Nick Haffner said the best piano teachers are those who can pass their passion on to their students. The first-year undeclared student started Nick Haffner’s Piano Academy his junior year of high school in his hometown of Renton, Washington. The academy has a staff of three teachers, including Haffner, and offers private piano lessons for […]
Author Archives: Sidra Rashid
Second Take: Lena Dunham’s white feminism ignores intersections of race, sexuality
Telling people you wished you had an abortion is unacceptable. So is outing your sister to your parents, and then again in the public eye, not to mention equating Jewish men to dogs. These are all things Lena Dunham, creator and actress of the HBO show “Girls,” has done. The amount of praise and notoriety […]
Actress Diane Guerrero to speak on undocumented immigrants, new memoir
Diane Guerrero was 14 when her family was taken from her. She came home from a day of high school to find her house empty, her undocumented family members having been taken by immigration services. Guerrero eventually learned her parents and older brother were deported to Colombia. She, as a citizen and a teenager, relied […]
Bruin Bhangra dance team celebrates South Asian culture, teamwork
The Bruin Bhangra team glowed with sweat and smiles after an intense three-hour practice of squatting, jumping and leaping. “Bruins on three!” said co-captain Guransh Singh after concluding a seven-and-a-half minute run-through of the fast-paced dance. The set is their closing number for their upcoming Punjabi competition, Reign of Bhangra, in Tacoma, Washington on Saturday. […]
UCLA alum founds Sharpe Suiting to sell gender non-conforming suits
Five-year-old Leon Wu would sneak into his father’s closet and try on his business clothes. “When I was a little girl, because I identify as transgender … I was always trying to find ways to make myself more masculine,” said the UCLA alumnus, who graduated in 2000. Wu later studied economics at UCLA, and went […]
Documentary short film screening highlights Native American stories
Most of the time of the time that Sky Hopinka is on a road trip, he says he has a camera with him. He used his latest footage of beautiful landscapes to help him create his most recent documentary short, “Jáaji Approx.” The UCLA American Indian Studies Center, in collaboration with the Sundance Institute, is […]
Art exhibit celebrates history of Boyle Heights neighborhood
Alan Leve counted the bumper stickers for presidential candidates Franklin Roosevelt and Alfred Landon while he was a child growing up in Boyle Heights in the 1930s. He frequently visited a soda shop that served ice cream cones shaped like volcanoes. “It was a warm friendly environment – people cared about each other,” said Leve, […]