Since my freshman year, I have been promised “representation” for my community, but I’m still not sure what my community is. At first, I thought my community was UC Berkeley, but then some ASUC candidates insisted that I was underrepresented. Imagine, for all these years, I naively thought that UC Berkeley students had 100 percent representation at UC Berkeley. I guess I was wrong.

Of course, the communities to which these candidates are referring are racially and ethnically defined. ASUC Election Season gives future Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons the opportunity to tell you how bad you have it at Berkeley, and why you need them to make your Berkeley experience much better. For those of you who have already been drowned in the sea of eager candidates on Sproul Plaza, the one word that was probably peddled to you the most was, “Diversity.” No candidate, especially the ones from CalSERVE (though Student Action is just as guilty), can leave racial appeal out of their platforms. Some are delightfully more explicit than others. Thus, I present to you the senate platforms of the worst race-baiters of the ASUC election, starting with CalSERVE:

First up, we have Allen “Fo Sho” Cho, #161. His Agenda:

Development Of A Korean-American Caucus
The Korean community on campus is very divided; we don’t have a UNIFIED voice to represent the issues our community faces in the ASUC.

So if you’re a student of Korean descent at Berkeley, get ready to fall in line! Stop dividing the community with your independent, individual thinking and start thinking like a Korean, whatever that means! To create solidarity, Allen plans to create a Korean Community Caucus. This seems odd, considering the rationale for his next item:

Establishment Of A Multicultural Center
Even though UC Berkeley is rich in history, culture and social movements, it is currently one of the few campuses without a multicutural center. In order to continue pushing for positive change, we need to continue bridging community. As your ASUC Senator, I will advocate for a permanent multicultural center to encourage cross cultural solidarity and dialogue.

So let’s divide the campus along race, and then struggle to bring it together again. I’m sure Allen is fully aware of this conundrum, as exploiting it gives him more power and clout in his “community.” We probably wouldn’t need a multicultural center to fix the problem of groups not interacting with each other if people like Allen weren’t busy creating separate caucuses for racial groups in the first place.

Next is Anurati “For Health” Mathur, #162. Anurati promises change through Coalition building. Did she mention that this coalition only includes South Asian students?

An Empowered You: The Power of Coalition Building
Through successful campaigns such as the Count Me In initiative, the Asian Pacific American Coalition has shown the power of coalition building. Based upon the success of this coalition and others, I will work with South Asian student organizations to create a coalition so that we will then have the ability to make change together.

She forgot Poland.

Claudia “si se puede” Rodriguez, #154, doesn’t beat around the bush. Her Spanish nickname is a dead giveaway, but her platform is still worth examining. Her platform seems to indicate that if you aren’t Chicano or Latino, you’ve got to find yourself another senator:

Increasing Academic Resources for Chican@/Latin@ Communities
There are few Chican@/Latin@s moving into graduate level work at Cal. As Senator, I will work to improve and increase the academic resources needed for current students moving into graduate-level work, by advocating for retention and professional development programs that will support and benefit the campus community at large.

I could make the whole role-reversal, double standard argument, but that’s just too easy and too obvious. What is most insulting is Claudia’s attempt to make this part of her platform appear non-racial. She complains of the lack of Chicano’s entering graduate school, but argues that increasing academic resources will help all students in the undefined “community at large.” If she really wanted to help all students, she would have omitted the opening tidbit specifically targeting Chicano and Latino students.

Then there’s Jenab-i “count me in” Pareja, #149,who really only has one issue, but describes it in three different ways to make it seem like he has a full platform, so it is not worth examining in detail. The main legs of his platform: Increasing Diversity, Building Community, and Creating Accountability. All you have to know is that Jenab-i really cares about diversity. He cares about it so much, that it is the only thing he is running on, and he promises to do a bunch of things to make diversity reign supreme. However, judging from his experience, Jenab-i isn’t exactly Mr. Diversity himself; his extra-curricular involvement has been limited to Asian student groups.

Jeremy de Nieva, #151, wants to be “a voice for silenced communities.” That voice seems to include a back door affirmative action plan:

I will be a voice for marginalized populations by increasing the presence of underrepresented populations through recruitment and retention funding, securing funds for philanthropic organizations to focus more on their activities than on fundraising, and advocating collaboration between different groups in order to achieve a more integrated campus community.

Lyell Sakaue, #163, not only wants us to recognize multiculturalism, he wants us to give it a big hug.

Embracing Multiculturalism
Groups and spaces dedicated to raising awareness and promoting multiculturalism on campus need more funding and greater visibility. I will advocate for existing and ermerging opportunities for promoting multiculturalism, including culture shows, student groups, conferences and the creation of a permanent multicultural center.

Mary June “MJ” Flores, #164, wants to learn more about her ethnicity, and wants you to pay for it.

Enriching The Ethnic Studies Department
Every year, the Ethnic Studies Department suffers through budget cuts, which in turn severely affects the collection and number of classes offered. As senator, I will work with faculty, staff, and administration to advocate for more funding for the department’s needs and the creation of more diverse classes. I will also work with students to take steps towards establishing a Pilipino/Pilipino-American Studies program by advocating for more Pilipino tenured professors.

So Mary June’s assumption is that if you have a tenured Filipino professor, he will automatically be working in the Pilipino Studies department. Never mind that Filipino academics can also be found studying Economics, Biology, Astronomy, and many other subjects. But hey, a Filipino is a Filipino. Mary June seems to think that all Filipinos will have the same academic interests anyway, so if you get more of them, you’re guaranteed to have a Pilipino-American studies program!

Obiamaka “Obi” Ude, #147, wants to give us “An ASUC for Every Student.” As a conservative, Southern-Californian, left-handed, patriotic American of Filipino descent that wants more left-handed desks, I wonder what Obiamaka can do for me. Probably very little, as her platform states:

As Senator, I will continue the fight for a multicultural center, create an ASUC-sponsored women’s forum for different women’s groups to come together, and increase publicity and outreach efforts to students from marginalized communities.

Like many of her colleagues, Obiamaka wants the ASUC to be all things to all students. Based on her platform, some students will get a little more.

Oscar “Oski” Mairena, #153 is just the male version of Claudia Rodriguez (or Claudia is the female version of Oscar), placing at the top of his platform the goal of “Increasing Retention Services for Chican@/Latin@ Students.”

Finally, Stephanie “Strawberry” Yang. #148, wants to defy stereotypes, and she can only do this as an ASUC senator.

Challenging The Model Minority Myth
Last fall, the Regents released a report that they would increase diversity on campus by admitting more non-Asian students. However, the “Asian” label does not do justice to the diversity of communities that are represented under that term. As Senator, I will work to peel off the “model minority” myth by making sure that the institution recognizes the diverse backgrounds of people grouped under the Asian-American term.

To minimize the model minority myth, I believe Stephanie’s first act as senator will be to fail all of her classes. She will then drop out of UC Berkeley, meet with the Regents wearing a t-shirt displaying her abysmally low GPA, and beg for an affirmative action program that is designed solely for increasing Asian enrollment. Victimhood, of course, is true progress for Asian students.

Many of these senate candidate complain of communities not working together, yet they seek to magnify the divide by catering to distinct racial niches within the campus. Without campus division, CalSERVE would have nothing to run on, so I’m not too confident that a Berkeley united beyond racial distinction will exist under CalSERVE auspices.

As I wrote before, Student Action is equally guilty of diversity-pandering. Part II will look at their worst offenders.