Super Tuesday, Luskin-Style
As Super Tuesday drew to a close after 72 hours of campaign twists and turns, Public Policy students and faculty flocked to a watch party at the Luskin School for pizza and political talk. The contest for the Democratic presidential nomination as a two-man race came into focus as returns came in from across the country. In addition to weighing the merits of Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden, students talked about state and local races and the new voting centers rolled out by Los Angeles County for the March 3 primary. Many in the room wore “I Voted” stickers after casting their ballots at Ackerman Union. The crowd also included half a dozen international students who were fascinated by the political process unfolding before them. Professors Martin Gilens and Mark Peterson provided context and commentary as hosts of the event. They were joined by Associate Professor Wesley Yin and Visiting Professor Michael Dukakis, the former Massachusetts governor and 1988 Democratic nominee. Dukakis and his wife, Kitty, shared their own unique perspectives with students at the watch party.
View more photos on Flickr.
UCLA Luskin Day at L.A. City Hall Focuses on Housing
Alternative and affordable housing served as the topic of the 16th annual UCLA Luskin Day on Feb. 21 at Los Angeles City Hall. VC Powe, organizer and executive director of external programs and career services, said 15 students made the trip downtown to discuss this year’s pressing urban social policy issue with city and county leaders. During the day, co-sponsored by UCLA Government and Community Relations, graduate students from all three master’s programs met with Paul Koretz of Council District 5 and heard from Alisa Orduña, senior advisor on homelessness to Santa Monica’s city manager. The students also met with Luskin alumni and broke into teams to interview representatives of local leadership, business and nonprofit organizations that address affordable housing issues in Los Angeles. “The housing issue is definitely something that I came to the program to really try to work and understand a bit more,” said Gerrlyn Gacao, a first-year student studying urban planning. “For me, this experience is about learning first-hand from leaders that are working in the field and throughout the city.” As a first-year social welfare student, Ashley Farnan focuses on seniors. “I’m waking up to the reality of the rising rates of homelessness among seniors and the total lack of affordable housing. … I recognize that I need to be part of the policy conversation.” Associate Professor Paavo Monkkonen served as faculty advisor for the day and will work with students to provide a written memorandum on ways to fund homeless or permanent supportive housing based on the stakeholder interviews.
View more photos from the day on Flickr:
Vox Podcast Host Presents ‘Flip the Script’
Sean Rameswaram, host of Vox’s Today, Explained podcast and a UCLA alumnus, shared tales of his academic and professional journey at a Feb. 19 “Flip the Script” gathering hosted by the UCLA Luskin undergraduate program. Rameswaram discussed the power of media to effect social change and invited students to the stage to share their own experiences. Before he joined Vox, Rameswaram’s career path took him to the radio organizations CBC, NPR, PRI and WNYC, and these experiences taught him how to actualize change through media, he said. As a teenager, he felt distressed by wars launched during the George W. Bush administration and the constant bombing of brown people, he said. But he found comfort in public radio. “Here are people investigating the reasons behind this conflict. Here are people trying to have a respectful conversation with everyone involved. Here are people not trying to condition my thoughts about it, but educate me,” he said. “Public radio became a second home to me.” Now, as the host of Today, Explained, he aims to make sense of the news, especially to younger demographics. In every episode, Rameswaram and his team aim to cover an issue that impacts people’s lives, and “the subtext of every episode is vote,” he said. With this call to action, he said he hopes more people will feel inspired to enact change in their communities. — Myrka Vega
See more photos from the event on Flickr.
Anheier Leads New UC Online Journal as Editor-in-Chief
Global Perspectives, a new UC Press publication, is now live online with the first of a series of articles designed to advance contemporary social science research and debates across disciplines. Helmut Anheier, adjunct professor of social welfare at UCLA Luskin, serves as editor-in-chief of the online-only endeavor. “We start from the premise that the world that gave rise to the social sciences in their present form is no more,” Anheier said in a Q&A on the UC-based blog. Anheier, who also holds posts at Hertie School of Governance in Berlin and the Max Weber Institute at Heidelberg University, Germany, explained that the overall vision was to “assemble a group of leading scholars that together can create a significant momentum to overcome the inertia that is inherent in the rigid disciplinary and national silos.” Global Perspectives is “open to the whole thematic range of the social sciences, and in particular those phenomena that are no longer located neatly within established geographical or national boundaries, if they ever were,” Anheier wrote in the publication’s inaugural essay. The first article available is “Recoupling Economic and Social Progress” by Katharina Lima de Miranda and Dennis J. Snower. Other titles will focus on issues including trade, markets, security, the environment, media, justice, law, governance, culture, identities, technology, shifting geographies and migration. “The concepts and empirical bases needed for a profound understanding of financial flows, climate change, intellectual property rights, technological advances or migration flows are just some examples that illustrate the complexity of the research task ahead,” Anheier said.
A Migrant’s Tale of Struggle, Survival and Resistance
A conference highlighting the unique challenges of Central Americans who migrate to Mexico and the United States drew students, scholars and activists to UCLA Luskin to share knowledge and encourage more holistic and human portrayals of the refugees. The Jan. 30-31 conference featured panelists from the United States, Mexico and Guatemala, including UCLA faculty experts affiliated with the Latino Policy & Politics Initiative (LPPI), one of the event’s sponsors. Sociology Professor Cecilia Menjívar delivered opening and closing remarks at the multilingual, interdisciplinary conference. Chicana/o Studies Professor Leisy Abrego said critics of immigration reform who wonder why the United States should take responsibility for sheltering asylum seekers often fail to acknowledge that the U.S. incited much of the gang violence in Central America, specifically in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Amid negative rhetoric portraying Central Americans as criminals or helpless victims, she said, “we always erase, at least in the main discourse, the role of the United States in creating all of this.” Juan Herrera, assistant professor of geography, shared his personal experiences as a dark-skinned Latino in a community known for anti-indigenous sentiments to bring a human face to the economic, political and social struggles faced by Central American migrants. “[In] our current neoliberal economy, migrants are valued solely for their cheap labor without adequately perceiving them as human beings who construct social relationships,” he said. LPPI was one of several UCLA entities sponsoring the conference, including two student-run organizations, the Central American Isthmus Graduate Association and Union Centroamericana de UCLA. — Bryanna Ruiz and Amado Castillo
Reinvigorating the Memory of Public Housing in Los Angeles
Public housing was once a project of hope and inspiration in Los Angeles, Judy Branfman said at a Feb. 12 book talk on “Public Los Angeles: A Private City’s Activist Futures,” co-hosted by the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies and Institute for Research on Labor and Employment. Branfman, co-editor of the book of essays by scholar Don Parson and colleagues, was joined on the panel by Greg Goldin, co-author of “Never Built Los Angeles,” and Elizabeth Blaney and Leonardo Vilchis, activists-in-residence with the Institute on Inequality and Democracy. Vilchis discussed the role public housing has played in the poor people’s movement in Los Angeles, in communities like Aliso Village, where mothers developed their own systems to mitigate crime without outside policing. Vilchis and Blaney co-founded Union de Vecinos, which arose from a movement in 1996 by residents of Pico Aliso public housing projects to oppose the demolition of their homes. In the book — which includes chapters from UCLA faculty and alumni Jackie Leavitt, Mike Davis, Sue Ruddick, Dana Cuff and Edward Soja — Branfman notes that thousands of public housing units were built across Los Angeles from 1939-1953. For proponents and residents, public housing was seen as an opportunity to house the vulnerable and initiate a project of interracial community among residents. While the mission to build a movement to reinvest in the public control of housing appears to be a politically arduous task now, Blaney said, “if we keep saying things are unrealistic, they’ll never become realistic.” — Lauren Hiller
View more photos from the book talk.
Adaptability and Open-Mindedness Key to Foreign Service
Global Public Affairs at UCLA Luskin hosted representatives from the State Department and Peace Corps to discuss careers in U.S. foreign service and diplomacy. At the Feb. 13 event, UCLA’s diplomat-in-residence, Cecilia Choi of the U.S. State Department, and the Peace Corps’ Jeffrey Janis recounted their paths to foreign service and shared stories with students in attendance. The enduring theme of the discussion was the need for international public servants to remain adaptable and open-minded. Janis recounted his experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ukraine for over two years. “You need to be a proactive self-starter. You’ll show up to your site and might be told they don’t need you for two or three weeks. Things like that happen all the time.” He advised those considering a foreign service career, “Take what you’re given and make something from it. I was planning on working with nonprofits in Ukraine. Never did I think I would be teaching sign language, but an opportunity presented itself and I took full advantage.” Choi said the diversity of opportunities in the foreign service not only demands adaptability but also makes it hard to leave because there are so many interesting types of work. “I go into every post thinking it may be my last but always commit to one more because an interesting opportunity presents itself,” she said. “After concluding my time here and finishing language training, I’m headed to Beijing to represent the U.S. on trade. Maybe that’ll be my last post…” — John Danly
