Photo by Sal Ingram.

While the U.S. News and World Report recently ranked UC Santa Cruz as the 72nd best university in the country, there is another publication that holds UCSC in much higher esteem — albeit for completely different reasons.

This past month, Surfer Magazine ranked UCSC as one of the top 10 surf colleges in the nation. The ranking was not numerical, with colleges instead getting a more specific assessment from the magazine, which looked at factors like distance to the nearest beach and consistency of waves. UCSC was crowned the best college for those who “Want to Surf at least 300 Days a Year” and called the “capital of consistency” in the article, which also praised the city of Santa Cruz for its high density of surf spots in a small area.

It’s a title that Stevenson College first-year and Monterey Bay native Cory Steinmetz agrees with. An avid surfer for about five years, Steinmetz made his decision to attend UCSC partially because of the surf scene here. As far as the assessment goes, Steinmetz whole-heartedly agrees.

“Santa Cruz is so consistent,” Steinmetz said. “There are always waves here.”

Doug Haut, owner of Haut Surfboards, also found Surfer Magazine’s rankings to be accurate. He said that the surfing conditions and the town itself are what make UCSC a top school to attend for someone interested in surfing.

“[Santa Cruz] has all the diversified surf spots,” Haut said. “We have right handers, left handers, point breaks, beach breaks. Up and down the coast we have more surf spots in 50 miles than any other place. It’s a great surf town because there are so many people involved in surfing here.”

The university itself has found a way to capitalize on its surf school reputation by offering a variety of surfing classes through the recreation department. The program offers a beginner’s one-day clinic on surfing, as well as a weekly class that last the entirety of the quarter.

David Schulkin, a UCSC alumnus and current surf instructor at the university, said that the Santa Cruz surf scene and culture was a major reason why he came to and stayed in Santa Cruz.

“I came to UCSC because the waves are so good,” Schulkin said. “And then I realized that I could get paid to teach this.”

Schulkin, who has been a surf instructor for 14 years with 11 of them being at UCSC, also said that it is the consistency of the surf in Santa Cruz that makes it stand out.

“[Santa Cruz] has a lot of different breaks,” Schulkin said. “It’s a ton of world-class waves in a small radius.”

That consistency and breadth of spots that Schulkin speaks of is what got UCSC on the list, but some say it should have helped them get an even higher ranking. While the list wasn’t ranked numerically, Surfer gave an “Overall Winner” award to UC Santa Barbara.

While he acknowledged that UCSB has some nice spots, Steinmetz still felt that Santa Cruz was more deserving of the top praise.

“Santa Barbara is flat half the year,” Steinmetz said. “And the beaches aren’t as beautiful.”

When asked if he felt similarly, Schulkin said that he “doesn’t really care” about the ranking, but also said that Santa Barbara doesn’t offer the same constant opportunity that a surfer gets in Santa Cruz.

“Santa Barbara has some really wonderful spots,” Schulkin said. “But it also has the Channel Islands that block a lot of activity.”

While much of the praise in the Surfer Magazine article and from people like Steinmetz and Schulkin has been for the city of Santa Cruz more than the university itself, the proximity to the storied surf city is perhaps the biggest reason for UCSC’s high ranking. With the campus a considerable distance from the waves, Steinmetz said that just being located in one of the most famous surf towns in the country is what makes UCSC a great surf college.

“It’s just the fact that [UCSC] is in Santa Cruz,” Steinmetz said. “[Santa Cruz] just has world-class waves and so many great spots.”

Photo by Sal Ingram.

Photo by Sal Ingram.

“What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!”

Marching across campus, holding signs condemning hate speech and chanting in unison, nearly 100 student demonstrators denounced racist graffiti found in a men’s restroom in Cowell College on Cinco de Mayo.

A photo of the graffiti posted on the UC Santa Cruz ethnic and critical race studies Tumblr account shows the image of the graffiti in its entirety, which reads: “STOP the invasion kill a Mexican!”

This latest incident comes after the discovery of swastika graffiti — which contained a threat of violence on 4/20 — in March, as well as the images of nooses drawn in restrooms on campus last year.

“This is bigger than just this incident,” said fourth-year Frank Bejarano, who was demonstrating with the crowd today. “It is sad that we have to do this. For us to be in the higher institutions and have to deal with this – it angers us.” Bejarano is the internal affairs officer for the UCSC chapter of Movimiento Estudiantil Chicana y Chicano de Aztlan, a student organization promoting the values of the Chicano movement.

In calling attention to the instances of hate speech across the UC recently, the demonstration underscored the imperativeness of supporting programs on campus that encourage ethnic diversity as well as the incorporation of an ethnic studies major.

“Without those programs, this campus would be entirely white,” said a co-chair of Engaging Education to the crowd gathered in front of the Cowell/Stevenson dining hall.

The demonstration began at Kerr Hall, where students tried to meet with Chancellor George Blumenthal, before moving across campus onto a knoll in Cowell College and eventually into the Cowell/Stevenson dining hall.

Several Cowell students leaned out of their windows and balconies as Cowell College provost Faye Crosby approached the demonstrators atop the knoll and spoke though a megaphone.

“It diminishes our community,” Crosby said regarding hate speech and racism on UCSC’s campus. “We need to be united and respectful of all members of our community.”

Photo by Emiliano O’Flaherty-Vazquez.

Photo by Emiliano O’Flaherty-Vazquez.

Last September, three individuals were arrested while participating in a dance protest on campus. A settlement was reached at the end of April, and all three of the arrestees avoided jail time. The dance party, consisting of approximately 125 people, occurred at around 9:30 p.m. in the Porter Quad. It was one in a series of dance protests that were held in response to fee increases and budget hikes.

The three individuals arrested were Emma Curtis, Kaci Cole and Eric Cuffney, none of whom were UC students. Cuffney and Curtis were in and out of court over 10 times over the last six months, and Cuffney was given a monetary punishment and probation.

“What it really comes down to is money,” Cuffney said. “I had to pay $560, and I’m on probation for two years.”

Cuffney was arrested and charged with carrying a weapon, a blunt shaving razor. This charge was later dropped. He was also charged with assaulting an officer and resisting arrest. Cuffney said he was not given any warning before he was grabbed.

“I was just standing there, and all of a sudden somebody’s grabbing me and trying to throw me to the ground. They didn’t identify themselves. It could have been anybody,” Cuffney said. During this exchange, Cuffney was temporarily knocked unconscious. “I woke up with her [the officer] binding my arms behind my back. At that point, yes, I did realize it was a cop.”

Curtis was charged with “lynching” — trying to free someone who’s been arrested — and resisting arrest.

“I got down on my knees, asking him if he was okay,” Curtis said. “I tried to pull his shoulders up from the ground, and then they arrested me.”

Anthony Robinson, Cuffney’s attorney, said the trial worked out as well as could be expected for Cuffney, and emphasized the importance of witnesses to Cuffney’s case.

“There were a number of student witnesses who had seen the event and recounted it in a very different way than the police had,” Robinson said. “Once the DA reviewed their statements, they realized they weren’t going to be able to prove resisting arrest. The problem with the resisting-an-officer charge was that you’d really need to know they were officers.”

Dr. Cornel West speaks at Classroom Unit 2 on Friday, May 6. SUA and E2 coordinated the event. Photo by Michael Mott.

The atmosphere inside Classroom Unit 2 was tense.

Opening remarks had been made at UC Santa Cruz’s Speaker Blowout, and the stage was set for the main attraction of the evening: Dr. Cornel West.

Suddenly, a hush fell over the room and the side door on stage right opened. In strolled West, and up shot the audience. Approximately 400 people were on their feet, clapping and cheering with the same enthusiasm college students usually reserve for movie stars and rappers.

But West is a different kind of celebrity. Holding degrees from both Harvard and Princeton, West is an internationally known philosopher, author, orator and civil rights activist. He is best known for his work in social justice related to race, gender and class in American society.

Speaker Blowout is an annual event that aims to provide a space for students to be educated and informed about issues directly affecting access to institutions of higher learning.

Taking the podium, West began his speech with a question.

“The most important question we can ask ourselves is, ‘What does it mean to be human?’”

This kind of Socratic questioning was a frequent theme in West’s speech. Touching on issues of race, class, the legacy of white supremacy, gender and modern politics, West’s speech highlight- ed the progress that still needs to be made for social justice in America, and the importance of critical inquiry.

“We must come to terms with all forms of suffering,” West said. He urged the audience not to be satisfied with the status quo, and to remove themselves from the pursuit of material happiness. “Become misfits maladjusted to the indifference of the main-

stream,” West said. “From ‘bling bling’ to ‘let freedom ring.’”

West drew upon elements of African American culture in his discourse about social justice, referring to himself as “a blues- man in the life of the mind” and to the true nature of human existence, complete with its beauty and atrocities, as “the funk.” West called those who work for social justice “participants in the funk.”

Before beginning his speech, West acknowledged SUA chair Tiffany Loftin in front of the crowd, calling her “the visionary leader.” Loftin, along with Engaging Education (E2) program coordinators Kalwis Lo and Sahira Barajas, were the driving forces behind booking West. Loftin

said securing such a high-profile speaker was not an easy task.

“There were a lot of hurdles we had to jump over,” Loftin said. “But it was something I had my heart set on.”

Loftin said the main obstacle to bringing West to UCSC was money. The total cost for the event was $30,000, and the SUA and E2 had to fundraise over half the cost after donating $12,000 out of their own operating budgets. E2 program coordinator Kalwis Lo described the trio’s fundraising strategy.

“We wrote a letter to every administrator and college provost, telling them about our event and what our intentions were,” Lo said.

While some people Lo, Barajas and Loftin reached out to did not provide financial support, others

offered use of facilities or moral support. Colleges Nine and Ten provost Helen Shapiro was one of the event’s biggest financial supporters, donating a total of $2,000.

“I think Cornel West is an important voice, and the timing was good given [issues with graffiti] that have happened on campus,” Shapiro said.

Lo said their selection of West was partly in response to the rash of discriminatory graffiti been found on UCSC’s campus this year. The organizers of Speaker Blowout were hoping to use West’s prestige as a professor of African American studies at Princeton to further the movement for the creation of an ethnic studies program at UCSC, Lo said.

West emphasized that no matter what major, issues of social justice affect all students.

“Everything is at stake,” West said. “This has to do with what type of person you want to be, what type of society you want to have, what type of university you want to have.”

In closing, West encouraged all those who work for social justice to retain hope.

“Blues is about hope because the evidence always looks overwhelmingly bad,” West said. “But when you are a participant in the funk, all you’re looking for is movement.”

In a small classroom hidden at the end of the hall on the first floor of UC Santa Cruz’s social sciences building, six students and their instructor struggle to say,“I like the weather today”in Yiddish. It sounds simple, but several students have already stumbled over the treacherous, paradoxical grammar.

After a few false starts, one student finally gets it right, eliciting cheers and applause from her classmates. Wielding a shard of yellow chalk in one hand and an enormous eraser in the other, Jonathan Levitow — UC Santa Cruz’s only Yiddish language instructor — holds his arms out wide and grins sheepishly, as if to apologize for the small triumph enjoyed by his class.

“Yiddish is too difficult to be learned by human beings!” Levitow said.

Illustration by Louise Leong.

Yet humans — at least Jewish humans — continue to learn it, as they have for the last thousand years. Originally the language of Jews in Eastern and Central Europe, Yiddish spread across the globe on the tongues of Jewish immigrants, arriving in the United States in the 19th century as the spoken and written language of tens of thousands of Jews on the East Coast.

Following World War II, however, the Yiddish-speaking population of Europe was decimated. The adoption of Hebrew as the national language of the state of Israel dealt Yiddish a second deadly blow by denying it a homeland. In the United States, Jewish immigrants often neglected to teach their children Yiddish in an attempt to expedite assimilation, wiping out a pool of potential Yiddish-speakers in the course of a single generation.

Today, there is a popular misconception that because of all this, Yiddish is a dead language. While this statement is far from true, it is also not quite a lie.

Crippled by genocide and decades of bad luck, Yiddish survives in sizable pockets of speakers — mostly ultra-Orthodox communities of Jews and enclaves of aging native speakers in New York — but lacks the cohesion or popularity needed to regain its stature as a daily language used by Jews at home and in public.

In 1970, the U.S. Census found almost 1.6 million Jews who spoke Yiddish as a home language. By 1980, that number had dropped to 315,953. In 1990, it fell again to 213,054. Between 2000 and 2007, the number of Yiddish speakers in America fell to 158,991 — almost a 90 percent drop between 1970 and 2007.

Despite its wounds, Yiddish continues to thrive in some circles. More than a dozen Yiddish programs have sprouted up in American universities in the last 20 years, according to a 2010 study by Dr. Zachary Berger entitled, “The Popular Language That Few Bother to Learn.” In the midst of budget cuts and slashed language programs, Yiddish has managed to take root at UCSC with only a handful of students and educators.

Openly passionate about the language and the program, a small pocket of students and teachers are making a stand to preserve the cultural and linguistic heritage of a language they have come to love.

Introductory Yiddish was first offered at UCSC as a course in the Jewish studies program in spring 2010. Thirty students enrolled in the class — about six times the number of students enrolled at the Yiddish program at Stanford, which is also taught by Jonathan Levitow.

Bruce Thompson, lecturer for the history and literature departments, classifies the upcoming generation’s interest in Yiddish as part of a cycle. Photo by Prescott Watson.

Bruce Thompson, a lecturer for the history and literature departments at UCSC, said one reason for the popularity of Yiddish is the renewed interest many young Jewish students have had in reclaiming their cultural heritage.

“It’s a characteristic swing of the pendulum: The second generation wants to lose it, and the fourth generation wants to get it back,” Thompson said. “There’s a recognition that there was a rich Jewish culture in Eastern Europe as well as a rich literature, and it did so much to shape modern Jewish secular culture and identity.”

Rachel Starr-Glass, a third-year Jewish studies major, said her family was originally from Eastern Europe. A major reason she decided to take Yiddish was so she would be able to explore her own cultural connections to the language.

“There’s so much Yiddish literature out there, and I feel like if I could have direct access to that, the whole world opens up,” Starr-Glass said. “There’s a whole Yiddish culture, and I want to be able to directly access that. My grandma speaks a little, and my brother. It’s in the family.”

Professor Murray Baumgarten, co-founder of the Jewish studies program at UCSC, said knowledge of Yiddish also allows students to access thousands of texts accumulated over the centuries that would have been lost to the ages if not translated into Yiddish.

“One of the things that marks Yiddish is the numerous number of texts of world importance that were translated into Yiddish,” Baumgarten said. “I mean, political science, economics, literature — there was a great sense that Yiddish wanted to be connected to the larger world of Western culture.”

Students realize the double entendre in a joke in Professor Jonathan Levitow’s Yiddish class. Photo by Prescott Watson.

At UCSC, finding financial support outside the classroom has been integral for not only the preservation of the Yiddish language course but also the Jewish studies program that runs it. Founded in 2000, the Jewish studies program was given its start by donations from the Helen Diller Family Foundation, which allowed the program to establish a major, run independently of university funding, and hire faculty members like Yiddish lecturer Levitow.

Despite a rich literary tradition, some Yiddish scholars worry that even as the number of programs devoted to teaching Yiddish culture and literature at the university level increases, the actual number of speakers learning Yiddish outside of Hassidic or Charedi communities is dropping at an alarming rate.

A 2006 study by the Modern Language Association found 969 students enrolled at four-year colleges and graduate programs learning Yiddish. In 2009 (the most recent year available), that number dropped to 336. Although this drop is partly due to the drastic class reductions in one rabbinical academy and one state school, it still represents an enormous blow to the national Yiddish-speaking community.

Michael Wex, Yiddish scholar and New York Times best-selling author of “Born to Kvetch,” a humorous linguistic and sociological history of Yiddish and Jewish culture, said the plight of Yiddish is best reflected in the Jewish community’s sudden interest in preserving Yiddish.

“There’s a very positive attitude towards Yiddish these days, and has been for a couple decades now — and that worries me,” Wex said. “When Yiddish was healthy and flourishing, everyone was ashamed of it and trying to hide it. Now it’s not very healthy and it’s become our legacy.”

Wex said symptoms of Yiddish’s poor health are evident in the popularity of Yiddish phrase books that promise to teach readers exotic food words, cute endearments and juicy curses. Wex said these books promote a superficial knowledge of Yiddish that at best scratches the surface of Jewish culture, and at worst misinforms the reader.

“The interesting thing about Yiddish is that the number of people who know the difference between ‘fuck on’ and ‘fuck off’ is tiny and diminishing,” Wex said. “I’m not a prig, but the Yiddish is wrong — a book that tells you how to ‘fuck on’ is absolutely useless.”

One of the most basic problems obstructing Yiddish education is the lack of certified teachers. Berger cites the Yiddish Teacher’s Seminar in New York — which was closed in 1987 — as one of the last institutions to offer graduate students serious education as Yiddish instructors. Wex mentioned the article as he addressed pressing issues facing Yiddish advocates.

“Who is teaching the spoken language in universities? How many of these people are native speakers?” Wex asked. “It’s a big problem because you’ve got some relatively capable people who are trying to immerse themselves in the language, but it gets harder and harder because there are fewer places to go.”

Jesse Kirchner, a visiting assistant professor of linguistics at UCSC, studied Yiddish throughout his graduate career. In discussing what might endanger a language like Yiddish, Kirchner drew parallels between Yiddish and other extinct or endangered languages.

“What has caused those languages to become extremely endangered are things that were done to break the connection between one generation and the next,” Kirchner said. “As long as something like that doesn’t happen, Yiddish can endure indefinitely.”

However, given that this generational break has already occurred with Yiddish, Kirchner could not predict whether it would survive as a spoken language.

“It’s safe right now because there’s a generation of speakers learning it,” Kirchner said. “But to project out further than that, the future is very much in question for all the other languages in the world — and that would include Yiddish.”

Although Levitow did not agree with the idea that Yiddish is a dying language, he did say that Yiddish culture has been made increasingly irrelevant in modern Jewish communities, especially with the adoption of Hebrew as the official spoken language of Israel and, consequently, the global Jewish community.

“To me it seems kind of obvious — the whole center of Jewish life changed,” Levitow said. “When I was a kid, if you went into the synagogue, people spoke Yiddish. Now, you have to make an effort to go out and learn it. It takes hard work.”

Starr-Glass’ glowing opinion of the class and Reb Yankel (the Yiddish title for Levitow in class) was echoed by her classmate Ian Flanagan, a fourth-year history major.

“If there was one person [in the class] he’d still teach it,” Flanagan said. “He teaches the class — he doesn’t let the book teach the class. He’s so passionate about the course, but not overbearing.”

Flanagan said he has frequently encountered people who do not understand that Yiddish is still a spoken language with vital communities around the world.

“A lot of people will ask, ‘Why are you taking Yiddish? Nobody speaks Yiddish,”’ Flannagan said. “But [Levitow] brought in Yiddish newspapers from New York, so it is prevalent in certain areas, in New York and European countries. If people understand that it’s still in use, it will come back.”

Levitow’s normally cheery face clouded over as he addressed the notion that Yiddish had been left behind in the modern age.

Illustration by Louise Leong.

“Here in California, you really get the sense that Yiddish is of another time,” Levitow said. “But in fact, it’s not true. There are a lot of people who still speak Yiddish — they make an effort to keep it going in their families. New York is a center, also Toronto, and Chicago and L.A. All places where people speak Yiddish day-to-day.”

The absence of an iconic, permanent Yiddish-speaking community is something author Wex believes is permanently stunting the growth of Yiddish.

“One of the big problems [with] teaching Yiddish is it’s very difficult to get any outside-the-class support,” Wex said. “You can’t say, ‘Well here’s a program where you can go to Yiddish Land during the summer.’ It’s not the fault of anybody teaching Yiddish — it just doesn’t exist.”

Levitow said UCSC’s program is exceptionally lucky to receive private funding, because more than almost anything else, steady cash flow is the necessary ingredient for building a stable Yiddish-speaking community.

“The problem really is, in a nutshell, money,” Levitow said. “If you’re running a synagogue, an adult education program, you’re constantly trying to save every dollar you can. So do you hire somebody to teach Yiddish if there are only three students? What we really need are a few more millionaires who could fund Yiddish educational foundations that were stable and could count on funding.”

The Koret Foundation — one of the main donors supporting the program — gave the Jewish studies program a three-year grant to run a Yiddish course. But even private funding cannot guarantee a program’s survival. Last year, as the Yiddish program was just starting up, UCSC’s Hindi/Urdu program lost its own private funding and was forced to close down.

In response to an email query, Koret Foundation communications officer Kirsten Mickelwait said she could not divulge grant information nor speculate on future support for the program. She did say UCSC’s program is the only one Koret funds specifically for Yiddish education.

For students like Starr-Glass, the uncertain future of the Yiddish program and Yiddish itself has had no effect on her enthusiasm to learn the language — in a large part thanks to Levitow’s class and teaching style.

“I love it, I really do,” Starr-Glass said. “His way of teaching is really natural, it’s conversation, and he’s funny — we’re laughing 75 percent of the class. There’s definitely a lot of grammar, the structure of sentences. But the majority of the time we learn by conversation and a lot practice reading and writing.”

For Michael Wex, learning practical conversation skills and grammar is the only efficient way to bring Yiddish back as a language of daily use.

“I think it’s important for the textbook to teach you unremarkable day-to-day expressions,” Wex said. “When the plumber comes, you have to be able to tell him what’s clogged. If you can’t do that, you’re not fluent.”

Lecturer Thompson said there are a number of practical reasons to continue teaching Yiddish, but for the best reason, one should just ask the students studying it.

“Ask any of our students who are taking Yiddish about his or her experience,” Thompson said. “I bet you that the first response before the student says a word is a smile — a broad smile. With all due respect to all the other languages that are offered at UCSC, you don’t get that same smile — but you get it with someone who’s learning Yiddish.”

Asked to elaborate on what students might gain from learning Yiddish, Thompson hesitated, picking his words with care.

“I suppose it’s not only a feeling of accomplishment,” Thompson said. “But there’s also a special feeling of satisfaction that you’re keeping alive something that nearly died. It’s quite a wonderful thing that college students are really doing this.”

Fourth-year student Flanagan said it’s frustrating to see the low enrollment in Levitow’s class, which he blames on the recent arrival of the program and its virtual invisibility on course registers.

“Nobody knows it’s being offered. Once I found out and I took it, I became the biggest cheerleader for it,” Flanagan said. “We have pride in what we’re learning because nobody else is studying it. It’s something unique to me and I want to see more people speaking it.”

Photo by Prescott Watson.

Starr-Glass said that although she is not sure how far she will take her Yiddish education, she would be interested in taking another Yiddish class if it were offered. But it was difficult to imagine learning enough Yiddish to make it the home language of her family, she said.

“I’m not really sure about that — it would be hard. I think I would have to move to a Yiddish-speaking community to do that,” Starr-Glass said. “When I have a family, I want Yiddish to be familiar to them. I don’t know if me speaking alone to them would be enough, but I want to pass it on to them.”

Wex said that in the ideal world, Yiddish would be taught not as a class, but as the language of instruction in an entire university.

“No single teacher, no matter how intelligent or gifted can [possibly] cover it all,” Yiddish scholar Wex said. “There’s never one professor for a whole area. This is what you need in Yiddish, the idea of a university, one that covers liberal arts, and social science, that really does run in Yiddish.”

Wex also noted that despite efforts to make Yiddish a secular language, the religious component is too vital to the vocabulary and structure of the language to be excluded from study. Wex said without knowledge of the forms and rituals that defined Yiddish as a sacred language used by Jews for a millennia, a student could not achieve more than partial understanding of the language.

“I don’t think you can make this stuff work [by saying]… ‘Here are some dirty jokes, here are some insults you can sling at people,”’ Wex said. “You end up with a culture where all you can do is curse.”

By the end of Levitow’s two-hour class, nobody had uttered a curse, but the students had reviewed a quiz and covered several complicated grammatical constructions. Class was concluded with the reading of two jokes from the textbooks. By the end of the first joke, class was over, but nobody wanted to leave until the second joke was finished.

Line by line, the second joke is read through until the last student read the final sentence, sounding out the Yiddish words before translating them into English. It takes a second for everyone to put together the translated joke, leading to a collective groan at the punch line. But Levitow beamed and bobbed uncontrollably on the balls of his feet, unable to hide his delight.

“I saw the light go on in your eyes!” Levitow said. “It was very exciting!”

Updated 5/18/2011 at 11:34pm

Nestled on the outskirts of Seattle in the middle of an industrial center, along an unimpressive stretch of road, sits a cedar longhouse. If you didn’t know about it and if you don’t notice the panels of wood that peek through the trees, you may not even see it. It’s out of place among the yards of metal and lumber, but behind a set of double doors, a culture relegated to the “unidentifiable” thrives.

Rumbling inside this simple structure, traditions persist in defiance of a tumultuous history. Feet patter against wooden floors as the sounds of drums and throaty voices ricochet off the walls of the large, windowless ceremonial hall. Some afternoons, the smell of cooking oil and dough comes from a nearby kitchen, laughter and rowdy conversation flooding in along with it.

Leading into a main room, black and white photographs hang on white walls and hand-woven baskets and traditional jewelry sit on display — available for purchase, of course. But the proceeds will not be going to line some tribal chair’s pockets. Instead, the money will go to the legal fees the tribe must pay in order to apply for federal recognition.

Federal recognition fosters a “government-to-government relationship” between American Indian and Alaska Native tribes and the U.S. federal government. Currently, there are 565 federally recognized tribes throughout the United States and approximately 1.9 million registered tribal members, according to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Less than half of self-identified American Indians are registered with a federally recognized tribe, according to the BIA’s 2005 American Indian Population and Labor report.

As of now there are only three ways a tribe can receive federal recognition: by an act of Congress, by a decision of the federal court system, or by proving a tribe can meet the requirements of the Federal Acknowledgment Process regulations 25 CFR Part 83.

The 25 CFR Part 83 regulation has seven specific details a tribe must meet in order to gain federal recognition — most pointedly, proof of continuity in existence and continued “political influence or authority over its members.”

A notoriously expensive legal procedure, raising funds to cover the costs of lawyers, researchers and academics working on a tribe’s recognition case is half the battle. And it’s a battle the Duwamish tribe has been fighting since 2001 after federal recognition was rescinded by the BIA when it was decided that the tribe had not shown historical continuity — a point of contention for those involved. Currently, the Duwamish tribe is working to appeal the previous decision.

In their defense, the Duwamish look to the Point Elliott Treaty of 1855, which details the rights and reservation the tribe was entitled to in exchange for land the city of Seattle now sits on. The treaty was never fulfilled by the government.

But the story of the Duwamish is nothing new. Tribes throughout the country have struggled to maintain and prove their existence — and continued survival — in order to obtain federal recognition.

There is one anomaly in the case of the Duwamish: They have a central meeting place, a cultural center where they can carry out endangered traditions. The Duwamish tribe raised funds and purchased land in order to build the longhouse that has become central to the community.

But recognition issues are more than casinos and land, bigger than flashing lights and rolls of cash. Federally unrecognized tribes do not have access to the same economic or educational benefits federally recognized tribes do, they do not have the same authority over their cultural artifacts or land, nor do they hold the same political weight.

They are tiny fish among small fish in an even smaller pond.

Arguing Against Academics

In December of last year, President Barack Obama backed the United Nations’ Declaration on Indigenous Rights and spoke on his support of Native Americans at the Tribal Conference held in Washington, D.C. The Declaration was an official recognition of Indigenous sovereignty, and prior to December 2010 the U.S. government had not officially supported it, according to a Reuters article.

But while the president’s willingness to open up a constructive dialogue with Native people is a step in the right direction, American Indians are still faced with high rates of poverty, crime, illness and suicide.

“They made a big show of it and that was beautiful, and yes, there were a hundred tribes there meeting at the White House but not one of them was a federally unrecognized tribe,” Valentin “Val” Lopez, the Amah Mutsun tribal chair, said. “And the unrecognized tribe has never been reached out to by the government.”

In Santa Cruz, the Amah Mutsun — a sub-group of the band of Ohlone people native to the region — are federally unrecognized. Less than an hour away, in San Jose, the Muwekma Ohlone tribe — like its sister tribe, Amah Mutsun, and Duwamish in Washington State — is embroiled in a struggle to receive federal recognition. The Muwekma Ohlone and the Amah Mutsun are subgroups of the Costanoan band of Indians. The Costanoan is a collection of tribes within the cenral coast.

Lopez explained the tribal history that led up to the Amah Mutsun’s current situation and their fight for federal recognition.

The relationship that existed between Catholic missionaries and the Amah Mutsun was misrepresented in a survey of California Native Americans carried out in the early 20th century, Lopez said. The Amah Mutsun were considered absolved as a separate group and absorbed into the growing Latino population. Lopez asserts that historical documents from the Catholic Church as well as previous government censuses challenge the survey.

“It’s a goddamn lie,” Lopez said, his voice quivering with rising frustration. “Our people have suffered greatly because of that.”

What stands between the Amah Mutsun and federal recognition now is a lack of money and tribal politics that pit recognized and unrecognized tribes against one another.

“We’re just second-class Natives,” Lopez said. “There’s that psychological impact: You’re not Indian, because you’re not recognized, and that’s how many communities look at us.”

UC Santa Cruz associate professor of American studies Renya Ramirez said that unrecognized tribes may be faced with individuals who do not believe they truly are American Indians.

“Unfortunately, within Native communities, there is an idea of a ‘real Indian,”’ Ramirez said. “It’s ironic that being recognized by the federal government affects the way people see Natives.”

Lopez said that it was “unfortunate” that the government separated recognized and unrecognized tribes, and that this categorization is detrimental to all Native communities.

Due to their lack of recognition, tribes are denied programs that federally recognized tribes would benefit from. This includes money for higher education, healthcare services, childcare services and cultural restoration and continuance. In addition, tribes like the Amah Mutsun do not have cultural centers or meeting places where tribal members can gather as a community.

Lopez said that without access to resources it becomes difficult to keep Native communities together as a result of financial instability and a lack of opportunity.

Federally recognized tribes have access to job training, social services, natural resources management and housing projects, among other social, educational and economic development programs. Tribes without federal recognition do not, and must provide for their communities without assistance.

“We had a guarantee from the government of tribal sovereignty regarding our religious practices, regarding the way we live,” Lopez said. “Without federal recognition, we have none of that. And that to us is a total injustice.”

Illustration by Rachel Edelstein.

But what is in place now — and the tribes that are left chronicling their histories and proving their legitimacy — is the result of past government and academic practices.

Alan Leventhal, an anthropologist from San Jose State University, explains that Alfred L. Kroeber’s “Handbook of the Indians of California,” published in 1925, determined that the Ohlone people, “for all practical purposes, were extinct.” Kroeber was a father of modern anthropology and reputed professor at UC Berkeley, and his work, Leventhal said, has contributed to the misrepresentation of Ohlone people and their history.

When Leventhal was introduced to Rosemary Cambra 30 years ago, the tribal chairwoman of the Muwekma Ohlone, he said he was unfamiliar with California Indians and sought out Kroeber’s text.

“[Rosemary and I] went to the library and I pulled out Kroeber’s book and said, ‘The Costanoan group is extinct for all practical purposes. You must be from some other tribe.’ And she looked at me and said she begged to differ with me and Dr. Kroeber,” Leventhal said. “I was at an impasse. I could have said, ‘I don’t have time for this. Kroeber said you were extinct.’ Or I could apply my research techniques and try and obtain a database that would help the tribe.”

In his research and as he met members of the Ohlone tribe, Leventhal said he began to see the overlap in the stories of the Native community and documents gathered by linguists and anthropologists. The stories of the Muwekma were corroborated with the work of past academics.

Kroeber later retracted his claim that the Costanoan band of Indians was extinct, Leventhal said.

Leventhal further explains that in addition to Kroeber’s errors, Lafayette Dorrington, a Sacramento Superintendent, in 1927 argued against tribal nations’ need for land and, ultimately, federal recognition and assistance.

“Dorrington terminated 135 tribes with a strike of a pen,” Leventhal said. “Some of these things don’t show up in the history books.”

Leventhal said that there is a disconnect between popular perception of Natives and interest in indigenous affairs.

“If Indians do not talk about walking in harmony with Mother Earth, then dominant society decides they don’t want to recognize these people,” Leventhal said. “If they don’t make necklaces, if they don’t wear feathers, if they don’t dance, then [it’s perceived] that they’re not real Indians

Amy Lonetree, associate professor of American studies at UCSC, said that present-day American Indian issues are the residual effects of a history of intolerance.

“For many of these communities, why they are not recognized is because of ongoing colonialism,” Lonetree said. “The great irony is that Native Americans were told there was no place for them as indigenous people, yet everything about who they were as tribal people was being taken from them by scholars and budding anthropologists and hoarded.”

Lonetree describes the Pacific Northwestern Tribal Canoe Journey — in which federally unrecognized tribes like Duwamish, Snohomish and Chinook Nations participate — as an example of reclamation of identity and a way for Native communities to band together in spite of political factions.

“The U.S. government may have their criteria for who is Native, but we know who our native relatives are,” Lonetree said. “And they are indigenous and we recognize that, and we honor that.”

Michael Evans, the Snohomish tribal chair and a proponent of cultural education, has worked with youth from the Duwamish and Snohomish tribes promoting canoe culture as a way to overlook tribal lines.

“The canoe culture … brings people together and starts to unify the community, and that’s what’s really needed,” Evans said. “There are lot of little tribes, but they’re so fractured that they haven’t banded together enough to push some big legislation.”

For people like Lonetree and Evans, the continuation of Native culture in defiance of whether a tribe is recognized or unrecognized is a sign of resilience.

“I feel strongly that culture and self-identity need to be perpetuated, and even though we are not federally recognized, we can still be Natives and First People,” Evans said. “And that needs to be preserved. There is a lot of cultural heritage, self-pride.”

Anthropologist Jon Daehnke has worked extensively with the Chinook nation and is familiar with the difficulties that tribes face when they no longer have a political voice.

Daehnke said he has heard from members of the Chinook nation that they are faced with an internal, emotional conflict.

“We were told we shouldn’t be Indian, but now the government is telling us we aren’t Indian,” Daehnke recalls being told by one member of the Chinook nation.

“This isn’t just about casinos, it isn’t about funding, it’s about identity,” Daehnke continued. “All of these legacies of colonialism don’t stop. It’s not settled. These legacies are still there, and they have real effects on people’s everyday lives.”

Lopez has seen the emotional effects a lack of federal recognition has had on his own family, and the issue is much deeper than money or land rights.

“One of my goals was to get us recognized before [my mother] passed. I failed to do that. She was born a recognized Indian and died an unrecognized Indian, and that right there is really painful,” Lopez said. “There’s a hell of a lot of historic trauma when you cannot have self-esteem, honor and respect for being an Indian.”

The Politics of Ownership

Illustration by Rachel Edelstein.

The fight for recognition comes hand in hand with a fight for claim over ancestral remains and funerary objects.

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), passed in 1990, requires that all institutions that receive federal funding — including museums and universities — catalogue the human remains and specified cultural objects that have been excavated and collected. The institution housing the remains is required to consult with Native American tribes, and if the tribe files a request for the return of the remains and cultural artifacts, the institution must comply.

For federally unrecognized tribes, however, NAGPRA falls short. Under the law, publicly funded institutions are not required legally to return any remains or artifacts to a federally unrecognized tribe.

Federally unrecognized tribes are left relying on the goodwill of universities and museums that can voluntarily return objects and consult Native tribes. While the UC system currently consults Native American tribes on NAGPRA compliance issues, the relationship between the UC and federally unrecognized tribes is ambiguous.

Archaeologist and UCSC professor Judith Habicht-Mauche serves on behalf of UCSC as an advisor on NAGPRA to the UC Office of the President (UCOP), but refused to speak specifically on work the board handles. Only UCs in possession of artifacts that fall under NAGPRA law serve on the board.

“For security reasons, I don’t want to speak about the physical remains we possess,” Habicht-Mauche said.

Habicht-Mauche did confirm that UCSC was in possession of ancestral remains and artifacts. She did not detail where they were stored, what they specifically were, or how many remains the university was in possession of. However, under NAGPRA, the inventories documenting the artifacts in question are published.

As far as Habicht-Mauche knows from her work with the NAGPRA advisory group, a federally unrecognized tribe has not received remains or artifacts from the UC. However, with recent changes to NAGPRA, federally unrecognized tribes may stand a better chance at obtaining ancestral remains and funerary objects.

“The new rules have loosened requirements to some degree, but even under the new law, NAGPRA does not favor federally unrecognized tribes,” Habicht-Mauche said.

Even though the university refuses to speak in detail on items falling under NAGPRA, that does not satisfy tribes that do not have the right to rebury the remains of their ancestors now relegated to museum and university research facilities.

“The problem that the Amah Mutsun has is with any destructive testing done to the bodies, because it’s against our religious beliefs,” Lopez said. “We still have our strong religious beliefs and the spirit can only pass to the other side when it is whole and complete. Whenever you do destructive testing … that means in the end that spirit can never be at peace.”

Lopez also said that the university was “not as open and transparent” as it could be.

Daehnke explains that when contextualizing the issue of repatriation, the moral dilemma becomes apparent.

“The ability of cultures to make decisions about their deceased ancestors, that’s a pretty basic human right,” Daehnke said. “There’s roughly 80 percent of the known sets of human remains are still on museum shelves.”

Education as an Antidote

Tribal issues and the topics pertinent to indigenous communities do not often make the headlines. Recognition issues and repatriation concerns are not necessarily high-profile, and often fall under the radar of those unaffiliated with Native groups.

But amongst American Indian students, organizations and faculty at UCSC, there is a hunger for awareness. It is a swirling torrent, picking up speed and growing in size, that not only wants to see diversity in education, but also the inclusion of an American Indian and indigenous studies program.

Rebeca Figueroa, a participant in the UC Inner-campus Visitor Program, is a second-year anthropology and Native American studies major from UC Davis. Her last two quarters at UCSC have brought her to the American Indian Resource Center (AIRC), where she has collaborated with director Carolyn Dunn to bring a Native American studies program to the school.

“Even though I identify as a Chicana, a lot of the issues we discuss within [Native American studies] relate to me,” Figueroa said. “We understand the issues that Native people are still fighting today, so I felt really close to that. Everyone has a different story, but there is always common ground.”

Currently, Figueroa is seeking outside funding for an American Indian studies program, and hopes to model the program’s evolution after the Jewish studies program. She argues that the importance of Native American studies is because of the bridge between past and present, and how it has shaped indigenous communities today.

“We have to know that these people are still here, that it’s nothing of the past,” Figueroa said. “You go to a reservation and they still don’t have running water, and then you come here and all these people have the luxury that they’re lacking. Why are we here enjoying ourselves when there are people who were here before us that don’t have those rights?”

Figueroa also addressed the issue of federally unrecognized tribes and understanding the status of Native Americans as a topic in need of discussion.

“No one should have the power to say you’re not indigenous enough,” Figueroa said.

Dunn, the director of the AIRC, said that indigenous studies would be the first step to addressing issues relevant to American Indian individuals, but it would also initiate cross-disciplinary conversations.

“With environmental studies, there is indigenous knowledge that has direct scientific exploration or explanation that we could be looking at,” Dunn said. “Looking at indigenous studies or American Indian studies, it’s a very holistic way, and it can cross boundaries into other academic disciplines.”

Indigenous studies is, for students like Figueroa, the next step in addressing the need for greater conversation on American Indian concerns, as well as increasing the presence of Native culture and knowledge on the campus.

“I find it interesting how [UCSC] claims to be very diverse, but it’s not very diverse at all,” Figueroa said. “The conference rooms are named after [indigenous people], and it’s funny that we can name things after people but you don’t see them here.”

But even while indigenous studies may be the first step to changing the perception and situation of American Indians, for now, federally unrecognized communities exist in political limbo.

“It’s recognition that your ancestors went through these struggles and in spite of that they’re still here, we’re still here,” said Mike Evans, tribal chair of the Snohomish and a cultural mentor to many Duwamish youth. “It’s about your history and having others recognize your history, your culture. It’s something you hold dearly, and I’d hate to see that go away.”

Photo courtesy of Mollie Murphy.

Mollie Murphy, co-president of the UC Santa Cruz chapter of STAND and a Crown College fourth-year majoring in sociology. She was one of a dozen students who participated in a die-in event on May 5 to bring awareness of the genocide around the world to the UCSC students.

City on a Hill Press: What is the die-in event and what is its significance?

Murphy: A die-in is a visual demonstration, similar to a protest but a little bit less. Our group dressed in all black and laid down on the ground, first on the College Nine and Ten lawn for an hour and [now] at the Quarry Plaza, with tombstones to symbolize all the deaths of the victims of genocidal crimes and mass atrocities. My tombstone said, “Hitler is alive in Darfur, in Sudan, and his name is Omar al-Bashir.” The idea behind that is that similar genocide crimes that happened during the Holocaust are happening in Sudan right now. [Sudan] is getting a lot less publicity and people are paying a lot less attention. It is meant to link that past, the Holocaust, to things that are going on today to raise awareness.

CHP: Why are you interested in spreading awareness about this issue?

Murphy: I want to find a career in human rights, and this is an important human rights issue. I’m concerned with how people across the globe are treated and respected. I think I chose this issue because it means the most to a huge amount of people. It’s a logistically complex issue, but an ethically simple issue. Nobody is for genocide. It’s hard to imagine that people would commit mass murders against each other. Eradicating the world of genocide is probably one of the most important steps to having global peace, global cooperation and respect between cultures.

CHP: Why do you think this is the best way to get people’s attention?

Murphy: I think when people have a more visual kind of cue it’s a little bit more shocking and can hit home a little bit more. The idea is not to be abrasive or to guilt people. It’s just a statement, a vigil to bring people close to something that is happening far away, especially for students who live on campus or who never have really heard about these issues. We are trying to make it easier to grasp in a lot of ways, and sometimes visual demonstrations help that.

CHP: How do you hope this will impact UCSC students?

Murphy: We are hoping to create an atmosphere of solidarity between people in all countries, and to raise awareness and create a compassionate energy towards people who have to face these crimes or these kinds of circumstances every day. The hope is to get students here interested and get them to care about stopping genocide on the planet.

It’s going to be a slow process, and we expect it to be years and years, but we hope to empower students to feel that they have connections with people across the world and to feel that they can actually take part. A lot of times, students hear what is going on and it’s really scary, which it is, and it is hard to understand how we can help people or help these kinds of situations because it’s such a big problem and it’s so drastic and tragic. The idea is to hopefully give students really easy ways they can make a difference and to advocate for those who need it.

CHP: How do you plan to impact this campus outside of STAND?

Murphy: We are now working on a coalition for conflict-free UC, so we are trying to reach out to the other UC campuses. There is a genocidal situation in the Congo and there is a lot of violence centered around mines. Tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold are minerals that are found in every single cellphone, computer and pretty much every electronic item in the world. It’s a large western demand that is fueling violent rebel groups that are controlling the mines, burning villages, kidnapping children to become child soldiers and murdering a lot of people so that they have access to these resources that we are creating demand for. What our campus is doing, and what our students are doing outside of STAND, is hopefully creating a coalition of student and faculty on all the UC campuses to ask the administration to start investing responsibly in electronic companies, so that they directly check their supply chain and do not supply the conflicted area and the specific mines that are a part of this. Stanford and Penn State have already passed this legislation, but the UC system is a little bit more complex because there are 10 campuses. There is no way to invest in it responsibly right now, so we are trying to create ways for consumers to do that.

CHP: Do you plan on going to Africa and helping with the issues there, or are you mostly interested in raising awareness here?

Murphy: I would love to go there but have not been able to because of a medical condition. I have had a heart transplant and my cardiologists get mad at me when I talk about going. Places that I might be at a high risk of infection I’m not recommended to go to. If I were to go, I think I would love to go somewhere with an open mind and get to know the people and then start trying to use resources that I have to do what they need. I would not necessarily know, standing here at UCSC in California, what they need as a community. I would love to go immerse myself in the culture, get to know the people and then do what I can to help. Invisible Children is inventing radio systems to alert people when the rebel groups are around, hopefully I can do some work with that — anything on the ground that engages people, I would love to do.

(from left to right)

“Being Middle Eastern, it means a lot to me. It doesn’t mean it’s the end of all terrorism, but it brings a lot of peace to the families who suffered from the impacts of 9/11.”
Shadi Arjmand
First-year, Oakes
Undeclared

“I think it’s great that the evil deeds he did are over, but I don’t rejoice his death. I also think people from our generation don’t really understand its significance, because we were so young.”
Juliane Peithman
Second-year, College Ten
Psychology

“It’ll be interesting to see what happens between the U.S. and Pakistan. I’m upset at how his death has been paraded, but this will probably re-elect Obama, which I’m cool with.”
David Manske
Third-year, Stevenson
Sociology/philosophy

“I think to the victims it may have brought closure, but for the rest of the nation there’s a huge difference. Some disagree while others celebrate — the spectrum is huge.”
Nestor Rivera
Fourth-year, Kresge
Legal studies

Sophomore parker larsen practices at the West Field House tennis courts on April 27. Larsen, part of the team’s top doubles duo, will be playing this weekend when UCSC hosts one of the regional rounds of the NCAA tournament. Photo by Prescott Watson.

This weekend the UC Santa Cruz men’s tennis team will begin its quest for the eighth Division III national title since 1989, and this year, the road to the top begins right at home. On Monday, UCSC was officially named one of the eight host sites of the regional round of the Division III men’s tennis tournament.

UCSC was named host of the regional round after finishing at the top of its region this year. In an unusual twist, the Banana Slugs won their region but finished behind Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS) in the national rankings due to a loss to Washington University at St. Louis. The result is that UCSC will be one of the eight regional hosts, but CMS will host the final three rounds as the last eight teams battle for the top spot.

With the tournament approaching quickly, both the players and their coach, Bob Hansen, are thankful for the home-court advantage they will enjoy this weekend. While Division III tennis doesn’t benefit from the raucous home crowds or stadiums that Division I football and basketball programs enjoy, sophomore Parker Larsen said the familiarity of playing on their own courts in front of their own fans is what the players will really benefit from.

“Being at home just creates a sense of comfort for the players,” Larsen said. “We practice there every day all year. It gives you an advantage and gets your opponents out of their comfort zone.”

Coach Hansen echoed this statement, emphasizing the importance of knowing the actual court on which the matches will take place.

“We’re definitely perfectly comfortable on [our] courts,” Hansen said. “We know the speed of the courts and how they bounce. All of that stuff adds to your energy and focus.”

The team is grateful for these advantages because they know that the competition this weekend will be difficult. Hansen said that the western region is “by far the hardest” out of the eight spread across the country. Three of the four teams playing at Santa Cruz this weekend are ranked in the top 10 in the nation, with the CMS Stags ranked third, UCSC ranked fourth and the Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens ranked eighth.

While the team prepares itself for the competition this weekend, the staff at OPERS and the athletic department are doing some preparation of their own. UCSC does not regularly host sporting events of this size, with the last time being the regional round of the NCAA men’s tennis tournament of 2008. The staff will be working to accommodate the increased number of visitors and participants in this weekend’s festivities.

This week has seen a flurry of meetings and conference calls between UCSC, the NCAA and delegations from the other three schools. Athletic director Linda Spradley said a serious amount of work went in before the tournament to set up the games and ensure that they run smoothly.

“People think it’s real easy, just sign a sheet of paper,” Spradley said. “It isn’t. It takes a lot of work — you put in a lot of hours. Once it gets going you can finally sit back and relax, but until then it’s a lot of work.”

With the tournament just two days away, the focus is shifting from the preparation to the performance of the Slugs this weekend. If the Slugs want to make a run at an eighth national title, they will have to win both home matches this weekend.

UCSC will open by playing Pomona-Pitzer, who are ranked eighth in the nation. If UCSC beats them, the team will advance to play the winner of the match between CMS and the University of Texas at Tyler. With CMS expected to beat Texas-Tyler, the Slugs are anticipating facing the Stags in the regional final.

UCSC has some history with CMS, having beaten them earlier this season to secure the top spot in the region. However, the players know that the early victory has only put a target on their backs for this weekend.

“[We have to] come in 100 percent and take out a team that is gunning for us,” Larsen said. “They’re going to be really fired up, wanting to take it to us, and we have to be ready to give it back.”

With a tough road ahead, the team remains confident that they are up to the task.

“Our kids are really committed,” Hansen said. “They’ve improved a lot this season, and they feel pretty good about where they are right now. I feel good about how deep their training has been, their commitment and how they’ve grown. I know they’ll come to play.”

Photo courtesy of Lizzie Bernard.

No one said college was easy ­— but challenges should be faced in classrooms, not while trying to get into them. Lizzie Bernard had the latter problem.

Bernard was a third-year film and digital media major from Stevenson when she decided not to return to UC Santa Cruz for this current spring quarter.

Bernard had completed all of her general education requirements when she left UCSC, but had only been able to get three classes for her major in four quarters.

She was never able to get into any upper-division classes.

“What I was paying and the quality of the education wasn’t worth it anymore,” Bernard said. “I couldn’t get the [classes needed] for my bachelor’s degree, and I felt like I was wasting my time.”

Feeling overwhelmed and unfocused with a full load of classes, coping with personal problems and aching under the strain of the economy, Bernard had gone to part-time status this past fall to ease her load.

At UCSC, enrollment time is determined by how many credits you have completed — the more, the better. Because she was taking less units, Bernard’s enrollment times only got worse, making it even more difficult to get into the classes she needed.

“Another problem I have with UCSC is I haven’t been able to explore what I want to do, because I can’t get freaking classes, because I always get shafted on my enrollment time,” she said.

Since Bernard was able to enroll in so few classes, her ability to select courses and a major best suited for her preferences was significantly hampered.

After so many quarters of full classes and overflowing wait lists, she decided to cut her losses and regroup — a decision her family fully supports.

“My mom said that she didn’t really want to give the UC system the money anymore because it is ridiculous, all the fee and tuition increases,” Bernard said. “The other reason I’m taking the time off is that I need to figure out myself. I need to figure out what I want to do.”

Bernard is a self-described “jack of all trades,” participating in campus radio station KZSC and Slugs in Fishnets, playing guitar and trumpet and delving into photography and acting. She often felt stifled at UCSC, and has been taking advantage of her new freedom of exploration.

She took a trip to New York with her new Rocky Horror cast, “Barely Legal,” and performed for the Rocky Horror Picture Show Festival as Magenta at the House of Blues in Atlantic City.

Right now Bernard is happy to explore. Despite her difficult experiences at UCSC, she said, getting a degree would be worthwhile, though she does not think it will be from UCSC.

“Everything is a big question mark, really,” Bernard said. “I’m planning on going back to school within a couple of years, maybe sooner, maybe later — I don’t know — but I’m definitely going to get a degree.”

“Tax, tax, tax the rich — we can stop the deficit!”

Around 300 students, teachers and community activists encircled a statue of Christopher Columbus and Queen Isabella in the state Capitol’s rotunda as they chanted for a change in state budgetary priorities.

Roughly 60 UC Santa Cruz students joined teachers from the California Teachers Association union (CTA), community activists and other college students in Sacramento on Monday. Students from CSU Sacramento were expected to have a larger presence, but some UCSC students said they may not have been informed.

Photo by Sal Ingram.

The rally over budget cuts and just taxation of corporations and the rich ended with 68 total arrests, including 23 UCSC students. Despite the expectation of a larger turnout, fifth-year Melissa Cornelius said the mass arrest was effective in terms of publicity.

“They’re putting so many cuts on vulnerable people in the state, so I think the [mass arrest] was a beginning response to that,” Cornelius said. “It plays a role in bringing attention to the issue … People don’t have to take state legislation if they don’t want to.”

Numerous CTA members from across the state did not teach on Monday in order to travel to Sacramento to participate in the rally and voice their opinions.

“If we don’t have [tax] extensions, there will be 35–40 kindergarten through third grade students per teacher in our district,” said second grade teacher Greta Benavides from South Whittier.

Kindergarten teacher Jessica Hobbs from San Francisco had a different reason to be there, as she marched in the sea of matching CTA light blue shirts reading “We Are One.”

“We need to change our tax structure where corporations and the rich are justly taxed,” Hobbs said. “That’d save our budget deficit situation.”

Around 200 CTA members were present, and six stayed and were arrested, second-year Noah Miska said. UCSC students said it was hard to occupy the Capitol, as the CTA members had multiple priorities and many were on the fence about staying.

“It was difficult to get a clear message from everyone on what they’d do,” Miska, who was arrested, said. “If everyone at the rally would’ve stayed we wouldn’t have been arrested.”

The majority of CTA members left after the hour-long rally when their permit to be in the rotunda expired at 6 p.m.

“They were using the imagery of what happened in Wisconsin, but were lobbying,” Cornelius said. “That’s not what happened in Wisconsin.”

Photo by Sal Ingram.

The rally caught the eye of San Rafael City Council member Marc Levine. While most passersby clad in business attire walked through the crowd of activists without paying attention, Levine clapped with the beat of the chants and reminisced about his experiences protesting 16 years ago as a CSU Northridge student.

“I have awe and respect for them,” Levine said. “I’m here to support them.”

Neha Sobti, a community activist, came by bus from San Francisco. Sobit said she found activism of this nature important in general, as she’s pursuing a career in education, and on this day particularly, because she could afford to be there when others could not.

“I can use my body in place of teachers who can’t,” Sobti said, about rallying on a school day.

The activists who stayed past 6 p.m. continued chanting, “We’re doing this for your children.”

Miska said it had an impact on the California Highway Patrol (CHP) officers, who were more courteous than the police officers.

“[CHP officers] didn’t want to make eye contact,” Miska said. “They were just following orders.”

After the arrests, the activists were eventually taken to the county jail, where they were kept in holding cells.

“They were disgusting, like being in a public bathroom for seven hours,” he said.

The students were released the next morning starting at 3 a.m., and Miska and Cornelius said they were thankful supportive students waited around for them.

Though first-year Adam Odsess-Rubin did not stay for the full occupation, he said everyone’s presence was essential.

“Unless students stand up, the government will keep cutting,” Odsess-Rubin said. “That’s why I’m here. My education is important and I value it.”

Seven rolls of film later, I finished my journey, hundreds of these giants immortalized, and tucked away in my pockets.

Illustration by Bela Messex.

At a time when superheroes are more visible online, on television and in movie theaters, what has happened to the comic book? For some, the comic book never died and is still a thriving source of entertainment. Held this past Saturday, the 10th Annual International Free Comic Book Day was a celebration of the comic book for those readers.

Comic book retailers also used this day to give a few summer previews. This year’s list of titles included the beginning of a new “Spider-Man” epic, a “Green Lantern” special edition, and a book featuring “Captain America” and “Thor.” Many shops in Santa Cruz had sales for their customers. Participating stores included Atlantis Fantasyworld on Cedar Street, Comicopolis on Front Street and hundreds of retailers across the nation and internationally.

In 10 years, Free Comic Book Day has grown from a local event — starting in 2001 at a comic book store in Concord, Calif. called Flying Colors — to an international one.

“It’s one of the busiest days of the year,” said Neil Farris, owner of Hijinx Comics in San José.

Joe Ferrara, owner of Atlantis Fantasyworld, said he hoped people would recognize the entertainment value of comics. Atlantis Fantasyworld reaches out to kids at local elementary schools through a summer readership program, and has booked comic creators like Elisabetta Dami, author of the newly popular young adult comic “Geronimo Stilton,” to speak at events.

“People’s perception of comic books is that they are collectibles,” Ferrara said. “Free Comic Book Day is a great way to celebrate the fun you can have in a comic book.”

On the UC Santa Cruz campus, comic books have a well-represented readership. UCSC’s art department features a comic book drawing class and there is a comic book club at Kresge College.

“I’ve been reading comic books since I was a kid,” said Ben Cody, UCSC second-year and member of the Kresge Comic Book Club. “I wasn’t so into them in high school, but when I got to college, I found this really dedicated group of readers, and I returned to comic books.”

Cody, who was carrying a stack of comics from Atlantis Fantasyworld on his way to Comicopolis, said he supports Free Comic Book Day. Many people form very personal connections to their favorite books, he said, and the comic readership at UCSC is large.

Despite the poor economic climate of the last few years, comic sales have been booming at shops in the Bay Area. For Ryan Higgs, owner of Comics Conspiracy in Salinas, the comic business is lucrative.

“Sales at the store have been pretty steady these past few years, despite the difficult economic climate,” Higgs said. “While I have seen a decrease in sales of monthly comics, the collected versions [trade paperbacks and graphic novels] have really boomed in the past half-decade, as well as sales of toys, statues and other items.”

For Ferrara, Free Comic Book Day is good advertising. It is targeted outreach that doesn’t get lost in the noise of a regular advertisement, he said, and it creates goodwill between the community and the store.

“Who’s got a grand to spend on advertisements this year?” Ferrara said. “This is a better way to get out to the audience.”

With thousands of people coming out to support Free Comic Book Day in Santa Cruz area shops, the event was pronounced a success by many of the owners, whose shops stayed busy until close.

“We gave away 4,000 comic books, and had over 500 people in the shop,” Ferrara said. “It was the most successful Free Comic Book Day yet.”

Illustration by Matt Boblet.

A UC Berkeley disciplinary panel concluded that student journalist Josh Wolf’s presence in the November 2009 11-hour occupation of Wheeler Hall was a punishable offense. Wolf, whose footage of the occupation was used in a “Democracy Now!” broadcast, recently graduated from the two-year journalism graduate program at UC Berkeley and must now write an essay addressing university policy toward student journalists before he can pick up his diploma.

This “punishment” is blatantly patronizing. This disciplinary action makes clear the administration’s insulting standpoint that student status supersedes journalistic status, sending the message, “You are merely a student — now go write an essay.” As if that was not enough, the subject of the essay is administrative action regarding student journalists. It is a twofold slap in the face.

Per recent action taken by UC Berkeley, only one thing can be derived — in the eyes of the UC system, student journalists are not journalists at all. The administration condescendingly declares that student status takes precedent over journalistic status, and imparts judicial processes on people who are operating as journalists while being enrolled as students.

The idea that student status negates journalistic status is absurd. Student journalists are journalists. And further, if any status should supersede another, U.S. citizenship and the national adherence to the First Amendment should trump student status and the student code of conduct.

As Nanette Asimov of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, “Guilty verdicts for practicing journalism are the stuff of authoritarian nations and now, apparently, UC Berkeley.” This is a poignant summation that typifies the systemic issues facing student journalists in the UC system, especially considering the current crisis hitting our universities and the numerous resistance efforts that have been, are currently and will continue to be taking place.

At the time that Wolf entered Wheeler Hall with his press pass displayed around his neck, 60 miles away, a reporter for a UC Santa Cruz publication called The Project was in Kerr Hall with his press pass displayed around his neck, filming the 66-hour occupation.

Kenji Tomari was issued a restitution fee by the university administration. The restitution was eventually dropped, but only after Tomari spent more than a quarter fighting the university with the $944 charge hanging over his head.

This is a systemic issue. As independently-funded publications that are entirely run by their membership, autonomous from the university, comprised of reporters wielding press passes, the question of which status supersedes the other is irrelevant – the two are autonomous spheres.

If journalists are afraid to report because they are not protected, we as a system are embarking on a path of self-censorship — an inherent contradiction to an intrinsic value of the free press.

UCSC Student Media has mobilized to alleviate this debilitating construct by working to establish a Universal Press Pass, which the administration would recognize, and grant journalists wielding these passes protection and officially recognize their function as journalists in that capacity. This is a step in the right direction, and would be in the university’s best interest. Both organizations have overlapping values — to educate and inform the public.

In President Obama’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner speech, he addressed the value of journalists and reporting in these trying times. As the UC system — like America and the rest of the world — faces uncertain times ahead, his comments are especially applicable for journalists reporting on and in this dying system.

“In the last months we’ve seen journalists threatened, arrested, beaten, attacked and in some cases even killed simply for doing their best to bring us the story to give people a voice and to hold leaders accountable,” he said. “And through it all we have seen daring men and women risk their lives for the simple idea that no one should be silenced and everyone deserves to know the truth. That’s what you do. At your best that’s what journalism is — that’s the principle that you uphold. It is always important, but it’s especially important in times of challenge, like the moment that America and the world is facing now.”

The free press exists for a beautiful and paramountly important reason: “That no one should be silenced, and everyone deserves to know the truth.”

If Obama gets it, why doesn’t the UC?

Illustration by Muriel Gordon.

Native Americans have a long history of oppression in this country. Their land was taken, their people murdered and their sacred sites corrupted, all for the sake of building the United States. A new form of this old oppression is still happening, and the University of California is playing a role.

In this issue’s feature story, “Forgotten but not Gone,” it is confirmed that the University of California, and UC Santa Cruz in particular, is in possession of Native American artifacts and burial remains. The question of where and what those remains are is left unanswered.

Keeping Native American remains is problematic for a number of reasons. It means that graves were disrupted to obtain these remains, which is disrespectful to any culture. And to make matters worse, many Native American tribes believe that disruption of burial sites can cause spiritual trouble.

Awful as this may be, it is technically legal. According to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), the government and institutions that receive government funding cannot be in possession of Native American cultural items. However, this legislation only applies to federally recognized tribes — and not all tribes have government recognition.

Tribes that aren’t federally recognized generally are on the smaller side and more difficult to document. But this shouldn’t mean that they don’t receive the same rights and respect as federally recognized tribes. For the UC, or any other institution, to hold onto these remains just because of a legal loophole is tasteless and inconsiderate.

The fact that information about what exactly we are in possession of is difficult to find makes this even more abhorrent, as people have a right to know what cultural crimes the UC is a part of. Schools have to release information about what they have under NAGPRA, but UCSC’s information is extremely difficult for the public to find. Even UC Berkeley’s Phoebe A. Hearst Museum has a sidebar on its website with links to the NAGPRA inventory database; UCSC only has a compliance statement on their Office of Research website.

There’s no doubt that some would argue that the Native American remains are being used for research purposes and thus are needed. But no research is worth inflicting even more pain on a group of people who have already suffered at the hands of the U.S. government so much.

And what’s more, retaining these remains actually interferes with the UC’s main goal. It is supposed to serve as a way to educate all California students who meet certain academic standards, but it is doubtful that Native American students would feel completely comfortable supporting an institution that exploits their people. There is constant talk of the UC needing to become more diverse, but this is one negative example of actions speaking louder than words.

Stanford University gave back Native American remains, including some from federally unrecognized tribes, in the 1980s. It’s time the University of California did the same.

It may be legal for the UC to hold on to federally unrecognized Native American tribes’ remains, but it certainly is not just. They should be given back to their rightful owners, and the cloud of mystery surrounding what exactly the UC has should be dispersed.

Illustration by Matt Boblet.

The faucet is running. My compact, powder and mascara are in my bag and that girl who just came in the bathroom door didn’t see a thing.

About two years ago, I began to feel the need to be more of a ninja in these types of situations while on campus at UC Santa Cruz.

I began to pay more attention to my surroundings after an uncomfortable encounter in the Social Sciences 2 building.

A sweet-looking, button-nosed girl came up to me as I adjusted my makeup in the bathroom mirror and said, in a condescending voice, “You’re beautiful without makeup, you know?”

My first thought was, “Have you been following me? How do you know what I look like without makeup?”

I tilted my head and thought, “Wait, do you think I’m not being a good feminist? What does that even mean?”

Her words stung, and I didn’t really know what to say. I just shrugged my shoulders and probably made a funny face.

I hate to sound shallow, but I’ve always really liked makeup, especially during my adolescent years when I wasn’t allowed to wear it. It was a rush with blush.

There were so many bright blues and greens, all probably with harmful ingredients that have aged me prematurely.

I remember sneaking around with my friends and exchanging makeup that was, in my mother’s words, not for “niñas” (girls) in middle school.

At 12, I was hiding from my mother. Now at 21, I’m hiding from hyper-critical students. The digits have switched, yet here I am. I just hate that I feel so self-conscious about people seeing my makeup ritual.

I even feel self-conscious about looking at myself.

Next time you — men, women, and everything in between and outside — go into a public restroom, look immediately in the direction of the mirrors. Someone just flinched and played off adjusting their hair. I do it all the time.

I wouldn’t say I have a fixation when it comes to makeup. I just really like wearing it, and have an unfortunate glandular problem. That’s right. I’m a sweaty girl. By 2:30 p.m., half my face is an inch lower than the other side.

Like Photoshop, I get to work with my brush. I “restore” my image. It’s my little ritual.

By doing this, I risk confronting another Button-Nose.

I’d like to know: What’s the difference between society telling women what to do and a type of feminism that tells us what to do? It’s hard to please both my Beyoncé-look-loving side and Button-Nose.

At least I’m not the only ninja with this problem. My housemate was energetically telling me about having to face this fear after running short on time in the morning.

“Yeah, I put my makeup on,” she said with pride. “IN PUBLIC!”

Rebecca Walker, daughter of famous novelist Alice Walker, dealt with a similar fear of judgment. In her book “To Be Real,” Rebecca Walker spoke about her experiences with her mother.

“Young women feminists find themselves watching their speech and tone in their works so as not to upset their elder feminist mothers,” she said in the book. “Younger feminists definitely have a hard time proving themselves worthy as feminist scholars and activists.”

Though Rebecca Walker has been criticized for being self-righteous, she does make a point in saying that some have developed an overly standardized view of what feminism should be for everyone — not what feminism and empowerment means to individuals.

Feminist literature throughout the decades has pointed to the diversity among women’s wants and needs. More than half of the anthropology students in that Social Sciences 2 building could lecture Button-Nose on a thing or two about cultural relativity.

I’m not saying that there isn’t a reciprocal relationship. Outside the walls of UCSC, people are unfairly partial to “mainstream” looks, dolled-up faces and the latest season’s colors.

To be honest, I’m often one of those people who say, “You’re beautiful without makeup.” But why can’t it be both? Who am I to say what people should do?

Though I am an exceptionally good ninja, I’ll try not to flinch next time someone walks in on me staring at myself. Let’s be comfortable with ourselves, and let’s be comfortable with others’ choices.

Illustration by Muriel Gordon.

“Bossypants” Review
By Blair Stenvick

In an interview with The Believer in 2003, Tina Fey called herself “more of a writer than an actor,” and if there was any doubt about her comedy writing skills on “30 Rock,” “Saturday Night Live” or “Mean Girls,” she cleared them up with her new memoir, “Bossypants.”

Fey has been in the public eye since she first started appearing in the Weekend Update segment of “SNL” in 2000, and “Bossypants” gives a good amount of insight into what her life was like both before and after becoming a celebrity.

From befriending a bunch of closeted gays at theater camp in high school to trying to commiserate with her frightening coworkers at the YMCA while taking improv classes on the side, to dealing with “Teat Nazis” who insisted she breastfeed her daughter, Fey shows that her life is both remarkable and ordinary and uses her signature self-deprecating and witty humor to make it all entertaining.

One of the best chapters in the book is one called “Sarah, Oprah, and Captain Hook, or How to Succeed by Sort of Looking Like Someone.” Yes, it tells the widely-known story of how she blew up after impersonating Sarah Palin on “SNL,” but it also reveals that during that same week, she had to film Oprah’s guest spot on “30 Rock” and plan her daughter’s birthday party. With this, readers get a much more complete picture of what Fey’s life is like — and it makes her more likeable.

Fey also gives spot-on commentary on what it’s like to be a woman today, in or out of the entertainment industry. Feminism can sometimes be a drag, but Fey uses humor to her advantage, commenting on things like beauty standards by giving advice on “aging naturally without looking like time-lapse photography of a rotting sparrow.” And about the criticism she received for her portrayal of Palin, she smartly observes, “I am not mean and Mrs. Palin is not fragile. To imply otherwise is a disservice to us both.”

And that type of humor and insight is what makes “Bossypants” a knockout. I’d have accepted anything written by Tina Fey, but she exceeded my expectations by making her memoir less about herself and more about the world. Yes, she talks mostly about her own life, but it’s in a way that everyone can relate to and laugh along with.

In the introduction, Fey writes, “I hope you enjoy [this book] so much that you also buy a copy for your sister-in-law.” I don’t have a sister-in-law, but if I did I would strongly recommend it to her and everyone else.

~~~~~~

“African Cats” Review
By Hanna Toda

Disneynature presents: a touching tale of the supreme cats of the lush plains of Africa and a mother’s love for her cubs in a cruel world of predators. This movie touched my heart. In fact, it touched my heart so much that it actually went past just touching it — it grabbed it with Freddy Krueger nails, ripped it out, punctured my aorta and did a jaunty Tahitian dance on it. I walked out of the theater craving Prozac and Xanax and any other substance that could possibly erase the horrifying story that had been burned into my brain.

While the film claims to be based on a true story, the “inspiring” tale that Disney hoped to tell was entirely depressing due to a severe lack of balance between the depicted optimism of a mother’s determination and the unforgiving cruelty of the wild. The film attempted to do a Hollywood animal version of a Lifetime Original Movie — a single mother trying to provide for her children.

But most of the time, the lioness and cheetah mother did not succeed. They did not overcome all odds and rejoice. Disney waved it away, justifying it by saying, “Hey, at least she tried. And that’s the circle of the life. It’s beautiful.” I doubt many would find inspiration in a cub surviving an attack by a hyena and the lion of an opposing pride only to go back to her family to find that she has a new stepdad who killed her brothers and sisters.

Samuel L. Jackson is present throughout the film with his blunt, in-your-face voice-over. But it was clear that Jackson’s narrative did not complement the plot and only disrupted the scenes the audience tried to pay attention to.

While the plot and narration were disappointing, the cinematography was impressive, as expected. Filmed at the Maasai Mara National Reserve of Kenya, the breathtaking scenes of the wildebeest migration remind viewers of the beauty of a world halfway across the globe. The thrilling image of the defined muscles of the lioness as she hunts makes for more of a striking visual than any Hollywood actor could provide. The most epic scene is filmed in a much more Animal Planet-like tone and portrayed a beastly showdown between the lion Fang and a crocodile.

In theory, this film had a lot of potential — a real-life version of “The Lion King.” However, the execution of the plot and the poor narration only pushed me closer to going through my old VHS tapes and watching the much happier, though slightly less accurate version of the kings of the animal kingdom.

Members of the UCSC juggling team hosted a weekend juggling festival. The West Field House was open to everyone, from experienced juggling enthusiasts to people learning for the first time. Photos by Molly Solomon.

Anyone would be envious of Chris Garcia’s hands. With them he can make a diabolo — also called a Chinese yo-yo — dance with electric leaps across a string. When juggling five balls, he keeps his hands at hip level, snapping each beanbag so it arcs just above his eyes before plopping perfectly into his other hand. Even at rest, he loosely bounces a fistful of markers in his hand, giving the impression that with just a flick of his wrist he can steal your breath away with a dazzling performance.

But on Friday morning, he did not have an audience yet. Walking alone around the West Field House Gym, Garcia, the head of the UC Santa Cruz Juggling Club, was still making preparations for the third annual Santa Cruz Juggling Festival.

Hosted May 6–8 at the West Field House Gym, the free festival offered juggling workshops for beginners, a nature juggling walk, public exhibitions of world-class jugglers and a fire show on the beach.

Despite the attractions, the club website anticipated only 50 attendees. Garcia, a third-year Merrill student who has run the club for three years, said he did not expect a large turnout because juggling at UCSC does not have a consistently large community.

“[The UCSC Juggling Club] Facebook group says we have 100-plus people,” Garcia said. “But only three people showed up to our meeting last night. It varies — usually, later on in the quarter, people get busier with college.”

The UCSC Juggling Club was founded in 1984 as a nonprofit campus club open to jugglers of all skill levels. The club meets twice a week and puts on performances once a month downtown.

Garcia has been running the UCSC Juggling Club since he was a first-year. Garcia said because there is no intercollegiate juggling league, festivals and competitions are the primary ways collegiate jugglers participate in the community.

“There aren’t too many competitions for colleges,” Garcia said. “It would be kind of cool, but nobody organizes it. There’s no community that organizes it, like [in] basketball.”

This year the club received a grant from UCSC to fly in guest performer and teacher Erin Stephens from Colorado.

Stephens said festivals allow college-level jugglers to develop relationships with other juggling clubs and learn from professional jugglers.

“A lot of college campuses that have a juggling club will often put on a juggling festival,” Stephens said. “That’s where a lot of festivals happen across the country.”

Stephens, who is a UCSC alumna and former member of the UCSC Juggling Club, said festivals are especially important for maintaining a strong juggling community because in her experience, membership in clubs is prone to fluctuation.

“There were some years when it was pretty big — I mean like 15–20 [students],” Stephenson said. “Then there were times you’d come and there were only four or five. It just depended on the time of year — usually the beginning has a lot of interest from new students, then it kind of peters off through the year.”

By Saturday, the event had attracted a score of jugglers — newcomers and pros alike — among them Matt Hall, Chris Garcia’s former high school teacher and a professional juggler.

Hall said Santa Cruz has traditionally been a strong center for juggling culture.

“Santa Cruz is home to Renegade Juggling, which is one of the first juggling prop makers — those guys have been around for 20 or 30 years,” Hall said. “And there’s always been a juggling club here at Santa Cruz.”

Hall, who won a silver medal in the 2003 International Juggling Championships, said even in Santa Cruz it was unlikely to find a large population of skilled jugglers. Hall said juggling gets exponentially more difficult with each new trick.

“For every ball you add, you decrease [the number of people who can juggle it] by a factor of 10 or 100,” Hall said. “So there may be millions of three-ball jugglers, but the number of people who can juggle four balls is probably in the hundreds of thousands. Five-ball jugglers, now you’re talking tens of thousands.”

Hall praised both the club and festival, but harbored doubts as to whether the club could survive without the direction of a strong leader like Garcia.

“Chris is definitely the guiding spirit, the moving force behind this club,” Hall said. “If he goes away, I’d be surprised to see if it survives.”

Although Garcia admitted his club is mostly composed of novices, he said the club remains committed to bringing in new members. He said he hopes the juggling club will encourage those who have never juggled before to pick up the new hobby.

“You don’t need to know how to juggle or anything,” Garcia said. “You could just come and we’ll teach you and accept you into our group, as long as you show an interest.”

In the May 5 article “Santa Cruz Wicca Community Celebrates Days of Fire, Fertility,” the chalice contained an ordinary blade.

Thursday, May 12

Special Event: SUA Elections. Vote online at elections.ucsc.edu. Voting ends 7:59 a.m. on 5/18.

Workshop: Writing Effective Resumes and Cover Letters. Bay Tree Amah Mutsun room. 12 to 3 p.m. Free.

Lecture: “Korea and the Silk Road” with Sarah Nelson. Humanities 1, room 210. 4 to 6 p.m. Free.

Lecture: “Asia as Method” with Kuan-Hsing Chen. Cowell Conference Room. 4 to 5:30 p.m. Free.

Performance: Faux Shaux. Merrill Cultural Center. 7:30 to 10:30 p.m.

Performance: International Playhouse XI. Stevenson Event Center. 8 to 11 p.m. Free. Event repeats through 5/15.

Friday, May 13

Film: “Pan Dulce Friday: A close look at Homeboy Industries.” Bay Tree Cervantes & Velasquez room. 12 to 2 p.m. Free.

Performance: “The Seagull.” Theater Arts Experimental Theater. 7 to 9 p.m. Current UCSC undergrads get one ticket free, $11 student/senior, $12 general. Event repeats through 5/22. See arts.ucsc.edu for schedule.

Concert: UCSC Wind Ensemble & Concert Choir. Music Center Recital Hall. 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. $6 youth/students, $8 senior, $10 general.

Saturday, May 14

Benefit/Sports: Relay for Life benefit for American Cancer Society. East Field. 10 a.m. to 10 a.m. the following day.

Sunday, May 15

Concert: Rock N’ Roll on the Knoll. Stevenson College Knoll. 1 to 4 p.m. Free.

Concert: Big Band & Jazz Ensembles. Music Center Recital Hall. 3 to 5 p.m. $6 youth/students, $8 senior, $10 general.

Concert: Lucia Del Guerzo senior recital, piano. Music Center Recital Hall. 7:30 to 9:00 p.m. Free.

Monday, May 16

Lecture: “Screening Disabilities: Visual Fields, Public Culture, and the Atypical Mind in the 21st Century” with Faye Ginsburg. Porter College D-245. 6 to 8 p.m. Free.

Wednesday, May 18

Celebration: Asian American/Pacific Islander Heritage Month Cultural Celebration Night. Stevenson Event Center. 6:30 to 9 p.m. Free.

City

Thursday, May 12

Sports: Bike to Work/School Day. Over 50 locations, visit bike2work.com for listings.

Benefit: Bike Week. Santa Cruz Mountain Brewery. 12 to 10 p.m. $1 from every beer sold will benefit the Bike to Work program.

Gallery: “Inked Up,” new work from the MPC Printmakers. Felix Kulpa Gallery. 12 to 5 p.m. Free.

Film: “From Here to Eternity.” Regal Cinema 9. 8 p.m. $5.

Concert: Birdhouse, North Pacific String Band, Tumbleweed Wanderers. The Crepe Place. 9 p.m. $8 advance, $10 door.

Concert: Serendipity Project. The Catalyst. 9 p.m. $8 advance, $10 door. Ages 21+.

Friday, May 13

Sports: Bike to Work week. Samba Rock Cafe. 7 to 10 a.m. Free acai bowl & pastry for cyclists.

Film: 10th Annual Santa Cruz Film Festival. Multiple venues, see santacruzfilmfestival.org for schedule and ticket information. Event continues through 5/14.

Concert: Blind Willies. Streetlight Records. 4 to 5 p.m. Free.

Benefit: San Lorenzo Valley Elementary Dinner and Silent Auction. Oak Tree Ristorante. 6 to 9:30 p.m. $35. Ages 21+.

Performance: The Amazing Adventures of the Marvelous Monkey King. West End Studio Theatre. 7 p.m. $10-15.

Concert: Pat Caion and IOC. Kuumbwa Jazz Center. 7:30 p.m. $15.

Performance: The Education of Lala Girl. Rising Sun Dance Theater. Event continues through 5/28. See risingsundancetheater.com for showtimes and tickets.

Performance: “Free Beer: A Dance Concert.” 418 Project. 8 p.m. $15. Event repeats 5/14.

Concert: Slugs N’ Roses. Don Quixote’s International Music Hall. 8 p.m. $12 advance, $15 door. Ages 21+.

Concert: La Plebe, the Fucking Buckaroos. The Catalyst. 8:30 p.m. $6 advance, $8 door.

Concert: Joan of Arc, Air Waves, Worker Bee. The Crepe Place. 9 p.m. $12.

Performance: Sin Sisters Burlesque vs. Santa Cruz Derby Girls, Beaver Fever, Kim Luke & her Friendly Henrys. The Catalyst. 9 p.m. $15 advance, $25 door, $40 VIP seating.

Film: “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Del Mar Theatre. 11:59 p.m. $6.50. Event repeats 5/14.

Saturday, May 14

Benefit: Friends of the Santa Cruz Library Book Sale. Civic Auditorium. 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Free admission.

Outdoor: Bug Day. Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park. 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Free admission. $10 parking.

Performance: Bellydance Community Showcase feat. Raks Hakohaveem. The Crepe Place. 1:30 p.m. Free.

Concert: Annual Your Music Olympicks Finals. The Catalyst. 7:30 p.m. $12 advance, $15 door.

Concert: Art Museums, Nodzzz, Deep Ellum. The Crepe Place. 9 p.m. $8.

Performance: “Peace on Fire,” Global blues, poetry, and politics. Kuumbwa Jazz Center. 8 to 10 p.m. $25 general, $50 VIP.

Sunday, May 15

Sports: Annual Bay to Breakers. San Francisco. 7 a.m. to 12 p.m. Visit zazzlebaytobreakers.com for route map and more information.

Festival: Spring Dog Festival “Fetch a Wave.” Soquel High School. 9 a.m.

Sports: Bike to Work week Bike Fest. The Bicycle Trip. 12 to 4 p.m. Free.

Benefit: RaftVet Fundraiser feat. adventure movies and silent auction. 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. $8.

Concert: Blazing Steels: Amee Chapman & the Velvet Tumbleweeds, The Rayburn Brothers. The Crepe Place. 7 to 10 p.m. Free.

Concert: Santa Cruz World Choir & Orchestra. Rio Theatre. 7:30 p.m. $15 advance, $20 door.

Monday, May 16

Concert: Omar Sosa Afreecanos Quartet. Kuumbwa Jazz Center. 7 p.m. & 9 p.m. $22 advance, $25 door. 9 p.m. half price for students w/I.D.

Concert: Agent Ribbons, New Heirlooms, Garrett Peirce. The Crepe Place. 9 p.m. $8 advance, $10 door.

Tuesday, May 17

Concert: Eisley. Rio Theatre. 7 p.m. $12 advance, $15 door.

Concert: Santa Cruz Guitar Orchestra. Kuumbwa Jazz Center. 7:30 p.m. $15 students, $18 senior, $20 general.

Concert: 7 Come 11. The Crepe Place. 8 p.m. Free.

Wednesday, May 18

Food: Downtown Weekly Farmer’s Market. Between Lincoln St. & Cedar St. 2:30 to 6:30 p.m.

Concert: UCSC Big Band, Jazz Combos. The Catalyst. 7 p.m. $5 advance, $8 door.

Concert: Yelle. Rio Theatre. 8 p.m. $15 advance, $18 door.

Contact us at events@cityonahillpress.com.