I grew up in the San Gabriel Valley. I’ve entertained the idea of moving back, but always nixed it quickly once I considered the commute to Westwood where I go to school and work. Who knows. That could change in the future, especially since public transportation from the SGV to downtown LA (I’d still have to take the MTA’s 2 line to Westwood) looks more attractive.

Foothill Transit — which serves the San Gabriel and Pomona Valleys — recently launched Silver Streak, a 60′ bus with three doors. The buses utilize the lines which travel along the 10 freeway from Montclair to Downtown Los Angeles. The buses may be nicer, but they’re also equipped with wi-fi. From Parvus’ press release:

Parvus Corporation today announced that Foothill Transit’s newly launched Silver Streak rapid transit service is now equipped with Parvus’ RiderNet‚Ñ¢ passenger Internet access solution. Running from Montclair to Los Angeles in Southern California, Silver Streak’s state-of-the-art 60′ articulated buses provide high-speed 802.11 Wi-Fi‚Ñ¢ service free of charge to customers while they travel to their destination.

Hmmm. If I could be online while commuting, my posts here would probably be less sporadic and I’d get back to people who emailed me much sooner. Oh yeah, and I’d probably do less recreational internet browsing while at work. Maybe a move back to the SGV might be a good idea.

By now, most seniors who applied to colleges and universities nationwide have received thick and thin envelopes from their “safeties” and dream schools. One of those kids is Diego, a 17-year-old senior from Southgate. He has the unenviable task of deciding between Ivy League universities and the best California has to offer. And money is not an issue since he just was awarded the coveted Gates Millennium Scholarship. Hmmm… mild winters or freezing winters?

When it comes to admissions, we focus most on the competitive, highly selective schools. One of those is UCLA. In the past year, many have decried the diversity crisis at UCLA where 103 African American students enrolled in a freshman class of approximately 4,800 students. As a result of pressure from alumni, community groups and student groups, UCLA implemented a holistic admissions process in line with UC Berkeley’s model.

The university announced in September that it was making a major shift in the way it accepted freshmen, switching to a more “holistic” approach in which all available information about a student could be considered at the same time by admissions readers. Previously, UCLA applicants’ files were divided by academic and personal areas and read by separate reviewers.

UCLA officials said the change, which takes effect for the fall entering class, would be fairer to all applicants, helping readers see them and their achievements in context. And it would make admission to UCLA more like that of other elite schools, including UC Berkeley and much of the Ivy League. (link to LA Times story on the process)

Seems like the holistic process was a good way to go. The “numbers” for freshman fall 2007 admits are out (link to UCLA press release) and they’re better than last year since more African American and Chicano/Latino students were admitted. Now, UCLA has to focus on recruiting those who were admitted through admit days in the next few weeks. Hopefully, UCLA’s loss against Florida won’t affect their decision.

To any high school seniors trying to make decisions before the May 1st deadline, good luck! I’m sure your decision isn’t as tough as Diego’s decision.

Admission figures after the jump.

These figures reflect initial data from March 26, 2007 and only include California residents.

Applied: 50,729
Admitted: 11,837 (23.3%)
Average GPA: 4.30 (4.26 for fall 2006 admits)
Average SAT: 2,007 (out of 2,400; one point higher than 2006)
Average Math SAT: 687
Average Verbal SAT: 663

African American: 392 or 3.4% (up from 249 or 2.1% in 2006)
Asian American: 4,956 or 43.1 (down from 5,390 or 45.6% in 2006)
Chicano/Latino: 1,470 or 12.8% (up from 1,403 or 11.9% in 2006)
Native American: 44 or 0.4% (51 admitted in 2006, but level remained consistent)
White: 3,791 or 33% (up slightly from 3,791 or 32.1% in 2006)

I found out about the holiday when I asked a cousin visiting from Mexico what she’d be doing for the weekend. She told me she’d be celebrating our aunt’s birthday and D√≠a del Taco today.

So, get a jump on celebrating Mexican holidays in April. Go to your nearest taquer√≠a and have a taco or dos or tres… If you don’t know where to find good tacos yet, visit Taco Hunt.

Photo by Alexander H.M. Cascone

In January I attended a meeting of the University of California Board of Regents at UC San Francisco’s Mission Bay campus. I talked to any regent who would listen about the hardships brought on by the constant fee (or tuition) increases. Since 2002, fees have increased 79% for undergraduates, 84% for graduate students (that’s me!) and up to 131% for professional students. I talked to a few regents, but those were the ones who are allies for students. Most don’t seem to get it. Would you consider $400-500 more a year that big a deal when you travel on your personal jet* to the board meetings?

Yesterday at UCLA, the regents voted 13-6 to tentatively increase fees by 7% for graduate and professional students and 10% for UC law and business students (link to LA Times story).

Regents and UC administrators argue that they need to raise fees to maintain quality and competitiveness at the 10 campuses across the system. Chris Edley, dean of the Boalt Law School at UC Berkeley, wants to increase fees at Boalt to move the law school up in the rankings from #8 to #5 (see Monday’s LA Times article on law school fees. Administrators in Oakland at the UC Office of the President downplay the fee increases by saying that low income students’ will not be burdened by the fee increase because they will get additional financial aid to cover the 7% increase.

Student activists don’t buy that argument. While the Regents ate lunch, students held a press conference outside of UCLA’s Covel Commons and voiced their opposition to the fee increases. I attended and listened to students from several UC campuses talk about how the fee increases would hurt them, their families and their peers. Students are tired of the fee increases and point out that low income students will need to work more hours and take out more in loans to cover the increasing costs. Middle income students and their families might be squeezed out by the rising costs, but are not eligible for certain forms of financial aid.

What’s more troubling is that higher education in California isn’t just becoming increasingly unaffordable for the 208,000 UC students, but also for the thousands who attend California State University Campuses. The Board of Trustees for the CSU also voted to increase fees by 10%.

It’s times like this when I miss the 90s. Back then our fees actually decreased. Now we’re lucky if our fees remain stagnant for a year or more.

*Many of the Regents are very wealthy people. Their reimbursement forms include line items for normal stuff like airfare and mileage in a personal vehicle. It also includes mileage in a personal aircraft.

[Note: photo from a rally at UC Berkeley in November 2005.]

There’s even one guy/girl out there who wrote a supposedly well-researched screed (without any citations!) on the history of the area dating back to before the arrival of the Spanish.

Turnbull Canyon was regarded as a sacred land by the natives. It was an area known as “Hutukngna”, a term that means the “night” or “the dark place,” “the place of the devil.” It was this area that was also used as the battlegrounds for many Native American wars.

The author of the “history” of Turnbull Canyon writes that once the Spaniards arrived, they slaughtered many of the indigenous people in the area. Later, large area of land in the San Gabriel Valley were disputed between John Rowland and William Workman. When Workman lost most of his land after the US-Mexico war he committed suicide.

In the twentieth century, the area was supposedly home to a cult that kidnapped and sacrificed the poor children of Depression-era residents. There was also an insane asylum in the area where patients were inhumanely treated. Finally, there was a plane crash in 1952 in Turnbull Canyon. All 29 people aboard the plane died.

There are tons of rumors about the area and they’ve been spread for many years. Some say Satanists hold rituals in the windy canyons. Others say the KKK holds meetings there. And still others warn that you should just stay away late at night.

Is any of this true?

Well, yes and no. It all depends on who you ask. Many say they’ve hiked and explored the canyon. They say they’ve found the old insane asylum and seen a body of a man hanging from the “hanging tree”. Others say they’ve never seen it. No one admits to seeing any sort of occult activity, but in a San Gabriel Valley Tribune article on the legend of Turnbull Canyon, a ranger admitted to finding a bowl with chicken bones. A member of a MySpace group dedicated to the area wrote out a rumor checklist.

Cult activity~ No signs of any sort of cult activity… but then again what sort of organized cult groub would leave behind tale tell evidence behind? Satanic graffitti does not count since mostly high school heavy metal kids leave that crap behind.

Most of what I found online about Turnbull Canyon were eye-witness accounts of someone who went up to the area in high school or lived nearby. I’m an academic-in-training, I need real proof.

I searched Lexis-Nexis and didn’t find much on Turnbull Canyon. I did find news about wildfires in the summer of 1989 which destroyed 13 homes valued at $300-$1 million. More recently, the badly decomposed body of Amber Lee Hill was found in January.

A search dog found her remains, which were wrapped in plastic, about noon on Wednesday under a bush in Turnbull Canyon, down an embankment near Colima Road between Mar Vista Street and Hacienda Boulevard. Her body was found in a section of the wildlife area that had not been searched previously, said Jason Zuhlke of the Whittier Police Department. (link)

A few weeks later a burned corpse was found after a weekend fire. The corpse was that of a man in his 20s to 30s. The body was so badly burned that firefighters initially identified it as a mannequin. The fire occurred on the side of Turnbull Canyon Road, south of Blue Sky Road in Hacienda Heights.

The most chilling event in the area was the October, 2002 murder of 17-year old Gloria Gaxiola.

Gloria Gaxiola was dragged by a car four miles through Hacienda Heights and dumped on a busy street where a passer-by later found her body…

At first, it appeared that Gaxiola was a hit-and-run victim. But the evidence proved otherwise. Officers followed a blood trail.

Detectives believe Gaxiola was killed on Turnbull Canyon Road and Skyline Drive then dragged to Hacienda Boulevard near Colima Road, where she was found facedown Oct. 12, 2002.

They declined to say whether she was already dead when the car started dragging her.

A driver saw a late model, silver four-door car with tinted windows dragging something on Hacienda Boulevard that morning. As he approached the car, the man realized it was a body.

“He honked at the car and said they were dragging someone,’ said sheriff’s Detective Toni Martinez.

A man was driving the silver car, which stopped.

The car’s passenger, a woman, got out, screamed and got back in the vehicle, Angelina Gaxiola said. The silver car then sped away. (link)

Unfortunately, Gloria’s murder remains unsolved. I still can’t get out of my head the memories from the morning when my sister and I came upon the coroners trucks on Hacienda Boulevard only to find out a few days later what happened there (I wrote about it at my blog).

According to another San Gabriel Valley Tribune article on the legend of Turnbull Canyon, Gaxiola’s murder is “characteristic of the types of violence in the canyon methodical brutality.”

“It used to be a good place to execute people, dump bodies off, and for stolen cars,” said Los Angeles County firefighter Forrest Philips, who has worked 13 years out of Station 91 on Turnbull Canyon Road.

Philips remembers two teenage gang members executing a rival gang member in the canyon about eight years ago.

Every few years, a person is killed or a body is dumped down Turnbull’s crinkled ravines.

Since 1995, four murders have taken place at, or have been connected to, Turnbull Canyon, according to statistics from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

In some cases, killers take the extra step of torturing their victims, as in the case of one man who gouged out the eyes of an other man before killing him (link).

Conclusion: really scary shit happens in Turnbull Canyon. Is it the work of Satanists? Maybe, but probably not. As for me, I’ll stick to taking Hacienda Blvd and Colima Road to get to Whittier from Hacienda Heights. It’s certainly better than the sharp turns of Turnbull Canyon Road.

Photo by Ark Spurting Blood

More Top 25 legends

Updated 3/6: The LA Times relented and La Cucaracha will be back starting Wednesday March 7th. See extended entry for more.

Lalo Alacaraz is mad. His strip, La Cucaracha was cut from the LA Times “without so much as an explanation.” Gustavo Arellano has his back and is raising a well-deserved stink at the OC Weekly Blotter. Arellano notes that keeping La Cucaracha should be more than about meeting a quota in the comics section.

But fuck affirmative action: the strip is funny (we’ll never forget the one or two strips dealing with Paris Hilton’s Mexican relative, Fresno). What’s more boggling is that the Times deported Lalo while keeping creaking gabacho favorites like Crankshaft and Rex Morgan, MD and unfunny tripe like Dennis the Menace and that weird one with the kid that doesn’t talk.

Kevin Roderick at LA Observed notes the irony of the Times cutting La Cucaracha in light of the papers’ most recent strategy to attract more Latino readers (more on the Times’ historical relationship with Latinos by Daniel Hernandez link. Roderick also notes some other changes to the comics pages. The Times also cut Mallard Fillmore, Candorville and Mr. Boffo.

I’m mad too. I’ve been following Lalo Alcaraz since I first got my hands on a copy of the LA Weekly as a college freshman, which publishes his weekly editorial comics. I was excited to see the daily strip. It was a great compliment to Aaron McGruder’s The Boondocks (on permanent hiatus?). Seeing La Cucaracha was like finding my first book written by a Chicana/o author when I was in grade school. It was empowering that someone outside my home and community was talking about issues relevant to me in a way that actually celebrated yet gently critiqued my culture. I soon discovered Pocho “Aztlan’s numero uno source for satire y chingazos.”

If you want to tell the Times that you’re upset, here’s the info:
Los Angeles Times Readers’ Representative Office
E-mail: readers.rep@latimes.com
Telephone message line: (877) 554-4000
Fax: (213) 237-3535
Postal mail: 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012

Alcaraz asks that you cc him if you send an email (laloalcaraz AT yahoo dot com).

Updated 3/6
The LA Times relented and La Cucaracha will be back on the comics page. The note to readers:

“La Cucaracha,” one of several comics dropped this week as part of a shift in The Times’ daily and Sunday print edition feature lineup, is returning to The Times’ daily comics pages starting Wednesday. We decided to bring it back after hearing from so many of our readers who follow the comic strip loyally. “La Cucaracha” will return to our Sunday pages starting March 25 (link).

That’s not the case with Greg Graffin currently teaching Life Sciences 1 (evolution, ecology & biodiversity) to a few hundred freshman and sophomores at UCLA this quarter. Graffin fronts Bad Religion and has been balancing science and music for many years. The Daily Bruin profiled him today:

Listen in on one of Greg Graffin’s lectures and you’ll encounter an eloquent, soft-spoken man. The life science professor might even crack a joke here or there, keeping his audience captivated as he delves into the mysteries of evolution, ecology and the diversity of life.

It’s hard to believe that this same man fronts Bad Religion, the band widely known as the “Godfathers of Punk.”

“I get a lot less sleep than most people,” Graffin said. “Of course, there are a lot of people – researchers on campus, who are living in their labs and accomplishing a great deal, and doctors who are always on call – these are people just as productive as me, except my other half of productivity goes into music and songwriting.”

The UCLA graduate decided to return to his alma mater to teach Life Science 1 while recording the as-yet-untitled 14th album with his band. (link)

Photo by Dead End Girl.

March 2nd is the deadline in to apply for initial awards in California by submitting the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.

March 2nd is the most important date to remember. This is the deadline for the Cal Grant Entitlement and Competitive programs. In order to qualify for the Cal Grant A & B Entitlement Awards, Cal Grant A & B Competitive, and the Cal Grant C you must have your FAFSA and the GPA Verification form (with school certification) postmarked no later than March 2nd (link).

However, students attending community colleges have until September 2nd to submit applications to get the Community College Cal Grant Award.

Tell your friends, little sister/brother or neighbors!

Did other theme parks jump on the anti-immigrant bandwagon? I’m not sure. However, 13 years later amidst talks of 700-mile border walls and comprehensive immigration reform it seems as if another LA-area theme park has got it right.

[More on Universal Studios' efforts to accomodate Spanish speaking visitors and their dollars after the jump.]

Universal Studios, or at least their marketing department, knows better than to alienate immigrants and visitors from Latin American. Check out these Spongebob and Spiderman mugs at Universal Studios. I’m not surprised to see Juan and Jos√© mugs, since those are common names. But Josefina? And Jorge? Or what about Cuca (nickname for Refugio)?

I wonder what Gustavo Arellano would say about this in light of his recent ¬°Ask A Mexican! column on Mexican nicknames.

He began by saying that if only 0.5% of 1% of the Latino population supported Tia Chucha’s, it would not be closing. He pointed out how WE as Raza are responsible to never give up our dreams/spaces. As he scolded us, I went into my head and remembered other spaces we have lost: The Peace and Justice Center, Midnight Special Books, Arroyo Books, The Centro Regeneracion/Popular Resource Center, Cafe Luna Sol, The Aztlan Cultural Arts Foundation, The South Central Farm, and so many others I may not have even heard about. (link).

Co-founder and writer Luis J. Rodriguez noted that the event, although successful in meeting its fundraising goals, was rather melancholy.

Remember–we are not closing down. We are not dying. We are only going through a transitional period. We will create an even better, bigger, and more phenomenal space in the Northeast Valley–perhaps two or three years from now. (link)

I really hope Rodriguez is right. We really can’t afford to lose another space where we gained knowledge and cultural affirmation.

[Note: Daniel Hernandez, weighed in a few weeks ago in the LA Weekly]