Daily Bruin – Page 112

The Copy Shop: Why hyphenation of dual heritage terms has been a point of contention in newsrooms

Welcome to the Copy Shop – the platform for members of Daily Bruin Copy to rant about the Oxford comma, discuss sensitivity in mass media and attempt to generally demystify the mind-boggling and all-too-misunderstood world of the copy editor.

At the end of March, The Associated Press once again shook the world of copy editing to its core with the announcement of new revisions to AP style.

The percent sign is now AP-approved. Compound modifiers no longer need hyphens. Data is now only a singular.

But one change, in particular, caused a lot of debate at the Daily Bruin Copy desk – the decision to remove the hyphen from terms indicating dual heritage. For example, where there once was a hyphen between “Asian” and “American” in the term Asian American, AP style now asks that it be there no more.

Though the fact that some people can get worked up about this small decision to hyphenate or not can seem confusing to some, it allows us to look into one’s personal identity, what it means to people to be American, and the United States’ long and contentious history of how newcomers should integrate into American society.

Back during the major waves of immigration into the U.S. during the 19th century, much like today, there was considerable anxiety in some corners of American society about the increasing numbers of immigrants coming into America and how these new immigrants would integrate into society. Immigrants and their children would become the subject of nativist political rhetoric, with one of the more common charges against them being that they were “hyphenated Americans.”

With new immigrants being incorporated into urban political machines, typically centered around ethnicity, nativists started to fear that increasing immigration would start to harm the future of American democracy. Politicians such as former Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson also started to adopt the term “hyphenated American” as part of nativist rhetoric, especially as the U.S. started to move into World War I, with so-called hyphenated Americans being accused of “not an American at all” and “(carrying) a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this republic whenever he gets ready.”

These accusations of dual loyalty and anti-Americanism started to lead immigrant organizations to drop the hyphen in their names, especially in runup to World War II, with the Japanese American Citizens League choosing to not use the hyphen because it did not want to give the idea that Japanese Americans might be disloyal as tensions between the U.S. and Japan increased.

To this day, that legacy of nativism and anti-immigrant sentiment around the hyphen has informed the decisions by many journalist associations of people of color to ditch the hyphen when it comes to descriptors of dual heritage, with Asian American Journalists Association, in particular, citing Theodore Roosevelt’s 1910 speech as an example of why the hyphen might be pejorative.

Of course, history isn’t the only reason there’s been a tide against the hyphen. Identity also plays a major role, with some saying that the hyphen implies a split identity, that people identify as being both American and from their country of origin. Under this rationale, removing the hyphen allows for the country of origin to just be another adjective used to describe the type of American is – no different from being a college-educated American, a liberal American or any other type of descriptor one could use.

There have been several arguments in favor of using the hyphen – for some recent immigrants and their descendants, the hyphen can help them from having to feel like they have to disregard what they might consider to be an integral part of their identity. Instead of having to choose between one nationality or another, the hyphen allows for compromise and recognizes the complexity that sometimes comes with immigrant identity.

For some, the hyphen is also a symbol of American inclusion, that Americans are accepting of other cultures and that you don’t have to lose your other national identities in order to feel like an American.

Much like a lot of other style rules, news and professional organizations remain divided on whether to use the hyphen or not. While the AP, the Chicago Manual of Style and the Los Angeles Times have decided to drop the hyphen, others like The New York Times and Wall Street Journal continue to keep it on.

Ultimately, the Daily Bruin decided to follow the lead of the AP and leave the hyphen to the past, but it still remains one of the more contested style rules in newsrooms.

Op-ed: UC tuition hikes hurt prospective out-of-state and international students

“Education is our passport to the future,” Malcolm X famously said.

Similarly, George Washington Carver remarked that education is a key to “unlock the golden door of freedom.”

Ostensibly, without education, one has no future and no prospects to freedom. Nevertheless, education in the United States is quickly becoming wholly unaffordable, and many students are forced to deal with an incomprehensible dilemma: to skip meals regularly, take on full-time jobs, and surrender to the tyranny of rising tuition prices, or give up altogether, and lose their freedom and futures.

While UCLA is comparatively more affordable – for the quality of education it provides – than most private institutions, nonresident students still have to pay up to a whopping $65,000 a year to attend. This includes out-of-state, international and undocumented students not under the protection of California Assembly Bill 540.

In addition to this exorbitant price tag, nonresidents are also often treated as cash cows for the University of California. The Board of Regents has come to rely on these students as the subsidizers for resident students, and annual, yet unpredictable, tuition increases have become a mainstay for this community – some of whom have to deal with financial uncertainties in their home countries because of currency fluctuations.

Perhaps, this may have been a willing sacrifice that nonresidents chose to make. Nonetheless, one probably can be certain these nonresident students did not choose UCLA with the knowledge that tuition prices would increase almost annually, and that this may happen again next month when the regents meet at UC San Francisco to vote on the nonresident tuition hike they delayed voting on in March.

The phrase “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is parroted frequently as the defining and inalienable identity of America. Yet voting to hike tuition prices threatens to alienate the many nonresident students who contribute to the diversity of the UC’s campuses. The UC has consistently asserted its commitment to diversity, but hiking tuition boxes out certain communities from even entering campus – an epitome of hypocrisy.

Put bluntly, just as the White House wishes to build a wall to block “illegal immigrants,” the UC is also building a tuition wall that blocks nonresidents. The UC has repeatedly claimed it has no other option because of disinvestment from the state government. But how can California support more open borders yet simultaneously close off its schools?

The irony is befuddling and demoralizing.

And as in previous years, nonresident students are forced to wait with trepidation about whether the regents will indeed decide to increase tuition costs. If the tuition is to increase, some may be incapable of continuing their education. Dreams will literally shatter for some, but the regents don’t seem cognizant of this.

That exclusion restricts the UC’s many current and prospective international students to a future without educational freedom. And it would come from a state that, on one hand, claims to fight for justice and equality, but on the other, spits on individuals who are unable to afford to follow the rules of the system.

If the regents increase tuition fees next month, they must accept responsibility for being complicit in taking away the future and freedom of many. It would send a message that the UC’s motto, “fiat lux,” is a light that only a select few can celebrate.

Ang is a member of the Undergraduate Students Association Council General Representative 1 office, and a third-year political science student.

With elections lightly contested, USAC holds cordial debate

Student government candidates defended their platforms but made a point not to criticize each other at their annual debate.

The Undergraduate Students Association Council held its annual candidate debate Thursday night. The 16 candidates running for the 2019-2020 council said they wanted to make USAC more transparent and increase outreach to the student body.

Of the 15 council positions, only three are contested. An additional three have no candidates running at all. The presidency is the most highly contested, with three candidates vying for the position. Last year, eight people ran for the seat.

Robert Watson, current internal vice president and independent candidate running for president, said he thinks the office can improve on its appointment process and its outreach to students.

Millen Srivastava, an independent candidate running for president, said her experience within the Office of the President for the past three years will help her guide the office while bringing a fresh perspective to the council.

Furkan Yalcin, an independent candidate running for president, said his experience in the comedy club Shenanigans has equipped him with outreach skills. He added he thinks he would bring a true outsider’s perspective to the role.

“There’s no one fresher than me,” Yalcin said.

This is the first year USAC will have an an international student representative. The position was created in 2018 as part of a referendum that passed with a vote of 81%.

Shahamah Tariq, an independent candidate running for international student representative, said she wants to address food and housing insecurity that international students face.

The candidates running for the Academic Affairs commissioner position both said they are in favor of removing standardized testing from the university admission process.

Naomi Riley, an AAC candidate who is running under the For the People slate, touted her two years of experience within the commission. She said she aims to stipend all student Academic Senate positions.

Riley was appointed to the Academic Senate by the current Academic Affairs commissioner, and is a member of the Committee on Teaching.

Oscar Macias, the independent candidate running for AAC, said his platforms center around accessibility and transparency. He added he would not criticize Riley directly because he believed it would play into a common institutional problem which pits people of color against one another.

The Student Wellness commissioner position is in contention for the first time in several years. Both Ty Pearson and Mihika Sridhar are seeking the position.

Of all the candidates running for contested positions, Pearson and Sridhar were the only ones to directly criticize one another or each other’s platforms.

Sridhar said she thought Pearson’s platform was visionary, but not feasible to accomplish in one year. Pearson said he thought his ideas were radical and could create positive change in USAC.

Sridhar is running with an endorsement from the SWC office after she was internally elected by her office last quarter. In response to Pearson’s comment that she “did not exist outside SWC,” Sridhar listed her positions in other campus organizations and efforts while highlighting her own long-standing experience within the commission.

Pearson said he is running to push SWC to better represent low-income students. He added he thinks the commission is not political enough, which he believes is required in addressing intersectional health problems.

Voting for the 2019-2020 council begins Monday and ends May 3.

UCLA study suggests vitamin D may be a safe, seizure-minimizing epilepsy treatment

Vitamin D may help reduce the frequency of seizures in epilepsy patients, according to a recent study from UCLA.

Researchers in the lab of Christopher DeGiorgio, a professor of neurology, found that epilepsy patients experienced moderately fewer seizure episodes after taking vitamin D pills. The study serves as the first step toward assessing whether vitamin D supplements may be a valid treatment for reducing seizures in epilepsy patients, DeGiorgio said.

Current drugs used to treat epilepsy have negative side effects, like depression or osteoporosis, prompting the need to develop safer treatments, said Ashley Curtis, a third-year neuroscience student and co-author on the study.

Previous animal studies have shown that vitamin D could reduce the duration and severity of seizures, DeGiorgio said. These results suggest vitamin D might play a role in alleviating the symptoms of epilepsy. However, many epilepsy patients are vitamin D deficient, he added.

The first step in assessing whether vitamin D is a potential treatment for epilepsy is to determine the safety of high vitamin D doses, DeGiorgio said. Researchers administered an oral vitamin D supplement to nine epilepsy patients once per day for 12 weeks and monitored their health.

After six weeks of vitamin D supplements, the vitamin D levels of most patients rose from insufficient to healthy levels. Common measures of health, like blood pressure, remained normal for all patients during the entire course of study, suggesting that vitamin D supplements had no obvious toxic effects. Seizure frequency decreased by about 27%, from a median of 5.2 to 3.6 seizures per month after the six-week treatment, according to the study.

This modest reduction may be because of a small sample size and high variability between the severity of the epilepsy of each patient, Curtis said. One patient, for example, had one seizure a month before vitamin D supplementation but had no seizures when taking the vitamin D supplementation, she said. While the patient did improve, such a small effect is difficult to accurately assess, she added.

Nonetheless, the study demonstrates the safety of vitamin D supplements and their potential effectiveness in preventing seizures, DeGiorgio said. He said he will test the supplements on more patients to further prove their effectiveness.

Once this is done, his laboratory will validate their results with independent researchers and work with the Food and Drug Administration to make vitamin D a recognized treatment for epilepsy, he said.

“Showing a beneficial effect (of vitamin D in a randomized clinical trial) allows other physicians to consider prescribing it,” DeGiorgio said.

UCLA researchers discover cost and time efficient method to recycle water

UCLA researchers designed a water vapor capture system that could purify industrial wastewater and agricultural runoff three times more efficiently than existing methods.

The study, published in the April issue of Science Advance, was led by Yongho Sungtaek Ju, a mechanical and aerospace engineering professor. Ju said he was initially awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation to create a system to cool power plants with dry air instead of fresh water. This system also happened to be efficient at collecting water vapor from the air and was later adapted for this purpose, Ju said.

The modified system, known informally as a multistring dehumidifier, runs water droplets downward along porous strings while funneling air upward. Abolfazl Sadeghpour, a mechanical engineering graduate student and co-lead author of the study, said the water droplets collect water vapor from the surrounding air as they travel down the strings.

“Each of these droplets actually works as one snowball, flowing down and absorbing all the vapor around it,” Sadeghpour said.

Sadeghpour said other dehumidifying systems that do not use strings are less efficient because the water droplets fall 10 times faster, giving them less time to collect water vapor. The use of numerous strings in close proximity allows the multistring dehumidifier to collect approximately 95% of the humidity in the air, Sadeghpour said.

“The problem is that the droplets are really fast … so those droplets don’t have time to capture the humidity around. But if you use a string, then you can capture them,” Sadeghpour said.

During early development, Sadeghpour said he and his colleagues were unable to identify a material for the strings that would allow the water droplets to flow down symmetrically. Then, they noticed that the porous nature of spiderwebs served as an effective model.

“We saw that spider webs can actually produce that really (symmetrical) drop of water around … (the) spider web , so the idea came from that. (We) actually use these porous fibers, similar to cotton fibers,” Sadeghpour said.

Navid Dehdari Ebrahimi, a co-author and mechanical and aerospace engineering graduate student, said the researchers also had trouble finding a suitable computer simulation to predict the device’s efficiency. The simulations were needed to predict how much water vapor could be captured based on the spacing of the strings.

“Especially in fluid mechanics, it is usually difficult to get a very exact match in the computer … and that was what we were looking for,” Ebrahimi said. “That was actually one of the biggest problems, the biggest challenges that we had.”

In addition to producing more efficient results, Sadeghpour said the multistring dehumidifier is more affordable in both manufacturing and operation. Many dehumidifying systems use cool, metal surfaces to condense water from pressured air, and Sadeghpour said the cost of metal sheets and high-powered fans give these systems a much greater overall expense.

“The only operational costs for (the multistring dehumidifier) is the airflow, one thing needed for all different devices,” Sadeghpour said. “It’s totally made of polymers and string, (and) they’re really cheap compared to metal surfaces.”

Ju said the multistring dehumidifier could potentially be used to alleviate California’s water crisis by aiding desalination, a procedure often used to remove impurities from seawater. Desalination mechanically replicates the natural rain cycle by evaporating untreated water, such as seawater, and then condensing the purified water vapor droplets. Ju said the device has a versatile range of uses due to its simplified design and portability.

“We have a lot of wastewater that we don’t use and just simply discharge into the river, and ultimately into the ocean,” Ju said. “We can treat that (water) and we can recycle that to maybe use in agriculture and other applications.”

In the U.S., approximately 39% of fresh water is used to cool the systems of power plants, Sadeghpour said. From that 39%, 3% is evaporated into the atmosphere annually. Sadeghpour said the multistring dehumidifier could be built on a larger scale to recycle some of that evaporated water.

“That’s a number that could provide for a couple million people … so to stop that, we can actually recapture this water,” Sadeghpour said.

Westwood Connect Day provisions homeless individuals, sponsored by NWWNC and WWNC

Westwood and Los Angeles community groups and government organizations connected homeless individuals with needed services at an event Wednesday.

Westwood Connect Day, held at the Westwood Recreation Center, featured over 40 city, state, county and nonprofit organizations that provided free services such as food, haircuts and clothing to homeless individuals. The event, the first to be held in Westwood, connected approximately 140 people to these resources.

The event was co-sponsored by several local government groups and officials, including Mayor Eric Garcetti and Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Koretz, who represents Council District 5, which includes Westwood and its surrounding areas. Similar events were recently held in Encino and Los Feliz.

The issue of homelessness is too large for any one group to tackle, said Alison Simard, director of communications for Koretz’s office.

“We’re grateful for the services that are there,” Simard said. “It’s the coordination that’s tough. So when you have a center connect day like this it does help because it gives people a central place to go.”

Among the many services, attendees could get birth certificates and library cards, take showers and “shop” for donated clothes, including professional attire. Empowered Gifts, a project to help empower women through handbags and career assistance, offered a large selection of bags for homeless women and girls. Operation Blankets of Love, an animal welfare and emergency relief nonprofit, provided leashes and other supplies to homeless individuals and their pets.

Representatives from both the Westwood Neighborhood Council and the North Westwood Neighborhood Council worked together to set up the event. Students and other Westwood community members voted to subdivide Westwood in 2018, creating the NWWNC council due to differing views on community issues and representation.

Andrew Lewis, chair of the NWWNC budget committee, said despite the recent and contentious subdivision, both councils are coming together to address the issue of homelessness.

“Homelessness is one of those issues that goes beyond politics. It’s a priority for all of us,” Lewis said. “It has been a unifying issue of sorts.”

Lewis said the NWWNC aims to build bridge housing in the Village, which would provide temporary housing to homeless individuals until they find permanent housing. The council also contributed $1,500 to the event.

Lisa Chapman, president of the WWNC and co-chair of the Westwood Homeless Count, said she thinks residents of affluent areas like Westwood have a responsibility to help marginalized groups like the homeless.

“(I find) that a lot of times people say, ‘I want this situation to go away but I’m not really willing to help make that happen,’” Chapman said. “I feel a sort of responsibility that groups like the WWNC should be more involved in finding solutions to these issues.”

Chapman said she hopes the event will raise awareness of homelessness in the community. Chapman said the council aims to address homelessness by creating a permanent “street team” consisting of medical professionals who would directly provide services to homeless individuals. The WWNC donated $3,000 to the event and assembled hygiene kits with shampoo and other toiletries.

Josh Trifunovic, owner of Rocco’s and member of the NWWNC, said he wished more UCLA students would participate in events like Westwood Connect Day, and that he thinks holding future events closer to campus would increase student participation.

Chantelle Eastman, chair of the NWWNC homelessness committee, said she wishes Westwood would hold more events like Westwood Connect Day and that they could receive more funding from the city and county government for these events. Eastman said she wished the event could have received funds from Measure H, a county sales tax that funds mental health, substance abuse treatment, housing, education and other services for homeless individuals.

“We need to have this more frequently, from a monthly to weekly event,” Eastman said. “We’re looking at how can we do this without them.”

Individuals at the event said they appreciated the wide variety of services provided.

Julio Carrera initially came to the event to get vaccinations for his dog, but brought his father, who lives in his car, once he saw the number of services available. His father was able to get an identification card through the Los Angeles Homeless Housing Authority, which will help him obtain other services, Carrera said.

Virginia Bustamante, who lives in her car in Venice with her three dogs, heard about the event from her lawyer with Bet Tzedek, a free legal service that tabled at the event. She said she was happily surprised by the number of services available. Bustamante said the highlight of her day was socializing with volunteers and other attendees.

“I’m treated and spoken to like a normal human being, and not like someone who’s less than. It just lit me up,” Bustamante said. “I cannot tell you how happy I am.”

Track and field readies for USC-UCLA dual meet as throwers look to make history

The Bruins will add another chapter to their rivalry with the Trojans this weekend.

UCLA’s track and field team will travel to Cromwell Field and Loker Stadium at USC on Sunday to compete in the annual UCLA-USC dual meet. UCLA’s men’s team is currently ranked No. 21 in the nation to USC’s No. 8, while UCLA’s women’s team is ranked No. 24 to USC’s No. 4.

“This is a track meet where we can come together as a team and compete for the letters on our chest,” said redshirt senior sprinter Leon Powell. “Having the opportunity to win together and work together is what this meet means to me.”

In the all-time series, USC’s men’s team holds a 43-41 advantage over UCLA since 1934 – as the Trojans won the event in first 32 meets between the two teams. UCLA has won 41 out of the last 52 matchups between the two schools in recent history.

“I think that the potential we have is really exciting,” Powell said. “We’re a really young team, but we have really good talent. Once we put all the pieces together, we’ll start seeing results.”

On the women’s side, UCLA holds a 21-13 advantage over USC – though the Trojans have won the last five meets. Redshirt senior thrower Ashlie Blake thinks the Bruins can reverse that trend this season.

“Over the last five years we’ve gotten closer and closer to beating them. I just want to feel what it feels like to beat them this year, and I think we can do that,” Blake said. “We need to show LA and USC that UCLA is a team to be reckoned with and that we can beat them.”

In director Avery Anderson’s second year with the UCLA program, both teams are already showing growth. Last year, the Bruins sent four and three athletes to the men’s and women’s NCAA outdoor championships, respectively. This year, those numbers have risen to 14 and five individual competitors, respectively, with several more athletes within 15 spots of the top-48 qualifying mark.

“I want people to stay motivated and enthusiastic,” Blake said. “Usually, the last of anything is difficult because you can see the finish line. Instead of letting up, though, it’s time to hit the gas pedal because our last four meets are the most important meets and it starts with USC.”

The men’s and women’s throwing teams have combined to post more than 30 top-3 finishes in the shot put, discus, hammer throw and javelin.

Redshirt senior thrower Dotun Ogundeji is ranked No. 3 and No. 9 in the men’s shot put and discus, respectively, and sophomore thrower Alyssa Wilson is ranked No. 1, No. 2 and No. 13 in the women’s shot put, hammer throw and discus, respectively.

“We can do something pretty big this year,” Ogundeji said. “We could go to the national championship and score the most points as a throw squad in NCAA history, which is our ultimate goal as a squad.”