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Writings from the 2010-2011 OC Youth Organizers
As part of their internship requirements, members of OCYO are required to each write a blog entry - it could be an opinion piece, a story, a poem or a research piece. Click on the names below to read her or his posting.
2010-11 OCYO Blog Entries:
- Amanda Bastien, Carona Del Mar High School
- Jenn Beard, Newport Harbor High School
- Kara Burner, Loara High School
- Abriana Fernandez, Magnolia High School
- Saundra McCormick, Fullerton Union High School
- Francisco Mariano , Western High School
- Christopher Nguyen, La Quinta High School
- Rachel Somerville, Carona Del Mar High School
- Andy Tovar, Anaheim High School
- David Villanueva, Los Amigos High School
He stared at the gun barrel and pushed the trigger. BAM! His life gone, his family destroyed, and now everyone is asking why. Why did this thirteen year old boy take his own life? Everyday, he dreaded going to school- a place where students should feel safe. He was harassed, verbally abused, and called the cruelest names. Still a child, still discovering himself, but at age thirteen he ended his life. Another boy in California chose to hang himself; he was eleven years old. A total of six boys committed suicide in the month of October. Each of these six boys was gay or thought to be gay by their peers. October was a month of tragedy, and society needs to view it as a wake up call.
Being gay is not a bad thing. It doesn’t affect the type of person you are or the type of person you will be. We, as a society, need to reinforce the rights of homosexuals and heterosexuals because we are all people. October was a sad month, and was a cruel reminder that we need to treat others with respect and kindness, because the truth is words hurt.
Words may not cause physical harm, but the emotional damage verbal abuse creates is unfathomable. All six of these boys could not stand hearing another slur directed at them, and chose death as an escape. Everyday, people are verbally harassed because the way the look, their sexual orientation, gender, race, and even religion. We sometimes forget how powerful words can be, so pick your words wisely. We know cruel words can cause someone to end their life, but imagine the effects of a few kind words…….
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“Take one step forward if you have grown up with more than one hundred books in your home.” I take a step forward. “Take two steps forward if somebody in your family has told you that you are capable of achieving your dreams.” I take two steps forward. “Take one step back if you have ever lived in a home where you have seen drug deals made on your street, or you have heard gun shots from your home.” I stand still as some of my peers grow further away. As I glance behind me my eyes immediately avert. Why are they so far away? Why can’t we all just all just be on a level Playing Field? How did I become so lucky to be born into fortune, while others are born into misfortune? As the activity continues my I become more abashed and my steps increasingly get smaller. I develop the urge to lengthen my arms, take the hands of my peers behind me, and pull them up to where I stand.
All of my life I have lived in the city of Newport Beach entirely oblivious to how privileged I am compared to others in my community, until sophomore year when I joined a club at my school called Bridges. When I joined Bridges, I had a news flash of how fortunate I actually am. Prior to my current understanding, I was under the impression that I lived in the slums of Newport Beach—that it was me who was the less fortunate one.
This news flash was not taken lightly. It inspired me to learn more about my community and how I could help—if there is a way to utilize my fortune to help better the conditions of others, I will find it. I am constantly learning about new horror stories of children my age or younger already becoming hopeless and falling into the cycle of violence. This awareness inspires me. While I have no interest in taking steps back to where some of my peers are, I do have an interest in giving my peers the extra little push they need to become level with where I stand.
I do not tolerate children, teenagers, or young adults who have lost hope in becoming greater than what they are born into. I particularly do not tolerate those who fall into the cycle of violence as their way to fit in or even to escape. I feel as though the number one cure for the hopeless is hope and it is my goal to provide that for as many people as I can.
I have grown up in an environment that is considerably one of the best on planet Earth, and while some people who are born into the same level, or beyond, as myself may want to go further and come out on top, unaware of the people behind them; unaware of the people they may push while they “rank supreme,” I do not. I look behind me and notice that there are people who need help, people who can go long distances with only a little hope. Instead of thinking that my community is not enough, my environment has taught me what is enough and what more people need to strive to be in.
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I Support!
Growing up I’ve never judge my mother’s being the way they are. Yet who has the right to judge someone especially when it’s your family. When it comes to gay and lesbian rights it is a very sensitive subject for me. I think if you love someone and marriage is the way to go who has the right to tell you, you can or cannot marry someone. Love is a very powerful emotion and when someone tries to ripe it away from you how can you not react? I support same sex marriage; being of the same sex doesn’t hurt those who are not gay or lesbian, its taboo in their eyes. I think we have come a long way since the 1960’s and we are the land of freedom and opportunity. Since we are the land of freedom we have the freedom to marry who we want. We should have the opportunity to marry who we want. I love my mom and step mom equally and if they are happy I am happy and I want others to be happy and not have to worry what people will think or say. I support same sex marriages!
In Uganda same sex marriage is forbidden! Homophobia is rife in many African countries. Homosexuality is punishable by death or imprisonment in Nigeria. In South Africa, the only African nation to recognize gay marriage, gangs carry out so-called "corrective" rapes on lesbians. We should be thankful this is not our country and we should be the first to make a change! We are all human and we should all have equal rights! I think it is time for some more change. Since we have come such a long way.
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The Dream Act
Making The Dream Act law simply makes sense.
The Dream Act was first introduced by Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah (who now opposes the measure) with the idea to provide people the opportunity, if under the age of sixteen when entering the United States, to become legal citizens. Those who have a GED or a high school degree, have lived in the United States for at least five years, and are younger than thirty five would be eligible for conditional legal status for six years. Within that six year period they would have had to graduate from two years of college or have served two years in the military and then they would be qualified for U.S. citizenship.
Access to education is a fundamental American value. United States law guarantees access to primary and secondary education to all children regardless of immigration status. Immigration is inevitable and furthermore, a fundamental American experience. Many families, legally and illegally, come to America daily to escape hardships and to find the opportunity for a better lifestyle. Approximately 65,000 students graduate each year from a United States high school; however, they are unable to progress in their education due to inherited title of being an immigrant (NILC). Among these students prohibited from working legally or fulfilling their education to the fullest are valedictorians, honors students, award winners, homecoming queens/kings, class presidents, and other student leaders who have proven their place in American society as, in essence, contributing citizens (NILC). The act provides college bound students to thrive despite their inherited title of being an immigrant. The legalization of the Dream Act serves as a continuous motivational factor for these students. They’re contributing Americans regardless of any legality. Students who have fully put forth their best effort in pursuing an education – as many immigrants do – could benefit America from their success.
In addition to the overall morality of The Dream Act, it also decreases the number of drop out rates of immigrant students. Foreign-born students already represent a significant and growing percentage of the current student population (America’s Voice). Children of illegal parents are more likely to drop out of high school than those who are legal (NICL). The Dream Act provides incentive and motivation for these eligible students to graduate. The Dream Act removes barriers to obtain a higher education for undocumented children who do graduate from high school. In essence, The Dream Act keeps talented students in the United States. Dismissing the overall talent that the Dream Act students obtain “imposes economic and emotional costs on undocumented students and on the U.S. as a whole” (Immigration Policy). These students, without the Dream Act or the opportunity to further invest in their education, are being robbed of their education by the United States as if the United States had no need to have a better education system. Immigrant students are only trying to get a better education and if successful, there doesn’t appear to be any downside to the United States. There is no reason for the United States to discharge of these students who can only be of benefit to the United States.
A side of The Dream Act that is often debated is the legal workforce the measure offers. In Steven Malagna’s 2006 article, “How Unskilled Immigrants Hurt Our Economy,” he claims that “America does not have a vast labor shortage that requires waves of low-wage immigrants to alleviate,” and goes on to add how the availability of cheap and low-waged workers has concluded to “businesses suspend[ing] investment in new technologies that would make them less labor-intensive.” However, a more recent report from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco points out that “immigrants expand the U.S. economy’s productive capacity, stimulate investment, and promote specialization that in the long run boosts productivity” (Immigration Policy). Moreover, these effects do not “take place at the expense of jobs for workers born in the United States” (Immigration Policy). The argument that the United States does not need these workers simply does not make sense in this case. In conclusion, it would be invalid for any employer to deny especially a low wage worker.
If Americans like Malanga are, in fact, so concerned with immigrant workers harming the economy, then why spend even more money on trying to deport the immigrants for them to only return? It is an estimated 41-94 billion dollars to locate, detain, and deport all of the some 12 million immigrants (Fears and Nizza). Rather than spending tax payers’ money to deport immigrants, it makes more sense to figure out a way to keep them in the country, legally, and still keep their hard earned money in the economy. A major contributing factor, of course, is the Dream Act, creating not only hard working citizens, but incredibly smart American citizens.
The Dream Act’s legalization then takes a dip into the idea of America’s melting pot idea. Because the Dream Act targets immigrants and their citizenship into the United States, the legislation then leads to an overall mixing in America. Legalization of this act proves as a factor that America is willing to start stirring the mixing pot rather than look at it as a negative characteristic of America. It is evident in American society that these “minorities… have acted as a powerful force in the creation of America’s self image,” further depicting immigrants’ influence upon America (Rodriguez). In short, the Dream Act allows for American’s overall acceptance of immigrants being here and, furthermore, acceptance and appreciation of their journey and progression to becoming legal citizens.
The Dream Act has proven to not only benefit their participants, but America has a whole. The legislation, if made law, allows for American culture to thrive in richness of an education system, workforce, and overall diverse culture. Despite claims of being a burden on the United States, the Dream Act has provided America with a better economy and society.
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A New Voice
You laugh and you taunt
Thinking nothing of us
Because we're not like you.
We're pushed
In the background,
Hidden away,
Thought of as bad,
Something to despair.
But we found our
Voice now,
Something you
Can't take away,
We all now will rise,
It'll be a new day.
We will fight
Your oppression,
You hate
And your greed.
Our voice will
Ring out now;
We'll get the rights
We need.
These times bring change,
We will get what we want,
What we need,
What we're fighting for.
So remember our faces,
Because you won't soon forget,
What will do
To get our rights back.
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The Happiest Place
And still
They spend
Their days standing
And standing some more
On the streets
As if they
Were waiting
-waiting for a car
of change
to pull up
and take them away.
Poor parents
Struggle with money
To feed their kids.
Struggle with money
To pay rent
For that
One-room apartment
That gets smaller
And smaller everyday
As if the parents
Did not pay the rent.
Some families get out
And move
Farther away from
The Happiest Place.
Parents say,
“I’m happy that
I got my kids away
From the bad influences.”
Am I
A bad influence?
I just live close
To the Happiest Place,
And I get to see
The fireworks from
My home,
And I get to dream,
And I get to hope,
And I get to work hard
To be able
To cross the street
To the Happiest Place.
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Reality Has Struck
Life flashed before my eyes.
One could not believe everyone and everything surrounding them
It was as if a predator sneaked up from behind and consumed the world
This was happening under their very nose
One could not grasp the thought of the problems faced in my community
One could not understand and realize the aggravation it has caused
The difference between people, thus creating barriers
Further and further destroying the life and society people have built upon
A different religion, a different race, a different opinion, a different idea
A cry for help as more conflicts arise and no one to shut down these beliefs
Separation and ideas are formed now
One must fight back to show the world everyone is not different in a bad way
Walking on the streets of the community
One must stop and think: Can this be true?
Is this what is happening behind the scenes of a gentle neighborhood
The horror, disbelief, One must stop this nonsense
One must realize the damage is done, there is no turning back
One must press on and change the biased views and stereotypes
The society works upon the people in it and working as one
One cannot look away at this problem, but face it and find solutions
This is called a society only if people acknowledge this dilemma
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Recent events have led me to question my preconceived notions as to the future of feminism. It is commonplace to believe that the newest generation is more liberal than the last, but I have noticed the opposite trend. Having attended a youth debate forum with other politically-minded teens, I have decided that my generation has a lot of learning to do when it comes to feminism and our rights and responsibilities as women.
I was almost in tears when I heard the supporting arguments in a debate titled "Should Women be Drafted?". Boys at the podium suggested that women were physically and mentally weak and not as capable as their male counterparts. I wondered briefly what century we were in; it certainly didn't seem like the twenty-first. I am a pacifist and would never want to go into combat. I will concede that many women lack the physical prowess of men. But arguments based on the premise that women are overly emotional and lack the ability to handle the strain and stress of combat cross the line of what I consider to be either fair or justified.
I thought I had heard the worst of it, and had begun silently begging a girl, any girl, to go up to the stand and defend us (I wasn't allowed to sign up, unfortunately; the debate was full). The first girl to go up, however, argued that women should not be drafted. I waited for her to cite the important role women have at the homefront, as demonstrated in wars past. She did not. She instead cited that women are nurturers and childbearers, and not cut out for war. We have a duty as mothers, as daughters, but not as protectors of the country, her argument asserted. Let the men fight. More girls followed in her place, and only one girl argued that women were equally cut out for war, and equally capable as men, especially in intelligence-based roles.
Here I had thought that I was fighting the older generations for equal rights. The fact that youth, much less politically-oriented youth, did not believe that women should have equal responsibility to their country and could not serve the same roles as men frightened me. Their arguments were not based on biological setbacks, but on societal roles that stressed the importance of women as mothers-- as soft, loving creatures not cut out for combat. If I have to be drafted to receive equal pay, equal respect, and equal dignity as a woman, I am willing to do so. I am willing to fight for women. I do not agree with all the wars the U.S. engages in, but I agree in all the wars women have fought for equality. If, as girls at the conference suggested, women had sat back and let the men do the fighting, we would have no political voice. We would not have earned our suffrage. We would not have earned the right to an abortion, and thus a right to privacy. We would not have earned the right to look men in the eye and say, "I am your equal". Women have always fought the harder battle, weakened by members of our sex who will not speak out and ignored by members of the opposite sex. If we let the men fight, there will be no one to fight for us.
On my eighteenth birthday, I will register for the draft. And should I be called into battle, should I be called to fight for my country, my war will not be the Iraq or the Afghanistan War. My war will be Feminism, and I will fight until the day I die.
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Heaven can’t shine without you Mother
Mother sits and stares out the window, and I feel her symphonic blues. It is abnormal to state that I completely understood her, perhaps unethical to say I always knew. I was moving at the speed of sound, so fast that I ironically lost her somewhere far behind. It seems I end up passing by her, or, rather forgetting about her. When she says things like:
“How was your day?” or “How was school?”
It’s like a merry-go-round sometimes, mother. I move so fast that I end up having only a moment to cross your eyes with mine. Yet days go by so slowly, the house remains empty, and it feels like winter along the white tile floor.
It’s hard sometimes to compute the silence your mind exerts. It’s even harder to notice your daily downfalls. But you carry forth with broken smiles hoping to fool someone as blind as me; over and over again. On some days it feels like a cloudless night with you, where starlight illuminates the boundaries of your sorrow. On other days it feels like-well it feels like heaven on earth to be honest about it. A day where not even the most prophetic can cry for the essence of love. But there are days preceding the twilights that give you worries, on which your world is most unclear and grim. The same world that frowns my rainbow smiles, because you are unhappy, because you are misguided of the evident truth. Truth that brings forth tears like a river down your desolate golden plains of lonesome. Salty water that makes your expressions cringe in sadness and distortion. The same water that washes down me mother, on those days which I can see you. It’s your sadness that pitter patters on my empty face, and it feels like a pianist is playing me like a fiddle; over and over again.
“It’s the truth that sets you free.” She always said.
I don’t know what it is about you mother, but it takes two to understand. I don’t know why I can’t avert my colorless eyes away from this picture I took of you, as you sat there this morning and starred outside the window silk, reminiscing of only what was before. While his breakfast sizzles within the greasy pan, and while you lay your palm against your pensive head and start to feel those gray memories. Yet somewhere beyond your autumn hills lie the truth, of why you sit there idly and just dream as the world animates in color and in sound, as the holidays come and go with grievances from empty visits. But it takes two to understand; how the bells of Christmas ring but mean nothing to you, or how the beauty of spring explodes in life of vivid colors…but mean nothing to you. Perhaps you feel like a lonely pedal, surviving against the dangers of the wind? Perhaps you feel like a solo rocket, waiting to blast into the depth of silence and serenity? It’s nine o’clock right now, rain begins to fall outside as rhythmical as your own, and you begin to sing; symphonic and melodic with absolute beauty.
But how blind must a person be to not notice your cloudy skies? How death could a person become to ignore your rapid drizzling quotation marks, that fall screaming, and weeping, and fearing from the thunder and lighting above? It becomes to me, a sense of discomfort. It makes me nervous, kind of unwanted. It condemns me to feel less of a man sitting by you in our-insignificant kitchen table. Though you never say it, I wish you would. Say everything your mind pours down when I’m not here! The stupid truth that I can not compute, because it is the most evident about you.
So let me exile away your tear drops and not care where they go. I move so fast mother, it becomes to feel like a merry-go-round sometimes. But a photo of you captures a moment that tells it all. A photo cursed in black and white that some how came back to life. It’s the music of the truth and passion of the soul that grovels beneath my skin. Hitherto give my beating engine some propellers to fly away. It is the essence of love, it is the beauty of truth! It’s the absolute realization that overwhelms me in a vibration that crescendos within my mortal being, that which tells me: heaven can’t shine without you mother. Because I now feel your symphonic, your dynamic, your incomprehensible blues ring above the heavens and the earth! From the voices of my silent armies, I’ll make sure you smile again; for the rest of your days.
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