Performers YaliniDream (left) and Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai (right) act out a scene in which their characters pray to Mary Magdalene, portrayed by Adeeba Rana (center) during the “Say You Heard My Echo” event. Photo-illustration by Daniel Green.

Picture Ground Zero. A chain link fence strewn with teddy-bears, cards, flowers and records contrasts the dark blockade of a construction site, with soft whites and bright reds attempting to bandage the damaged scenery. A buzz of impatient commuters and diligent workers fills the scene until an interruption by three enchanting voices. Together, they say:

“In the city that never sleeps, we’ve got no time for memorial poems.”

One of these voices belongs to Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai, a Chinese-Taiwanese American writer and artist from New York. Alongside her are performing partners Adeeba Rana and YaliniDream.

Tsai presented her three-act play “Say You Heard My Echo” at the Stevenson Event Center on April 13 through the Cultural Arts and Diversity Resource Center, Student Union Assembly and Rainbow Theater. The show was produced by Tsai’s associates from Moving Earth Productions, the Asian-American Arts Alliance and director Jesse Jou.

The show explores the impacts of 9/11 on three fictional Asian-American women living in New York City a decade later. Their struggles with survivorship and faith prompt them to call upon three female religious icons: Mary Magdalene, Guan Yin and Aisha. The women undergo separate transformations as the years following 9/11 prompt change in their political, social and personal lives. The ever-present female religious figures act as mirror representations of the characters and help facilitate their fulfillment, guidance and enlightenment.

Tsai, who grew up in the culture of poetry slams in Chicago, has been able to take her love for spoken word around the world to places including Trinidad and China.

“Spoken word poetry at its very best allows people’s authentic stories, relationships to language and rhythms to shine through [in] a unique, culturally specific way,” Tsai said.

Act One illustrates the damaging effect of monotony and silence — a Catholic burlesque dancer’s survival mutes her expressiveness until she becomes immersed in the anti-war movement. The second act chronicles the unsettling downward spiral of a Buddhist Iraq War veteran and hip-hop emcee who suffers from post traumatic stress disorder upon her return home. The final act addresses the issue of families burdened by detention and interrogation as a Muslim librarian struggles to stay connected to her grandfather. Themes such as the fight for cultural pride and struggle for survival occur throughout the play and serve as a primary focus to connect these three female characters to their respective religious icons.

“I was playing guitar … and heard the words ‘say you heard my echo,’ then I saw an image of a woman being pursued by Mary Magdalene in New York City,” Tsai said.

Tsai’s goal is to show the depth of the experiences that marginalized groups undergo, with special investment in the personal aspects of her identity as a woman who is Asian-American.

“‘Say You Heard My Echo’ shows the breadth and depth of my own humanity through the work that I do … The honesty resonates with people far beyond myself,” Tsai said.

After the third act, the women came together just as they did in the introduction. Their presence together was representative of the power in diversity among different cultures as they brought restoration and healing and beckoned for action in unison, “Silence is never silent. All we have is time for renewal. Say you heard my echo. Say you heard my call.”

After the show, Don Williams, the director of Cultural Arts and Diversity at UCSC addressed the audience about the significance of a valued community through performing arts.

“Our goal is to receive a variety of scripts that deal with many cultures and there’s a lot of cultures that are never written about,” Williams said.

Williams is engaged in the ongoing production process of performances that celebrate diverse cultures.

“We here at the UC, especially Rainbow Theater, are always looking to seek Asian-American one-act plays,” Williams said.

“Rainbow! Rainbow!” echoed supporters in the crowd.

The previously barren stage found its emptiness overwhelmed by the powerful presence of everyone involved as a unified body. The performers of “Say You Heard My Echo” were surrounded by the embrace of laughter and liveliness by the student communities of Don Williams and the students of Cultural Arts and Diversity Resource Center, Student Union Assembly affiliates, and performers from Rainbow Theater.

“No matter how we feel on a given day, we’re never as spiritually or emotionally alone as we may feel,” Tsai said.

To follow Kelly Tsai’s performances and material visit yellowgurl.com.

Courtesy of Chris Danzer

Chris Danzer and Jake Thomas had a plan that was as daring as it was difficult: to walk the 91-mile-perimeter of Santa Cruz County, without stopping, in an effort to raise awareness about child hunger in the Santa Cruz community.

The trek began on March 1 at 9 p.m. Twenty-nine hours and 70 miles later, Danzer was forced to stop. Thomas, despite being hit by a car, was able to continue the grueling walk and made it to West Cliff Drive — the end of the journey — at about 10:30 a.m. on Sunday.

The trek had a two-fold purpose: to raise money to donate to anti-hunger organizations and to attract widespread attention to their cause by performing a grueling feat of endurance.

Danzer and Thomas are also attempting to start an endowment fund that would pay to feed hungry children in Santa Cruz County. They hope to attract a celebrity or other wealthy benefactors to help kickstart the endowment fund.

“We’re trying to start an endowment fund and with the right support from one big player, it could start with one pen stroke,” Thomas said. “We’re trying to get as many people as possible to like our Facebook page and share that video. It’s going to take us a little while to get the endowment fund set up, but it’s also going to take some time to reach the big players we want to reach.”

Danzer and Thomas both said child hunger in Santa Cruz is a problem that, while daunting, is easier to solve than many other worthwhile causes.

“The community has to take care of itself,” Danzer said. “We can’t depend on other people to take care of us. When we defined the number and did the math, it’s a very solvable problem. Instead of just trying to keep feeding kids, we can set up an endowment fund and the money they would give to kids every month for food is a definable amount.”

Danzer and Thomas trained for the trek with a series of increasingly long practice walks. They faced both physical problems — including sore feet and dehydration — and mental struggles.

“The pain that comes from your joints and muscles that are seizing up is a constant pain and every step you take is a constant reminder that this hurts,” Danzer said. “It’s very difficult mentally because you’re fighting the cold, you’re fighting how long you’ve been out.”

Donations to the effort will be given to Grind Out Hunger, a Santa Cruz organization that aims to empower young people to lead efforts to stop child hunger and malnutrition, according to the organization’s mission statement.

Danzer and Thomas said the Santa Cruz community supports their effort.

“We’ve been given an incredible amount of press and community support is high,” Danzer said. “They wanted to do something for us, they’ve supported us in many ways.”

Danzer said the issue of child hunger is ever present and the community of Santa Cruz must be willing to fight against it continually.

“This is not just a problem of today,” Danzer said. “This is a problem of generations past and present.”

Illustration by Christine Hipp

Local bike advocate Steve Schlicht recently created a petition and website to combat the sale of stolen bikes in Santa Cruz. He did this due to a large volume of feedback from the Facebook group “Take Back Santa Cruz,” a group whose mission is to “to make the streets of Santa Cruz safe and free from drugs, gangs and abusive behavior.”

The petition, which currently has 56 signatures, demands Goodwill Industries of Santa Cruz, which runs the weekly Santa Cruz Flea Market on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, change their policies to stop the sale of bikes and bike parts at the market.

The petition states, “I along with many others believe that the Santa Cruz Flea Market is creating a free market for the sale of stolen bikes and bike parts in Santa Cruz County. I am asking that [Goodwill Industries] modify or amend [their] exhibitor policies to prohibit the sale or display of bikes or bike parts at the Santa Cruz Flea Market.”

Schlicht criticizes Goodwill’s policies, which he said are enabling and loose.

“It’s basically a black market for stolen bikes,” Schlicht said.

In response to the petition, Goodwill Industries made it clear that they are against the sale of stolen goods and encourage efforts to prevent stolen items from being sold.

“We have no evidence that there have been any stolen bikes on the premises, and the basic position we are taking is that we endorse any effort to prevent stolen bicycles,” said Goodwill public relations director Lloyd Graff.

Goodwill Industries updated their vendor permit card prior to Schlicht’s petition, which now states, “Police and investigatory agencies will be invited to investigate any suspicious activity.”

Detective David Perry of the Santa Cruz Police Department (SCPD) said that SCPD works in conjunction with the Santa Cruz County Sheriff to do occasional sweeps of the flea market. During these searches they have not found evidence of stolen property.

“A good number of our vendors are regulars and they have proper state licenses,” Graff said, “and so they have to show [resale permits] when they purchase their vendors permit.”

Working toward the recovery of stolen bikes, Schlicht also launched a website on Jan. 1, offering free bike registration for people living in Santa Cruz. The site, www.santacruzbikebase.com, aims to quicken the recovery of lost bikes and also attach validation to the owners of the bikes.  It also allows visitors to sign Schlight’s petition.

“Currently one of the problems is the inability to register online,” Schlicht said. “The process only takes about 30 seconds and it’s available to everyone. My goal is to register as many people as possible and recover any stolen bikes.”

The city of Santa Cruz also offers registration through the financial department and the fire department.

Although Goodwill Industries circulated cards among vendors that read, “If you are selling stolen property, counterfeit recordings or otherwise infringing items, we don’t want you here!” Schlicht thinks these policies and the managers at the flea market are not aggressive enough toward finding out whether or not any goods are stolen.

“If you leave it up to the people to police themselves, it’s basically allowing them to sell stolen parts,” Schlicht said.

So far, the petition has garnered 57 signatures since its release on Jan. 2, as of Jan. 16.

For students, the Office of Physical Education, Recreation and Sports, and Transportation and Parking Services at UC Santa Cruz also provide free bike licenses and renewals to ensure the safety and ownership of bicycles.

“You’ve got to have your registration. You have to have stickers on your bikes,” said UCSC bike co-op core member Emily Bonnin. “You have to have your forms in the right place just in case it gets stolen.”

Schlicht’s website also acts as a network for the students at UCSC and the community.

“It’s a very proactive way to protect your bike and you validate that it’s your bike,” Schlicht said. “Given that fact that there are so many students, it’s just another tool to take back the power.”

Photo by Sal Ingram

Students cheered as keynote speaker Angela Davis launched the 10th Annual Practical Activism Conference, sponsored by Colleges Nine, Ten and Oakes at the College 9/10 multi-purpose room.

The day-long event on Oct. 20, which offered 10 workshops on how to change the world in areas including education, immigration, sustainable agriculture and budget cuts, was facilitated by a group of 30 students.

“The conference offers hands-on tools to make change happen,” said Wendy Baxter, the director of academic and co-curricular programs for Colleges Nine and Ten.

Ten years ago, Baxter, who defines activism as “the applied practice of being involved with social change,” created the concept for a conference that would develop skills for students to engage productively and know that being an activist is a long-term process.

For its first two years, the conference was called “Practical Activism: Tools for Local and Global Change,” and the name has stuck.

Since its creation in 2002, the conference has continued to evolve. Each year its topics are both comprehensive and varied, said College Nine fourth-year Sarah Shokair, one of the student planners involved in the conference’s organization.

The opening session crescendoed with claps and cheers as keynote speaker Angela Davis reminded the audience that being an activist is a lifelong commitment.

“In the ongoing struggle for democracy, activism is [not only] a way of life, but is life-sustaining,” Davis said.

Her speech was the springboard that launched participants into their chosen workshops. Davis also said not only that the world must be changed, but that the issues that concern us are all interconnected.

UC Santa Cruz writing lecturer Robin Somers underscored Davis’ statement in her workshop with Damian Parr, the research and education coordinator at the UC Santa Cruz Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS). The workshop was called “Sustainable Agriculture: Think Global, Act Local.”

“Each food purchase is a vote either for a just and sustainable food system or a dysfunctional, toxic one,” Somers said. “If you look at the support the university offers in organic training, the union between activism and sustainable agriculture is very much in full swing, bubbling out like a wellspring, spreading its rivulets of higher consciousness.”

The main human rights issues that both Somers and Parr highlighted were the availability and affordability of locally grown, organic food. They aimed to provide students with the information and the tools to encourage them to become activists as students at UCSC.

“UC Santa Cruz’s apprenticeship program at CASFS organic farm teaches people from all over the world how to grow food justly and sustainably,” Somers said, with a bright orange carrot in hand.

The planning of the conference itself was an exercise in activism for the 30 students who began organizing last April.

“The planning of the conference alone is world-changing,” Baxter said. “Planning it allowed students to come together and meet others like them who are all working toward a common goal of shaping a world where they want to live in.”

Participants were able to interact with various on- and off-campus groups after an afternoon of participating in workshops and listening to speakers. Photo by Sal Ingram.

Fourth-years Dylan Cureton and Shelbby Bambrick were the two student coordinators who facilitated the conference’s organization. Cureton said they learned how to achieve collective activism and find their own voices through a collaborative and creative process.

“In planning this conference with my peers, we got to express what was important to us,” Cureton said. “I have found my voice and I’ve helped others to find theirs.”

Cureton said planning the conference was fulfilling.

“I found a place to belong,” Cureton said. “Being an activist has become a part of my identity, which I didn’t know would happen when I came to … UCSC.”

Bambrick said College Ten shaped her future because of the annual Practical Activism Conference.

“When I came to College Ten and became involved with this planning group, I met people who understood — like me — that there were more important things to talk about than what we were doing Friday night,” Bambrick said.

The conference will continue because of Baxter’s belief that the Practical Activism Conference not only gives the tools for shaping a different society but also because, as she said, “students can and should make change happen … in a powerful way.”

“Grassroots Campaigns is immediately hiring progressive activists in San Francisco to educate the public and identify new supporters to protect reproductive health. We are working right now to: Keep birth affordable; oppose attacks on women’s health; ensure healthcare access for all; and expand global reproductive rights! Earn $400–600 weekly.”

Pulled straight from online classifieds giant Craigslist.org, this ad is meant to attract workers who are excited about a cause and ready to work. With the June primary election upon us and the November general election looming, canvassing organizations and political campaigns are mobilizing.

That means hiring. Lindsay Clarida, Northern California director of the Fund for the Public Interest, Inc., said that while canvasser turnover varies among offices during the academic year, the coming season is the time when most people sign on.

Carl Wilkens speaks to students about his time spent in Rwanda during the genocide. The event was put on by the UCSC chapter of the anti-genocide organization STAND in the Merrill Cultural Center. Photo by Sal Ingram.

Carl Wilkens was the last American to stay in Rwanda during the mid-1990s genocide. Now he dedicates his time to spreading awareness about genocide to students and supporters as a full-time speaker. Earlier this week, Wilkens spoke at UC Santa Cruz’s Merrill Cultural Center about his experiences.

Wilkens was invited to UCSC by STAND, a national anti-genocide coalition with over 850 chapters. The group spreads awareness about Darfur and other genocide-afflicted regions of the world, including Southern Sudan, Burma and the Congo. STAND, which also has an international division that extends to more than 25 countries, has a chapter at UCSC.

Passionate about bringing awareness to places like Santa Cruz, Wilkens shared his experiences in Rwanda with the hopes of not just educating students, but getting them involved in a more direct way.

“If I can just encourage five, six, a dozen [students] to go [to Rwanda], maybe that’s my role right now,” Wilkens said.

In 1990, Wilkens moved to Rwanda and did not return to the United States until 1996. It was eight years before he got involved in anti-genocide work and became an adventist pastor. He was interviewed by PBS’ Frontline for a documentary called “Ghosts of Rwanda” in 2003, and since then has spoken at many events. In January of 2008, Wilkens decided to become a full-time speaker.

Wilkens’ speech included stories about near-death experiences and relationships he built with Rwandans during the genocide. He spoke about how the Rwandan genocide gained attention for a short time and then gradually faded out of people’s minds.

He disagrees with the idea that war or genocide can be viewed as simply a fact of life.

“People think it was inevitable, Wilkens said. “I don’t want to live like that. I would rather live with false optimism. We settle for less, we get less.”

Chiara Cabiglio is the co-president of the STAND chapter at UCSC. Two years ago, Cabiglio saw Wilkens speak at Pledge to Protect, STAND’s national convention, and earlier this year asked him to speak at UCSC.

Carl Wilkens speaks to students about his time spent in Rwanda during the genocide. The event was put on by the UCSC chapter of the anti-genocide organization STAND in the Merrill Cultural Center. Photo by Sal Ingram.

“He sounded really enthusiastic to come,” Cabiglio said. “It was perfect.”

Cabiglio and her co-president Mollie Murphy coordinated Wilkens’ stay in Santa Cruz to include speeches at Pacific Collegiate School — a local charter school — and a UCSC psychology class called Children and War, along with his presentation at Merrill.

Wilkens’ presentations were funded by a donation from the national STAND organization, of which financial advisor Nicole Pokojny was in charge.

“We put on events so that people will become more aware and maybe get involved themselves,” Pokojny said. “It’s an outlet for people who are interested in anti-genocide movements.”

The local chapter of STAND holds weekly meetings consisting of a group of eight to 10 regular students. Last year the chapter was inactive, but this fall, co-presidents Murphy and Cabiglio started it up again.

To conduct outreach for this event, STAND at the UCSC campus made flyers and banners, created a Facebook event page and talked to local newspapers.

Sangetha Komar, a second-year student at UCSC, attended the event and has been trying to become more engaged with STAND’s organization.

“A lot of the members are graduating seniors, and I hope to get involved,” Komar said. “Coming out and spreading awareness is key.”

Third-year Yaneli Torres also attended the event. Both Komar and Torres planned to “like” Wilkens’ Facebook page for his organization, World Outside My Shoes.

“I wanted to learn more,” Torres said. “I learned a lot and I’m really happy I came.”

(Left) Roark and Kirk (right) campaign against the selling of bottled water on campus. Photo by Morgan Grana.

Third-year UC Santa Cruz students Gabi Kirk and Lindsey Roark are on a mission to bring plastic water bottle sales on campus to an end.

City on a Hill Press: Can you tell me about the project you are both a part of?

Kirk: Take Back the Tap is a campaign to end the sale of plastic water bottles on the UCSC campus, and eventually, the UC systemwide. We want to build long-lasting behavioral change. We want to be teaching the people who are going to lead our nation and our future that these are the social values that we hold dear, that water is a right for everyone.

CHP: Would you consider Take Back the Tap a green movement?

Roark: Our campaign is more about the fact that water is privatized, that water is commoditized, and it is something that should be available to everyone. It’s great that there will be less plastic consumption, but that’s not what our campaign is about. We’re trying to make this also a community-based marketing scheme, [instead] of an information-based marketing scheme …What we’re trying to do is find out exactly why people buy bottled water [and] how can we modify that behavior to be more sustainable.

CHP: How is the project going?

Roark: Hopefully by mid-May there will be two spigots, one in the foyer at OPERS and one in the upper floor of the Wellness Center. They’ll just be little push-back spigots where you can fill your water bottles. And if that goes well, then we are hoping to install spigots at all of the high-usage areas that we find around campus, so probably around 25 more spigots. We’re hoping to have the rest of the installation done next year [since] they don’t have the capacity [this year].

Kirk: We actually got grants from Measure 43 and Measure 44, which were passed last year on the ballot.

CHP: Any other future plans for the project?

Kirk: We want to identify the “deserts,” as we like to call them, areas without an accessible water source, and maybe make it into a map for a phone, where someone can ask, “Where is the water fountain near me?” and then later on, “Where is the recycling bin near me?” [or] “When does the next bus come?” And we want to build a website with a transparent budget, so that people can track it. If we’re going to be spending student fees, we want to make sure it’s in a way that’s going to engage the student body.

CHP: Have you received support from the administration?

Roark: What’s cool is that we’ve noticed in this project that every administration, staff [or] faculty [member] that we’ve approached about this has been so stoked, and so as far as administration support, I feel like the administration supports us full-heartedly.

Kirk: There’s a great sustainability community here and we’d love this to be a big part of it. Right now it’s a small group of people doing it, but we’re slowly getting more and more, so we really want people to come out to Earth Day and find out how they can get involved with this effort.