Jesus “Paco” Estrada stepped onto LMU’s campus for the first time when he was in the third grade. He knew even then that it was the place for him. 

“I saw it and in my head I was like, ‘You know I'm gonna come here, one day,’” Paco recounted in a Zoom interview. 

A double major in theology and Spanish, LMU’s Jesuit values and welcoming nature are what stood out to Paco the most. As a catholic himself, he tries to exemplify these values in his daily life. That effort shines through in all the work he does for our community. In the first semester of his freshman year alone, Paco has shown himself to be a role model for us all. 

Since coming to LMU, Paco has made himself an essential fixture of the community. He is part of First to Go (FTG), Resilience, and Christian Life Community (CLC), as well as a member of the Social Justice Scholars community and the Campus Ministry.

On top of all that, he mentors high schoolers through the college application process. Paco began working as a mentor through a program his friend at USC started. But after working with his mentee and discovering she had already had the opportunity to be a part of Questbridge, a nonprofit that connects students from low-income backgrounds with universities such as Dartmouth and Princeton, he started to doubt the need for his expertise. 

“I was just spouting information at her, and she'd say, ‘Oh yeah, I know that. I know that, I know that,” Paco said. “Not to say, I don't want to help her. It's just like, does she really necessarily need my help?”

This realization led Paco to create his own mentorship program that goes beyond what programs such as Questbridge do and utilizes specific knowledge gained through his own experiences. 

“I'd rather focus on students that would actually benefit more and don't have access to these kinds of programs...it's not just me helping them through the college app process, but also helping them build connections and relationships that will help them later on in the future.”

Creating this mentorship program has inspired and motivated Paco to realize his dream of becoming an immigration lawyer. In a piece he wrote for the Center for Advancing the American Dream during his summer internship with them, Paco put his dreams for himself and for the future into his own words.

“I hope to open people's hearts to see the love and understanding that will humanize immigrants.  To look beyond the way the media portrays us and the dehumanizing accusations some politicians have made. After all, immigrants are people…just like me and my family.”

For now Paco gets to live out his current dream: being an LMU student. Paco noted the first time he and his parents drove up to campus and took in that massive fountain against the sprawling green hill, the realization that this was his school, it felt unreal. 

“My parents were like, ‘Whoa, you're gonna come here,’ it was just a little moment.”

While he described it as a “little moment,” Paco’s parents’ opinion is anything but “little” to him. He considers them an essential part of who he is, a large part of his identity, and his face lights up every time he talks about them.

“Everything I do [is] for my parents,” Paco said. “They’ve supported me so much to get me to where I am today and if it weren't for them I'd never be in a private high school, which gave me the opportunity to go to LMU.”  

Paco’s parents both made perilous journeys to cross the border and create a new life for their children, and his respect for them is boundless. He refers to his mother as his “loving hero” and considers his father to be the hardest working man he knows. 

“It’s said that parents figuratively move mountains for their kids, but my parents literally moved countries,” he said.

In the piece he wrote during his summer internship with the Milken Institute for the American Dream, he describes his family as “the perfect paradigm of the struggles of first-generation immigrants,” and notes that although he is not privileged in wealth, he is “privileged to have such loving and supportive parents.”

Time with his family has been one of the positives from the pandemic for Paco. With his younger sister home doing remote learning as well, the internet quality is poor, but quality time with family is suddenly abundant.

“Before, we'd all be busy with work, school [and] extracurriculars…we get to have meals together now, that wasn't really an option before. And I bought a foosball table. Sometimes we just go outside and play.”

But lockdown has not been entirely smooth-sailing for the Estrada family. In mid-April, while Paco was still in his senior year of high school, his mother, father, and himself became ill with Covid-19. 

“I had to wear a mask within my own house and stay in my own room, and my own sister would be scared to give me food. It's a different experience for sure.” 

While everyone in the family made a full recovery, Paco said the illness increased the difficulty of those last few weeks before graduation. 

“I just said, ‘I want to keep working.’ And honestly, probably the only reason I kept going was to go to LMU…I'm just really looking forward to my parents seeing me walk the stage. That's still what I look forward to right now.”

by Harrison Hamm

As a queer, biracial son of a Filipina immigrant, the rights of myself and those I love are frequently challenged by so-called “political opinions.” This is now happening at LMU.

The “political opinions” I reference are not merely sociopolitical or economic ideologies belonging to either the right or left. Rather, I use the term “political opinions” in quotes to identify violently prejudiced beliefs dangerously justified through political rhetoric (i.e. anti-LGBTQ rights, pro-immigration control). 

Anti-LGBTQ rights or pro-immigration control stances are not simple opinions, devoid of tangible impacts on bodies. In fact, these beliefs intensely impact bodies, lives, and communities of human beings. It is easy to say you support “pro-border security.” It is less easy to say you support “incarcerating children and forcibly sterilizing women.” Through rhetorical coding, the serious and real actions that follow “political opinions” are too often overlooked. We cannot overlook these here on the Bluff, especially now. 

On October 11th, ASLMU Senator Stephanie Martinez was impeached on the grounds that her actions “severely damaged the integrity or authority of ASLMU or the office held by the individual in question.” To further specify the grounds of impeachment, complainant Senator Camille Orozco clarified that the hearing was not a challenge to free speech. 

“I would like to remind everyone that this is not a trial regarding freedom of speech, expression, or political affiliation, as those rights are protected in the United States Constitution, as well as the non-discrimination policy in ASLMU’s constitution,” Orozco said. “This hearing is one regarding conduct which has severely damaged the integrity, or authority of ASLMU or the office held by Senator Martinez.”

Challenging Orozco’s reminder, Senator Martinez expressed her belief that the trial was entirely an issue of free speech. 

Martinez argues, “Despite what was stated, that this is not about free speech or political identity, I argue that this is not the case. The impeachment case against me was brought forward as a result of the Loyolan article and subsequent petition in response to my creation of the students for Trump Instagram page,”

Called to her defense as a witness, Scott Meyers supported her assertion that this was a free speech issue. “I think a lot of what conservatives stand for is freedom of speech, and I believe that this is entirely a free speech issue,” said Meyers. “I see people being affected or harmed by an opinion.” 

And there’s our buzzword: “opinion.” 

So what do we make of this argument? Was Martinez impeached for creating distrust between the very students her role as Senator for Diversity and Inclusion is tasked to protect? Or, was Martinez impeached for her “opinion?”

Veronica Backer-Peral of The Loyolan answers this question in a recent article, questioning the constitutional and ethical integrity of the impeachment.

She argues, “Even if you disagree with everything that Senator Martinez believes and stands for, it is evident that she was impeached for tweeting her opinion.” 

While Martinez, Backer-Peral, and other critics of the impeachment claim an “opinion” was under politicized scrutiny, I implore us to question the meaning of “opinion” in this context. The opinion in question is not merely an ideological alignment with right-wing politics. The “opinion” being discussed is not an opinion at all. It is a violent, dangerous, and alienating message to the communities Martinez’s role requires she protect. 

Martinez was not impeached for an “opinion.” She was impeached for damaging the integrity of ASLMU not by openly supporting “pro-immigration control” - but for supporting violence on the lived realities of our most vulnerable students. These marginalized communities, such as queer folks and undocumented immigrants, need a Senator for Diversity and Inclusion who has their best interest in mind. Martinez’s hateful and violent actions directly contradict this duty. 

To retweet “My child will NOT be learning LGBT curriculum” is to deem queer students at LMU as unimportant and not worth hearing or learning from. To retweet this exclusion of LGBT folks is to isolate us, to devalue our lives, and to curate a world without us. That is why Martinez was impeached. We, the student population she is supposed to protect, feel unsafe under her leadership.

To tweet “A close friend of mine works for ICE” is to align herself, and by extension ASLMU, with the endangering of communities of color, the imprisonment of children, and the mutilation of women’s bodies. Martinez’ parents’ legal immigrant status does not absolve her of this. My mother is a legal immigrant too; however, I know that to tweet about a friend in ICE is to support violence against students at LMU.

Martinez was not impeached for her political views. ASLMU’s majority voted to impeach her because she tarnished the integrity and authority of the governance of our student body. As a queer son of an immigrant, I do not trust Martinez. Though she stated that the LGBT community at LMU “would have” her support, I am here to say no.

My human rights are not a political opinion. Neither are the rights of the LMU student body.

Though Martinez was impeached for creating distrust between students and ASLMU, it is imperative that we as a university push back against the insistence on this as an issue of free speech or political affiliation. We can disagree about new logos versus old logos. We cannot disagree about our student communities’ human rights.

This is the opinion of Harrison Hamm, a junior Screenwriting & Women’s and Gender Studies double major from Jackson, TN. 

In Congresswoman Karen Bass’s speech for LMU’s Constitution Day, she reminded us that college students are not immune to COVID-19. Yet as students return to Los Angeles, many appear to be unfazed by the risks of the current pandemic when throwing parties and large gatherings. 

At the time this article was written, LA Public Health reported 279,909 COVID-19 cases in LA County, a number that is increasing by about 1,250 a day. Fatality rates have slowed, but 6,741 people have died from COVID-19 in LA County to date.

Some LMU students who weren’t able to secure on-campus housing still find themselves living close to campus, occupying buildings in Playa Vista and Westchester. In attempts to replicate what is left of the college experience away from the Bluff, groups of friends are quarantining together, attending Zoom lectures in the same rooms and leaning on each other for emotional support that they may not receive back home. 

But COVID outbreaks in colleges across the country tell us that the pandemic poses a threat to the fun. Despite strict precautions that mirror those released by LMU in early August, the University of Southern California (USC) experienced a spike in cases, according to USC Chief Student Health Officer Sarah Van Orman. Students have been found throwing parties in off-campus apartments, in one instance causing a COVID-19 outbreak that put over a hundred people in quarantine. 

Similarly, California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) reported an outbreak of COVID-19 cases directly related to large gatherings of students on and off campus near the end of September. This outbreak put approximately 328 on-campus residents in quarantine and CSULB has since asked off-campus community members to self-isolate. 

USC and CSULB’s neighborhoods are home to Black and Brown communities who are particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has reported that racial and ethnic minority groups are more likely to contract COVID-19 due to social inequities including access to healthcare, occupation and housing. In addition to facing gentrification and increasing rent, a deadly virus is now brewing in their backyards. 

LMU students are capable of quickly catching and spreading COVID-19 to the most vulnerable members of the community in the same way. Black and Brown residents have occupied the neighborhoods surrounding LMU for years. In Westchester, the minority groups listed in the CDC’s report make up 48% of the population. About four miles away in Inglewood, they make up about 70%. 

In an October 2020 report, the CDC has concluded that young adults significantly contribute to community transmission of COVID-19. The CDC’s new data confirms that people ages 20-29 make up the highest percentage of COVID-19 cases nationwide, surpassing adults aged 60 and older.

To accommodate public health guidelines, the university has reduced housing occupancy to one student per unit with Resident Directors enforcing housing rules.

Sophomore Cobe Alvarez is currently living alone in an on-campus apartment. His experience has been comfortable and safe since Resident Directors are actively limiting entrance into buildings. 

Alvarez expressed that seeing other residents’ social media posts of small kickbacks and gatherings worry him due to how the virus could be spread through these activities.

“I would say I'm more concerned about students doing stuff off campus, [or] students living on campus and going off campus, than I am about [living] on campus specifically,” said Alvarez. 

LMU has also promoted safety on and off campus during the pandemic. Over the Labor Day weekend, LMU released a “Protect the Pride” video on social media. Students from Sorority and Fraternity Life (SFL) encouraged students to follow social distancing guidelines. LMU has also been updating their  “LMU Together” page and adopting the motto “EIBC,” short for Excellent Infectious Behavior Control.

“[EIBC] encourages students to monitor their behavior, stand six feet apart, wear their masks [and] not gather in large groups of three or more,” explained Amiya Powell-Hodge, interim Assistant Director of Off-Campus Student Life.

Playa Del Oro (PDO), an apartment building minutes from campus, is primarily occupied by LMU students every year given its proximity to campus, and this semester is no different. Sophomore PDO resident Meghan Quadracci reported that the building has been promoting distancing and limiting entrance to shared spaces like the pool. But unlike the residents living on campus, there are no Resident Directors or Public Safety officers to enforce distancing and the number of guests in the apartments. 

In an email sent out to LMU’s Service Organization Community (SOC) in September, Center for Service and Action (CSA) Assistant Director for Student Engagement Chelsea Brown reprimanded large gatherings that were allegedly reported and pleaded with students to stop.

“[W]e are only on day 2 of the semester and there have already been reports of students gathering in large groups at houses outside the back gates and in Playa Del Oro,” Brown wrote. “Here’s the thing: please don’t.” 

It is unclear if the university has taken any action regarding these specific reports or exactly whom these incidents of gatherings were reported to. 

Off-campus residents who hold gatherings may also face consequences from the local government. The LA County Health Officer Order’s Impact on Daily Life explicitly states that “individual and family gatherings or parties of any size aren’t allowed.” LA Mayor Eric Garcetti has also threatened to shut off utilities for those who violate public health orders such as these. 

Powell-Hodge explained that LMU has taken a more restorative approach over a punitive one to violations of COVID-19 preventative procedures.

“We are addressing it with care and compassion as we would anything else,” said Powell-Hodge.

If a neighboring member of the community files a complaint, the university writes a report and Off Campus Student Life will follow up with students as needed. There have been no complaints publicly reported by LMU.

University life has changed drastically with the pandemic. LMU has made resources available to students but is not directly policing them. Students are the only ones responsible for their individual decisions. 

Powell-Hodge wants to remind students to “consider your values and who you value. This is a time for us to be creative about the way we conceptualize community and we have to do that with every member of our community in mind. That is what’s going to help us return to our campus life.”