Moonlight Breakfast

Today was the first “study break” event of finals week. The Office of Student Life put on the Moonlight Breakfast in the quad so that Kenna, Dean Avery and other could serve us food. We could all come out and have some bacon, sausage, eggs and orange juice at 9pm at night while studying for our final exams. Some lucky students have already finished their exams and have a free week ahead of them, while others are frantically studying for exams they have on Friday. A lot of students were out there, though, some for the free food right now that their meal plans are running low, others just to see people and take a break from their studies, as it is meant to be. There was a screen playing music videos and oddly enough baskets on the tables with small finger puppets and tiny erasers for students to take. Perhaps the most amusing was the fact that there was a cartoonist out there as well making drawings of students.

Senior Dinner

The Senior Dinner is one of the last senior events before the actual senior week begins. Everyone actually got dressed up and was looking good when they arrived at the set up tents and tables in front of Thorn Hall. Seniors got their hands stamped before getting wristbands in order to consume Oxy-approved alcoholic beverages. I created a slideshow for this event as well, though this time tried to include as many seniors as I could, not only my friends. Included were those seniors who e-mailed me photos of themselves and their friends, as well as my own InterVarsity and MEChA/ALAS photos. A few students spoke, including Cesar Serrano, and we were given gifts by the alumni association, who we suspect puts this event on mainly to inform us that they will be bothering us to donate money to this institution from now on. I did get a lot of loud responses from the slideshow, so that pretty much makes it a success as far as I’m concerned.

MEChA/ALAS Banquet

This year we held our end of the year banquet for MEChA/ALAS at the Latin-American restaurant Arco Iris (literally rainbow in Spanish) in Highland Park, my old neighborhood. Our historian Virginia Parra prepared a slideshow of the years events and we all ate some great food. The event was a joint one with Latino Grad, and so a silent auction was held to raise money for the ceremony. This so-called silent auction got loud, however, when Michelle Angeles had to fight to win her exam prep course. The big part of the night, of course, was the announcement of the new e-board. The emotional ceremony begins with the current e-board lighting up their candles. We then each called up our successor, handed them a new candle and lit it with the flame from ours. This was followed by a short photoshoot of the e-board and seniors, as well as Cristina Franco’s announcement of next year’s Latino Grad committee. All in all, this was a great night and a great way to end out award-winning year.

Final Edge

This Wednesday night was a very emotional time or all of us as InterVarsity Christian Fellowship held its last Edge of the year; the last one after four years for us seniors who have been a part of the community this whole time. Jenn Pope and Harah Milki gave some parting words on behalf of the senior class and also announced that they would be coming on as intern staff. However, it was also announced that neither intern Daniel Groot nor volunteer Eddie Ko would be returning to Oxy next year.

The underclassmen that feel they know us so well put on a skit depicting a future reunion of our class, where I’ve apparently made millions off of my own card games. I created slideshow that was played during the Edge, as well as a movie using the iMovie skills I’ve recently acquired thanks to this class that I showed the seniors afterwards. Being the rowdy Christians that we are, a lot of us stayed afterwards and played music on my labtop while those who wanted to took over the dance floor. I even got a chance to show off some of my aquired Salsa skills.

Leadership Awards

Before the Edge on Wednesday night, this year’s Leadership Awards were held in front of the marketplace. I was there along with Cesar Serrano, Leo Magallon, Virginia Parra and Sara Camarena representing MEChA/ALAS. There were student speakers, including HC and swim team captain Mike Heffner and First Nations club president Mike Adams. Our first surprise of the night was after Relay for Life and Apollo night were announced as events of the year, when we heard our club’s name called out and Semana de la Raza declared the equity program of the year! We were excited to win the honor, but even more excited when we were called up again and MEChA/ALAS was actually declared the club of the year! (Oh yeah!) Kenna even said aloud to us, “You all look so surprised.” When we got up to accept the award.

Jesus Maldonado was definitely deserving of his advisor of the year award and Virginia was recognized as an emerging leader of the year. We were all excited and happy, especially for being club of the year. However, the biggest surprise for me came when Dean Avery announced the final award, the Dean’s Award for Integrity and Creativity, and said my name. Apparently, the administration actually likes my Oxy card game idea and even awarded me $500!

Last Bible Study

So Tuesday night was our last scheduled bible study of the semester and our bible study leader Eddie Ko decided that he wanted to cook dinner for us as a farewell. We got together for dinner at the Armadale House where Eddie lives with Daniel Groot and Matt Taylor, the Intervarsity team leader. Eddie prepared dinner for us and we all met at the house. After eating, Eddie had each of us (since most us of there were seniors) go around and share some of our favorite memories at Oxy. I shared about a couple of my favorite InterVarsity conferences, being elected to the MEChA/ALAS board in the first place and the epic journey the InterVarsity men took into the depths of the grand canyon and back (which not everyone believes I did.) While I wouldn’t say the experience as a whole was the best bible study ever, it was at least a memorable experience.

MEChA/ALAS Elections

The final official meeting of MEChA/ALAS this year was, of course, the elections for next year. As per our tradition, the meeting began with the current leaders giving a description of their positions on their board, those running for e-board each talking about why they want to be on the board and finally opening it up to questions from any of the members for the candidates to answer.

There were a couple surprises that night. The first one, which presumably some people knew about, was from Danny Cruz. Danny was the chair (president) of MEChA/ALAS last year as a junior, but took this year off, so he will be coming back as a senior next year. Wanting to run again, Danny had his girlfriend Cristina Franco bring her labtop to the meeting so that Danny could run via the power of the Internet. (Whoa.)
The second surprise was from Beto, who started answering questions despite not being on the ballot and at the last minute was encouraged to throw his hat into the race for Co-Chair (vice-president).

We have a strong competition going on, so there will hopefully be a strong e-board forming to continue what we have done next year.

Last PUSO Meeting

PUSO’s last meeting was basically just a little get-together in Rangeview that we spent making small care packages for friends. Ariane and company provided us with cups, cookies, candy, play-do and other things to include in the package, as well as markers and plastic wrapping to decorate them with. It also happened to be Arlene’s birthday, so Ariane surprised Arlene by bringing in a cake with candles for her to blow out and eat after we sang “Happy Birthday.”

Ariane started the club two years ago and while it’s still small, it seems to have enough of a base now that it will continue at least for a few years. Ariane seems confident that Arlene will continue the group, so here’s hoping Oxy will see great things from PUSO in the future.

Senior Breakfast

The team leader for InterVarsity, Matt Taylor, held a special breakfast at the Armadale house for the seniors of the group. He wanted to give all of us a time to get together and hang out while he taking the opportunity to tell us about ways alumni can be involved with the community, including his desire to be more proactive about beginning alumni-specific events. It’s always a fun time when the bunch of us get together and this war probably one of the last times that many of my close friends will be together, so we are becoming emotional now, but trying to have fun and enjoy one another’s company while we have the chance.

Most of us at this point are looking forward to being done with our academics (at least for now) and waiting for summer conference, which will be a week at Catalina free of any schoolwork. It will also be the last time we all spend that much time together having fun and studying scripture. Personally, I’m looking forward to kayaking at Catalina, which is always fun.

Salsa Class

Another on-going event this semester has been the Sunday afternoon salsa classes arranged by Teddy Zou and Nicole Weinstock. They’ve brought in the professional salsa instructor Walter Jones, which most people our age remember as Zack, the original black power ranger. Yes, the actor is now a salsa instructor, and actually a pretty good one. Since I’m Mexican, it’s pretty much expected that I know how to dance at least a little bit, but in fact I never actually learned anything growing up. After a couple people told me about the free salsa classes I started going and actually have been enjoying it. A friend of mine, Vanessa Kelly, even took a bunch of us to the Cuba Bistro, a bar with a live band and open dance floor, which was a lot of fun now that I actually know a little about dancing.

Say Yes Tutoring

On Tuesdays this semester, Kristin Contreras and I have been going to skid row to volunteer with a Christian-run tutoring program for elementary school children there called Say Yes. We leave at 3:15pm to arrive a little before 4pm. We help the students there with their homework until they finish it or until dinner starts. When the students finish they get to have “free time” and we play ball games or jump rope with them until dinner. Kristin helps in the office while I help serve dinner. She then joins be after dinner to help wash the dishes and he head out as the program’s high school students arrive and the elementary students leave. It’s Colleen Timmins who first volunteered and got other Oxy students to go. She leads a larger group to go on Thursdays, while Kristin and I go on Tuesdays instead due to our schedules.

It’s been an interesting experience. I’ve been involved in other volunteer tutoring before, partly because I know a lot of times at that age you wish you had more help. While it has been difficult at times dealing with some of the kids, I am still glad we did this. Kristin’s even considering looking into some other volunteer work with them later on.

Game Night

As has been their habit this year, Tim Urista and Joshua Williams invited everyone to have a game night, which was to be the last one of the year. We started the night by meeting up in the library for the first game. Sardines, for those of you who might not know, is kinds like a reversal of hide-and-go-seek. In sardines, one person goes and hides and then the rest go looking for them. As each person finds the one who was hiding, they hide with them, so the hiding place gets more and more full, like a container of sardines (haha…) We used to first and third floors of the library as the possible hiding places. The second game was fun, since Vanessa and I were actually the first ones to find the hiding Mike Wong in the elevator.

After the library closed, we retreated to the Rangeview for a couple games of assassins before heading back to the rec room for more entertainment in the form of Mario Kart 64 and pokemon trading card games.

The Good Samaritan

This semester, Eddie wanted to give most of us in the bible study a chance to lead the study one night, especially since most of us in the study (with the exceptions of Mike & Maddie) are seniors and would be soon graduating. With Semana de la Raza over, I finally felt I had the time to prepare for leading a bible study, so I took Eddie up on his offer.

I lead a study one night on the passage of the Good Samaritan. The passage is one I feel people would usually say is one we should all apply to our lives, but one we can easily forget about. I lead a study once before, the summer after my sophmore year, and I wasn’t very anxious about it this time around, mostly because I was just leading a study composed of my friends that are mostly also seniors. It wasn’t like a was leading a study for freshman who wouldn’t necessarily be used to InterVarsity’s inductive method and would get easily lost in the meaning of the passage.

The passage is one most people can easily see as applicable and it was really interesting to lead. I was glad to have had the opportunity one last time before leaving Oxy and InterVarsity.

Compadres Meeting

Last year, a group of male Latinos began a small dialog group called Compadres (the word is a Spanish term a man might use to regard a non-relative as his brother). Among Black and Latino men and women, Latino men have the worst retention rates at Occidental College. Compadres was started partly with the intention of giving Latino men a dialog group similar to Harambee and to work towards helping Latino males make it through college here.

With the end of the semester nearby, Cesar Serrano called for the last Compadres meeting; probably the last one the original members would all be present at. Once people arrived we actually ended up spending some time just talking to one another and having impromptu conversations about our experiences at Oxy, the difficulties Latinos have in math and science (which Leo and I are very aware of), family expectations of their sons, and plans post-Oxy. When we officially began the meeting, Cesar spoke to us about what he would like Compadres to be next year and basically told the non-seniors that they would have to step up next year and lead the group if it is to continue and actually be able to do something significant at this campus.

Dia de la Familia

The closing event of Semana de la raza was “Dia de la familia,” literally “Family Day.” This is one of our annual events where all of our members are invited to bring their friends and family to enjoy our celebration of the week. This year, we held the event in the backyard of the ICC. We brought games and ordered a lot of food for everyone to enjoy. We even brought some piñatas, which ended up causing the most amusing part of the day. Some of my friends showed up to have some food and hang out and some of our membership did indeed bring their relatives, which is always nice to see. The children seemed to enjoy the games we had out as well as the piñata breaking. After the children were done taking their turns at the piñata breaking, some of the students wanted to take a swing at it (literally) as well. After a couple of the girls swung, BSA e-board member Rozzell Hodges put on the blindfold so he could take his turn. The hilarity began when Rozzell, obviously very confused as to his location, swung and hit the table of food thinking it was the piñata. He apparently mistook everyone’s yells for cheering, because he took a second swing at the table before MEChA/ALAS Chair Cesar Serrano came at him from behind to grab and stop him. I got it all on video too…

Creative Resistance

Our Creative Resistance event at the cooler got a good turnout like our previous event at the cooler, which leads me to believe that it is indeed a good location to be holding events for which you would like a large turnout. Anyways, we had some different artists performing, including Mexican dancers, actors, and singers. Our performers were able to sell their products at the cooler and we also took donations to be sent to Chiapas. The end of the night was exciting as our last performers got everyone up off their seats and began an impromptu dance in the cooler.

I spent the first part of the night helping tend to the Mexican dance troupe that would be performing first. We brought drinks from the cooler over to their dressing room in Johnson and ordered food for them. After we got them taken care of, I had to stay there for a time still and wait for some of the later performers to arrive. I finally got to the actual show in time to watch the actors’ skit and enjoy the big finale.

Celebration of Chicana Art

Our first event in the cooler this week was a Celebration of Chicana Art. An Oxy alum who is now a professional artist brought some of her paintings for us to display on the cooler walls. The entertainment began with our very own Folklorico dance group performing some Mexican folk dancing. Other crowd-pleasing performances included spoken word from a woman who was apparently trying to speak to the Latino community and get us to speak about things that are often left unspoken about and a group of Latina women who created a drum circle and played some songs in Nahuatl. Listening to any sort of performance that includes speaking in Nahuatl is usually intriguing to me, since while I do speak Spanish I sometimes wish I could also understand Nahuatl, which is the indigenous language of the Aztecs and therefore the other side of my heritage besides the Spanish side. Anyways, we received some great reactions, so the week seems to be coming along now quite nicely. Hopefully we’ll be able to keep this up for the remainder of the week’s events.

Semana Kickoff

As the kickoff for Semana de la Raza we had a radio station come and play music in the quad during lunch. Semana de la Raza literally means “Week of the Race” as in, the week of our people. The week is the MEChA/ALAS’s biggest program of the year, which we spend a great deal of time planning out throughout the year. We hold events every day during the week, usually consisting both of educational events as well as social events. The theme for our week this year is the movements of Latin America. Besides the individual events, we also have a few rooms in the Intercultural Community Center (the ICC) decorated with information regarding some of the different countries and their political and social movements. So for the first day of our week, we loudly took over the quad and passed out our calendars for the week to anyone who would accept one. After all the planning that has gone into the week all year, it is very exciting to see the first of our week’s events begin.

Cesar Chavez Walk

Our last big MEChA/ALAS event before heading into Semana de la raza was the Cesar Chavez walk. He attended this as a joint event with PUSO, although Ariane was their only member who ended showed up. Still, the MEChA/ALAS leaders and part of our membership showed up and had a really fun time. Cesar Serrano, our fearless leader, was able to acquire a school bus for the event. This ended up being very unnecessary since not as many people showed up as Cesar had hoped, but at least it was comfortable.

The bus took us to Olvera street, where the event was beginning. We got some time to search around Olvera street for a while and ate some Mexican food before the actual walk began. There were also Aztec dancers street performing at Olvera.

The walk itself was actually pretty fun. Cesar and Leo held our banner out as we walked along. I took a lot of pictures and we periodically heard the loud cheers:
“Si se puede!”
“Latinos, unidos, jamaz seran vencidos!”
“Latinos, united, shall never be divided!”

That same night we reunited in Pauley for a mixed Latino-Filipino dinner with some of the PUSO leaders and membership, who showed up this time. We talked about the similarities in foods between the two groups as well as Cesar Chavez and the Filipino farm workers who began the labor movements.

“White” Students for Racial Equity

“White” Students for Racial Equity is one of the newest clubs at Oxy. When they first began to form, leader Jhenette Stranne invited myself and other cultural club leaders to speak with her regarding what we would want the group to be. The group is not intended to be a white cultural club, but rather a group which gives white students a place to dialog about race, something which they may otherwise feel they have no place for, and to raise their members into “white allies” towards minority communities. While some of the club leaders of course had their doubts and concerns, most of us were actually in favor of Jhenette and her friends’ intentions for the group.

The white students’ group, as I like to call it, has had some rocky pints already and even found opposition from some students, but I do applaud what the group has done, or at least tried to do, this semester. After speaking with Jhenette at an ICAP meeting, we decided to hold a joint meeting between our two groups. To bring up questions regarding immigration and education, we had Maria Rodriguez, an intelligent speaker from the group CHIRLA come speak to us about the Dream Act. It was actually a very educational meeting since not a lot of us know a lot about the Dream Act, so we were glad to have her at what I would say turned out to be a pretty successful joint meeting.

ICAP

The Intercultural Community Center (ICC) has a program called ICAP, the Intercultural Club Affiliate Program that clubs have to apply to be a part of. The program runs almost like another club with meeting in and of itself, but with the membership made up of leaders from other clubs. As the Internal Affairs officer of MEChA/ALAS, I attend these meetings as an ICAP member and MEChA/ALAS liaison. Other clubs in ICAP include PUSO, BSA, APIA, Latino Grad, MiXed, “White” Students for Racial Equity, the Students-Community Alliance and the Student Labor Action Coalition (SLAC).

The program as a whole I feel has been a beneficial one for Oxy, since it cuts back on over-programming by having us all meet and put down our event dates on a common calendar, (which also helps ASOC and other sources of funding).
Of course, the program also helps the individual clubs by giving us a place to discuss our programming with one another facilitate co-sponsoring opportunities.

Being a part of ICAP these past couple of years has been actually pretty enjoyable. It’s especially interesting right now a senior, since many of the heads of other clubs are also seniors.

QSA Meeting

QSA, the Queer-Straight Alliance, had a pretty spirited discussion regarding politicians’ stands on gay marriage at their general meeting. The question came up on how members of the LGBTQI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning, Intersexual) community would vote in the presidential election depending on what politicians claim they will do as far as queer rights. One of the questions presented was whether members or the LGBTQI community should only stand by a candidate who openly supports gay marriage. Beyond that some talked about whether or not it would be enough for a candidate to demand all equals rights for people in civil unions as in a marriage, but just still not allow the word “marriage” to be used for non-heterosexual couples. Should a LGBTQI person support that choice and settle for the fact that they would basically receive everything straight couples do or demand being able to use the word “marriage?”

This was probably one of the most though-provoking discussions I’ve listened to at Oxy. Such topics don’t usually come up in my conversations since I’m straight, but of course they’re still important. I also have never really understood the church’s (or some churches’) stance against gay marriage, but I’m still Christian. Anyways, this should all be food for thought at the very least.

Interactive Museum

As part of Black History month, BSA took over the ICC for their Interactive Museum, which they do every year. Different groups and people volunteer to prepare rooms with the help of the ICC’s Programming Assistants. Each room gets a theme and people visit the interactive museum to learn about the represented aspects of black history. Alexandria Hicks repeated her room about black face, while other BSA members prepared a room about hair and black people in the media. I decided I wanted to help them out this year by making a room as well. When I took the Music of Latin-America class, I did my final project on the history of Capoeira, the Afro-Brazilian martial art which originated in African and developed in Brazil. I once attended a Capoeira class with Jamie Thalman, so I asked him to help me prepare a room about the history of Capoeira for the interactive museum. Jamie seemed enthusiastic about the idea and so the two of us, with the help of some of Jamie’s Capoeira buddies and the ICC’s Pas, prepared the room. It was a fun, although time-consuming project, but it was nice to help out and see people come around to our room and actually read some of what we had done.