Latest news with #Lalo
Buzz Feed
02-07-2025
- Lifestyle
- Buzz Feed
27 Target Items To Make Your Kitchen More Aesthetic
A wooden dessert stand with a cover perfect for displaying cupcakes, pies, cakes, biscuits, and anything else you plan to whip up for a warm weather snack! (With added bonus points for keeping bugs away.) Promising reviews: "This is exactly what we were looking for. Easy to clean and looks great in our kitchen and dining room. Totally worth the money." —CJR 0810 Price: $39.99 A pasta apron that'll help protect your clothes and look heckin' cute hanging on a peg in your kitchen. Price: $9.75 (originally $15; also available for kids!) A pastel-tinted glass tumbler for long, sunshine-y evenings on the porch. Whether you're sipping on cocktails, mocktails, or your fave lemonade, these glasses are sure to jazz up your beverage. And they'll look amazing sitting on your kitchen shelves!Promising review: "I got four of them. They look like Scandinavian brand glasses. Great color. I just want target keep selling this product." —RK"These are my favorite little glasses. Perfect for small servings." —xobondoPrice: $3.25 (available in three colors) An ultra-modern 3-in-1 Lalo high chair because every kid-wrangler will tell you that high chairs can really be an aesthetic bummer, BUT NOT THIS CHAIR. Sleek, dishwasher safe, made with attractive beechwood, and convertible to a booster seat and play chair, this is one of those baby items that totally counts as a kitchen decor upgrade while also making your life as easy as possible. Psst. And if your kiddo is out of high chair territory, their table and chair set is equally functional and chic for bigger kids!Promising review: "It's sleek, easy to clean, and fits beautifully in our home. The adjustable footrest offers great support, and I love that it transitions from a high chair to a play chair. It's sturdy, comfortable, and so easy to assemble — highly recommend!" —JesePrice: $225 (available in five colors) A stoneware mug to make your morning java as aesthetic as possible while also being microwave safe for those days when you end up reheating your coffee three times before finishing it. Price: $8 (also available in white) A stainless-steel flatware set if you wish King Midas would touch your silverware organizer and turn everything a beautiful gold. (While still being safe to throw in the dishwasher afterwards, of course.) Promising review: "Love these! I've had them for a while now and they still look great! Would definitely recommend if you're thinking about it." —JessyPrice: $19.99 for a five-piece set A 2-gallon beverage dispenser, because whether you're hosting a party or just want to treat yourself to some cucumber water on tap, this dispenser is sure to be a crowd pleaser. Promising review: "I absolutely love the design and the spout is perfect for my kids to use. It was a little too big for my fridge but we rearranged the shelves to make space for it. I wanted a glass water dispenser and needed it to be big and easy for my children to get water. This one was just perfect and beautiful." —Cristina CPrice: $30 A ceramic salt and pepper grinder set because the boring glass shakers with silver tops are so yesterday and not nearly as satisfying as to look at or use. Promising review: "Super cute and looks amazing in my kitchen. Easy to use and also very easy to clean." —bethlem tPrice: $15 (originally $17) A brass-handled wooden tray so you're ready to serve yourself (or a beloved human) breakfast in bed or a perfectly plated afternoon snack at a moment's notice. And when not in use, it will be perfect for corralling a coffee or tea station on your counter! Promising reviews: "Love the large size and it looks great on my island. Very nice quality and has weight to it. Should last a long time." —Teri"This is the best serving tray. I am using it as a coffee station. It fits my Keurig perfectly along with coffee pods and sugar dish. The quality is great, the color is beautiful, and I couldn't be happier with this purchase. The brass handles only add to its functionality and looks. 10/10" —meganmvcPrice: $24.99+ (available in two sizes) A retro-looking portable Bluetooth speaker if you want a touch of vintage flair that also packs a wallop of modern tech. Why not listen to your fave podcast on something that looks like it only knows how to play the Andrews Sisters while you cook dinner? If you're trying to make your kitchen aesthetic and functional, this is your ticket! Promising review: "It's aesthetically pleasing but also functional. It has a great sound and is portable. I use it in my kitchen and on my deck. Very happy with this vintage-looking item." —L2WestPrice: $39.99 A wood-top kitchen island your friends and fam will love to sit, lean, and gather around while they watch you whip up the perfect charcuterie board. Promising review: "We purchased this to use as a coffee cart, and it's such a great addition to our kitchen/dining area. It helps expand our space without being bulky. We use the top surface to place our espresso machine, hot water kettle, coffee grinder, and espresso tools. The drawer fits tea bags, additional tools, and coffee filters, with plenty of room to spare. And the lower storage/cabinet space fits plenty of additional items like mugs, containers, and a french press. We love this cart!" —joshbPrice: $435 A tan-tinted glass kitchen jar with a wooden lid because sometimes making dinner is just ~easier~ to undertake if your ingredients are in cute Wind in the Willows-esque jars you can gaze upon even when you're *not* cooking. Promising reviews: "Perfect for a countertop sugar bowl. Tight seal and easy to open as well." —EnJay"Such a beautiful and affordable piece! I use it to store brown sugar next to my coffee machine and it's perfect! Definitely picking up more." —denisech08Price: $4.99 A recycled glass beverage pitcher you'll reach for all summer because you can fill it with flavored water, tea, or your fave at-home lemonade concoction. Promising review: "Love it! I think it's a great size and feels very study. Great to use to hold flowers or use for drinks!" —KatyPrice: $19.99 A KitchenAid hand mixer so you can give all those recipes you've saved on TikTok a go without having to haul out the big stand mixer. (Plus, look at its perfectly indulgent GREEN color!) Price: $99.99 (orifinally $109.99) A mug tree that'll make you smile every time you see your fave mugs on proud display. And will help keep your cupboards from making an avalanche of your mug collection. Promising review: "Saw this online first and had it in my cart, but then ran to the store and luckily I found it to hang my adorable mugs on. It's perfect looks more rustic in person which I was happy about." —IslandgirlPrice: $22 An Our Place ceramic nonstick Always pan if you're short on cabinet space. I can PERSONALLY attest this pan can do it all because I'm ~obsessed~ with mine and am slowly building an Our Place empire. Easy to clean, cute, cute, cute, and the kind of item that makes you EXCITED to cook because of how easy it is on the eyes and the cleanup. The set includes an Always Pan 2.0 in original nonstick, a modular steam-release lid, a nesting beechwood spatula that slots right onto the handle for easy holding, and a steamer basket and colander.I truly can't say enough nice things about the Always pan. I have a Very Fancy pan that has been living in the cabinet since I got this one because the Always is a joy to use and such a breeze to clean up when finished. Just be sure to let the pan TOTALLY cool before washing to extend the non-stick life, and you'll be just as obsessed as I am!Promising reviews: "Evenly cooks and easy clean up. Purchased on sale so I feel pricing was good." —JPrice: $129 (available in five colors and also a mini size) A floating tea infuser because if your fave loose-leaf tea helps tell your brain it's time for sleep, this super fun infuser will be a welcome addition to your bedtime routine. Price: $12.95 (available in five colors) A Keurig K-Cafe smart single-serve coffee, latte, and cappuccino maker I can testify is the bougiest (and most affordable!) caffeine deliverer around. IT COMES WITH A MILK FROTHER! I can't emphasize what a game-changer this is. Plus, it's *actually* smart. It can read the barcode on the K-Cups and give you recipe options to fully personalize your morning brew. Promising review: "Great coffee maker with WiFi ability to start my cup of coffee while I get up." —VIPrice: $199.99 An Our Place knife trio as useful as it is eye catching. (And with colors like that, you know people will be 👀.) Price: $145 A three-pack of cotton dishcloth sponges because eco-friendly and effective is the most tasteful, the most demure. (As is the fact that these are machine washable for easy cleanup.) Promising review: "These are great, I literally prefer them over any other rags to wipe countertops etc., and the fact that they are made of cellulose is a bonus. They also last forever." —stayhydratedPrice: $5.99 for three A beautiful acacia wood cutting board you can absolutely use for prep or for setting up the world's cutest girl dinner display for your next get-together. Promising review: "Great quality, thick and heavy cutting board. The wood is beautiful. I don't usually leave much on my countertop but this adds to the richness of my kitchen. I have cut many items so far and there are no nicks from the knives. Highly recommend. I also purchased the cutting board oil but have not used it yet." —LindaPrice: $38 A gold-colored sizeable nonstick cookie sheet that's going to hold all your Instagram-worthy recipes and look cute while doin' it. Promising review: "I can finally bake a whole batch of cookies on ONE baking sheet!!! Great standard baking sheet — and the beautiful gold color is a plus!" —ErinPrice: $14 (available in two colors) A set of reusable silicone baking cups that are planet-friendly and just downright delightful to bake with. Anything that makes me feel closer to a little cottagecore fairy baking treats for all the woodland creatures is an auto-buy. I don't make the rules. Promising review: "I personally love these! We are low-tox and these are perfect to cut down on trash and they make removing the baked goods a breeze. Plus, they are so simple to clean." — $9 (originally $10) A matching ceramic-coated aluminum cookware set so you can finally say goodbye to that one sad pan you've been meaning to replace and hello, gorgeous to yummy and aesthetic dishes. This set includes a stockpot with lid, a saucepan with lid, a sauté pan with lid, and a frypan. And everything is dishwasher safe!Promising review: "I have been using these pans for over a month now, and I love them. They are truly nonstick and easy to clean. I bought the white for myself and the blue set as a gift for my daughter. Even at full price, they are well worth it, but I got them on sale for half off — so they were a steal! I have purchased much more expensive pans that were not as good as these. They are beautiful, large, and of great quality. Time will tell how they hold up, but even if I have to replace a piece eventually, I won't feel bad doing so at this price point. Highly recommend!" —JaninePrice: $100 (available in five colors) A KitchenAid mixer because baking and cooking are difficult enough without breaking your wrist trying to stir thick filling or dough. I have one and use it for everything and my wrists and I highly endorse it. Promising review: "After a thorough search, I found this is one of the best KitchenAid mixers I've ever used. Target has a great deal on it. I will be making bread and cakes at home. (:" —SaniaPrice: $449.99 (available in nine colors) A set of insulated stainless-steel mixing bowls because the number one rule of cutesy cooking is that you can never have too many bowls. How else will you have the space to try seventeen different fillings for your puff pastry? This set includes a 1.5-quart bowl, a 3-quart bowl, and a 5-quart review: "I love these. Use them for everything! And they have held up forever now. I also bought them as a gift for a bridal shower, and anyone who loves to be in the kitchen will love these." —MSPrice: $59.99 A set of three Nordic Ware cookie stamps because sometimes your baked goods just need a touch of pizzazz. Promising review: "I love how sturdy these cookie stamps are. They make for great cookies. The wood accent is pretty cute and it matches with the silver stamp well. My babies love helping out with stamping and I couldn't ask for better bonding time." —MommieMich90Price: $29.99 for a set of three
Miami Herald
25-06-2025
- Miami Herald
From gangs to college
LONG BEACH, Calif. - Lalo had almost put his pieces back together again, like a self-sufficient Humpty Dumpty. He'd gotten out of prison and moved into sober housing. He stopped responding to text messages from members of his gang. He went to a tattoo removal bar to have the ink in his face shattered into particles small enough for his immune system to break down. Lalo even got himself to Long Beach City College last year and told a woman in the registrar's office that he hoped to become an addiction counselor. After enrolling in classes, he walked with her to the student center and was introduced to Jose Ibarra, the director of LBCC's program for youth affected by gangs. Everything seemed to be coming together, and the sober housing his two roommates called hell - with its cheap linoleum flooring and showers separated by thin curtains - seemed to Lalo a land of promise. Until, standing in one of the building's colorless hallways, Lalo learned from the house manager that he was approaching the maximum number of days allowed and had just over 20 left to find somewhere else to live. He had no way to pay rent. He couldn't move in with his parents because they lived in someone else's garage. As Lalo focused on his classwork, the days ticked down to single digits. And that's how, last September, Lalo found himself sitting on the edge of his metal-springed bed, or at least the bed that used to be his, head bent into hands. Then Lalo remembered the playground in East Los Angeles with a fake castle. A slide joined with the castle's roof to produce a concealed, dry space to sleep. He'd stayed there before. Lalo would have again, if it weren't for the Phoenix Scholars program LBCC created in 2022, when it received the first award under the federal government's Transitioning Gang-Involved Youth to Higher Education Program (TGIY). During the three-year term of the grant, Phoenix Scholars served 180 students, a combination of LBCC students who had a history with gangs and gang-involved teens recruited to be students. The grant expired just after President Donald Trump took office. Until then, the program served as a point-of-service for basic needs like food, and less basic ones like laptops, in addition to providing academic counseling, mentoring, mental health treatment, internship connections, work-study placements, interactive workshops and more. Unlike similar programs targeting all low-income students, Phoenix Scholars used an exceptionally low ratio - ranging from 10 to 24 students per staff member - to implement a high-touch, intrusive model. Translation: Staff had a low enough caseload to keep close tabs on students and be pushy, intervening before it was too late. Related: Interested in more news about colleges and universities? Subscribe to our free biweekly higher education newsletter. To date, 85 percent of students involved with Phoenix Scholars have stuck it out, term after term, compared to around 60 percent across the college. LBCC professors report that the students excel in class, attending regularly and engaging deeply. Three years in, 39 have completed a degree and transferred, and more are poised to transfer out of LBCC in less than three years, faster than the state average. Jaime Ramirez, 22, who is now a criminal justice major at California State University, Los Angeles, said he is a different person on the other side of the program. There's also Karla Ramirez, 21 (no relation), who is majoring in anthropology and minoring in medical humanities at the University of California, Irvine. "I really struggled with asking for help," she said, "but being part of these people … really showed me it's OK." This degree of success is rare for a student-support initiative, and it owes to the program's employment of "credible messengers," like its director, Ibarra, which is to say, people who've lived it and get it. As a tween, Ibarra was regularly escorted by friends of his older sister, who was in a gang, and their AK-47s. He had been next up to join when his cousins, gang members just released from prison, were attacked at a party. One died and the other became paraplegic. So Ibarra focused on studying instead. Only a few weeks into his first term, Lalo wouldn't have told Ibarra about his eviction, except that one day the 24-year-old had seen the director's sleeve creep up to reveal tattoos dancing along a forearm as caramel-toned as his own. On another, Ibarra shared that he too had struggled with addiction. The older man's transparency about common experiences is why Lalo confided. Ibarra found money for a few nights at a motel, giving Lalo's mom the time she needed to rent an apartment for the whole family. And just like that, the threat - of the playground, a relapse, dropping out of school - faded away. For a time. Related: 'The kids everyone forgot': Push to reengage young people not in school, college or the workforce falters Figuring out just how many Lalos there are isn't easy. Still, about 25 years ago, government surveys of youth and law enforcement data allowed for a general idea. Researchers placed the rate of lifetime gang membership between 4.8 percent and 8 percent nationally, which worked out to around 1 million actively involved juveniles. Thanks to an "erase the gang database" campaign and a decrease in federal investment in tools to gather systematic information on gangs, newer analyses have to rely on alternative data. David Pyrooz, a University of Colorado Boulder sociology professor, recently landed at 2 percent to 6.2 percent lifetime membership, which suggests around the same number of Americans have gotten involved in gangs as in the military. According to additional research by Pyrooz, about 80 percent of youth complete high school, while fewer than half of those who join a gang do. That 30 percent gap owes to some obvious hurdles: Gangs encourage risky behavior that is also time-consuming. Their social milieu lacks academic role models and connections, and in it, investment in schooling is seen as unnecessary, uncool and even suspect. Other roadblocks to college enrollment are more hidden: High school staff often treat students they suspect of gang involvement differently, tracking them into classes that leave them unprepared to matriculate and counseling them out of applying to four-year colleges, research shows. Gang-involved teens usually don't know financial aid is available and haven't had key processes explained, like how to apply and the difference between a for-profit college, a trade school and Yale. Misinformation and mistreatment compounds so that gang-involved youth regularly develop a Pavlovian rejection of schooling. As a result, those who participate in a gang complete 11.5 years of school, on average, compared to 13.6 years for everyone else, in one study. It's a relatively small difference, but often a categorical one: high school diploma, no high school diploma. Still, gang-involved individuals are no less likely to eventuallyattend college than those living under similar socioeconomic conditions who avoid gang membership. These seemingly contradictory facts are both true, because gang involvement often functions as an interruption in schooling, not a hard stop. Still, people like Lalo are far less likely to graduate from college: Only 5.4 percent of those who have been gang members earn a four-year degree by their mid-20s, making them 58 percent less likely to do so than their matched counterparts. More hurdles are to blame: Some have to rebuff pressure to expand illicit activities into a new market. On many campuses, their older age and rougher past isolate them from other students. Both post-traumatic stress disorder and shame can pose ongoing difficulty, leaving these youth wary of revealing their needs. Adrián Huerta, an associate professor at the USC Rossier School of Education and Keck School of Medicine grew up in a community like Lalo's, where drug paraphernalia punctuated conversations and bushes. One of Huerta's dad's best friends was incarcerated because of gang-related activity, and many of his own buddies joined in middle and high school. Huerta got suspended at their sides, but "by the grace of many mentors," including a school security guard who insisted that Huerta do something different with his life, ended up in college. As he completed a bachelor of science, a master's and a doctorate, Huerta kept thinking about the peers that others saw as boogeymen but whom he remembered as smart and equipped to excel. In paper after paper, he described gang-involved teens' high hopes for higher education and sketched out a series of interventions in answer to the question: "How do we build trust with students who have been burned by everyone?" Then, sitting at his desk one day in 2021, Huerta received what appeared to be a run-of-the-mill email from a colleague. He opened it to learn that the federal government was requesting applications for a new grant for programs directly serving gang-involved youth ages 14 to 24 under the Education Department's Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education. "Oh my God," Huerta thought. "Oh my God." It was as if he'd spent years tinkering with the script for a movie he never expected to get made, only to have a producer come calling. Pretty much immediately, Huerta thought of Long Beach City College. Residents of Long Beach tend to hail from one of two versions of the city: emphasizes the sunsets of "a waterfront playground," while Reddit users will find a map apportioning city blocks to the East Side Longos 13, Asian Boyz, E/S Rollin 20s Neighborhoods Crips, West Side Islanders 33rd, Sons of Samoa Gangster Crips and more. Presumably in deference to the contrast, city officials chose the motto "Building a Better Long Beach." LBCC uses the tagline, "You BeLong," and Huerta knew the school's president to be 100 percent committed to boosting students' sense of "mattering," a psychology term that refers to feeling valued and like you can add value to others. The professor floated the idea of applying for the federal grant. The college president said, "Game on." But one more administrator was needed to operationalize the chain of knowledge and support that would later extend from Huerta to Ibarra to Lalo and the 179 other adolescents whose lives were touched by the Phoenix Scholars program. Sonia De La Torre-Iniguez, LBCC's dean of student equity, became giddy when she learned the school would receive $990,000 over three years to implement Huerta's ideas. "So often in higher education, we hear about theories and frameworks and models that are proposed, but there's very little opportunity for practitioners to actually try those on," De La Torre-Iniguez said. LBCC got to. For a time. Related: 'Revolutionary' housing: How colleges aim to support formerly incarcerated students By fourth grade, Lalo would stay out past 11 most nights. His mom got home from her second job just before midnight, and his dad was usually stretched on the couch, drunk, unconscious or both. Lalo didn't like being on the streets so much, but he also didn't like being inside the one-bedroom apartment he shared with seven others, especially because that's where he'd witnessed his mom being physically abused. School was his happy place, but happy places are graded on a curve as much as students are, and there too Lalo found dysfunction and violence. In the classroom, he was used to great test scores, peers laughing at his jokes and teachers' faces lighting with affection, but in the halls and on the tetherball court, Lalo's emotions boiled up and sent his limbs flying at other kids. Tired of being in trouble, he started to ditch class in fifth grade in favor of drinking, smoking and writing on walls. And yet, each time adults asked him if he wanted to join their gang, Lalo said no. Until the day he said yes. The details are forever corroded by alcohol, but Lalo remembers two bald men ordering a group of teens to beat him when he was 12. When he returned home bloody and broken, his mom called the police, but Lalo refused to talk. He knew the stakes. If he didn't join then, he'd be targeted for further abuse along with his siblings and parents. So Lalo gave in to the part of him that wanted that life anyway. He wanted the money. He wanted to feel powerful and secure, not small like he did when his new teacher's stern words unmoored him. Lalo thought he was joining a brotherhood of people that would hold him up with a constancy he'd seen only on TV. But as he began to rack up convictions - assault, burglary, vandalism, criminal threats - life only felt more unstable. The longer Lalo was away at juvie, the harder it was to go back to high school and sit next to perfect teens with their perfect folders. He wanted things to be different but felt stuck. Lalo was hurting himself, but he had to be drunk and high to hurt others, and he had to hurt others to hold onto the affiliation that was all he had. After he went to prison for abusing the mother of his 3-month-old baby in a rage, Lalo learned more about the gang's hierarchy and practices. He realized that no one from his gang was visiting his parents while he was away. No one was checking in on his daughter or her mother. At 22, Lalo started to suspect that he'd been a puppet all along, that the gang he'd seen as a family for a decade had never been more than a series of transactions. So when he got out, Lalo ignored texts from old homies asking him to "pull up," thinking the apartment his mother had found was far enough from their old neighborhood to do that safely. Thanks to Ibarra's help, Lalo was back on track and cruising through the fall 2024 term, even taking a scooter to apply for a job a few towns over, where he didn't know anyone. But someone must have known him, maybe a member of a rival gang, maybe one of his own. Lalo couldn't see the person's face - people's faces? - as he was dragged off the electric scooter and pummeled with a baseball bat. When he woke up, with EMTs surrounding him, Lalo called his mom and said, "Ama me quebraron la cara." Mom, they broke my face. Because of that incident, and many others, Lalo asked to be identified by his nickname in this story. The Phoenix Scholars program negotiated an excused withdrawal while Lalo recuperated and tried to process this bit of twisted karma. He had been unfailingly kind for years by that point, but women still tightened their grips on their purses and security guards still trailed him inside Walmart, not seeing the round cheeks and twinkling eyes amid his remaining tattoos. Lalo felt rejected and dejected, but he believed he only had himself to blame. He acted ruthlessly, so he should pay for his sins, but also how many months should each sin cost? When would his penance be done? Though physically healed, Lalo didn't sign up for winter classes. After the team noticed and badgered him, he enrolled. With guidance from Phoenix Scholars staff, he changed majors from psychology to human services addiction studies. Because of them, "whether it's food, clothes, school supplies, a shower or shelter," he said, "I've been a lot better mentally and emotionally." With that support plus a program at LBCC for formerly incarcerated students, Lalo is now sure he'll transfer to a four-year college. "I always wanted to be a part of a club like this, always," he said, "I never did anything extracurricular in high school." Lalo often thinks about what he'll tell his daughter, now age 6, when she asks about his past. He'll try to describe how he felt like a fly stuck in a spider's web. And then he'll explain how one program could possibly have meant so much: "When you see somebody that comes from the same city, the same circumstances and almost the same skin tone as you, make it out," Lalo said, "I don't know - it does something to you." Plus, "these people here are angels," he said. Related: From prison to dean's list: How Danielle Metz got an education after incarceration In February, the dean, De La Torre-Iniguez, sat at a conference table with professor Huerta as the Phoenix Scholars program entered its death throes. With the grant's three-year term over, the money stopped coming in January, and it seemed unlikely more of it would flow toward LBCC's gang-involved students in Trump's new world order. "We did a good job," Huerta said, a proud dad stiffening his upper lip at his son's wake. He turned toward De La Torre-Iniguez before carrying on. In bits and pieces, the two reminisced about how they'd decided an effective gang-to-college pipeline would require five elements: outreach, help matriculating, orientation, persistence support (in the form of trust-building and holistic wraparound services) and post-completion assistance. They knew outreach would require more than slapping up some flyers, and sought out Ibarra, who had sat at the bedsides of gunshot victims, trying to talk them into leaving gang life. Later, he worked on gang reduction for the Los Angeles mayor's office. After being named director of the fledgling Phoenix Scholars program in March 2022, Ibarra recruited participants by showing up at the right parks, community fairs and high schools. All the adolescents had to do was scan a QR code and fill out a quick intake form. At orientation spread over three days, credible messengers like him communicated two messages in ringing tension: "You belong here," and, "The way you engage in the street is not going to work here." Huerta walked a similarly thin line at a second type of orientation: 90-minute Zoom sessions he led for LBCC faculty and staff. They needed to understand the horrors students affected by gangs had faced without seeing them as victims devoid of agency. And they had to feel empathy without being drawn into a deficit mindset, since those same horrors had also fostered strengths. With similar finesse, Huerta, De La Torre-Iniguez and Ibarra defined eligibility. The trio, who met every two weeks for over a year and then monthly, worried that limiting participation to gang-involved students would make the program so small that being associated with Phoenix Scholars would become a label, and a stigmatizing, unsafe one at that. As Huerta put it, "People are going to assume all these things that you did or didn't do or whatever." So they extended the program to "family-impacted" individuals, like Edrick Salgado, 22. He never joined a gang because he saw what that lifestyle had done to his brother. When Salgado was 7, he was the one who found the 17-year-old, who had died by suicide. Without the Phoenix Scholars program, Salgado said, "I probably would have given up." But each time the sociology major tried to leave LBCC, they were at him again, texting and even showing up at his workplace. Salgado has now completed 34 units and is on track to earn his associate degree for transfer in sociology by spring 2026. Last fall, he earned two A's and a B, and spring term Salgado got all A's. "Community-impacted" individuals like Jessica Flores, a sunny, bouncy 19-year-old from South Central Los Angeles, round out the group, with a single screening question for that category: "Do you think it's normal for you to hear gunshots at night?" Eighty-three percent of the Phoenix Scholars would be the first in their family to graduate college, with 17 percent reporting that their parents didn't finish high school. Even more, 89 percent, are economically disadvantaged. Only two said they remained active in a gang while participating in the program, but staff estimate that 30 percent of participants, over 50 students, once were gang-involved. That ratio makes sense given research showing that gang membership is often a form of identity exploration. Most gang members are affiliated for two years or less with more than 90 percent disengaging before adulthood. The murkiness reflected in these statistics is another reason Huerta said the program should include students who had been affected by gang activity even if they never formally joined. So together, these students were served by Ibarra's intrusive case-management team that included a dedicated academic counselor, two student success coaches and a wellness coach, all themselves students studying counseling or social work while working for Phoenix Scholars part-time. For a time. Related: Suspended for 'other': When states don't share why kids are being kicked out of school "Are you OK?" "What's going on?" "Talk to us." "Did you do it?" "Did you do it?" These are a few of the texts that Flores remembers receiving from the Phoenix Scholars program. "You can never forget something," she said: "If they're aware of it, you best believe they're going to talk about it every time they see you." But Flores' conviction and crisp diction tapered into the quiet tones of hopelessness as she described her family's recent eviction. All of a sudden, she woke up not knowing if she'd earn enough to eat, like 64 percent of California's community college students. Still, up until the graphing calculator incident, she was determined to excel this spring term. Flores remembered returning the borrowed device on the last day of winter term, but since the office that loaned it to her didn't have a record of that, the person at the desk refused to release a new one. Or the textbook she needed for psychology. Things got heated. "They were just like, talking mess to me," Flores said. Feeling like she was being called a liar, she dropped her classes, thinking, "If I can't pay for the books, I might as well." The homelessness, the food insecurity, the argument - and the headaches that were her nervous system's response to it all - feltinsurmountable. But when Flores told Phoenix Scholars staff she'd dropped out, they helped her get another calculator, the textbook and four out of her five classes back. "They figured it out within 10 minutes," she said. "They changed my life within 10 minutes." Now she plans to go to medical school. She's always wanted to work in health care as a medical assistant or X-ray tech, but having watched student success coaches - those "near-peer" case managers - get graduate degrees and go on to their chosen careers despite prolonged flirtation with the poverty line, Flores decided she could be a surgeon. It was like being inspired by a successful big sister, she said. That word choice is intentional. She calls Ibarra "Papa." Family, specifically a tight, relentlessly supportive family, is what Lalo and others like him hope gangs will provide. The word "familia" is used not just for the criminal organization known as Nuestra Familia but by other gangs adopting the same descriptor in lowercase. All of which is to say, thanks to full institutional buy-in to offering comprehensive, longitudinal support from connected, credible messengers, students from gang-riddled communities who had long been searching for a safe place to lay their loyalty found it in LBCC's Phoenix Scholars program. Related: To support underserved students, four-year universities offer two-year associate degrees At the program's unofficial funeral in February, De La Torre-Iniguez had trouble squaring her natural enthusiasm with fiscal reality. They couldn't afford to pay Ibarra to be director anymore and had reduced the program's staff from five people to three, and yet she mused about replicating Phoenix Scholars at every community college in the state. Like Robin Williams and the Lost Boys imagining food until it appears in "Hook," Huerta and Ibarra got in on the act. A house for the students! Child care too! They could do away with the age cap imposed by the federal grant. (If Lalo's birthday had been even two months earlier, he would have turned 25 too soon to participate.) And why not develop a dual-enrollment track, rather than requiring a full class load, to hook students the same way many gangs had: with a little taste that gets them coming back for more? Huerta could even run a randomized trial, since the program had gotten so popular they'd had to turn students away! They quickly remembered themselves. A nonprofit called Centro CHA had provided stipends for students, and the program also got support from the LBCC Foundation and the city of Long Beach. But the annual $330,000 from the TGIY program covered the vast majority of expenses. That federal initiative had ramped up from just one award in 2021 to five in 2023, distributing more than $12 million total to 13 applicants between 2021 and 2024. Award recipients included partnerships involving colleges such as Allan Hancock College, Austin Community College and Richard J. Daley College as well as a bar association, a nonprofit focused on violence reduction and more. LBCC applied for another cycle of the federal grant last fall. Not getting it was disappointing, but still there was hope that a different type of grant could support their program until the Trump administration initiated a gutting reduction in force at the Department of Education. With about half the number of employees the department had in January, a judge recently concluded: "A department without enough employees to perform statutorily mandated functions is not a department at all." Indeed, staff there have stopped responding to emails and calls about the future of TGIY. It is unclear whether current TGIY awardees continue to receive the promised funds and whether new ones will be chosen for FY 2025. De La Torre-Iniguez made a plea through LBCC's annual budgeting process to keep Phoenix Scholars for current participants and institutionalize pieces of the program going forward, but LBCC won't be able to support a robust version of it without external funding. "Maybe private foundations will step up and fill the gaps," Huerta tossed out, yet chased his optimism with a sigh: "I'm sure the competition for private grants is going to get even more competitive." The magical food continued to shrink, until it disappeared from their table. Related: OPINION: Our college students are struggling emotionally. We need to understand how to help them When Huerta visited LBCC's student center one day this spring, Lalo didn't introduce himself right away. He stood off to the side as Huerta addressed a circle of Phoenix Scholars participants, defending the program's nearly $1 million price tag for a few dozen graduates, and only some of them gang members at that. "It's low-cost compared to gang-suppression units," Huerta said, doing a little back-of-the-envelope math: "If there's a shooting in Long Beach, it costs over $1 million per shooting, right? And if we help prevent 10 shootings over three years, that's $10 million that we saved the city." Looking at it another way, "it was like $5,000 … to support a student, and it's what, $30,000 to incarcerate people?" He was only counting the program's direct impact, but Lalo tells his nieces and nephews that if he can do it, they can too, and Flores said a handful of girls affiliated with a gang recently approached her: "They were like, 'Oh my God, Jessica, how do you do this? Can you show me?'" After the throng dwindled, Lalo stepped toward Huerta with the same mix of confidence and fragility that marked his living situation, sobriety and educational path, as well as his attempts to help his daughter get to know him with little gifts. "How was your first semester?" Huerta asked. "My first semester was honestly very pleasing," Lalo said, referring to the term he completed before the attack. "I was very amazed at how much I learned in just eight weeks." What interested him the most, Huerta wanted to know. Minutes passed as the two discussed the field of addiction science, iterating on the pros and cons of contrasting approaches. Then Huerta turned to the young man whose road had diverged from his own and said, "Hit me up, and I'll connect you to the right people." That is how the gang-impacted students at LBCC, and all the schools that could have replicated its model, had the backing of the nation. For a time. Contact editor Nirvi Shah at 212-678-3445, securely on Signal at NirviShah.14 or via email at shah@ This story about gang members was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter. The post From gangs to college appeared first on The Hechinger Report.
Fashion Network
17-06-2025
- Business
- Fashion Network
Tariff 'stacking' adds another headache for US importers
That's because Hamer's 30% tariff was stacked on top of existing tariffs, including a tariff on Chinese steel products that varies depending on the amount of steel used in a fixture. When U.S. President Donald Trump adds a new tariff the old ones don't go away. Some companies will pay far more because of a phenomenon called tariff stacking, the latest complication for U.S. importers trying to navigate Trump's on-again, off-again trade war. The reality for many U.S. businesses is that their tariff bills are often far higher than the headline number touted in trade talks. Tariff stacking applies to any country exporting to the U.S., but the most extreme cases tend to be with China, where the U.S. has accumulated a long list of sometimes hefty existing tariffs, implemented under different provisions of U.S. trade law. The latest twist is an announcement that the two sides have agreed to a 55% tariff, but that's in part only an estimate of what the average pre-existing tariffs were. Hamer isn't sure what his tariff total will be now, but he figures it couldn't get much worse. 'Hopefully this will bring the (tariff) number down - and some of the clients who've been sitting on the sidelines will go ahead and place orders,' he said, 'because it's been all over the map.' Hamer is searching for suppliers outside China to avoid his stacked tariffs. He's checked Mexico and is planning a trip to India next month as part of the effort. In the meantime, he is passing through all the tariffs. "The customers pay the tariff," said Hamer. "When it comes in, we say, 'Here's the tariff bill.'" Many businesses are still hoping for a reprieve from President Donald Trump's trade war. Federal courts, including the U.S. Court of International Trade, have ruled that Trump's imposition of tariffs exceeded his authority. A federal appeals court is considering the administration's appeal to that ruling, and the tariffs remain in effect while that plays out, a process expected to take months. Some are counting on tariff exemptions, a popular tool used by companies during the first Trump administration to get goods imported without the taxes. Michael Weidner, president of Lalo Baby Products in Brooklyn, is one of them. 'We believe there should be an exemption for baby products,' he said. 'Same with toys.' The Trump administration has said it will resist creating such carve-outs. And even during the last trade war, it was a complex process. For instance, Lalo imports a 'play table' from China that happens to be classified under a customs category that was subject to a 25% tariff under a part of trade law that aims to fight unfair trade practices. So Weidner has been paying 55% tariffs on those, thanks to stacking. Trump campaigned on a vow to use tariffs to pull manufacturing back to U.S. shores and collect revenue to help fund a major tax cut. His battle with China quickly spiraled into a conflagration with the U.S. imposing a 145% across-the-board tariff that shut down much of the trade between the world's two largest economies. The agreement to curb the tariffs is part of a larger effort to negotiate individual deals with most of the U.S.'s trading partners. On Wednesday, a White House official said the 55% figure represents a sum of a baseline 10% 'reciprocal' tariff Trump has imposed on goods from nearly all U.S. trading partners; 20% on all Chinese imports because of punitive measures Trump has imposed on China, Mexico and Canada associated with his accusation that the three facilitate the flow of the opioid fentanyl into the U.S.; and finally pre-existing 25% levies on imports from China that were put in place during Trump's first term. 'It sounds like that's the way he's thinking of the baseline - 55% - at least for some products," said Greta Peisch, a trade lawyer at Wiley Rein in Washington. Ramon van Meer's business selling filtered shower heads from China may yet survive the trade war, though he's not certain. That depends entirely on whether he can can manage the multiple tariffs placed on his $159 shower heads, which became a viral sensation on Instagram. When the Trump administration trimmed tariffs on China to 30% in May, van Meer's tariff bill was actually 43%. That's because the 30% tariff was stacked on top of an existing 13% tariff. It's an improvement over the 145% tariffs slapped on Chinese imports in April, when he halted shipments entirely. 'At least I can afford to pay it,' said van Meer, chief executive of Afina, based in Austin, Texas, referring to his latest calculations. "And I don't have to raise the price by that much."
Fashion Network
16-06-2025
- Business
- Fashion Network
Tariff 'stacking' adds another headache for US importers
That's because Hamer's 30% tariff was stacked on top of existing tariffs, including a tariff on Chinese steel products that varies depending on the amount of steel used in a fixture. When U.S. President Donald Trump adds a new tariff the old ones don't go away. Some companies will pay far more because of a phenomenon called tariff stacking, the latest complication for U.S. importers trying to navigate Trump's on-again, off-again trade war. The reality for many U.S. businesses is that their tariff bills are often far higher than the headline number touted in trade talks. Tariff stacking applies to any country exporting to the U.S., but the most extreme cases tend to be with China, where the U.S. has accumulated a long list of sometimes hefty existing tariffs, implemented under different provisions of U.S. trade law. The latest twist is an announcement that the two sides have agreed to a 55% tariff, but that's in part only an estimate of what the average pre-existing tariffs were. Hamer isn't sure what his tariff total will be now, but he figures it couldn't get much worse. 'Hopefully this will bring the (tariff) number down - and some of the clients who've been sitting on the sidelines will go ahead and place orders,' he said, 'because it's been all over the map.' Hamer is searching for suppliers outside China to avoid his stacked tariffs. He's checked Mexico and is planning a trip to India next month as part of the effort. In the meantime, he is passing through all the tariffs. "The customers pay the tariff," said Hamer. "When it comes in, we say, 'Here's the tariff bill.'" Many businesses are still hoping for a reprieve from President Donald Trump's trade war. Federal courts, including the U.S. Court of International Trade, have ruled that Trump's imposition of tariffs exceeded his authority. A federal appeals court is considering the administration's appeal to that ruling, and the tariffs remain in effect while that plays out, a process expected to take months. Some are counting on tariff exemptions, a popular tool used by companies during the first Trump administration to get goods imported without the taxes. Michael Weidner, president of Lalo Baby Products in Brooklyn, is one of them. 'We believe there should be an exemption for baby products,' he said. 'Same with toys.' The Trump administration has said it will resist creating such carve-outs. And even during the last trade war, it was a complex process. For instance, Lalo imports a 'play table' from China that happens to be classified under a customs category that was subject to a 25% tariff under a part of trade law that aims to fight unfair trade practices. So Weidner has been paying 55% tariffs on those, thanks to stacking. Trump campaigned on a vow to use tariffs to pull manufacturing back to U.S. shores and collect revenue to help fund a major tax cut. His battle with China quickly spiraled into a conflagration with the U.S. imposing a 145% across-the-board tariff that shut down much of the trade between the world's two largest economies. The agreement to curb the tariffs is part of a larger effort to negotiate individual deals with most of the U.S.'s trading partners. On Wednesday, a White House official said the 55% figure represents a sum of a baseline 10% 'reciprocal' tariff Trump has imposed on goods from nearly all U.S. trading partners; 20% on all Chinese imports because of punitive measures Trump has imposed on China, Mexico and Canada associated with his accusation that the three facilitate the flow of the opioid fentanyl into the U.S.; and finally pre-existing 25% levies on imports from China that were put in place during Trump's first term. 'It sounds like that's the way he's thinking of the baseline - 55% - at least for some products," said Greta Peisch, a trade lawyer at Wiley Rein in Washington. Ramon van Meer's business selling filtered shower heads from China may yet survive the trade war, though he's not certain. That depends entirely on whether he can can manage the multiple tariffs placed on his $159 shower heads, which became a viral sensation on Instagram. When the Trump administration trimmed tariffs on China to 30% in May, van Meer's tariff bill was actually 43%. That's because the 30% tariff was stacked on top of an existing 13% tariff. It's an improvement over the 145% tariffs slapped on Chinese imports in April, when he halted shipments entirely. 'At least I can afford to pay it,' said van Meer, chief executive of Afina, based in Austin, Texas, referring to his latest calculations. "And I don't have to raise the price by that much."
Fashion Network
16-06-2025
- Business
- Fashion Network
Tariff 'stacking' adds another headache for US importers
That's because Hamer's 30% tariff was stacked on top of existing tariffs, including a tariff on Chinese steel products that varies depending on the amount of steel used in a fixture. When U.S. President Donald Trump adds a new tariff the old ones don't go away. Some companies will pay far more because of a phenomenon called tariff stacking, the latest complication for U.S. importers trying to navigate Trump's on-again, off-again trade war. The reality for many U.S. businesses is that their tariff bills are often far higher than the headline number touted in trade talks. Tariff stacking applies to any country exporting to the U.S., but the most extreme cases tend to be with China, where the U.S. has accumulated a long list of sometimes hefty existing tariffs, implemented under different provisions of U.S. trade law. The latest twist is an announcement that the two sides have agreed to a 55% tariff, but that's in part only an estimate of what the average pre-existing tariffs were. Hamer isn't sure what his tariff total will be now, but he figures it couldn't get much worse. 'Hopefully this will bring the (tariff) number down - and some of the clients who've been sitting on the sidelines will go ahead and place orders,' he said, 'because it's been all over the map.' Hamer is searching for suppliers outside China to avoid his stacked tariffs. He's checked Mexico and is planning a trip to India next month as part of the effort. In the meantime, he is passing through all the tariffs. "The customers pay the tariff," said Hamer. "When it comes in, we say, 'Here's the tariff bill.'" Many businesses are still hoping for a reprieve from President Donald Trump's trade war. Federal courts, including the U.S. Court of International Trade, have ruled that Trump's imposition of tariffs exceeded his authority. A federal appeals court is considering the administration's appeal to that ruling, and the tariffs remain in effect while that plays out, a process expected to take months. Some are counting on tariff exemptions, a popular tool used by companies during the first Trump administration to get goods imported without the taxes. Michael Weidner, president of Lalo Baby Products in Brooklyn, is one of them. 'We believe there should be an exemption for baby products,' he said. 'Same with toys.' The Trump administration has said it will resist creating such carve-outs. And even during the last trade war, it was a complex process. For instance, Lalo imports a 'play table' from China that happens to be classified under a customs category that was subject to a 25% tariff under a part of trade law that aims to fight unfair trade practices. So Weidner has been paying 55% tariffs on those, thanks to stacking. Trump campaigned on a vow to use tariffs to pull manufacturing back to U.S. shores and collect revenue to help fund a major tax cut. His battle with China quickly spiraled into a conflagration with the U.S. imposing a 145% across-the-board tariff that shut down much of the trade between the world's two largest economies. The agreement to curb the tariffs is part of a larger effort to negotiate individual deals with most of the U.S.'s trading partners. On Wednesday, a White House official said the 55% figure represents a sum of a baseline 10% 'reciprocal' tariff Trump has imposed on goods from nearly all U.S. trading partners; 20% on all Chinese imports because of punitive measures Trump has imposed on China, Mexico and Canada associated with his accusation that the three facilitate the flow of the opioid fentanyl into the U.S.; and finally pre-existing 25% levies on imports from China that were put in place during Trump's first term. 'It sounds like that's the way he's thinking of the baseline - 55% - at least for some products," said Greta Peisch, a trade lawyer at Wiley Rein in Washington. Ramon van Meer's business selling filtered shower heads from China may yet survive the trade war, though he's not certain. That depends entirely on whether he can can manage the multiple tariffs placed on his $159 shower heads, which became a viral sensation on Instagram. When the Trump administration trimmed tariffs on China to 30% in May, van Meer's tariff bill was actually 43%. That's because the 30% tariff was stacked on top of an existing 13% tariff. It's an improvement over the 145% tariffs slapped on Chinese imports in April, when he halted shipments entirely. 'At least I can afford to pay it,' said van Meer, chief executive of Afina, based in Austin, Texas, referring to his latest calculations. "And I don't have to raise the price by that much."
