New on DVD: Trouble the Water

Trouble the Water is a gritty first hand account of Hurricane Katrina told by ninth ward victims. Recently featured on Time Magazine's Short List picks of the week, Trouble the Water allows you to experience the horror of Katrina like never before. 

To read my review of Trouble the Water please click here.

Spotlight: Stephanie Whitney

Please explore recent USF grad Stephanie Whitney's website swhitneydesigns.com. Not only is she my best friend, but she is also an extremely talented graphic designer who is dedicated and devoted to good design. 

Here are few samples of her work that can be found at her website.

RVCA shelving for flagship store in SF

Regina Spektor redesigned CD cover

Dia De Los Muertos Poster for a USF event

What i'm Listening to: MIXTAPE: 1

Track Artist

1. Skinny Love............................... Bon Iver

2. I and Love and You.................. The Avett Brothers

3. Marry Song............................... Band Of Horses

4. Blood Bank................................ Bon Iver

5. Paranoia in B Major................. The Avett Brothers

6. Bad Man's World...................... Jenny Lewis

7. Shame......................................... The Avett Brothers

8. Nude........................................... Radiohead

9. Laundry Room.......................... The Avett Brothers

10. Pretty Bird............................... Jenny Lewis

11. High and Dry............................ Radiohead

12. Silver Lining............................. Rilo Kiley

Go Dad x 2!

I am so proud of my dad! After over 30 years with the Hillsboro School District, my dad, Carlos Perez, retired in late June of 2009. My dad's career was recently featured in the Washington County Weekly, an insert of the Oregonian. 

Beneath the calm, an educator who's passionate about rights

 by Wendy Owen. 

HILLSBORO -- Carlos Perez simply smiles when asked about his hidden artistic talent.

His secretary discovered the cartoonlike drawings on the margins of paperwork years ago.

"He's an excellent artist," said Charlotte Bramlett, who kept one of the drawings Perez doodled of himself, while talking on the phone.

But Perez isn't one to promote his own talents, be it doodling or his work as an educator. The Hillsboro School District deputy superintendent prefers to work on the margins, behind the scenes, making a difference but never taking credit.

It will be up to others to note his 31 years of accomplishments with the Hillsboro School District and in human rights before he steps into retirement July 1. A celebration is planned today at J.B. Thomas Middle School, where he once was principal. The photo slideshow probably will include the time Perez dressed as Capt. Stubing, from the 1970s sit-com "The Love Boat," for an eighth-grade graduation.

By all accounts, the 58-year-old Perez has been a top-notch administrator.

People in and out of the district use the same words to describe him: integrity, compassionate, funny.

"He is very much what you see is what you get," said Perla Rodriguez, a Forest Grove School District principal.

Perez rose quickly through the ranks in Hillsboro from counselor to assistant principal to principal and district-level administrator. He has served a decade as deputy superintendent. As second in charge, he was the "go-to" guy at the district level.

Student deaths, a bleacher collapse, new construction, student expulsions, boundary changes, parent complaints. Perez got them first.

"Sometimes the phone doesn't stop," Bramlett said. "When you're in that position ... it's just constant."

Somehow, Perez squeezed in time to mentor other Latino educators and work on programs for underserved students in the 20,300-student district.

He also helped found two locally based civil rights groups, the Human Rights Council of Washington County and the Oregon Association of Latino Administrators.

"Carlos is the guy who has kept (equity) in the forefront of our decision-making," said Mike Scott, incoming superintendent, who has worked with Perez for 11 years. "We've concerned ourselves with issues of equity for a number of years, and you see other districts just now getting on board with that work."

Human rights is his passion, and seeing them trampled is one of the few topics that causes the soft-spoken Perez to raise his voice.

A 2003 livability study of Hillsboro residents cited the growing presence of Latinos on a list of what "satisfies residents least about living in Hillsboro."

Perez was disturbed by the statistic, but what made him angry was the fact that it was publicized when only 5 percent of the 400 respondents -- or 20 people -- cited it as a reason. He was further irritated when he visited an elementary school and found the newspaper open to the glaring headline in plain view of Latino students.

"Just the idea that these kids were judged by the color of their skin," he said. "Seeing it in print, it was like a slap in the face."

L.A. and civil rights 

Perez was born in the Los Angeles area and attended a high school where the majority of students were Latino. The youngest of seven children, he planned to follow in his siblings' steps and immediately join the work force to provide income for the family.

"The plan was for me to be a carpenter," he said. "I never aspired to be a teacher."

With little formal education, Perez's parents had worked in the fields, picking lettuce, melons, oranges. By the time he was born in 1951, the family was financially stable: His mother stayed home to care for the children and his father worked as a construction laborer.

The 1960s and '70s were a tumultuous time, Perez said, and Los Angeles was a hot spot for civil rights.

Few would guess the professorial man with the graying Vandyke beard once had long hair, a scraggly beard and shouted "Si, se puede!" ("Yes, we can") with the United Farm Workers.

He joined the thousands of demonstrators with the Chicano Moratorium in 1970 to protest the disproportionately high number of Latinos being sent to the Vietnam War.

"You protested the aggrieved," Perez said.

The experience shaped him as an adult.

"You're listening to Martin Luther King or Cesar Chavez or John Kennedy," he said. "They're talking about the rights of each and every man (but) you're witnessing injustices.

"It does raise you to be involved to ensure that every person has an opportunity to grow and develop."

Breaking the ceiling 

A fellow activist, a mentor, persuaded Perez to attend college and helped him apply. He found an interest in elementary education and started his teaching career in Idaho Falls, Idaho, where he said people teased him about his hippielike appearance, not his ethnicity.

Perez was among the pioneers for Latino educators, said Gus Balderas, a Hillsboro assistant superintendent, who is 17 years younger than Perez.

"Carlos broke the ceiling," Balderas said. "I consider him one of the old guard in terms of Latino educators. That really helped to get us where we're accepted to fill positions. Thirty years ago, it wasn't the case."

In Forest Grove, Rodriguez, a member of the Oregon Association of Latino Administrators, also has benefited from the mentoring organization.

Perez is her mentor.

"I can't think of a single important decision that I've made without bouncing it off him," she said. "I don't always want to hear what he says, but 99.9 percent of the time, he's right."

Rodriguez said the work of an educator often is thankless.

"We just keep going on because we know in our hearts that the work does matter," she said. "I hope he knows how important he is to each of us. We get our resilience from Carlos." 

-- Wendy Owen; wendyowen@news.oregonian.com

Carlos Perez 

Born: San Fernando, Calif. 

Age: 58 

Family: Married 34 years to Corine, vice president of finance/enterprise services at Intel. Two children: Joel, 24, works in Bend for a business and print solutions company, and Carly, 21, attends the University of San Francisco. 

Education: San Fernando Valley State College (now called California State, Northridge), where he signed up with a teacher corps program. Finished his bachelor's in elementary education at Idaho State; master's degree in counseling from Oregon State University. 

Career: Grade school teacher in Idaho. In 31 years with the Hillsboro School District, he's been a counselor at J.B. Thomas and Evergreen junior highs; assistant principal at Evergreen and Poynter junior highs; principal at David Hill Elementary and J.B. Thomas; director of secondary operations; executive director of K-8 operations; associate superintendent of support services; deputy superintendent. 

Heroes: Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy. Perez says they "talked about not only issues of social justice but of contributing to this country." 

What's next? Perez said he's looking for a change but doesn't have any specific plans and expects to continue his human rights work. 

Something that might surprise people: When traveling, "I'm the guy who wants to stop to see the world's biggest ball of yarn or the world's biggest treehouse."

A Review: Trouble the Water

Beads were tossed, clothing was lost, and everyone paid a hearty cost… that is, the head-pounding hangover that followed the next morning. Ahh… Mardi Gras, a celebration best known in the United States down in the soulful south of New Orleans. The famous French Quarter of the city was flooded with natives and tourists alike last Tuesday, for the carnival celebration, showing no sign of the devastating category five Hurricane Katrina that whipped through the city just four years prior. At least that is the facade that is told through these happy go-lucky partiers- New Orleans is fine, the buildings have been rebuilt, and the city is flourishing. A different picture is painted however, in the documentary Trouble the Water, which shows just how ‘fine’ the ninth ward region of New Orleans is doing in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Nominated for best documentary at this year’s Academy Awards, Trouble the Water is the redemptive tale of Kim and Scott Roberts who filmed their horrifying Hurricane Katrina ordeal on their hi 8 camera (the amateur filming does not set well with those prone to motion sickness). The young couple, which at the time did not own a car, had no means of evacuating New Orleans before Katrina ravished the city. The Roberts, were not alone, as many in the working-class and predominately black neighborhood of the ninth ward were left with zero options for leaving, as the city did not provide any public transportation to evacuate, the ninth ward residents were just left to wait. And wait. And wait.

While waiting, the brash and outspoken Kim, 24-years-old, rides around the neighborhood on her bike saying a friendly hello to everyone from the cute kids next door to the drunks hanging around the corner of the liquor store. The neighborhood feels very connected, everyone knows everyone and is in everyone’s business, a certain warmth that makes the neighbors seem to be like one big family, accepting of everyone’s faults and fortunes. It is this very connection that holds this community together throughout the following days as Katrina barrels through their streets with no mercy.

The documentary is beyond powerful, as you are enthralled in the Roberts first hand account of Katrina, moving with them as they pile up their mattresses and head to the attic for higher ground, praying the roof stays attached to their house, praying the water stops rising. The film has a clear message backed behind the Roberts footage, that the Bush Administration, FEMA, and the officials of New Orleans failed miserably in preparation for Katrina and in it’s wake. A familiar story of criticism, Trouble the Water, gives it new depth as it’s more personal told through the Roberts, you see the struggles that hit them, one after the other… bam, bam, bam, you feel their emotion, their spirit, only leaving you left with a gut-wrenching frustration at the maniacal mistakes made.

The Roberts, despite all the adversity they face, refuse to allow Katrina to drown their will to survive. Their will to make tomorrow a better and more meaningful day than the one before is strengthened by the multitude of obstacles that they face. Formally involved with selling drugs and other illegal activity, Kim and Scott use Katrina to redeem their past bad decisions and unearth a new life filled with purpose. Scott begins rebuilding homes in the neighborhood and enjoys contributing to the community while Kim focuses on her hip-hop career, striving to become a famous rapper. One of the most riveting scenes is when Kim stands in front of an open closet, pops in the last remaining copy of her CD, and raps to her song, “Amazing.” Powerful in her delivery and aggressive in her lyrics, you hear all that Kim has experienced and you see in her worn and tired eyes a fire that will just not burn out, no matter how much water comes rushing down.

Trouble the Water amazes its audience by restoring your faith in people and their compassion to care for one another in times of need, while simultaneously crumbling your confidence of those who hold power. Trouble the Water did not walk away with the golden statue, but it is a true winner.

7th Annual USF Human Rights Film Festival!

FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC!

Tuesday February 24

1:00pm     Opening Remarks

                 USF Students' shorts

1:45pm FILM: 4 De Julio. La Masacre De San Patricio

4:00pm FILM: Promise to the Dead

6:30pm FILM: Nuevo Dragon City

7:00pm FILM: Sleep Dealer

Wednesday February 25

1:00pm FILM: Freeheld

2:oopm FILM: Burning the Future: Coal in America

4:30pm FILM: The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo

6:30pm FILM: Trouble the Water

Thursday February 26

1:00pm USF student shorts

2:00pm Alex Gibney: the Role of Documentary in Re-making the News 

4:00pm FILM: Taxi to the Dark Side

6:30pm FILM: Dos Americas: The Reconstruction of New Orleans

A Review: Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Monotony is scary. Stuck in the same pattern, life becomes a dull disease that slowly deteriorates pieces of your former self. In the latest Woody Allen film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Allen combats monotony with what he knows best, eccentric and twisted relationships of love rooted in sex and a need to escape.

Allen uses Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) to depict his varying vision of love. In the film, the soon to be married Vicky, who is grounded and realistic, has her ideals of what life should be flipped upside down after a night with a mysterious Spanish painter, Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem). Not knowing of Vicky's misguided feelings of love, Vicky's best friend Cristina, a free loving wanderer that relishes in artistic expression, has an open and drawn out love affair with Antonio. The film is accentuated when the fiery ex-wife of Antonio, Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz), comes back into his life and joins the passionate relationship between Antonio and Cristina to strike the perfect balance.

The essence of the film is based in the altering views of monotony between the two friends which are punctuated by their interactions with Antonio; Vicky sees her life unraveling into a predictable cookie cutter routine where no true excitement exists, while Cristina becomes restless with even the most erratic of relationships only to suggest that she will never truly be satisfied.

Johansson's portrayal of the neurotic and impulsive Cristina is limited. Allen has an apparent affection for the 24-year-old actress (Johansson also stared in Allen's Match Point), but I find it hard to identify what makes this actress so noteworthy. Her performance is the same in nearly every film, as she heavily relies on her sex appeal and forces the emotion from her character. Unlike Johansson, Cruz plays the crazed Maria Elena effortlessly. The character is dynamic and full of spirit, which Cruz capitalizes on with the right mixture of passion, mystery, and insane behavior. Acknowledged for her brillance in the role, Cruz won for best supporting actress in this year's Oscars.

Last year's Oscar winner for best actor in a supporting role for No Country for Old Men was Bardem, whose performance in Vicky Cristina Barcelona revolved around one main stature, to look good. There was no real depth into Bardem's character, Antonio, other than he was an artist, he had had a dysfunctional relationship (Cruz), and he liked to make love to attractive American tourists. Bardem was the man candy of the film and his main role was to appear sexy and secretive as if he always had a hidden agenda. The real roles of the film were given to the ladies, and although she always seems to be forgotten, Hall, who plays Vicky, does her character justice. You don't like Vicky, as she seems pompous and above all things spontaneous and alive with adventure, I found myself wanting to jump through the screen to shake her and say, "live a little!" but nonetheless, her performance is believable and more realistic than the whimsical fantasy that Johansson's character lives by.

Overall, I found the film enjoyable. Although dealing with heavy-hearted themes, the film remained light with a fast rhythm made possible by the music, which varied from the relaxing Spanish guitar to the eerie staple song, "Barcelona." Where the film really hooks you however, is with unexpected instances of humor. Allen's direction for Vicky Cristina Barcelona has been his best work in years, as he tells the story with finesse amongst the beautiful Barcelona background.

A Review: Chevys Happy Hour

There is a special time of day when one can relax, let loose, and just enjoy. Escaping the headache hassles of work and school, this time of day unearths the best versions of ourselves. It is the happiest time of day, and for that reason, we know it as happy hour.

This weekend I explored happy hour in all of its glory at Chevys. Now, I know what you're thinking, "shame on me" for going to a cookie cutter national chain like Chevys, a place that squeezes every ounce of originality out of the Tex Mex cuisine and serves it at a discounted rate. But hey, these are tough times. And with an economy that is down in the dumps and a 40,000-dollar yearly tuition to pay, I can't regularly afford to be inspired by the many affluent restaurants that San Francisco has to offer. Rather, I seek refuge in the reliable and the affordable that Chevys always delivers.

El happy hour at Chevys is simple, three-dollar drinks and three-dollar appetizers. The drinks include, original frozen margaritas, domestic draft beers, house wines, and well drinks. The appetizers include, a tamale sample (any two), crispy flautas, nachos grande, original fajitas nachos, and spicy wings. Offered from 4:00pm to 7:00pm Monday through Friday.

My four friends and I went to the Chevys at the Embarcadero Center (one of the four locations in San Francisco) on Friday where we found the fiesta to be in full swing as young professionals from the Financial District came ready to blow off steam and relish in the start to the weekend. With a full house, Chevys atmosphere during happy hour is lively and exciting. The standard decor is reminiscent of a laid-back Mexican cantina that you'd wander into on the streets of Puerto Vallarta - vibrant, eclectic, and fun. The wait staff mimics the crowd with a fun and inviting attitude.

Chevys happy hour offers more than an agreeable ambiance as the food and drink satisfies your hunger and thirst. When other happy hour specials water down their overly sweet and pathetically weak margaritas, Chevys margaritas are made with the top shelf tequila, Don Julio, making them strong enough to num the worries of the day. The appetizers are equally impressive as the portion of one appetizer is large enough to split between two people. The food is good, but not great, simple in its approach and execution. The beauty with Chevys is that they don't try to be something they are not. They don't over extend or reach to unknown culinary creations, they stay safe with food that is filling, fun, and most of all consistent. 

Filling, fun, and consistent was reason enough for me to go to Chevys happy hour, but the price will keep me coming back. As a college student living in an expensive city during a recession it isn't always easy to feel good about eating out as your mind gets boggled down with guilt for spending money, but with Chevys happy hour you can truly enjoy your dinning experience. So head over to Chevys for the happiest hour of all!