Oaktown Teen Times

Oakland's Teen Newspaper

October 2009 Volume 3, Issue 1News & Views of Teens in Oakland, California

Students are fighting back against a Dis-covery Channel program on Oakland gangs by creating their own documentary based on what they think the city is really like.

“Gang Wars: Oakland” aired Monday, Sept. 14 and Sept. 21 in two parts. The documentary emphasized the violence, murder rate and drug consumption in Oakland. And many students say it went overboard.

"Gang Wars" also stated that there are 10,000 gang members in the city, but police and Oakland residents dispute this number. They say it is much lower.

Fremont Federation's Raza History Through Film Club watched the documentary as a group and members were angry and disap-pointed at the Discovery Channel.

"It's irresponsible reporting," said Cesar Cruz, the club director. "How can they get away with yellow journalism?"

"Yellow journalism" is a term for sensa-tional or exaggerated reporting.

The Raza Club plans to give 12 cameras to students who live in different neighborhoods in Oakland to record their environment.

The club, which is part of the YMCA after school program, is designed to give youth a space to learn, share and talk about culture and discuss issues affecting their community.

Members of the Raza Club also want a written apology from the Discovery Channel and say they will demand it to air the video the club is creating for free.

The Green & Gold newspaper of Media Academy sent e-mails to the publicist for the filmmaker, but did not receive a response. A reporter from OaklandNorth.net, which is sponsored by the Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, said she had also had no luck in getting the filmmaker to respond to readers questions and complaints.

Raza Club members complain that “Gang Wars: Oakland” depicted the city as a place with nothing but gang violence and drug traf-ficking.

"The documentary tried to make cops of

Fighting back:Students upset by film on gangs

Desiree Davis, a survivor of Hurri-cane Katrina, already had faced her share of hardships in life when she was shot and killed on Sept. 7 at 54th and Gaskill streets in northwest Oakland. She had moved to the city in 2005, after Katrina tore through her home state of Louisiana. Davis had just begun her senior year at Oakland Technical High School.

Although violence in Oakland is

Tech student victim of violence

Sami Lamont & Ronah Baha

Oakland Technical High

During the long Labor Day weekend in Sep-tember, while other students

were catching the last few rays of summer, I was doing some-thing unusual — working on the Bay Bridge retrofit.

It was the kind of opportu-nity you can’t pass up, but I al-most did. When I was informed about the project, I was kind of excited, but I did not know if I was getting paid or not. I did not know how important this opportunity was.

Two weeks before the proj-ect was scheduled to begin, my friend told me he was doing the project and was getting paid. Suddenly, I realized I needed to go to the interview at CalTrans, where the students who would work on the project would be selected.

I had no time to waste. I ran home and called my girlfriend and told her to come and drive me to the CalTrans Public In-

A sky-high, real-life educationDewey student getschance to work on Bay Bridge retrofit

Police have yet to arrest suspectin slaying of yearbook editor, 17;senior called 'creative, dedicated'

Raza Club members to fan out across Oakland to document their version of urban reality

See GANGS page 2

Skyline gets temp principal; search continues

Once again, Skyline High School has been assigned a new principal.

Beverly Hansen brings to Skyline a wealth of experi-ence, which many people hope will benefit the school when it comes to boosting test scores and motivating kids to do well.

Hansen is only working at Skyline temporarily however, and the selection process for a permanent principal will con-tinue throughout the year.

“I love high school kids, and I love Skyline,” Hansen said, with enthusiasm.

She began her career at Skyline as an educator 44 years

ago, teaching Spanish and social studies.

Hansen also joined the Peace Corps for a number of years and traveled around the world, reflecting her belief in volunteerism.

Following the Peace Corps, she worked as a high school administrator for 14 years, including serving as principal of Mount Diablo High School in Concord.

While at Skyline, she hopes to improve the school’s ac-creditation status.

“We want to do well at the WASC meeting this March,” she said.

WASC, or the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, is the organization that determines whether or not a school continues to be accredited. If Skyline loses this status, graduating seniors will

lose competitiveness when ap-plying for colleges.

Among the strategies Sky-line has recently employed to boost test scores is creating the Freshman House, which Hansen firmly supports.

“I truly believe that this program will be successful,” she said. “I’ve seen remark-able progress in smaller, tighter communities.”

Hansen also believes that students should be involved in their own education and should take advantage of the many resources that Skyline offers.

“They should realize the im-portance of tests, and become more motivated in trying their best,” she said.

Though she plans to help improve Skyline this year, Hansen is not Skyline’s per-manent principal. After the departure of Albert Sye, the

Jason Liu

Skyline High

See BRIDGE page 2

Hansen comes out of retirement for job at largest OUSD school

Can Vampires raise Your

saT sCores?

Marquis Woolfolk

Dewey Academy

HigHer ScHool CalTrans spokeswoman Margena Wade, left, and Marquis Woolfolk wear protective gear as they stand near the staging area for the Bay Bridge retrofit project, which took place over Labor Day. Woolfolk spent four days working on the bridge as a press assistant, helping reporters.

DeSiree DAViS

principal selection com-mittee scrambled over the summer to choose a new principal from a selection of candidates.

AP English teacher Tim Jollymore, a member of that committee, explained what happened.

“The committee had trouble agreeing on a particular candidate,” he said. “Ms. Hansen agreed to help out and serve as principal of Skyline on an interim basis. She was eventu-ally chosen by the committee, and was selected on July 27.”

Though first-year Superin-tendent Tony Smith dissolved the committee at the beginning of the school year, the search for a permanent principal will continue throughout the year with the formation of a new one.

In recent years, Skyline has become notorious for the abrupt departures of principals. Amy Hansen resigned just weeks before school began in 2006, leaving the school functioning without an official principal for much of the first

PriNciPAl BeVerlY HANSeN

photo courtesy of margena Wade / CalTrans

– page 5

murals reViVe

sTreeTs

Juan Ramos

Media Academy

College and become a vet-erinarian. Many believe that

See PRINCIPAL page 2

– page 4– page 8

photo by Jason suell / skyline High

See DAVIS page 2

nothing new, Davis’ death came as a surprise.

While the motives of Davis' death remain unclear, friends and teachers do not consider her to be the type of person involved in the type of crime or gang activity that has claimed many lives in Oakland.

“She was a very sweet girl. She was very motherly towards me and my friends. She kept us in place. She wasn’t into the gang-drug thing ... she tried to keep us away (from that),” said Jimmie Hayes, an Oakland Tech senior who called Davis a friend.

Davis’ goals were to graduate from high school, go to San Francisco City

soda puTs Teens

aT risk

oakland Technical High yearbook photo

October 2009 Oaktown Teen TimesNews

REALITY CHECK Cesar Cruz, director of Raza History Through Film, runs a meeting in which students discuss culture.

from page 1

formation Office. I also called Margena Wade, the public in-formation officer for CalTrans, and asked her if there was still time to make it to the interview. It was 1:30 p.m, and I was supposed to be there by 2 p.m. She told me I had to be there in 30 minutes. I got there in 20 minutes. Unfortunately, by the time I arrived, the interviews were over, but Margena was so impressed that I called that she accepted me anyway.

Two weeks later, I found myself on the bridge, wearing a hard hat, a light green coat, light green pants, boots and a safety vest. I was on the front lines of an engineering project like no other. Here is how the days went for me:

daY 1: I went to the Cal-Trans docks for the first time and was very excited. I ap-proached the check-in lady and she gave me a hard hat and a safety vest. Walking down the ramp that night, I felt like I was a secret agent going on a mis-sion — all around there were lights shining on me and the

BRIDGE: Student observes retrofitother people who were work-ing. My job would be to watch the television and newspaper reporters, and round them up and take them to the places they were permitted to visit.

daY 2: When I showed up to work again at 8 p.m. for the evening shift on Friday, there was a lot of running around, because they were getting ready to cut into the bridge and roll away the old section to make room for the new piece. While they were cutting, I could see all the yellow and gold sparks and flares going off in the dark night. I spent the night running errands for the CalTrans photographers, making sure that they had all the equipment they needed, along with food to keep up their energy.

daY 3: The third night, I was upset, because not only was I not able to see the rollout of the old section, the engi-neers and workers were work-ing too fast — I thought they were going to be done earlier than expected. By now, I was in a routine, still watching

semester. Heidi Green, who had no head principal experi-ence, then took over and led the school through the 2007-08 school year. Next, the more ex-perienced Sye took office, only to be dismissed after only one tumultuous year marked by a two-week suspension based on claims of harassment and misuse of a school credit card (Sye denied the charges).

Hansen said she believes that working at any public school these days is very dif-ficult due to the lack of public

from page 1

photo by Juan ramos / media academy

GANGS: Club to film Oakland

the reporters and helping with tasks. Sparks and flares were still going off because the engi-neers had to make adjustments for the new piece to go in.

daY 4: When I had go in on Sunday, I was surprised that the new section was already slid into place.

Later that night, there was a press conference, because the engineers had found a crack in a piece of I-bar. The reporters had a lot of concern about this new problem with the bridge. They were wondering if the Bay Bridge would be open in time. Finally, though, the en-gineers told everyone not to worry, that they were already working on the problem. They kept it calm. That’s what made me want to become a civil en-gineer, to be the kind of person who can solve problems.

Now that I've had this expe-rience with CalTrans, I would like to do it again, but next time as a engineer. First, I have to stay in school and work on my math and science. If I put my mind to it, I'll get up on a bridge again.

Oakland look like heroes," said Raza member Kimberly Guzman, a Mandela Academy junior.

"Gang Wars" emphasized that there are only eight policemen in the gang unit, but according to the Oakland Tribune, there are actually 100 officers that make up the gang unit.

Marisol Rodriguez, who is a site coordinator for the YMCA,

was not happy with the way Oakland was portrayed by the filmmaker, even though she feels the murder rate cannot be denied. "The documentary only adds fuel to stereotypes about what an urban commu-nity looks like," she said.

Students interested in join-ing Raza Club or working on the documentary can contact the YMCA's After School program director, Tanyka Frye, in the Fremont Federa-tion library.

support and insufficient fund-ing. She said she urges every-one to cooperate to solve these problems.

“The whole community has to come together and agree about what we are going to do to help the students,” she said.

Can Skyline improve its test scores? Can it meet or surpass the standards established by WASC? Will the Freshman House become a success?

While these questions remain and expectations are high, Hansen said she will try her best to help Skyline climb towards success, one step at a time.

PRINCIPAL: School in transitionfrom page 1 DAVIS: Tech mourns slaying victim

from page 1

had she lived, she would have achieved those goals.

“Desiree was really cre-ative," said Laura Hayes (no relation to Jimmie), a teacher who mentored Davis in the Yearbook Club. "She was re-ally dedicated to that (year-book). Once she set her mind to something, she would do it. She was very reliable and very strong-willed.”

No one can come up with an explanation for Davis’s

murder. “She was just at the wrong

place at the wrong time,” said Jimmie Hayes.

Laura Hayes said that Davis' murder was “really hard (and) completely unexpected," she said. "It’s scary, as a teacher, to worry about your student like that.”

The Oakland Police Depart-ment has not yet caught the killer or identified suspects.

Tech has responded to Davis’ passing in several ways. For two weeks afterwards, there was a poster displayed in the main hall

on which anyone could leave a thoughtful comment.

“Tech has responded really positively," said Laura Hayes. "People who didn’t know her are respecting her and realizing that this was wrong.

"Yeah, it’s a reality our stu-dents face. Living in Oakland, we have to be careful," Laura Hayes said.

Jimmie Hayes said he sees the world differently now.

"I want to live out her dreams," he said.

Davis, he said, "is my moti-vation to graduate.”

October 2009Oaktown Teen Times News3

EXCEL testifies before air boardPamela Tapia

EXCEL High

Students discuss projectto document asthma riskfrom railyard near school

Four students from EXCEL High School traveled to Diamond Bar, Calif., on Sept. 25 to testify before the state Air Resources Board about the health effects of diesel pollution caused by railyards in West Oakland.

The students appeared before at the meeting of the board, about 30 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, to give a personal perspective to research on how bad air affects students in urban schools.

“We were concerned that the board wasn’t doing enough to regulate air pollution,” said Terranisha Nathaniel, a junior.

Nathaniel, along with students Lexus Wilson, Amber Hill and Pamela Tapia talked about the community’s asthma rates and the effect of toxic diesel pollution.

Teacher Ina Bendich of EXCEL's Law Academy accompanied the stu-dents, along with Jill Ratner, president of The Rose Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes environmental health in

Oakland and other communities. Union Pacific Railroad maintains a

railyard located at 18518 5th St., about a mile from EXCEL High School in West Oakland.

In her testimony, Wilson noted that the asthma hospitalization rates during the period from 1998 to 2000 were five times higher for children in West Oak-land than in the state as a whole — 112 per 10,000 hospital visits compared with only 18 per 10,000 for California, according to a 2004 report by Com-munity Action to Fight Asthma, an Oakland-based nonprofit group.

Student Amber Hill reinforced the data with a personal story.“I talked about how polluted air from the rai-lyards had sent me to the emergency room, and how the air we breathe is unhealthy and the smell is unpleasant,” said Hill.

This is the third time students from

EXCEL have testified before the state board. This year's group of students have been studying environmental law and justice as part of the Law Acade-my. They uncovered high concentrated pollution in their neighborhood and its source.

This year, pollution from the rail yards was the first issue the class has tackled, said Bendich. “My own hope is that the students will gain knowledge and skills they need to advocate effec-tively for policies that protect commu-nity environmental health and move us all closer to a fairer, more sustainable world,” she said.

The four students agree that the experience at the hearing strengthened their advocacy skills.

“I learned that everybody has a dif-ferent perspective on what is going on with the railyards polluting our com-munity,” said Wilson.

"i talked about how polluted air from the railyards had sent me to the emergency room."

— amber Hill, eXCel student

Lester Finney & Lyna Tran

Media Academy

Media Academy struggled to be "Me-dia" in its first 30 days of school.

That's because most of the school did not have the Internet.

Many projects and class assign-ments were delayed for up to six weeks because the district had shut the Internet down to upgrade it the week before school started and the contractor did not finish by its Sept. 20 deadline.

Paul Hoy, director of enterprise net-work services, said the district upgraded the Internet to make it faster. When asked why the district did not start the project earlier in the summer, Hoy said, "We would have liked to start this work earlier, but it took longer than we would have liked to have all the paperwork in place so that work could begin."

Media Academy Director Michael Jackson's reaction to Hoy's explanation?

"Excuses, excuses," he said.Jackson teaches Cyber High, an on-

line course that helps students make up credits. Because there was no Internet,

most students reported they were unable to start the class until the seventh week of the semester.

Jackson said the academy had to hire outside contractors to fix problems that arose during the upgrade.

Seniors who are down credits are especially worried.

"I'm scared that I might not gradu-ate because of the lack of Internet," said Sara Chavez, who said she planned on making up several classes online.

Students in other grades also were upset to go so long without the Internet.

“I feel mad because we can’t do the regular things we usually do in class, and we need the Internet in this school,” said sophomore Gabriela Rodriguez.

Howard Ruffner, who teaches year-book and journalism, has been especially frustrated by the lack of Internet. Even though he now has Internet connections in his room, he said the contractors do-ing the work took some switches that allow him to spread the Internet to the entire classroom. In the ninth week of school, he was still waiting for them to be returned and to be fully connected.

"It's a sad disservice to the students that the district caused," said Ruffner.

Some classes had the Internet restored in the first few weeks of school, includ-ing the newspaper computer lab.

"I am lucky to have had the Internet back before other classrooms," said Green & Gold adviser Lisa Shafer. "My biggest worries, however, are that seniors could not research colleges, register for the SAT and or do their College Summit work for weeks. For seniors, every day is critical."

Hoy explained that the district used $185,000 to upgrade the wiring at Media and that most of that money came from the federal E-Rate program. He said the new wiring would be more

reliable than the old network."We would have preferred that this

work be done over the summer so that it would not have affected classroom work," Hoy wrote in an e-mail. "We are always concerned about how what we do affects the learning process."

However, he said the money for the upgrades would have been lost if the work had not been completed now.

Seven rooms that were re-wired are 40-year-old portables, which were scheduled for replacement this year.

Students fundraise forWashington, D.C. visitStudents hope to see Capitol, White House on December trip

Cross your fingers: If Unity High School can raise the money, there will be about 33 students going on a trip in December to Washington, D.C.

The students, all juniors, will need to raise about $10,000 in order to pay for the trip, which is being organized by Unity along with CloseUp, a non-profit education group.

“I’m really excited about the trip, and about getting students on the plane,” said Damon Grant, an English teacher who would lead the trip, which is planned for Dec. 6 to Dec. 10.

Grant's plans got a huge boost from CloseUp, which has given Unity $1,000 scholarships for each of the 33 students who signed up for the trip. The $10,000 that Unity is raising would pay for the remainder of the trip, according to Grant.

Flying across the country will be a new experience for many of the stu-dents going on the trip. Some students have never been on a plane and have never been away from their parents.

The trip also might be a challenge because Unity students will be inter-acting with students from all over the country. Also, the weather in De-cember in Washington, D.C. will be very cold compared to the weather in

California. During their five-day trip, students

will be visiting the Capitol Building, the Smithsonian Museum, the White House and American University.

Grant says she hopes to take students to the Capitol to meet the California lawmakers in person.

Students are looking forward to the trip. "I'm scared of planes," said Oscar Avalos, a junior, though he added that he is willing to go on one anyway if it means that he can see Washington up close.

“I feel that it’s great, it’s the first time that Unity’s ever done something like this,” said Philloria Brown, a junior who plans to go on the trip and hopes to see the White House. “I’ve never been to Washington, D.C.”

"I'm excited to go to Washington D.C and get away from school and meet new people," said Abraham Sala-zar, a junior.

Students who want to go on the trip must not have D’s or F’s on their transcript, and must not have any major discipline problems, according to Grant and Unity Principal David Castillo.

Students have raised about $2,500 so far towards their goal. They held a carnival with a live band at Unity on Sept. 26 to raise money. They are also selling food during lunch and after school. Those who want to donate to the trip can go to www.unityhighdc-trip.com.

Paperwork causes delays in project to rewire school; contractor misses deadline

Mandela Academy heads to courtrooms, Capitol

LAw & ORdERPatricia Arabia, a

teacher and former lawyer, passes

out papers to her Development of

American Justice class, one of the

new courses at Mandela Law &

Public Service Academy.

OLd SCHOOL Media Academy senior Enrique Mendoza and junior Jose Rodriguez hit the books in a Web Design class instead of using the Internet because the school was rewired.

School focuses on justice system, legislative process

Students at Mandela High School will soon be going to court.

They’re also getting lectured daily by a lawyer. They’re likely to talk to police officers, judges and court officials many times this year.

They’re not in trouble – they’re part of a new law and public service acad-emy.

“I get to learn about my rights and to learn about how to debate to get my point’s across,” said Dionicio Espinoza, a 16-year-old junior in the academy.

In addition to studying the criminal justice system, academy students also will learn how bills get made into laws.

One new class at Mandela is called

“Development of American Justice," in which students will take a field trip to the state Capitol in Sacramento. Students will be educated on law with hands-on internships.

“Students who participate in the law academy will get a head start learning about law issues in the court system, if they choose to follow that career path,” said academy teacher Patricia Arabia.

Arabia, who is a lawyer, said she teaches students material that is taught in law school, including investigation, writing, reading and socials skills.

Simon Zimmerman, the computer tech for Mandela, will be helping student interns learn how to use media equipment so they can film what goes on in a courtroom.

Students even will be able to film court proceedings to see what it is re-ally like in court and to take pictures for a monthly newsletter.

Cesar Sanchez & Sergio Alvarado Media Academy

Jacqueline Arias & Laura Flores

Unity High

photo by Fuey saechao / media academy

District leaves Media Academy without key tool — the Internet

photo by Cesar sanchez / media academy

Guzzling our way to obesity

The Arizonas, Coca-Colas and 7-Ups that Oakland students love to drink are also making them gain weight, along with other Americans.

In a study released in Septem-ber, UCLA researchers reported

that adolescents represent the biggest consumers of soda, with 62 percent (over 2 million youths) drinking one or more sodas every day – the equiva-lent of consuming 39 pounds of sugar each year in soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages.

Drinking just one 20-ounce bottle of soda each day for a year can result in gaining 25 extra pounds, according to the Web site sodafreesummer.org.

At Fremont Federation, 80 percent of students surveyed said they drink more than one soda a day. The average was 2.5 sodas, and some students said they drink as many as six cans a day.

But some students have quit."I don't drink soda anymore because I found out

that's how I got fat," said Media Academy junior Keyanna Scott, who said she gave up soda last month.

The Oakland Unified School District banned all soda sales in schools in 2001, but that doesn’t stop students from buying it from nearby stores, gas stations, restaurants and lunch trucks. Some clubs even sell the soda as fund-raisers on campus, although it is against the district's Wellness Policy.

Many staff and students at Fremont Federation

Fuey Saechao & Carolyn Saephan

Media Academy

One 20-ounce bottle of soda per day for one year can result in 25-pound gain

oaktownteen@gmail.com

HealthOctober 2009 Oaktown Teen Times

4

It’s nutritious, it’s filling, it’s packed with vitamins. It’s Unity High School’s healthy school lunch program, and there’s just one problem with it: some students don't like it.

“It’s just plain nasty,” said Daniella Barreto, a freshman. “I think that there should be one piece of junk food or something that students would actually like.”

QuAlitY coNtrolClockwise left to right: reporter Beatriz Arias listens as Lindsay Greenberg of Revolution Foods explains the process of cooking and delivering food to Unity's lunch program. A carton of lowfat milk accompanies each lunch. Greenberg dishes up pasta with meat sauce at the eat-in on Friday, Oct. 16.photos by stephanie Gonzalez/unity High

Fed-up students critique healthy eats“Most of the school lunches are

nasty and (do) not taste good,” said Andrea Gonzalez, a sophomore.

Unity’s food provider is a company called Revolution Foods of Oakland. A typical lunch includes a main dish, fruit and milk. The food choices so far include hamburgers (with organic meat), spaghetti with meatballs, enchi-ladas, burritos, sandwiches and salads. Lunches cost $3.50, although according to Principal David Castillo, roughly 85% of students get the lunch at a re-duced price or for free.

Castillo called Revolution's food "healthy" and said that he likes the vari-ety of the meals. Marcus Bell, a senior,

said that the tamales and spaghetti are good but some of the other options are not as tasty.

At the invitation of Unity's journal-ism class, company representative Lindsey Covarrubias came to Unity on Oct. 16 to conduct an eat-in for stu-dents, including samples of food for 30 students. Revolution Foods has made three visits to campus for food feed-back so far this year.

As students ate, Covarrubias ex-plained that Revolution Foods gets its ingredients from a store called Whole Foods, which"sells natural and organic foods (and) maintains the strictest qual-ity standards in the industry."

ANABEL FLORES"Yes. Would a doctor like to be forced out of a taxi with undone stitches because the bill was too high? That happened in 'Sicko' and the woman was very ill. America is not like that, we can do better."

EDUARDO VILLA"Yes. Healthcare costs are messing with the community. Without it, everything you go to the doctor for will cost thousands of dollars. Do you want others to die? I quote 'Sicko': If we can pay money to kill people, we can pay to give them healthcare."

MARY RAY "Yes. From health

insurance companies denying people, the people that need coverage for a life or death operation usually die. We need to solve this problem fast. The best way is by making health care free."

AMECHIE FORT

Mandela Law Academy: should the federal government pay for health care?

&A

QSILIVEINUSI TOMASI

"No. If the U.S. reforms health care, our economy will lose money for other things like education, financial aid and school sports."

Students meet with companyto sample organic meat, pasta;new oven could boost taste

"No. If we reform health care, our economy will plummet. People will get less health care and homes will be lost, causing a lot of money to be lost."

drink soda like it's water without knowing what it’s do-ing to their bodies.

Soda drinker and security officer Noil Angelo read the UCLA report.

“I was unaware of a lot of stuff I [read] on the paper,” said Angelo. “It could be unhealthy for you because it could hurt your kidneys.”

Soda is the number one source of sugar in the American diet, according to the Web site sodafreesum-mer.org.

Katie Riemer, health educator for the Tiger Clinic, said she is working on a campaign with the clinic to try to improve what students eat and drink both on campus and off campus.

“Healthy alternative needs to be offered,” said Ri-emer. “There’s not much to choose from.”

Riemer said that even diet soda is bad because it lacks nutrients.

Some students understand the dangers of soda.“Drinking a lot of soda is bad because it gets you

dehydrated fast,” said Frank Denard, a junior at Man-dela Academy.

While researchers are blaming soda for America’s obesity, some drinks are even worse.

Robert Allen, a Paul Robeson junior, said he doesn't drink soda. "No, I drink Kool-Aid."

That could be worse, according to Riemer."It has more artificial colors and flavors," she said.

photo by leo Jerald / media academy

photos by Cesar sanchez / media academy

Students tried the samples and enjoyed them. What was different from the real school lunch and the samples is that the food that Covarrubias brought was fresh, warm, and delicious. Stu-dents who don't like the healthy lunch often complain that it tastes reheated or dried out. Currently, Revolution deliv-ers Unity's food early in the morning, and it is kept warm until lunchtime.

Students are willing to give healthy lunches another try, especially if they're like the food they ate on Oct 16.

"The samples were good, better than our school lunch that we get now," said Julie Ortega, a freshman. "How come we can't get this every day?"

Beatriz Arias and Carolina Burciaga Unity High

Jack Mejia

Media Academy

In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past two years and don’t know what "Twilight" is, it’s part of a saga coming from the mind of the New York Times

bestselling author Stephanie Meyer. The saga is about a teenage girl, Bella Swan, who falls in love with a vampire, the mysterious Edward Cullen and the complications that present themselves due to their forbidden love.

After the 2005 release of the book, "Twilight," and its follow-ups "New Moon," "Eclipse," and "Breaking Dawn," and the wildly successful 2008 movie, magazines, fan Web sites, clothes and now an SAT practice book have emerged.

The author of "Defining Twilight," Brian Leaf, came up with the ingenious idea of creating an SAT book based on the first "Twilight" novel, especially designed for big "Twilight" fans, also called “Twi-hards.”

I took a test run of the book myself for a week, defining vocabulary words and doing the drills that came along with them. I was particularly excited about the whole concept of Leaf’s book, as he tried to get young adults to prac-tice for the SATs and other tests alike by combining topics that peaked their interests and making it educational.

I was disappointed, however, for the

oaktownteen@gmail.com

5the Pulse October 2009

Can vampires build your SAT vocab?Novel SAT test-prep book riffson popular Twilight series

book itself, as it was insufficient. It required the reader to have their own copy of "Twilight" available to work with side by side. I thought this was inconvenient, considering that a lot of people that picked this book up had probably assumed they could do with the book alone, and maybe didn’t own a copy of the book, like myself.

I did end up borrowing a copy from the local library, however, and went on with my trial.

Leaf’s book consisted of a page of vocabulary words (or, as they were referred to in the book, “groups”) and gave you the page number where you could find the sentence containing the word in your "Twilight" book. You

were to read it and guess the meaning of the word, jotting down your guess in the workbook. Then you were to flip to the back of the page to see the correct definitions of the words and check your guesses.

It’s great that "Defining Twilight" incorporated the use of context clues, a very valuable skill to students that will help them when taking vocabulary tests. But, unfortunately, a lot of the example sentences were awfully vague and imprecise, making it very hard to guess the definition of the vocabulary word. A lot of them were too easily phrased, such as “He was very [insert vocabu-lary word]” or “I felt [insert vocabulary word]” and so on.

A great number of vocabulary words were much too easy and simple, like “noble,” “detested,” “hyperventilation,” “gawked” and “hostile.” I only guessed

them correctly because I’d known their definition beforehand.

During the drills, which were like mini-quizzes, the author had the reader practice the newly learned

words utilizing synonyms, analogies and sentence-completion exercises, which weren’t very helpful and sometimes not very well phrased. For some reason, Leaf mentioned a large quantity of words that hadn’t been addressed or even mentioned during the course of the book. This

confused me greatly, and sometimes my low quiz scores were due to not knowing the definition of these previ-ously unmentioned words.

Taking Quiz 1, which was a quiz including 21 of the 49 words you’d

been taught in the first couple of groups, I was disappointed to find I’d only scored an 85.71 percent. It was a good score, I suppose, but was below my expectations. I expected to do bet-ter.

Overall, I support Leaf’s efforts, but I think that the book could have been improved as to not require a copy of the novel, but offer excerpts instead. This guide only increased by vocabulary by a small fraction, and proved itself to be useless at times.

I appreciate Leaf’s attempt, but it’s a letdown, I’m afraid, for a lot of readers who purchased it. I wouldn’t recom-mend it.

thePulse

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Mandela Law Academy: should the federal government pay for health care?

tHe legeND liVeS Baseball great Rickey Henderson speaks at an Oct. 3 ceremony during which the Oakland Technical High School baseball field was named for him. Henderson graduated from Tech in 1976.

Oakland Technical High School’s baseball field has been renamed in honor of Rickey Henley Henderson — a Tech

graduate, recently inducted member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and perhaps the greatest leadoff hitter and base stealer of all time.

The Field of Dreams, located five blocks from Tech at Telegraph Av-enue and 42nd Street in Oakland, was renamed Rickey Henderson Field at a ceremony on Oct. 3.

“This is a great feeling, a fantastic feeling,” said Henderson, who recalled that in his high school years he wanted to be a football player because he con-

Tech's ballfield renamed for Rickey Hendersonsidered baseball to be slow-paced.

Henderson was inducted into the Hall of Fame on July 26. Born in Chi-cago on Dec. 25, 1958, Henderson and his mother moved to Oakland when he was seven years old.

Henderson played for nine major league teams over a period of 24 years. The majority of time was spent with the Oakland Athletics, with whom he made his major league debut on June 24, 1979.

He was a World Series champion twice, with the A’s in the earthquake-interrupted 1989 series and with the Toronto Blue Jays in 1993. He retired in 2003 at the age of 45 with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Ken Korach, the radio voice of the Athletics, opened the renaming ceremo-

ny by declaring Henderson the greatest-ever A’s player.

Paul Brekke-Miesner, chairman and director of the Oakland Field of Dreams Committee, said that Oct. 3 was the culmination of three years of effort, the better part of it spent building the field.

He said 150 years of Oakland base-ball has produced 80 Major Leaguers, 20 of whom went to Tech.

There is a new sign hanging behind home plate on the backstop as well as on the dugout fence along the third base line that reads, “Rickey Henderson Field.”

The committee wants to make fur-ther improvement in the field, including an electronic scoreboard, public address system, more bleachers and an adjoin-ing girls’ softball field.

Molly Greer

Oakland Technical High

photo by kendall Williams / oakland Tech

summit entertainment

Stopping gang wars takes talk, not arrests

Most of you are prob-ably thinking, “ah, another column about gangs.” But we think it’s time for people to

hear about gangs from the point of view of teenagers who know the streets.

A two-part documentary, "Gang Wars: Oakland," which aired in Sep-tember, showed what many adults think — that gang members are destroying Oakland’s neighborhoods. But we think, “why do you think about gang members and us teens as criminals?" Just because we’re on the streets, or we talk to people who are in gangs, doesn’t mean that we’re up to no good. We also have dreams and life goals that we want to accomplish. Gang members are brothers, uncles, fathers, even sisters and daughters. And even if we wanted to, for many of us it’s impossible to stay away from a person we know who has made the choice to be in a gang.

Adults say Oak-land is full of kill-ing and criminals, and why lie? Bad things happen. But as teens, we know that it is not an every-day thing. There are talented people in our neighborhoods; there are people who succeed in life; there are people who are born and raised in Oakland who create good lives for themselves and others. But will you see this on “Gang Wars”? The sad answer is, no.

In “Gang Wars,” police try to “stop the violence” by working to get every gang member in jail. What do gang members say about this? I’ve talked to some people who are or were in gangs at some point in their lives. They told me what they thought about police be-ing more in their business.

“Police can try all they want, but what they are doing is making (the gang problem) bigger because we see them as just another gang, another one of the targets,” said Esteban, a gang member whose name has been changed.

Editorial

Good 'brainwashing'

President Barack Obama gave a na tionally televised “Back to School” speech on Sept. 8 at a school in Ar-lington, Vir ginia, where he told students that they need

to get serious with their schoolwork.Many Americans who disliked Obama’s decision to give a

speech directly to students, kept their children home, because they believed Obama would try to brain wash them.

The Green & Gold staff believes that those Americans were wrong. The speech was brainwashing only in a good way. It was very positive and inspirational, because it had good intentions and gave stu dents ideas of how they could get ready for pos-sible career paths by getting involved in extracurricular activities at school.

More students probably listened to him because of his difficult background. Obama was able to relate to students with strug-gles because his own father left him when he was younger. He talked about how he was raised by a single mother. Many of us relate to children being raised in single-parent families.

“Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up," Obama said. "No one’s written your destiny for you."

We liked how Obama explained that not everything is easy; you may not like a situation, but in the end it is the hard situa-tions that often work out for the best. Obama told students to set real goals, because in “real life,” the chances of everyone becoming a celebrity are slim. We thought that what Obama said was true, because in reality, the whole world can’t fit into Hollywood.

Parents who disliked the speech must have missed the big picture because a speech encouraging success truly ex presses hope for the future. If the speech was about failing, then we would agree with parents who kept chil dren home.

Students everywhere should see the speech. We saw the speech and couldn’t believe that some people dis liked it or be-lieved it would negatively affect children. We as students should follow Obama’s words and try to really meet great goals for the future. If we set good goals and follow through with them, the possibilities for us are endless.

We are our future! — green & gold Staff, Media Academy

El presidente Barack Obama ofreció una en trevista a toda la nación sobre “La vuelta a la escuela” en Sept. 8 en Arlington, Virgin ia, dondé el se dirigió a los estudi-

antes para que fueran serios con el año escolar.Algunos americanos que no estaban de acuerdo con que

Obama hablara directa mente a los niños dejaron a sus hijos en su casa, porque ellos pensaban que Obama queria lavar el cerebro a los estudiantes.

El equipo del periódico “Green & Gold” cree que los america-nos que dejaron a sus hijos en casa estuvieron equivocados.

El discurso fue un lavado de cerebro pero fue positiva mente, porque tenia buenas intenciones y aportó posibili dades de abrir nuevas puertas en el futuro de los estudi antes.

Nosotros creemos que los estudiantes con experiencias del pasado dificiles, deben escucharlo.

El equipo de “Green & Gold” platicó como Obama fue criado por una madre soltera sin padre.

Muchos de nuestros jóvenes se ven en esta misma situación en la que son criados por madres/padres solteros.

“Donde tú estás ahora, no determina donde vas a termi nar, porque nadie ha escrito tu destino,” dijo Obama, referiendose a las adversi dades que algunos estudiantes enfrentan en su vida.

A nosotros nos gustó como Obama explico que no todo es fácil, aunque a ti no te guste pero al final las situaciones dificiles en tu vida te pueden ayudar para mejorar.

Obama les dijo a los estu diantes que se propusieran metas reales, porque en “la vida real,” las oportunidades de todos de convertirse en una celebridad son muy pocas.

Nosotros pensamos que lo que dijo Obama es cierto, porque en la realidad todo el mundo no cabe en Hollywood.

Los padres que no estuvi eron de acuerdo con el discur so se perdieron la idea general porque el discurso motivaba a triunfar verdaderamente expresando esperanza en el futuro. Si el dis-curso hubiese sido un fracaso, entonces no sotros hubieramos estado de acuerdo con los padres que dejaron a sus hijos en casa.

Los estudiantes de todas partes deberian ver en dis curso porque les puede cam biar la vida. Nosotros vimos el discurso y no podiamos creer que algunas personas no estuvieran de acu-erdo, o que iba a tener un efecto negativo para los estudiantes.

Nosotros como estudiantes debemos seguir cada una de las palabras de Obama y tratar de alcanzar nuestras metas para el futuro. Si nos proponemos buenas metas y las seguimos con dedicacion, las posibilidades de alcanzar lo que nosotros po-demos hacer en nuestras vidas son infinitas!

Nosotros somos el futuro!

—green & gold Staff, Media Academy

Oaktown Teen Times is a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit organization, fiscally sponsored by Media

Alliance. It is printed free-of-charge by the Bay Area News Group and the Oakland Tribune, but all content is produced by students in Oakland high schools. Students exercise their freedom of ex-pression granted under the First Amendment and the California Education Code, Section 48907. We welcome financial support, letters to the edi-tor, story tips and advertising. Please contact us at oaktownteen@gmail.com.

MANAGING EDITORSBeatrice Motamedi and Lisa Shafer

PARTICIPATING OTT JOURNALISM ADVISERSLisa Shafer, Media AcademyRebecca Huang, Oakland International High Heather Ramme, Oakland Technical HighChris Scheer, Skyline High Daniel Zarazua, Oakland Unity High

WRITING COACHESMary McInerney, Skyline HighNadine Joseph, EXCEL HighDick Rogers, Oakland Technical High

BAY AREA NEWS GROUPKevin Keane, Vice President, NewsBay Area News Group-East Bay (BANG-EB)Peter Wevurski, Managing Editor, BANG-EBMartin G. Reynolds, Editor, Oakland Tribune & Assistant Managing Editor for News, BANG-EB

Dear oaktown teen times:Paul Robe (Robeson School of

Visual & Performing Arts) hasn't been the same lately – there have been many changes. We have lost good teachers, classes like art and dance, our former principal and our case manager. We even lost our only AP class.

The changes have not been for our benefit. Since the district has given up, students have given up as well. I had a friend who used to come to school in the ninth and tenth grade, but now he does not come.

But there was one teacher who wouldn’t let the bullying go unnoticed. His name is Mr. (Craig) Gordon. Start-ing more than a year ago, Mr. Gordon tried to set up meetings for parents, teachers and students to alert them of the situation. One time, he set up a meeting with the district as an assembly and asked a district official to come, but that person from the district never came. It showed me the district was afraid to face students and that they knew what they were doing was wrong.

It's still three years from Paul Robe being shut down, maybe we can change the district's mind.

george ParkerPaul robeson, Senior

Dear oaktown teen times:Your article “The Quinceañera –

pricey rite of passage” (June OTT) is very interesting and it really kept my attention. I'm not Latina, so I was interested to read about quinceañeras and the girls' opinions. This milestone comes with many cultural rites. I never

October 2009

Speak Out!oaktownteen@gmail.comOaktown Teen Times

6

Letters: Robeson, quinceañera

Imelda RodriguezUnity High

What the police think is better for us sometimes isn’t. What the police want to do right now is to catch gang members doing something bad, so that they can lock them up. They think that’s best, but police sometimes arrest gang members for small crimes, such as spray painting graffiti. Eventually, they

get out of prison, but they have even more anger towards the cops. And what does that do? This makes it more dangerous in Oakland because gang members then try to do worse things than before. Already this year, four police officers in Oakland were killed by a young man, who was

then shot and killed by police. The year began with the killing of Oscar Grant on Jan. 1 by a BART policeman.

There is a saying on the streets that “retaliation in Oakland is always a must.” Each killing is just the beginning of a new war.

These are some things that no one is ever going to be able to end. If the police officers and documentary mak-ers would like to see changes, maybe they should start by talking to teens and gang members, not just arresting them. Everyone has a heart. If adults could reach out and try to be there more for teens, the crime and the killing wouldn‘t be so bad. Teens want people to take an interest in their lives.

”Gang Wars” shows neighborhoods where there is no love, no peace and no hope. But this is where we live. And we know that things can change.

Just try talking to us. You’ll see.

Oaktown Teen Times

Obama en buena causa

in 'Gang Wars,' police try to 'stop the violence' by working to put every gang member in jail.

knew that the father had to remove his daughter’s flat shoes and replace them with high heels. I don't have anything similar to this in my (Afghan-Uzbek) culture, and I wish I would have some-thing similar to this holiday.

It makes me feel good that girls celebrate this in the USA, which may not their home country. It is really important to honor your traditions and cultural rites. If I were Latina, I would want to have a quinceañera.

Nilya Abdul,international High, Junior

Stopping gang wars takes talk, not arrests

oaktownteen@gmail.com October 2009Speak Out!

7

Jaycee Lee Dugard, who was kidnapped at age 11 and found 18 years later at age 29, is someone unusual — a woman who is stolen from her family

and then found, years later, and re-turned to her loved ones.

Unfortunately, all of the media at-tention around Dugard is getting in the way of a bigger issue that needs to be addressed. Right now, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, women are massacred daily. Rarely, if ever, are they found.

The Juarez killings are more than a kidnapping — they are femicide. Femi-cide can be defined as genocide towards women. Genocide is the deliberate, systemic and widespread destruction of an entire nation, on the basis of race, religion or ethnicity.

The young women of Mexico, who are being hunted and killed, are victims

Public should cry out to halt femicide in Mexico

When you look at me, you see a tall dark African-American male. The area I come from is lit-

tered with trash and the lawns have dead patchy grass. I live in Oakland, but I choose not to be a product of my environment.

When you look at me, you see a unique individual who has been tested time and time again to abandon my in-dividuality. The stereotypes and biases that are part of the people around me have tried to shape my personality and force me to conform to society's norms.

society'sexpectations

As an African-American male, I am expected to grow up liking rap music, to dance in a hip-hop style, and ultimately, to become a gangster. I am supposed to live my life in the streets and die a death related to gang violence, or to go to jail for the rest of my life.

As a teenager, I am expected to be irresponsible, immature and unfocused. I am supposed to dress with my pants sagging low, have gold teeth shining behind my 'big' lips and speak ebon-ics. I am supposed to not understand the world around me, and to fail at performing simple tasks, like doing homework and finishing high school.

middle school bluesDuring middle school, I tried to as-

similate to these common stereotypes of 'blackness' because I wanted to be cool and popular. I felt that if I perpetu-ated the stereotypes, I could be cool and popular.

So I wore the baggy jeans. I had the gold teeth (well, mine were silver — I was too poor to afford gold). I spoke the 'slanguage.'

Things like getting good grades and respecting my teachers and peers would have branded me as a 'sucka' or a nerd. I was so caught up with what others thought of me that I was willing to

of a new kind of genocide, one that targets victims by their gender.

The killings, which have been going on for years, have made a new name for Ciudad Juarez — it is now known as The City of The Dead. Since 1993, about 400 disappearances have oc-curred in just this area.

In the United States, the kidnapping of just one woman makes headlines. But in Mexico and the U.S., multiple murders in Juarez are barely noticed. Distracted by drug problems, the authorities in Ciudad Juarez and in the U.S. have failed to stop the slaughter. This is dangerous. The drug problems in Ciudad Juarez have spilled over into the United States. And if a drug prob-lem can expand into the U.S, it is likely that femicide can as well.

Residents of Ciudad Juarez believe that some of the men who are killing

Monica Virgen & Jocelyn SanchezUnity High

The disappearance of so many young girls has earned Ciudad Juarez a new name — City of the dead.

The popular guy made arrangements for me to meet and fight him at the last bus stop, the Fruitvale BART station. This was a useless arrangement to me; I repeatedly told him and all other people who wanted to perpetuate the fight that I would not fight him.

One of the sweetest girls I knew at the time asked me if I was going to fight him. She said that I shouldn't be-cause fighting is stupid. I wasn't going to fight him, but I wasn't going to run away.

Fight, then flusterSo, I met the popular guy at the

BART station and stood my ground. He

abandon my individuality. The people with whom I previously hung out were considered nerds, and so I left them in favor of 'cooler' and 'accepted' people.

For a time, I was happy, but never did I truly fit in. I wasn't as smooth with the ladies as the other guys were, and I had very low self-confidence.

One day, one of the more popular guys was on the bus, making a bit of a scene. I could tell he was drunk because his words were slurred and his eyes retained a bit of a glazed look.

He started mouthing off about a lot of popular girls from the school. He began to slander a girl for whom I had feelings, and because I was

a friend to her, I told her what he said. sudden threat

In my whole life, I had never been in a fight. I had always prided

myself on practicing pacifism. This was mostly because my elemen-tary school had instilled good values in me. Teach-ers would tell us things like 'keep your hands to yourself and your feet on the ground.' These things stuck with me.

Not long after the incident with the popular guy, I found myself with an opportunity to remem-ber those values. The weather was calm, and I had just stepped on the bus to go home. This was one of the nicer buses and it had a cool dark interior.

The dark green linen of the inside didn't retain light inside the bus very well, but everything was still visible. I made my way to the back of the bus to take my usual seat. When I realized my seat had been taken I made my way back toward the front, only to have the popular guy I had confronted before suddenly start yelling at me.

Before I could fully grip what was happening, he had decked me. At this

point he was still yelling, kids were jeering, and before I could fully un-derstand what had just happened, arms seemed to materialize and pull me away from him. Instead of being eject-ing from the bus like he should have been, he was allowed to stay on, and he continued to make threatening gestures at me. Then they separated us; he was confined to the back of the bus while I was put in the front.

gathered a gang of ominous-looking friends , who stood behind him as backup. Students who usually didn't get off at the BART station went there just to see the fight. People had gathered to see me take on another person in mortal combat. They wanted to see savage fists fly in anger and get us nowhere. They stood on the sidelines, jeering and coaxing him on. He ran up to me and delivered several blows to my head.

I didn't even put my hands up to defend myself. I didn't have to; his fists were weak and had no pow-er. He looked like a lunatic in front of all those who had gathered to see two people fight, not one man trying to beat on another. Flustered and angry by my refusal to fight back, he fled.

Although others see what I did as stupid or punkish, none of them would have had the courage to say no to a fight, let alone take a few punches just to stand up for what they believe in.

That day I decided to try to make myself an individ-ual who stands his ground. I decided that appeasing others wasn't worth the time or effort. I refused to conform any longer. After this incident, I told myself, I was going to be my own man and do the things that I like regardless of what oth-ers think. A wise man once said, "my greatest accom-plishment is being me no matter where I am."

identity intact My name is Devin White. I like to surf the Internet for hours at a time and post on message boards under the alias Dexter. I like to wear formal busi-ness attire, because I like the style, not because it's what's fresh or new. I own more 150 different video games and I play them constantly. I have a 4.2 grade point average, and I'm very serious about my school work.

If any of these individual characteris-tics make me a dork or a nerd, so be it. I refuse to let others dictate my life. My dreams are my own and no one else's.

“My reaction was (one) of fear. I was worried because I worked in a factory at night,” said Dolores Perez, the par-ent of Unity students Juan Carlos and Diana Perez.

We think that the killings in Juarez deserve just as much consideration as the case of Jaycee Dugard. We have to look at the bigger picture, not just focus on one person.

Don’t take this the wrong way; we are glad that Dugard was found after so long. All we want to ask is: do the girls of Juarez deserve any less?

a wise man once said, 'my greatest accomplishment is being me, no matter where i am.'

the women think that it is entertain-ment, and that they can kill them just because they are women. The family members of the women who are dying think that the men who are commit-ting the murders are wealthy psycho-paths, but the truth is that no one really knows who is committing the murders.

Women who have lived in Ciudad Juarez know it as a place of danger.

“Yes, because he will not get a fair trial, surrounded by all the tension and hatred in our community."

CHARLES JOHNSON Architecture Academy / Jr.

was it smart to move the trial for Oscar Grant's shooter out of the county?

&A

Q

wALKING THE TALK Devin White, a senior at Far West High School, says stereotypes don't come close to defining who he is or what his dreams are.

“Yes, because everyone knows how the community is like and the courts risk someone getting shot."

“No, because the people from Oakland know what really happened."

“No. Anywhere it goes, it's going to be the same thing because everybody knows what's going on."

“Yes, because many people who reside in this county are still upset about the situation. Things could go too far."

ARACELY FLORES Architecture Academy / Soph.

RICKEY McLANE Paul Robeson Academy / Jr.

HOPE SCHARTZ Oakland Technical High / Sr.

photo by iverson krank

MAKENDER JEAN-PHILIPPE Media Academy / Sr.

Q&a by Brandon sneed & Juan ramos / media academy and molly

Greer/ oakland Technical High

devin white

Far West High

Don't ask me to fight — I have dreams

oaktownteen@gmail.comOctober 2009 Oaktown Teen Times

8 inFocusMural Students Take Art

to Oakland's Streets

S o how do you rejuvenate a community? You can do it, one street at a time. The Community Rejuvenation Project took place during a six-week period in July and August, and included 30 students from more than a dozen Oakland high schools. We learned how to prepare walls (a process called buffing), design murals and spray paint and complete them. We developed and explored who we are and how art can change our world.

W e dove into training and challenged ourselves to learn something completely new. Some of us had experience in painting, surveying, clean up or promotion, but besides the lead artists, we were teaching each other. We all knew which job we wanted, but to stay consistent and equal we rotated out of our comfort zones, sometimes taking on work we didn’t know how to do. We were determined to finish and overcame obstacles of learning to collaborate.

Ending our first official mural, at 46th Avenue and Foothill Boulevard, demanded patience, commitment and teamwork. We learned to complete and to be committed to each job. The first block party was another good moment, though we were disappointed after a delay with our paychecks. With or without our pay, however, we made our time and friendships count.

After our murals were finished, we worked for a sixth week to design and lay out a 24-page magazine with our photos and stories. It was a tribute to our work, something tangible besides the walls we created. Not only that, it also commemorates and acknowledges the issues that are real and present in our neighborhoods, ones that most officials refuse to bring to light.

Rejuvenating our communities requires all of our efforts. Since our government leaders are failing, we are doing our jobs as citizens to shine the light on what needs to be done. As our walls show, we are not only artists and workers, but activists protesting for equality and peace in our neighborhoods. Our name —Street Warriors Enacting Artistic Revolution, or S.W.E.A.R. — explains our mission and our hopes. — Isabelle Aspera, Oakland High (class of 2008) and S.W.E.A.R. magazine editor

FIvE WEEkS, FIvE STREETS CRP artists painted murals at the intersections of 46th Avenue and Foothill Boulevard; 83rd Street and MacArthur Boulevard; 23rd Avenue and E.12th Street;

23rd Avenue & E.16th Street, and Fairfax Avenue and Foothill boulevards. Top: the mural at 46th and Foothill tells a creation story of Mother Earth and Father Sky. Middle right: teacher

and professional muralist Elijah Pfotenhauer takes the lead on some sky-high spraypainting. Bottom left: Florence Wilson of Skyline High peeks through a completed doorway. Right:

Isabelle Aspera gets some perspective from atop a ladder at one of the mural sites. photos courtesy of Desi W.O.M.E./CRP