issue21_r2 copy

SF FOGHORN
EST. 1903
NEWS
03
Students educate
at “Untold Stories”
teach-in.
READ ON PAGE 4
SFFOGHORN.COM
SCENE
08
USF’s “Sanctuary
City” project heads
to Rome.
A Look into the
@SFFOGHORN
OPINION
11
FOGPOD
THE UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO
THURSDAY, MAY 2, 2024 • VOL. 121, ISSUE 21
Reflecting on
AAPI history in
SF.
St. Ignatius
Church
and its
Renovations
SPORTS
12
Spring sports
compete in WCC
Championships.
St. Ignatius came to the Hilltop in 1914, after the 1906 “Ham and Eggs” Hayes Valley
Fire destroyed the previous location of the church. Photo by Samantha Avila Griffin/SF Foghorn.

02 03
THURSDAY
MAY 2
2024
STAFF
Editor in Chief
MEGAN ROBERTSON
mrrobertson2@dons.usfca.edu
News Editor
NIKI SEDAGHAT
nisedaghat@dons.usfca.edu
Opinion Editor
CHISOM OKORAFOR
cokorafor@dons.usfca.edu
Scene Editor
INÉS VENTURA
ipventura@dons.usfca.edu
Sports Editor
CHASE DARDEN
cbdarden@dons.usfca.edu
Photography Editor
SAMANTHA AVILA GRIFFIN
svavilagriffin@dons.usfca.edu
General Reporter
PHEBE BRIDGES
pjbridges@dons.usfca.edu
General Reporter
ELINA GRAHAM
emgraham@dons.usfca.edu
415.422.5444
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STAFF EDITORIAL
AAPI heritage Month
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF AAPI
COMMUNITIES TO THE 2024 ELECTION
Asian Americans are the fastest-growing
voter demographic in the
United States, Pew Research Center
reported in January. Despite their
rapidly growing importance, our politicians
don’t take concerns from the
Asian American voting bloc as seriously
as needed.
This election season, Asian
Americans need to be recognized by
our political institutions as the vitally
important political demographic
they are. Tangible steps need to be
taken toward increasing accessibility
in our political systems.
A February article from the New
York Times revealed that as recently
as 2020, the Asian American voter
demographic is typically disregarded
during election seasons in critical
election states like Georgia, under
the assumption that they wouldn’t
turn out to vote. This assumption is
patently false, as the Asian and Pacific
Islander American Vote Organization
found that the Asian American
and Pacific Islander (AAPI) American
communities have been turning
out in record numbers for several
election cycles now. According to
AAPI Data, in Georgia, the AAPI voter
turnout jumped a staggering 84%
in 2020.
The assumption that Asian
Americans don’t vote causes politicians
to not reach out to these communities.
During the 2022 midterms,
an Asian and Pacific Islander American
Vote Organization poll found
Photo courtesy of @apiavote on Instagram.
that “More than two-thirds of registered
Asian Americans surveyed say
they plan to vote, but only about half
have been contacted by either of the
major parties.”
Aside from underestimating the
AAPI vote, part of the problem is that
the AAPI voter demographic requires
unique political outreach strategies.
Pew Research Center found that
“Asian Americans are the only major
racial or ethnic group where more of
its eligible voters are naturalized citizens
than U.S.-born citizens (56% vs.
44%).” This often means that to effectively
contact the community, politicians
need to use languages other
than English. According to the Asian
American Federation, language barriers
often prevent AAPI voters from
fully participating. While language
accessibility is increasing over time,
many politicians haven’t expanded to
languages commonly spoken by the
incredibly diverse AAPI diaspora,
such as Mandarin, Japanese or Tagalog.
If politicians want to mobilize
this rapidly growing demographic,
they need to be more serious about
language accessibility to start.
Democracy takes a lot of work.
We’ve all seen how easily it can be
threatened, especially during this
election season. But we can’t fully
claim the democratic ideals this
country was founded upon if we’re
not serious about letting everyone in,
including and especially those, who
have been historically overlooked.
“THE UNTOLD STORIES” OF SUDAN, THE CONGO, AND
PALESTINE ON DISPLAY AT USF STUDENT TEACH-IN
CHISOM OKORAFOR
Staff Writer
On Apr. 26, approximately 80 students
crowded into the Berman Room of Fromm Hall
for a teach-in about international oppression.
At “The Untold Stories,” an event hosted by the
Public Health Society in collaboration with the
Middle East & North Africa Club, students from
the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan
and the occupied Palestinian territories educated
students about the struggles of their home
countries.
Speakers provided context for the current
violence their nations face. Audience member
Jaiden Woods, a sophomore international studies
major said, “Honestly, I was so impressed
with all the [speakers], you can see how difficult
this is for them…the strength and resilience…
to do this for their country, and their people…
[and] make sure this gets out to our community on campus — it’s really
amazing.”
The Democratic Republic of the Congo
Sylvia Rubuye is the president of USF’s Public Health Society, a student
organization which educates and collaborates with communities
in public health. Rubuye spoke about the Congo.
In her speech, Rubuye explained that a history of violent colonialism
and resource exploitation had created the conditions for the Congo’s
“silent genocide.” According to Migrants’ Rights Network, “today,
Congolese civilians are being massacred by the Rwanda-backed M23
rebels, as part of a long history of Western and corporate intervention.”
Rubuye said, “I remember talking with my dad…[and] him telling
me how he almost lost his life… Unfortunately… my uncle was not
as lucky. I remember my dad telling me about the grief he had to go
through after losing his brother from being decapitated.”
In East Congo, violent militant groups from neighboring countries
like Rwanda and Burundi have been slaughtering and mass-raping the
Congolese people, according to the United Nations. The crisis is driven
by the desire for lucrative natural resources. The Congo is one of the
most natural-resource-rich countries in the world, but its people largely
live in poverty and exploitation. Minerals like cobalt, an essential
resource for the technology industry, are mined by workers, including
children, who face slavery-like conditions.
Rubuye said, “This is not just a war about Africans wanting the
resources of the Congo… the entire world benefits from it…I’m asking
people from the bottom of my heart to never stop caring about Congo.”
Sudan
Rawan Abdalla, senior media studies major, presented on Sudan.
“I’ve spoken to many people… and I’ve been told, ‘Oh, I didn’t know
there was a war going on in your country,’” she said.
On Apr. 15, the humanitarian crisis in Sudan passed the one-year
mark. More than 15,000 civilians have been killed, largely centered in
the capital city Khartoum, but also wracking the rest of the country,
particularly Darfur, the site of the Darfur genocide, which ended in
2020. Man y of the Janjaweed militants who committed that genocide
have become the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that are now engaged in
fighting against the Sudanese Armed Forces. According to the United
States Agency for International Development, eight million Sudanese
people have been forced to flee their homes, making it “the largest displacement
crisis in the world.”
Sylvia Rubuye, pictured above, told the Foghorn, “I was so happy with the turnout because we had twice as
many people as we expected.” Photo by Samantha Avila Griffin/SF Foghorn.
Abdalla pointed to a picture of herself with family members. “This
cousin, they fled to Egypt, and as for my niece and nephew, we actually
don’t know where they are. So we have a lot of family on both sides that
have been missing… I had some family that refused to leave, which resulted
in deaths.”
Palestine
One Palestinian organizer who spoke about the ongoing genocide
in Gaza told the Foghorn, “Our main goal, obviously, is to educate… If
one person walks away from this educated, that’s good enough for us.”
The Foghorn has granted this speaker anonymity, per their request, citing
safety threats and fear of retaliation towards Palestinian students
nationally.
Two student speakers for Palestine laid out the violence of Israel’s
aggression on Gaza, using videos and infographics to illustrate the scale
of the death and destruction. The death toll in Gaza has crossed 34,000,
according to Al-Jazeera. However, authorities have lost an accurate
count of the dead in Gaza given the collapse of civil services, according
to the Wall Street Journal. Even before Oct. 7, 2023, Palestinians faced
a lack of adequate resources for survival, but the situation has escalated.
According to the U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, 100% of the
Gazan population is now food insecure. In the West Bank, Palestinians
face an oppressive apartheid system and violence from Israeli settlers,
whose illegal settlements increasingly encroach on Palestinian land.
Audience member Roman Szydlik, a junior marketing and management
major, said of the event, “It was definitely very eye-opening. …The
students speaking [about what] their families are experiencing… I mean
the whole time I was crying.”
She continued, “I feel like I haven’t participated as much as I wanted
to on campus… a lot of the reason why we don’t speak out or something
is… I didn’t know a lot about it, so now I feel like I have the confidence
with… the information that they provided.”
On Apr. 29, a walkout calling for USF to divest from Israeli-occupation
affiliated endowments and investments, among other demands,
turned into the creation of a “people’s university” encampment on Welch
Field. The Foghorn will publish our reporting on this Gaza solidarity
encampment in our May 9 issue.
Editor-in-Chief: Megan Robertson, Chief Copy Editor: Sophia Siegel,
Managing Editor: Jordan Premmer, News Editor: Niki Sedaghat
NEWS

04 05
THURSDAY
MAY 2
2024
CONTINUED FROM FRONT PAGE
ST. IGNATIUS PARISH FOSTERS
COMMUNITY FROM THE HILLTOP
The church is the official location for San Francisco Fire
and Police Department funeral services. Photo by Veston
Smith/SF Foghorn.
NEWS
PAOLA SAAVEDRA & VESTON SMITH
Contributing Writers
Parishioners filled the pews of St. Ignatius Church at 10 a.m. on a
Sunday last fall. Visitors placed pies on a table by the entrance marked
“Thanksgiving pie drive,” under the church’s vaulted ceiling, which
is adorned with a painting of St. Ignatius. The Rev. Father Greg Bonfiglio,
S.J. strolled the pews welcoming parishioners as they entered.
While their Catholic faith brings people to mass, what keeps them
coming back to St. Ignatius are the connections between parishioners,
staff, religious professionals and the community they serve. St. Ignatius
sustains the community through outreach initiatives and a welcoming
and nuanced service.
“What drew us was the quality of the homilies, and the thoughts
and the ideas of the parish,” said church volunteer Terry Potente, who
joined the St. Ignatius parish 12 years ago. “The community is very
welcoming and friendly.”
While some students’ primary interactions with the church are
limited to the beginning and end of their time on campus, students are
welcome to, and do, attend the church services.
Sarah McKinley is a USF graduate student whose family joined
the St. Ignatius Parish when she was in middle school, after her family
relocated to the Bay Area from Minnesota. “Moving to San Francisco
was a huge change for me and my family,” she said. “Everything was so
Bonfiglio told the Foghorn regarding the scaffolding, “If it’s not all going to be down, [the] majority of it will be,” by May commencement.
Photo by Veston Smith/SF Foghorn.
new and different, and sometimes, honestly, it felt a little overwhelming.
But having a church home like St. Ignatius was a calming presence
in the midst of all that change.”
McKinley said that St. Ignatius Parish played a part in her decision
to attend graduate school at USF. “The church had a huge influence,”
she said. “The sense of community and shared values I found
here made USF an attractive choice. It felt like a continuation of the
support and spirit I experienced every week at mass.”
“When I first got to USF, I figured church and school would be
separate things in my life, but they’ve actually overlapped a lot,” she
said. McKinley appreciates being able to drop in at St. Ignatius Church.
“It’s kind of like my go-to spot when everything on campus gets too
much. If I’m ever stressed or just need a quiet moment, I can always
pop over to the church, eat lunch, sit down for a bit, and just chill out.”
She said she sees cohesion between her studies and her faith. “I’ve
found that what I learn and do at church often links up with my classes.
Like, the whole thing about caring for others, fighting for what’s
right, and being ethical – these are things I hear about in church, and
then I find myself discussing them in my classes, especially in subjects
like ethics or even some of my business courses. It’s pretty cool
when stuff from a sermon at church comes up in class discussions. It
makes everything I’m learning feel more connected, like my faith and
my studies are part of the same journey.”
The parish operates independently from the university, but they
have a working relationship. St.
Ignatius Parish shares its building
with the USF, and the church
serves as the chapel for the
University. Angélica Quiñónez,
director of University Ministry,
said, “We view St. Ignatius
Church as one of our most valuable
partners.”
Being so valuable to USF’s
campus, construction on the
church has been noticeable
since it began in early May 2023,
as previously reported by the
Foghorn. According to Bonfiglio,
“Most everything is going
to wrap up by the end of June
[2024].” The only thing expected
to extend beyond June is the
implementation of a fire suppression
system, “but visually
everything that we’ve set out to
do will be done by June,” Bonfiglio
confirmed.
As of the update posted on
Apr. 15 to the USF’s facilities
website, it’s projected that the
scaffolding removal will continue
through May 9. “If it’s not all
going to be down, [the] majority
of it will be, and those who
are graduating will be able to take pictures without
scaffolding in the background,” Bonfiglio said.
Beyond USF, the church has historically been a pillar of
San Francisco. “The building was used in the day as a navigation
point for ships coming to the Golden Gate,” said Bonfiglio.
“It was the highest building in the city so you could
see it from outside the Golden Gate even before the bridge.”
Nicknamed the “Beacon on the Hill,” it has continued to
serve as a focal point of San Francisco’s skyline. Before existing
in three other sites since the Jesuits first established it
in 1855, St. Ignatius Church settled at its “forever home” on
the Hilltop in 1914.
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic brought new challenges
to the church. The church’s home of San Francisco
was one of the first to issue a citywide lockdown —from
Mar. 17, 2020, to Jan. 25, 2021, Mayor London Breed ordered
a lockdown on congregate gatherings. However, San Francisco
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone was very vocal about
his opposition to mandated church closures and resisted
city public health ordinances.
Before the city’s shelter-in-place order went into effect,
Bonfiglio canceled mass in hopes of protecting his congregation
from the virus. However, when he wrote a letter to
Cordileone, requesting permission to cancel mass on Sunday,
Mar. 15, 2020, the archbishop denied his request.
“I don’t think that keeps us safe,” said Bonfiglio. “So I
sent an email to parishioners, and I’m clear we are having
mass at 10:00 a.m. on Sunday, but please do not come, and
so people didn’t.” Instead, parishioners were invited to join
in on Zoom for mass.
The church, which hosts USF’s May and December
graduations as well as several music events, was already
equipped with cameras and microphones. Patrick Steacy,
media producer for USF, produced a live-stream of that Sunday’s
service.
St. Ignatius has a sister parish, San Antonio Parish, in Soyapango, El Salvador. Photo by Veston
Smith/SF Foghorn.
NEWS

06 07
THURSDAY
MAY 2
2024
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5
ST. IGNATIUS — A PILLAR OF SAN
FRANCISCO
According to a profile from Pitchfork, Kamaiyah’s biggest
music inspirations are Missy Elliott, TLC, and MC Lyte.
Photo courtesy of Marquise.
Easter of 2020 fell about a month into the lockdown. “On Holy
Thursday [2020] we were about to start mass and Father Greg was
in tears because this church was so depressing,” said Don Crean, St.
Ignatius’ Director of Sacramental Preparation. “We were walking up
the aisles and there were all these empty pews.”
Bonfiglio asked parishioners to send in photos of themselves to
be taped to the empty pews. At the peak of the COVID-19 lockdown,
the livestream attracted approximately 2,000 participants, more than
double what the church could hold in person. There is still a livestream
service for those who cannot physically make it to mass.
Crean said kinship is vital to the parish. “We are fed by the sense
of community that we share with one another, as we come to know
one another, as the body of Christ, and ourselves,” he said.
Parishioners extend community by leading food, clothing and
toiletry drives for donations for shelters in San Francisco.
The congregation also hosts “Home for Dinner” a few times a
year. Bonfiglio invites the congregation to enjoy a community meal
following the 10 a.m. mass, inspired by his grandmother. “I issued
[her] warm obligation,” he said. “This is what my grandmother
felt when she would have her family around her
dinner table every Sunday.”
The tradition recommenced when the pandemic restrictions
were lifted. The next “Home for Dinner” will be
on May 19 at 10 a.m.
Bonfiglio said of the parishioners’ mission, “We’re
reminding them of God’s love, for them, for all of us, and
we’re reminded that God calls us, and God calls us in a
particular way, to love, to love ourselves, to love the world
around us.”
Keeping Up With Kamaiyah
Oakland Rapper Returns to Bay Area
NEWS
When asked for a rough estimate on the timeline, Bonfiglio
said the church was approximately “85-90%” done with the
renovation process. Photo by Samantha Avila Griffin/SF Foghorn.
St. Ignatius Parish holds a USF Student Mass on Sundays at
7 p.m. Photo by Samantha Avila Griffin/SF Foghorn.
For more information regarding St. Ignatius’ mass
schedule, check their website.
Phebe Bridges and Niki Sedaghat contributed to the
reporting of this story.
Editor-in-Chief: Megan Robertson, Chief Copy Editor:
Sophia Siegel, Managing Editor: Jordan Premmer, News
Editor: Niki Sedaghat
ELINA GRAHAM
Staff Writer
The stage of the Great American Music Hall was transformed into
a propped liquor storefront of the “Oak Town Market” — complete
with a neon flashing “open” sign — for Kamaiyah’s hometown show of
her “Another Summer Night” tour on Apr. 18.
The rapper presided over the crowd from the stage’s balcony as
she performed her latest release “Can’t Lose.” Born and raised in East
Oakland, Kamaiyah was recording her rhymes in the studio at age 11.
Now platinum certified, she has more than established herself as one
of the big names of the West Coast rap game. Kamaiyah’s debut album,
“A Good Night in the Ghetto” made Rolling Stone’s and Pitchfork’s
“Best Rap Album of 2016” lists. On top of that, she has collaborated
with popular rappers, YG and Drake. She even founded two record
labels, GRND.WRK, in 2020, and Keep it Lit Records under Empire,
making her “one of few women in hip-hop, and perhaps the first from
the West Coast, to run her own shop,” according to VIBE.
Outfitted in a monochromatic white Supreme tracksuit with a
manicure to match, Kamaiyah quickly established a rapport with the
crowd, as beach balls and inflatable toys were tossed around on the
floor below her.
“Live music gives you a personal interaction and experience with
an artist,” Kamaiyah said to the Foghorn, “It brings you into the world
they build on that stage inside that venue.” She continued, “My music
in that landscaping is an escape for people, the club or house party
you’ve been dying to get to on your off-day.”
Six artists took the floor before Kamaiyah — among them were
female rappers Getitindy, Ally Cocaine and Cuhdeejah. The Vallejo-based
Getitindy performed “Gas Me Up,” her latest release in
collaboration with Kamaiyah. After the performance, she called a
mega-fan onstage and presented her with flowers in thanks for her
support. Following GetItIndy, Ally Cocaine, in a pink Y2K newsboy
hat and sparkling knee-high boots, performed “Speak Up,” a song that
invites critics to “say it with your chest.”
In between artist performances, plenty of DJs kept the room’s energy
up. Paying homage to Oakland’s hyphy legacy, Bay Area rap classics
like Too $hort’s “Blow the Whistle” and Mac Dre’s “Feelin’ Myself”
blasted from the speakers. “Hyphy”, which means hyperactive,
refers to a subgenre of hip-hop that found its roots in the Bay Area in
the early 2000s.
Openers continued the communal house-party feel for more than
two hours, and brought up audience members onstage to dance, blurring
the barrier between audience and performers.
“[The] openers all put on great shows, and I got excited once they
started to set up for [Kamaiyah] to come out,” said attendee Maggie
Mordecai, a junior politics major at USF. “They brought out props that
resembled markets in Oakland and touched back to her roots where
she began, which was cool to see…she made it special since she was
back in the Bay.”
In an interview with Vice, Kamaiyah describes how although
her sound contains the “essence of the Bay Area,” she doesn’t want to
make hometown fame her goal. Rather, she wants to continue evolving
her music and finding her niche, going above and beyond what’s
trending, rather than settling into a stagnant style to fit in with the
genre of today.
Her latest album, “Another Summer Night” has been described by
KQED as “full of player attitude and trunk-rattling bass.”Close listeners
won’t miss lyrics that speak to dealing with greedy backstabbers,
navigating the loss of loved ones and the struggles of establishing success
within the entertainment industry, in songs like “Whole Lotta
M’s,” “Going Thru S—t” and “Lamborghini Dreams.”
“I hope the audience takes away love and empowerment when I
get off the stage because all I’m doing is pushing happiness, fun, and
peace,” Kamaiyah said. “We don’t condone violence and we always
have fun and safe environments. My fans are my family, so I always
want them to feel they’re loved as such.”
Other Goldenvoice-presented events can be found on the Goldenvoice
website.
Editor-in-Chief: Megan Robertson, Chief Copy Editor: Sophia Siegel,
Managing Editor: Jordan Premmer, Scene Editor: Inés Ventura
SCENE

08 09
THURSDAY
MAY 2
2024
SCENE
SANCTUARY
CITY GOES
GLOBAL
USF housed art exhibit
to show in Italy this
summer
INÉS VENTURA
Staff Writer
Bold in their sentiment and block-lettered print, statements
such as “Undocumented unafraid,” “I am an immigrant” and “This is
a sanctuary,” can be seen on posters, tote bags, billboards, and just
about any flat surface that text can be screen printed onto, as part of
the “Sanctuary City” project.
Sergio De La Torre, associate professor of fine arts in the
Department of Arts + Architecture, is the beating heart of this art
project that involves community and conversation around migration,
surveillance and security. Based in research and data analysis, the
project “engages individuals and institutions into deep dialogues
regarding sanctuary cities & immigration policies,” according to their
website.
The collection started as a research project in 2007 supported
by the Creative Work Fund, focused on the migration patterns and
implications at the U.S. border with Mexico. The work was later the
basis for the “Art as Citizen” class offered in the art department at
USF.
This summer, the Sanctuary City project will be shown at the
Museo dell’Altro e dell’Altrove di Metropoliz (Museum of the Other
and the Elsewhere), or MAAM, in Rome, Italy.
A sanctuary city, as defined by the Center for Immigration
Studies, can be a city, country, or state that has rules and regulations
“that obstruct immigration enforcement and shield criminals from
[U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] ICE…[by] denying
ICE access to interview incarcerated [undocumented immigrants],
or otherwise impeding communication or information exchanges
The art project has been displayed at several museums and galleries across the country,
including at the SFMOMA in 2017. Photo Courtesy of Sergio De La Torre.
The “Sanctuary City’s” billboard (pictured above) is on display over Mission street. Photo Courtesy of Sergio De La Torre.
between their personnel and federal immigration officers.” California
became a sanctuary state under former Governor Jerry Brown on Oct.
5, 2017.
De La Torre said, “You look for empathy with this project, you look
to be compassionate. To be like… what if you were in a situation where
you had to leave your country? Nobody wants to leave their country.
Nobody wants to move from Guatemala to Canada. But they have to
because they have no choice.”
De La Torre was born in National City, Calif., but grew up in
Tijuana, Mexico. Crossing the border his entire life, De La Torre
has witnessed the ever-changing nature of border security. He was
introduced to his partner in the project, Chris Treggiari in 2007
— when Treggiari was a graduate student at the San Francisco Art
Institute and De La Torre was conducting his research.
Treggiari said, “One of my big tenets in my work is mobility,
and allowing the arts to reach the public space; to reach out into
communities and to engage in communities and dialogue.” Treggiari
has been a professor at the California College of the Arts since 2013.
Treggiari peddles a mobile print-making stand, where the Sanctuary
City posters first started coming out in 2017.
MAAM is a sanctuary in itself. Originally a slaughterhouse, the
converted art museum currently “houses around 200 people, including
60 families with children, hailing from all around the world,” according
to Culture Trip. Treggiari said, “They are a museum for the people — a
museum for the immigrants.” The content of Sanctuary City is based
on the conversations that take place where the art is, with posters
being unique to each location.
The topic of migration is not easy to tackle for some. De
La Torre said, “So you get into these conversations that are
exhausting at some points, but then again, you somehow have
to be patient and just …listen to them, and work with what they
have, in order to understand.”
In terms of challenges that the project faces, Treggiari
said, “you never know what you’re going to get… immigration
is hotly contested right now… I think we are going to run into
some heated conversations… we look to have constructive
conversations.”
De La Torre said, “We’re making up laws in order to stop
migration… no one can stop it because we have been doing this
for centuries. We’ve been walking for centuries, now we take
trains, and cars, and boats, airplanes; but before we used to
walk — before borders were constructed.”
Editor-in-Chief: Megan Robertson, Chief Copy Editor:
Sophia Siegel, Managing Editor: Jordan Premmer, Scene Editor:
Inés Ventura
AI’S MECHANIZATION OF WORKERS
EMILY LUTRICK is a sophomore
chemistry major.
Amazon’s Just Walk Out Uses Not-So-Artificial Intelligence
In early April, reports surfaced
revealing that Amazon’s Just Walk
Out Artificial Intelligence (AI)
technology wasn’t really what we
thought it was.
Amazon’s Just Walk Out
technology was first implemented in
Amazon Go convenience stores and
Amazon Fresh grocery stores across
the nation. To shop at these stores,
customers must tap their credit or
debit card, Amazon app, or their
palm (if registered with Amazon)
which lets them pass the entry gate.
Then, the customer shops as usual
while “sensors, cameras, and deep
learning tools” sense what they take
off the shelves, according to the
company’s website. When they leave through the exit gates, their card
is automatically charged for what they grabbed.
The company claimed the technology
offers a “fast, frictionless way to shop
without the hassle of checking out.”
However, The Information, a
technology journalism publication,
found that instead of AI reviewing
all of the footage and processing the
payments, approximately 1,000 people
in India review all of the materials
put into and out of carts, making sure
no purchase is missed. Up to 70% of all
purchases are run through humans, as
opposed to the initial goal of 0.5%.
The revelation of Amazon’s Just
Walk Out system relying on human
labor, rather than AI, is just the latest
example of companies dressing up
laborers from developing countries as
artificial intelligence.
In order for AI to work efficiently
and accurately, many people need to
train it and feed it data, but the concern
is that instead of just having people train
the AI, these companies are instead
having people perform the tasks that the
AI is supposed to be doing.
Jon Jenkins, the vice president of
Just Walk Out at Amazon, responded
to this report, denying the notion that
“people in India are watching you shop
live in a store and figuring out what
you bought,” he said in a statement
to ABC. People in India are watching
you shop and figuring out what you
buy, Jenkins clarified, just not “live.”
When the system gets confused, which
is apparently often, employees will
watch “a snippet” of video to ensure the
customer receives the correct receipt.
There has been no clarification from
Amazon on how many employees they
actually have doing this work in India.
Graphic by Mariam Diakite/SF Foghorn
Companies exploiting overseas labor is disgusting — especially as
AI has extreme implications for labor practices and ethics. Outsourcing
these tasks to regions with lower labor costs not only causes these
companies to undermine the local job markets, but also allows for a
cycle of exploitation that perpetuates systemic injustice.
Following this report, Amazon has been releasing plans to remove
many of their Just Walk Out systems from their stores. Here in San
Francisco, there were once four Amazon Go stores, which as of Apr. 1
have all closed.
We need complete transparency, accountability, and ethical
standards in the AI industry. Amazon claimed these AI implementations
would be “frictionless” — but frictionless for who? AI was supposed
to make machines work in place of humans, but instead, humans are
working like machines. As the reliance on AI continues to grow, there
must be protocols and mechanisms put in place ensuring a safeguard
against the exploitation of these vulnerable labor forces and ensuring
that AI is a benefit to society as a whole.
Editor-in-Chief: Megan Robertson, Chief Copy Editor: Sophia
Siegel, Managing Editor: Jordan Premmer, Opinion Editor: Chisom
Okorafor
OPINION

10 11
THURSDAY
MAY 2
2024
A A P I H e r i t a g e m o n t h
SOUTH-ASIAN MAGIC
A HISTORY OF RESILIENCE IN SAN FRANCISCO
USF’s South-Asian Community Brings Home to San Francisco
How AAPI Communities Built Back
OPINION
TASNEEM LUKMANJEE is a
sophomore international business
major.
I come from two cultures. Like
my father, I was born and raised in Sri
Lanka, an island country just south
of the coast of India. In Sri Lanka I
lived in Colombo, enjoying a humid
life near the ocean and drinking
thambili (king coconut) water straight
from the source —if I was lucky
it’d have a straw. My mother on the
other hand is my direct access to
the Motherland. In India, I lived on
Mumbai’s famous Grant Road, eating
baraf golas and bhutta masala over
various long summers that I spent in
my grandparents’ apartment.
My life was so intertwined with
my part of South Asia — the lands
where I’d lived and breathed for
so long — that I was nervous when
college was a 20-hour flight from everything I’d ever known.
But I didn’t have to be so worried, because it turned out that at USF,
home is never too far away, because international students make up more
than 9% of the USF population compared to a national average of only 6%.
Further, according to Statistica, Indian students are the second largest
population of international college students in
the U.S.
From my experience, it’s not too hard to
find another brown person on campus. What is
cool is how we all find some way to connect to
each other, even though we all met at a relatively
tiny private university in San Francisco.
I love that I’ve met people from my mama’s
land, people who grew up in my summer
home, and that these people know how foreign
being in San Francisco can be. These people
know what it’s like to change your name to be
more palatable to the American tongue, what
it’s like to not be in the same time zone as
our loved ones, and how painful it is to leave
home while creating a whole other life of our
own. Sophomore finance and art double major
Alaikaa Gupta shared a similar experience with
me.“It definitely helped that [USF] had so many
other South Asian students… it didn’t feel too
daunting.”
At USF, I’ve ironically felt closer to my
Indian heritage than I ever did in Sri Lanka. I’ve
had more opportunities to practice my faulty
Hindi and minimal Gujarati, and I’ve learnt so
much about other cultures close to us — like
Pakistan and Nepal. I even met another class
of ‘26 student from Nepal who knew a guy from
my high school all the way in Sri Lanka. This
blew my mind, as the entirety of Sri Lanka
has a population of only 22 million, while just
California has more than 30 million. It’s just a
really beautiful thing the way brown people can
Graphic by Delaney Lumpkin/Graphics Center
make the world seem ten times smaller, less like a huge beast that needs
to be conquered.
Organizations on campus like Indian Students Organization (ISO)
annually plan important desi events like Diwali, and most recently
arranged a Holi celebration last month. Vice President of ISO, Anshika
Bedi, said “We had a lot of fun playing around with colors and listening to
Bollywood songs as we threw [colored powder] at each other. Celebrating
our cultural holiday made me and other Indian students feel at home. USF
has a big south Asian community and ISO is there to provide a safe space
and a home away from home for these students.”
It is events and student efforts like this that drive forward our
community in this global city. It’s a comfort to see some parts of my
culture reflected and embraced in all parts of campus life, and it definitely
made me feel more comfortable. Student organizations like ISO help us
keep in touch with our roots, regardless of whether home is 20 minutes or
20 hours away.
There’s something very special about being a South-Asian abroad,
and part of that is the way we look out for each other. We may not know
everything about each other or have had similar upbringings, but there is
a universal experience in growing up brown. We comfort each other with
these shared experiences, and that is South-Asian magic.
Editor-in-Chief: Megan Robertson, Chief Copy Editor: Sophia Siegel,
Managing Editor: Jordan Premmer, Opinion Editor: Chisom Okorafor
As a native San
Franciscan and thirdgeneration
Filipino
American, the Bay Area
has always been a place
for me to reflect on my
Asian American identity
and heritage. I remember
growing up seeing
communities with different
Asian identities laid out
across the city. From going to
Chinatown and Japantown
to eating chirashi bowls
JORDAN MARALIT is a
and sisig, being immersed
junior politics major.
in Asian culture in this city
has formed who I am as a
person.
According to U.S. Census data, the Asian community
makes up at least 34.8% of San Francisco, compared to the
national average of just 6.3%. This includes the Chinese,
Japanese, and Filipino populations, among others.
Although these diasporas are well-established in San
Francisco, historically, our communities and livelihoods have
been threatened by anti-Asian sentiment and policy. We need
to acknowledge and reflect on this history to truly engage with
Asian heritage in the Bay Area.
The first wave of Asian immigrants to the United States
were Chinese migrants who arrived through the ports of San Francisco
during the Gold Rush. They played a huge role in building the
transcontinental railroad, which revolutionized American travel in the
late 1800s.
However, in 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was signed into law,
which prohibited Chinese laborers from immigrating to the U.S. for 10
years, which restricted the growth of the Chinese community. The Act
spurred anti-Asian sentiment across the nation, and was one of the first
pieces of legislation in U.S. history that specifically targeted an ethnic
group from entering the country. The act wasn’t repealed until 1943.
San Francisco’s Chinese American population has survived through
this oppression. Approximately a fifth of the city’s population, 180,000
people, are of Chinese descent, and the city’s Chinatown, where the
community has been historically anchored, is the oldest of its kind in
North America.
During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an
executive order which forcibly interned Japanese Americans. In San
Francisco, most of those affected were displaced from their homes in
the Fillmore District. Despite this horrific internment, San Francisco’s
Japanese American population has demonstrated incredible resilience.
Today, the city’s proud Japanese heritage can be seen in Japantown, a
flourishing staple of the Fillmore District, and the oldest Japantown in
the U.S.
In the 1960s, the Filipino community had a thriving neighborhood
in San Francisco called “Manilatown” centered on the I-Hotel on
Kearny Street. In the name of “urban renewal,” a misguided policy
which demolished many ethnic communities, San Francisco officials
destroyed the Manilatown enclave. Community activists organized
around the hotel, resisting the policies that would eventually demolish
Banner in the SOMA Pilipinas district courtesy of @somafilipinas on Instagram.
the building in 1977. Afterward, the Filipino community built back, and
can now be seen in San Francisco’s South-of-Market (SOMA) Pilipinas
District.
Despite anti-Asian sentiment and policy, our history is being told
and people are paying attention. Although, anti-Asian discrimination
is not exclusive to these three major ethnic groups, nor is it a thing of
the past.
Other Asian ethnic groups, such as the Vietnamese, Korean and
Indian communities have established their own spaces in San Francisco.
Little Saigon, located in the Tenderloin, is known as a cultural
hub for the Vietnamese community, which preserves Vietnamese
culture through businesses and shops selling delicacies, like Banh Mi
sandwiches and pho noodle soups.
San Francisco’s Korean Center seeks to create spaces to explore
the richness of Korean culture and history. It is a community-based
organization in the Cathedral Hill neighborhood, which creates a
vibrant, engaged community and a spot to explore Korean heritage.
Since 2015, Spring India Day has celebrated Indian culture one day
each summer in Union Square. It features a traditional Indian wedding
ceremony, bollywood dancing, and Indian food booths.
Among these various communities, one theme remains consistent
— Asian American heritage in San Francisco is a heritage of resilience
and preservation.
Asian history is intertwined with American history, and should
never be left out or excluded. San Francisco’s diverse history was
created by people of color, and their community resilience should be
acknowledged.
Editor-in-Chief: Megan Robertson, Chief Copy Editor: Sophia Siegel,
Managing Editor: Jordan Premmer, Opinion Editor: Chisom Okorafor
OPINION

12
THURSDAY
MAY 2
2024
The Dons baseball team will head to Portland to take on the University of Portland Pilots on May 2. Photo courtesy of Chris M. Leung/Dons Athletics.
DONS WRAP UP THE
SPRING SEASON
SPORTS
CHASE DARDEN
Staff Writer
USF Athletics was in full swing last week as three teams came
towards the end of their seasons. Women’s golf and beach volleyball
competed away from home in the West Coast Conference (WCC)
Championships, while Dons Baseball dominated at home on the Hilltop.
On Apr. 21, the women’s golf team finished second at the WCC
Championships in Bramerton, Wash., finishing behind Pepperdine
University and beating out Santa Clara University and Gonzaga University.
Following the tournament, the league announced that three
Dons, sophomore Eva Pett, and juniors Yvonne Shang and Riana
Mission, were named to the WCC All-Conference Team. This marks
the third year in a row that at least two Dons have earned a place on
the all-conference list. This was Mission and Shan’s second straight
season to be named an all-conference team member, while it marked
Pett’s first time.
Following her third All-WCC mention, Mission was also selected
as an individual qualifier for the Cle Elum Regional for the National
Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) Division I Women’s Golf
Championship. Mission is positioned as the second-ranked individual
in the region. The region features Stanford University, Duke University,
Arizona State University, San Jose State University and others. She
will be competing at the Tumble Creek Club on May 6-8.
The Dons Beach Volleyball team traveled to Santa Monica to finish
the season at the WCC Championships, with three games, on Apr.
25. The Dons began the tournament with a 4-1 loss to the Santa Clara
University Broncos, followed by a 4-1 win in the elimination bracket
against the University of Portland Pilots. They ended the day with another
4-1 loss against the Broncos. The Dons finished the season with
a record of 11-20.
USF baseball is still in full swing for another three weeks. The
Dons won their recent series against the University of the Pacific Tigers,
after a dominating performance from USF law student and starting
pitcher Joe Soberon. Soberon led the Dons to a 10-1 victory on
Apr. 29, holding the Tigers scoreless through the first five innings,
totaling six strikeouts and four hits for his third win of the season.
Notably, sophomore infielder Blake Pitts, held his own at the plate
going three for four, with one RBI and four runs scored. Matty Fung
and Myles Kallinger led the team in RBIs with three a piece and combining
for four hits total. The Dons baseball team (19-25) is slated to
continue their season in Portland against the University of Portland
Pilots on May 2 and return to the Hilltop on May 7 to take on the San
Jose State Spartans at Benedetti Diamond.
Students can attend all home games for free with the use of their
One Card.
Editor-in-Chief: Megan Robertson, Chief Copy Editor: Sophia Siegel,
Managing Editor: Jordan Premmer, Sports Editor: Chase Darden