Occupy Santa Cruz: Two Months Down...

After Two Months of Occupation the County Office for Santa Cruz is alive and well. I went down on November 17th to check it out and document my experience with some photos and video. 

The assembly outside the County Court

Self-declared members of the "99%"

     I had to park far away from the actual occupation site and as I walked over the bridge along the main road through Santa Cruz I met some people holding signs towards oncoming traffic. The first people I met were a elderly couple who have lived in Santa Cruz for the last twenty years. The woman on the right was an out of work merchant, who was trying to start a career in teaching. While her husband on the left, currently works as a grief counselor. Both were very passionate about the occupy movement. It was surprising for me to be reminded that this movement was so wide spread in terms of demographics within society. The fact that an elderly couple were out in the cold waiving pickets signs has to say something about the condition of our nation. 

     Approaching the front of the court house, there were several tents and makeshift shelters set up, but not too many people around. I could hear the sounds of a crowd near by and went around the corner to find a large group of people coming my way.
   Some had candles, others just had lights, but they were all headed towards the steps of the court house building. Looking at their faces I saw a range of different races, ages, and social groups. As I walked with them, I found out that they were all headed to the steps for a General Assembly Meeting.

I had heard the term general assembly used before, in description of Protest movement organization, but Id never seen it in action. To my surprise it operated in a very democratic and organized fashion.

The agenda for the meeting was written on white boards and placed by the large lit tent. There was also a sign up sheet for speakers in this area and people were encouraged to sign up to speak if they had something to say.

 Looking around the assembly's members was another interesting sight.The group was very diverse. With homeless type people peacefully mixing in with hipster type young people.

I saw groups of average looking persons next to people who looked like my grandma and grandpa.

 

In addition to the different social groups I saw in the assembly I noticed and young boy reading while his mom talked politics with a fellow assembly member

     The assembly of mostly older looking adults, was being led by a young college student with a megaphone. She mentioned that she was mediating the discussion tonight, which made me wonder how it is decided who gets to mediate the Assembly meetings.

     For whatever reason, she was leading the Assembly meeting and it was actually very organized and civil. From the beginning she set the ground rules of how Assembly member could have their voice heard, while retaining order in enough where their weren't fights or arguments. To this consequence, they had rules set up based around hand signals. Thumbs up was yes, thumbs down was no.  Crossing arms was extreme disagreeing. Pinky up was a form of answering or correcting a comment or question that a speaker made. All these ground rules were placed in order to maintain a civil atmosphere, while still allowing for discussion of ideas.

 Leaving the meeting, I was struck by how organized the occupation was. With tents and food dispensaries in the general camp, the Occupy group functioned as a livable area for many people. My second most striking realization was how diverse the group was. I could honestly say that over 70% of the people their were above the age of thirty. with 40% over forty five. With that it mind, I couldn't help but be a little angry with the portrayal of Occupy Wall-street being largely made up of whiny hipsters.  The generalization is harmful and doesn't give justice to the significant claim these "Occupiers" have. The presence of older more mature members of society should offer a sign to how important corporate/ government reform is to America. The question is whether America can see past the drum circle, hipster scarf image and understand the motivation behind the Occupy movement.

Telling A Story: The Santa Cruz Wierdo

Intro to Photography: Portraits

I turned in this assignment a couple weeks ago. It called for students to select ten photos that would tell about a person. We were expected to expand beyond the typical representation of a portrait and explore new ways of showing a person.
I decided to stick to the main definition of the portraits. In retrospect my idea was a little underdeveloped and had made me rethink they way I plan out a project. My main idea was to photograph one subject in a well lit background with various items of personal importance. I also wanted to add a mask into the portraits to convey not only a sense of irony, but also to symbolically represent the masks the subject has in real life. I realize now this may have been a little under developed.

These were the five I selected out of the 50 or so. I could have selected more, but I felt torn between keeping to this subject and including other portraits I had taken earlier in the week. As a result, my classmates were confused by the arrangement's concept as a whole. Even though I did separate the two groupings it seemed like other people in the class only shot single subjects. The shots I selected for the second arrangement were more themed around friendship and showing the different personalities between my different friends. 

Jester

The Strong Woman

Serious 

Blonde Spainard

Tipsy Dance

Back on Track: More Family Ties

A visit to Apple Valley

       As I mentioned earlier, when visiting my family members to talk about my grandfather's Wake Island experience I was constantly being deferred to my Uncle Norm or  Uncle Marty. My uncle Norm especially was supposedly the family archive of memories of Clyndon Dollar. Thus one of the main objectives of my summer was to visit my uncle in near by Apple Valley.





          This time I had my older brother Chris to keep me company on our trip. Apple Valley is about two hours away from where I live, so the trip was not that long. As we journeyed further from the coast the temperature rapidly increased, but my brother and I were very excited to see my uncle.
       Anytime we are around Uncle Norm great discussions of politics, religion, or history are always in abundance. Normally the family events where we interacted with him never provided quite enough time discuss any matter; so as you can imagine my brother and I were very happy about having a whole trip dedicated to talking history
 

Upon arrival, my uncle and aunt offered us some brunch, which we gladly accepted. We ate outside on an outdoor patio. The backyard had been recently furnished with new riparian plants and looked very nice. As we ate we discussed various things, and before I knew it we started discussing Wake Island. I quickly grabbed my video camera and recorded the conversation.
      After around an hour of discussion, my uncle gave us a tour of the backyard. Showing us the various spots he liked to read and his other specialized water saving plants. After the tour concluded, we headed inside to continue the discussion. Setting up in his study we talked about my grandfather. Uncle Norm provided insight into how he thought my Clyndon's outlook on life was changed by the war. He believed his father was not angry towards the Japanese but instead viewed them as just as capable of sin and any other human. Uncle Norm described my Grandfather's outlook on war as verging on pacifism and hypothesized that the restrictions of the Cold War 50's made it difficult for him to share his true feelings about what happend. He described a situation in which a popular kid from high school approached Uncle Norm, and told him he liked getting his hair cut by my his father because he discussed things no one else talked about.
 

A special bell welded by my Uncle Chris for Uncle Norm

View of backyard

One of the secret reading spots

Another view of the backyard facing the house

      Some other surprising stories revolved around my Uncle's observations of the families experience as a whole. Like the others in my family, he believed his father was affected psychologically by the war. He described one instance during a high school graduation, where my grandfather got up and started marching down the side aisle. My grandfather believed this to a form of flashback to one of the prisons my grandfather had stayed in Japan. My uncle told us that the Japanese would have the Prisoners march every morning, so the similarity between the two may have triggered a reaction from my grandfather. Either way my uncle told us that no one ever said anything abou the event, and he was never ridiculed by his classmates.

    It seems like most of the town knew of my grandfather and his experience, so there was a certain amount of respect. One story my uncle told, was how during much of his childhood the family received free vegetables from the Japanese grocer. Even when the grocer was told not to by his employers the family still would find a wrapped basket of vegetables at the rear entrance. Uncle Norm speculated that the Japanese grocer knew of my grandfathers experience and being as had been interned in the United States they both had an understanding.