CSUN On Point

By Kimmy Chacon, Jonathan Giovanazzi and Kali Raglin

Thousands of pounds of trash is piling up on Los Angeles street corners, freeway off-ramps, parking lots and alleyways — and an increasing number of residents have been calling the city to report it. 

According to a recent report by L.A. City Controller Ron Galperin, reports from residents of illegal dumping have increased by 450 percent over the last four years.

Galperin, neighborhood activists and other government officials say many factors have led to the rise in trash: the region’s homelessness crisis, high fees at municipal waste dumps and overworked cleanup crews.

Also, on the region’s highways, “People throw [trash] out of car windows or sometimes things are not appropriately tied down and fly out of trucks,” said Godson Okereke, deputy director of maintenance for CalTrans District 7, which covers L.A. and Ventura counties.

Mayor Eric Garcetti wants to deploy teams where illegal dumping frequently happens. 

But volunteers like Erin Fein and Jill Mather have also taken a role in cleaning up trash.

Mather, who leads an organization called Volunteers Cleaning Communities, remembered growing up in the restaurant business being taught never to walk over trash. This translated into her need to always pick up trash and when she retired, her goal became to “change the mindset of littering in America.” 

“We have to change the culture,” Mather said. “Littering is going to make the world uninhabitable.”

To help address this issue, Mather dedicates time out of every day to clean trash. Her Chatsworth-based organization picks up trash 4-5 days a week, mostly holding their cleanups in the San Fernando Valley. 

Fein founded the Echo Park Trash Club, whose members work with LA City Sanitation along with unhoused communities to clean up trash.

Fein began noticing more trash during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I wanted to do something about it. I feel invested in the area I live in Echo Park,” Fein said. Fein used social media to start organizing the club’s trash pickups. The volunteers she organizes pick up 2 ½-4 tons of trash per clean-up,” Fein said.’ 

But even the volunteers concede that their efforts only make a dent in the broader problem.  

“Once you clean an area up, give it a few days and you’ve got trash in that same area again,” Mather said.  She has also noticed how when one person dumps in a spot, others will follow suit and also dump in the same location.

The problem is not just confined to the city of L.A. Forty-year LA County resident Tammie Necessary began the Trash Task Force, where she organizes local residents to help clean up illegal dump sites. She expresses her frustration with the increasing amounts of illegal dumping in Acton, a small town on the 14 Freeway between L.A. and Palmdale. 

“There’s not much being done about it,” she said. “The Santa Clara River runs through here; all of this [trash] goes back into your water table.” 

Photo courtesy of Tammie Necessary.

Okereke said CalTrans is aware of the risks roadside waste can pose to the environment.

“My interest in removing and eradicating trash is because I understand the consequences…it gets into the water system and it interrupts the ecosystem when we have materials that can’t degrade,” Orekeke said.

Necessary also believes officials should step up  enforcement, impose stiffer fines, and give citizens easier ways to be able to report illegal dumpers.

Both Necessary and Mather believe part of the reason why illegal dumping is so prevalent in LA County is because fees to dispose of trash at dumps are so high. At minimum, Mather said one truck load costs $75 to dump.

Necessary said the private garbage company Waste Management offers some services such as free dump days and dump vouchers, but citizens are not aware of the programs. 

L.A. is experiencing a homelessness crisis, and encampments do generate some of the waste on the streets.

But in the L.A. City Controller’s illegal dumping report, Galperin’s office concluded many people who are not homeless use encampments as illegal trash dumps, which increases health and safety risks to people living on the street.

South L.A. resident Guadaluipe Gonzalez said that in her neighborhood, unhoused residents are not major sources of trash.

“The same people that live in our house keep our streets dirty,” she said. “They litter in front of their house and in the alleyway. It’s the homeowners who litter.” 

Fein actively engages unhoused individuals in helping to clean trash. 

“We have a compassionate perspective with unhoused folks,” Fein said. 

Okereke acknowledged  an increase in homeless encampments along highways has led to an increase in trash. 

However, Okereke said, “we should not blame trash only on the homeless. CalTrans is going as far as providing trash cans to encampments,” when it is safe to do so.

Okereke, Mather, Fein, and Necessary all said  that people need to be more educated about the trash crisis. 

“I don’t believe enforcement can solve the problem,” Okereke reflects, “We want to educate people.” 

Mather’s group started a “Scavenger Litter Hunt” program where children learn about trash and help to clean it up to get the younger generation involved.

Fein also believes that people need to think critically about the issue since conditions and living situations contribute to more trash in the city. She says another option is to “create more room in the city budget for folks to be paid to clean” trash in the streets. 

Mather also said many people remain unaware of  programs meant to help residents dispose of trash legally. Mather pointed specifically to the 311 app, which will come and pick up trash along with programs to help reduce dump fees. 

Mather believes that developing a sense of “pride in community” can help solve the trash problem.

“The community has to realize they have to get involved in their own community,” she said.

Mather feels that residents need to have the mindset that they’re “part of the community. The city can’t do it all for me. I want to make it beautiful … and I’ve got to do my part.”

On May 31, 2020, six days after George Floyd’s death, Latora Green began a protest in front of a shopping mall in Sherman Oaks.

Every day since, Green says she has returned to that same spot to hold a pro-Black Lives Matter demonstration.

Sometimes Green is the only person sitting in on the protest on a given day. On other days, up to 100 fellow demonstrators will join her.

Green has transformed her long-running Black Lives Matter protest into a grass roots organization called The Valley of Change.

As time passed after Floyd’s death, and crowd sizes of larger Black Lives Matter protests in Los Angeles began to diminish Dani Marzouca found Green’s organization through Instagram that was continuing demonstrations. This is when Marzouca met Green. She’s now a regular volunteer with The Valley of Change, which holds monthly community trash cleanups, organizes food donations and gives away school supplies.

“That time period,” Marzouca remembered, “there was just a lot of death in the news and it’s the most natural thing to be angry and express that and being with other people who feel the same way who are willing to fight to create a new world where this doesn’t happen.”

Latora Green, leader of The Valley of Change, directs a volunteer during a community trash cleanup.

The Valley of Change is one small manifestation of the broader Black Lives Matter movement, which The New York Times in 2020 proclaimed, “May be the largest movement in U.S. history.” 

The larger Black Lives Matter Movement started in 2013 when George Zimmerman was acquitted for the death of Trayvon Martin. Leading up to 2021 the organization has sprouted chapters all over the United States and evolved in several ways outside of organizing protests that have made international news.

The Black Lives Matter Los Angeles Chapter is involved with various projects outside of demonstrations, such as creating and inspiring youth leaders, engaging in local and statewide policy initiatives, hosting “know your rights” training sessions for members and allies. The BLMLA Research Team engages in data support for campaigns 

Along Ventura Boulevard, volunteers with Green’s The Valley of Change organization will walk the streets sweeping and picking up debris or trash — which Latora calls, “treasures.” The Valley of Change volunteers also hand out water and other supplies to any unhoused neighbor they encounter. 

“Building up the community — this is an act of justice,” Green tells volunteers during a recent cleanup, “and we need to take care of our environment.”

Latora Green works with several area high schools and invites students to assist with the monthly cleanups and food donations. She even asks students to assist with research about wastes,  plastics and cigarette buttes.

Dani Marzouca sees the future and past of activism, “We see the people creating change, and calling on all the activist before us, ancestors, and people who have shed blood for this movement and believe that together all of that energy will end policing.”

Historian and archivist Keith Rice, who works for the Tom & Ethel Bradley Center at CSUN’s University Library, refers to himself as an “academic activist.” He has documented the protests that started in 2020, and says this act of preservation is a necessity.

Keith Rice says he has also photographed Latora Green’s demonstrations on Ventura Boulevard. 

“You can change things on a systematic level,” Rice said, “but you have to change the hearts, the minds, the people.”

As an archivist, Keith Rice oversees a collection that includes historic images of 1960s civil rights movement figures including Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., along with images of events like the 1965 Watts Rebellion.

In those black and white photographs, he sees links to the present-day movement.

“Once I started going and photographing the protests,” Rice said, “and understanding what they stood for, I am a defender of them [Black Lives Matter].”

Decades later, “we see young children bringing their signs every single day as they drive by,” Dani Marzouca says, “putting their fists up, screaming Black Lives Matter.”

This show was produced by Domonique Isabeau, Jessica Harper and Cesia Lopez.

UPDATED — In an effort to slow the COVID-19 pandemic, local government leaders in Los Angeles have proposed requiring patrons to show proof of vaccination before entering various businesses and outdoor events.

Starting on Oct. 7, a Los Angeles County public health order will require customers and employees of bars, nightclubs and outdoor events with 10,000 attendees or more to demonstrate evidence of partial inoculation. Patrons who received the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine options, which are delivered in a series of two doses, must show proof of a completed COVID-19 immunization card by Nov. 4. The soon-to-be enacted order will not apply to restaurants with bars.

On Wednesday, the Los Angeles City Council will consider a similar ordinance that would apply to an even longer list of businesses, including restaurants, coffee shops, gyms, spas, salons, stadiums, stores, theaters. If approved, patrons would have to show proof of vaccination in these businesses beginning on Nov. 4.

City council members ordered the city attorney Mike Feuer to draft the ordinance with a unanimous 13-0 vote back in August — but not all 15 councilmembers favor the proposed mandate.

Councilmember John Lee, who represents the northwestern San Fernando Valley, did not attend the August vote, but said in an email that he disagrees with the mandate.

“At a time when we need to move forward together to combat the virus,” Lee wrote, “this measure may only deepen divides without addressing the heart of the matter — getting people vaccinated.”

Lee described the policy as “arbitrary” and “not the way” to combat COVID-19. 

The city council’s proposed ordinance would affect more businesses than L.A. County’s announced regulations. Under the city’s ordinance, patrons would be allowed to claim medical, religious or personal belief exemptions, though they’d need to provide proof of a recent negative COVID-19 test to be served indoors.

If a patron doesn’t qualify for an exemption and has no test result, the proposal would allow business to serve the person in an outdoor space, like a patio. Unvaccinated individuals could access indoor areas of the business for “brief and limited periods of time” to use the restroom or pay their bill.

Although L.A. County’s approaching orders exclude restaurants and the city has not yet implemented its proposed policy, many businesses across L.A. have adopted their own policies to require proof of vaccination from visitors at the door.

Santa Monica eatery Birdie G’s is one of them.

General manager Brian Jacobs said the restaurant first carried out an internal vaccination plan for staff but this shortly transitioned into a guest-facing policy.

“It felt like the next necessary step,” he said.

Customers who prefer to present a digital version of their CDC COVID-19 shot record can scan a QR code available in front of the restaurant. The code, provided by the L.A. County Department of Public Health, accesses a government portal with individual archived vaccination information.

Currently, patrons of Birdie G’s who are not fully vaccinated can also dine-in by showing evidence of a negative COVID-19 test result.

Jacobs said that if L.A. County’s vaccination orders expand, he “would be fully supportive” of including proof of a negative COVID-19 test as an option for restaurant goers. 

With vaccination mandates in flux and local governments adopting their own set of policies with deferring regulations, it can be difficult for the general public — and especially for business owners who are expected to enforce the rules — to keep up.

Stuart Waldman, president of the Valley Industry and Commerce Association (VICA), said proof-of-vaccination requirements may be effective tools in battling the pandemic. For businesses implementing those requirements, he said the “biggest issue right now is inconsistency” in the details.

Waldman points out that L.A. County will expect individuals to be fully vaccinated when entering bars, but consumers wanting to access outdoor stadiums, which often feature multiple bars, have the choice of presenting a negative COVID-19 test result to gain admission.

Owners and managers of establishments will soon have to decide which crew members will check immunization cards, consider how they store basic employee medical information, and take into account how making time for these undertakings will affect their operation labor hours.

COVID-19 closures have already created financial challenges for countless businesses. Many remain short-staffed. 

Waldman emphasizes that small operations that may not have enough personnel will most likely be impacted when enforcing the new regulations.

“To sit there and have to check just makes it more difficult,” he said.

Another factor establishment owners have to take into account is how they will handle employee health or religious exemption requests.

Anthony Zaller, a labor attorney with Zaller Law Group, said that medical exemptions may be relatively straightforward to manage because a doctor can provide physical certification stating when an employee is not eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. 

Zaller cautions, however, that exemptions based on “sincerely held” religious or personal beliefs may present complications for proprietors because beliefs are not easily verifiable.  

“What if you question the religious belief? Can you question it?” Zaller said. “I urge employers to approach that issue very carefully with the help of an attorney.” 

Once vaccine mandates take effect, some business owners will likely have to handle accommodation requests and even consider how to deal with any potentially problematic situations caused by customers who are uncooperative.

L.A. business owners and the general population, alike, may be experiencing fatigue from the wave of regulation changes that has arrived with COVID-19.

For this reason, Christopher Rogers, a health science lecturer at CSUN, recommends that employers keep up-to-date with data from credible government and health organizations.

“They truly have good resources,” Rogers said, “that provide all the latest information on infections and treatments, recommendations, and [which] businesses are or are not going to have specific regulations.”

This story was written and produced by Vanessa Garcia, Kaylenn Gomez, Alahna Martinez and Melody Soto.

This story was updated on Sept. 28 at 2 p.m. to reflect details of the city council’s newly-released draft ordinance.

Over a year ago, the COVID-19 pandemic caused all school campuses to close down as teachers and students switched over to virtual learning. 

COVID-19 created a huge disruption of schooling. According to Education Week, school building closures during the spring semester of the 2019-20 school year affected 50.8 million public school students.

Since then, campuses have slowly started reopening for in-person classes, though many have limited the number of students who can attend at one time. Governor Gavin Newsom’s office says 86% of schools in California have reopened for in-person classes or “hybrid learning,” referring to a schedule where students attend in-person classes some of the time while also offering some classes virtually

Closures of campuses and social isolation have affected many students in a big way but specifically those who are living in poverty. According to Edutopia, a mental health crisis emerged when students lost access to the services schools offered.

Experts and parents say the pandemic has had a huge effect on the social skills, mental health, and academic progress of the K-12 students. 

Greg Knotts, an education professor at California State University, Northridge said, “this year people have settled into a certain degree of complacency about the delivery of instruction through the virtual medium.” 

While Knotts suggested some are excited by online learning, he said most students have not been able to make as much academic progress as they should.

Many students have thrived during the virtual learning and face-to face environment while other students have not. 

Christian Perez, a social worker in the Pasadena Unified School District, works with students of all ages. His youngest student is a third grader and his oldest is a high school senior. Perez said that he has gotten to see the whole spectrum of experiences with distance learning. Some of his students find the social aspects of school difficult, and have had a positive experience in online classes.

“They don’t have that face-to-face anxiety level of interaction that they had before,” Perez said. “We also saw the other downside where the kids that needed that one-on-one time academically or learning wise actually suffered a lot through virtual learning.” 

Many students have been adapting to the in-person class environment despite still being in the middle of a pandemic.

Jenny Hontz is an advocate for Speak Up Parents. For months, her group has advocated for districts to offer the in-person learning option. But Hontz said right now in the Los Angeles Unified School District, middle and high school students’ only have the option to return to campus to attend Zoom classes in a single classroom for the entirety of the day. 

“We have seen a very low number of families opt in,” Hontz said. “Only 7% of high school students in LAUSD are back on campus.”

The majority of students are currently still in virtual learning. Elementary school students are back in-person five days a week for three hours in instruction. Hontz said more than 30% of families in elementary school have sent their children back.

President Joe Biden proposed $130 billion back in February for school reopenings in his $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill. All of this money would go towards helping pay for more staff to have smaller class sizes and more learning opportunities for students who have not been doing well.

“I think it’s time for schools to reopen safely, ” Biden said during an interview on CBS.

Hontz noted that in more affluent communities on L.A.’s westside, parents are sending kids back to school at higher rates than in lower-income communities such as South Los Angeles and Southeast Los Angeles.

Hontz has a son in fifth grade who has navigated a challenging experience during the pandemic. She said he has been learning how to operate independently. 

“It has been very difficult as a parent to manage and oversee his education,” said Hontz. 

Is there any upside to students returning to campuses?

“Most of my clients have had a positive experience going back in person,” Perez said. “They really missed their friends and some kids did not like online learning.” 

This show was reported by the following team:

• Beatrice Anoh
• Elizabeth Campus
• Justin Gonzalez
• Alfonso Henry
• Jordan Henry
• Ava Lange

Over the last decade, South Korean pop music — or “K-pop” — has gone mainstream around the world, especially here in the United States.

Experts and fans say K-pop music and its fans are starting to have an impact on American society — and even on Americans who have never heard a K-pop song.

BTS, for one, has a reputation for singing and rapping about injustices in South Korean society. Their lyrics address taboo topics such as mental health, the demanding education system, and other issues that affect young people.

Fans in the U.S. — even those who don’t speak Korean — have taken cues from their favorite K-pop stars, and are turning to activism themselves. 

Variety reported that last year, during the George Floyd protests, several K-pop artists donated to the Black Lives Matter fund — including BTS. Within a day, their fans had matched the donation. 

(Photo courtesy of Louise Järsberg)

“We were a part of a project called MatchAMillion, which was when BTS donated 1-million dollars for Black Lives Matter, the fans were like, ‘We should match this.’” said Louise Järsberg, an organizer for a charity called One in an ARMY. (The charity’s name references the moniker some BTS fans have adopted: “ARMY,” which standards for “Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth.”)

“Then two Twitter users came,” Järsberg added, “and said we should do a hashtag and someone said what about MatchAMillion? … So they reached out to us,” 

The BBC reported that ARMYs and other K-pop fans on social media flooded hashtags like #Alllivesmatter and #Bluelivesmatter last year with videos of their favorite idols — crowding out the voices of Black Lives Matter opponents.

The New York Times reported that K-pop fans even claimed credit for reserving the majority of the tickets to an indoor rally where former president Donald Trump was set to speak last summer. 

Academics and ardent supporters recently discussed the of K-pop — and BTS in particular — at a virtual conference hosted by California State University, Northridge.

Tiara Wilson, a USC grad student and a panelist at CSUN’s BTS Conference, said K-pop stars are taking their inspiration from a long track record of activism by American hip-hop artists. Wilson says BTS fans’ activism connects with American hip-hop culture’s history of amplifying community issues.

“We specifically in America should pay attention because I personally think it’s an outgrowth of the way that pop culture in America is used in general to mobilize individuals to take civic action,” Wilson stated.

Fans pack the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., for the kickoff of BTS’ world tour in 2019. (Image courtesy of Mehrin Ashraf)

Apart from the activism, K-pop’s rise to popularity in the U.S. and Europe has led to a cultural exchange between Korean artists and their fans. Many fans are starting to learn Korean to better understand their artists and artists spend a lot of time learning different languages to communicate with their fans as well.

“On one hand language is not a barrier because people have been transcending it for years,” said Crystal Anderson, a professor at George Mason University who studies K-pop music “But on the other hand, you see efforts on both sides to learn the language and in a lot of cases the culture of the other person.”

Even through the hardest times, BTS and other K-pop bands managed to put out new music. During the pandemic, while a lot of industries were affected by the sudden shutdown of most workspaces, K-pop groups adapted quickly to the given circumstances. The fan service didn’t stop.

K-pop groups held online concerts, produced reality show-style content and continued their practice of holding video calls with select fans.

(Photo courtesy of Louise Järsberg)

The messages in the music are also having an impact. Many of BTS’s lyrics deal with self-doubt, depression and healing. These lyrics inspired fans of the boy band to create a mental health help-line: the BTS Army Help Center.

Jasmine Torres, a volunteer at the BTS Army Help Center, said the band has helped its fans specifically through their lyrics.

“A lot of people forget about self-love,” Torres said. “They think about loving another person but they never realize how much self-love is important. And, the fact that a group, a boy band especially, telling women that, oh you should love yourself, is very important because you don’t hear that often.”

Jasmine Leung, a dancer and K-pop fan, says BTS lyrics deal with becoming comfortable in your own skin — and learning to not care about what others have to say about you.

“I think like their lyrics, no matter what age you are, no matter where you are, you can still relate to it,” Leung said. “There’s so many songs for the youth [about following] your dreams, you can do whatever you want. No matter what stage in life, their songs kind of hit almost every age group and it’s not always about loving other people. It’s just like self-growth too.”

This show was produced by the following team:

• I’Yonna Applon-Kettles
• Abtin Mohammadi
• Malik Patterson
• Cynthia Puga
• Jahaiara Quazi

The homelessness crisis in Los Angeles has grown worse since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. The city has seen an increase of homeless encampments and camps around communities since the beginning of the pandemic.

In 2020, the number of homeless individuals in L.A. County increased by 13 percent from the year before.

And experts fear the crisis could get even worse. A recent report by the Economic Roundtable estimates that over the next four years homelessness will increase by 86 percent in Los Angeles County. 

According to the report, many businesses are shutting down leaving millions of people out of work and unable to make rent or afford housing which is very expensive in Los Angeles. 

Alejandra Olguin works as a housing navigator for Haven Hills, an organization that assists domestic violence survivors. Since many people have lost their jobs during the pandemic, her program assists people who are unable to pay rent make their payments. 

“Most individuals are homeless of course because the cost of living is so high,” Olguin says.

With the cost of living in Los Angeles continuing to increase, in order to reduce the amount of homelessness she says that “unless we find more affordable units and income based units, it’s just really hard.”

A Columbia University professor conducted an analysis predicting that homelessness across the United States could increase as much as 45% from the economic downfall caused by the pandemic. California is home to a quarter of the nation’s homelessess population, the L.A. Times reported

Homelessness has been an issue in Los Angeles for decades.  The crisis largely began following World War II when the population increased and housing development could not keep up. Since then, homelesses has risen in LA from high rents and a shortage of affordable housing. 

The city has attempted to fix the problem with more funding. In 2016 voters approved Proposition HHH which authorized city officials to construct up to $1.2 billion in supportive housing units for those experiencing homelessness. 

Since its passage, the city has commenced 44 homeless housing projects with HHH dollars. By the end of this year, 44 more HHH projects should have funding to begin.

Recently, a U.S. District Judge released an order in Los Angeles to provide shelter to every homeless person on Skid Row within 180 days. 

Governor Gavin Newsom launched Project Roomkey during the beginning of the pandemic in an effort to assist thousands of people experiencing homelesses by providing hotel rooms as temporary housing.

Despite the governor’s efforts to house homeless people, John Wheeler, who works in homeless outreach in Los Angeles, says that there are “not enough available resources to house everyone.”

He believes the key for homeless people to get into housing is to “have available resources.”

Wheeler says that putting homeless people in hotels is a good short term solution but that there also needs to be enough funding to help homeless people find permanent housing. 

Los Angeles county officials have cited budget restraints and limited funds to pay for hotels. County officials hope to extend Project Roomkey but there is no guarantee of continuing the project due to funding restraints.

This story was produced by the following team:

• Angela Gonzalez
• Kristyn Karmazyn
• Elizabeth Rios
• Daniela Torres
• Bryce Wayne

Growing up, Melanie Shaw knew her parents expected her to go to college.

“Our family raises us letting us know there’s elementary school, middle school, high school and there’s college,” said Shaw. The child of Belizean and Honduran parents, Shaw is now a CSUN alumni and CSUN Professor in Africana Studies.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), 35% of undergraduates were the first in their families to go to college in the 2015–16 academic year. An additional 26% of students had parents with at least some college experience but not a bachelor’s degree.

First-generation students face difficulties other students may not. Some of these scenarios are having access to advising and academic support from their household. Others may not receive advice passed down from their parents that the children of college graduates might expect to receive.

Fresno State University student Cinthya Zavala came to the U.S. with her parents from El Savador when she was 6 years old. Like Shaw’s family, Zavala’s parents also dreamed that their daughter would attend college, but Zavala herself had to figure out how to pull it off.

“Part of the difficulty was just when you come into a country and you don’t speak the language, and you don’t have any family support it’s just growing,” said Zavala. “Understanding that college was an expectation, but I had to accept that I actually wanted to do it.”

Many first-generation college and university students struggle to prepare themselves for the rigors of higher education.

When he went off to college, “I threw myself into a situation I knew was going to be taxing,” said Bryan Abarca, a Los Angeles City College student, “but I felt like I bought into this idea that it’s like this for everybody.” 

Abarca is also the first in his family to go to college.

“You grow up in a family that wants you to succeed,” Abarca said, “but doesn’t necessarily offer you that helping hand.” 

Feeling ill-prepared was one hurdle, but not having the financial stability was an even bigger barrier to surmount. Kwon-Hyuk “Raphael” Lee, a DACA recipient and first-generation college student originally from South Korea, also battled with this.

While Lee saw his friends flourishing, he didn’t understand why his life had to be more difficult because of his family’s financial status.

“I was having a lot of mental breakdowns because at one point I was so angry because I see a lot of my friends succeeding and doing it,” said Lee. “I know they are sharing all of these accomplishments on their social media but I’m like, ‘Where am I?’”

Zavala, also a DACA recipient, said asking for guidance on applications became a struggle. She recalled a time in high school when she was pulling together financial aid paperwork and asked her school counselors for help.

“I had some questions,” she remembered, “and they were like ‘Oh, you know, we don’t have experience with that, maybe your parents can help you.’ It’s like, my parents have no clue what FAFSA is.”

Even after first-generation students complete higher education, they’re at a disadvantage: they’re less likely to have family contacts that can help them build a career that suits their college degree.

Professor Shaw said networking is a practice that should be viewed as a privilege.

“Even now … I feel that I am playing catch up with everyone in my department, even though it’s the Department of Africana studies,” said Shaw. “I’m in a department with other amazing educated individuals that are of color [and] I still feel that there are more steps that I have to take.” 

Like Professor Shaw, Abarca also feels that he has to put in more effort.

“Regardless of what POC group you come from it’s always like five steps up and two steps back,” said Abarca. “You have to work twice as hard to get half the results.”

This show was produced by the following team:

• Emily Brubaker
• Katherine Hernandez
• Mary Paronyan
• Dailyn Simmons
• Diane Zermeño

Over a year ago, the COVID-19 pandemic set the nation into an economic recession.

The downturn hit women — particularly Black and Hispanic women — hard, erasing decades of advancements in the workforce and creating what The New York Times is calling a “Shecession.”

When the pandemic hit, unemployment rates among women briefly spiked to an all time high. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, over 3 million women left the labor force between March and April 2020. Since then, only 2 million women have returned to work.

The last time there were this few women in the American workforce was 1987. 

A number of factors have played a key role in the Shecession.

Gemma Zamarro, a professor at the University of Arkansas and senior economist at the USC Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research, said the pandemic and social distancing measures have primarily impacted female-dominated service-industry workplaces such as restaurants and hotels.

Zamarro said the closures of childcare centers and schools has also placed more responsibilities on women.

Now, many women have been forced to serve as both caretakers and teachers while also working. Their alternative is to leave the workforce altogether.

Chelsea Alford, a single mother and owner of the Slay Room, a small beauty business that offers products to empower women, said she had to “scramble” to make sure her child continued his education, while she tried to come up with other streams of income to pay bills.

During the pandemic, “being a mom especially has felt like a non-stop duty— a job you can never check out of” said Marcella Badillo, a mother of two and activities director at a local charter school.

Zamarro and Alford both had similar experiences as Badillo. They say they took on the roles and responsibilities of a full-time teacher, IT person, while also cooking and cleaning.

“In the back of your head you still have to do what’s best for you and figure out how you’re going to get more money,” said Alford. “All of that took a toll on an individual.”

The closures of childcare facilities and schools has not only revealed the amount of responsibility that has been forced upon women, but alsodemonstrated the shortcomings of United States’ childcare system.

“Childcare has been a problem that we have had for a long time,” said Zamarro, “and the pandemic is showing us how weak it is.”

The Biden Administration recently released $39 billion to help relieve those child care providers who were hit the hardest during the pandemic.

“More people are seeing that affordable childcare is a big deal,” Vice-President Kamala Harris said during a March visit to a Connecticut child development center.

Many childcare centers are privately funded and so the best way to move forward is for more government investment in both childcare and education, Zamarro said.

Evan Jackson is an entertainment reporter and owner of Young Bold & Regal Media Company, which features interviews of black women and women of color in entertainment. Jackson said many of the actors and women of color he’s interviewed have had to pick up new skills in order to stay afloat during the many closures that faced the entertainment industry.

There are consequences for not responding to the Shecession,” Jackson said: “Those women of color and Black women are left out of the loop  when it comes to the investments and when it comes to investing in them.”

Is there any upside to the Shecession?

“Hopefully,” Zamarro said, “there is more understanding and more flexibility in terms of hours or working from home when needed, more support for family leave within employers.” 

Jackson believes there’s hope and that people are “opening their eyes” and taking action in supporting disenfranchised groups, including minorities and women.

This show was produced by the following team:

• Beatrice Anoh
• Elizabeth Campos
• Justin Gonzalez
• Alfonso Henry
• Jordan Henry
• Ava Lange

Discrimination against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders has increased drastically over the course of the pandemic. 

A recent study from the  Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University San Bernardino found a 149-percent increase in anti-Asian hate crimes between 2019 and 2020.

After a gunman killed eight people in Atlanta on March 16, most of whom were Asian women, President Joe Biden noted the increased racism towards Asian communities.

“They’ve been attacked, blamed, scapegoated and harassed; they’ve been verbally assaulted, physically assaulted, killed,” Biden said. 

While this mistreatment is making headlines now, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have long faced discrimination in the U.S.: The Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 prohibited all immigration of Chinese laborers. During World War II, the federal government forced Japanese Americans to leave their property and belongings to live in concentration camps. 

And many people of Asian descent say discrimination based on their race is part of their day-to-day lives. Huy Nguyen, a student at California State University Long Beach, said he’s experienced discrimination ever since coming to the U.S. in 2012.

“When I first come to America,” recalled Nguyen, “I had the same thing… I lived in a dorm with four white guys. At first, they were very nice to me. They were talking friendly, but then after a couple days they were getting cold and didn’t talk to me anymore.” 

“There’s always been that history and precedent [of discrimination against Asian Americans],” said Teresa Williams Leon, a professor of Asian American Studies at California State University Northridge.

“But I think in the last year,” Williams León added, “with the coronavirus originating in Wuhan, China, the rhetoric by the previous president, I think all of those things, and people feeling frustrated… this perfect storm came together to kind of blame people of Asian descent.”

Tiffany Do — a community organizer for the Los Angeles-based advocacy group Chinatown Community for Equitable Development — said Asian Americans face repeating cycles of being scapegoated. 

“I think mass media for a large part has only jumped on now… A lot of our elders are just like, ‘This is nothing new,’” Do said. “We’ve been facing this even before the pandemic.”.

The reporting forum Stop AAPI Hate recently released a report on nearly 3,800 anti-Asian hate incidents it tracked  between March  2020 and  February 2021.More than two-thirds of the reported incidents targeted  women.  Most of the incidents involved verbal harassment and “deliberate avoidance of Asian Americans”; 11% of the incidents involved physical assault.

Williams León connected much of this discrimination with former president Donald Trump, who often referred to the COVID-19 virus as the “China Flu” and the “kung flu.”

“It has been a part of America’s subconscious to have these kinds of prejudices always, sort of, underneath the surface of American society,” said Williams-Leon. “So when things like this happen and you have a president using inflammatory language, it all boils up to the surface. And that’s what we’re seeing.”

Do’s organization works on fighting gentrification and supporting businesses in L.A.’s Chinatown neighborhood. The area’s businesses have been hit hard during the pandemic, Do said.

“Number one, there was the beginning of the economic violence when people decided not to come to Chinatown,” Do said. “and that really hurt our businesses. They saw Chinatown as a pariah where the virus would be when actually we’ve been safe.”.

But even before the virus was discovered in the U.S., Do said visitors stopped coming to Chinatown  She criticized government officials for failing to help small businesses after forcing them to close down.

This isn’t the first time Asian community businesses have felt abandoned by authorities. In the 1992 L.A. riots, looters targeted many Asian-owned businesses. Do noted the Koreatown neighborhood was all but abandoned by police.

“We cannot trust the authorities or the people in power at all. They will continue to try and put more funding into police rather than actually keeping us safe.”

Even with the COVID-19 vaccine rolling out, businesses opening back up and people returning to work. Do said she thinks anti-Asian American discrimination will get worse before it gets better.

“Will there be an end? Absolutely not,” Do said. “I had a speech at a rally recently against anti-Asian violence, where I said it will get worse before it gets better. So, I don’t think we’re out of the worst part yet. There’s no way.”

The following team produced this show:

• Angela Gonzalez
• Kristyn Karmazyn
• Elizabeth Medina
• Daniela Torres
• Bryce Wayne

Maintaining communication has been a large focus during the pandemic by using social media platforms. With 3.96 billion users on social media, the concerns surrounding how social media affects mental health are accelerating.

One of the alarming effects of social media has on mental health is how it can shape a person’s self-esteem and body-image. A 2019 study by the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found a correlation between time spent on social media and the rise in eating disorders.

Brooke Gilbertsen, a psychologist and clinical director at 1Method, said social media’s pressure to capture perfect moments while excluding the lived experience can take a toll on a person’s self-esteem.

“The damage can be that you can look at somebody else’s social media and think they must have it perfect compared to my life. It’s not the whole picture,” said Gilbertsen. “The damage of comparison.”

This rings true for CSUN student Lexi Sorenson. For a few years, she said she often compared her life to the images she would see on social media. Sorenson said she’s battled depression.

“I used to be a hefty girl growing up and I was constantly made fun of,” said Sorenson. “So of course, seeing millions of girls with perfect bodies getting millions of likes on their photos really hurt.” 

Even some social media influencers feel the pressure to look or live in an idealized way.

Journalist and influencer Janelle Marie Rodriguez — who has more than 108,000 followers on Instagram, where she goes by the name Janelle Marie — said the pressure to promote a certain image has caused her to doubt her own identity and the purpose of her brand.

“So, then you start to devalue and question yourself,” Rodriguez said.

As knowledge of the risks grows, some users have tried to leverage social media to bring awareness to mental health issues and advocating for body positivity, according to Common Sense Media.

Rodriguez said she makes an effort to post content that displays a less-idealized image to her followers. 

“With my journey on social media,” she said, “I decided that I wanted my platform to not only be a highlight reel, but at least dedicate one day of the week to make people who come across my page feel good.”

Gilbertsen also recommends users monitor the amount of time they spend on social media.

“Whenever your behavior becomes obsessive and your behavior becomes compulsive that’s probably an indicator that you really are a slave to your phone,” said Gilbertsen. “Realize you are in control.”

This show was produced by the following team:

• Emily Brubaker
• Katherine Hernandez
• Mary Paronyan
• Dailyn Simmons
• Diane Zermeño