CSUN On Point

For years, high school students have had to take standardized tests to attend the college of their dreams. 

That may be changing. Many U.S. colleges and universities — including some of California’s biggest institutions — are no longer requiring the the SAT or ACT as part of their admissions process.

The National Center for Fair and Open Testing said 1,800 schools have dropped SAT or ACT requirements. In December 2021, California State University system leaders strongly signaled they plan to eliminate the SAT score requirements, EdSource reported 

The move follows a similar decision by the University of California System. UC campuses have already permanently dropped standardized tests from their admissions formula. Even some notoriously hard-to-get-into Ivy League schools, like Harvard and Cornell, are shifting to a test-optional application process.

The SAT, or Scholastic Aptitude Test, has been the primary collegiate gatekeeper since its creation over 90 years ago by Carl Brigham from the American college admissions organization, College Board. Its counterpart, the ACT (American College Test) is shorter in length but just as stress-inducing for teenagers. 

When she found out about colleges no longer requiring the SAT, Denise Pinales, a junior at L.A. ‘s John F. Kennedy High School felt a sense of relief. 

“Now I know that my college acceptance won’t be factored on a test that I may have screwed up on,” she said, “especially with COVID and missing two weeks of school.”  

The recent social upheaval caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted colleges across the country to reevaluate many aspects of how they conduct classes, tests, and now admissions. 

Removing the SAT/ACT requirement will help students have a better chance to enroll in college. 

UCLA Vice Provost for Enrollment Youlonda Copeland-Morgan said the suspension of SAT/ACT requirement will give more underprivileged high school students a chance to attend four-year universities directly after graduation. 

The SAT was originally designed to test the aptitude of soldiers in World War I. After witnessing the effects and results, social scientists believed it would be a good psychological test to add to the slew of standardized testing in schools. 

According to the National Education Association, the SAT was not designed to test students on things they already learned in school or common, learned knowledge. It was set up to cover several topics and challenge a student’s natural ability to memorize a wide range of material – any of which can be covered over the course of three hours. 

Critics have stated that SAT and ACT mainly prove that kids from poor families do worse than kids with more money. Wealthy parents can provide benefits that many poor families can’t, including tutors, test prep services and schools with ample resources.

“It is more affluent people in this country that can afford expensive test prep,” said Audrey Dow, from the Campaign for College Opportunity – an organization that seeks to make public policy change in California colleges –  “the type of test prep that is really focused again, on test taking strategies.” 

David Dufault-Hunter, CSUN’s Associate VP for Enrollment Services commented on the shift in enrollment demographics that was almost immediately evident when CSUN stopped looking at SAT scores. Instead, they looked at GPAs, whether students completed “A-G” courses — the classes California’s public colleges require for admission — and outside factors such as employment status during school and poverty.  

Under these new criteria, Dufault-Hunter said, African-American students gained admission to CSUN at a slightly higher rate.

Ibram X. Kendi, an expert from Boston University’s Anti Racist Research and Policy Center says that the SATs play a big part in, “degrade[ing] Black and Brown minds and legally exclud[ing] their bodies from prestigious schools.” 

“When institutions started to use the SAT… ” Dufault-Hunter said, “they [used] it as a measuring stick for their own reputation and we lost the fundamental reason for education and that is to build and develop talent as opposed to simply identify talent.” 

Although the standardized test taking requirement is being eliminated, some experts worry about the unintended consequences.

They fear getting rid of the SAT or ACT will put more pressure on high school students to take Advanced Placement courses and exams so credits can be submitted in time for college admission decisions. According to Virginia Commonwealth University,  removing the SAT and ACT as a requirement for admission forces colleges to focus on students’ high school GPA, which can paint a misleading picture; Absences, family problems or moves between schools can skew a student’s GPA. This means students will have to work even harder to maintain a high GPA. 

Luis Osuna, a recent graduate from CSUN, spent a lot of his high school years overworked and stressed about the SATs and ACT rather than his actual grades. As a result, his GPA slipped and he never ended up sitting for the ACT. 

“When you start eliminating that grind of standardized testing and the ways that very much add a lot of pressure,” Osuna said, “I think it would have opened up a lot of different, healthier practices to approach my education.” 

He is in favor of fundamentally changing the application process for college and tailoring education based on people’s individuality. 

While the SAT has not been permanently suspended across the country, Rob Franek from the college admissions service, The Princeton Review, thinks the College Board is moving the test in a positive direction. 

“They are trying, again, to right some of those ills of the past,” Franek said, “making the test shorter— almost an hour shorter.”

“There are things,” Franek added, “that the SAT will continually evolve… become much more modern, nimble and then accessible to students across the board.”

Dufault-Hunter believes the suspension of required SAT scores will be a permanent part of the Cal State admissions process, opening doors and opportunities to students who are talented, underrepresented, or just not good test-takers under pressure.

This story was reported and produced by Gitanjali Mahapatra, Debbie Martinez and Tracy Mejia.

Road fatalities on United States highways have spiked this year. More than 20,000 people died in motor vehicle crashes in the first half of this year, the highest six-month total since 2006.

Locally, the city of Los Angeles also saw a spike in traffic collisions, injuries, and deaths in 2021. Traffic fatalities rose to 257 over the last year, according to the news site Crosstown L.A.

“Our research shows that in 2020 and 2021, drivers have engaged in riskier behaviors on the road. That includes speeding, driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol, and not wearing seatbelts,” said Lauren Ballard, a transportation planner with the L.A. Department of Transportation.

In 2015, Mayor Eric Garcetti created the “Vision Zero” program to keep Los Angeles streets safer.

“The plan aims to reduce traffic fatalities down to zero,” said Senior Civil Engineer of LA County Public Works Matthew Dubiel. “The action plan started in August of 2020. We’re working now to implement infrastructure and educational programs to enhance traffic safety.”

The plan aimed to achieve its goals through, among other things, upgrades to existing traffic signals, protected bicycle lanes, and upgraded crosswalks with flashing beacons.

Nonprofits and advocacy organizations are pushing for similar measures. Damian Kevitt is the Executive Director of “Streets Are For Everyone”, a nonprofit group aiming to improve roadway safety for pedestrians and bicyclists. He says that nearly 6,500 pedestrians are killed by motor vehicles each year, and fixing this crisis must start now.

“We have a tremendous number of roads that were built so that they are dangerous roads. They are dangerous by design,” said Kevitt. “It takes engineering, reprogramming a traffic light to make an intersection safer. Sometimes it takes breaking concrete, redesigning an entire street, and that is not a cheap venture.”

This story was reported and produced by Kimmy Chacon, Jonathan Giovanazzi and Kali Raglin.

The University of California system has set a goal increasing its enrollment by 20,000 students in just under 10 years.

The UC’s systems 10 campuses, already enroll 286,000 students. But housing options on and around most UC campuses are at capacity, leaving some students and faculty wondering: where are all the new students supposed to go?  

The Los Angeles Times reports the UC system faces a growing capacity crisis. Projections show campuses may have to turn thousands of qualified applicants away for lack of space if nothing is done. 

EdSource has reported schools most affected by this housing crisis are UC Santa Barbara, San Diego, Santa Cruz, Merced and Berkley. 

“I know some of my friends have had struggles with getting housing,” said UCLA student Jamie Lee, “and when on the waitlist, scrambling for off campus apartments to live in.”

The state Legislative Analyst’s Office reported one in six UC students lived in hotels, temporary housing, or were even living outdoors because they did not have permanent housing.

 One driver of demand for student housing: more high school graduates are taking college preparatory coursework. In a report by Dive Brief, UC System President Michael Drake, says the number of high school graduates is expected to peak in 2025.

This year, UC Merced tallied a record-breaking 22,509 undergraduate applications. Also, UCLA also had a huge spike in applications receiving almost 17,000 more applications than in 2020.

But soon, UC schools may not have space for these new students. By 2030, roughly 144,000 students may be deprived of admission into these four-year-campuses, no matter the students’ qualifications, because of capacity limits, according to a study by the College Futures Foundation.

Already, students at UC Santa Barbara — and residents in the nearby communities of Isla Vista and Goleta — are feeling the pressure of the housing shortage around the university.

UC Santa Barbara made a contract with Santa Barbara County and the city of Goleta, which surrounds the campus. Since then, the university has committed to capping enrollment at 25,000 students through the year 2025, to build housing for the 5,000 students it planned to add, and to construct about nearly 2,000 new faculty and staff housing units.

“We are backpedaling on what the city should have done,” said George Relles, leader of the group Sustainable University Now, and a Goleta environmental activist. “By the university focusing on transportation and not housing, they have already un-done a lot of the good things they have committed to.”

To resolve the overcrowding issue, UCSB proposed a 4,500-bed building, Munger Hall, the namesake of donor Charles Munger. But its design, which included windowless dorm rooms, has provoked controversy.

“The reason it was designed that way, as Munger said, is to give a reason for students to come out of their rooms and  be more social on an academic level,” said Gurleen Pabla, a third-year student at UCSB.

Pabla is not a fan of the current Munger Hall design. She believes that being stuck in a dorm room without natural light isn’t a good idea. She worried it might also worsen mental health challenges for students.

UC system president Michael Drake said in a Board of Regents meeting last week that the system will need to pursue a strategic and organic growth that matches the goals of individual campuses.

UC officials have now advocated for lawmakers to create a permanent loan fund with zero percent interest for students to be given the option for off campus housing.

This story was reported and produced by Liz Campos, Javien Sahaba, Bianca Sanchez & Natalie Sierra

Los Angeles is a city with an array of different art exhibits, museums and is home to many famous artists. But some of the most popular art in LA can be found on the streets.

Found on businesses, freeway underpasses and building walls, street art is a staple in the City of Angels. It takes different forms: from traditional graffiti, to well-known murals, even in the form of stickers or stenciling. 

The Tate Museum in London explains the definition of street art is broad.

“Street art,” the museum says, “is related to graffiti art in that it is created in public locations and is usually unsanctioned, but it covers a wider range of media and is more connected with graphic design.”

Murals have had a long history in Los Angeles, dating back to the 1930’s with the historic América Tropical painted over 98 feet wide depicting Mexican-Indian and Mayan themes.  With famous artists such as Banksy and Shepard Fairey giving street art renewed visibility, visiting murals and other forms of street art has become a trendy sought-after activity for locals and tourists. One of the more sought-after destination points has been murals created in memoriam for the late Kobe and Gianna Bryant and rapper Nipsey Hussle, with different versions painted on walls all over Los Angeles. 

Gustavo Fuentes a Los Angeles based tape artist, also known by his tagger and Instagram name Flëkz, was born in El Salvador and came to the U.S. as a child. Fuentes says he got into street art in 8th grade and was inspired by the work of other taggers. 

“It took over my life without realizing it,” he says. “I was inspired by Banksy and his amazing stencils and started creating my own stencils, and realized I could use those stencils — and make them out of tape.”

With just tape and acrylic, Fuentes uses that as his main medium and has now been doing that for over 10 years. He is known for incorporating sacred geometry into his art pieces: “There always has to completely be balance.” 

DEFER, the name Alex Kizu goes by when creating street art in Los Angeles,went to Santa Monica College and later transferred into CSUN.

When asked if he would consider himself a street artist, he said, “I just like saying artist because I don’t think I’m contained specifically, I like to diversify my practice.”

DEFER started out with different graffiti crews in the pioneering days of the 1980s.“[Graffiti] was very scattered,” he said. “It isn’t like it is now where there’s a lot of graffiti everywhere, it was very new to Los Angeles at the time.”

Referencing the ‘Wild Style’ graffiti that originated from New York, DEFER remembered that this form of art had not always been popular. 

“We didn’t have internet and all that stuff back then,” he said, “so it was more like you saw it in a music video or in a movie, so you only caught a glimpse of it. Now you have social media where you can just pull up stuff from anywhere … When someone went to New York and had a photo album, that was like a treasure.”

DEFER said graffiti art wasn’t always the social media trend it has been made into today. 

“At the beginning it was very esoteric,” DEFER says. “Now everyone has Instagram and all these different platforms to share their artwork but back then you kind of did it and just left. You weren’t doing it for any kind of recognition from the general public, now people use street art as a segue to a career.”

Fuentes has collaborated with DEFER. 

“DEFER is an incredible artist,” Fuentes said, “world-renowned, huge-inspiration, and just huge opportunity to work with him and I’m very grateful to have that piece now.”

DEFER’s art, much like Fuentes, has a specific style but is ever evolving much like the industry and history of the practice as a whole.

“Japanese art and also street art, it has kind of changed more lately. When I first started I would fuse some imagery that was like traditional Japanese — more of the animals, tigers and dragons. I used to use that as figurative characters and then have my typography and different kind of designs in the background.”

DEFER grew up in Boyle Heights, and was surrounded by many socio-political murals on the walls. East Los Streetscapers members have executed over twenty murals and large-scale public artworks.

“In the ‘80s you saw more political figures on the wall,” DEFER says. “Cesar Parra, different cultural, socio-economic messages. There was a whole movement of Chicano artist and that was very prevalent in the neighborhood I grew up in.”

In 2007, DEFER had a teacher that liked his style and asked him to be in a show in Culver City at the L.A. Contemporary Gallery. 

His artistic style was also influenced by his Japanese American mother who was part of a movement that fought for reparations for the internment during World War II.

“Being around that movement,” he remembers, “I was around people that were asking we should paint something, and I have painted a couple things for them, which gave me  more awareness [of] … what was going on.”

The hidden messages and historical significance in street art may not have the meanings it once started as.

DEFER says groupslike the East Los Streetscapes and other muralists and taggers, “are legends. It’s hard to say in the here and now with kids they are just Instagram and whatever is popular.”

“People don’t cherish history as much as they used to.”

This story was reported and produced by Domonique Isabeau, Jessica Harper and Cesia Lopez.

The problem of homelessness continues to grow in Los Angeles. The latest point-in-time count showed more than 66,000 people were experiencing homelessness.

According to the L.A. Homeless Services Authority, that count reflects a 13% increase in homelessness between 2019 and 2020.

Local lawmakers are looking to reverse these trends by moving more individuals who live on streets into housing. In August, the L.A. City Council set a goal to construct 25,000 new housing units — both permanent and temporary — by 2025.

L.A. voters have already enacted Proposition HHH. The $1.2 billion measure promised 10,000 housing units, but slow progress has been made on construction.

While permanent housing can take a long time to build, Los Angeles is establishing a number of temporary options to get unsheltered individuals off the streets more quickly. One, for example, is a community of “tiny homes” in Highland Park, which became the  largest complex in the nation when it opened to residents in November.

The Arroyo Seco Tiny Home Village features 117 units, and is open to up to 234 individuals from within a 3 mile radius, including the neighborhoods of Boyle Heights, Eagle Rock, El Sereno, Glassell Park, Highland Park and Monterey Hills.

Each dwelling measures eight by eight feet, and is equipped with electricity, air conditioning and heating. Anybody living in a tiny home will have access to different supportive services such as mental health care, substance abuse counseling and job training. 

Ken Craft, founder and CEO of Hope of the Valley, says that while emergency housing allows the unsheltered to sleep, it has little privacy and would not want anybody staying there for very long.  

“We have to get people off the streets. We have to create win-win-win situations,” Craft says.  “Wins for those experiencing homelessness. Wins for our community.” 

Hope of the Valley Rescue Mission is a nonprofit organization founded in 2009. It began as a ministry in a church looking to feed the homeless. Now, Hope of the Valley Rescue Mission manages daily operations at six of the seven small-home communities that have opened in the City of L.A. this year. 

The Midnight Mission is located in downtown Los Angeles, near Skid Row. It became a non-profit organization in 1922. It is an emergency shelter offering food, shelter, counseling, education, life skills and mental health services to the most vulnerable people in the city of Los Angeles.

Mike Arnold, President and CEO of Midnight Mission says that in order for a permanent home or an interim home to function well, it should provide different types of services that address the cause of what made the unhoused individuals land on the streets in the first place. In doing so, they can then help in successfully moving them into permanent housing that will keep them from going back to the streets.

Arnold says the City of Los Angeles needs resources to keep unhoused individuals off the streets, even if only temporarily

“The reality is,” Arnold says, “that if we had enough housing that we could afford to put people into right now and we had services to be able to service them into that housing then we wouldn’t need any of the other interventions. But we have nowhere near that number of housing.”

“Emergency situations are not designed for long stays” Arnold added, “but when you don’t have any housing to get people into, the emergency shelter becomes a really long stay.”

Shelters have rules some unhoused individuals choose to not follow. Some of them include curfew, and having lights off at a certain time. While homeless individuals may appreciate this, some prefer to sleep outside.

Arnold says that one of Midnight Mission’s main goals is to build relationships with those experiencing homelessness.

PATH (People Assisting the Homeless) is a non-profit organization that helps unhoused individuals, families and veterans transition from living on the street to owning their own home.

Senior director Stephen Fiechter says they try to build a relationship with people by meeting them in the situation they are in, and hope to elevate a trust that has been destroyed. 

“Whatever supports people need, those are the resources they are connected with and then as housing is available, and again that’s a big hurdle in Los Angeles, to find affordable housing for people,” Fiechter says. “But as those resources are identified…they get to make a choice on where they live, like the rest of us, we hope. Then they are able to move in, often times with parental subsidy for a short period or longer, security deposit, and so forth.”

“Ultimately, we want people to have jobs,” Craft says. “We want them to be reintegrated back into the community.”

This story was reported by Vanessa Garcia, Kaylenn Gomez, Alahna Martinez and Melody Soto.

By Jessica Harper, Domonique Isabeau and Cesia Lopez

For many college students, graduation marks a huge moment of transition into adulthood. Many students count on internships to help them make that transition.

But at the height of the pandemic last year, many internships disappeared. The job site Glassdoor reported that in April 2020, half of all internship opportunities were cancelled.

Those cancellations left both students and employers scrambling. Many students require internships for academic credit, and many employers rely on the help interns provide. At companies that still offered internships, students experienced these opportunities in isolation at-home.

With opportunities almost going extinct, CSU Northridge had to change its curriculum to give other options to students who needed internships for academic credit.

In CSUN’s Journalism Department, Professor Stephanie Bluestein runs the class that students take to earn credit for an internships. The department has considered canceling its internship course because of lack of interest. But Bluestein said the department tweaked the curriculum to allow the course to continue.

“In Fall 2020,” Bluestein said in an email, “we made changes to the internship class to allow students to create an online portfolio and do free online tutorials in lieu of an internship because there just weren’t that many internship opportunities available then. (Keep in mind this was before any vaccine was available.)”

Bluestein recounts that students interning at public relations firms during the pandemic had the easiest transition to remote work. Those companies were able to pivot to remote work more easily than broadcasters.

Internship opportunities have slowly started to emerge again, and many employers are giving students the option to work from home. 

“More internships are available now but it’s not as many as before the pandemic,” Bluestein said. “A large number of internships are still offered on a virtual, remote bases.” 

With internships slowly returning to normal, Bluestein is not sure if the CSUN Journalism department will continue to offer spots in its internship class to students without an internship placement. However, administrators, students and employers are optimistic that internships will continue to be an integral part of a student’s education and as a leg up to entry into the workforce.

During the onset of the pandemic, Erick Gabriel was an intern at E! Entertainment. After completing his internship, he was hired full-time as a programming coordinator. Erick felt this experience gave him an edge over other candidates for his job.

“It helped me a lot,” he said, “as I had just interned there prior, I had known the language of NBC, knew how things already ran, had experience already working remotely from home. It gave me that extra boost that we don’t really have to teach him this, we don’t have to teach him the ropes, he’s already worked from home, he’s already comfortable working from home. That definitely gave me the ultimate, okay he’s the choice for the role.”

Those who have worked internships during the pandemic say the experience made them versatile and shows the employer that they can work successfully in this difficult period.

Diana Medina, who coordinates CSUN’s federal work study program, believes most student workers will soon return to in-person jobs. 

“Student employment offers a work experience that combined with their degree will set them apart from other candidates once they start seeking those professional positions,” Medina said.

Bluestein agreed students set themselves apart  to employers by completing one or more internships.

Zoe Ives, an intern for the public media news organization KPCC and LAist, said she was not intimidated by interning during the pandemic. 

“It was a welcome release [to work from home],” Ives said. “Very much looking forward to an opportunity to work remotely as I saw it as obviously being much safer than the alternative.”

One first-year student at CSU Northridge, Tyrome Walton was not concerned about finding an internship in the future. Walton felt that there would be more restrictions and that was acceptable as long as he was getting to have work experience in his prospective field.

By Vanessa Garcia, Kaylenn Gomez, Alahna Martinez and Melody Soto

Climate change has had a huge effect on the world, especially the state of California. There have been warmer summers, and drier seasons.

In this year alone, Californians have been reminded of the many threats to its environment: there was the recent oil spill off the coast of Huntington Beach, a rise in temperatures leading to the hottest summer on record and wildfires.

While these events caused widespread concern, there are other factors contributing to climate change, air pollution and deforestation that don’t make the headlines. 

However, there are organizations that are taking steps to prevent more damage.

Trees continue to have a positive effect on the human population. According to the Arbor Day Foundation, trees in Los Angeles remove nearly 2,000 tons of air pollution each year. Trees not only provide us with oxygen, but also save energy. They provide shade during hotter months, and protect people from the high winds during the winter.

City Plants, a public-private partnership between the City of Los Angeles and several local non-profits, plants trees in parts of L.A.that don’t have a lot of tree coverage, focusing especially on areas near schools, and public parks. 

“A child living in an area surrounded by trees is three times less likely to visit the emergency room for asthma,” said Gina Ranieri, a project assistant for L.A. Sanitation & Environment, a municipal agency that partners with City Plants.

The L.A. Conservation Corps is an organization founded in 1986. The Corps has also partnered with City Plants as part of their broader conservation efforts. The organization helps remove graffiti, pick up trash from alleys and plant trees.

One of the programs within the organization, The Clean & Green Program, was created in 1988. It reaches working-class and urban neighborhoods including Boyle Heights and Pacoima.

The program employs 14-21-year-olds from these neighborhoods. They serve their cities by planting trees, and removing trash and graffiti.

Carlos Campero, who works as the Director of Conservation Programs for the L.A. Conservation Corps, says their goal is to educate young people about environmental awareness and stewardship. In doing so, they will feel encouraged to make a change. Many of these young people are working their first paid job through the Clean & Green program, Campero said.

“They’re not just coming to work with us and spend seven or eight hours of work time,” Campero says. “But they’re making a difference in their community.”

California has dry air, making it at high risk for fire danger. This summer California recorded it to be one of the warmest seasons yet. Trees benefit neighborhoods, providing shade and cooler temperatures.

Volunteers at a City Plants event in Sun Valley. (Alahna Martinez/CSUN On Point)

While these efforts are underway to plant trees in urban areas  to lower temperatures, California’s forests of sequoia are in danger. 

The Sequoia Parks Conservancy is a nonprofit that serves to preserve some of the largest trees in the world.

Climate change has caused wildfires to burn at hotter temperatures and spread more rapidly, destroying sequoias in the process

Katie Wightman, field institute director with the Sequoia Parks Conservancy, says that the giant sequoias are amazing trees, but climate change poses new threats to their future survival. 

Wightman says that not only are the majestic trees fighting to stay alive by not being consumed by the fires, but they are also facing issues with bark beetles. 

“As the drought gets worse, the bark beetle population goes up and the trees lose their natural defence mechanism against those beetles,” says Wightman. 

Other organizations, like the Solana Center for Environmental Innovation, focus on other issues. Solana, a nonprofit organization founded in 1983, informs businesses about composting, water conservation and how to ensure less waste ends up in landfills. 

Executive Director Jessica Toth explains that aiming for “zero waste” is a lofty, but important goal.

“Zero is tough to get to, but it’s catchy,” Toth says. “It’s important because as an example: we don’t want resources such as recyclable material which can be recycled, to go into the landfill.”

The more people learn about climate change currently happening, the more they will be prone to aid in any way. However, communities that don’t have resources to inform can struggle with knowing how to help.

Rita Kampalath, Sustainability Program Director for L.A. The County’s Chief Sustainability Office, says the communities that don’t have resources or programs such as City Plants, are the same ones who will have a harder time to adapt to climate hazards.  

“Climate resilience, the ability to adapt is very much tied into the resources and services the community has,” Kampalath says. “So if people have access to transportation, they’re able to get away.”

Programs such as the ones mentioned above are just a few organizations fighting to keep their communities informed so they can make the necessary changes to fight climate change.

“We need to be making change because that really has a long term impact on our climate, our ability to feed our community, our population,” Toth says.

This story was reported 

By Liz Campos, Javien Sahaba, Bianca Sanchez and Natalie Sierra

Social media influencers are starting to speak up about pay disparities in their work.

Despite making up 84% of the industry, female influencers were paid 33% less compared to their male counterparts, according to a 2020 report by Klear. 

A study by the SevenSix Agency shows 57% of influencers believe their ethnicity and race impacts the amount they are paid. One in five  content creators think they’re paid less because of their ethnicity, and 69% believe they are being undercharged when discussing a paid partnership.

Now content creators are putting their concerns out into the open. Many have begun anonymously sharing allegations of pay discrimination and other negative experiences with brand deals to the Instagram page @influencerpaygap.

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Additionally, a group of influencers of color shared an open letter addressing a marketing agency that discriminated against them. These, among other movements by influencers of color, have shone light on the racial pay gap that affects them. 

This all matters because, as influencer Chazlyn Stunson put it, social media stars are modern day marketers.

However, it’s not always clear what kind of compensation is fair. In some cases, influencers agree to promote a brand if they’re allowed to keep the products they promote — like jewelry or cosmetics. But on other occasions, influencers like Stunson insist brands pay them for their posts.

“It’s a lot of work… We basically do it all ourselves,” Stunson said. “It’s a job and regular jobs get paid money and we should as well.”

Photo courtesy of Chazlyn Stunson

Influencer, and influencer marketing consultant Valerie Lozada, said a 30-second video could take eight to ten hours of work.

Stunson said unpaid or “gifted collaborations” are beneficial to influencers who are first starting and still building their portfolio. However, now that she has grown, Stunson is only accepting paid collaborations. 

“[Brands] have the money to pay you and they should be paying you,” Stunson said. 

She has found many brands are actually willing to pay if influencers insist on it.

Lozada said brands might prefer to pay an influencer over a model because they have more influence over everyday users of social media. 

“It’s the power of social media, but also the power of being an organic person, just like a normal regular person that is using their products,” Lozada said.

Stunson believes one of the reasons brands like to do gifted collaborations instead of paid collaborations is because many of the influencers are young. She wants to clarify however, that influencers calculate how much their work is worth and hope brands understand that.

Lozada said that brands should work on how to approach influencers.

“Why would you ask someone to work for you for free,” Lozada said. “It’s just quite disrespectful sometimes.”

Photo courtesy of Valerie Lozada

Stunson believes race plays a part in the lack of pay to influencers of color.

Stunson, a Black woman, believes that if her content and the content of a white influencer were put side by side, Stunson feels she would receive different compensation. 

Stunson also urged content creators of color to do due diligence on a brand to ensure they’re not a token influencer for a brand. Stunson said she will take note when a brand’s webpage features very few non-white faces.

“You have to make sure you’re working with brands that have your best interest,” Stunson said. 

Paying the influencer could also better their content, Stunson said. It makes the creator excited to work with and collaborate with the brand. 

Lozada has noticed an increase in brands working with influencers of color. However, it is noticeable when brands select influencers of color — and also influencers from the LGBTQ community — purely for diversity points. She said creators need to choose wisely is because they do not want to help insincere brands gain attention, especially if they are targeting influencers for their race, gender or sexual orientation.

For influencers to get paid, Lozada said there should be more transparency in the influencer community. However, influencers are often secretive, she said, and are just in the process of getting better pay, but if influencers speak out about how much they are getting paid, then they can continue to progress. 

“I think that if we all were just more transparent about our fees, about our content creation time and all of those things,” Lozada said, “I feel like that would be so beneficial to all of us.”

By Kimmy Chacon, Jonathan Giovanazzi and Kali Raglin

Thousands of pounds of trash is piling up on Los Angeles street corners, freeway off-ramps, parking lots and alleyways — and an increasing number of residents have been calling the city to report it. 

According to a recent report by L.A. City Controller Ron Galperin, reports from residents of illegal dumping have increased by 450 percent over the last four years.

Galperin, neighborhood activists and other government officials say many factors have led to the rise in trash: the region’s homelessness crisis, high fees at municipal waste dumps and overworked cleanup crews.

Also, on the region’s highways, “People throw [trash] out of car windows or sometimes things are not appropriately tied down and fly out of trucks,” said Godson Okereke, deputy director of maintenance for CalTrans District 7, which covers L.A. and Ventura counties.

Mayor Eric Garcetti wants to deploy teams where illegal dumping frequently happens. 

But volunteers like Erin Fein and Jill Mather have also taken a role in cleaning up trash.

Mather, who leads an organization called Volunteers Cleaning Communities, remembered growing up in the restaurant business being taught never to walk over trash. This translated into her need to always pick up trash and when she retired, her goal became to “change the mindset of littering in America.” 

“We have to change the culture,” Mather said. “Littering is going to make the world uninhabitable.”

To help address this issue, Mather dedicates time out of every day to clean trash. Her Chatsworth-based organization picks up trash 4-5 days a week, mostly holding their cleanups in the San Fernando Valley. 

Fein founded the Echo Park Trash Club, whose members work with LA City Sanitation along with unhoused communities to clean up trash.

Fein began noticing more trash during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I wanted to do something about it. I feel invested in the area I live in Echo Park,” Fein said. Fein used social media to start organizing the club’s trash pickups. The volunteers she organizes pick up 2 ½-4 tons of trash per clean-up,” Fein said.’ 

But even the volunteers concede that their efforts only make a dent in the broader problem.  

“Once you clean an area up, give it a few days and you’ve got trash in that same area again,” Mather said.  She has also noticed how when one person dumps in a spot, others will follow suit and also dump in the same location.

The problem is not just confined to the city of L.A. Forty-year LA County resident Tammie Necessary began the Trash Task Force, where she organizes local residents to help clean up illegal dump sites. She expresses her frustration with the increasing amounts of illegal dumping in Acton, a small town on the 14 Freeway between L.A. and Palmdale. 

“There’s not much being done about it,” she said. “The Santa Clara River runs through here; all of this [trash] goes back into your water table.” 

Photo courtesy of Tammie Necessary.

Okereke said CalTrans is aware of the risks roadside waste can pose to the environment.

“My interest in removing and eradicating trash is because I understand the consequences…it gets into the water system and it interrupts the ecosystem when we have materials that can’t degrade,” Orekeke said.

Necessary also believes officials should step up  enforcement, impose stiffer fines, and give citizens easier ways to be able to report illegal dumpers.

Both Necessary and Mather believe part of the reason why illegal dumping is so prevalent in LA County is because fees to dispose of trash at dumps are so high. At minimum, Mather said one truck load costs $75 to dump.

Necessary said the private garbage company Waste Management offers some services such as free dump days and dump vouchers, but citizens are not aware of the programs. 

L.A. is experiencing a homelessness crisis, and encampments do generate some of the waste on the streets.

But in the L.A. City Controller’s illegal dumping report, Galperin’s office concluded many people who are not homeless use encampments as illegal trash dumps, which increases health and safety risks to people living on the street.

South L.A. resident Guadaluipe Gonzalez said that in her neighborhood, unhoused residents are not major sources of trash.

“The same people that live in our house keep our streets dirty,” she said. “They litter in front of their house and in the alleyway. It’s the homeowners who litter.” 

Fein actively engages unhoused individuals in helping to clean trash. 

“We have a compassionate perspective with unhoused folks,” Fein said. 

Okereke acknowledged  an increase in homeless encampments along highways has led to an increase in trash. 

However, Okereke said, “we should not blame trash only on the homeless. CalTrans is going as far as providing trash cans to encampments,” when it is safe to do so.

Okereke, Mather, Fein, and Necessary all said  that people need to be more educated about the trash crisis. 

“I don’t believe enforcement can solve the problem,” Okereke reflects, “We want to educate people.” 

Mather’s group started a “Scavenger Litter Hunt” program where children learn about trash and help to clean it up to get the younger generation involved.

Fein also believes that people need to think critically about the issue since conditions and living situations contribute to more trash in the city. She says another option is to “create more room in the city budget for folks to be paid to clean” trash in the streets. 

Mather also said many people remain unaware of  programs meant to help residents dispose of trash legally. Mather pointed specifically to the 311 app, which will come and pick up trash along with programs to help reduce dump fees. 

Mather believes that developing a sense of “pride in community” can help solve the trash problem.

“The community has to realize they have to get involved in their own community,” she said.

Mather feels that residents need to have the mindset that they’re “part of the community. The city can’t do it all for me. I want to make it beautiful … and I’ve got to do my part.”

UPDATED — In an effort to slow the COVID-19 pandemic, local government leaders in Los Angeles have proposed requiring patrons to show proof of vaccination before entering various businesses and outdoor events.

Starting on Oct. 7, a Los Angeles County public health order will require customers and employees of bars, nightclubs and outdoor events with 10,000 attendees or more to demonstrate evidence of partial inoculation. Patrons who received the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine options, which are delivered in a series of two doses, must show proof of a completed COVID-19 immunization card by Nov. 4. The soon-to-be enacted order will not apply to restaurants with bars.

On Wednesday, the Los Angeles City Council will consider a similar ordinance that would apply to an even longer list of businesses, including restaurants, coffee shops, gyms, spas, salons, stadiums, stores, theaters. If approved, patrons would have to show proof of vaccination in these businesses beginning on Nov. 4.

City council members ordered the city attorney Mike Feuer to draft the ordinance with a unanimous 13-0 vote back in August — but not all 15 councilmembers favor the proposed mandate.

Councilmember John Lee, who represents the northwestern San Fernando Valley, did not attend the August vote, but said in an email that he disagrees with the mandate.

“At a time when we need to move forward together to combat the virus,” Lee wrote, “this measure may only deepen divides without addressing the heart of the matter — getting people vaccinated.”

Lee described the policy as “arbitrary” and “not the way” to combat COVID-19. 

The city council’s proposed ordinance would affect more businesses than L.A. County’s announced regulations. Under the city’s ordinance, patrons would be allowed to claim medical, religious or personal belief exemptions, though they’d need to provide proof of a recent negative COVID-19 test to be served indoors.

If a patron doesn’t qualify for an exemption and has no test result, the proposal would allow business to serve the person in an outdoor space, like a patio. Unvaccinated individuals could access indoor areas of the business for “brief and limited periods of time” to use the restroom or pay their bill.

Although L.A. County’s approaching orders exclude restaurants and the city has not yet implemented its proposed policy, many businesses across L.A. have adopted their own policies to require proof of vaccination from visitors at the door.

Santa Monica eatery Birdie G’s is one of them.

General manager Brian Jacobs said the restaurant first carried out an internal vaccination plan for staff but this shortly transitioned into a guest-facing policy.

“It felt like the next necessary step,” he said.

Customers who prefer to present a digital version of their CDC COVID-19 shot record can scan a QR code available in front of the restaurant. The code, provided by the L.A. County Department of Public Health, accesses a government portal with individual archived vaccination information.

Currently, patrons of Birdie G’s who are not fully vaccinated can also dine-in by showing evidence of a negative COVID-19 test result.

Jacobs said that if L.A. County’s vaccination orders expand, he “would be fully supportive” of including proof of a negative COVID-19 test as an option for restaurant goers. 

With vaccination mandates in flux and local governments adopting their own set of policies with deferring regulations, it can be difficult for the general public — and especially for business owners who are expected to enforce the rules — to keep up.

Stuart Waldman, president of the Valley Industry and Commerce Association (VICA), said proof-of-vaccination requirements may be effective tools in battling the pandemic. For businesses implementing those requirements, he said the “biggest issue right now is inconsistency” in the details.

Waldman points out that L.A. County will expect individuals to be fully vaccinated when entering bars, but consumers wanting to access outdoor stadiums, which often feature multiple bars, have the choice of presenting a negative COVID-19 test result to gain admission.

Owners and managers of establishments will soon have to decide which crew members will check immunization cards, consider how they store basic employee medical information, and take into account how making time for these undertakings will affect their operation labor hours.

COVID-19 closures have already created financial challenges for countless businesses. Many remain short-staffed. 

Waldman emphasizes that small operations that may not have enough personnel will most likely be impacted when enforcing the new regulations.

“To sit there and have to check just makes it more difficult,” he said.

Another factor establishment owners have to take into account is how they will handle employee health or religious exemption requests.

Anthony Zaller, a labor attorney with Zaller Law Group, said that medical exemptions may be relatively straightforward to manage because a doctor can provide physical certification stating when an employee is not eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. 

Zaller cautions, however, that exemptions based on “sincerely held” religious or personal beliefs may present complications for proprietors because beliefs are not easily verifiable.  

“What if you question the religious belief? Can you question it?” Zaller said. “I urge employers to approach that issue very carefully with the help of an attorney.” 

Once vaccine mandates take effect, some business owners will likely have to handle accommodation requests and even consider how to deal with any potentially problematic situations caused by customers who are uncooperative.

L.A. business owners and the general population, alike, may be experiencing fatigue from the wave of regulation changes that has arrived with COVID-19.

For this reason, Christopher Rogers, a health science lecturer at CSUN, recommends that employers keep up-to-date with data from credible government and health organizations.

“They truly have good resources,” Rogers said, “that provide all the latest information on infections and treatments, recommendations, and [which] businesses are or are not going to have specific regulations.”

This story was written and produced by Vanessa Garcia, Kaylenn Gomez, Alahna Martinez and Melody Soto.

This story was updated on Sept. 28 at 2 p.m. to reflect details of the city council’s newly-released draft ordinance.