The key issues for Wednesday's Republican debate, what happens to refugees when they arrive in a new place? LA's often ignored Fashion Week.
2016 election: Reagan Library Republican debate to center on immigration, race
All eyes will be on Southern California on Wednesday night, as 11 Republican presidential hopefuls prepare to face off for a second time.
A lot has changed since the last debate: Rick Perry is out. Ben Carson is enjoying a surge in popularity, and Carly Fiorina's poll numbers have improved. Meanwhile, candidates like Scott Walker and Jeb Bush have been struggling to make their mark. Donald Trump continues to confound political pundits of every stripe, remaining the favorite in most polls.
The candidates will sound off on topics ranging from wages and taxes, to race and immigration. Each are expected to be top issues in the 2016 election.
Davin Phoenix is an assistant professor of urban politics at UC Irvine. He says moderators are likely to push the leading political outsiders on the issues, but he expects moderators to go easier on Trump.
“[They] have a vested interest in keeping the Trump phenomenon afloat, because it generates more attention to the media that covers his antics … [He] has shown in the past he’s willing to hold grudges against media figures that he deems are too challenging and will not engage them anymore.”
And that, Phoenix says, gives Trump a distinct advantage.
“[He’s] turning politics into the equivalent of a child that takes his ball and runs off the court if they don’t play by his rules,” he says.
Mary-Briana Perez is a junior at the University of Southern California, and a member of the student-led organization, USC GOP. She says Dr. Ben Carson is one of the only candidates to speak to one issue that is likely to be on the minds of young voters.
“Minimum wage is something that we’re really concerned about,” she says.
“Dr. Carson is the only candidate that’s really willing to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25, and Mr. Trump said that the low minimum wage was not a problem.”
Continuing on Trump, Perez says the candidate’s stance on immigration could have far-reaching effects.
“I think it’s purely offensive. I feel definitely isolated and alienated, and if I had not held the conservative values that I had held for so long, I would definitely be less willing to be a Republican because of Mr. Trump’s statements.”
She says Trump’s recent exchange with Univision’s Jorge Ramos was particularly offensive to Latinos.
“I think that he’s definitely alienating a lot of Latino voters that chairman Priebus and the RNC have really wanted to attract in this last election cycle.”
Trump’s controversial remarks on immigration have garnered ire from all sides, but National Journal reporter Ronald Brownstein tells Take Two’s Alex Cohen that he’s struck a major chord with voters.
“Donald Trump is reflecting --I think-- in many ways, the views of the growing blue collar segment of the Republican Party. What Trump --I think-- is showing, is that there is a distinct set of views that do appeal to those voters.”
Press the play button above to hear more from UC Irvine’s Davin Phoenix and USC GOP member Mary-Briana Perez.
Click the link under that to hear more from National Journal’s Ronald Brownstein.
Joining Take Two to discuss:
- Ronald Brownstein of the National Journal
- Davin Phoenix, an assistant professor of urban politics at UCI
- Mary Perez, a junior at USC and a member of the student organization USC GOP
In Oxnard, training for farmworkers amid drought's uncertainty
As the ongoing drought dries out local farms and more food production moves south to Baja in search of cheaper labor, farmworkers in Oxnard are seeking to improve their skills for an uncertain labor market.
The city, a top producer of strawberries, lies just north of L.A's urban sprawl, adding another pressure amid the march of housing tracts and the development of shopping malls.
"How do you transition from agriculture to other industries?" asked Gaspar Rivera-Salgado, a labor expert at the University of California, Los Angeles. "I think that's the other big challenge: sometimes there is a misfit between jobs that are available and your local labor force."
Seeing change, seeking skills
On a recent afternoon, two farmworkers sat in a small second-story room in Oxnard, slowly repeating words from a tutor. They’ve wrapped up a day working in the fields and are learning to read and write in Spanish, the dominant language used on the job. Like many workers in the area, they come from southern states in Mexico, such as Oaxaca and Guerrero, and only speak their native language, Mixteco.
"I was a mess," said Arcenio Lopez, a former farmworker who now organizes the classes. He recalled his first day working in a strawberry field after arriving from Oaxaca. "I started going on my knees and my clothes got all red and I was all muddy. It was intense."
The work was fast-paced and physical, bending over all day, taking extra care not to bruise the fragile fruit. Even though he grew up working on his family farm, the pace and scale of the new work took a lot of getting used to.
"I got nervous and I wanted to cry! I felt like I was not able to do that kind of work," he said.
Arcenio Lopez, a former farmworker and current executive director of the Mixteco/Indígena Community Organizing Project in Oxnard, where he works to train other farmworkers in new skills for a changing labor market. (Dorian Merina / KPCC)
As he struggled, Lopez saw the need for the mostly indigenous workforce to learn new skills. Lopez already knew how to read and write himself, so he began to teach his fellow workers. The informal sessions became part of a larger program, called the Mixteco/Indígena Community Organizing Project, which also teaches computer and health skills.
Lopez estimates that there are about 20,000 Mixtecos in Ventura County. Statewide, there are more than 100,000 indigenous Mexican farmworkers, according to a 2010 study from the California Rural Legal Assistance and researcher Richard Mines. The vast majority, or over 80 percent, come from Oaxaca, according to the study.
Learning skills, planning for a future
Angelina Zarragoza, 23, attends the center, usually coming after a day picking and packing berries. She works inside one of the plastic tents, known as casitas in Oxnard's fields.
"It's tough work, sometimes inside the casitas it's really hot," she said in Spanish. "For me it's a dangerous job, but we have to do it."
The classes have taught skills that Zarragoza hopes will help her in the future. She's already seen changes in Oxnard, as some farms plant less or cut back on hours in response to the drought. That could force her to leave the area soon, she said, and try her luck further north – but she expects to find more competition there, as well.
That makes the training more important than ever, said Lopez. It's a lesson he learned that first day working in the fields, just arrived from Oaxaca.
"When you are going to be the first farmworker, as a new farmworker, you have to have a friend or have somebody else who is going to train you," he said.
Like others in the industry, workers are trying to get ready for what may come next.
All Navy jobs will be open to women, secretary announces
Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced this week that he would open all jobs in the Navy to women.
That includes jobs at sea, the Marines and the super elite SEAL unit.
Joining Take Two to discuss:
- Bradley Peniston, deputy editor for Defense One magazine, and Kathy Borkoski, a former Navy diver and bomb technician.
Impatient: Fewer Americans are living without health insurance
The number of Americans living without health insurance took a big dip last year according to figures released this morning. Nearly 9 million people have gained coverage since 2013.
Southern California Public Radio's
joins the show every week to talk about the latest in consumer health. This week, along with the new facts about Americans living without health insurance, she's got an update on Assembly Bill 533, which was designed to protect Californians from huge and unexpected medical bills. It didn't pass, but it's not completely dead yet.
To hear the entire chat between Rebecca and Alex Cohen click on the full audio link embedded at the top of the post.
What happens after refugees arrive in America? A look at the process
Local resettlement agencies are preparing for the arrival of the first of 10,000 Syrian refugees to the U.S., set to begin arriving on October 1st.
Last week, under pressure to scale up the U.S. response to the current refugee crisis, President Obama directed his administration to accept at least 10,000 Syrian refugees over the next year. And non-profit placement agencies that resettle refugees are now busy making preparations to receive them.
Martin Zogg, the Executive Director of The International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Los Angeles, explains that the process begins the moment the person or family arrives on U.S. soil. The first step is called "reception and placement."
"We literally receive refugees," Zogg says. "When they come to Los Angeles, we pick them up at the airport, we take them to their new homes, we provide furniture, we provide them with culturally appropriate foods."
That can sound like a small touch, Zogg says, but it's really essential to ensuring that people aren't completely disoriented when they arrive. Especially when you consider what the typical refugee has been through.
"They've endured years of persecution and war, to the extent where they have decided to flee and cross an international border. They've gotten refugee status and may have spent years thereafter in a refugee camp, and finally they're approved to resettle. They get on a plane and fly for fifteen hours and arrive in Los Angeles, to a place they've never been before."
Once they're here in the U.S., case workers connect them with social services, help get their kids enrolled in school, and get all family members set up with health screenings. Then there's help with job searches, English classes, and applying for U.S. citizenship as well.
But it can be a difficult transition, and the initial support that organizations like the IRC can provide only lasts for 90 days.
It's not clear exactly how many Syrian refugees will be resettled in Los Angeles, Zogg says, but because of the large numbers of Syrians and Syrian Americans in Southern California, they're expecting a significant number of people.
The IRC is expecting its first Syrian case to arrive in Los Angeles in the next couple of weeks.
To hear the full interview with Martin Zogg, click the link above.
Sports roundup: MLB playoffs, NFL owners to meet again
On this week's sports roundup with
:
- The MLB playoffs are right around the corner, and it appears the teams coming out of the National League are the Cardinals, Pirates, Cubs, Dodgers and Mets. It's around this time that teams plan to rest players for the playoffs but figure out ways to keep them sharp, like Mets ace Matt Harvey.
- The NFL owners have another meeting next month. L.A. will certainly be discussed, but will St. Louis and San Diego be making a pitch to keep their respective teams?
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue audio player above
Trouble on the tracks for LA Fashion Week at Union Station?
To compete with New York Fashion Week, the organizers of LA's Fashion Week announced this year's shows will take place only at downtown's Union Station.
But wait: it may be a designer knock-off.
Fashion Trends Daily's Michelle Dalton Tyree says there's a fight over control of the "LA Fashion Week" brand.
She says a new company stepped in to wrestle the direction away from person who organized the calendar for over a decade. Then they announced that Union Station would be the sole venue.
However, designers told Tyree they still plan to showcase all around Los Angeles.
This battle is just the latest in trying to give LA's Fashion Week a makeover so it's no longer in New York Fashion Week's shadow.
Tyree joins Take Two to talk about the yearly grumblings about LA Fashion Week and how to give it a makeover that helps it pop.