Ong Weighs In on Inequity in Internet Access

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Paul Ong, research professor and director of the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge at UCLA Luskin, spoke to the Los Angeles Times about the lack of affordable and reliable internet access available to low-income communities within Los Angeles County. Data has shown that big internet providers like Spectrum, AT&T and Frontier often charge higher rates for identical internet services to high-poverty neighborhoods compared with non-high-poverty neighborhoods. “By the time our young people graduate from high school and either move to college or to the labor market, they’re severely disadvantaged because we have moved to a system where we believe access to the computer and internet and broadband is taken for granted by most people. People who don’t have that access, they are left behind,” Ong said.

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A Resource to Educate Students on the AAPI Experience

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Karen Umemoto, professor of urban planning, was cited in a Rafu Shimpo article about a $10 million grant that the UCLA Asian American Studies Center received to create resources that teachers across the nation can use to educate students about the experiences of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI). “The textbook will be the most comprehensive, scholar-informed, online history of AAPIs that redefines the American narrative and opens unlimited possibilities for building a just, multiracial and democratic future,” Umemoto said. Coming in 2023, the online platform is designed to educate students about the history of racism toward AAPI communities. It will be adjustable to educators’ teaching styles as chapters can be stand-alone and modules will be customizable for different learning formats.

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Terriquez on Lessons Learned From L.A. Scandal

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Urban planning professor Veronica Terriquez spoke to media outlets including Newsweek and USA Today about how Los Angeles can move forward after the scandal sparked by a leaked recording of racist comments by city leaders. “Civil society leaders learned a valuable lesson here, that hate speech cannot be tolerated among Latinos or any other elected officials,” said Terriquez, who directs the Chicano Studies Research Center at UCLA. She said she sees hope in the overwhelming condemnation of the bigoted comments, as well as in the rising political generation’s ability to build bridges between groups. “In Los Angeles and Orange County, you see diverse coalitions across ethnicity and race,” Terriquez said. “I think that the younger generation tends to form coalitions that are more inclusive.” She concluded, “The lessons learned from this week may pave the way for the more careful selection of leaders and inclusive representation.”

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Pierce on Preventing Water Shortages in L.A.

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Gregory Pierce, co-director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, was cited in a Los Angeles Times article about low water supplies in the L.A. region. As much of the county’s water supplies become unreliable due to less rainfall, wastewater recycling is becoming a more viable option. The Hyperion Water Reclamation Plant treats wastewater and releases it into Santa Monica Bay, but the L.A. Department of Water and Power hopes to turn it into an advanced purification facility to provide water for 2 million people by 2035. Pierce said the project is “a little bit late, obviously, but I think it will be early enough to avoid complete disaster in terms of people actually running out of water, and having to ration much more radically than we are right now.” He also pointed to San Fernando Valley groundwater as a valuable resource now that advanced technology is available to clean up polluted water.

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Segura on Misguided Assumptions About Latino Voters

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UCLA Luskin Dean Gary Segura spoke to the Los Angeles Times about shifts in Democratic campaign strategies to win the Latino vote. After the reversal of Roe v. Wade, many Democratic candidates are emphasizing abortion rights, discarding the conventional wisdom that the Latino electorate is too socially conservative to be receptive to the platform. “These incorrect assumptions have lasted for a long time, and they have been incorrect for a long time,” said Segura, who has conducted extensive polling research. Political strategists who previously concluded that predominantly Catholic Latino voters would remain staunchly opposed to abortion rights missed nuances among the electorate. While individual voters may have personal convictions against abortion, many draw the line at government intervention that curbs the rights of the people.

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Zepeda-Millán on Damage to Labor’s Influence

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A Los Angeles Times column on an L.A. labor leader’s role in the scandal that has upended city politics cited Chris Zepeda-Millán, associate professor of public policy. Ron Herrera resigned his post as leader of the L.A. County Federation of Labor after a leaked recording of a racist conversation that also involved three City Council members. Union members across the country were shaken by the recording, which undermined the labor principle that workers must stick together to ensure dignity for all. The timing of the leak, weeks before the midterm elections, also threatens voters’ trust in organized labor, one of the most powerful political players in California and the country. “With a scandal this bad, with the L.A. Federation of Labor being involved, it could really do some long-term damage,” said Zepeda-Millán, who chairs the labor studies interdepartmental program at UCLA.

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Yaroslavsky on the Scandal Shaking L.A.

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Zev Yaroslavsky, the longtime city councilman and county supervisor who now directs the Los Angeles Initiative at UCLA Luskin, spoke to several media outlets about the scandal shaking L.A. City Hall. The release of a recording that captured racist and disturbing comments by city officials is a sign that the governance system is profoundly broken, Yaroslavsky said. “I don’t think there’s been anything like this in city government since the ’30s and ’40s, the corruption heyday of Los Angeles,” he told Politico. “As much as it was a racist, racial, ethnic disparagement of everyone in town, it was more about power. It was a raw power grab,” he told the New York Times. The prospect that three members of the City Council would be forced to step down has no precedent, “but this whole crisis is without precedent,” he told the Los Angeles Times. Yaroslavsky also spoke to the Los Angeles Daily News, KCRW’s “Press Play” and KPCC’s “Air Talk.”

 

Zepeda-Millán on Labor Organizing, Activism and Scholarship

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Chris Zepeda-Millán spoke of his Boyle Heights roots, early activism in labor and anti-war movements, and inspiration to pursue a doctorate to broaden the perspectives heard in academia during an interview marking his selection as chair of the UCLA Labor Studies Interdepartmental Program. An associate professor of public policy and Chicana/o and Central American Studies, Zepeda-Millán grew up hearing about the challenging conditions his grandparents faced as garment workers and migrant farmworkers and learning about the importance of labor organizing. It was not until pursuing higher education that he would discover the connections between his family’s work, economic and social inequality, race and immigration status. In college, “for the first time in my life I was able to read books and stories that literally took place in my neighborhood,” he said. “I saw these courses as intellectual ammunition. I was learning how to defend my beliefs, to be able to call out things that I knew were wrong.”

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Loukaitou-Sideris on Benefits, Consequences of New Rail Line

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Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, professor of urban planning at UCLA Luskin, was cited in a Los Angeles Times article about how the construction of rail lines in South L.A. will serve as both a curse and a blessing to locals. While the railway system will benefit communities by de-isolating South L.A. from the rest of the city, it poses economic challenges as current residents find that increasing rent prices are driving them out of the well-established communities many grew up in. In her past studies, Loukaitou-Sideris found that census tracts closest to stations had the highest likelihood of gentrification. However, she is not opposed to the construction of the railway line. “It is not that we should not have transit stations. It is that we really need strategies for people to avoid displacement,” she said.

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A Solution to Increasing Traffic Concerns

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The Boston Globe spoke to Michael Manville, associate professor of urban planning, about the reasons traffic has remained heavy despite the widespread move to remote work during the pandemic. Manville explained that while many people are no longer commuting to work in the morning, they still have errands to run and children to drop off at school. “What really never changed was the idea in people’s heads that ‘when there is a place to go, I drive there,'” he said. A solution he suggests is pricing the roads similar to how airlines are priced to help combat increasing traffic congestion. During peak commute times like early mornings, Manville says roads should be priced higher than at late nights. He believes that, similar to water and electricity, roads are a public good but we don’t typically run out of water or electricity because they are priced.

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