Iranian students at UCSC said last week they felt a weary cynicism of being bystanders in a war an ocean away.

On March 10, the Iranian Student Union at UC Santa Cruz hosted a free banquet at the Merrill Cultural Center to celebrate Nowruz–the Persian New Year– to break flatbread together in the spirit of the season, in spite of the widening war in Iran. Some celebrations were canceled across the country because of the war.

The event was co-sponsored by the Asian American Pacific Islander Resource Center, so attending in solidarity were SWANA (Southwest Asian and North African) students, which the official AA/PIRC website calls a “more accurate and inclusive” term than “Middle Eastern.”

“None of us has control over this situation,” said Nadia Danesh, who ran a slideshow before dinner on Nowruz’s history and traditions with senior ISU board member Ali, (most students didn’t want to share their full names). “All we can do is support each other through it.”

“It’s like trying to have a discussion about who should lead the DNC,” Ali said.

One faculty member, unable to comment because of UC policy, said it wasn’t her place to speak on the conflict anyhow.

“I prefer to let the students find their own path to outrage,” she said.

Further leading to feelings of estrangement: there are no Persian restaurants in Santa Cruz. Tonight’s catering, Isfahan Kabob Gourmet, had to be gathered in San Jose.

Students said they are wary of twin security apparatuses: ICE[1] [2]  here, and more terrifying to them, the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) in Iran. Their technological formidability is able to parse locationless social media activity and digital news scraps here, and shut down the entire internet with a flick of a switch there, they said. While Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet is a lifeline that can become citizens’ only means of connectivity, rumors persist that using it paints a bullseye on your home for IRGC raids.

The day the Israeli and American bombardment began, a student named Walter’s mother called him over a messaging app saying she wanted to reach him before they were cut off, that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s office had been bombed. Walter predicted that when they spoke again, the Supreme Leader would be dead.

“I make really good guesses in terms of predicting this conflict,” he said. “This is one of the perks of growing up in the Middle East.”

He and his mother were both right. The IRGC pulled the plug not long after, knocking them out of contact for three days. When they could again reach each other, the Ayatollah’s death had been announced, along with others on the regime org chart, that is, according to Ali, convoluted for a reason: to be assassination-proof.

“Trump admitted their Plan B and C got killed, and not by U.S. munitions,” he said. “They are impatient, and unfortunately, they’re going against people known exclusively for their patience.”

That patience, paired with vigilance, is what makes Walter afraid to share his thoughts on the war in public, even on the campus bus.

An Iranian woman named Baran was afraid to high-five her first male friend on U.S. soil.

“‘We’re in public,’” she thought. “‘You can’t touch my hand.’”

Baran is a rarity, a child of divorce who illegally escaped with her mother before custody reverted to her father upon her first menstrual cycle. That high-five was her epiphany: every expatriate becomes secularized once they realize the IRGC corkscrews their particular radical Islamic doctrine with national law.

Generally, the further your life gets from the epicenter of IRGC dominion in Tehran, the less you feel its specter.

“I have friends from towns not even on the maps, financially more unstable than I ever was, but I also know [they] did not have to wear the hijab,” Baran said.

Contrast that with Tehran, where the surveillance feels supernatural. Many times she watched female family members, including her mother, jailed on serendipity.

“She’ll be carrying something and the wind will blow for just the perfect second for her hijab to fall down, and they’ll arrest her.”

The ISU is committed to being a safe space for discussion, making internal debates external. No one interviewed for this article regrets Khamenei’s elimination or can confirm there was public mourning on campus, and yet no one wanted it to happen this way, as part of a broader military campaign with so much collateral damage. Many say they feel queasy who the architects of his destruction were.

Baran has no patience for these reservations. For her, it’s a question of “gratitude versus admiration.”

“You don’t have to support the actions of someone to be thankful for them,” she said.

The wide-ranging fears students expressed were:

-A false flag mainland strike is engineered by the CIA to institute a full military draft. US-born Persians are sent to fight their close and distant relations.

-Homeland Security converts its numerous warehouse purchases into Iranian prison camps to rival Japanese internment during WWII.

-The regime falls, but Iran splinters. Gulf states, neighboring powers such as Turkey, or any regional country feeling bullied by the regime for too long, devour the Iranian territory through annexation.

-Israel and the US can’t dislodge the regime. Unable to accept defeat, they drop a nuclear bomb.

Afghani student Rodean Morshidi’s  fears were based on memory and a concern for repetition. He was not alone in worrying Iran is a new U.S. military playground, “a larger geopolitical stage for them to win the resource war with China.”

“I saw what [the U.S.] did to my own people, my own family,” he said. “They decided to purposefully bargain with the most radical ethno-nationalistic groups. The Soviet invasion, my hot take? It would’ve been better for the country.”

His Indian girlfriend and others at the table drew henna on their hands with a blade-like applicator, using YouTube as a guide. Attendees queuing up for food snaked past an altar laid with a mirror, a book of ancient poetry, and the Haft Seen, or Seven S’s, each item representing a particular virtue to bring into the new year.

This included Senjed (a date-like olive) and Samanoo (wheat germ paste that looks like Nutella, tastes like vegan bouillon). Another table practiced a pacifist version of Tokhm-Jangi, a game where you paint hard-boiled eggs in bright colors and bump them together, competing to break your opponent’s egg while keeping yours intact.

Ali said the ISU is preparing a statement on the war to combat the University’s silence. He paraphrased a proverb to analogize an undesirable outcome: the regime topples without being accompanied by a people’s revolution.

“If an egg cracks from the inside, it turns into a new life. But if an egg is cracked from the outside, it becomes lunch.”

A former Watsonville hotel is set to be converted into a 120-bed residential treatment facility for men, significantly expanding substance use disorder treatment capacity in Santa Cruz County.

Janus of Santa Cruz officially received the keys on March 9 to the former Rodeway Inn property, which will be renovated into a residential treatment campus designed to serve individuals seeking recovery.

The project is funded through the state’s Behavioral Health Continuum Infrastructure Program, which supports behavioral health treatment facilities across California.

Once renovations are complete, the Watsonville site will provide residential treatment services including clinical care, case management and peer support. The facility is expected to serve residents across Santa Cruz County, with a focus on increasing access to treatment in South County.

Janus officials said the campus will also be part of a broader “regional recovery health hub” intended to connect behavioral health services across Santa Cruz, Monterey, Santa Clara, San Mateo and San Benito counties.

The site could also host a new sobering center operated in partnership with the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office.

The planned modular-bed facility would provide a place for individuals experiencing acute intoxication, offering an alternative to jail or emergency department visits, with medical monitoring.

“Our deputies regularly encounter individuals whose primary need is treatment and stabilization rather than incarceration,” said Santa Cruz County Sheriff Chris Clark. “The addition of a sobering center in South County, alongside expanded residential treatment at this facility, provides a critical new option for law enforcement.”

Janus leadership said the project reflects a broader shift toward building treatment infrastructure rather than relying solely on policy discussions.

“The time for talking is over,” said Board Chair Edison Jensen. “If we want to address those living on the streets, mental illness, and significant substance use disorders in Santa Cruz County, we need brick-and-mortar solutions.”

Janus CEO Amber Williams called the expansion a major step forward for the organization and the region.

“This is a transformational moment for our community,” Williams said. “With this new 120-bed residential campus in Watsonville—and the addition of a South County sobering center—we are dramatically expanding access to lifesaving treatment.”

The hotel property at 1620 W. Beach St. has a long history in Watsonville. Developed by local investors in the 1990s, the three-story, 95-room hotel opened in 1999 as a Red Roof Inn and employed about 20 local residents. It later operated as the Rodeway Inn and Pacific Coast Inn.

Former operator Chuck Allen said he supports the conversion and hopes it can eventually connect program graduates to job training opportunities.

“Recovery doesn’t end when someone completes treatment,” Allen said. “It continues with purpose, stability and meaningful work.”

Allen said he is exploring plans for nearby greenhouse and agricultural training programs that could provide workforce development opportunities for individuals completing treatment.

Former property owner Dhruv Patel also expressed support for the project.

“When I learned that Janus would be leading this transformation, I knew the property would be in the right hands,” Patel said. “This building will no longer just offer rooms — it will offer second chances.”

Renovations to the site are expected to begin immediately and will include upgrades needed to meet clinical, safety and licensing standards for residential treatment operations.

Founded nearly 50 years ago, Janus of Santa Cruz provides substance use disorder treatment and behavioral health services throughout the county. The Watsonville project represents one of the organization’s largest expansions and a significant addition to the region’s treatment infrastructure.

The nation’s oldest farmworker union announced that it has canceled all events celebrating labor organizer César Chávez after allegations surfaced that he sexually assaulted several women and girls.

“As a women-led organization that exists to empower communities, the allegations about abusive behavior by César Chávez go against everything that we stand for,” the United Farm Workers, or UFW, said in a statement published on its website. “These disturbing allegations involve inappropriate behavior by César Chávez with young women and minors. They are shocking, indefensible and something we are taking seriously.”

The announcement followed a New York Times investigation that found years of similar accusations.

In an Instagram post Wednesday, civil rights leader Dolores Huerta said Chávez forced her to have sex twice and that both encounters resulted in pregnancies.

“The first time I was manipulated and pressured into having sex with him, and I didn’t feel I could say no because he was someone that I admired, my boss and the leader of the movement I had already devoted years of my life to,” she said. “The second time I was forced, against my will, and in an environment where I felt trapped.”

The 96-year-old said she had remained silent for six decades out of fear that her story would hurt the movement to which she has dedicated her life.

“I had experienced abuse and sexual violence before, and I convinced myself these were incidents that I had to endure alone and in secret,” she said.

Chávez has become an icon in Mexican American culture, with roads and buildings nationwide named after him and elementary school lessons extolling his efforts to bring dignity and civil rights to farmworkers.

In a Facebook post Wednesday, Friends of Watsonville Parks and Community Services announced it has renamed the annual César Chávez Community Awards to the Watsonville Community Impact Awards.

“This decision reflects our responsibility to ensure that the recognition we provide continues to align with the values we stand for as a community,” the post states. “While this moment is disappointing, we will continue to turn to our community for strength, guidance and inspiration.”

The announcement has also thrown the celebrations of César Chávez on March 31 into question.

Santa Cruz County Office of Education spokesman Nick Ibarra said the Board of Education tabled a resolution it had planned to consider recognizing César Chávez Day.

Cabrillo College officials announced Thursday that they plan to ask the Board of Trustees to rename the college’s observance of the holiday to Farmworkers Rights Day.

“Cabrillo College is committed to fostering a community grounded in equity, respect, and the safety and dignity of everyone across our two campus locations in Aptos and Watsonville,” said Superintendent Jenn Capps. “By renaming this observance to Farmworkers Rights Day, we honor the collective strength and contributions of farmworkers while reaffirming our responsibility to support safe, inclusive spaces for all. We stand with survivors, and we remain dedicated to advancing justice through education, advocacy, and service.”

It was not clear whether any events in Santa Cruz County were scheduled or would be canceled.

Pajaro Valley Unified School District spokesman Alejandro Chavez said he was not aware of any events planned in the district.

The Pajaronian has reached out to César Chávez Middle School Principal Jason Rooney for comment.

Pajaro Valley Unified School District Trustee Gabe Medina said during the board’s Wednesday meeting that he plans to propose changing the school’s name to that of Huerta.

San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said the city has canceled events honoring Chávez.

“As the full scope of these allegations is investigated, we recognize that Chávez’s ties to San José come with a responsibility to ensure we are not further traumatizing survivors,” he said in a statement.

In a statement released Wednesday, Chávez’s family said it is “devastated” by the news.

“This is deeply painful for our family,” the statement reads. “We wish peace and healing to the survivors and commend their courage to come forward. As a family steeped in the values of equity and justice, we honor the voices of those who feel unheard and who report sexual abuse.”

The statement added that family members carry their own memories of Chávez, who they said is “someone whose life included work and contributions that matter deeply to many people.”

Monterey County Supervisor Luis Alejo said the allegations are “serious, deeply troubling, and demand our full attention.”

“We must approach this moment with a clear commitment to truth, accountability and justice,” Alejo said. “The voices of those who have come forward must be heard, respected and taken seriously.”

The pain being felt across the Latino community and beyond, Alejo said, cannot be dismissed or minimized.

“At the same time, we must be clear-eyed about history,” Alejo said. “The farmworker rights movement was never the work of one individual alone. It was built by thousands of courageous farmworkers, organizers and families who sacrificed, organized and fought for basic human dignity in the fields and beyond. Their legacy is real, and it endures.”

Sen. Alex Padilla called the accusations “heartbreaking, horrific accounts of abuse.”

“I stand with the survivors, commend them for their bravery in sharing their stories and condemn the abhorrent actions they described,” Padilla said. “The survivors deserve to be heard. They deserve to be supported. They deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.”

Santa Cruz County Supervisor Felipe Hernandez, whose district covers the Watsonville area, said the community in moments like this is “looking for honesty, accountability and compassion.”

“The allegations we are hearing are serious and painful, and we must ensure that those who come forward are treated with respect and supported every step of the way,” Hernandez said. “As we move forward, it’s also important to recognize that the legacy of the farmworker movement is rooted in the collective strength, sacrifice and resilience of countless workers and families — not any one individual. We can hold both truths at once: standing firmly with those seeking justice while continuing to uplift the values of dignity, fairness and respect that define our community.”