Blog Articles

Stories Matter

August 3, 2015 by Mark Wood Comments Off

STORIES MAKE us better.

That’s not just my opinion as a writer and editor who’s made a living telling stories for many years. It’s my opinion as a human being who, like all human beings, depends on stories to keep his heart fresh and alive.

Stories can be magical things. They have the power to break down walls, blunt prejudices, calm fears, alter points of view. As I write this, the news just came in that the Supreme Court has come down on the side of gay marriage, following a veritable tidal shift in American public opinion on the subject, following lots and lots of stories—individual stories—that slowly filtered into people’s hearts.

As human beings, we’re simply not geared to sympathize with groups of people, especially groups that are, in some seemingly significant way, different from ourselves. In fact, the opposite may well be true. We fear the collective other. We eye them with suspicion and jealousy. We create stereotypes to rationalize our fears. Some of this may even be written into the darkest corners of our genes.

Statistics—the ultimate in thinking about human beings as collectives—can bring an informative bit of reality into play, and they may nudge us intellectually in a new direction, but they don’t touch our emotions. As someone once said, a million deaths is a statistic, but one death is a tragedy.

That’s because we are also wired to feel empathy—not for groups, but for individuals. We do this largely through the stories we’re told and the stories we tell ourselves about our own experiences.

Literature, I remember reading long ago, is about the creation of complex sympathies. I’ve always liked that definition. Not simple sympathies—those are too easy. It’s easy to empathize with people very much like ourselves, especially if they’ve been victimized or unjustly accused or if they’ve been thwarted by no clear fault of their own.

It gets harder, however, when it’s someone we don’t quite understand, someone whose actions or motivations or origins go against the grain of our opinions or prejudices. It gets harder still when it’s someone from a group we actively disapprove of, someone we automatically stereotype, someone we view with suspicion or fear.

That’s why stories are so important. Good stories are subversive—they intrude upon our neatly built theories with humane sympathies. They put human faces on our straw men. They’re the bulldozers in our heads that make room for growth.

The theme of this issue, “Untold Stories” might be said to be an oxymoron. After all, isn’t a story by definition something that’s told? But there are so many stories—potential stories anyway—that for one reason or another we never hear. Sometimes they’re untold because of fear or embarrassment. Sometimes because of the walls we build to keep them in. Getting them out into the open is sometimes essential therapy for those who have been keeping them inside, but it’s also good therapy for those of us who need to hear them in order to expand our own capacity for complex and humane sympathies.

—MW

Little Bridges at 100

August 3, 2015 by Graydon Beeks ’69 Comments Off

BRIDGES HALL OF MUSIC—Pomona’s signature building that turns 100 this year—has been a part of my life for half of that span, since I first arrived on campus as a freshman in the fall of 1965.

Bridges Hall of Music

In the days before the construction of the Thatcher Music Building, the College Choir rehearsed in the hall daily during the lunch hour; the Band rehearsed on Monday and Wednesday afternoons; the Orchestra and the Men’s and Women’s Glee Clubs rehearsed in the evenings. Large classes were also scheduled there, and I remember taking Professor Karl Kohn’s Music 54 in Bridges during my second semester. The College Church, in whose choir I also sang, met there on Sunday mornings, and I took organ lessons from “Doc” Blanchard on the Moeller Organ. And, of course, all concerts were given there.

Professor Graydon Beeks ’69 recalls singing with the Choir at the 50th anniversary of Little Bridges in 1966. A member of the music faculty since 1983, Beeks has also served as building manager since 1984.

My freshman year witnessed the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the opening of Little Bridges, which culminated in a performance of Mozart’s Requiem, K626 by the Choir and Orchestra. I did not realize the significance of this celebration at the time, even though there is a note about it in the program. I remember the event mainly as one of the last concerts conducted by Professor Kenneth Fiske, the conductor of the orchestra since 1936, before his retirement the following year.

Over the next four years I attended or participated in innumerable rehearsals, concerts, classes and church services in Little Bridges, but in many ways the most remarkable event was the appearance of “The Web.” This was an intricate assemblage of thin wire strung between the railings of the balcony by a number of students—many of them my classmates—working in secret during the wee hours of the morning and sprung on an unsuspecting public. Professor William F. Russell, the long-serving choir and band director and chair of the Music Department, had an impish sense of humor himself and was pleased with the ingenuity and execution of the project. Since it seemed to improve the acoustics of the hall, it was left in place for some time, until it collected a substantial amount of dust and the wire began to break, at which point it was removed.

Shortly after I graduated in June 1969, a report on the state of College buildings that was prepared for President David Alexander during his first months in office revealed that Bridges Hall of Music did not meet current standards with regard to earthquake safety, and the building was closed. Thought was apparently given to demolition because of the anticipated cost of bringing the building up to code. Fortunately, Trustee Morris Pendleton was able to find the original plans and discovered that the building was built well above code in 1915, reducing the cost of retrofitting by a substantial amount. The funds were raised in 90 days, primarily from loyal alumni, many of whom had been married in the hall; their names are preserved on large panels in the lobby and on small plaques attached to the bench seats.

Photo of Professor Tom Flaherty and his wife Cynthia Fogg performing at Little Bridges

Professor Tom Flaherty (here performing with his wife Cynthia Fogg), has composed dozens of pieces to be performed at Little Bridges, including “Millenium Bridges” a crowd-participation piece written to celebrate the reopening after the 2000–01 renovation.

In addition to seismic retrofitting, acoustical work was done to increase reverberation and prevent the loss of bass frequencies. The stage was enlarged to better accommodate collaborations by the Choir and Orchestra, which had become an annual feature since 1962. A loading dock was added on the west side, eliminating the need to load pianos and other large instruments via a temporary ramp. The hall also gained air conditioning, a new lighting system and new chairs on the main floor.

This was the state of Little Bridges when I returned to Claremont in 1981 and resumed playing in the Band and singing in the Choir. In 1983, I was hired to conduct the Band, and the next year I also took over the supervision of the scheduling and maintenance of the Music Department facilities, including Little Bridges, which I have continued to do until the present.

Many things had changed while I was away. The College Church was no more, and classes were no longer held in Little Bridges. Because of the installation of air conditioning and the threat of vandalism to valuable instruments, the building was no longer left unlocked in the daytime. The Choir and Glee Clubs now rehearsed in Lyman Hall, the smaller auditorium in the new Thatcher Music Building, and the instrumental ensembles, which now included a Jazz Band, rehearsed in Bryant Hall (although the Orchestra and the Concert Band were soon to move back to Little Bridges for evening rehearsals). Most of the student ensembles continued to perform in Little Bridges, and their number was increased in 1993 with the addition of a Javanese Gamelan, using rented instruments, followed in 1995 by the acquisition of the College’s own Balinese Gamelan, “Giri Kusuma” (“Flower Mountain”).

Photo of composer and Professor Emeritus Karl Kohn and his wife, Margaret Kohn, in Little Bridges

Noted composer and Professor Emeritus Karl Kohn and his wife, Margaret Kohn, came to Pomona in 1950 and gave their first two-piano recital in Little Bridges 65 years ago.

Convocations were now held in Little Bridges rather than Big Bridges, but overall, fewer students had extensive contact with the building, and the number of alumni weddings steadily declined. Finally, most organ practice and performance had moved to the new von Beckerath instrument in Lyman Hall, and despite some reconfiguration in the 1970s and re-leathering in the 1980s, the organ in Little Bridges was beginning to show its age.

There have been many distinguished concerts in Little Bridges in the years since my return to Claremont, but what stands out most clearly in my mind are the concerts related to the celebration of the College’s Centennial in 1987–88. These included performances of newly composed works by Pomona College alumni and a performance by the Pomona College Choir and Orchestra of the Requiem by Maurice Duruflé and of a new work, “To the Young,” commissioned from Pomona alumnus Vladimir Ussachevsky ’35, who had also written the work commissioned to celebrate the College’s 50th anniversary. The Centennial concert was conducted by distinguished alumnus Robert Shaw ’38 and featured Professor Gwendolyn Lytle as soprano soloist.

Professor and College Organist William Peterson oversaw the installation of the C.B. Fisk pipe organ, in 2000–01 as part of a full renovation. The instrument has 3,519 pipes ranging from a half-inch to 32 feet long.

I would argue that the single most important event to take place during my 32 years on the Music faculty was the installation of the Hill Memorial Organ, built by C.B. Fisk of Gloucester, Mass., as part of another renovation in 2000–01. This project, spearheaded by College Organist William Peterson, required many years of detailed planning. It involved extensive acoustic alterations, including a quieter air conditioning system and the installation of mass above the ceiling to prevent sound from escaping into the attic (where some enterprising students used to go to listen to concerts). The addition of wings on either side of the building allowed for the installation of an elevator, an accessible restroom and additional storage. The repositioning of air conditioning ducts made it possible to remove some walls added in 1970 and reopen four windows that had been closed off at that time, while the ingenuity of the architect permitted the addition of musician’s galleries above both sides of the stage. Finally, the imaginative design of the new organ case maintains several significant aspects of the original case. All these things, taken together, mean that the current configuration of Little Bridges actually resembles more closely the interior layout of the hall as originally designed by Myron Hunt, while also incorporating the improvements made in 1970 and 2000.

It has been a great privilege for me to work in Little Bridges for what has now been just over half my life. I have appeared on the stage as a conductor, singer, percussionist and harpsichord player. In the course of facilitating appearances by others, I have also made appearances as an announcer, a gaffer, an audio engineer, a lighting technician and a caretaker—jobs that are generally done these days by far more qualified people. In the early years, the light settings would occasionally change of their own accord—sometimes during concerts—and we attributed this to the ghost of Mabel Shaw Bridges 1908. Her ghost has not been as active in recent years, and I hope that is because she is happy about the current state of the hall and the way the College maintains and uses this gift that her parents provided in her memory just over a hundred years ago. I hope to have the opportunity to oversee that legacy for a few more years.

A View Through the Bars

August 3, 2015 by Alexander Gelfand Comments Off

IT’S A CHILLY MARCH morning in Manhattan—the kind of grey, slushy Wednesday that can make even the most optimistic New Yorker wonder if winter will ever end. But for Bill Keller ’70, it might as well be spring.

The previous weekend, Keller’s former employer, The New York Times, ran a 7,500-word article about the brutal beating in 2011 of an inmate by guards at the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York. Three of the guards were scheduled to stand trial on Monday for multiple felonies, including first-degree gang assault. All had rejected plea bargains.

The story was reported by investigative journalist Tom Robbins for The Marshall Project, the nonprofit digital news outlet dedicated to criminal justice issues that Keller has edited since it launched in November of last year; and it was posted to the Times and Marshall Project websites before appearing on the front page of the newspaper’s Sunday print edition, complete with striking photos by Times photographers Chang Lee and Damon Winter. (Keller, who has been a trustee of the College since 2000, says he spent “a lot of time” dashing in and out of a board meeting in Claremont the previous Friday, shepherding the piece through publication.) On Tuesday, Robbins and Times reporter Lauren D’Avolio filed another story: all three guards had suddenly accepted a deal from prosecutors, pleading guilty to a single misdemeanor and quitting their jobs in order to avoid jail time.

From a purely journalistic perspective, the two articles packed quite a wallop, reverberating across the Internet and stimulating commentary in a variety of other media. And it’s not inconceivable that the first, lengthy story helped create the environment that made the second, shorter one come to pass; maybe, Keller mused in his Midtown office, a series of masks representing former Russian leaders gazing down at him from the wall, the guards decided to accept a plea deal because the weekend feature made it clear that prosecutors had a strong case against them.

Who's on Death Row? Five charts comparing America's death row inmates to the larger U.S. population.

Click for a larger version.

The Marshall Project was founded by Neil Barsky, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, documentary filmmaker, and hedge-fund manager whose interest in criminal justice was piqued a couple of years ago by two books: Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, which examines the mass incarceration of African Americans; and Gilbert King’s Devil in the Grove, about Thurgood Marshall’s defense of four young black men who were falsely accused in 1949 of raping a white woman. (The Marshall Project was named for the late Supreme Court justice.) Barsky was raised in a politically active household—both parents were involved in the civil rights movement—and he retains a belief in the power of journalism to effect social change. He also feels that the American public has become inured to the fact that the nation’s criminal justice system is, as he says, “scandalously messed up.” So he decided to use digital journalism to lend the subject of criminal justice reform the urgency it deserves. “The status quo is not defensible,” Barsky says. “The country needs to see this issue like the house is on fire.”

Barsky didn’t know Keller personally, but in June 2014, he shot him an email to see if he might be interested in signing on as editor-in-chief. The two met for breakfast; Keller agreed; and then, as Barsky puts it, “all hell broke loose.”

“Bill’s hiring put us on the map right away with funders and with other reporters and editors who wanted to work with us,” Barsky says. It also stirred up a great deal of media attention, with articles about Keller, Barsky and The Marshall Project appearing long before the site actually launched.

This should come as no surprise. Keller is one of the most familiar and respected figures in American print journalism: Over the course of his 30 years at the Times, he won a Pulitzer for his coverage of the fall of the Soviet Union; served as bureau chief in South Africa during the end of apartheid; held the position of executive editor for eight years; and ended his run at the paper as a columnist. His decision to move to a nonprofit digital enterprise evoked comparisons with Paul Steiger, who left his job as managing editor of the Wall Street Journal to found ProPublica, now the largest and best-known nonprofit digital newsroom in the country; and it generated a commensurate amount of buzz.

For Keller, running an editorial staff of 20 after several years of solitary column writing represented a welcome return to what he calls the “adrenaline and collegiality” of chasing news. Just as importantly, it meant working in an area where there was a real opportunity to effect change—there is broad bipartisan support for criminal justice reform these days—and to practice accountability journalism, probing public institutions to see if they are fulfilling their responsibilities. This, he adds, is distinct from advocacy: The Marshall Project does not promote specific legislative reforms, nor does it take a moral stand on issues like drug policy or capital punishment. (He does admit, however, that walking the line between advocacy and accountability can sometimes be uncomfortable, and says that he must occasionally keep his staff from crossing it; but as Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once memorably said of pornography, Keller claims to know advocacy when he sees it.)

Bill Keller ’70 at the New York office of the Marshall Project

There was also, Keller says, a certain appeal to building an organization from scratch, without the ample safety net afforded by The New York Times, and in managing a relatively small operation. “I can talk to pretty much everyone on my staff if I want to, which is nice,” Keller says—and presumably quite different from the Times, where he edited a staff of 1,250.

In fact, Keller had just come from The Marshall Project’s weekly editorial meeting. A clutch of reporters and editors crowded into Barsky’s office in his absence, some sitting on the floor, others taking up positions on top of a low-slung filing cabinet. Keller presided with genial authority, asking questions, soliciting opinions, and sifting the criminal justice news of the day for potential stories.

That news, as anyone with eyes to see or ears to hear can attest, has been coming thick and fast of late. The Marshall Project was conceived before Eric Garner died while being subdued by police officers in New York City; before Michael Brown and Walter Scott were fatally shot by police officers in Ferguson, Mo., and North Charleston, S.C.; and before Freddie Gray died of injuries sustained while in police custody in Baltimore. And it came into being as those and similar events sparked what has been described as the most significant American civil rights movement of the 21st century, inspiring a concomitant deluge of stories about crime, punishment and America’s failure to manage either one particularly well.

But criminal justice has always represented an unusually rich vein of material for investigative journalists, and that, too, appealed to Keller. The sheer scope of the topic was evident at the Wednesday meeting: Andrew Cohen, who edits “Opening Statement,” the site’s morning e-newsletter, talked about the release of a report by the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing; news editor Raha Naddaf described a possible collaboration with a highly regarded print magazine on deteriorating conditions at New York City’s Rikers Island jail complex; and Keller brought up the case of the Kettles Fall Five, a group of medical marijuana growers in Washington State who face federal drug charges. There was talk of immigration law, of data-driven reporting, and of recent revelations regarding just what kinds of information federal prosecutors are obliged to share with defense attorneys.

Several of those stories would make their way onto the site over the next month or so, as would a dizzying array of others. Indeed, in a single week in late April, The Marshall Project ran pieces that dissected the career of Baltimore police commissioner Anthony Batts; examined the treatment of transgender inmates and investigated standards of care for diabetic ones; considered the miserable record of the FBI’s forensics labs and the long-term efficacy of reforms imposed on local police forces by the Department of Justice; and invited readers to take a quiz to find out which are killed more humanely: pets or prisoners. (Answer: pets.) “For a niche subject, this is a very big niche,” says Keller, who together with staff writer Beth Schwartzapfel filed a story in mid-May about Willie Horton, the convicted murderer and rapist whom George H.W. Bush used to pummel Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election.

Much of the site’s original reporting covers topics that remain underreported elsewhere, or provides added context to ones that are already trending. There’s no denying that the latter have proliferated wildly over the past year or so: “Opening Statement” typically includes links to pieces produced not only by other criminal justice outlets like The Crime Report and The Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, but also by publications such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Guardian; a host of independent blogs and progressive news sites; and just about every major newspaper in the United States.

The attention currently being paid to criminal justice represents a sharp reversal following years of declining coverage. That decline, says Stephen Handelman, who edits The Crime Report and directs the Center on Media, Crime and Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, resulted from two principal phenomena: falling crime rates, which made the topic a “spectator sport” for many middle-class Americans; and turmoil in the news business, which led to a reduction in resources, including the number of reporters with the knowledge and experience required to tackle complex criminal justice stories. Despite the proliferation of digital tools for gathering and distributing news and information, solid investigative reporting still requires old-fashioned shoe-leather, which in turn requires both time and its correlate, money. And investigative reporting that focuses on criminal justice stories that may unfold over weeks or months or even years—stories that require reporters to scrutinize sprawling institutions like the federal court system or state correctional facilities and that involve untangling the complex web of legal, social and political factors at play in issues like the mass incarceration of black men, the detention of undocumented immigrants, the war on drugs and the use of prisons as holding pens for the mentally ill—requires a lot of both.

FROM THE ARCHIVES:

A Time for Experiments

This excerpt is lifted from an essay on the future of journalism by Bill Keller ’70 in the Spring 2009 PCM titled “Not With A Bang.”

… Where does this end?

An NYU professor named Clay Shirky writes about this subject with considerable common sense, although he is more pessimistic than I am about newspapers. His analogy for the disruptive power of the Web is the Gutenberg printing press, invented in the 15th century. Gutenberg’s press is credited with being an important factor in the spread of literacy that produced the Renaissance. But in the years immediately after the invention, Shirky points out, there was chaos. All the accepted philosophers, faiths and accounts of history were open to challenge, and nobody quite knew whom to trust.

“As novelty spread,” Shirky writes, “old institutions seemed exhausted while new ones seemed untrustworthy; as a result, people almost literally didn’t know what to think. … This is what real revolutions are like. The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place.”

So how will things work when the Internet finishes shaking our world?

“I don’t know,” Shirky replies. “Nobody knows.” Now is the time for experiments, “lots of experiments, each of which will seem as minor at launch as Craigslist did, as Wikipedia did. … For the next few decades, journalism will be made up of overlapping special cases …No one experiment is going to replace what we are now losing with the demise of news on paper, but over time the collection of new experiments that do work might give us the journalism we need.”

On that uncomfortable truth, I agree.

Which brings us, inevitably, to the “nonprofit” part of “nonprofit digital news outlet.” The word is by no means a synonym for impoverished; some of the most robust news organizations in the country (NPR, The Associated Press) are nonprofits. Nonetheless, there are concerns about the long-term prospects of the smaller digital nonprofits that sprouted like mushrooms in the wake of the Great Recession, when the short-term prospects of traditional news media appeared to be particularly dismal. A 2013 study of 172 nonprofit digital news outlets by the Pew Research Center suggested a guardedly optimistic attitude, with most reporting that they were in the black. But the study also found that many of those same outlets were reliant on one-time seed grants from foundations, and lacked sufficient resources to pursue the marketing and fundraising activities that could help them become more financially stable. “Nonprofit journalism isn’t going away any time soon,” says Jesse Holcomb, a senior researcher at the center who worked on the report. “But that doesn’t mean there’s been a tipping point in terms of achieving a sustainable approach.”

Research by the Knight Foundation indicates that the most successful nonprofit news organizations seek to diversify their funding; invest in marketing, business development and fundraising; and build partnerships with other organizations to expand their audiences and bolster their brands. Judging by those criteria, The Marshall Project appears to be on solid footing. The site has a long list of donors, some of whom have committed funds for two or three years, and a dedicated business staff. Keller and Barsky are considering a wide range of alternative revenue sources, including memberships, conferences, and sponsorships—though advertising might be a tougher row to hoe. (“Advertisers aren’t dying to advertise their products next to stories about prison rape,” Keller says.) And thanks no doubt in part to the Keller Effect, the site is not hurting for partners.

In addition to the Attica piece, The Marshall Project has published stories in conjunction with The Washington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Vice, which Keller describes as “a direct pipeline to a younger audience.” It also has projects in the works with 60 Minutes and This American Life, and is in talks with several other outlets, including Stars and Stripes, The Weather Channel, and the statistics-driven news site 538.org.

In some ways, Keller says, it’s easier to do everything yourself. But collaborations with other outlets help build the site’s credibility, and allow it to leverage the resources of different organizations. (The Times, for example, contributed photography to the Attica piece, which can be costly, while other partners might provide legal services or help cover travel expenses.) Most importantly, such partnerships ensure that The Marshall Project’s reporting, which Keller describes as “journalism with a purpose,” will reach the largest possible audience.

“The aim,” says Keller, “is to get these issues onto the larger stage. And for that, you need a megaphone.”

Buckley completes term as Chair of Pomona College Board

August 3, 2015 by emae2021@pomona.edu Comments Off

Outgoing Board Chair Jeanne Buckley ’65 with President David Oxtoby

OUTGOING CHAIR OF the Pomona College Board of Trustees Jeanne Martin Buckley ’65 received the Pomona College’s Alumni Distinguished Service Award at an Alumni Weekend program in Little Bridges on May 2, in honor of her many years of service to the College. Buckley, who completed her three-year term as board chair in June, has been a member of the board since 1999 and is the first woman and the first person of color to lead the board since the College’s founding in 1887.

“I have really appreciated the opportunity to work closely with Jeanne Buckley during her term as board chair over the last three years,” President David Oxtoby said. “She has provided steady and thoughtful leadership during a period of considerable change for Pomona College. I have been able to turn to her for helpful advice on many occasions.”

As an undergrad at Pomona in the early 1960s, Buckley took a range of leadership roles, participating in student government, choir and glee club, and helping to put on a jazz festival. For much of the time, she was the only Black woman attending Pomona, but she had been in the same situation in high school in Pelham, N.Y. “It was not a shock in a cultural sense,” she said in an interview a few years ago. “I could navigate it.”
After Pomona, she found her way into social work and was involved in the early days of Head Start. She also trained as an actress, landing a seven-episode stint on the popular primetime soap opera Peyton Place. In the end, a decade after graduating from Pomona, she decided to continue her education in law school, earning her J.D. from Empire College School of Law in 1979.

During a distinguished legal career, Buckley has specialized mainly in juvenile and family law and then served as a Sonoma County Superior Court Commissioner for more than a decade. In 1995, she was honored as Juvenile Court Judge of the Year by the California Judges Association and Woman of the Year by the Sonoma County Bar Association’s Women in Law group. Since 2003, she has been a professional panel member for Resolution Remedies, a firm specializing in mediation, arbitration and other forms of alternative dispute resolution. In 2004, she was recognized with the Bar Association’s Career of Distinction Award.
Prior to assuming the role of board chair, Buckley chaired both the Student Affairs Committee and the Academic Affairs Committee for four years and served on a number of other committees including the Executive Committee, Facilities and Environment Committee, Strategic Planning and Trusteeship.

Food as Story

August 3, 2015 by Mark Wood Comments Off

Untitled photo from <em>Manresa</em>, by David Kinch with Christine Muhlke (Ten Speed Press 2013, 336 pages, $50.00)

Untitled, from Manresa, by David Kinch with Christine Muhlke (Ten Speed Press 2013, 336 pages, $50.00)

THE TWO SIDES of Eric Wolfinger’s profession, photography and food, took years to converge, but when they did, something very special happened, like flour and water morphing into bread—an apt metaphor for a man who once spent years learning to bake a perfect loaf.

A political science major at Pomona, Wolfinger ’04 traces the first step in his journey to becoming one of the world’s leading photographers of fine cuisine to his work as a food columnist for the student newspaper, The Student Life.

“When I wrote that food column,” he recalls, “I had my first vision of what I actually could see myself doing post-college. Up until then, I had no clue what direction I was going. I was like, oh my God, food writing—that’s something that people do and get paid for.”

By that time, many of his classmates had already punched their tickets into graduate school or had jobs lined up. Wolfinger had nothing waiting for him and liked it that way. He dreamed vaguely of buying a pickup truck and driving around Mexico working on a cookbook. Moving to the Bay area, he ran into a high school friend who was working at a restaurant, having already worked her way up from kitchen apprentice to sous chef.
“I realized right then and there—I don’t want to write any more, for now,” he says. “I want to cook. If I ever do write I want to write from the perspective of somebody that I would respect. I don’t want to just have an opinion. I want to have a skill and an expertise in this field.”

Starting as an apprentice at an Italian restaurant, Wolfinger quickly discovered what it felt like to be clueless. “I came from Pomona where adults treated me like I was smart and like I had something to say, and it was worthwhile. I started working in a kitchen, where I was the village idiot.”

Untitled photo from Flour+Water: Pasta, by Thomas McNaughton (Ten Speed Press 2014, 288 pages, $35.00)

Untitled, from Flour+Water: Pasta, by Thomas McNaughton (Ten Speed Press 2014, 288 pages, $35.00)

He learned fast, but after a couple of years, he was convinced the life of a chef wasn’t for him. Writing still beckoned, but there was one more thing he wanted to accomplish before moving on. “Before I leave San Francisco and leave cooking,” he told himself, “I want to learn how to make the Tartine croissant, which was the most amazing thing I’d ever tasted and the most amazing thing I could afford, working on a cook’s salary of $8.25 an hour.”

So in 2005, Wolfinger took a job at Tartine Bakery, a place where bread sells out within an hour of opening. In master baker Chad Robertson, he found both a mentor and a surfing buddy, and he quickly fell in love with the deceptive simplicity of baking. If restaurant cooking is a science of efficiencies—“How do you set up your station so that when an order comes in, you can bang out that salad in 25 seconds instead of 30?”—baking, he says, is an art—“What is my dough doing today, how is it behaving, and what small tweaks to my process do I need to do to bring this amorphous dough to the bread that I have in the back of my head, that I know is the ideal loaf?”

At Tartine, he practiced the art of baking for five years. But the memory of his original plan—driving around Mexico seeking recipes for a cookbook—occasionally made him restless. All through college, he’d spent his summers traveling in Latin America, exploring cultures and polishing his Spanish. But working life had left him with little time or money for travel. He told his mentor he needed some time off. Robertson agreed, and Wolfinger made plans to head for South America, where his brother was living at the time.
“Days before leaving, it occurred to me that nobody was going to give me my dream job of a travelling food journalist,” he says. “I was going to have to give it to myself first and kind of prove that I could do it.”

So he bought a digital camera and started a traveling food blog.

Photo of Thousand-year-old quail egg, potage and ginger, from Benu, by Cory Lee (Phaidon Press 2015, 256 pages, $59.95)

Thou-sand-year-old quail egg, potage, ginger, from Benu, by Cory Lee (Phaidon Press 2015, 256 pages, $59.95)

“I was like, I’m just going to do a blog and tell stories of the people that I meet, the recipes that I find, and the experiences that I have,” he says. “Obviously, I wasn’t trained as a photographer at all. I knew that to tell a decent story, you needed pictures. So I got a digital camera, and I thought, ‘I’ll teach myself along the way, and I’ll figure it out.’”

He followed his taste buds from Chile to Columbia to Peru to Bolivia, taking pictures of the food he found and posting them in his blog. As time went on, however, his blog didn’t seem to be opening any doors. “Gourmet magazine did not call me and tell me they wanted me to write a feature for them.” But when he got back to the States, the opportunity he’d been waiting for came from an unexpected source.

It seemed that his mentor and surfing buddy at Tartine Bakery had followed his blog with interest. Impressed by his food photography, Robertson, who was preparing to write a cookbook of his own, had an epiphany. “Coming off of an experience of a previous cookbook that he did with his wife,” Wolfinger recalls, “he realized that rather than having a professional photographer come in and shoot for two weeks, why not have his buddy—who takes beautiful pictures, who knows his bread better than anybody else in the world—do the pictures while we’re baking?”

Wild bamboo fungi and shoots, from Benu

Before that, Wolfinger had never allowed himself to take photography seriously, but after two years of shooting at the bakery and “making every mistake in the book,” he began to think of himself as a real photographer. “Just the process of making this book from start to finish really gave me a clear sense of how publishing works, how you tell a visual story, how to be really ruthless with yourself and with your own work so that you are putting your best foot forward,” he says. “While I was doing that book, I was doing little side projects. The next thing I knew, I was working as a photographer.”

But it wasn’t until the book came out that his career really took off. “The photography u in that book was nominated for a James Beard Award, which is kind of like the Oscars of food,” he says. “It was a huge deal. Since that first year, things have gone gangbusters, really—beyond my wildest dreams.”

Since then, he’s worked with celebrity chefs like Hubert Keller and David Kinch. He’s done mass-market cookbooks, like Williams-Sonoma’s Home Baked Comfort, and classy, one-restaurant books like Corey Lee’s Benu. He and his camera have circled the globe, from Vietnam to Uruguay, from Italy—where he spent 12 days with chef Thomas McNaughton, taking pictures of pasta—to Thailand, where he ate some of the most interesting food of his life, including a delicacy called ant’s egg salad. (“Ant eggs taste like lemongrass, and ants themselves taste like fresh lime. So we ate this salad, and it only had ant eggs, salt and mint, but it tasted as if there were lime juice and lemongrass in the salad. It was surprisingly delicious.”)

Untitled photo from Mallmann on Fire, by Francis Mallmann (Artisan, 2014, $40.00)

Untitled, from Mallmann on Fire, by Francis Mallmann (Artisan, 2014, $40.00)

He attributes his meteoric success not only to his hard-earned skills behind a lens, but also to the fact that he understands the dynamics of the kitchen as only an experienced cook and baker can. “For me, food has a feeling,” he explains. “There’s a story behind it. There’s a person who made it. I see food a little differently—not as an object to be photographed but as a story to be told. Chefs call me because they’ve cooked something and they want a pretty photo of it. I think they sense in me an understanding of where they’ve come from and what they’ve put into it.”

Eric Wolfinger ’04

Looking back, he also believes Pomona played a huge role in preparing him for the unique challenges of his chosen profession. “I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing and it wouldn’t be going as well if I hadn’t had that rigorous, yet very open-ended education at Pomona. You learn not to put anything out but your best. Even if that means I’m shy a few photos, I’m not interested in putting out anything but my best.”

But when he remembers his college years, what he thinks back to most often isn’t the classroom—it’s his three years as a member of the improvisational comedy group, Without a Box, which he spent, he says, in a constant state of terror.

“What you learn in improvisation is not necessarily how to be funny on the spot but how to think creatively under enormous amounts of pressure. And how to trust that instinct of where you think a scene should go. So many times I’m on set and a problem arises, and if you listen for that inner voice—what if I did this?—it’s helped countless times as I’ve moved forward as a photographer. I’m always improvising in this business.”

Tech vs. Stress

July 11, 2013 by Emma Paine '14 Comments Off

bandu1

A few months after graduating from Pomona, Joel Fishbein ’12 entered the Boston startup world. As a research engineer at Neumitra, founded by a neuroscientist and engineers in the neurotechnology class at MIT, Fishbein is helping to develop a wrist-based biosensor called bandu that will help to measure and manage stress levels.

PURSUING HIS INTERESTS

Fishbein headed for Boston hoping to find something he really wanted to do. “People say a lot of really nice things about Silicon Valley, but I’ve found that Boston has a really thriving start up scene too, especially in a lot of the fields I care about like healthcare.”

Once there, he started networking. He helped bring together a technology “Meetup” group in Boston, run through the online service that helps people organize themselves around common interests. At one of the meetings, Neumitra founder Robert Goldberg, a neuroscientist by training, came to give a talk. “He was speaking about the technology he was developing and it seemed like such a perfect marriage of the types of things I had been working on at Pomona in linguistics and cognitive science and psychology,” says Fishbein.

So Fishbein contacted Goldberg after the meeting. “One of the things I’ve learned since graduating is that, especially in the startup world, it is acceptable and even encouraged that when you think that you have something to offer someone, just email or talk to people and make the connection yourself.” He landed the job.

THE BIOWATCH

Fishbein hopes that the biowatch can make a substantial positive impact, especially for people who suffer from anxiety disorders or posttraumatic stress disorder. “It works by monitoring and managing stress by recording physiological indicators of stress such as skin conductance,” Fishbein says. Then, personalized stress management help can be delivered over devices like the iPhone.

For example, if the biowatch senses stress levels, it may advise its owner to listen to music or participate in some other activity that has been shown to reduce the owner’s stress.

Fishbein says that when asked what he does, he explains to people that he is working on a technology to reduce stress. “About 75 percent of the time, the response I get is ‘I could really use that!’”

POMONA IN PRACTICE

At Neumitra, Fishbein researches how best to apply the company’s stress-reducing technology to such groups as veterans. Then, he works to develop some of the capabilities that will make the treatment more effective. “I really do think about the types of things I learned at Pomona every day here,” he says.

A linguistics and cognitive science major, Fishbein found his path after taking an intro psychology course his freshman year. He credits Pomona professors such as Deborah Burke and the late Bill Banks with encouraging him to continue cognitive science, linguistics and psychology coursework. Fishbein’s studies culminated in a thesis on language processing under the guidance of professors Jesse Harris and Meredith Landman.

“His thesis was exemplary and showed me that he would hit the ground running and with minimal need for traditional management,” says Goldberg, Neumitra’s founder.

Adds Fishbein: “A lot of what I do here is scientific writing—reading journal articles and synthesizing them and presenting them—so it was important to show that I was able to work on a project like the thesis where I was doing creative thinking and the hard work of the writing and research, too.”

—Emma Paine ’14

Foul Job

June 28, 2013 by Isaac Levy-Rubinett '16 Comments Off

We freshmen on the Pomona-Pitzer baseball team have a new position to add to our baseball cards: designated foul ball retriever. Every year, the new guys assume the job, as a collective unit, of making sure every single ball that leaves Alumni Field gets back safely into the umpire’s pocket.

Our task sounds simple until you consider all the distances and directions a foul ball can travel off of a bat. This game-within-a-game comes down to location, location, location. Foul balls out of play down the third base side are a freshman’s best friend, as they usually land on the football field. There have been games where I’ve spent more time there than on the baseball field. Luckily, the white of the ball against the level green grass makes for a quick and easy retrieval.

Fouls straight back behind the backstop sometimes find the few problematic clumps of bushes, but even in this unlucky scenario, there are usually plenty of fans who saw the ball land and can point you in the right direction. The first base side is where things can get ugly. The bushes are sharp, thick and an excellent hiding spot for naughty baseballs. See you in three innings.

Most of the time, though, foul balls are returned to the umpire in an impressively timely manner. Our mastery of the “foul ball science of deduction” allows us to retrace the flight of the ball and consider the spin to help us locate fouls that present a worthy challenge. And then organization and communication make the big difference.

There are nine freshmen on the team, but the number of people retrieving foul balls at any given moment can fall anywhere from two to seven, as some of us are playing in the game or assigned to other jobs. For those of us available, we have created a line-up based on jersey number. So the freshman with the lowest number leads off with the first foul, while whoever has the next lowest number waits on deck.

A turn is not over until we tell the person after us that it’s now theirs. Because foul balls can pile up in a hurry, it is important that everyone knows where they fall in the order as well as who is and isn’t participating at any given moment.

Sometimes, two foul balls are hit in the same general area, but only one is clearly visible. You should never commit the evil act of stealing your friend’s more findable foul ball before he gets to it and making him dig around for ages to find yours.

As soon as the ball leaves the bat and heads for foul territory, you should be outside of the dugout and headed towards the stairs at a jog. Not only does any delay give the impression that you aren’t on top of your responsibilities, it gives the ball even more time to roll into nearly undetectable hiding spots.\

Hearing the crowd erupt as you’re digging around for a ball is a very lonely feeling. Foul balls in the ninth inning are especially bad because there is a fear of missing the final out. Everyone wants to be in the dugout to cheer on the team during the final out of a win or to help try to spur a comeback if we are trailing. In the end, it’s all about being a good teammate.

Each player on the team has responsibilities and jobs that lend to our success. Even the best players to don a Pomona-Pitzer uniform spent their freshman year chasing fouls around the field en route to playing professionally. Truthfully, I’m happy to go hunt down other people’s foul balls because I know that when I hit mine, there’ll be someone else going after them.

Letters to the editor

June 28, 2013 by emae2021@pomona.edu Comments Off

Sad Chapter in Pomona Life

I have been inspired to write you on the subject of gays at Pomona College by the request of Paul David Wadler ’83 to save Pomona’s LGBT history (Letterbox, Spring 2013 issue) as well as by the article in Harvard Magazine, March-April 2013, on “Litigating Gay Rights.”

I graduated from Pomona College in 1951. I was one of the first Fulbright scholars from Pomona. Pomona had a deeply homophobic culture. I was rejected for membership in the fraternities because I am gay, even though I had had no sexual activity to that point. Their rejection stigmatized me throughout the remainder of my time at Pomona. I was then a fervent Catholic, and I internalized their rejection. I felt that I had an illness which the fraternity men were right in not wanting to have around them. My reaction was that it was up to me to find a cure for my homosexuality.

(At the time I was president of the Newman Club for Catholic students. When I told the chaplain that I was gay, even though still without sexual activity, he insisted I resign.)

I found it impossible to find a cure and concluded I could not go into college teaching because I felt the homophobia I had experienced at Pomona would be hellish to endure on a college faculty.

I felt it was impossible to come “out” at Harvard in 1956, and so I stopped studying for my qualifiers and left with a master’s degree. I could not think of a better solution.

I am deeply concerned with the welfare of gay students at Pomona. Do all the fraternities admit gay men? Or is there still a “gentlemen’s agreement” to exclude them from some?

I would appreciate seeing Pomona College Magazine publish an article or more on gay Pomona men and women as rightfully belonging to the Pomona family.

—Lino Zambrano ’51

What Became of Zeta Chi Sigma?

I was accepted by the fraternity Zeta Chi Sigma second semester of my freshman year (that would be 1984). I remained a member throughout my Pomona career. We were coed; for most of my time in said institution women comprised 60 percent or more of our membership.

I also shared the statistic with my best friend as one of the two heterosexual males. In 1986 we changed the designations from fraternity to community and from brothers to siblings. My predecessor as president, a wonderful man named Michael Butterworth ’86, proposed this and we joyously embraced the idea. After his graduation I became president and continued the tradition.

Zeta Chi had history. It started in the early ’60s as the frat for those who couldn’t get into any other frat. Then it was the theatre frat. Then it was the drug frat. Then it was the gay frat (my era).

In my time, it was a collection of wonderful people. We proudly proclaimed ourselves as “siblings.” And we encouraged other students to join our all-inclusive community. Sadly, Zeta Chi no longer exists. I sincerely hope the spirit continues.

—Dan Nimmo ’87

Agonizing Decision

Bill Keller’s [’70] New York Times March 27, 2013, blog on the topic of abortion, titled “It’s Personal,” demonstrates the value of the liberal arts education that Pomona offers (keller.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/its-personal/?hp). It matters not if one agrees with Keller’s position, only that one recognizes and admires his ability to think hard, and then to express his thoughts with clarity and passion.

He acknowledges that his remarks are not “likely to satisfy anyone who can reduce abortion to a slogan,” and then he uses his own and his wife’s personal experience, as well as the experience of hundreds of readers who have written to him, to reach the conclusion that abortion, as a matter of law and politics, is a personal decision, “not a decision I would entrust to courts and legislatures, even given that some parents will make choices I would find repugnant.”

Pomona helped Keller learn to think hard. Pomona taught a lot of us to think hard. It continues to do so. Thank you, Pomona.

—Tom Markus ’56

New Ways in the U.K.

President Oxtoby’s reflections on Cambridge (“Autumn in Cambridge,” spring issue) were illuminating, but I do not agree there is less staff-student interaction than at Pomona—just not in the middle of a lecture.

He may also have observed that social class is no longer uniquely rigid in England, as the haute bourgeoisie find when trying to place their child in Eton or Cambridge. Old connections no longer work and the likes of Eton choose the bright offspring of Shanghai textile magnates rather than the “nice-but-dim” sons of aristocratic alumni.

The same is true of our leading universities and Cambridge would not dare show the kind of bias towards “legacy” students that is routine in American Ivies, hidden or otherwise.

—John Cameron ’64

Musical Memories

The Class of 1953 gathered for its 60th reunion on Alumni Weekend and reveled in nostalgia. At our Saturday dinner, Don Shearn and I served as emcees. When Don approached the mic wearing a measuring tape around his neck, he was heckled.

The evening included a video about classmate Frank Wells. Made by Disney colleague Jeff Katzenberg, the video was shown at Frank’s memorial following his death in a helicopter accident in 1994; it illustrated his remarkable achievements, from surviving an airplane crash at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro during his Rhodes Scholar years to his attempt to climb the highest peak on each of the seven continents.

I shared more nostalgia from Hail, Pomona!, an original musical which was presented by alumni, students and staff during Pomona’s Centennial celebration in 1987-88. I read the lyrics of two songs, composed by Dan Downer ’41. Here is a sample:

On the Alluvial Fan

When we came to Pomona,

our mission was clear,

We had only one thing on our minds.

To become educated and quite liberated

With knowledge to help us to find… a man.

I partied up on Baldy at the cabins of frats,

And attended sneak previews at the Fox.

I danced at the Mish and had dates at the Coop

And had long philosophical talks.

I cut classes and went swimming

at the beach in Laguna,

But I only found out how to get a tan.

And then suddenly it happened

And I learned about love, out on the alluvial fan.

When he asked me if I’d like

to go out to the Wash,

I finally began to have hope.

I could tell by the way that he asked me this

That I wasn’t supposed to bring soap.

He said we would look at the stars out at Brackett

And he knew that I would know

what that would mean.

But if a girl’s going to learn

about love any place,

At least in the Wash it is clean.

On the alluvial fan with a Pomona man

You must remember one thing,

That senior or frosh, just a trip to the wash,

Might make those wedding bells ring.

Now I have what I came to Pomona to get,

A degree in fine arts and a man.

But I didn’t get either from my courses at Seaver,

I learned on the alluvial fan

In the Wash as a Frosh I learned about love

Out on the alluvial fan.

The lyrics of the second song resonated with a class that graduated 60 years ago.

Look Where I am in the Book!

As I looked through my mail one morning,

Something hit me without any warning.

Wasn’t something I read that hit me,

But where it was that quite undid me.

Look where I am in the book!

I’m nearing the front of alumni news notes,

In the back of Pomona Today.

I don’t know how it happened, it just couldn’t be,

I’ve moved up three pages since May.

Every issue ages me nine or ten years.

I’m face to face with one of my fears.

It’s an unhappy fact in each issue,

The classes ahead get much fewer.

While just behind there’s a long growing line,

Let’s sing one more chorus of Auld Lang Syne.

But the news of my friends is a comfort to see,

I can watch them getting older with me.

Look where I am in the book!

—Cathie Moon Brown ’53

Editor’s Note: Hail, Pomona!, The Show of the Century was produced by Cathie Brown and Don Pattison, former editor of Pomona Today.]

I had been looking forward to joining the Class of ’78 for our 35th Reunion, but, unfortunately, I was unable to attend. The celebration, however, has given me cause to reflect upon my Claremont days.

I am eternally grateful for the outstanding music education that Pomona provided, a foundation that has served me well in my career as a performer, conductor and educator. Equally important and influential was the schooling I received as a result of interaction with amazingly talented classmates.

The early departure of David Murray in 1974 might have left a tremendous void in Claremont’s music scene were it not for a group of remarkably accomplished singers and players whose eclectic interests and ardent collaborations contributed to a vibrant and supportive atmosphere for music and musicians.

Not to diminish the training I received from such gifted teachers as Kohn, Kubik, Russell, Ritter and Reifsnyder, but I will always be indebted to the brilliant and passionate student musicians I encountered during my years in Claremont. I am thankful for having had the opportunity to share music-making with the likes of Dean Stevens ’76, Bart Scott ’75, Richard Apfel ’77, Carlos Rodriguez, Julie Simon, Bruce Bond ’76, Anne McMillan ’78, Mary Hart ’77 and Joel Harrison ’79, as well as Dana Brayton ’77 and Tim DeYoung, who left us too soon. I hold fond memories of these good people.

Gratias multas to them and to those I may have forgotten. Little Bridges, the Smudgepot and the Motley still resonate with their great music and generous spirits.

—Jim Lunsford ’78

Spelling (Sea) Bee

I have just finished reading the Fall 2012 issue of your excellent magazine. I enjoyed it, but am pained by an error. In the obituary of a classmate of mine, Armand Sarinana on page 59, he is listed as having been a Navy “See” Bee.

Actually, these men belonged to a Construction Battalion, hence the name, based on the initial letters, C.B., so they were known as “Seabees.” Their symbol was a very angry bee, in a sailor hat, holding a hammer and a wrench in two of his “hands” and a machine gun in his other “hands.” One of their many exploits was constructing aircraft landing strips on newly-captured islands.

Obviously, I’m a nit-picker. Must be the English classes I had at Pomona!

—David S. Marsh ’50

Ready for the Real World

June 28, 2013 by Mary Marvin Comments Off

Providing scholarships for deserving international students is one of the key goals of Campaign Pomona: Daring Minds. The campaign’s international initiative aims to strengthen ties between existing international programs at Pomona while developing new global opportunities for students and faculty.

“As the College’s international reputation and engagement has grown, the world has become more complex and integrated,” says Elizabeth Crighton, interim dean of the college. “Our challenge now is to embrace this 21st century reality. We want to deepen the international experience of Pomona students so that they are equipped for leadership in an interconnected world.”

In March, Bertil Lindblad ’78, a former Swedish diplomat and senior official with the United Nations, was named senior advisor for international initiatives. Lindblad, whose career spans 30 years, will work to:

–Establish relationships with international groups, including non-governmental organizations, United Nations agencies and think tanks.

–Expand international options for students interested in research, internships and post-baccalaureate opportunities.

— Facilitate campus visits by international scholars, artists and practitioners. Their interactions with students and faculty will range from presenting a lecture or performance to teaching a semester-long course, as well as offering workshops, labs and master classes in the arts.

Gifts to the campaign have enabled the College to take early steps such as increasing the number of international students enrolled and expanding financial aid; funding 11 new international summer internships; and appointing former U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter as its first professor of practice of international relations. Munter taught a course this spring on managing diplomatic crises.

“There is an upsurge of student interest in global issues, as applied to everything from economics to public health and art,” says Lindblad. “I’m excited to build on existing programs and to expand Pomona’s global footprint.”

www.pomona.edu/daring-minds

A portion of this story has been edited to address privacy concerns raised after its publication, while maintaining the integrity of the original content.

Immigration and Opportunity

June 26, 2013 by Mary Marvin Comments Off

In today’s session of Professor Hung Thai’s seminar on Immigration and the New Second Generation, the discussion focuses on whether schools in the U.S. provide opportunity for the children of recent immigrants or, because of the prevalence of tracking—grouping together students based on test scores or perceived ability—schools create even bigger hurdles that have negative consequences long after students graduate and enter the workforce.

Thai: Before 1985, most research in education fervently argued that schools help to equalize opportunities for students from low as well as high economic standings. Since then, there have been many debates about the problems of tracking in schools, including a study that was done in 1998 that set the tone for how we think about tracking today; that it tends to be a negative practice particularly for students who are not tracked at the upper end—immigrants, students of color, the poor.

Anissa: What was the philosophy behind tracking, what made someone think it was a good idea?

Thai: Tracking started as a solution to the immigrant problem. The first mass wave of immigration to this country occurred from the 1890s to the 1920s. With the influx of large numbers of immigrants, educators had to figure out ways to stratify the native populations against the immigrant populations. They did that, presumably, based on ability. How many of you went to schools that had tracking?

Sophia: I went to Claremont High, and it didn’t have tracking.

Thai: You didn’t have tracking? How about AP though, that’s another form of tracking.

LaFaye: We had three different programs in our high school in Chicago. The top floor was for the medical students; the second floor for Phi Beta or the law students and the first floor for regular students. At my school they would give out literacy tests and would separate those who scored above from the others who didn’t score as well.

Thai: There are essentially two ways of tracking students, and both systems are problematic on multiple levels. The main way is based on test scores. The other, which is actually much more prevalent that most people think, is the subjective evaluations of teachers on the perceived abilities of students. Some people argue that tests themselves don’t evaluate a student’s lifelong learning and capacity. The second argument about teacher’s evaluations is that there is something about schools, particularly in more middle class schools, where teachers subjectively evaluate students on the standards of middle class values and the standards of learning that take place in private homes. Which is why we know tracking tends to be racialized and classed, with poorer students tracked in the lower levels much more.

Electra: What are examples of middle class values?

Thai: Perhaps the most well-known book that makes this argument is Unequal Childhoods by Annette Lareau in which she argues that children who grow up in middle class families tend to be more assertive and tend to question authority. But children who come from poorer families or minority families tend to question less, to take orders more.

In Schooling in Capitalist America, Bowles and Gintis argue that one of the major ways schools reinforce inequalities is that poor schools essentially function as a site for producing a reserved army of labor for the American labor market; that tracking systems train the wealthy to work in jobs that allow them to have more authority, more managerial positions and, at the same time, condition the poor to take on jobs that tend to be more unskilled labor.

Mabelle: This whole idea of mobility over generations reminded me of what Vivian Louie said at the end of her book about immigrant parents and their pessimism about assimilation. That they themselves couldn’t reach a certain level, but because they have the sheer hope that the American dream is worth it for their children, they can take on anything, which is inspiring, but also scary.

Thai: Most people presume that the immigrant success story is linked to one generation. Louie says that is not actually the reality. She points out that it takes at least four generations for the students she writes about to experience long-range upward mobility. Americans tend to believe that we have longer-range patterns of mobility than we do, when in fact, when compared to Western Europe, our patterns of mobility are shorter ranged.

Tim: If one of the major reasons these immigrant families come to the U.S. is to give their kids more opportunities, the more interesting question is: is it morally, is it socially OK for them to come here with that expectation? Is that how immigration works in America? Parents justify the inequality they face because they think their kids are going to have equal opportunity because this is America. But is that actually the case?

The Professor:

At Pomona since 2001, Hung Cam Thai is an associate professor of sociology and Asian American Studies. Thai earned his Ph.D. in sociology from U.C. Berkeley and is the author of the book For Better or For Worse: Vietnamese International Marriages in the New Global Economy and the forthcoming InsufficientFunds: The Culture of Money in Low Wage Transnational Families Last year, he was awarded the Outstanding Teaching Award by the Asian American Section of the American Sociological Association.

The Course:

Immigration and the New Second Generation focuses on the body of immigration research that gives attention to age-related experiences, paying particular attention to young adults coming of age as they negotiate the major social institutions of American life, such the labor market, family, work and schooling.

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