UCLA researchers and student filmmakers have been working for
over a year to focus their lenses on inequality in Los Angeles.
Today and Friday, they will showcase their findings during a
two-day symposium on campus.
The collaboration is part of an effort to publicize problems
unique to Los Angeles and reach out to those who can take actions
to solve them, said Abel Valenzuela, professor of Chicana/o studies
and urban planning.
“The first and most important audience to reach is the
UCLA community ““ from students to faculty and
administrators,” Valenzuela said, adding that the symposium
would also target both local and federal officials.
Titled “Dreams Deferred, Denied, Realized: Confronting
Inequality in Los Angeles and Beyond,” the symposium will
discuss topics such as immigrant workers, the L.A. school district
and the UCLA admissions policy.
Valenzuela said he will make a presentation on inequality in
employment for immigrants in Los Angeles.
For more than 10 years he has been researching L.A. day
laborers, who wait under freeway overpasses and street corners for
their jobs.
Valenzuela said he sees the symposium as the culmination of
efforts to bring faculty research from across campus together for
collaboration.
Sociology Professor Ruth Milkman plans to make a presentation on
the immigration protests that occurred last spring in response to a
stricter immigration law that was moving through Congress at the
time, as well as the future of the debate over immigration.
Faculty contributing to the symposium come from several areas on
campus, including the UCLA School of Public Affairs, the Social
Sciences Division within the UCLA College, UCLA School of Public
Health, the UCLA Department of Social Sciences and the UCLA
Graduate School of Education and Information Studies.
The symposium will also showcase student films about
inequality.
UCLA students Babatunde Akinloye, Trashon Shallowhorn and
alumnus Sean Murphy will screen a film they produced last spring
called “Access Granted? Admissions Crisis. Here. Now.
UCLA.” The film addresses admission policies and ethnic
representation at UCLA.
The goal of their media company Str8UpNDown, which produced the
film, is to take research and present it so it is more accessible
to people who can take action, Murphy said.
“We’re trying to visualize research,” said
Murphy, who graduated this spring but is still part of the
trio’s media company.
The UCLA alumnus hopes his film inspires more student
action.
Since the film’s production, UCLA has changed its
admission policies to be more holistic, in hopes of being more
equitable to students with disadvantaged backgrounds.
But even so, Murphy said he would like to see more effort on the
part of UCLA to address the falling numbers of underrepresented
minorities admits.
“I don’t think (UCLA) is using all its
resources,” Murphy said. “People need to be more united
to take care of these problems.”
Akinloye spoke about the ailing state of the Los Angeles Unified
School District, which he attended for high school.
This summer, Gov. Schwarzenegger signed legislation giving Mayor
Villaraigosa an unprecedented amount of power to preside over
LAUSD, which has struggled to improve test scores and graduation
rates. Villaraigosa now has the power to appoint the superintendent
and fire employees and directly manage three high schools,
including the elementary and middle schools that feed into
them.
Akinloye said there is a need for the district and UCLA to
collaborate more on these issues.
“I went to L.A. Unified, which is close to UCLA, but I
don’t feel students felt that (connection) to it,”
Akinloye said. “It’s not just on UCLA to improve
things, but in order for things to change, I think UCLA needs to be
at the helm of that effort.”