A Tale of Two Protests

These days, protests are not uncommon across the country. When I hear the word "protest," I admit there are stereotypes that pop into my head of what a protest "should" look like and what the protesters "should" be doing and even what they "should" look like (or, at least, dress like).

During my spring 2007 semester at San Jose State University, for an assignment in my information gathering class, my classmates and I attended an on-campus protest. A group of students protested against the proposed tuition increase for the CSU system. There was already some tension in the air, since CSU faculty members had proposed a rolling strike, demanding raises for themselves. The class assignment was to do some reporting and then come back to the classroom to write about the event "on-deadline," turning in the story by a certain time during class.

Some of the protesters were wearing the color red or had red armbands. Some held signs, and there was even an effigy of CSU Chancellor Charles B. Reed. People took turns expressing their opinions by talking into a microphone on stage. Then, the group marched across campus, chanting (they had handouts with chants written on them) and passing out fliers along the way. They stopped for a few minutes outside of Tower Hall, which is where the president's office is located. They stood outside of the building and chanted. Altogether, there were probably around 30 or 40 people who participated in the march.

That protest was the first one I've ever reported on, even though it was just a class assignment that wouldn't get published. My first protest story that would be published, though, was for the EG Citizen. The protest happened before the last Elk Grove City Council meeting. The issue that evening was about the proposed big box store ordinance. Prior to the meeting, there was a group of people from the Elk Grove Coalition Advocating Proper Planning (EGCAPP), people who support the ordinance. They wore stickers and held signs that had the words, "I support a Turlock-style ordinance...and I vote." On the other hand, people from Wal-Mart and its supporters had stickers with the word "BAN" crossed out, like a No Smoking symbol. If neither side had stickers and signs, then I may not have been able to tell right away which side they belonged to (I may have even mistaken some of them for staff members of the city government). Since the protest began at 5:30 p.m., I had the impression that many people had got off from work not too long ago, which may explain their business casual attire.

Altogether, there were more people who attended this protest (and the council meeting), compared with the participants in the march at SJSU. However, I thought there was more activity taking place at the SJSU protest than the protest outside Elk Grove City Hall (I'm not including what happened during the actual meeting). Overall, though, both protests featured people who felt strongly enough about an issue to express themselves publicly. Although I made my own observations of what happened during both protests, talking one-on-one to participants added a human face to the issues.

Greetings from Galt & Wilton

Let's play a game of word association. What's the first thing that pops into your mind when you see the word...Galt? For me, it's the word "market." I've visited Galt a handful of times for the Galt Market on Wednesdays. Another "market" (or rather a grocery store) that comes to my mind is Save Mart, though recently, the Albertsons locations in Elk Grove are now part of Save Mart (but that's another story).

The next word that would come to mind is "newspapers." Today, Jeff and I went down to Galt to visit Herberger Publications, where the Elk Grove Citizen and many other publications (including a paper I used to work for: Cosumnes River College's student newspaper, The Connection) are published. I met many people and got to see the large (and noisy) machines that print the newspapers.

We took "the scenic route" back to the office by going through Wilton. This was the second time in my life that I had ever visited this place and seen the farmland (or what remains of it). One of the most unexpected things I saw were certain animals, such as a zebra (definitely an unexpected sight and not something one sees every day). Along the way, Jeff would point out different things, as if he was a tour guide. He shared little news tidbits as we passed by certain places. I rode shotgun in his car, and apparently, I was the first person to ride along with him in months. By the look of things, I wasn't too surprised about that!

The More Things Change...

...the more they stay the same- at least that's how the saying goes. Citizen news editor Jeff Forward once suggested for a potential blog entry, I could take a drive around Elk Grove and make observations.

Well, I haven't taken that "official" drive to check out the sights and sounds of EG. However, last Thursday, I drove to Elliott Ranch Elementary School for its Gallery Night. The students, all 1,014 of them (according to the program I obtained at the door), had artwork on displayed in the multi-purpose room, thanks to the school's new art docent program.

Since I was going to the school straight from the newspaper's office, most of my journey involved driving on Elk Grove Blvd., essentially Elk Grove's "main street." If you're familiar with the location of the Citizen's office, it's near Old Town Elk Grove: all those historic buildings and small businesses. Meanwhile, the elementary school is on the other side of town (or Laguna West, for all intents and purposes), near I-5 and the Stone Lake National Wildlife Refuge.

I usually don't go to this area of Laguna, though I've (or, more accurately, my dad has) definitely driven past it to get to I-5 on our way to San Jose. On that Thursday, during this drive, it felt like I'd left one place to go to another totally different place. As I got closer and closer to the school, the buildings, particularly the houses, started to look quite different than where I had just left: everything was much newer and bigger. It may sound kind of silly, being from Elk Grove and all, but I admit that I was amazed at the differences in surroundings when doing this comparison.

What made this comparison even more significant for me was earlier that day, I had actually visited Old Town to celebrate the birthday of one of my co-workers at the newspaper, June. The staff headed to a Chinese restaurant called Happy Garden (the building was previously the home of the EG Club). It was my first visit to this restaurant, and overall, I had a good experience, particularly with my kung pao scallops. Also, I can't forget the sign that was outside of the kitchen's entrance and written in this manner:
Danger
Men
Cooking

Two Reporting Assignments/One Day

Tuesday was a long day for me- literally. I woke up at around 6 a.m. to attend a 7:30 a.m. press conference (though it really ended up being a 7:40 a.m. one). The purpose of this press conference was for local city officials to demand Prop. 1B funds from the state government. It was my first press conference, but I was accompanied by a staff writer, Blake Ellington, and we wrote the story together that same day. Basically, the only people at the press conference were government officials/people who organized it and a few members of the press.

The press conference took place at a parking lot at the intersection of East Stockton Blvd. and Sheldon Road, near a Highway 99 interchange. Commuters often park their cars at this lot to ride a bus to Sacramento. I'm quite familiar with this intersection, not to mention the amount of traffic in that area. As a reporter, the hardest thing for me was trying to hear and understand what the people behind the lectern were saying. Besides the cars whizzing through the intersection, there were also the sounds from the nearby highway. It also didn't help that some people didn't speak directly into the microphone.

In the evening, I was in a neighborhood where a shooting had taken place last week. I have a connection to this neighborhood because my old elementary school, Ellen Feickert, is merely a few blocks away from the scene of the crime. In fact, I used to ride the school bus past the street where the shooting had taken place.

For this story, I was supposed to get neighbors' reactions to the incident. The quotes would be added to a story written by staff writer Cameron Macdonald. The prospect of going door-to-door to people's houses didn't appeal to me. What I ended up doing instead was walking around the block: if someone was standing in front of his or her house or was out for a walk, then I would talk to that person. There's also a nearby park (coincidentally just behind my elementary school) where I also found sources. Normally, I feel a little comfortable going up to people and trying to interview them, but compared to knocking on doors, I chose "the lesser of two evils."

One of the things that I realized was that people seemed to relax and feel more comfortable, when they learned I attended Feickert or graduated from Elk Grove High School. This type of personal information isn't related to the story, but just casually chatting with someone can help build trust.

High School Graduations: The Start of Something New

Last week, I started working at the Elk Grove Citizen. For my first two assignments, I wrote about two graduations: Valley High and Florin High.

What made the assignments even more relevant to me is that my sister is a member of the class of 2007, graduating from Elk Grove High. In fact, Elk Grove's ceremony was before Valley's. I couldn't help but mentally compare the three graduation ceremonies. For instance, Valley and Florin both had student performers sing songs on-stage. They both also had skits, where a group of students would talk about and reminisce over events and memories from the last four years. Meanwhile, Elk Grove featured a student, a contestant in a Poetry Alive! competition, who recited Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken," one of my all-time favorite poems. Elk Grove also had its valedictorian and salutatorian give speeches, which didn't happen at Valley and Florin's ceremonies.

All three of these graduation ceremonies happened at Arco Arena. Although I've lived in the Sacramento area my whole life, I can count on one hand the number of times I've visited Arco (one of those times includes my own high school graduation, class of 2004). As a member of the press, I was able to interview students prior to the ceremonies, as they waited patiently behind the scenes. There was a sense of excitement and nervousness in the air as soon-to-be graduates shared their feelings and plans.