The Brief

Growing up in Santa Clarita, Ellie Magsaysay was one of the few Asian American kids in her neighborhood, and certainly one of the few Filipino Americans. Some people seemed confused by her background, she said, and assumed she wasn’t Asian.

It’s affected her sense of identity and, at times, her self-esteem. Was being Filipina or having darker skin, she wondered, why boys didn’t seem interested?

“I remember just vividly experiencing not being the ideal type as an Asian and not being an ideal type as a white person or anything else,” Magsaysay said. “It’s like where do you really fit in?”

It’s one of the questions Magsaysay, an incoming senior, got to explore in a peer-to-peer program promoting mental health awareness among younger Filipino Americans.

Faciliator Jeslyn Cortel works with Mary-Clare De Los Reyes, 14, and Tala Ancheta, 15, as they fill out their Walang Hiya or Without Shame workbook.

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Over a couple of weeks during the summer, a dozen people met regularly in Historic Filipinotown in a light-filled multipurpose room at Search To Involve Pilipino Americans, which developed the program.

A handful of college-age facilitators trained by the community organization taught eight teenage students about signs of depression and anxiety — and ways to cope through journaling and breathing exercises.

Ethan Munsayac, a student at UC-Davis, (l.) volunteered to be a facilitator working with teen participants such as Mary-Clare De Los Reyes.

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But just as Asian Americans are incredibly diverse, so are the mental health needs of different ethnicities. The facilitators made sure to discuss issues familiar to the Filipino diaspora such as colorism and cultural expectations. One exercise had the teens thinking up of comebacks to harmful statements like “I can only be a nurse to be successful.”

A suggested counter-statement? "I can be an actress to be successful.”

'Not Filipino enough'

The name of the program is called Walang Hiya, which translates to “shameless” or “without shame.”

“What's funny is that the saying in Tagalog is actually kind of derogatory,” said Kevin Sandoval Casasola, youth development coordinator for Search to Involve Pilipino Americans.

The organization, which offers youth leadership training and afterschool programs among its services, created Walang Hiya to help teens who may be struggling with the stress of being bicultural. Three years into running the program and refining it with tweaks, the group hopes to share the curriculum with more Filipino American communities outside of Historic Filipinotown.

Teens at the Walang Hiya program fill out a workbook that contains exercises on mental health awareness that are also specific to the Filipino American experience.

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The highly participatory program requires teens to draw from their own experiences in group exercises.

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“We really want to reclaim the notion of living without shame towards mental health, for the experiences we have as Filipinos, Filipino Americans,” Casasola said.

Casasola says a lot of that shame is rooted in a colonial past. The teens hear about how Spain ruled the Philippines for more than 300 years, followed by a U.S. occupation that lasted nearly 50 years. Western customs and beauty standards took hold. Speaking English was prized.

Rocks with affirmations created by participants of the Walang Hiya program.

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When Filipinos emigrated to the U.S., many didn’t teach Tagalog to their kids. That was Casasola’s experience.

“But you're kind of looked down upon if you don't speak the language,” Casasola said. “We recognize through this program, as students talk to one another, that something that's shared — this feeling of not being Filipino enough.”

Sharing space

Casasola said it’s a commonly-felt sentiment in L.A. County, home to more than 300,000 Filipino Americans. Households can be spread out. Some young people grow up feeling removed from their Filipino heritage.

“Having a space with lots of other Filipino Americans, that's something I haven't really had very much before,” said Tala Ancheta, one of the teen participants.

Ancheta said speaking about mental health issues with teens from the same background came easily.

Posters hung for the Walang Hiya program lay out ground rules for group discussions.

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The program takes place in a building of the Search to Involve Pilipino Americans in Historic Filipinotown.

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“I want to know what people are going through, or what they could be going through, and how I may be able to help,” Ancheta said.

Her father Mark Ancheta said he and his wife were happy to ferry their daughter from their home in Manhattan Beach to L.A. several times a week because the program teaches teens about mental health through a cultural lens.

Tala Ancheta, 15, says the program has allowed her to share space with other Filipino Americans her age -- something she doesn't get to do often.

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MJ Manalo, 16, says the Walang Hiya program is teaching her "self-regulation and de-stressing" which will be vital when school starts up again.

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He wants her to be able to articulate her emotions — not to feel pressure to put on outward appearances as they had growing up in their families.

"They boast about success all the time but of course, we're not going to talk about struggles," Mark Ancheta said.

Graduation day

At the end of two weeks together, teens who started out as strangers now have a shared vocabulary about mental health.

On their last day, they each wrote an affirmation to read after they receive a certificate of completion in front of an audience of family members. Ancheta strode to the front of the room to share hers.

At the end of the Walang Hiya program, parents are invited to come and learn what their children have learned about throughout the two week course meant to increase self-awareness through a lens of social justice.

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“I am extraordinary,” she said to applause while giving herself a hand.

Ellie Magsaysay had written her affirmation in big bold pink letters, underlined for emphasis. She said she better understands how Filipino history has shaped cultural norms. But they don’t define her.

Mary Ellie Magasaysay, 17, writes affirmations next to her sister and father on the last day of the Walang Hiya program.

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Mary Ellie Magsaysay writes affirmations on the last day of the program.

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“I wrote that I am smart, I am strong, I am beautiful,” Magsaysay said — words she’ll try to live by after she leaves these four walls.

This story first appeared on Long Beach Post.

What if the scariest thing to happen this Halloween is…not preparing for the upcoming midterm election?

To combat any jump scares around local ballot measures, Khmer Girls in Action and We Are California are teaming up to host a Party to the Polls: Haunted Mansion on Saturday, Oct. 24, from 2 to 6 p.m.

“We are combining political education and the Halloween spirit because, you know, elections are scary sometimes,” said Kelliana Lim, Communications Coordinator for Khmer Girls in Action. KGA, a youth-led community nonprofit in Long Beach, has hosted a haunted house/maze event every election season since 2010.

Student members and KGA staffers select ballot measures they feel affect their community the most and create an immersive haunted house based on those issues. The goal, Lim said, is to provide a fun way for community members to better understand what is going on this election season.

“The haunted maze really showcases a really fun ‘educ-tainment’ type of event for the community to understand how certain ballot measures will impact them and young people,” Lim said.

Khmer Girls in Action’s haunted house from October 2024. The theme was “A Nightmare on Sixth Street.”

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This year, KGA honed their haunted house on three ballot measures: Proposition 3, which would tax top earners in the state to fund healthcare and education. Proposition 39, which would require California voters to present government-issued identification when voting at the polls. And Proposition 43, which would change the state’s constitution to require local ballot measures related to extending, increasing or proposing specific taxes driven by citizens to receive a two-thirds vote.

Saturday’s haunted house will feature a spooky maze of rooms visitors will trek through as they are greeted by ghosts and goblins who will foreshadow what kind of impact these ballot measures could have on their community.

This year, KGA is partnering with We Are California, a coalition of advocacy groups across the state, to host a ballot party during the haunted house. Visitors are encouraged to bring their ballot to the haunt, and on a separate floor from the ghouls and goblins, they can get their questions answered.

Aaron Robertson, a Senior Director of Coalition for Catalyst California — the nonprofit, civil rights organization behind We Are California, said their group provides toolkits and other resources to KGA and other groups across the state hosting ballot parties.

“One of the cool things about this campaign is that it is very distributed,” Robertson said. “We’ve been providing resources and toolkits for about 500 ballot parties across the state.” But Robertson said organizations like KGA really take the lead on what these ballot education events look and feel like. Some groups did a 5K run to the polls; others did dance parties and lucha libre events.

We Are California also provides legal trainers who teach community members to become vote protectors on Election Day. Vote protectors identify any intimidation efforts at polling sites.

“We have a centralized reporting mechanism where we are gathering that information and working with the A.G.’s office to triage a response,” Robertson said. Last week, KGA, along with Long Beach Forward, trained community volunteers who signed up to be vote protectors.

“Some people really want to show up for their community and [becoming a vote protector] is a way to do that — they want to go to places that are most at risk for voter intimidation,” Robertson said.

As part of the haunted house, Khmer Girls in Action also provides face painting, a donut-eating contest and trunk-or-treat.

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Beyond ballot education, Saturday’s haunted house will also have a trunk-or-treat in the Youth Movement Education Center parking lot. There will also be face painting, a donut-eating contest, a costume contest, music and a party area in case some people “are too scared to go inside,” Lim said.

To learn more about Khmer Girls in Action and their haunted house event on Saturday, Oct. 25, visit their website.

The question Proposition 2 poses to California voters is simple: Should the state be able to save more money when its economy is booming?

The ballot measure, dubbed the Save for California’s Future Act, seeks to shore up California’s rainy day fund by allowing state lawmakers to sock away up to 20% of the state’s general fund tax revenue — double the current ceiling of 10%.

It would also require the state to save a bigger share of the gains when revenue is growing faster.

Proponents, including Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic lawmakers, say the state needs a bigger savings account to weather its volatile economy.

Because California’s tax revenue depends so much on wealthy residents’ stock earnings, the state budget is often caught in a boom-or-bust cycle at the mercy of the market. In recent years, the state has seen robust tax revenue from an AI-fueled economy, which has helped state leaders avoid or delay painful cuts to social services even when they projected significant deficits. But economists have consistently warned the boom may not last, and the federal budget cuts to healthcare and welfare programs this year deepened that uncertainty.

Supporters pitched Prop. 2 as a common sense solution, noting the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office, which advises state lawmakers, has long recommended the state set aside funding for downturns. The measure is endorsed by a bipartisan coalition of groups, including labor unions, hospital associations and chambers of commerce.

“It doubles the size of the state’s rainy day fund and requires California to save more during strong budget years, so we’re not caught flat-footed when the next downturn hits,” wrote Assembly Budget Chair Jesse Gabriel, an Encino Democrat, and Assembly Appropriations Vice Chair Josh Hoover, a Folsom Republican and the only GOP lawmaker to vote for the measure.

Most Republican lawmakers opposed Prop. 2, stating that the state should use its excess revenue to give taxpayers refunds instead of saving it. They argue that state government already spends too much and that a bigger reserve would merely give state leaders more to spend.

“When they say we're here for fiscal responsibility, it's like the devil offering a Bible study. Don't buy it,” said Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, a San Diego Republican.

How long have we had a rainy day fund?

Before 2014, California leaders and voters established reserve funds several times to weather financial storms, but ended up quickly withdrawing most of those funds, leaving the state with very little savings on hand, according to the legislative analyst.

In 2004, following the dot-com bust, voters overwhelmingly supported Prop. 58, a bipartisan ballot measure that required the state to establish a budget stabilization account and make annual deposits into the fund.

But lawmakers swiftly depleted the fund during the early months of the Great Recession and were forced to make steep spending cuts, borrow money at expensive rates and use accounting gimmicks to weather the rest of the crisis. Under then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, the state Legislature slashed health and welfare funding, scrapped tax credits, furloughed state employees and delayed payments to schools and local governments.

In 2014, as the state’s economy rebounded, then-Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, urged that the state save more. He and the Legislature championed Prop. 2, a bipartisan ballot measure that required the state to save more aggressively and limited when lawmakers could withdraw from the reserves. Nearly 70% of voters approved it.

“When the pendulum swings again, we won’t be forced to raise taxes or make the kinds of harsh cuts that were all too common in recent years,” Brown said in a 2014 op-ed stumping for the reform.

The law requires the state to set aside 1.5% of its general fund revenue and any spikes in capital gains tax revenue each year, with half deposited into the reserves and the other half to pay down state debts. It also made it harder for the state to spend the reserves and carved out portions of the savings for schools.

Under the law, state lawmakers can withdraw from the reserves only when the governor declares a budget emergency and decides that the state is not expected to collect enough revenue in the upcoming fiscal year to match the spending in the three previous budget years.

A majority of state lawmakers must vote to ratify the budget emergency. If approved, they are allowed to withdraw up to half of the rainy day fund balance at once, unless they already withdrew half the balance in the previous budget year and still need to take out more. There are no limits on what lawmakers can use the funds for.

Bigger reserve = more to spend?

Prop. 2 would maintain those withdrawal rules, which critics say would give future governors broad authority to spend down the reserves instead of reining in spending.

“The rainy day fund can be invaded even when it’s not raining, simply because spending isn’t as high as it was within the prior three years,” wrote David Crane, a former economic adviser to Schwarzenegger and founder of Govern for California, a nonprofit fundraising powerhouse that aims to “counter special interest influence.”

“Unless the withdrawal rules change, a larger reserve just lets governors bake in spending based on optimistic forecasts, knowing they can always dip into reserves if revenue falls short.”

In an interview with CalMatters, Gabriel stressed that voters approved those rules in 2014 and emphasized that the measure has bipartisan support. He also dismissed the criticism that the state should just spend less during downturns, likening it to telling families to eat less or downsize instead of dipping into their savings when they fall on hard times.

“I think (the concern) is very misplaced,” he said. “(Prop. 2) is recommended by the experts, because it matches the common-sense wisdom of California families.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Inglewood city leaders broke ground on a new shuttle bus network, planting ceremonial brass shovels in the dirt outside a Market Street shopping center on Wednesday morning.

They took turns at a microphone praising the $287.5 million Inglewood Transit Connector, which will ferry visitors between the Downtown Inglewood Metro K Line Station and the city’s stadium district. Officials hope the project will jump-start the struggling Market Street shopping corridor. 

“We always said that we were going to make Inglewood the city to drive to and not through, and we’re doing that today,” Councilmember Alex Padilla said. 

Inglewood has transformed into a global entertainment magnet over the last decade, pulling in Super Bowls, World Cup matches and megastar musicians. Locals, though, have protested the costs of the rapid development — traffic jams, rising living costs, old haunts demolished — and asked for more ways to tap into the economic benefits.

City officials say the shuttle bus network will help with some of those issues by alleviating traffic jams and driving visitors to spend their dollars at local businesses. Not everyone is convinced. 

Just a few hundred yards from the ceremony, Amelia Hernandez and her team were packing boxes at Selwyn Jewelers, one of the two dozen businesses at the corner of Market Street and Florence Avenue the city took over through eminent domain earlier this year. The city plans to demolish the shopping center to make way for a 1,000-space parking garage, a bus plaza and a pedestrian bridge crossing Florence to the Downtown Inglewood K Line station. 

The jeweler said she’s skeptical the new shuttle system will actually mean more business for local shops, especially those like hers that are more targeted to residents than visitors. 

“Everybody comes, parks and leaves,” she said. “What do they expect? [Stadium visitors] are going to the notary public? They’re going to a hair salon?”

Construction is expected to begin in November, planners say

Wednesday’s ceremony capped nearly a decade of planning for the Inglewood Transit Connector. City officials first pitched it as a $2 billion automated rail line, but pared down their plans to a shuttle bus system after federal funding hit a wall.  

Actual construction is set to start in the first week of November, planners say, and the first buses are scheduled to roll out down dedicated lanes just ahead of the 2028 Olympics. City officials say they hope to bring back automated rail line plans in the future. 

Mayor James Butts said the shuttles are only planned to run on event days — Inglewood’s three major venues have hundreds of events between them — and that the city hasn’t yet picked a vendor to run the actual shuttles. The mayor said the city expects to move 10,000 people through the hub on event days.

Eli Lipmen, executive director of the nonprofit Move LA, is one of the transportation activists pushing for the region to tighten up its transportation network ahead of the Olympics. He said that while the city still has a lot of work to do, he is excited to see the shuttle system roll out to provide an alternative to vehicle traffic.

“This station, this area, has needed a transit hub for a very long time,” he said.

City officials say they’re working to relocate displaced businesses

A few shops were still open in the shopping center on Wednesday, but most of the windows were dark or papered over. 

Project planners said the city has found new spots for half of the two dozen businesses displaced from the bulldozed shopping center and that it is also working with the hair stylists that rent chairs at salons in the center. 

Businesses like Red’s Flavor Table and Randy’s Donuts & Chinese Food will be relocating to new digs on Market Street, according to project planners. CVS Pharmacy opened a new store across the street. Selwyn Jewelers is moving to a space a few blocks away.

Hernandez, the owner of Selwyn Jewelers, said the relocation process has been horrific and was poorly planned. 

“I’m just left with a whole bunch of ill feelings,” she said. 

Other business owners praised the city’s work in a series of short videos.

“Although we are sad to be leaving our current location, we’re happy to continue to stay in Inglewood,” said Sylvia Hollins, manager of Red’s Flavor Table. “We’re going to be on Market Street at a bigger and better location.”

The post Inglewood breaks ground on a new $287.5M stadium shuttle network appeared first on LA Local.

A federal judge in California is putting limits on pre-election field operations conducted by the Department of Homeland Security that the agency says is aimed at trying to find noncitizens who have illegally voted in nine states.

In recent weeks, armed Homeland Security Investigations officers have carried out field operations and visited homes to interview people suspected of illegally voting as noncitizens. The targets can include people who became citizens but voted before they naturalized.

In a 19-page order late Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín, an appointee of President Joe Biden, wrote that the federal government was using "flawed" data in the initiative and that its efforts likely violated the Voting Rights Act, which bars voter intimidation.

Martínez-Olguín referenced a disclosure last month from a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services whistleblower that alleged rushed efforts to match data to create a target list of potential noncitizens on voter rolls, and that the list includes U.S. citizens. She also pointed to HSI's social media posts, including one that showed agents handcuffing a California man accused of unlawfully registering to vote.

The judge wrote that the government's use of unreliable and incomplete data along with highly publicized arrests "lead to an objectively reasonable fear of law enforcement entanglements that intimidates citizens from urging or aiding others in exercising their right to vote."

HSI field operations were planned in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin, according to documents produced in the case and CNN reporting.

Martínez-Olguín barred DHS officers in those states from conducting field operations targeting people they "know, suspect, or should reasonably know or suspect are U.S. citizens," or that are based "wholly" on USCIS matching data without further investigation.

In a declaration, USCIS official Nicolas Bartell had told the judge his team manually reviews records before referring them to HSI, but acknowledged the "low possibility" citizens could be "erroneously identified as potential aliens" in federal records. He wrote the risks were mitigated by safeguards his office takes "and any remaining risks were outweighed by the need to support the agency's law-enforcement and election-integrity mission."

It's unclear how much of an effect the judge's order will have on the federal government's highly publicized campaign to find noncitizen voters.

States reviews and audits have consistently found voting by noncitizens to be extremely rare.

"DHS is laser focused on identifying, prosecuting, and removing aliens who vote and dilute the votes of U.S. citizens. ONLY Americans should elect American leaders," the agency wrote in a statement. "We have no plans to question or investigate people we believe to be U.S. citizens."

The order is set to take effect on Friday and would be in effect through election night, though the federal government could appeal.

The judge's ruling came in a lawsuit filed last month by a coalition that includes San Francisco and Santa Clara counties, the city of San Francisco, nursing unions and Voto Latino Foundation. Protect Democracy and the National Immigration Law Center are litigating the case against the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice.

"Today, the courts affirmed a vital principle of our democracy: Voting is a fundamental right that citizens — whether born here or naturalized — should be able to exercise without armed government agents harassing them," Beau Tremitiere, a lawyer with Protect Democracy, said in a statement.

"It was clear from the start that DHS built its lists on bad data, never checked how often it was wrong, and recklessly sent agents to people's homes weeks before an election," he added.

A court filing by the California Nurses Association and National Nurses United described naturalized citizen members who no longer wanted to attend political rallies, sign up to be election poll workers, or vote in person because of the federal operations.

The order comes as the Department of Justice is suing California and demanding the state segregate 20,000 ballots from people federal officials say they believe are "likely" noncitizens.

A preliminary review of a sample of that list by Los Angeles County election officials found many of the registrations were canceled, inactive or had no voting history, and some pertained to people who indicated they were born in the U.S.

The DOJ announced charges against 28 green card holders across the state on Monday who are accused of illegally voting or registering to vote.
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