#presidio middle school
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collegible · 4 months ago
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Get Ready for the Lowell Admissions Test!
Collegible provides the only Star Assessment Prep Course in San Francisco. The Star Assessment is now the official admissions test for Lowell High School. All applicants (from public and private middle schools) must take the Star Assessment and submit scores as admissions criteria. SFUSD plans to implement the Star test in January 2025 for applicants from the Fall of 2024. Learn more about our classes. Last Chance for Lowell! If you missed all of the previous classes that Collegible provides, then you need to register for our last Star Assessment Prep Course. What: 8 hours of Star Assessment Prep in a 4 session prep course When: Starts Mon Jan 6. Takes place on Mondays and Wednesdays for 2 weeks (Jan 6, 8, 13, 15 in 2025) Why: 8th graders will take the Star Assessments between Jan 13 and Feb 7, 2025. The Star Assessment is used as an admissions test for Lowell High School applicants. How: Register at https://2024startest.eventbee.com This January course is the last chance to prepare for the Lowell Admissions Test. The Official date of the Lowell Admissions Test is January 8, 2025 for non-SFUSD students.
SFUSD students will take the Lowell Admissions Test (A.K.A. Star Assessment) bretween January 13, 2025 and February 7, 2025.
What: 4 Sessions Covering the STAR Assessment Math and Reading Where: Collegible's Virtual Classroom
Session 1 Intro to STAR Assessments, Mathematics  Session 2 STAR Reading  Session 3  STAR Mathematics Session 4 STAR Reading + Recap Collegible's STAR prep course includes 8 hours of live instruction. The course also assigns homework so students can apply strategies to prepare for the Star Assessment. The classes are interactive and require student participation. Our courses take place in our virtual classroom. The STAR test is required for all applicants to Lowell High School, regardless if they are from a public or private middle school. 
[email protected] 415-320-7424
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mightyflamethrower · 2 months ago
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Who actually are the “garbage” people?
Are they one and the same with Joe Biden’s “semi-fascists,” “chumps,” and “dregs of society?”
Do they include Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables” and “irredeemables?”
Are they FBI grandee Peter Strzok’s Walmart shoppers who “smell?”
Over the last decade-and-a-half, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Harris-Walz, and a host of other self-described elites have variously invented a wide range of smears and slurs—but about whom exactly?
Who are these people that leftwing politicians have so vehemently derided—and why?
They include Trump supporters, of course, or what Biden also dubbed “ultra-MAGAs” and Tim Walz called “fascists,” now without the prior qualifying prefix “semi.”
In general, these adjectives of disdain denote about half the country according to the results of what will soon be the last three presidential elections.
This half is more rural than urban, characterized by larger than smaller families, more high-schooled diplomaed than college degreed, and more conventional and traditional than vanguard and trend-setting.
Statisticians tell us that the new non-clinging Democratic Party finds its greatest support from those who earn less than $50,000 and those who make considerably more than $100,000. These are the rich/poor bookends that surround the reformed Republican party in between.
So, in terms of generalized income and earnings, the left is now the party of the well-to-do professional and credential class and the rich, along with the subsidized poor. The Republicans, by contrast, are increasingly represented by the middle classes.
The Democratic top dogs are most likely to embrace agendas that never garner 51 percent of public support—vast reductions in gas and oil to lessen “climate change,” open borders to welcome in the world’s needy, the government promotion of a third, transgendered sex, abortion on demand without restrictions, the reifications of various critical (race/legal/penal/modern monetary) “theories,” and radical changes in the current system (ending the Senate filibuster, the Electoral College, the nine-justice Supreme Court, the 50-state union, etc.).
Two truisms stand out about the elite boutique agenda: one, when these theories are implemented—often by the courts, and the permanent and unelected administrative and bureaucratic state—the architects of such experimentation do not really feel the inevitable deleterious consequences.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the Silicon Valley masters of the universe, the professors of law, the corporate CEOs, and the Bill Gates of the world really don’t care much whether gas is at $3 a gallon or $6, or Romex wire is $39 a spool or $150.
Illegal aliens do not go to their children’s schools or crowd the offices of their concierge cardiologists and oncologists, much less dump trash on their streets and curbs.
They are strong supporters of teachers’ unions, despising the very idea of charter schools and homeschooling. And yet they send their children more often to private schools where students are not the lab rats of the public school system.
Their ideology is the fruit of their privilege and so is often more utopian and abstract. Given that if it results in economic, social, and cultural damage to millions, they will certainly avoid the ensuing flotsam and jetsam.
The fallout from defunding the police falls upon the inner city, not the privately patrolled Presidio Heights or the secluded sorts in Martha’s Vineyard.
Given their income and status, the new Democratic credentialed and moneyed classes do not care about the struggle of others to live one more day, clinging to the middle-class vestiges of their parents’ era. Instead, for the anointed who have transcended the fear of not filling up their tank or coming up short on monthly rent and power bills, it is not hard to mandate job-killing EVs or to chuckle over biological boys in girls’ locker rooms and pride flags flying from the abandoned American embassy in Kabul.
By the same token, the poor count on the left’s largesse to cushion themselves from the damage of their own party’s dreams turned into nightmares. Various food, housing, medical, legal, and educational subsidies to the poor are testaments that the left’s own agendas stagnant upward mobility and confine the poor to permanent poverty.
In a cynical sense, left-wing elites square the circle of the guilt over their privilege through government subsidies for those whom they’d rather not necessarily live next to or have their children attend school with. In other words, they find them useful rather than empathetic. They welcome in millions of illegal aliens—as long as they don’t camp out at Yale, the Hamptons, or Malibu Beach.
Not so the struggling middle classes. Modern theories can result in hyperinflation that can ruin them or easily send them into the ranks of the government-subsidized poor. They are conservative in wanting a secure border, legal-only immigration, affordable food and energy, safe streets, and equality of opportunity rather than of result, because they have no margin of error, lacking the wherewithal of secure home zip codes, or the perks of gargantuan grocery bills at Whole Foods, or a new foreign car every two years.
Such conservatism is reflected in the worldview of the clingers and irredeemables. They accept not cosmopolitism but 2,500 years of nationhood that remind them there can be no nation without borders.
There can be no modern comforts and security without access to affordable food and energy. There can be no public society without safe streets—and indeed, not even public places without sanitation and common decency.
So, the great middle class is wary about falling at the hands of others into government dependency and even more fearful of destroying what has worked over the ages. They resist experimenting with the unknown, especially when thought up and designed by those who will easily ride out the ensuing disasters when such harebrained schemes inevitably fail.
These chumps, fascists, and garbage people know that their advantages in numbers are outweighed by the Eloi’s absorption of institutional and government power. So, in depression, they often shrug and drop out. They assume wisely that the network news, the New York Times and Washington Post, Hollywood, and the corporate boardroom are mere extensions of the utopian and cultural left, who despise them for ignoring their supposed betters.
They pass on watching the Emmys, Oscars, Tonys, and Grammys. They are deaf to the top-down sermons from an Al Gore, John Kerry, the Clintons, the Obamas, or Joe Biden, which assume the grubby majority is either too ignorant or amoral or both to know what is good for them and so must be shamed, smeared, and slurred rather than won over by argumentations and persuasion. Is not the 2024 election about just that—the haughty who sermonize and those weary of being lectured?
The dregs could care less who is president of Harvard or how many letters and titles follow a professional’s name—except to confirm to themselves when watching or hearing such people that our elites increasingly have neither common sense nor integrity. A high school history teacher could have answered congressional questioning on race, anti-Semitism, and bias far more effectively and adroitly than a deer-in-the-headlights, clueless Harvard president Claudine Gay.
Yes, the semi-fascists are lectured that they are racist, sexist, and xenophobic. They are damned by the credentialed as “white privileged” who “rage,” as they dutifully go off to Iraq and Afghanistan to die in combat at double their numbers in our demographics.
They are advised of their toxic illiberality and bigotry, even as their children lack the race, gender, and ethnicity advantage accorded to the so-called Other and the inside edge that money, influence, and status provide for the elite.
What has recently brought this great divide to a head and exposed the fury of the elite is resurgent anger at the newfound impudence of the deplorable class, or the notion that they would dare call the dishonest media the “fake news” or suggest that “fit-as-fiddle,” “smart-as-a-tack,” cognitively challenged Joe Biden is the proverbial emperor with no clothes.
Who are these arrogant who pack the 20,000 seats of Madison Square Garden even after the good people have warned that they were mindlessly reenacting Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will?
The left believes that either racial victimization or money should guarantee privilege and so despises those qualifying for neither. In the elite’s view, the working class so often lacks the romance of the poor and non-white, but worse still, the culture and pretensions of the progressive Übermenschen.
Finally, the unspoken irony of this divide is that the self-professed elite know that they are not the elite by any definable standard or meritocracy. Yale gives a higher percentage of A’s on spec to its students than do trade schools and junior colleges.
Today’s supposedly brilliant Columbia student would likely struggle to earn an objectively graded C on a state college’s standardized, multi-choice history exam.
Those who run the Washington Post or NPR are less competent, worldly, and knowledgeable than the chumpy and dregsy sexagenarian who publishes a small town’s weekly newspaper.
The average salesman and electrician can far better spot fraud and deceit than an Anthony Fauci or Peter Daszak. And the tractor driver is more likely not to lie under oath than a John Brennan, James Clapper, or Andrew McCabe. The lineman working with high voltage is far more likely to err on the side of safety with the lives of others than the executives of Pfizer or Moderna.
In a wider sense, the deplorable class believes it can still build reliable pipelines, frack, truck our nation’s goods, and clean up after a hurricane. But it has utterly lost confidence that the best and the brightest at the Pentagon can win a war, at Boeing can craft a safe jet, or at NASA can send astronauts safely into space and back in the fashion of their grandfathers more than half a century ago.
This election is about many things—left/right issues, of course, and the peculiar personalities of Trump and Harris perhaps.
But it will likely be defined by those who are not just tired of being smeared as the underbelly of America but, far more unforgivably, are beginning to enjoy and mock the disparagement from those who have never earned the right to smear anyone but themselves.
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anshraa99 · 2 years ago
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Teens win NPR podcast contest : NPR
Norah Weiner (L) and Erika Young (R), the grand-prize winners in grades 5-8 of NPR’s Student Podcast Challenge, at Presidio Middle School in San Francisco. Talia Herman for NPR hide caption toggle caption Talia Herman for NPR Norah Weiner (L) and Erika Young (R), the grand-prize winners in grades 5-8 of NPR’s Student Podcast Challenge, at Presidio Middle School in San Francisco. Talia…
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aqsaa8685 · 2 years ago
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Teens win NPR podcast contest : NPR
Norah Weiner (L) and Erika Young (R), the grand-prize winners in grades 5-8 of NPR’s Student Podcast Challenge, at Presidio Middle School in San Francisco. Talia Herman for NPR hide caption toggle caption Talia Herman for NPR Norah Weiner (L) and Erika Young (R), the grand-prize winners in grades 5-8 of NPR’s Student Podcast Challenge, at Presidio Middle School in San Francisco. Talia…
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ansraali · 2 years ago
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Teens win NPR podcast contest : NPR
Norah Weiner (L) and Erika Young (R), the grand-prize winners in grades 5-8 of NPR’s Student Podcast Challenge, at Presidio Middle School in San Francisco. Talia Herman for NPR hide caption toggle caption Talia Herman for NPR Norah Weiner (L) and Erika Young (R), the grand-prize winners in grades 5-8 of NPR’s Student Podcast Challenge, at Presidio Middle School in San Francisco. Talia…
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amdia80 · 2 years ago
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Teens win NPR podcast contest : NPR
Norah Weiner (L) and Erika Young (R), the grand-prize winners in grades 5-8 of NPR’s Student Podcast Challenge, at Presidio Middle School in San Francisco. Talia Herman for NPR hide caption toggle caption Talia Herman for NPR Norah Weiner (L) and Erika Young (R), the grand-prize winners in grades 5-8 of NPR’s Student Podcast Challenge, at Presidio Middle School in San Francisco. Talia…
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iqrakanjri7878 · 2 years ago
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Teens win NPR podcast contest : NPR
Norah Weiner (L) and Erika Young (R), the grand-prize winners in grades 5-8 of NPR’s Student Podcast Challenge, at Presidio Middle School in San Francisco. Talia Herman for NPR hide caption toggle caption Talia Herman for NPR Norah Weiner (L) and Erika Young (R), the grand-prize winners in grades 5-8 of NPR’s Student Podcast Challenge, at Presidio Middle School in San Francisco. Talia…
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iqra8482 · 2 years ago
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Teens win NPR podcast contest : NPR
Norah Weiner (L) and Erika Young (R), the grand-prize winners in grades 5-8 of NPR’s Student Podcast Challenge, at Presidio Middle School in San Francisco. Talia Herman for NPR hide caption toggle caption Talia Herman for NPR Norah Weiner (L) and Erika Young (R), the grand-prize winners in grades 5-8 of NPR’s Student Podcast Challenge, at Presidio Middle School in San Francisco. Talia…
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pleasereadmeok · 3 years ago
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Cheers Matthew!   At last we have a pic of Matthew Goode as Simon in ‘Silent Night’ from Entertainment Weekly -
Edit - just saw that   @teach463146 has posted the short article earlier so read it there. 
Plus more info’ from the AMC website that includes information about distributors in other countries. 
AMC+ AND RLJE FILMS ANNOUNCE THE ACQUISITION OF SILENT NIGHT AHEAD OF FILM’S DEBUT AT TIFFAMC+ AND RLJE FILMS ANNOUNCE THE ACQUISITION OF THE KEIRA KNIGHTLEY-LED SILENT NIGHT AHEAD OF FILM’S WORLD PREMIERE AT TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVALFROM WRITER & DIRECTOR CAMILLE GRIFFIN, SILENT NIGHT TO BE RELEASED IN THEATERS AND STREAM EXCLUSIVELY ON AMC+ IN NORTH AMERICA THIS DECEMBERAll-Star Cast includes Matthew Goode, Roman Griffin Davis, Annabelle Wallis, Lily-Rose Depp, Ṣọpé Dìrísù, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Lucy Punch, Rufus Jones, and Trudie Styler
NEW YORK – September 9, 2021 –  AMC Networks’ premium streaming bundle AMC+ and RLJE Films, a business unit of AMC Networks, announced today the acquisition of and a day-and-date release for the darkly comedic drama Silent Night ahead of the film’s world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.  Marking writer Camille Griffin’s directorial debut, Silent Night is set to be released in theaters and stream exclusively on AMC+ in North America this December.  The film, focusing on a group of friends that comes together for an eventful Christmas dinner, stars Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Roman Griffin Davis, Annabelle Wallis, Lily-Rose Depp, Ṣọpé Dìrísù, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Lucy Punch, Rufus Jones and Trudie Styler among others.
From producers Matthew Vaughn (Kingsman franchise), Trudie Styler (Moon) and Celine Rattray (The Kids Are Alright), Silent Night follows a group of old friends who – in true British fashion and while the rest of the world faces impending doom – reunite to celebrate Christmas in the comfort of an idyllic country home. Burdened with the inconvenience of mankind’s imminent destruction, they adopt a stiff upper lip, crack open another bottle of prosecco and continue with their festivities. But no amount of stoicism can replace the courage needed for their last night on Earth.
“With a focus on growing original and exclusive content for AMC+, we’re excited to partner with RLJE Films to bring Silent Night to a broad audience across both streaming and theatrical as we continue to meet viewers wherever they are and optimize exposure for great content,” said Courtney Thomasma, general manager for AMC+.  “Camille Griffin and this all-star cast have created a film that’s emotional, funny and thought-provoking – exploring universal themes of friendship and love, class and privilege – and we are thrilled to add it to our robust lineup of high-quality, character-driven dramas and films this year.”
“Silent Night is completely original and a true achievement for Camille Griffin in her feature writing/directorial debut,” said Mark Ward, Chief Acquisitions Officer for RLJE Films. “The film could not be more timely in asking audiences, in a comedic yet honest way, what sacrifices they would be willing to make for the good of their family and humanity at large.”
“Silent Night treads its own unique path and finding the right distributor was akin to finding a school for our naughty child. I wanted to know our film would be in safe, loving hands and I know it will be with AMC+ and RJLE Films,” said Griffin. “I am hugely grateful to TIFF that my first feature will premiere at their festival.”
...
Other distributors for Silent Night include: Altitude (UK), Metropolitan (France), Leone (Italy), Capelight Pictures (Germany), Sena (Iceland), Salim Ramia (Middle East), Bir Film (Turkey), Paradise (CIS), Nonstop Entertainment (Scandinavia), Empire (South Africa), Ascot Elite (Switzerland), Spentzos (Greece), Falcon (Indonesia), Presidio (Japan), Cai Chang (Taiwan), BF Distribution/Paris Filmes (LatAm).
The information about this movie just gets better and better. So exciting coz it looks like this is a GOODE one! 
[📷 - EW]
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goldencitytv · 3 years ago
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OMG, DO YOU KNOW WHO THAT IS ? That’s ZYLA SULLIVAN ! I heard that they’re a TWENTY-FOUR year old RECORDING ARTIST/ENTREPRENEUR from BROOKLYN, NY. They are known for being associated with the MUSIC INDUSTRY. The blogs often spot them out in PRESIDIO HEIGHTS. You have to watch them on the GOLDEN CITY ! Everyone around here labels them as a ROOKIE.
THE RUNDOWN.
CIVIL STATUS: single.
CLUB: the fuzions.
FOLLOWERS COUNT: @ZSULLY + 1M.
SEXUALITY: bisexual.
DATING HISTORY: musicians, photographers.
REPUTATION.
“At the age of twenty-one I started my own music program in the middle school I used to attend which expanded over the past few years. I was able to purchase my own building where I held classes for students K-12 teaching them how to play instruments, how to write music, and in some cases how to sing. I left the program to a few people I trusted and chose to move to California to pursue my own music career full time which has caused a lot of negative feedback in my hometown. As I get older I’m learning that you can’t be stagnant in this industry or life in general. While I am open to finding love, I think the show would also be great for my music career in giving me the exposure that I need.”
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tobyharrimanphotography · 4 years ago
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The Outer and Inner Richmond neighborhoods leading into San Francisco, captured via helicopter in December 2019. Golden Gate Park sits on the right side of the frame, while the Presidio—a part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area—sits on the left. As well as Lincoln Park and Presidio Golf Course’s. You also can see George Washington High School right in the middle of the shot, and Oakland and Mount Diablo in the distance. Prints available in bio. #natgeotravel #natgeo #alwayssf #sanfrancisco (at San Francisco, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/CDaGDrGFh0h/?igshid=1djynw9062gn2
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collegible · 1 year ago
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Get ready for the SBAC! Collegible offers the only SBAC prep course in San Francisco! 7th graders planning to apply to Lowell must submit their SBAC scores as criteria for admission to San Francisco's magnet public high school. 7th graders from public schools will take the SBAC in the Spring of 2024. Collegible offers SBAC prep courses that start on the following dates: April Evening Course 2024 Starts Wednesday March 27, 2024, 4pm-6pm (5 weeks) Register at https://sbacapril2024.eventbee.com
Each course will have the following format: Session 1 - Intro to the SBAC, Mathematics + homework Session 2 - SBAC ELA Strategies  + homework Session 3 - SBAC Reading Comprehension Strategies  (Take Home Test) Session 4 - SBAC Mathematics + homework Session 5 -Test Review
5 Sessions, 2hours each: 10 hours total
Lessons will cover the SBAC Math and ELA
Take home practice tests that reflect the official SBAC
Lessons binders will be mailed upon registration
Takes place in Collegible's Virtual Classroom
Small, personalized class size (<10 students)
[email protected] 415-320-7424 COLLEGIBLE offers the only Lowell Entrance Exam Prep Course in San Francisco. COLLEGIBLE will provide lessons in fundamental Math, English & Language Arts (ELA), and test preparation strategies.  All San Francisco public school 7th graders will take the SBAC in April to determine their eligibility for admissions to Lowell High School.  
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streetartsf · 5 years ago
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Birds of a Feather
Robz Art
Clement @ 29th St in San Francisco, Ca
Robert William @robzartsf just added another bird to this house on Clement St in the San Francisco Richmond District. Almost a year ago he painted the parrot. This is across the street from his old junior high Presidio Middle School that generated some heavy hitting graf artists and happens to be a my childhood stomping ground and the alma mater of members of my family.
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thankateachertoday · 8 years ago
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Dear Ms.Azzaro,Thanks for always helping me. You inspired me to like sports more.
Sincerely, Wendy Lei
School: Presidio Middle School Location: 450 30th Ave , San Francisco, CA 94121 Grade: 7th
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s3vendw4rfs-blog · 6 years ago
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Blog #1: Introduction
Heyyooo everybody! My name is Megan Annika Mah and I was born and raised in the Bay Area. I identify as being Chinese and Vietnamese. Titles I love to hold: I’m a younger sister, cool god mother, even cooler girlfriend, daughter, and a friend to many. 
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dad!!
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precious god bb
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my older brother ryan with my favorite sibling pepper 
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friends! 
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special friend ;)
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Throwing it back, my dad was born in SF Chinatown while my mom was born in Virginia. Virginia is pretty random, but I’ll try to explain. My mom was born on an airbase in VA as my grandpa was a helicopter pilot training for deployment in the Vietnam War era. He unfortunately passed in a flight accident which lead to my grandma + mom moving to Texas with another Army family they were close to. Once that family decided to move to the Bay Area, my grandma followed with her smol child (my mama). My parents later met at Presidio Middle School in SF (aw) and have been happily together ever since. 41 years later, they are still making each other laugh and I’ve had nothing but an amazing and resilient relationship to look up to.
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I cherish that story because I strongly feel like their love story + continuous love has shaped me into the person I am today. I have been born from love, raised in love, and taught to love. Over the years I’ve always stumbled when people ask what it is that I’m passionate about. I’ve slowly pieced together that what I’m passionate towards is serving my community and my neighbors through compassion. Genuinely, nothing feels better to me than extending a helping hand to those who need it. I thrive off of human connection and the bonds that are created from said connections. I’m at my happiest when I’m able to make others feel their best. Life is expensive, but being kind is free :) 
Having said that, I have my good positive days, but I also have my negative days where I feel like everything and everyone is against me (especially 8am when I’m cramming into the 28 at bart with three million other people lol u feel me??). Being compassionate and kind is very hard to maintain when you’re smashed up in a moving metal box against someone blasting their iphone on full volume :(  I needed another passion in life, this time to relieve stress, which turned out to be rock climbing (!!!!) 
It’s been hard getting to a place where it finally becomes fun aka not waking up with full body aches every morning while your hands are peeling raw, but big thanks to my climbing fanatic boyfriend for pushing me the past few years because I sent my first multi-pitch mountain climb this winter in Yosemite! We finished after a grueling 6+ hours, lots of tears going up from me, bats flying over our heads, and then more tears on the thousands of feet of walk off through pitch darkness to the ground. It was literally the most physical and definitely scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I was way out of my cushy gym life comfort zone that I’ve grown so fond of, but I’m so excited to find and pursue more things that kick my butt into new experiences and adventures. I’m hoping my next chapter in life does just that....
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I started at SFSU with a million ideas of how to implement my passion of serving others into a living. I started with a social work major, changed it to the BECA major, and then fell into communication studies because I was so undecided. I currently work at a dental office...and the #1 question I’m asked is if I’m studying to be a dentist. LOL no, that couldn’t be farther from the truth (sorry parents). I’m completing my BA in Communication Studies and minoring in Asian American Studies. The minor came super late during my undergraduate work and it actually was inspired by some of the courses taught on this campus as well as a blossoming interest into my familial roots. It just so happened I was already taking a lot of the required classes besides my major related ones. I took a walking historical tour of Chinatown a year ago and became insanely drawn to the idea of working in this specific community that has close ties to my family’s history. Ideally, I would love to pursue a career path that contributes to the retention of the rich culture of this area by way of working in community development. Plans are super TBD and definitely need more research, but I plan on graduating this May so there’s that to look forward to :) 
- Megan 
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socialjusticeartshare · 4 years ago
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Three Years After Family Separation, Her Son Is Back. But Her Life Is Not.
Many of the migrant families separated under the Trump administration’s most controversial immigration policy have been reunited. But some are still struggling.
Leticia Peren waiting for her son, Yovany, at La Guardia Airport in February. They had been separated after crossing the U.S. border together.
When Leticia Peren bid her 15-year-old son, Yovany, good night in a Texas Border Patrol station three years ago, he was still small enough that she, standing less than five feet tall, reached down a little when she placed her hand on his shoulder and urged him to rest.
Earlier that night, the two of them had concluded their long journey from Guatemala by walking for hours in the whistling desert wind, losing sight of their own feet in mud that felt like quicksand. The Border Patrol agents who apprehended them outside of Presidio, Texas, placed them in separate cells. Exhausted, Ms. Peren fell into a deep sleep, but woke up to a new nightmare.
Yovany was gone, sent to a shelter in Arizona. Ms. Peren had no money and no lawyer. When she next saw him, more than two years had passed.
At the time of their reunification, Yovany was the last remaining child in custody who the federal government considered eligible to be released. The bonds broken during their 26 months apart — when Ms. Peren was a voice on the phone more than 1,500 miles away, as Yovany made new friends, went to a new school, learned to live without her — have been slow to regrow.
By the time they were reunited, her son had matured into a young man, taller than her and with a deepening voice, one he could use to hold a conversation in English. Ms. Peren, frantic during the time it took to get him back, had lost some of her hair and developed a condition that, when triggered by stress, caused her face to sag on one side.
Years after the mass separations of migrant families spurred a national outcry because of the trauma they caused, much of the public outrage over the policy eased as thousands of parents and children were eventually reunited.
Ms. Peren’s son became a young man while they were apart.
Sunita Viswanath welcomed Ms. Peren to her Brooklyn home.
But for families like Ms. Peren’s, swept up by the Trump administration’s most widely debated attempt to deter immigration, the story did not end when the policy did.
To some degree, Ms. Peren and her son are lucky. They are being sponsored by an affluent family who took them into their spacious house in a well-heeled Brooklyn neighborhood. Volunteer groups have acted as informal social workers, tracking down doctors to provide free medical care and answering crisis phone calls at any hour.
But such groups are running short of resources now.
“Everybody’s tapped out emotionally, financially, caseload wise,” said Julie Schwietert Collazo, the director of one such group, Immigrant Families Together. “The need is kind of endless. There are cases where I’ve called so many people and nobody will help me.”
Ms. Peren, who is from Guatemala, read papers for her asylum case.
And it is sometimes confounding to Ms. Peren that she could feel so troubled in the home where she and Yovany are living, with its fancy appliances and art from around the world. Her childhood home in Guatemala had a dirt floor surrounded in part by chicken wire rather than exterior walls.
When she was 8, her mother sent her away to do domestic work in the homes of wealthier Guatemalan families who could afford to feed her.
At 16, Ms. Peren fell in love with a boy her age whose home she worked in. But the boy’s family rejected her because she was poor, uneducated and Indigenous. After Yovany was born, she continued working with her baby strapped to her back as she dusted, swept and mopped until on the verge of collapse.
“I would say to him, I’m your dad, I’m your mom, I’m your brother, I’m your sister, I’m your friend,” she said. “We’ve always been together, the two of us.”
Love Letter: Your weekly dose of real stories that examine the highs, lows and woes of relationships.
But by the end of 2015, the lawlessness in her city was starting to intensify. Gang members were urging Yovany, then in middle school, to join their ranks. At one point, she said, a man held a gun to her head and threatened to kill Yovany if she did not come up with several thousand quetzales a month, which she did not have.
The mass separation of migrant families had spurred an outcry.
Yovany was moved out of a Border Patrol station in Texas where Ms. Peren was detained.
She decided to move north rather than risk what might happen next. Word of the family separations at the American border, which had only just begun, had not made its way to most of Central America.
After Yovany was taken from a Border Patrol station cell overnight, Ms. Peren spent seven months trying to figure out how to get him back. Finally, seeing no other option, she agreed to her own deportation, believing she could fight more effectively if she were free.
After her release, she and Yovany kept in touch regularly through WhatsApp messages. Ms. Peren did not want her son to know how much she was suffering. Yovany did not want to tell her that his life was improving.
After spending about nine months in a children’s shelter in Arizona that he called the saddest place he had ever been, Yovany had been released to a foster family in Texas that welcomed him warmly. The parents gave him a tablet computer, which he used to film music videos with the other Central American boys living in the home. Yovany bonded with the couple’s 3-year-old son and helped to take care of him. A couple of times, the family floated the idea of adopting him, but Ms. Peren shut it down immediately.
Ms. Peren celebrating mass in Brooklyn.
In March 2019, lawyers who were soliciting support for separated families made a presentation in a Hindu ashram in Queens, which Sunita Viswanath, an Indian-born human rights activist, occasionally attended. She and her husband, Stephan Shaw, figured that their large home, where they often housed multicultural artists and other activists passing through New York, could easily accommodate a mother and child.
They agreed to take full financial responsibility for Ms. Peren if she were allowed back into the United States to be reunited with Yovany.
The night before Ms. Peren arrived in New York, more than two years after her first journey to the United States, Mr. Shaw spent hours on Duolingo practicing his halting Spanish. He was the only one in his family with any knowledge of the language.
Sitting in their living room with a reporter, Mr. Shaw and Ms. Viswanath, along with her parents and two of the couple’s sons, greeted Ms. Peren with big smiles. She looked at them nervously as her lawyers translated the family’s questions:
How was your flight? Are you tired? Hungry?
Lawyers for the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project in New York solicited support for separated families.
Her new room is the first Ms. Peren has not had to share.
They sat down to a meal of Indian food, which Ms. Peren had never seen before. She pushed the food around on her plate. Ms. Viswanath asked if she would be taking a citizenship test soon. Ms. Peren’s lawyers explained that such a possibility was years away. Her asylum case, a first step, had not even begun.
Ms. Peren said good night and settled into her room: the first in her life that she had not had to share. But she felt so lonely and unable to communicate that she cried herself to sleep.
Without a job, Ms. Peren fell into a familiar role as a house cleaner while she waited for the government to approve her son’s release. The family discouraged her, but she insisted that the scrubbing and dusting was calming, and that she had nothing else to do.
After nearly a month of waiting for Yovany, she met his flight at La Guardia Airport, but their relationship did not immediately fall back into place. Standing at the gate to greet him, Ms. Peren burst into tears and hugged him fiercely. But then they both recoiled a little. As they walked to baggage claim to retrieve Yovany’s things, they did not make eye contact. In the car on the way home, he video-chatted with the friends he had left behind in Texas.
Ms. Peren reunited with Yovany after years of keeping in touch through WhatsApp.
Yovany’s presence eased any tension in the home as he lapped up the affection of the host family. Ms. Viswanath began tutoring him in reading. Her parents grew enamored of him because he did chores without asking. Yovany beamed on the brink of tears one afternoon when, after he had announced that he wanted to become a filmmaker, Mr. Shaw gave him a hand-me-down Canon camera. Their 12-year-old son, Satya, started teaching him to play piano.
Establishing relationships outside the home proved more difficult. Yovany tried to reconnect with some of the children he had met in detention, who had since moved to New York, but they lived in immigrant enclaves in Queens and the Bronx, and worked when they were not in high school.
Yovany had been living with a foster family in Texas.
He also spent several months in an Arizona children’s shelter.
When the coronavirus pandemic hit, the household quarantined together for a few months, after which Mr. Shaw, Ms. Viswanath and their son decamped to their second home in New Mexico. Ms. Viswanath’s parents eventually joined them, but Ms. Peren and Yovany had to stay in New York as a condition of their pending immigration cases.
Mr. Shaw and Ms. Viswanath made arrangements for Ms. Schwietert Collazo’s organization, Immigrant Families Together, to deliver groceries weekly, and left enough money for anything extra Ms. Peren might need. There were a few weeks when the groceries could not be delivered, but Ms. Peren did not want to ask for more money. She was ashamed that she had been reliant on the family for so long.
Ms. Peren pointing to the Statue of Liberty from the Brooklyn Bridge.
She stormed out of the house one afternoon and walked down the street at a frantic clip, asking anyone who appeared to speak Spanish if they knew where she could find a job. Most, she said, looked at her like she was crazy.
A Peruvian woman told her about a Hasidic neighborhood where she could line up for work cleaning houses, but warned that she would have to compete against others who spoke English. The first several times, Ms. Peren went home empty-handed. Eventually, she began getting work at least one day a week.
“It’s something,” she said one recent evening, “But I don’t feel any closer to being able to be independent.”
Ms. Peren’s host family went to New Mexico during the pandemic, but she was unable to leave New York.
Ms. Peren walking to her job as a house cleaner.
In some ways, Ms. Peren said, her life is much better than before. She and Yovany have warmed to each other again. They laugh and stay up late at night talking.
But even now, they keep the conversation light, not yet ready to share everything, or listen to an honest account of the more than two years they spent apart.
Ms. Peren says she has come to understand that being reunited with her son did not restore the bonds they once shared. Instead, she said, they are different people in a new place, building a relationship that is, in some ways, just beginning.
Being reunited has not restored the bonds Ms. Peren once shared with her son.
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