By PAUL LAVERACK
EL NUEVO SOL
Bernard Hyland, a software analyst and progressive activist, visits the Occupy Los Angeles encampment, and shares his thoughts on how the Occupy movement could leverage its power with elected officials to reform the existing system, even as it seeks to make deeper, more revolutionary changes to the economic and political order.
By PAUL LAVERACK
EL NUEVO SOL
Jason, a cameraman on the Occupy LA media team, discusses the excitement and the obstacles he encountered while documenting the social movement against corporate greed, as he and hundreds of others camped on the lawn at Los Angeles City Hall for two months in the autumn of 2011.
By PAUL LAVERACK
EL NUEVO SOL
Occupy Los Angeles protestor Lucas provides a guided tour of the encampment at the City Hall lawn in downtown LA, and an introduction to several participants in the two-month-long protest against corporate greed. The tour was conducted on November 19, 2011 – eleven days before police forcibly removed the camp, arresting hundreds of protestors.
By KESS KESSLER
Guest Writer
Longtime San Fernando Valley resident and political activist Kess Kessler considers the significance of the Occupy Los Angeles for the conversation of democracy, and what it means that protestors were expelled from City Hall Park in the early morning hours of November 30, 2011.
By VIRGINIA ISAAD
EL NUEVO SOL
She has vague memories of the day her parents packed up and brought her and her sister to the U.S. One of them is her arriving at an “airport” though in reality she’d arrived to Sun Valley after crossing the border illegally at the age of three.
Growing up, Joselyn Arroyo, 29, would accompany her mother, a janitor at the time, to the KNBC studios in Burbank…
By PAUL LAVERACK
EL NUEVO SOL
Morris Griffin, a protestor at Occupy Los Angeles interviewed on Day 50 of the occupation – November 19, 2011 – demonstrates the creative nature of solutions to social problems which have emerged from the Occupy Wall Street movement.
By PAUL LAVERACK
EL NUEVO SOL
Charles Bowden, award-winning journalist and author of Murder City: Ciudad Juárez and the Global Economy’s New Killing Fields, discusses his new book about the devastation wrought by the ongoing drug war in Mexico. Bowden shares his views on a variety of pressing social and political issues, as shown in a series of video excerpts from the discussion.
By PAUL LAVERACK
EL NUEVO SOL
Kara Hill, the architect and lead project designer for the Valley Performing Arts Center (VPAC), shares insights into the history of large performance spaces, and she details many of the personal and group decisions that influenced the construction of the VPAC, which opened in 2011 on the campus of California State University Northridge.
More than a gallery, Avenue 50 Studio is a nonprofit arts organization with the purpose of inspiring intercultural understanding By YOSELIN MONTES-CASTILLO EL NUEVO SOL Avenue 50 Studio owner, Kathy Gallegos, sits at her desk surrounded by Latino and Chicano art, planning the next art exhibit. Every month, Gallegos coordinates events and invites some of the most talented Latino
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By VIRGINIA ISAAD
EL NUEVO SOL
Lizbeth, 23, had gone her entire life without questioning her status in the U.S. until applying for college when she was asked to provide a Social Security number she didn’t have. Suddenly the future she had once envisioned for herself was completely out of reach and she had to reconcile her aspirations with the limited options of an undocumented student.
By: Sabela Scalise El Día de los Muertos crossed borders and cultures in the Hollywood Forever Cementery On Oct. 22, Hollywood Forever Cemetery hosted a large festival for all ages and cultures to come and join together and celebrate Dia de los Muertos, or “Day of the Dead.” Dia de los Muertos stems from an Aztec
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By PAUL LAVERACK
POLITICAL MUSCLE
This series of videos highlights several speakers from the “RePower LA” community meeting at the Pacoima Community Center on November 5, 2011. Speakers include Ricardo De Los Santos, a DWP trainee weatherizing low-income homes for energy efficiency; Eric Garcetti, the president of the Los Angeles City Council; Kent Minault, volunteer coordinator for the Sierra Club’s “Beyond Coal” campaign; and Ron Nichols, the general manager of Los Angeles Department of Water & Power.
By PAUL LAVERACK
POLITICAL MUSCLE
During this in-depth interview with Arman Hardwick and Jason Ackerman, two undergraduate student activists at Occupy CSUN on October 13, 2011, discussion ranges across the causes of the current economic downturn, FDR and his response to the Great Depression, the excesses of capitalism, solutions offered by socialism, and the need to get corporate money out of politics.
By PAUL LAVERACK
POLITICAL MUSCLE
A tiny contingent of student activists takes up a small patch of grass on the main lawn at Cal State University Northridge for “Occupy CSUN,” on October 13, 2011. The organizers claim peak attendance of 100 students at the encampment, though as the day wears on, the number dwindles to approximately a dozen. Though CSUN is one of the fifty largest universities in the entire country, the Occupy movement is unable to gain traction here, and the encampment vanishes that same night.
By PAUL LAVERACK
POLITICAL MUSCLE
Hotel housekeepers for the Hyatt Corporation, and an official of their union, speak at a protest in front of the luxurious Hyatt Andaz hotel in West Hollywood, CA on July 21, 2011. They paint a picture of abnormally high injury rates, chronic overwork, and management that is deaf to the workers’ entreaties.
Journalist and author Juan González—co-host of “Democracy Now!”—visited California State University Northridge, as part of his book tour to promote News For All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media. The event, hosted by CSUN Latino Journalists and El Nuevo Sol, took place before an overflow crowd of faculty members and students from various departments.
By PAUL LAVERACK
POLITICAL MUSCLE
A variety of voices explain why they joined the strike against the Hyatt Andaz luxury hotel in West Hollywood, CA from September 8-15, 2011. Speakers include a housekeeper currently working at the Hyatt Andaz, as well as the union local president, a Congresswoman, a City Councilman, a member of the California Assembly, and the union’s Communications Director responding to a statement from Hyatt management.
By PAUL LAVERACK
POLITICAL MUSCLE
Listen to a series of voices from Occupy Los Angeles, during the Global Day of Action against corporate greed, as they reveal why they’ve come out to join the rest of the “ninety-nine percent” in demanding a more just, more equal system for all citizens. Interviewees include a family, a homeless street musician, young single adults, a professor from Cal State Fullerton, and the real-life inspiration for the movie, The Big Lebowski.
By PAUL LAVERACK
POLITICAL MUSCLE
A massive crowd took to the streets of downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, October 15, 2011 as the Occupy Los Angeles movement gained momentum going into its third week. The day’s events were part of a Global Day of Action against corporate greed. Occupy events took place over 1,000 cities worldwide, involving hundreds of thousands of citizens who are tired of the political and economic system favoring the super-rich, at the cost of everyone else.
By PAUL LAVERACK
POLITICAL MUSCLE
Housekeepers and their allies at the luxurious Hyatt Andaz hotel in West Hollywood, CA take part in a week-long strike, in four cities throughout the US. Elected officials from the local, state, and national levels march alongside the workers, as the labor action stretches down the block and around the clock.
