Adolfo Guzman-Lopez
is an arts and general assignment reporter on LAist's Explore LA team.
Published March 5, 2024 5:00 AM
Students at UCLA on the Janss steps.
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Ashley Balderrama
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LAist
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Topline:
Parents want more transparency out of college admissions decisions. Colleges and universities say they need to be more transparent, too. But that's easier said than done.
Why it matters: Many calls for transparency come from applicants and their families after they’ve been denied admission, even when the credentials are strong.
Why now: Many schools, including the University of California system, begin notifying students this month about whether they're getting in.
It's going to be fine: Applicants to selective schools mostly end up at good colleges. And here’s an even lesser known data point, one that undermines the argument that higher education is slowly closing its doors to qualified applicants: This Pew study found that most colleges and universities end up admitting “most of the people who apply to them.”
The prestigious University of California system begins to inform hundreds of thousands of applicants this month whether they’ve been admitted for the fall semester. Many other colleges have already done so. Some students’ dreams of college admission will be fulfilled, others shattered ... and most students will find a campus to enroll in.
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I Didn't Get Into My Dream College. What Did I Do Wrong?
Yet this time of year is also the time when applicants and their families question the transparency of the college application process.
“I think [with] CSUs it’s pretty clear on the requirements: You meet a certain criteria and you should be able to get in,” said Geronimo, a 17-year-old senior at a Los Angeles high school. His mother asked that only his first name be used for fear that his applications may be affected.
He’s applied to eight campuses in both the UC and CSU systems. He’s worried about his UC applications. He took calculus last year and this year, and wants to major in mechanical engineering in college.
He wishes UC would have made it clear what activities and interests to include and whether writing about his math classes would have increased his chances of getting into the competitive major.
“I would say you do have a fair shot at getting in, it’s just that the vagueness is the scariest part,” he said.
Denial
At its most basic the college application process involves filling out a form online in which the applicant lists classes and grades. A college takes that information along with letters of recommendation, a list of activities the applicant has been a part of on campus and off, along with one or several essays describing their academic and personal interests. Some schools require standardized test scores but many others don’t, while some say it’s OK to submit them if a student thinks it will help their case. (That last group is what’s called “test optional.”)
While many colleges and universities list minimum grade requirements and classes that needed to be taken, admission is far from automatic because there are often way more applications than the number of open seats.
The importance or weight that admissions officers give each of those pieces of information and how they judge the information overall has earned the moniker of “the black box.” In other words, the application and its info goes in — out of sight of the applicant and most other people — and out comes a yes or no to admission.
Lawrence, Jordan and Sherri Bradford on their porch in View Park-Windsor Hills.
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Brian Feinzimer
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“I think at this moment in time, it would be helpful for [colleges and universities] to be more transparent about what they are looking for above and beyond academic qualifications. That's a big black box right now,” said Julie Posselt, executive director of USC’s Center for Enrollment Research, Policy and Practice.
The center’s yearly conference in February attracted college admissions officials and scholars from different parts of the country, and included discussion of transparency.
“So much of the work that we do is sort of behind closed curtains,” said Maricela Martinez, vice president of enrollment at Occidental College, in L.A., during one panel discussion.
“I think that that is part of the problem and that is why we are where we are, which is that people don’t understand the complexity of the work we do,” she said.
Discouragement
Many people do not feel the way college applications are evaluated provides a fair shot.
“I almost get into tears thinking about [the college application] process for our older son, when it was happening to him, and how [disheartening] it was,” said Sherri Bradford, who helped her son last year apply to colleges and universities hoping to major in aerospace engineering.
So much of the work that we do is sort of behind closed curtains. I think that that is part of the problem and that is why we are where we are, which is that people don’t understand the complexity of the work we do.
— Maricela Martinez, vice president of enrollment, Occidental College
Her son’s top choices were MIT and Caltech. She said the family believed he had more than a shot because he had a 4.3 grade point average, was student body president, was captain of the track team, and was part of the robotics club.
Bradford is a counselor at Santa Monica College and reviewed his application essays.
“He was denied admission to MIT, to Caltech, to UCLA, to Vanderbilt, to USC. It was getting to the point of being quite discouraging and scary for him,” she said.
Bradford and her family had many questions: What impact did the standardized test scores he submitted have at schools that didn’t require those scores? Does not having a hardship story hurt the application? And most important: Why was he turned down while others were admitted?
Acceptance
There are many other people who say the college application process is far from transparent and should be changed, including college admissions officials themselves.
Colleges tell applicants what their criteria for admission is but remain vague on what weight they’ll give the criteria and other information to admit an applicant.
“The complexity of the process involves a lot of moving parts,” said Kedra Ishop, vice president of enrollment at USC.
It involves several different factors, including:
There are many more applications than open seats.
Colleges want diversity of academic interests, geography, and demographics.
Some majors get filled up quicker than others.
Applicants may turn down admission because they’ve accepted an offer from another college.
Ishop said what’s difficult about the transparency conversation is that it usually starts with the applicant asking why they didn’t get in.
“There are a multitude of reasons, many of which may have nothing to do with your academic record, because many of the students that apply to us are highly qualified applicants. But we can only accept so many out of a very big applicant pool,” she said. Only about 9% of applicants to USC are admitted.
Jordan Bradford at their home in View Park-Windsor Hills.
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Brian Feinzimer
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Hers and other universities do not reveal to each applicant the comments or other evaluations made on the applications.
“I don't know that that answers the question of transparency that the families are looking for,” Ishop said.
Besides, she said, calls for transparency only involve the most selective colleges and universities — and that’s a small subset of higher education, albeit one that gets a lot of media attention. Yes, think Harvard, Caltech, UCLA, and the other usual suspects.
Something important to remember: Applicants to these selective schools usually end up at good colleges. And here’s an even lesser known data point, one that undermines the idea that higher education is slowly closing its doors to qualified applicants: This Pew study found that most colleges and universities end up admitting “most of the people who apply to them.”
Radical transparency
Even if there’s no formula for a college application to be accepted, how to craft an application that will increase the odds of admission has become a multibillion dollar industry in the United States. The foundation of that industry is analyzing what colleges say they evaluate and the kinds of applicants they’ve admitted.
What Goes Into An Admissions Decision At California's Public Universities?
The University of California and California State University have different admissions criteria, corresponding to their different roles in the state's public education system.
The University of California lists the following as some factors it may consider, and each campus has the right to "apply these factors differently":
GPA
Class load and performance
Involvement in honors, Advanced Placement, and International Baccalaureate classes
Class rank
Senior year classes
Special projects
Academic growth over time
Special talents, skills, experiences, and achievements
Families with children of different ages are in the position to do that too, for better and for worse.
“It would be helpful to know maybe some of those things that they do look for in terms of choosing students over another student. What is it that made them click the button? Yes, on a student, versus another student, saying no?” said Sherri Bradford, whose youngest son, a Los Angeles high school senior, is waiting to hear from colleges in the coming weeks.
She would like colleges to share evaluation comments on applications. It would have helped her family understand why her oldest son was turned down from his dream schools and would help her youngest, she said, prepare his application.
There is a silver lining to the grief her family went through last year. Her son was accepted to — and is now thriving — in his aerospace engineering major at UC Berkeley.
“And so now here we are, again, with me worrying about whether or not my child who has done so much in high school just like his brother, whether or not all of his hard work is going to pay off to get him into the top school that he wants to attend,” Bradford said.
But she has a message for families of applicants and their families: They will end up in a college that fits. And they should be proud of all the work the young adult did in high school.
Members of the Orange County Creek Team wait to speak to the Board of Supervisors about the county’s use of chemicals in flood channels.
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Jill Replogle
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LAist
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Topline:
The Orange County Board of Supervisors has directed its public works department to look into alternatives to using chemicals and pesticides to control overgrowth in flood control channels.
Why this matters: The chemicals clear overgrowth of vegetation, which helps prevent channels from backing up during storms. But critics say it poisons waterways and washes out into the ocean. Supervisor Katrina Foley said she wants to find a better way: “I remain encouraged by the overwhelming public support in exploring nontoxic solutions for our waterways."
What's next: The board will revisit the issue — and the public works department's findings — at a later meeting.
Biking on river trails, going on picnics and surfing in the ocean are activities California residents cherish every summer. But headlines about the use of toxic chemicals in flood control channels around Orange County have created anxiety for those looking forward to their favorite activities this summer.
Dozens of environmental activists and Orange County residents packed the Orange County Board of Supervisors meeting this week to urge the county to halt the routine use of toxins they say poison waterways and wash out into the ocean.
But several supervisors said it wasn’t that simple. The chemical prevents overgrowth in flood control channels, and that overgrowth could lead to backups and flooding, affecting neighborhoods and businesses during heavy rains.
Controversy over the chemical use led to an announcement last month by Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley, declaring that chemical usage would be halted for the moment. The issue then came before the board this week for further discussion.
Supervisors decided to study the issue and revisit it in the months ahead, and directed the OC Public Works department to evaluate methods for clearing overgrowth of vegetation that crowd flood channels, and look for alternate methods of doing so.
Brent Linas, founder of the Orange County Creek Team, which has succeeded in bringing the environmental issue to the public’s attention through salty Instagram posts and other social media tactics, blasted what he described as the board’s inaction.
He feels that the board is “deeply dysfunctional” and plans on using the meeting as momentum to spread awareness about the chemicals' negative effects on the environment. “There’s palpable outrage in Orange County right now around this and we fully intend to tap into that,” Linas said.
Foley also plans to reintroduce public noticing requirements at the next meeting June 23. The notices would alert residents to the planned use of any pesticides and herbicides. “Orange County residents deserve transparency to help make informed decisions about where their families recreate,” Foley said in a statement released the after the meeting. “I remain encouraged by the overwhelming public support in exploring nontoxic solutions for our waterways.”
How to watchdog your local government
One of the best things you can do to hold officials accountable is pay attention. Your city council, board of supervisors, school board and more all hold public meetings that anybody can attend. These are times you can talk to your elected officials directly and hear about the policies they’re voting on that affect your community.
The Orange County Board of Supervisors meets on alternating Tuesdays at 9:30 a.m. at 400 W. Civic Center Drive, Santa Ana. You can check out the O.C. Board of Supervisors full calendar here.
Cato Hernández
is covering all things election for this primary, including the often hard-to-choose judges.
Published June 11, 2026 3:51 PM
Judge Robert Draper has lost his reelection bid.
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Courtesy the campaign
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Topline:
In a rare rebuke from voters, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Robert Draper, who’s facing several allegations of violating ethics rules, has lost his seat to deputy district attorney Tal Khan Valbuena. While a small margin of ballots are left to count, Valbuena has maintained a comfortable lead with more than 50% of the 1.7 million votes cast.
The background: This was a challenging race for voters because the California Commission on Judicial Performance, the state watchdog of judges, hasn’t yet reached a decision on the allegations against Draper — some of which he denied and others he admitted to in an interview with LAist. Draper was appointed by former Gov. Jerry Brown and has spent 15 years in Office No. 2, while Valbuena’s career has focused on mental health court.
What the candidates say: On Thursday, Draper conceded over text, telling LAist that serving as a judge has been “the greatest honor and joy” of his career and that he congratulates Valbuena. He said he’s going to try to make sure that what the commission “did to me will not be done to Tal or any of the wonderful young and older Judges now serving of whom I am very proud.”
In a statement to LAist, Valbuena said he’s “deeply humbled” by voters’ trust and thanked Draper for his service. He said he’ll bring his lived and professional experience to the bench, where he’ll work to earn more of the public’s trust.
What’s next: The vote still needs to be certified by the California Secretary of State, which happens on July 10. The California Commission on Judicial Performance members could come to a decision before then, including to possibly remove Draper or clear him of wrongdoing. In the meantime, Valbuena is expected to take office in January.
Keep up with LAist.
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A program dedicated to providing low-income California residents with extra money for fruits and vegetables is likely to go under this summer if additional funds are not allocated in this year’s state budget, according to concerned food justice advocates.
About the program: The CalFresh Fruit and Vegetable EBT Program provides CalFresh recipients with up to $60 a month of free produce each month, in addition to their benefits. In May alone, the program disbursed over $5 million and “served 95,520 California households,” said Grecia Marquez-Nieblas, senior manager at food policy nonprofit Fullwell, which has backed the program. The state budget is set to be finalized on June 15.
Why it matters: “Overwhelmingly, folks have been telling us that they want it to continue, that it’s made a really positive impact on them,” Marquez-Nieblas said. “Their diabetes is better managed; their high blood pressure is better managed.” The program’s end would come at a particularly stressful time for CalFresh recipients. This month, for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began, California has begun enforcing new and expanded federal guidelines that require some CalFresh recipients to work 20 hours a week, or an average of 80 hours a month — with a stark reduction in food benefits for those who don’t.
The CalFresh Fruit and Vegetable EBT Program provides CalFresh recipients with up to $60 a month of free produce each month, in addition to their benefits. In May alone, the program disbursed over $5 million and “served 95,520 California households,” said Grecia Marquez-Nieblas, senior manager at food policy nonprofit Fullwell, which has backed the program.
“Overwhelmingly, folks have been telling us that they want it to continue, that it’s made a really positive impact on them,” Marquez-Nieblas said. “Their diabetes is better managed; their high blood pressure is better managed.”
Those people are now at risk of losing access to that support as funds whittle down. The state budget is set to be finalized on June 15, and “as far as we know, there is no continued funding that has been proposed,” Marquez-Nieblas said.
“When this program ends, we’ll have less money to spend, [at] a time when groceries are incredibly more expensive. Gas is more expensive. Everything is more expensive,” she said. “It’s just, unfortunately, a compounding effect. There’s lots of stuff that’s impacting the same people.”
The program is simple to use: When customers purchase food at participating markets, like Arteaga’s Food Center in San José, they just swipe their EBT (electronic benefit transfer) card.
For every purchase of fresh fruits and vegetables with that card, customers receive an instant rebate each month, applied to their card. The rebate money can be spent on any food or goods covered by CalFresh, like meat, eggs and dairy — it is not limited to fruits and vegetables.
Marquez-Nieblas explained that the pilot program has been implemented in three phases — the latest of which received a limited, one-time allocation of $36 million from the state budget. That seems like a large number, “until we realize that there are hundreds of thousands of individuals across the state using the program.”
“It’s been proven many times that CalFresh — and programs like this that support people having more money for food — are incredibly impactful for lifting children out of poverty, for supporting seniors with limited incomes, for anybody,” Marquez-Nieblas said. “Foundationally, these programs are good. They’re good for public health.”
Food policy advocates said they are hoping for $100 million for the program to continue to operate year-round. Instead, it was reappropriated around $4.8 million — the remaining funds from last year’s budget cycle, in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s “May Revise” proposal, according to H.D. Palmer, spokesperson for the California Department of Finance.
“The program will operate until funds are fully utilized,” Palmer said in an email to KQED.
The program’s end would come at a particularly stressful time for CalFresh recipients. This month, for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began, California has begun enforcing new and expanded federal guidelines that require some CalFresh recipients to work 20 hours a week, or an average of 80 hours a month — with a stark reduction in food benefits for those who don’t.
“Not only does it add in the onerous work requirement — a lot of people who are already receiving CalFresh are working — but now they have this bureaucratic paperwork to provide,” said Kathy Saile, California director of national nonprofit No Kid Hungry. “There’s some real concern that people could lose benefits just because they couldn’t figure out the paperwork.”
H.R. 1’s impact, which also cuts food benefits for some refugees and asylum seekers, is apparent, according to federal data analyzed by the nonpartisan research group Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
The center estimated that nationwide, SNAP participation fell by almost 9% — more than 3.5 million people — between H.R.1’s start in July 2025 and February 2026.
Palmer said the state was taking proactive steps to maintain residents’ enrollment in the program.
“This includes leveraging existing data to determine possible exemptions from the new SNAP work requirements, implementing automation, and conducting client outreach,” he said.
He added that the latest budget revision has “a total of $38 million for the CalFood program — which funds food banks for the purchase, storage, and transportation of food grown and/or produced in California.”
In a time of rising bureaucratic barriers implemented by H.R. 1, Marquez-Nieblas said the CalFresh Fruit and Vegetable EBT Program is part of the state’s food safety net.
“This is not just about backfill,” she said. “It’s not just about responding to the impacts (of H.R. 1), which are incredibly awful. It’s also about setting ourselves up for success in the future, knowing we have to invest proactively.”
Marquez-Nieblas said CalFresh recipients should keep their eyes on the California Department of Social Services website for any possible updates and changes in the future.
Mariana Dale
explores and explains the forces that shape how and what kids learn from kindergarten to high school.
Published June 11, 2026 3:00 PM
Rising sophomores Leslie Martinez, Izzy Guzman and Khloe Carter were among the first students to take a one-semester ethnic studies class at Duarte High School. The street names are one of the few public reminders of what was once Rocktown.
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Photos by Mariana Dale, collage by Ross Brenneman
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Topline:
While implementation of California’s high school ethnic studies mandate has stalled, districts across the state are rolling out classes that encourage students to explore the lesser-told histories of their communities.
Why it matters: Duarte High School’s inaugural ethnic studies class focused on local history, students’ personal identity, Indigenous, Latino, Black and Asian American Pacific Islander history. “Ethnic studies is providing space to hear from communities and from points of view that are not traditionally covered in our history classes,” said Casey Ramirez, who teaches the class.
The backstory: California lawmakers passed a law in 2021 that required all schools to offer the course by the 2025-2026 school year, but has yet to provide the funding needed to enact the mandate. Duarte Unified, like many other districts, passed its own one-semester ethnic studies graduation requirement ahead of the expected state deadline.
Uncovering Rocktown: Freshmen at Duarte High School this year unearthed the history of a San Gabriel Valley community that was all-but-erased by commercial development and the construction of the 210 and 605 freeways. Newspaper headlines often focused on incidents of violence and segregation in the majority Black and Mexican American community of Rocktown, but when the students interviewed former residents, they heard a different story.
Read on ... to learn more about Rocktown and the future of ethnic studies.
While implementation of California’s high school ethnic studies mandate has stalled, districts across the state are rolling out classes that encourage students to explore the lesser-told histories of their communities.
Freshmen at Duarte High School this year unearthed the history of a San Gabriel Valley community that was all but erased by commercial development and the construction of the 210 and 605 freeways.
Newspaper headlines often focused on incidents of violence and segregation in the majority Black and Mexican American community of Rocktown, but when the students interviewed former residents, they heard a different story.
“It was a great community for us,” said Alfred Hernandez Zamora. “We just don't want to be forgotten.”
The study of Rocktown was a central theme in the school's first ethnic studies course.
“Ethnic studies is providing space to hear from communities and from points of view that are not traditionally covered in our history classes,” said Casey Ramirez, who teaches the class at Duarte High in addition to government, economics, world and U.S. history.
California legislators passed a law in 2021 that required all schools to offer the course by the 2025-26 school year, but have yet to provide the funding needed to enact the mandate. Duarte Unified, like many other districts, passed its own one-semester ethnic studies graduation requirement ahead of the expected state deadline.
Ethnic studies is providing space to hear from communities and from points of view that are not traditionally covered in our history classes.
— Casey Ramirez, teacher, Duarte High School
Duarte High School’s curriculum is the result of a collaboration between educators, research into the region’s history and the students’ own interests.
“I've only seen one part of Duarte, and that's the Duarte that I was raised in,” said Leslie Martinez, a rising sophomore. “There's a lot of things that Ms. Ramirez is teaching me, and that's making me more curious to dig deeper [into] my city and where I grew up.”
An opportunity to create an ‘engaging class’
California’s model ethnic studies curriculum describes the field as an “interdisciplinary study of race, ethnicity, and Indigeneity, with an emphasis on the experiences of people of color in the United States.” Districts could develop their course based on this framework or from scratch.
“It was our opportunity to create a really engaging class that really speaks to our student body,” said Luis Haro, Duarte High’s principal for the last eight years.
The majority of Duarte High School’s population is Latino, but there are also Filipino, Asian, white, Black and multiracial students. Most students qualify for free-and reduced price lunches, a proxy for being low-income in public schools.
“In my experience, our students don't know our history, and they don't really have a true understanding of their own identity,” Haro said.
Haro joined a committee of administrators and teachers, including Ramirez, that collaborated with the UCLA History-Geography Project to develop the new course.
UCLA staff guided Duarte educators through reams of local history research and helped the team develop goals for the class, including a student-led civics project.
“Getting to learn and feel like a college student again,” Ramirez said. “It really did make me excited to teach the class.”
They also developed units on students’ personal identity, Indigenous, Latino, Black and Asian American Pacific Islander history. The committee also met with parents and presented their work to the district’s board.
“[Ethnic studies] gave us a path to this project to see people in our community that aren't really talked about,” Ramirez said.
From the late 19th century through the 1970s, Black and Mexican American families settled in the “Davis Addition,” a subdivision of the land grant that became better known as Rocktown.
Ramirez first read about Rocktown in the research UCLA gathered for the curriculum development process, but couldn’t find much else about the community online.
She started downloading news articles from Newspapers.com and sharing them with the class. Many of the stories often focused on crime and violence in the community, from police raids on drinking and gambling establishments, to fires.
The articles also alluded to the segregation of the early 20th century.
A 1928 article from the Monrovia Daily News described the schedule for a new municipal pool. Mondays were “reserved for the use of colored people.”
“ Why are we not allowing people to do things simply because of the color of their skin or like their origin?” said Khloe Carter, a rising sophomore who took the ethnic studies class.
Carter said it felt important to her, as a person of color, to learn about people’s experiences with discrimination in the past.
“I'd say that has made me smarter and more aware of other people's struggles and what other people have to deal with and other people's cultures and other people's traditions,” Carter said.
A brief history of Rocktown
These events, researched by Ramirez and the ethnic studies class, give an insight into Rocktown.
1841: Mexican government grants nearly 7,000 acres of land to soldier Andrés Avelino Duarte.
1870s-1890s: The rancho is subdivided and sold.
1924: A Monrovia Daily News article describes Rocktown as a “scattered settlement of Mexican and negro homes.”
1957: City of Duarte incorporated.
1960s: Construction of the 210 and 605 freeways.
1970s: Duarte City Council discusses redeveloping Rocktown into an industrial park .
1976: First resident relocated to make way for business center development.
The first wave of Rocktown displacement preceded the construction of the 210 and 605 freeways in the 1960s. The last several dozen families were moved to make way for a business complex in the 1970s. Stories referred to the area as blighted and “depressed.”
“ We took it as our job to dig further, deeper, to find out if it was true or not,” Martinez said.
With Ramirez’s help — and several volunteers from the Facebook group Rocktown Oldies Club — the students started to schedule interviews with former residents. The school’s film class volunteered to record the conversations.
The students heard stories about everyday life that were absent from the news coverage of time — Sunday barbecues, roller skating, fishing, picnicking and swimming near the Santa Fe Dam.
Zamora, who was born in Rocktown in 1949, offered a first-person history that isn’t available elsewhere — down to the community’s name: “ You could not even dig a, a foot into the ground without running into rocks,” he said. “ You could throw water on the ground and a rock would grow, you know?”
Many of the residents raised goats, pigs, pigeons and chickens in their backyards. Zamora said a routine car repair could quickly become a community gathering with neighbors joining in to help.
“That made it … so great to live there, 'cause everybody was like family,” Zamora said. “Even people that weren't related to you, it was really close friendships there.”
A typical gathering of Alfred Hernandez Zamora's family in an undated photo from their Rocktown days. Everyone gathered for Sunday dinners at his grandmother's house.
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Courtesy Alfred Hernandez Zamora
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Zamora's relatives Rayno Hernandez and Christina Hernandez Padilla as kids riding their bikes through Rocktown.
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Courtesy Alfred Hernandez Zamora
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Zamora said Rocktown offered a reprieve from the discrimination against Black and Latino residents in other parts of the San Gabriel Valley at the time.
“We played ball together. We swam together. We ate together,” Zamora said. “Even though there was different cultures there, we still were able to get along with everybody.”
These interviews gave the students new perspectives to consider.
“ People make a lot of stereotypes and a lot of guesses … like, ‘Oh, this community can be so ghetto,’" Martinez said. “But honestly, like I think if you haven't been in the community, you can't really say anything.”
Remembering Rocktown
The Duarte Historical Museum hosted a pop-up exhibition of the students’ capstone project.
“I was very impressed with the job that they did, being able to get all this history and the information and the interviews with people,” said Liz Reilly, president of the Duarte Historical Society and Museum and former mayor. "I thought that was really fabulous.”
Reilly, who moved to Duarte in 1987, had heard of Rocktown, but knew little about the neighborhood.
Izzy Guzman, another student who took ethnic studies at Duarte High, said the account she heard from the three women she interviewed differed from these Rocktown headlines. "They've all seemed really nice and really genuine," Guzman said. "I just feel like people should understand, even if they don't know what Rocktown is, they should understand that, it was just a basic community, and that they should be treated with the same respect as everyone else."
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Mariana Dale
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LAist
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The exhibition included a map of Rocktown (still the subject of some debate) and dozens of historical photos, often provided by the people they interviewed.
“ I found it so amazing how much people showed up for our project and how much the community of Rocktown has shown up for our project,” Carter said.
Former residents, including Zamora, were among the dozens of people who attended the exhibition’s grand opening in mid-May.
“For them to recognize places that were forgotten, that meant a lot,” Zamora said. “ Nobody seems to remember it. I mean, except the people that lived there.”
Ethnic studies faces growing challenges
While the school’s principal, students and former Rocktown residents have embraced the ethnic studies class, Ramirez said she’s also heard criticism.
During Duarte High’s open house, Ramirez said a parent voiced her disagreement with the class and threatened to file a grievance even though her child had yet to enroll at the school.
“ I'm a parent, so I understand, especially if it's something that you're not familiar with and your kids are learning something different from what you learned, it can be scary,” Ramirez said. “My approach is never to impose my viewpoints. It's to provide alternative perspectives.”
Some lawmakers have also criticized school offerings that intersect with race and ethnicity.
In the last five years, 20 states have banned or restricted teaching critical race theory, an academic concept that race is a social construct and that racism is embedded in specific societal structures.
Teacher Casey Ramirez said teaching students to view history from multiple points of view and form their own opinions is a key feature of the ethnic studies class.
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Courtesy Oscar Ramirez
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California school districts from Los Alamitos to San Francisco have faced pushback over their ethnic studies curriculum despite passage of the state mandate.
Daniel Diaz, director of the UCLA History-Geography Project, said there was a flood of interest when the ethnic studies mandate was first passed, but now fewer districts are paying for related professional development.
“Which in turn then impacts what happens to our project and … who we're able to support in terms of staffing,” Diaz said.
In June, UCLA laid off one of the educators instrumental in helping Duarte develop its ethnic studies curriculum.
In a statement, John McDonald, director of media relations at the UCLA School of Education and Information Studies, said the History-Geography Project has laid off four staff members total after funded projects ended in the last year.
“UCLA Center X is committed to the work and actively seeking new funding for similar efforts,” McDonald said.
What that means for other districts looking for assistance with ethnic studies programs remains to be seen.
Ramirez said her UCLA collaborator was “phenomenal” and continued to support the project even after the contract with the district formally ended.
“ I don't think that this year and this project would've been what it was without having that support,” Ramirez said.
A business center now stands south of the 210 and west of the 605 where part of Rocktown once was. Some of the street names, including Evergreen and Flower, remain the same.
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Mariana Dale
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LAist
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The Rocktown Project’s future
Duarte High School will continue the ethnic studies class.
More former residents have already contacted Ramirez hoping to be interviewed by next year’s students. She also plans to publish the students’ work on a website and a future goal is to memorialize Rocktown with a physical marker in Duarte.
“You need to know whose land you're on and who was there,” said Sylvia Gonzales Youngblood, who was born in Duarte in 1967 and grew up visiting the home her maternal grandfather built in Rocktown.
She said when she was a student there wasn’t an opportunity to learn about her family’s Ohlone Mission Indian and Mexican heritage and she was discouraged from speaking Spanish.
“Now as I'm older, I realize just how much history and of ourselves we lose,” Youngblood said.
Carter, the rising sophomore, said after taking ethnic studies, she feels more connected to the city she moved to about a year ago.
“It's important that we know this side of history so a community like Rocktown doesn't get lost again,” Carter said. “Every voice should be heard, including Rocktown's.”
