Newsmakers is published in First Monday by the Public Affairs and Publications offices at SFSU. 415/338-1665. E-mail: pubcom@sfsu.edu

Send submissions to: pubnews@sfsu.edu. Please include a contact person and extension.
Note: To reach an extension from off-campus, dial 415/33-and the extension.

April 1, 2001

Measuring diversity	Gender analysis of Holocaust	Plan hard in soft market	Hip to be Hapa
Fight asthma-with love	Remedial questions	Jazz and race

Measuring diversity

A story in the April 1 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle reported on the most culturally diverse cities in the United States, as ranked by the U.S. Census Diversity Index. San Francisco was ranked 13th, surprisingly low to many observers. Geography Professor Max Kirkeberg explained how the index failed to measure the city's true diversity. "If you take any city in the Southwest except San Francisco, even including Oakland and San Jose and Sacramento, when you are talking about Hispanics you are really talking about Mexican-Americans, because they usually are 60 to 85 percent," he said. "In San Francisco, only around 40 percent (of Hispanics are) Mexican-American, meaning we have much more diversity - Guatemalans, Peruvians, Salvadorans, Colombians, whatever."

On Feb. 28, the Chicago Tribune reported on the debate of how women were treated differently than men in the Holocaust. History Professor Mary Lowenthal Felstiner, who teaches a course on the Holocaust and genocide, said that it was less dangerous to be a woman when the Nazis first invaded Russia and began killing men at will. At Auschwitz, however, women were executed at a higher rate than men. Felstiner added that gender analysis is crucial to understanding genocide and the Holocaust. "(The Nazis) wanted a solution that would cut off the future, deprive Jewry of its biological reserves, eliminate the germ cell of Jewish revival," she said. "The women and children are not peripheral to this thinking at all; in fact, they're central."

As the economy has softened recently with the dot-com collapse, corporate recruiters are cutting back on hiring at college campuses, reported the San Francisco Chronicle on April 1. "Since about October, I've noticed a drop in the listings," Career Counselor Janet Coker said. With more experienced workers looking for jobs, students are worried about being able to land a job this year upon graduation. Although there are still plenty of jobs in such industries as education and nursing, college career centers are warning students to start looking during fall instead of waiting until spring to shop around. "The student who is out there in the market needs to know about the market so that they don't get that sticker shock," said Mariko Hingston, interim director of the Career Counseling and Development Center.

The Hapa Club is teaching students that it is hip to be Hapa, according to an article in the Feb. 10 issue of the North American Post. The word Hapa is derived from Hawaiian, meaning half white, and was once considered derogatory by Japanese-Americans. However, Hapa is now used to describe Asians of mixed heritage, including Asians adopted by parents of different ethnicities. Wei Ming Dariotis, an Asian-American studies assistant professor who is Hapa, said: "Why does it have to be just Asian-white? Why can't it be Asian-Latino or Asian-African? In fact, wouldn't it be nice if we used the word to connect people of all different Asians and other races?"

"We find there is a huge disparity in asthma between poor and minority children when compared to middle-class and Caucasian children," said Mary Beth Love, chair of Health Education, in regard to the Yes We Can Urban Asthma project, in the front-page Q&A feature of the San Francisco Examiner on April 4. "So one of our objectives is to serve all poor children in San Francisco and raise their level of care up to the early-1990s National Institutes for Health guidelines - basic and minimal health standards," Love said. The program joined with the Healthy People 2010 project to set standards and address health problems in poor communities. "We started with asthma because so many people on our staff had children with asthma," she said. "We felt, if this is happening to a middle-class person, what's happening in communities where they don't have the resources?"

In the San Francisco Examiner's front-page Q&A feature on March 25, director of the Office of Orientation and Retention Karen Kingsbury discussed how far schools should go to recruit and retain students in order to decrease the numbers of failing students. The office was established after 199 SFSU students were not allowed to register for classes last year because they failed to complete their remedial English and math courses. The students may register for SFSU classes once they complete their remedial requirements elsewhere. "We are giving an enormous amount of resources to tutoring because some stu-dents are clearly not prepared," Kingsbury said. "If we know that, we can hook them into tutoring, and then get them passing and succeeding at these classes." She adds: "Our job is to watch everyone's progress and to contact them and to throw that lifeline out if they need it. "The teachers care, the tutors care, and folks in my position also care that students succeed."

A March 29 article in the Contra Costa Times featured music Professor Dee Spencer and "Jazz and Race: Black, White and Beyond," a three-day event that she organized for SFJAZZ to bring together people of different ethnicities who share a passion for jazz. As an organizer, Spencer spent two months agonizing over each question and finding a theme that she said "everyone can solo on." "I don't think slapping high fives for two hours is stimulating or informative," said Spencer, who is director of education for SFJAZZ. "I think this particular topic is extremely rare, extremely unique and fairly adventurous. I've never shied away from questions about race and jazz."

Return to April First Monday

Return to Newsmakers Archive

To send events: call EXT 1665 or send e-mail to pubnews@sfsu.edu