiao as "homophobic" and launched an online petition for Nike to drop him as endorser.

The online campaign read: "Kids all over the world look up to Pacquiao as a role model. Nike earned a 100-percent rating in the 2012 Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index as a pro-LGBT company. Will they live up to it? Sign our petition and tell Nike: 'Do not tarnish your brand. Stand with millions of LGBT and fair-minded people the world over. Drop Pacquiao now. Hatred surely does not equal Nike.'"

According to LA Weekly, Rick Jacobs, founder and chair of Courage Campaign, said: "American sponsors are going to have to look very carefully ... whether they [will] continue to pour money into his apparently empty soul."

Sarabia, who's also the editor of the anthology "Tibok: Heartbeat of the Filipino Lesbian," remarked: "There is a call from LGBT ranks to Nike and other companies to cancel his endorsement contracts because of what he said. There is basis for the call and it would be good to see how these companies will respond."

Apart from Nike, Pacquiao has scored lucrative deals with international companies like Hewlett-Packard and Hennessy, too.

Media Reaction

According to online reports, "Extra" host Mario Lopez announced on Twitter that Pacquiao was set to guest today (May 17) on his show, which is taped at The Grove.

The mall eventually issued this statement, published by LA Weekly on its website: "Based on news reports of statements made by Mr. Pacquiao, we have made it be known that he is not welcome at The Grove and will not be interviewed here now or in the future. The Grove is a gathering place for all Angelenos and not a place for intolerance."

Pacquiao is in Los Angeles, training for his fight with Bradley to be held on June 9 in Las Vegas.

The Village Voice ran a parody about 10 gays, both real and fictional, who can "beat up ... pipsqueak Pacman." The list includes American basketball bad boy Dennis Rodman and openly gay celebrities like British rugby player Ian Roberts, American football star Esera Tuaolo, singer Clay Aiken and comedian Rosie O'Donnell.

In the humor piece, Village Voice pointed out: "There's no question that Pacquiao is a tough little guy. But he's still a little guy (5-foot-6 and 144 pounds) and killing off gays one-by-one might be a slightly more difficult task than the feisty Filipino might think."

The website of Advocate, a respected gay publication, carried the story with the headline: "Pacquiao compares marriage equality to Sodom and Gomorrah," referring to the Old Testament cities that God destroyed because of their people's immorality.

The Examiner interview mainly focused on Pacquiao's reactions to US President Barack Obama's recent support of gay marriage. Pacquiao told the Examiner: "America should be the model of morality for other countries to emulate and must have the responsibility to uphold the Scripture to the highest order of God's command."

Leviticus 20:13

The Advocate reported that Pacquiao quoted the Bible, specifically Leviticus 20:13.

(Leviticus 20:13 reads: "If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their heads.")

In another Village Voice story, Pacquiao was put to task for quoting Leviticus 20:13. "Pacquiao apparently missed church the day they explained the Golden Rule."

Village Voice also noted that the "boxer and congressman ... is a devout Roman Catholic who recently talked about giving up boxing to focus on his religion. Considering how badly he seems to interpret the 'good book,' maybe that's not such a bad idea."

Local Celebs' Ire

Pacman, as the boxer is known in the biz, earned the ire of local celebrities as well.

Filmmaker Jose Javier Reyes told the Inquirer: "Instead of a reply, I have two questions: Does the Bible endorse the infliction of violence against your fellow man in the name of sportsmanship and to accrue millions so as to further gain a feeling of righteousness? What is the saying again about a little knowledge? Let me check Leviticus ... OMG, it says it's also a sin to have tattoos."

Pacquiao is as famous for his tattoos as for his killer punch.

Screenwriter and actor Rody Vera told the Inquirer: "Pacquiao may be the world's best boxer. The funny and fallacious thing is that he seems to believe this translates to being a great politician, great thinker and great person. He's only a winner in the boxing ring. How awfully small and confining that space is. It aptly signifies his narrow-mindedness and blind fanaticism."

Sarabia took note of Pacquiao's statement: "God only expects man and woman to be together and to be legally married, only if they are in love with each other."

Sarabia asked rhetorically: "I wonder if Pacman (Pacquiao) understands what he said, if he was quoted correctly. His statement seems to be an endorsement for divorce."

Below the Belt

Comedian Jon Santos, who made news for marrying an American man, was clearly not amused.

Santos told the Inquirer: "Life is too short to be spent unhappy. What happens in the bedroom is too private to be subjected to other people's judgment. God is too good to prevent people who love each other from staying together."

But stand-up comic Willie Nepomuceno has a hilarious take on the controversy: "I haven't paid much attention to him since he became the spokesperson of God. Tsk, tsk. Perhaps he has taken too many blows to the head? But, my goodness, now he's hitting below the belt."

Photo from New America Media.

This article originally appeared in Inquirer.net and New America Media.

State Adopts MUSD's 'Harvest Heroes' Characters

2012-05-16T07:00:00Z

Drawing contest grand prize winner Briana Stokes of Bell Gardens High School, left, and runner-up Cynthia Gastelum of Eastmont Intermediate. Another runner up, Kimberly Zaldana of Bell Gardens High School, is not pictured.

Lea esta nota EN ESPAÑOL: Estado Aprueba los Personajes 'Héroes de Cosecha' de MUSD »

The California Department of Health has adopted a team of educational cartoon characters developed by Montebello Unified School District, the district's nutritional services director, Victoria Cheung, said at a recent school board meeting.

The state is recommending that other districts and agencies use MUSD's "Harvest Heroes," a series of masked superheroes modeled after produce grown in California, such as asparagus, strawberries, squash, apples and artichokes. One character is featured each month to teach facts about the produce, familiarize students with it, and to introduce them to recipes using the produce.

With the help of these characters, students learn to enjoy produce that is usually not very popular, including kale.

"We're excited that the kids are excited about it," said Cheung. The drawback of some of the less popular produce, such as artichoke and asparagus is that they can sometimes be too expensive for the district to offer on a regular basis.

One of MUSD's Harvest Heroes.

The district has used the characters to introduce students to new foods for the past five years, Cheung said, and now similar characters can sometimes be seen in ads put out by the state.

Meanwhile a long-standing nutrition education tradition at the district was continued this year. As in years past, students from MUSD won big in the state's Nutrition Advisory Council drawing contest.

Bell Gardens High School students Briana Stokes and Kimberly Zaldana won the grand prize and the runner's up prize respectively this year. Eastmont Intermediate student Cynthia Gastelum was also a runner-up winner. The grand prize drawing was printed on a t-shirt, and all winners receive $75.

Stokes' winning drawing follows the district's "heroes" themed approach to nutrition, and features a girl caped crusader, standing with her hands on her hips amid a colorful assortment of fruits and vegetables.

When this news was given at a recent school board meeting, Board Member David Vela, an alumnus of Bell Gardens High School, said he was also a winner in the contest and had his drawing printed on a t-shirt.

Cheung says the popularity of nutrition education has grown in the district, with more and more teachers in the district seeing its value and bringing it into their classrooms. At one point there were only 50 classrooms in the district teaching nutrition, and now there are 500, she says. "They are not just telling students to eat properly during testing, but every day, telling them to eat more healthfully, to eat smarter," Cheung said.

In addition to education, the district has also been able to offer healthier breakfast and lunch options, including pizza made out of whole-wheat dough, and breakfast sandwiches that use turkey ham. At the same time, students are increasingly choosing to eat school breakfasts and lunches. Cheung says their goal is to make sure students are interested in the food they provide, and they do not skip meals.

Cheung says it is helping that vendors are slowly updating their offerings.

"Manufacturers are realizing the whole culture is slowly changing and there is more demand from customers, Cheung said.

"Their products now have less salt, fat, less additives... the processing still has a ways to go, but at least they're trying."

Elizabeth Hsing-Huei Chou is a writer for Eastern Group Publications.

This article originally appeared in Eastern Group Publications.

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Coconut Scraping Contest Adds to Fun of Sri Lankan New Year Celebs in L.A.

2012-05-15T07:00:00Z

Sri Lankan women competing in coconut-scraping race at the community's New Year celebrations in Gardena on April 21.

Before you can tweet 'coconuts and saris in the park,' it's over. A hand shoots up showcasing a cleanly scooped out, bald coconut shell. A new coconut-scraping champ is declared. The crowd roars, cameras click, the DJ cracks a joke. No one's keeping time, so it's impossible to say if a record has been broken.

It's Aluth Avurudda, the Sri Lankan New Year celebrated in Los Angeles.

Thornburg Park in Gardena on a Saturday in April: A row of women sit on low wooden bird-shaped stools that have serrated metal necks sticking out, their palms cradling the half dome of a fleshy coconut, some attired in colorful saris that puff out in the wind. The scene is surreal enough to stop casual passersby in their tracks. But there are no casual onlookers here.

An air of purpose and tense anticipation hangs over the crowd that has gathered to watch the women compete in a race Americans have never heard of: coconut scraping. At a sign from the referee, they're off to a flying start. The women hunch over, intently pressing the flesh of the coconut into the metal necks, their hands doing a fast dance around the 'scraper. Grate, grate, grate. The coconut drizzles down like snow flurries on the plates below. The intensely-contested coconut scraping race contest is part of the traditional games of the Sinhala & Hindu New Year (Aluth Avurudhu) celebrated by Sri Lankans.

In Southern California, which has the largest Sri Lankan community in the US (about 25,000), the celebration at Thornburg Park has been a yearly fixture for the past thirty years and draws people from as far away as Santa Barbara and San Diego.

With some variations, the New Year, based on astrology and which marks the sun's movement from position Meena Rashiya (House of Pisces) to the Mesha Rashiya (House of Aries), is celebrated at different times in April in several Asian countries: India (Baisakhi), Bangladesh, Thailand (Songkran), Laos (Bun-Pi-Mai-Lao) and Myanmar (Thingyan).

In Sri Lanka, the New Year marks the end of the rice harvest season and is celebrated over a two-day period - April 13 & 14. Astrologers calculate the exact time of the New Year's dawn, heralded by fire crackers and the sound of the rabana — giant drums on a wooden frame — beaten by as many as six or seven women who sit around it dressed in colorful chintz 'cloth and jacket' outfits.

LA's new coconut-scraping champ.

A host of auspicious activities, such as the lighting of the hearth, exchange of gifts, bathing, anointing oil on the head by elders, and cooking of the first meal, follow. Children and adults alike show their respect and deference to their parents and elders by offering betel leaves and going down on their knees to worship them. Homes are thoroughly cleaned and new curtains hung. Oil cakes and milk rice take center stage on dining tables crowded with sweetmeats. It's the one time in the year when vendors of new clay cooking pots make a killing.

Such traditions don't squeeze in easily into the proverbial two suitcases immigrants carry to their new countries. The insurmountable hurdles of trying to fit the square pegs of ancient eastern traditions into the round hole of modern western societies could range from something as simple as trying to finding the right condiments to the more esoteric problem of getting precise astrological charts and auspicious times.

Above all there's the inevitable isolation, if not discomfiture, of belonging to an unfamiliar culture — a reason many immigrants molt into a new skin almost as soon as they arrive. Try telling the boss that you want the day off because the sun is moving from Pisces to Aries!

Still, the long history of Sinhala/Hindu New Year celebrations in Los Angeles attests to the notion that some things just don't get jettisoned on the long migratory journeys of even the smaller ethnic communities. On that day in April at the park in Gardena, the indomitable spirit of identity was everywhere as this community got together once more to plunge into games such as 'kotta pora,' pillow fights in which opponents face each other while balancing on a wooden stand, or 'muttiya bideema' — where blindfolded contestants take a swing with a pole at a hanging clay pot.

Remarkably, despite the festival being a Buddhist/Hindu tradition, the Los Angeles celebration was started by Joseph Silva, the patriarch of an extended Sri Lankan Catholic clan that continues to be involved in organizing it each year.

For younger Sri Lankans the event is a rare opportunity to celebrate their ethnic heritage and share community bonds. UCLA grad student Mihiri Tillekeratna (25) has been coming to it with her parents for as long as she can remember and tries to get as much fun as she can out of the day-long celebration.

"I'm proud to say that for the first time in years, I did not come dead last in the coconut scraping game," she says with a laugh, adding: "As a second-generation Sri Lankan American who has never had the opportunity to spend the avurudu in Sri Lanka, this is the closest I can get to having that experience. It's a space where we can connect with not only the culture of our parents but also with each other."

Well-known lines from a poem by 19th century British poet Rupert Brooke's has a soldier exhorting:

IF I should die, think only this of me/ That there's some corner of a foreign field/ That is for ever England.

For Sri Lankans who have been coming to the Gardena event for three decades, the rundown park with its spotty patches of grass and aging swings will, perhaps, be forever a part of their native land, conquered not by boots but by the memories of traditions that burst forth every April, inevitable like the dawn of spring.

Hassina Leelarathna (hassinaleelarathna@gmail.com) is a Los Angeles-based freelance journalist.

San Gabriel Valley's "Power Babes"

2012-05-14T07:00:00Z

San Gabriel Valley's "Power Babes"

The regulars at the Jay-Dee's on Main Street looked up from their bar stools at the "Power Babes": An accountant, courier, clown, hair dresser and podiatrist and more walked to the back room to network.

Michele Colon (left) & Julian Chung (right)

For the past two years, in locations as diverse as these "babes" themselves — including an auto repair shop, youth center, lingerie store, and the most recent meeting in a bar — nearly 100 women have joined forces to form the San Gabriel Valley Power Babes. The lead babe is the ever exuberant Julian Chung, an insurance agent and Alhambra resident since 1997 who happens to be my sister-in-law.

The group started when Chung created a regular luncheon with five business women — Ruccsana Ahmed, Michele Colon, Nickie Chan, Isabel Wu and Drue Lawlor — and one man, John Bingham. One day, he told them the name of their group: Power Babes. The name stuck, and Bingham earned himself honorary Power Babe status.

By the time I joined in March to promote my creative writing business and cardio ballet classes, the group had already grown to 95.

At the most recent Power Babes meeting at Jay-Dee Cafe, about 30 women came out for the luncheon. Chung stood in the middle of the dimly lit room and said, "We are here for two hours to relax and make friends." But, as we ate homemade soup and sandwiches, she made clear this was also about developing our businesses, the importance of networking, and being the first line of referrals for each other.

Podiatrist Michele Colon

Then we began our one-minute introductions, to be followed by brief presentations from a credit repair expert, a journalist on pitching your story, and motivational speaker.

Michele Summers Colon, a podiatrist from El Monte, stood up in her medical scrubs. She pulled out three-inch heels from a shoebox. "The shoe line is called 34 minutes," Michele said. "I want to show women that you can wear heels for more than 34 minutes and still be comfortable." Much hooting followed.

Vanessa Hidalgo

As the luncheon introductions continued some new faces were hard to miss: Vanessa Hidalgo from the Compassionate Clown Company came dressed in costume and Jennifer Gaulden from Kiss My Buttons had on her favorite "bling."

Hidalgo, dressed in her clown outfit complete with purple wig and pink headband, pulled out a balloon she had twisted into the shape of Cinderella. A few seats down Gaulden proudly displayed her "Bling it On" rhinestone-encrusted t-shirt. She is a dance mom who built her home-based business in Temple City. Both Colon and Gaulden got connected to Power Babes through Alhambra's Joanna Vargas.

Dance mom Jennifer Gaulden

Apparently, bling was popular among the Power Babes. Brenda Kyle, marketing assistant at Douglas Auto Body, held up one of Colon's shoes when it was her turn to introduce herself. "I love these," she said. "And my favorite color is bling. So if we can put Jennifer's bling on Michele's shoes then I will definitely be buying them."

The next Power Babes meeting will be May 17 at the LifeWave (acupuncture patches) office at 407-3 West Valley Boulevard, Alhambra, CA 91803. If you're a Power Babe, write to Julian Chung: jchunginsurance@yahoo.com. She said the qualifications are simple: "If we like you, you're invited."

Sarah Grear is a Community Contributor to Alhambra Source.

Photos from Alhambra Source.

This article originally appeared in Alhambra Source.

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Hundreds of Boyle Heights Liquor Stores Get Visit From the ABC

2012-05-11T07:00:00Z

Lea esta nota EN ESPAÑOL: No Hubieron Empresas Citadas en Operativo de Licencia de Alcohol en Boyle Heights »

Responding to public outcry about public safety and quality of life issues related to alcohol sales, 40 alcoholic beverage control and Los Angeles police officers conducted inspections at nearly 200 alcohol beverage selling outlets in Boyle Heights and surrounding communities last week.

A part of the special operation, businesses licensed to sell alcohol — restaurants, bars, liquor and convenience stores — underwent a close-up inspection to determine if they were complying with the conditions and regulation set when their alcohol sales license was issued. The operation was aimed at making sure that area establishments are responsible and accountable for the alcoholic beverages they sell.

More educational than punitive, the Informed Merchants Preventing Alcohol-Related Crime Tendencies (IMPACT) program inspections were a cooperative effort between the California Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC), Los Angeles Police Department, and licensees, according to a California Dept. of Alcoholic Beverage Control press release.

"The purpose of the IMPACT program is to educate our licensees. Violations were observed. Our officers pointed them out and advised the employees/licensees on how to correct them. No citations were issued," ABC Los Angeles District Administrator Will Salao told EGP in an email.

The program helps merchants identify their weaknesses and correct their deficiencies without penalties, according to a departmet press release.

Representatives from the Boyle Heights Coalition for a Safe and Drug-Free Community, which hosted a town hall meeting in March on the affects of alcohol, and from Los Angeles Councilman Jose Huizar's office observed the IMPACT inspections on May 2, according to the press release.

In March, the Boyle Heights Coalition released preliminary findings of their then just completed alcohol-availability study. The data showed there were two felony DUIs with injuries, 349 alcohol related traffic violations, and a host of other crimes in Boyle Heights where alcohol played a factor during a six-month period in 2011. During the meeting organizers and residents discussed a moratorium on new alcohol sale licenses for off-site consumption.

In a written statement, Councilman Huizar thanked ABC and the LAPD for the inspections and said it was a critical step in the process of stepping up enforcement against problem liquor establishments, educating business owners about responsible requirements and closing legal loopholes in order to reduce the number of liquor licenses in Boyle Heights.

"We need businesses to help prevent tragedies on the roads, streets and highways," said Salao in the press release. "They can do this by checking identifications and refusing to sell alcohol to obviously intoxicated patrons and underage youth."

ABC is a Department of the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency.

This article originally appeared in Eastern Group Publications.

Photo from Eastern Group Publications.

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CSU Faculty Stage Pickets Across State, Ready to Strike

2012-05-10T07:15:00Z

SAN FRANCISCO — Educators in the state's largest public university system staged pickets across the state Tuesday, hoping to draw attention to their faltering negotiations with California State University for a new contract.

If they fail to reach an agreement with the administration, the California Faculty Association's 23,000 members could call for a strike, which would be the largest faculty strike in U.S. history.

The pickets come on the heels of the overwhelming 95-percent approval rating by members of an authorization to strike should the last round of bargaining fail. As part of the now 23-month-old contract dispute, the two sides had agreed to return to the bargaining table, but according to the CSU, faculty negotiators walked away from those talks Sunday night.

"We're really trying to put pressure on the CSU to work with us," said Phil Klasky, a lecturer in the Department of American Indian Studies at San Francisco State University. "We have invited them to work with us to find more resources."

The two sides remain at odds over a few remaining issues, including a review process for contract lecturers, class cap sizes and pay for faculty union representatives.

CSU spokesman Erik Fallis said that the pickets and strike vote are not necessarily productive to the process, however. "It's not relevant to the process right now," he said. "It has no bearing on the work that's being done."

Fallis maintained that the university's goal is to reach an agreement before a strike can legally be called. While the union membership authorized its leadership to call for a strike should final negotiations fall through, that cannot be done unless the next stage of the lengthy process, called fact-finding, also fails.

During fact-finding, both sides will present their arguments to a third-party negotiator in yet another attempt to reach a mutual agreement.

At the end of that process, if they have not agreed on a new contract, then the faculty could call for a strike.

"You push people to a point where you have to protest," said Sean Kelly, a political science professor at Cal State Channel Islands.

During the picket at San Francisco State University Tuesday, faculty passed out fliers to passers by at the corner of 19th and Holloway avenues.

"Our working conditions are students' learning conditions," Sheila Tully, a lecturer in the anthropology department at SF State and the CFA chapter's vice-president, told the crowd of about 30 students and faculty.

Several students, members of the campus' Students for Quality Education group, also joined the picket.

"I'm here to support California faculty," said child and adolescent development major Jocelyn Polanco, 20. "This is about our future, too."

As negotiations drag on, many faculty members seem to be losing patience with the process, and with the leadership of Chancellor Charles B. Reed, who has come under fire in recent months, most recently for his stance on executive pay increases for the 23 campus presidents.

"This mostly comes from the top, from the Chancellor. He has taken a very hard stance on the negotiations," said Klasky.

In the Board of Trustees meeting Tuesday, the CSU agreed that the 10 percent pay increases that had been sought for the top leaders in the system would not come out of the CSU budget, but rather that each campus' nonprofit foundations would be asked to come up with the money for any raises.

"Chancellor Reed is saying he's no longer going to ask taxpayers to pay for these raises and instead has asked the foundations," Tully told the SF State crowd. "We don't agree with his priorities."

For some, the issue of academic freedom is representative of the differences between the two sides.

"They want to focus everyone on the money. It's not just about money. They could give us the assurance of academic freedom, and that wouldn't cost them one red cent," said Kelly.

He also expressed frustration at the approach that the CSU has taken to the negotiations. "If the CSU could come to the table ready, psychologically, to come to an agreement, I think it could be done," he said.

Yet despite the pickets and protests, faculty say they're eager for an agreement to be reached.

"We're not on strike yet, hopefully we won't be," said Georgia Gero-Chen, a lecturer in the English department at SF State, at the picket Tuesday.

Kelly echoed her sentiment, and noted, "Protest is not the first impulse of people, it's the last choice of people."

Following the breakdown in talks, negotiations will continue through the fact-finding process. Both sides have repeatedly said that they are determined to reach an agreement for the sake of students.

"Quality education for students is really the goal here," Fallis said.

Kelly Goff is a student at San Francisco Sate University and editor of the school newspaper, Golden Gate Xpress.

Photo from New America Media.

This article originally appeared in New America Media.

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Kaba Hoops Program: Helping Fil-Am families Bond Through Basketball

2012-05-10T07:00:00Z

ORANGE COUNTY — What started out as a weekly family gathering amongst old friends quickly grew into something so much more.

For the past year in a half, Kaba Hoops, a non-profit organization, has helped unite 250 Filipino families across Southern California through basketball. Setting up teams and weekly games at the Next Level Sports Complex in Garden Grove, the non-profit organization allows Pinoy families a safe venue where they can watch their children play basketball in a semi-competitive environment and more importantly, share their culture with one another.

"It's our hope that we could provide a platform for Fil-Am children to learn to play basketball, the fundamentals, the important lessons of sportsmanship, winning and losing," said Frank Cotreras, the president and CEO of Kaba Hoops. "We are the only Fil-Am organization that really concentrates on youth in basketball. It is also our hope that we can bring people together to gain and enhance our collective knowledge and awareness of the Filipino American society and cultural heritage," he added.

Contreras said the Kaba hoops began with a few close friends and family members that met up regularly to catch up on old times and watch their children play basketball.

It was something they were familiar with. This group of friends loved playing basketball during their heydays as students and members of the Kababayan club at UC Irvine in the mid-1980s. Basketball was a lifeline, a bonding moment amongst bros.

"Basketball was just the common bond and it was the fiber that kept all of my friends together," said Contreras. "We played at tournaments, intramural, recreation leagues and all sorts of different leagues. We played together, we traveled together. It was a great way to bond."

That bond continued after graduation. As the group of friends grew older, married and had children of their own they continued to meet up. This time their kids playing the game they love - basketball.

So it seemed natural, using basketball as a platform, maybe the sport could also unite the local Fil-Am community especially in Orange County.

"We wanted to create a support group to unite the Filipinos in the OC," he said. "In Orange County, there are a lot of Filipino families but we're not united.

We're all in different places. It's not like Carson, Cerritos or Eagle Rock where there's a heavy concentration of Filipinos in one place."

Contreras said he and his friends soon realize that they touched a nerve in the community.

"We used to train at the Tustin Salvation Army and slowly but surely we started to grow," he said. "When we started fielding teams last summer, there was this great clamoring to play. We quickly outgrew the gym. We were literally busting at the seams it soon became a fire hazard because we had so many people at the gym."

Soon Filipino families from across Southern California — not just the OC — heard about the organization and wanted to join in. Kaba moved locations from Tustin to Garden Grove.

Contreras said now on any given week you'll see Filipinos from Pasadena, Carson, Mission Viejo, to as far as the Inland Empire and Corona attend the games.

"This is what we wanted," he said. "We really want to bring the community together. It's our vision to sustain a community service organization for the Fil-Am community where families can meet other families, create new bonds, and bring everybody together."

Contreras warns that the league may not be everybody. It's not an AAU or hyper competitive basketball league.

It's for kids from 2nd grade to high school, he said.

"Being the best is not the goal of Kaba hoops," he said. "Our coaches are volunteers, and they strive to teach kids the game the right way about sportsmanship and teamwork. There's a lot of life lessons that you can only learn from participating in team sports and not in a classroom."

The league is also not limited to just Filipinos. It's open to anyone and everybody wanting to learn more about the Fil-Am community.

"While we are here to preserve and maintain our culture, we are also here to share our culture with non Filipinos," he said. "Every culture is unique and beautiful. It is our hope that Kaba hoops can be a center for Fil-Ams and anyone to congregate and share our passion of basketball and culture."

For more information about Kaba Hoops please visit www.KabaHoops.com.

Joseph Pimentel is a writer for Asian Journal.

Logo and photo from www.kabahoops.com.

This article originally appeared in Asian Journal.

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For Minority Kids, Preschool Narrows Education Gap

2012-05-09T07:00:00Z

Celia Rubi Medina is quick to raise her hand when her teacher asks about the meaning of the word, metamorphosis.

"It's when the little caterpillar becomes a butterfly," says the 4-year-old girl, a Head Start student at Tracy Elementary in the Baldwin Park Unified School District (BPUSD).

The school is located in the San Gabriel Valley, east of Los Angeles, in a predominantly working class community. More than 86% of the students receive free or reduced lunch (compared with 56.7% in the state's general student population).

"We don't have a lot of money, but we strive to (give) the best education for our children," says Gema Morales, mom of Celia Rubi and her twin sister, Gema Mariana. They are two of the more than 1,600 students attending preschool at Tracy, thanks to the BPUSD's consistent efforts to get funding for the educational cycle.

"We have been providing early childhood education since 1942," states Froilan Mendoza, associate superintendent of BPUSD, emphasizing that the district takes early education very seriously.

Dodging the effects of financial swings over the years has been challenging, but even during the educational cutbacks of recent years, BPUSD has managed to keep open the same number of preschool slots. The 1,635 children attending preschool this year represents a 235 increase over the last school year.

"State funding cuts eliminated 20 slots, but we were able to fund an additional hundred through the federal Head Start program," said Ricardo Rivera, director of Early Childhood Education at BPUSD, noting that each year brings a new challenge in balancing federal and state funds, and ensuring that the net number of students served is not diminished.

Glovin Salido, mother of a 4-year-old girl who also attends preschool at Tracy, emphasizes that for families like hers what matters most is to having an option for quality preschool, wherever the funds come from.

"If I had to pay, my daughter would've missed this important phase of her education," said Salido, noting that her husband is a minimum wage construction worker.

"In this area, private preschool costs about $700-a-month, something we just can't afford," she said.

Closing the gap

Parents, like the overwhelming majority of education experts, are convinced that early childhood education plays a crucial role in narrowing the achievement gap for minority and low-income children.

"I have no doubt that my daughter is excelling in kindergarten because she attended preschool," says Sasha Alvarenga, mother of Tirsa who, after two years of preschool at Los Angeles Universal

Preschool (LAUP), is now a student at 49th Street Elementary School in Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). After being diagnosed with autism at 3, Alvarenga said, Tirsa was categorized as a special education student.

"She didn't speak at all, and the doctor told me she wouldn't be able to learn in a regular classroom," Alvarenga said.

Alvarenga said she witnessed first hand the transformation of her daughter during the first months of preschool.

"By the time she entered kindergarten, the autism diagnosis had been withdrawn, and she is now one of the advanced students in her class," she said.

LAUP does not maintain data about the academic performance of its preschool children in subsequent years. But studies show its benefits.

Some of those benefits are still evident 30 years later, according to the findings of a study announced in late January by the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill.

The study started in the 70's with 111 children (98% African-American) and to the present has been able to follow the evolution of 101 of them. The research — which provides new data for the prestigious Abecedarian Project led by the FPG Child Development Institute at UNC, suggests that the participants were four times more likely to have earned a college degree (23%, compared to 6% in a similar group where children did not receive early education).

"This achievement applied to both boys and girls, an important finding given the current low rate of college graduation for minority males in our country," said Elizabeth Pungello, scientist at FPG Institute and co-author of the study.

Research on the Chicago Child-Care Centers initiative, published in mid-2011, also emphasizes the positive effects of early education. The study, conducted among 1,400 low-income African American children who were observed for 28 years, show an increased high school graduation rate (50% compared to 39%), lower participation in special education (14% versus 25%), and better results on standardized tests of language and mathematics.

Among Hispanics, data from the Universal Pre-K program in Oklahoma conducted during the early 2000s by the Center for Research on Children in the United States (CROCUS) at Georgetown University, indicates that Latino preschoolers benefited the most from quality preschool. While all students showed improvements in letter and word recognition (+52%), spelling (+27%) and mathematical problems (+21), the progress among Latino children was even higher, at +79%, + 39 and + 54%, respectively.

Silvia de la Rosa, a mother of two girls, aged 3 and 1 year, isn't surprised by these findings. "For me it is just common sense. If there were more studies, there would be more evidence showing that the academic success of disadvantaged children starts in preschool."

However, this resident of Pacoima — one of the poorest districts in the San Fernando Valley — fears her daughters will be among the 87% of California's low-income children without access to quality early education. The $517 million in cuts to child development services that Governor Jerry Brown outlined in his budget proposal, issued in January, could eliminate access for another 62,000 children.

De la Rosa is actively looking for a place where her eldest daughter can attend preschool this coming fall, but so far she has not found any openings.

"I can't afford a private preschool, and the only one I have found that's free is far away from home," says De la Rosa. As a single mom with no driving license, she finds it very challenging to travel everyday by bus with two young children.

For now, she occasionally uses the services of a neighbor who charges her $30 per day, when De la Rosa gets work cleaning residential homes.

"She is a very nice lady, and loves my daughters. But, what can she teach them, when she didn't have the chance to finish elementary school herself?" says De la Rosa, convinced that the achievement gap begins long before low-income children start school.

Photo courtesy: Shutterstock.

This article originally appeared in New America Media.

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Lone Fil-Am Member of LA County GOP Reveals Agenda at CRA Annual Convention

2012-05-08T07:00:00Z

Bob Haneter, Vice President of California Republican Assembly (CRA); Celeste Greig, President of CRA; and Mel Alfarero delegate CRA Convention, Former Chair of Fil-Am GOP of LA County (FARLAC) and National Chair of National Fil-Am GOP (NFAR) and Consultant of Property Innovations, Inc. (Job Creator Projects) Candidate 45th AD GOP this coming election on June 5 in the California Primary. (Photo courtesy of Mel Alfarero)

The oldest and largest grassroots volunteer organization chartered by the California Republican Party, the California Republican Assembly (CRA) held a Statewide Annual Convention in the last week of April.

Amid heated and contentious debate, the conservative California Republican activist group failed to endorse a GOP presidential candidate.

The CRA ended up approving and endorsing a resolution to support efforts to defeat President Obama in the coming California Primary on June 5, 2012 and the general election on November 4, 2012. The convention referred to Obama as a "One Term President."

The CRA convention endorsed Hispanic Al Ramirez from Santa Monica, CA as US Candidate for Senator against Diane Feinstein. Al hurdled more than 2/3 votes at the 3rd voting elimination among six (6) competing nominees.

There were over 390 delegates and only 134 passed the credential committee certified as voting delegates. Of the delegates, only two were Filipino-Americans: Mel Alfarero from Los Angeles, a voting delegate, and Gina (Ines) McNelley from Orange County as alternate delegate.

Alfarero, the Fil-Am GOP operative who hails from Bohol, is the ex-officio Chair of FARLAC, Fil-AM GOP of LA County, current chair of NFAR, National Fil-Am Republicans. He is the incumbent Vice Chair of the 37th AD GOP Central Committee (West of San Fernando Valley) and will be running at the 45th AD GOP election this coming June 5 in the California Primary. There are 13 candidates running in his district.

Mel is the only Filipino-American member of the Los Angeles County Republican Party, the largest county in the US with a population of more than 10 million. He was also the only Fil-Am elected as alternate delegate to the California Electoral College in the 2000 election.

A Mitt Romney supporter since the 2008 elections, Mel has completed his application on time as Mitt Romney's delegate to the National Republican Convention in Tampa, Florida from August 27-30, 2012.

His agenda is to hold an Election for NFAR (National Fil-Am Republicans), just like he did during the 2000 Republican National Convention in Pennsylvania. With a goal of stepping down as National Chairman, Mel seeks to have an election of officers among the Fil-Am delegates and non-delegates in Tampa, FL.

In view of this, Mel is inviting Fil-Am leaders, members of the Philippine media and political parties in the Philippines to observe the NFAR elections and the American presidential elections.

Alfarero plans to visit the Philippines soon to introduce his plan for creating jobs in America, and to bring Filipino investors to the US and take advantage of the business opportunities in the country.

Cynthia De Castro is a writer for Asian Journal.

This article originally appeared in Asian Journal.

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Obama Launches AAPI for Obama

2012-05-08T07:00:00Z

LOS ANGELES — With Asian and Filipino Americans becoming the fastest growing segment of the American population, their political influence and votes are up for grabs especially in this election year.

Last Monday, the Obama Administration got a jump on his Republican opponents announcing its Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders for Obama Program to kick off Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

During a conference call, Obama administration officials and Democratic members of Congress said it is important to continue to reach out to Asian American voters.

"The Obama administration clearly understands our communities needs," said Congressman Mike Honda (D-CA), the vice chair of the Democratic National Committee.

According to the Atlantic, Asian American voters favor President Obama over Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney by a wide margin - 59 percent to 13 percent.

"Obama was strongest among Indian-American voters, leading Romney by a margin of 76 to 8 percent in the poll, and weakest among Filipino Americans, where the vote was 57 percent to 20 percent," wrote Molly Ball of The Atlantic. "Among Chinese Americans, it was 68 percent for Obama, 8 percent for Romney."

Congresswoman Judy Chu (D-CA) said the President has remain committed to issues affecting the API community and placed a record number of Asian Americans in leadership positions in the government.

During the president's reign, he's more than doubled the number of APIs on the federal bench and appointed highly qualified Asian Americans in the Cabinet level, she said.

Chu said like in 2008, the APIs vote will play a critical role in electing the next president. In the last election, 81 percent of new registered Asian American voters voted for Obama, according to Chu.

"We've gone from being marginalized to being the margin of victory," she said.

Chu said with the Asian American community growing so fast, the AAPI for Obama Program campaign will be working hard to register new voters.

Joseph Pimentel is a writer for Asian Journal.

Image from barackobama.com.

This article originally appeared in Asian Journal.

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City Council Approves LAUSD Board District Maps

2012-05-07T07:15:00Z

Residents attending a LAUSD Redistricting Commission public hearing in February that discussed redrawing school districts. (EGP photo by Gloria Angelina Castillo)

The Los Angeles City Council approved the final redistricting maps for the Los Angeles Unified School District on April 25. The maps are redrawn every ten years to reflect changes in population recorded by the US Census.

The maps approved by a now disbanded city appointed redistricting commission were subject to public scrutiny and complaint earlier this month as parents and stakeholders charged that they had been disenfranchised by the process and that the redrawn maps did not reflect their communities of interest.

Most of the attention was focused on Board District 5 — represented by the newest member of the school board, Bennett Kayser — which was the most altered in the new maps.

The City Council, however, restored almost all of Kayser's district after attorneys for the City of Los Angeles and the Chief Legislative Analyst made recommendations to the "tremendously flawed map," according to Kayser's office.

Applauding the new maps, Kayser said the redistricting process had taken a heavy toll on the communities he represents, specifically the Southeast Cities, East Los Angeles and the Northeast Los Angeles area, not to mention him, personally.

"After all the drama and trauma, the 'new' LAUSD Board District 5 is basically the district I ran for and won just nine months ago. All I can say is, it's great to be back and I am thrilled for the chance to continue serving the very people who have placed their trust in me," he said in a written statement.

Councilmember Tom LaBonge is said to have helped change the outcome of the maps. He was concerned about the separation of Marshall High School from its feeder schools, according to the press release.

This article originally appeared in Eastern Group Publications.

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Audit Released As Long-Time Vernon Official Leaves City

2012-05-07T07:00:00Z

Excerpt from CalPERS City of Verson Audit Fact Sheet.

A highly-paid financial advisor and former Vernon city administrator officially ended his relationship with the city last Tuesday, just as the results of an investigation into the city's benefits compensation practices were released.

Some at the city council meeting on Tuesday applauded when it was announced that Eric Fresch would no longer be serving as a consultant to the city as of May 1, nearly two years after his salary, which topped $1 million a year, and the salaries of other city officials, were thrust into the media spotlight.

Fresch was on contract, working on a bond deal for the light and power department, and was paid over $600,000 last year. He submitted his resignation letter last November.

While some in the city are glad to see Fresch gone, the city's independent ethic's advisor, John Van de Kamp, said his interactions with the former city administrator have been positive. "I have to say in full disclosure [Fresch] has been cooperative and helpful with me and with the council in this reform process. There are other issues that relate to him that I'm not going to touch on, but that simply needs to be said," Van de Kamp said during his report at Tuesday's meeting.

On the same day, CalPERS, the administrators of the state's public pension fund, released its findings following a yearlong audit of how the city provided benefits to its employees between 2002 and 2010. Among the problems cited by CalPERS was the improper classification of certain employees, including Fresch, as safety personnel, a designation typically applied only to police and fire employees that resulted in Fresch receiving increased benefits.

The city also failed to report that former mayor Leonis Malburg had been convicted of perjury, which "could result in the forfeiture of years of service," according to CalPERS investigators.

Another former official whose benefits could be affected is former city administrator Bruce Malkenhorst, who is receiving $500,000 a year in retirement benefits. He pleaded guilty to embezzling city money last year.

CalPERS also raised a host of other issues related to the city's failure to show documentation on employee benefits and compensation, and to prove that benefits paid to employees were based on accurate information.

The findings by the CalPERS auditors could impact over 20 current and former employees, some of whom may have been over compensated, according to the CalPERS' findings.

However at Tuesday's council meeting, Van de Kamp said the problems cited in the audit report are "ancient history," adding that "some of these proposals and findings that have been made by PERS are ones that have been picked up [by the city] and it's very clear that we're gong to have to have a very good reporting program for PERS on an ongoing basis...."

Meanwhile, City Administrator Mark Whitworth noted that many of the mistakes found in the audit dated back to 2004 and 2005, and said that the audit's findings could actually result in money coming back to the city.

Whitworth added that representatives of the state Legislature are back in the city this week to continue their audit of city finances and a report from that audit should be released in the "next couple of months."

Elizabeth Hsing-Huei Chou is a writer for Eastern Group Publications.

Image from CalPERS City of Verson Audit Fact Sheet

This article originally appeared in Eastern Group Publications.

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From Streetcar Revivals to Multi-ethnic Mix: Alhambra's Bethany Church

2012-05-06T07:00:00Z

Bethany Church of Alhambra is tucked behind a car dealership just north of Main Street on Olive Avenue. A member of the fastest growing stream of Christianity in the developing world, the church is part of the Assemblies of God denomination in the Pentecostal tradition. Pastor Phil Hilliard, the senior pastor of Bethany for 19 years, shared with the Source the journey his church has taken from its early days of street meetings to its current multi-ethnic ministry.

Pastor Phil Hilliard at a recent service.

What's your congregation's connection to the start of the Pentecostal movement?

Aimee Semple McPherson, who was the founder of a Pentecostal denomination called the Foursquare Gospel Church, was the catalyst for evangelizing the Los Angeles area. Angelus Temple in Echo Park was the large church she helped build to attract people, and from there in the 1920s she sent out groups to evangelize and hold street meeting revivals all around LA County using the network of streetcars common at the time.

When did the Pentecostal movement come to Alhambra?

In Alhambra, the first meetings were held on Front Street. Back then Pentecostalism was not looked favorably upon — not even by established Christian denominations. Street meeting organizers were often arrested but groups would come to replace them. In February of 1924, Dr. Ana Britton founded Bethany Church. She was a dedicated worker who helped start the first meetings here. Her son, Dr. Clare Britton, was trained to be a medical doctor but felt God's calling for him to be in ministry, and he became the first pastor of Bethany, a position he held for 41 years!

What's the difference in expression between your denomination (Assemblies of God) and others?

In 1965, the congregation voted to change to the Assemblies of God, a similar denomination to Foursquare but allowing the local congregation to own property and call its own pastor. Nowadays, many of the previous lines between Evangelicals and Pentecostals are largely erased. I see this post denominationalism as a good trend. We may sing more livelier and exuberantly than other groups and we may have the occasional person speak a word of prophecy and others may speak in tongues. But we don't let these expressions become a distraction or an end to itself in our worship service. Order and structure is still important.

What has been some of the most significant changes you've seen during your time at Bethany?

First there's been a great transition in our demographics. When I first came to be interviewed by the Board, Bethany was an upper middle class Anglo commuter church. I told our board that I was passionate about reaching the community here in Alhambra and the Board fully agreed. We started making changes in staff, the board, and the worship music teams to better reflect the diversity of our city. We made these changes because we felt that people in the community won't come to a church if they didn't see their "face" on staff, on the stage up front. And it was great because there was no resistance to any of these changes from the established members.

Now every weekend we have a Vietnamese, Indonesian, Burmese, Chinese, and Spanish congregation, and two independent churches (African-American & a Baptist church) meeting on campus, running around 400 — 450 people. We did a survey 10 years ago and we calculated 35 different ethnicities under one roof.

Jesse Chang writes Faith in Alhambra, a series on the city's religious community, from Serbian Orthodox to Chinese Baptists to our Eastern religions. He works amongst the local Christian denominations in the city helping them to work together for the good of the city. If you'd like your congregation to be featured write him at jessec@kingdomcauses.org.

This article originally appeared in Alhambra Source.

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'This Is My Corner': Portrait Studio Captures East L.A. Through the Years

2012-05-05T07:00:00Z

Rita Govea, daughter of the founder of Navarro Photo Studios, take photos of the community and posts them on their storefront so her neighbors can catch up on what they've missed. (EGP photo by Elizabeth Hsing-Huei Chou)

Lea esta nota EN ESPAÑOL: Estudio Fotográfico Capta su 'Rincón' en su Máxima Expresión »

"This is my corner... it's kind of a special place," East Los Angeles resident Rita Govea says of First Street and Indiana Avenue, the intersection where her family's portrait and photo studio, Navarro Photo Studio, is located.

An avid photographer, Govea often displays photos she takes at community events, such as Abuelitos Day, the Latino Film Festival, and the Latino Book Fair, on the studios' windows.

A passion for photography has sustained the family for three generations. Govea's mother, Louise Navarro Govea, opened the studio in 1957. Rita ran the studio part time back in the 1980s and 1990s. Her nephew Frank Govea has been running the studio for the last fourteen years.

Govea's contribution these days include dressing up as a bunny rabbit for Easter photo shoots, and taking photos of the community that she then posts up in the studio. "I do it for the neighborhood. I post the pictures on the window, so that the community can see," she says.

Up now are pictures of folklorico dancers showing off their colorful dresses, high school marching bands proudly displaying their school names, beauty queens striking a pose, and politicians flashing winning smiles for her camera during last year's Mexican Independence Day parade.

People who walk through their studio will see a gallery filled with the happiest memories of people from their neighborhood. Pictures of girls in their sweet sixteen gowns peek out from behind the studio windows. Couples smile sweetly in their wedding photos. A baby in an animal costume is caught laughing.

One portrait shows a girl who worked at El Mercado down the street. Next to it is an aged picture of someone's grandfather taken when he was young; a retouched version that looks as good as new is posted next to it.

The pictures posted in the studio windows often stop people in their tracks. "They walk in... and they look, and they look, and they look," Govea says.

Many of them then turn to Govea or her nephew and ask, "Do you take pictures? What kind of business is this?"

Louise Navarro Govea, Founder of Navarro Photo Studio

On most days, they get asked to take people's passport and immigration photos, as well as their portraits on special occasions such as graduations and birthdays, but several times during the 1980s, men walked into their studio with an unusual request.

They wanted full body photos taken to send back home to their mothers in Mexico, to show that they were still alive and intact, Govea said. "There were a lot of horror stories going back to Mexico, that their sons and daughters were being mistreated here."

The mothers would hear that their sons were in wheel chairs, or missing arms and legs. Govea said she had to cajole some of the men, who rarely smiled or posed naturally, to take a pleasant photo to send home.

Louise Navarro Govea first got into the photo business because of a defective photo. She paid for colored photos, but got back sepia-toned ones instead. She asked another photographer named Juarez to fix them. He asked her if she wanted to learn how to color them herself, and she said yes.

She found she had a talent for hand-coloring photographs. The meticulous practice of painting or tinting black and white or sepia-toned photographs was especially popular before color photography was widely accessible.

"She was real creative. She could draw real beautiful, draw pretty faces, hair. She could color really well," Govea said.

Govea's mother began running her own studio on First Street where there were already two other photo studios: one was run by Juarez, who helped her mother get started, and the other was run by a photographer named Campos.

Frank Govea said his grandmother started the business at a time when women were expected to stay in the kitchen.

A photo of Louise Navarro — sitting on a stool in the back of the studio, with her shoes are off; she is busy talking on the telephone, surrounded by large photo processing machines — hangs on one of the studio walls.

In the early days First Street was lined with bars. A brothel sat across the street from their shop. But the Govea kids and others in the neighborhood found it hard to get into much trouble.

"Everybody knew my brother and me, and our cousins, and our friends. If we did something on our way home, my mom would know by the time we got home," said Rita.

After passing through the management of several people in their family, it was Frank who finally took over from his grandmother.

Navarro Photo Studio has been in the Govea family for three generations. Pictured: Frank Govea, with his daughter Diana, took over Navarro Photo Studios from his grandmother fourteen years ago. (EGP photo by Elizabeth Hsing-Huei Chou)

Navarro Photo Studios is now the last of its kind in the neighborhood. The studios owned by Campos and Juarez have since closed.

These days a hair salon, furniture store and a café surround the studio. The Eastside Gold Line now runs past their shop.

Meanwhile, the practice of hand coloring photographs has become a lost art, said Frank, who learned to hand color from his grandmother. Today he uses photo-editing software to colorize or fix old photos.

He said their studio has been affected by the increasing ease and accessibility of digital photography, but adds that just motivates them to become better. "Business goes down, but the photography needs to become better, to where you do something they can't do," he says.

Times have changed, but as longtime residents and business owners, the Goveas, who reside just down the street on Indiana Avenue, continue to stick by their neighborhood.

Rita Govea says she and other community members fought to get the nearby "second chance" high school, Ramona Opportunity High School, built. As part of the review advisory committee for the Gold Line she pushed for safety gates to be installed at the light rail crossing outside their shop.

The studio continues to capture the goings on of their neighborhood. As the third generation running the studio, Frank finds people at their best, while his aunt reports back with more pictures to post on the windows to keeping the neighborhood abreast of what's going on.

Frank says they post these photos because "we want people to stop and look and see what they missed."

Elizabeth Hsing-Huei Chou is a writer for Eastern Group Publications.

This article originally appeared in Eastern Group Publications.

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150 Years Later: 'Original' Story of Cinco de Mayo Comes to LA Plaza

2012-05-04T07:15:00Z

Lea esta nota EN ESPAÑOL: 150 Años Después: Celebración 'Autentica' de Cinco de Mayo Llega a LA Plaza »

Often wrongly called the Mexican Fourth of July, Cinco de Mayo commemorates the Battle of Puebla in Mexico 150 years ago. But for decades people have been stumped as to why it is celebrated in the US — especially since the French eventually captured Puebla, and Mexico's Independence Day is actually in September.

Some argue that the Cinco de Mayo celebrations of today have become over-commercialized, and in recent years, some proud socially conscious Latinos have objected to it being reduced to a drinking holiday.

Nonetheless, the celebration has endured.

This weekend, a new exhibit opening at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes in downtown Los Angeles will shed some light on the significance and origins of the Cinco de Mayo celebration in California and Latino history.

Described as the "authentic version" of the Cinco de Mayo tradition, the "one-of-a-kind" event at LA Plaza includes a gallery exhibit of items from the time period, archive photos, newspaper clippings and a complete timeline chronicalling the historic events, and will also include dramatic recreations to tell the history of the Battle of Puebla to Californians.

The victory in Puebla was more than a battle in Mexico, explains Dr. David Hayes-Bautista, Ph.d, Director of the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture at the School of Medicine, UCLA.

In a way, it was California's "Alamo," and its celebration helped change the course of the American Civil War, Hayes-Bautista told EGP.

The exhibit, "Cinco de Mayo: Latinos in California Respond to the Civil War," inspired by Hayes-Bautista's newest book, "Cinco de Mayo: An American Tradition," showcases the experience of Latinos — los Hispanos — in California, shortly after its annexation to the United States.

Since the 1920s, Cinco de Mayo has been portrayed as a "David and Goliath" story, said LA Plaza Chief Curator Cindi Dale.

The new exhibit provides a new perspective on the Cinco de Mayo celebration from this side of the border and could inspire Mexican-Americans and Chicanos to "take it back," Dale told EGP, during a preview of the exhibit.

The exhibit is not just about the Battle of Puebla, says Hayes-Bautista.

"You know at Puebla they do a lot of military history about which units were where, how many bullet holes were on a wall afterward. We are doing a social history, what was the impact of that news here? Why did it move Latinos so much the way that it did?" he said.

Hayes-Bautista's book begins with the adoption of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hildalgo. It tells the story of how in one night the life of a boy living not far from what is now the Olvera Street area of Los Angeles, changes dramatically: Francisco Ramirez went to bed a Mexican citizen, and wakes up the next day as an American citizen.

Californios like Ramirez, as mestizos, saw their rights threatened as the color line hardened, so they supported the North in the Civil War to abolish slavery, Hayes-Bautista said.

Just two weeks before the Battle of Puebla, the Confederacy's army was making gains in the war and their progress was not thwarted until a year and a half later, Hayes-Bautista said.

"So in retrospect, as people got further and further from the Battle of Puebla, the more it reminded them there is hope..." he said.

See David Hayes-Bautista's history of Cinco de Mayo as an American tradition here (published in EGP in 2009): Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

At that time, the army of Freedom and Democracy for Californios was seen as both the Union in the US and the Mexican Army, according to Hayes-Bautista. Cavalry members from bilingual California included English and Spanish-speaking soldiers. California-based political action groups, known as Juntas Patrioticas, had dues-paying members who helped finance the Union Army, encouraged voter registration, and used Cinco de Mayo as a rallying point to bolster troop morale. They purposely made the day a celebration to be observed every year, he said.

The victory in Puebla by the Mexican army was a victory against slavery and elitism, something the Union army was unable to do for almost another two years, he said.

"So it had a huge impact, it raised the morale, it gave them the sense that maybe freedom and democracy could finally win this battle," he said. "Until that time the news had been horrible, and it continued to be horrible for a year and a half afterward."

Much of the history played out right here in Los Angeles, he said. For a time, Union army veterans and their families carried on the Cinco de Mayo celebration. But three generations later, Latinos had lost their personal experience with the meaning of Cinco de Mayo, Hayes-Bautista said.

The exclusion of the role of California's Latinos from the history of the American Civil War in California is what led to the celebration's current confused state, he said.

The exhibit at LA Plaza is a chance to tell that history to a new generation of Latinos, Angelenos, and Californians, he said.

Like LA Plaza's current exhibit, LA Starts Here, the Cinco de Mayo exhibit includes a timeline depicting important events. This timeline however shows US and Mexican events side-by-side.

Celebrate "Original" Cinco de Mayo at LA Plaza — May 5th & May 6th

The two day free event will include tours of the exhibit, live musical entertainment, activities for the family and much more. Some of the highlights include:

— Author David Hayes-Bautista, Ph.d will sign copies of his book, Cinco de Mayo: An American Tradition, at Saturday's event at LA Plaza de Culturas y Artes.

— Coloring book on the origins of Cinco de Mayo in the US will also be available during the family-friendly event.

— A re-creation of an early Cinco de Mayo celebration that is true to the Civil War era, including Latino cavalry soldiers, and music of the times, but no mariachis.

— Special performance by Mexican rock legend Alex Lora of El Tri, at 8pm on Saturday.

Music and entertainment will take place from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday, May 5th; and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday, May 6th.

A stage will be set up in front of the Pico House on Olvera Street, Main Street (from Arcadia to Cesar Chavez) will be closed for the celebration. LA Plaza is always free to the public, the exhibits are open from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m.

The event is presented by LA Plaza, the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture at David Geffen School of Medicine, and the Unión de Poblanos en El Exterior (UPEX).

LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes is located at 501 North Main Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012. For more information call (213) 542-6200 or visit http://lapca.org/content/150-year-anniversary-cinco-de-mayo.

Gloria Angelina Castillo is a writer for Eastern Group Publications.

Image from Eastern Group Publications.

This article originally appeared in Eastern Group Publications.

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