Letting Go of the American Dream
About 60 listeners absorbed lines from Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Between the World and Me.” Coates himself was not present, yet his words rang out through church pews, resonating with those familiar with struggle. Led by Rev. Dr. George C.L. Cummings, a senior pastor at Imani Community…
Panelists Dialogue About Prison Industrial Complex
Last year Frank Alvarado Jr. was shot by Salinas police officers for brandishing what they thought was a handgun — the “handgun” turned out to be a cell phone. On the first day of a two-day symposium, Alvarado’s father Frank Alvarado Sr. stood in the…
Redefining American Identity
Telling stories of crossed borders, unyielding struggles and triumphs along the way, UC Santa Cruz students Stephany Ramos, Abril Lopez and Ricardo Cruz, and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas shared their accounts of their lives as undocumented Americans. Sixty people attended “An Evening of…