For those of us who are neither physicists nor artists, it’s easy to think that there is simply no Venn-diagram overlap between physics and art. But a new show in Santa Cruz called Fusion of Art and Physics aims to remind us that there are ways to build bridges between the two.
Fusion opens at the R. Blitzer Gallery on March 1 and features the results of 17 collaborations between visual artists and physicists. A couple of weeks after the show’s opening reception, both types of participants will share what they learned from each other in a panel discussion.
The show is the brainchild of UC Santa Cruz physicist Stephanie Bailey, who has attempted to blend lessons from the humanities into her teaching of physics. Bailey’s idea was to pair up a roster of Santa Cruz County artists with grad students and faculty in the physics department at UCSC. Like Jane Austen’s Emma, Bailey played matchmaker, looking for complementary interests between artists and physicists. Her own pairing put her with mosaic artist Beth Purcell. Together, Bailey and Purcell built mosaics on musical instruments to illustrate standing waves, the vibrational waveform often created in music.
“I don’t consider myself an artistic person at all,” says Bailey. “But I still very much welcomed working with an artist.”
Bailey’s sales pitch to her fellow physicists was audacious. Art, she told them, isn’t a distraction from science—it enhances it.
“I really believe that working with an artist can enrich the work of a physicist, lead them to think about their problems in new and different ways, and even create a few a-ha moments,” she says.
Santa Cruz sculptor Brad Burkhart didn’t need convincing. Burkhart’s partner on the physics side was Hendrik Ohldag, a physicist from the Stanford Synchotron Radiation Laboratory, where he studies magnetism. Burkhart entered the partnership already inspired by the landmark 1991 book Art and Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time and Light by San Francisco surgeon Leonard Shlain.
“I’ve always been interested in the overlap between the arts and the sciences,” says Burkhart. “It’s [Shlain’s] premise that art leads science by 50 years or so. Artists come up with a visual framework that is later discovered and proven by scientists.”
Inspired by the Gates of Paradise at the Baptistry of Florence, Burkhart turned his artistic attention to creating small bas-relief panels from high-fired clay that are similar to what he saw in Florence. Burkhart visited his scientist partner Ohldag in the physicist’s lab, and Ohldag returned the favor by visiting Burkhart during Open Studios. Eventually, Burkhart created a series of his relief panels guided by feedback and comments from Ohldag.
“I’m going to have a description of how we collaborated, and I’m going to have Hendrick’s comments on the four sculptures as well,” says Burkhart.
In the blog that has documented the collaborations over the past several months, glass artist Randie Silverstein says that her collaboration with physics grad student Alex McDaniel led to “an enormous breakthrough in my work, representing my first real attempt in the 10 years I’ve been doing glass art to truly explore the material further and to conceive of and manipulate it in ways I hadn’t before.”
For Bailey, the non-artist who found herself organizing an art show, Fusion is part of a mission to bring the concepts of physics to a wider public. “Art is a much more friendly and inviting way to attract people than physics,” she says. Of the work she created alongside mosaic artist Beth Purcell, she says that the artwork is more than a few pieces of aesthetic pleasure. “I consider them extraordinary teaching tools, something I can bring into the classroom to convey an important concept in physics.”
‘Fusion of Art and Physics’ runs through March. Opening reception is Friday, March 1, 5-9 p.m. Artist and physicist panel discussion on Saturday, March 16, noon-2 p.m. R. Blitzer Gallery, 2801 Mission St. Extension, Santa Cruz. slbailey109.wixsite.com/fusion/blog.
Update: Feb. 20, 2019 — This article previously misstated the curator of the ‘Fusion of Art and Physics show. The curator is artist Tauna Coulson.
Quintessential Americana, the burger—grilled meat on a bun—was already on the menu at many an Elizabethan feast in the late 16th century.
Minced meat and pastry have been around for even longer. The German port of Hamburg seems to have lent its name, at first to versions of steak tartare, then to variations on Salisbury steak, and finally in the 1930s to the hamburger as we know it now.
Countless individuals, cities and fast-food chains claim to be the originators of what has become a global go-to order—with a side of fries, of course. Here’s an inside look at some of my local favorites ahead of Burger Week, which this year runs Feb. 20-26.
West End Tap & Kitchen: One of the best burgers I’ve ever had in Santa Cruz was at West End Tap, where the house burger—grass-fed and pasture-raised—came on a Gayle’s challah bun ($13). Slightly sweet, the bun added a spot of luxury to the burger’s lettuce, tomato and pickled onion toppings. It came with fries so good that I laughed out loud as I ate every single one. Cheddar, blue cheese, mushrooms, avocado, bacon—for a few dollars more, you can add any of these choice extras. This particular burger already has it going on. The beef is terrific. The fries are textbook. I admit that I never fail to order the house pickles with the burger, since the sinus-clearing tartness of the pickles cuts perfectly through the rich meat. Add a beer. Spend some time. Check out the NBA.
515 Kitchen and Cocktails: Here we have the classic burger of the post-Whopper era: a half-pound of Angus beef, plus swiss cheese (nice choice, adds a certain nuttiness), with the now-ubiquitous caramelized onions, sherry aioli and bacon. Bacon is the extra touch here. It announces that this is a very people-friendly burger—a burger that acknowledges the universal guilty pleasure that is bacon. The house fries here, as you know, are thin, crisp and delicious.
Gabriella Cafe: Take a walk on the wild side and order the “unbun” version of the house grass-fed burger, which arrives wrapped in a cloud of butter lettuce. Or play it safe with the Burger Week-featured, 6-ounce, grass-fed burger on a house-made bun with organic tomato and local lettuce ($12). Just sort of unbelievably good, with or without the bun. And don’t miss the side of Live Earth Farm pickles for $1 more. Endless possibilities.
Mozaic: You have a choice of three burgers here this week, including the luscious house wild salmon burger, which is simply to die for with its honey Dijon and caramelized onions. The classic charbroiled Angus beef burger also comes with caramelized onions (both will run you a mere $12). The $10 veggie burger comes with provolone and fresh basil pesto, which sounds good even to a carnivore.
Red Restaurant and Bar: Here’s the burger I need to try this week: Red’s pistachio-encrusted crab patty with aioli, kimchi, arugula, and heirloom tomato. On a brioche bun with fries ($12). For the uninitiated, Red’s fries are a destination dish. Yes.
Splash: This Santa Cruz Wharf spot is going all out in terms of gonzo spicing for Burger Week. In addition to an Impossible Burger and a crab cake burger, the kitchen here has stepped up the heat on its half-pound black Angus burger by adding green chile cheese and spicy BBQ sauce to its presentation. Fried shallots add crunch to the melting, gooey interior. All burgers here run a mere $10 for those of you who like it cheap (and who doesn’t?)
Caroline Rose really wishes she could make her first album disappear.
It kind of makes sense. The 2014 record, I Will Not Be Afraid, sounds nothing like her follow up, Loner, which was released four years later to much acclaim. Artists change and grow all the time, but this is like two different people. I Will Not Be Afraid is a somber, Americana-roots record, while Loner is a schizophrenic, synth-heavy, indie-pop record injected with a lot of humor.
“It’s a little confusing for people. I don’t really want it to be heard in conjunction with this record, but that’s out of my control,” Rose says. “It’s unfortunate that I can’t go back in time and redo that. I would probably do it differently if I had the chance. I should have waited to put out that album, which probably would have sounded way different if I would have recorded it six months later.”
In the years between albums, she dealt with a lot of personal issues and career issues—including with her label and management—that kept her from releasing new music.
“I didn’t even know if I was going to have a career. I think all the things happening were really valuable life experiences,” Rose says.
That forced hiatus, which she refers to as having her ego “stripped,” gave her a chance to re-evaluate who she was an artist and what she wanted to say. Loner is an incredibly diverse record—surf-punk at moments, low-fi avante-synth-pop at others, with radio-friendly dance pop also in there.
There’s really nothing tying it together except her, and she sounds much more comfortable in this setting than as an acoustic-guitar-slinging Americana troubadour.
“The crux was to make an album that sounds like all the different sides of my personality. The glue of these songs is that it’s written from an honest place,” Rose says. “It’s vignettes, like different parts of my life. Now when I listen to it, I think I succeeded in creating something that sounds like my personality.”
It was a long process getting there. She worked with four different producers, and she learned a lot from each of them. Now she’s confident enough to be her own producer, and she has a bunch of material already ready for her next album.
In the process of writing Loner, she had a fundamental shift in perspective.
“I came to realize being a musician is more than just songs to me. How I decorate the stage, how the live show feels and what the music videos look like. I think I just became way more developed in the whole form of artistry, rather than just writing songs,” Rose says. “I feel so much more liberated now.”
As she worked on material for what would be Loner, Rose struggled to find her sound. But she was inspired by musician friends who were brave and creative. During her Americana days, she thought she needed to not listen to other people’s music, out of fear that she would sound like everyone else. Then she realized these influences were pushing her in new and exciting ways.
“I had enough of those little nudges here and there that I was like, ‘You know what? I can just combine all this stuff.’ Just put it in a blender and put a little drink umbrella on it. You don’t have to choose just one thing,” Rose says. “I think Beck is really good at that. He took all of his favorite things and all his favorite styles, and he injected his humor and personality into it. That’s what people latch onto is the personality.”
Caroline Rose will perform at 9 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 27 at Crepe Place, 1134 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $15. 429-6994.
Burrell School Vineyards has the perfect wine to celebrate Valentine’s Day and the coming weekend: a Cabernet Franc-Merlot blend called “Sweethearts.” Winemaker and winery owner Dave Moulton and his late wife Anne were high-school sweethearts, and this wine honors her memory.
Moulton is well known for producing big, bold wines, each one named after a school theme in recognition of the historic 1890 schoolhouse where the winery is located.
The 2016 Cab Franc-Merlot blend ($39) has a gorgeous aromatic nose of cherries, raspberries, blackberries, dark earth, and spice, with hints of smoky oak. Sweet tobacco and anise notes abound in this voluptuous, fruity blend. Both wines in the blend are aged in French oak.
“These two grape varietals were made for each other,” says Moulton. “Cab Franc for its sleek, spicy character, and Merlot for big cherry and espresso flavors.”
Burrell School Vineyards tasting room is open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday through Sunday, so grab your sweetheart and pay them a visit.
Burrell School Vineyards, 24060 Summit Rd., Los Gatos, 408-353-6290. Burrellschool.com.
Alderwood Spirits
Alderwood opened in downtown Santa Cruz to much acclaim, and a dinner I recently enjoyed there was top notch. To pair with executive chef Jeffrey Wall’s stunning cuisine, Alderwood carries a splendid array of spirits and fine wines.
Try a glass of Taittinger champagne, the perfect partner for Alderwood’s array of ultra-fresh oysters, and add a grand finale to your meal with the sweet Chateau Pajzos Aszu 5 Tokaji from Hungary. Alderwood’s steaks are outstanding, and their menu reflects the abundant produce of the Central Coast.
Their welcoming bar is ideal for one of Alderwood’s very impressive cocktails, or just a glass of wine and a snack. Happy Hour from 4-6:30 p.m. is when select wines are only $6 and select bar snacks are $9.
And please don’t miss the wheatberry malt profiterole with dark chocolate sauce for dessert. Wall even makes the malt himself—and who goes to those lengths these days? This talented chef leaves no truffle unturned to create an outstanding dining experience.
Alderwood, 155 Walnut Ave., Santa Cruz. 588-3238, alderwoodsantacruz.com
Standing in the middle of his open, subway-tiled kitchen, chef Matt McNamara hesitates to assign a title to his position at his new Soquel restaurant Pretty Good Advice. Like the other members of his team—most of whom he coaxed down to the Santa Cruz area from his Michelin-star restaurant in San Francisco, Sons & Daughters—McNamara does a little bit of everything.
But his passion for the local area, and the incredible produce he’s able to grow at his 83-acre farm in the Santa Cruz Mountains, is the root of his new hyper-local, fast-casual dining spot, which opened in mid-January.
What would make a successful chef move from San Francisco to Soquel? McNamara explains that while preparing multi-course tasting menus was stimulating, he saw that his friends often couldn’t afford the $150 experience. So he decided to create a more approachable restaurant with the same creative, seasonal ethos. “We want to feed our friends. We want to do something that’s just about the food,” says McNamara.
His farm, where for the last five years he has raised animals, tended orchards and grown a perennial bounty of produce, from mushrooms to greens to chilis, is the backbone of Pretty Good Advice. Making everything from scratch gives him and his team total control of flavors and encourages collaboration.
That vision was appealing to husband and wife team Jen and Alex Jackson, who were looking for a community that they felt they didn’t have in San Francisco. “Everything we use in S.F. is grown down here, so why not go to the source?” says Alex, who manages savory menu items and creates delicious charcuterie at Pretty Good Advice. “Matt’s passion for what he grows makes us want to be really smart with our dishes,” adds Jen, who works fruits and herbs from McNamara’s farm into sweet and savory pastries and breads.
Layers of flavor, texture and freshness elevate everything on the menu, which offers breakfast items, sandwiches, salads, soups, and sides ranging from $3 to $12. All items are available all day for takeout or dining in. Tim Oegema, who helped bring PGA’s hip modern aesthetic to life, emphasizes a desire for the restaurant to be a gathering place: “We want to be a place where our friends and community can come every day.”
If you only pay attention to the mainstream media, you’d think the battle over the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals(DACA) program was very far away indeed. Most recently, the status of the Dreamers—who have been without legal protection since President Trump rescinded DACA in 2017—has been discussed mainly as a bargaining chip in the Washington, D.C. government shutdown showdown. The conversation about the issue has gotten so mired in horse-race political coverage (Will Trump dangle the promise of the Dream Act to get his wall? Will Democrats offer funding in order to secure a path to citizenship for Dreamers?) that the fact this is a story about the fate of real people who are in a frightening immigration limbo often gets completely lost.
That’s what’s great about Andrea Patton’s cover story this week—it reorients the Dreamer story back to where it belongs. She focuses on Gabriela Cruz, and there’s so much we can learn about the Dream Act issue from Cruz’s personal experience. Because Cruz isn’t just some pawn in a Washington political chess game. She’s a member of our community who grew up here and is now fighting for her right to remain in this country. Make no mistake, the Dreamer story is a Santa Cruz story.
Thank you, Good Times, for publishing information about Monarch butterflies and caterpillars from Priyanka Runwall of UCSC and from Santa Cruz couple David and Janell Emberson. There is currently a dilemma and a controversy illustrated by the different approaches of Runwall and the Embersons.
Runwall advised against disrupting the butterflies’ migration pattern by raising them here, whereas the Embersons pointed out that Monarchs’ numbers are rapidly plummeting, and they believe their activities raising them inside their home are beneficial. The couple check the chrysalids and caterpillars for signs of fly and wasp parasites. That is good as far as it goes, and the Embersons’ practice of cutting back their milkweed in the winter months is also standard recommended procedure to avoid possible interruption of the migration cycle.
But besides infection with fly and wasp parasites, there is another disease called OE (Ophryocystis elektroscirrha) which affects many Monarchs raised in Santa Cruz. OE can be present in a newly emerged, apparently healthy Monarch, and this parasite is visible only under a microscope from a specimen taken from the adult Monarch butterfly. Checking for this parasite after the butterfly emerges from chrysalis is the only way for those who raise Monarchs to ensure that they do not release butterflies to spread the disease in the wild.
Those who do raise Monarchs in their homes or gardens here in Santa Cruz should know that because most milkweed we have here is the non-native tropical kind, it does not shed its leaves in winter, making it more likely to harbor the OE parasite and to infect the butterflies. You can bring home-raised Monarch caterpillars or butterflies to Natural Bridges State Beach Visitor Center, where the naturalists will test them for OE. The phone number is 831-423-4609, address 2531 West Cliff.
Carol Long
Santa Cruz
Re: Divorce Dress
I have been excruciatingly grateful in my commitment to my husband for the last 18 years. Alongside my wedding dress in our hall closet are my two wedding dresses from my two ex-husbands, whom I share three children with, yet my now-husband has raised since very young ages. I have tried the dresses on a few times with my best friend during our girls’ night and had hilarious, deep, educating, eye-opening, nostalgic conversations while dancing around our living room with my children.
All five of my kids find my past history of weddings fascinating, and ask the oddest questions including, “Did you cry at your other weddings?” “Did you write your own vows?” “Which wedding did you have the best first kiss?” And other questions on and on.
It is quite fun to talk about my three weddings with our kids now that they are young adults.
— Amy Anderson
Re: Jump Bike Backlash
I love bicycles and think they are a fantastic way to avoid driving, but the Jump Bikes have got to go or at least be regulated. Yes there was plenty of “special” bicycling happening all around SC before the JBs arrived, but I would absolutely argue there is even more horrible cycling now. Every day I drive in SC and see underage kids on Jump Bikes who are usually either riding on the sidewalk or against the flow of traffic. I see the ugly neon bikes flying in and out of Santa Cruz High School, and I really doubt all the kids I see doing this are 18 but still in high school. There are more important things than Jump Bikes, yet people are obviously more upset about the bikes than many other issues. Perhaps the outcry is because so many people are affected by them in a negative manner. Jump Bikes are a great concept that has been, so far, ruined by the people using the system. Of course there are quite a few ideas that look good on paper, but quickly fall apart when you put real people in the equation. Kinda like democracy?
— Gabe
PHOTO CONTEST WINNER
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GOOD IDEA
Branciforte Middle School teacher Kathy Sandidge invited Danny Wright, the executive director of the nonprofit Gravity Water, to her Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) class to talk humanitarian aid. The students were inspired, and they decided to launch a fundraiser and adopt a school in Nepal in order to provide clean drinking water. Students will host the halftime show of a Santa Cruz Warriors game on Wednesday, March 20. Proceeds from the tickets the middle schoolers are selling will go to Gravity Water.
GOOD WORK
The Santa Cruz Boys and Girls Club has started celebrating its 50th anniversary. As part of the fun, it’s preparing for a “Dancing through the Decades” gala, which will be held from 6-11 p.m. on March 23 at the Museum of Art & History. Organizers encourage guests to wear costumes representing decades from 1960-2010. Tickets are $126. A recent announcement also launched an alumni club for the club’s 30,000 former members, who now even have their own alumni Facebook group.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.”
Live music highlights for the week of Feb. 13, 2019
WEDNESDAY 2/13
ROCK
RON GALLO
A true Philly phreak, Ron Gallo is like the answer to the unasked question, “What do you get if you cross Fidlar with the B-52s?” Surfy, trashy and explosive, Gallo’s rock has a lot of the same forward momentum as Fidlar, without the air of music industry poserdom that wafts off those Angelenos. Then there’s Gallo’s playfulness, the weirdo trash-Beatles moments, and the voice-cracking rants reminiscent of ol’ Fred Schneider himself. It’s a little obnoxious, but that’s the point. MIKE HUGUENOR
INFO: 9 p.m. The Catalyst, 1011 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. $16 adv/$18 door. 429-4135.
THURSDAY 2/14
ROCK
THE IKE WILLIS PROJECT
You can’t spell “Romance” without “r,” “a,” or “n,” all of which appear in the name “Frank,” like Frank Zappa. Coincidence? I doubt it. Ike Willis, longtime Zappa sideman, knows this, which is why he scheduled his Santa Cruz show for Valentine’s Day, the most RomANtic night of the year. Having played on nearly all of Zappa’s albums from 1978-88, Willis’ guitar and voice were critical to Zap’s freaky formula, especially on Joe’s Garage, which featured Willis as “Joe.” MH
After a 10-year hiatus from her decades-long career, singer-songwriter and bassist Laura Love is back with her signature sound of sparse, impassioned, from-the-heart blend of folk and funk. Her sweet, even-tempered vocals underscore simple and soulful tunes that might be considered “softies” until her blunt lyrics smash through to the forefront and demand that the listener confronts the realities of trauma and loss. Love’s melodic voice comes in handy in these more traumatic moments, holding the listener’s hand, promising them that once they pass through the darkness, there will be light on the other side. AMY BEE
INFO: 7:30 p.m., Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $25. 423-8209.
FRIDAY 2/15
INDIE-FOLK
Y LA BAMBA
Latin-folk indie auteur Luz Elena Mendoza weaves the traditional with the universal—and distills it through personal experience—with her band Y La Bamba. It would be easy to focus merely on her superb, often-eccentric stylings of retro cumbia, mariachi, multicultural storytelling, and indie-folk leanings. But to Mendoza, the music (however catchy and pleasing to the ear) is a means to express the adventures and perils of exploring identity, especially her own. Y La Bamba is all about confronting narrative—who gets to tell the story and define identity, and what happens when a person decides that they are the author of their own tale. AB
Some know him as Turbo. Others know him as an alien among human beings. Whatever you call Oliver Tree, this local-turned-underground-pop-star returns to his roots the day after Valentine’s Day to save our wretched souls. Tree has shed blood, sweat and tears in creating danceably dark pop songs that float, like a large cloud of cotton candy vapor, between hip-hop and electronic. Bust out those Jnco pants, buy plenty of Flaming Hot Cheetos and make sure your bowl cut is on point, because royalty is coming and he’s bringing his freshest Dixie Cup attire. MAT WEIR
INFO: 9 p.m. Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $18. 423-8209.
SATURDAY 2/16
INDIE
DANIEL ROMANO
Canadian indie singer-songwriter Daniel Romano released three albums last year. The first two, Nerveless and Human Touch, were released at the same time, and without warning. The third, Finally Free, came out near the end of the year and is one of his oddest releases to date. His normal appetite for psych-folk songwriting is on display, but he lets himself stray from the confines of “being in tune,” and just goes along with a his most bizarre, off-kilter impulses. And guess what? It’s really compelling and emotive. AC
For those who have ever wanted to experience the grinding chaos that it is to be devoured, look no further than Massachusetts duo Eaten. Their second release, which is self-titled, dropped in 2017, and is a brutal assault on every human sense, especially decency. On Feb. 16, they will rain terror upon the Blue Lagoon, along with Oakland headbangers Choke and XHOSTAGEX, and local heshers Dead War. As an added bonus, Santa Cruz’s own Chitlvn will make their blasphemous debut. MW
INFO: 8 p.m. Blue Lagoon, 923 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. $5. 423-7117.
MONDAY 2/18
JAZZ
THE BAD PLUS
All too often, jazz bands are ephemeral aggregations, with even the most dedicated outfits sometimes performing with subs covering for players working other gigs. For almost two decades, the Bad Plus served as exhibit A, demonstrating the power of group unity via bassist Reid Anderson, drummer Dave King and pianist Ethan Iverson. Iverson’s departure last year, and the arrival of Orrin Evans—a commanding improviser with an Afrocentric style—has recalibrated the collective’s sound. The trio captured the moment of transition with last year’s Never Stop II. ANDREW GILBERT
INFO: 7 p.m. Kuumbwa Jazz, 320-2 Cedar St., Santa Cruz. $36.75 adv/$42 door. 427-2227.
He’s popular around the holidays in his longtime role as a local Santa. He used to own a hot dog stand on the wharf. And as a founder of the Ukulele Club, he’s made Santa Cruz a mini-mecca for the instrument.
“I’ve been playing ukulele since way before it was cool,” Tuzzi says.
The Ukulele Club led him to his band, Cruz Control, which started in 2010 when he and fellow band members Stan Parola and Gary Cunningham met there and started jamming.
“Everybody always said, ‘It sounds like you guys have been playing together forever.’ But we’re all retired. We all came from the ’60s and the same kind of music,” Tuzzi says.
Tuzzi has been playing music for 50 years (he started playing the ukulele 25 years ago), but there’s something special for him about Cruz Control. The band does covers and plays a diverse list of songs that is generally inspired by reminiscing on the music members grew up loving.
They have a pool of over 400 songs loaded onto their iPad. All they need to do on a given night is pull the sheet music up on the screen, and away they go.
“It’s a pretty special set up between the three of us. We play everything from Sir Douglas Quintet’s ‘She’s a Mover’ to Boz Scaggs ‘Fly Like a Bird,’” Tuzzi says. “That’s a pretty wide array of things you’d want to hear. Basically, it’s Americana.”
INFO: 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 20. Michael’s on Main, 2591 Main St., Soquel. $10. 479-9777.
Some salamanders and frogs have tongues up to 10 times as long as their bodies, and the world’s largest salamander can grow to a length of 5 feet. Discover some of the secretive salamanders that live in the redwood forest, and learn all about salamander life cycles, behaviors, adaptations, and the current threats they face. The trip totals about 2 miles. Don’t forget to bring water and hiking shoes.
INFO: Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park Visitor Center, 101 N Big Trees Park Road., Felton. 335-7077. Free/vehicle day use $10.
Art Seen
Random With A Purpose XXVII: Via
UCSC’s annual student dance production Random With A Purpose is a collaboratively student-run and student-created dance production. Now in its 27th year, choreographers create dances about an ongoing process or one which they have experienced, presenting the audience with a changing and developing environment to exhibit the various ways we are influenced by the spaces we navigate.
INFO: 7:30 p.m., 3 p.m, Sunday matinees. Friday, Feb. 15-Sunday, Feb. 24. UCSC Second Stage Theater Arts Center, 1156 High St., Santa Cruz. ucsctickets.com. $18/$5 parking. Photo: Photo by Stephen Louis Marino.
Thursday 2/14-Saturday 2/16
‘What Is Erotic? I See You/Te Veo’
The 418 Project’s latest show focuses on their annual V-Day question: what is erotic? In the spirit of this year’s focus on viewpoints, the all-volunteer cast and crew wants to showcase different perspectives. Now in its 14th season, What Is Erotic? puts local artists’ brave, original, sometimes-poignant, and sometimes-funny reflections on view with pole dance, spoken word, burlesque, theater, and more.
INFO: 7:30 p.m. The 418 Project, 418 Front St., Santa Cruz. 466-9770, the418project.com. $25-125.
Monday 2/18
‘Marlon James: Black Leopard, Red Wolf’
New York Times bestselling author Marlon James comes to Santa Cruz to talk about his latest novel Black Leopard, Red Wolf. The book includes a colorful cast of characters, like a shapeshifting man-animal, a monstrous eater of human flesh, witches, roof-walkers, murderous hyenas, trolls, mermaids, and conjoined twins.
INFO: 7 p.m. Bookshop Santa Cruz, 1520 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. 423-0900, bookshopsantacruz.com. Free. Photo: Mark Seliger.
Thursday 2/21-Sunday 2/24
43rd Banff Mountain Film Festival
The annual Banff Mountain Film Festival is traveling to some 400 communities around the world. From an exploration of remote landscapes and mountain cultures to adrenaline-fueled action sports, this year’s world tour is making a pit stop in Santa Cruz to bring stories of distance runners and skiers, beavers and grizzlies. Benefits the UCSC Wilderness Orientation Scholarship Fund.
INFO: 7 p.m. Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. 423-8209, riotheatre.com. $18-22.
Under the towering eucalyptus trees in the Monarch grove at Natural Bridges, Gabriela Cruz and her 5-year-old classmates were doing their best to follow their Head Start teacher’s instructions to let the butterflies sleep in peace. That didn’t last long. A clattering sound from something hitting the wood platform under their feet triggered an eruption of black and orange, delighting the young crowd.
After that, Cruz always looked forward to the annual Bay View Elementary School field trip to the sanctuary, studying metamorphosis and the importance of the grove in providing shelter for the butterflies in their long annual migration. So it only seemed natural last year for Cruz, now 29, to don a pair of Monarch-colored wings to cement her own transformation into an activist, joining a group of fellow first-generation immigrant “Dreamers” at the nation’s Capitol to protest President Donald Trump’s hardline anti-immigration policies.
Cruz, who still lives in Santa Cruz and now works full-time as a community organizer for the group United We Dream (UWD), is undocumented. Her mom brought her to the U.S. from Oaxaca, Mexico, when she was 1 year old. This is the only country she has ever known.
In 2012, Cruz was awarded legal protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Her grandmother, also firmly rooted in the community, started the annual week-long festival Las Posadas, of processions reenacting Joseph and Mary’s search for shelter for the birth of their baby, Jesus, and Cruz now continues the Christmas tradition.
On September 5, 2017, when the Trump administration reversed the protected status for Dreamers like Cruz and rescinded DACA, she and 800,000 other recipients had already undergone rigorous vetting and given the government information about every aspect of their lives. Cruz was working at a downtown bank when she heard the news. She was terrified when she thought about what might happen next.
“It could have been the worst-case scenario, like tomorrow they are going to show up at my house or at my work and find me, because they have all of that information,” Cruz says. “Luckily that didn’t happen, but that was a fear, and it was a realistic fear.”
Santa Cruz, with its border on the Pacific Ocean, is well within the 100-mile zone where U.S. Border Patrol is able to operate random immigration checkpoints. The U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment is supposed to protect Americans from arbitrary stops and searches, but undocumented residents in the area increasingly find themselves at risk of being targeted by law enforcement under a previously unenforced regulation that was passed in 1953 without any public comment or debate.
Devastated but determined after the sudden reversal on DACA a year and a half ago, Cruz stumbled across an announcement on Facebook that protesters would be gathering at the clock tower in downtown Santa Cruz. She had never attended a protest, but that day she brought her cousins, her niece and a few friends. It was there that she spoke openly about being undocumented for the first time, in front of a crowd of about 50 strangers.
As news began to spread about what was happening with DACA, Cruz felt it was important for people to hear directly from someone who would be impacted by the decision. “I was just at such a low place emotionally,” Cruz says. “I felt like I had nothing to lose because everything I had been working towards my entire life—being stable and thriving in this community—is being taken from me.”
Miriam Stombler, a retired attorney who worked for the San Francisco City Attorney’s office, and later for the Santa Cruz County Counsel’s office, was at the clock tower that day. Stombler says that when Trump was elected, she felt the need to go back on active status, reactivating her bar license to help immigrants who are being affected by his administration’s policies. She met Cruz after she shared her story with the crowd.
“As I got to know her,” Stombler says, “I got to realize what a leap that was for her—from living quietly, never talking about her status, to suddenly bursting out with this passion for justice. I’m just astounded and enthralled with how she has grown.”
Stombler had also been considering offering shelter to a person or family in need. After she heard Cruz speak, she approached her with a hug and an offer of a place to stay if she needed one.
”I was overwhelmed by the fact that this person I didn’t know would open her doors to me,” Cruz says. “The fact that this woman was offering me her home to hide in, essentially, it was also like, ‘Holy shit, this is really happening, right?’ We all don’t know what’s going to happen to me. It was comforting to know that someone was so loving to open her doors to me, but it was also the scariest thing of my life.”
STANDING UP
Stombler also introduced Cruz to Sanctuary Santa Cruz, an immigrant rights group. Soon, Cruz was managing the group’s Facebook page. After that, she started planning her first trip to Washington, D.C., where she would meet a group of young immigrant activists from all over the country who were making their voices heard in Congress as members of immigrant advocacy group United We Dream.
Cruz and her fellow Dreamers wore orange-and-black Monarch wings as they gathered in a rotunda at the Capitol to push for a “clean” Dream Act. The Dream Act was introduced in 2017 as bipartisan legislation that provides a pathway to citizenship for the 2 million immigrant youth and young adults who came to the U.S. as kids, including the 800,000 DACA recipients who were left in limbo when the program was rescinded in September 2017. A “clean” act would not include additional conditions, such as funding for a border wall or increased law enforcement targeted at immigrants tacked on.
Cruz promised her mom that she would not get arrested in D.C., and she kept that promise—on her first visit, anyway. The weight of the situation started to sink in during a visit to the Holocaust Museum, and as she watched members of Bend the Arc Jewish Action stage a protest with songs of liberation from Jewish internment camps.
“They understood what was happening back then is happening now,” Cruz says. “It’s not something they wanted to just sit back and watch.” Knowing that others were willing to risk arrest for Dreamers was emotional, she said. “I cried my whole face off.”
As Cruz became immersed in the world of activism—volunteering for Sanctuary Santa Cruz, joining activist groups on social media, meeting young adults from across the nation who shared similar stories—she thought back to growing up in Santa Cruz, “a goody two shoes” who avoided any risk of getting in trouble. “For so long, I was walking on eggshells trying to be this perfect person worthy of citizenship,” Cruz said. “I thought, ‘If I never commit a crime, they can never call me a criminal.’”
TRUTH TO POWER Gabriela Cruz speaks in the office of Rep. Nancy Pelosi.
One of Trump’s most common refrains is that immigrants who come here illegally commit crimes. While this feeds his political base and helps justify racist policy proposals like border walls and increased deportations, a wide array of research concludes that it is simply not true that immigrants commit more crimes. A recent New York Times article based on a comprehensive study by four universities reported that while immigration rates have grown steadily in the past few decades, plateauing more recently, crime rates during the same period have declined. The national violent crime rate today is well below what it was in the 1980s.
Cruz’s anxiety went out the window on her second trip to D.C. a year ago, when she was arrested during a planned protest demanding the inclusion of a clean Dream Act in a deal to fund the government. She knew when she left Santa Cruz that she would participate in civil disobedience that would likely result in her arrest. Her spotless criminal record passed the test of the criminal and immigration attorneys who screened protestors for the action.
“Our people are being found in cages already, so it was to show what was happening and that our lives are in danger,” Cruz says. “And yes, we are taking a risk, but we are taking a stand against injustice.”
Growing up, Cruz was taught that bad people are criminals. But she now realized that entire populations could also be criminalized with political rhetoric. “Being called criminal simply because my mom fled a country where she didn’t see a future for me to offer me a better life—to call her a criminal, it really hurt,” Cruz says.
As Cruz and her fellow Dreamers gathered in the rotunda of the congressional building last year, it initially felt like the other actions she had been a part of. But when the Capitol police gave a third warning to move from the area or be arrested, things got real. Cruz and about 80 others stood chanting “Undocumented, Unafraid” and sang the song “We Shall Not be Moved.” Those who didn’t want to be arrested went up the stairs to watch over them from above. As Cruz looked up and saw some of her friends crying, she became emotional. “I remember thinking, ‘Don’t cry, because they’re going to think you’re scared, and you’re not scared. You’re fine. So just stay strong and keep chanting,’” she says.
Cruz was the first person to be arrested. Her arresting officer removed her wings and put zip ties around her wrists with shaking hands. “I kind of felt like, ‘You’re nervous. I’m scared. We’re kind of in this together in a sense. Which is a weird feeling to have for someone who obviously has authority over you and is about to arrest you,” she says.
“The funny thing is I wanted to be a police officer at one point. When I realized I wasn’t going to be going to law school, I thought, ‘Well, maybe I could be a police officer,’ so at Cabrillo I took almost all of the criminal justice classes.”
The activists were detained for about five hours in a freezing warehouse before they were released and fined $50 each. Afterword, while she and her fellow protestors were eating dinner together, Cruz asked the person sitting next to her if he had ever been arrested. “Yes,” he told her, “but never for something so important.”
‘WHITE LIES’
Cruz was in middle school when she found out that she wasn’t documented. Teachers and students were preparing for an 8th grade field trip to Washington, D.C. when her mom broke the news to her. She couldn’t travel because she wasn’t a U.S. citizen, and the risk of that being discovered was too great.
It was a jarring discovery for a young person who had developed a deep sense of patriotism thanks to a 6th grade teacher at Bay View Elementary, Donna Merlotti. Cruz was in Ms. Merlotti’s class on Sept. 11, 2001. Merlotti, who has since passed away, had asked students to write letters and send care packages to firefighters who cleaned up the wreckage, sometimes to a soundtrack of Mariah Carey’s song “Hero.”
“We would read the newspaper every day. I think that’s where I started to read about politics that were happening around the world and got more interested in it,” Cruz says. “She really taught us so much more than what you would normally learn in school. She taught us to have good, moral character, and how to behave.”
Not being able to go to Washington with her classmates stung, but Cruz really started to internalize the stakes of being undocumented in high school. Staying motivated with her future uncertain was difficult, and her grades suffered during freshman and sophomore year.
“I remember having this argument with my mom about my grades one time. I said, ‘Why does it even matter?’” Cruz recalls. “Why does it matter if at the end of this, I could work so hard for something and one, we can’t afford me going to a four-year college, and two, I can’t go because I’m undocumented?’”
Still, Cruz became captain of the cheerleading team at Santa Cruz High. In her “little bubble,” avoiding parties or anything that might get her in the slightest bit of trouble, she often didn’t have anyone to talk to about what was really going on. Her friends and teachers didn’t know, and there was no visible support for students in similar situation.
“I had to come up with these little white lies as to why I couldn’t get a job, or I could get a job in certain places, but not anywhere like anybody else,” Cruz says. “I couldn’t get a driver’s license, and I used to say, ‘Well, I don’t really need a car.’”
There is no telling exactly how many students in Santa Cruz County are undocumented. Collecting that information at schools is a violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. Still, there are indicators of how many local residents are directly impacted by shifting immigration policies. At the time DACA was rescinded in 2017, there were 1,700 DACA recipients in Santa Cruz County, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Cruz’s grades rebounded in her junior year, and she wanted to take an honors U.S. History class. Cruz says a counselor discouraged her. Getting a C in civics was admittedly not great, but it also didn’t seem disqualifying.
“She didn’t know that my mom was a single parent to four girls and whenever my little sister was sick, I would have to stay home from school to take care of her so my mom could go to work,” Cruz said. “She didn’t know that I had an after-school job and I cheered and I was undocumented.” It hurt to think that “no one else cared enough to ask,” assuming that she just didn’t want to do her homework, or wasn’t smart enough.
Under A.B. 60 in California, undocumented residents can now get a driver’s license, but not much else has changed for students. They still can’t get jobs and aren’t eligible for most scholarships. Higher education is more accessible for those who can pay for it through the California Dream Act and A.B. 540, the in-state-tuition law that allows students to pay in-state-tuition instead of out-of-state tuition if they attended at least three years of high school in California.
Rather than discouraging her, the honor’s class where Cruz would learn about civil disobedience became a catalyst to prove the counselor—and everyone else—wrong. “I just remember my ears burning. They were so red and hot just because I was so mad that she told me, like, ‘You’re too stupid to take this class,’” Cruz says.
She told the counselor that if she didn’t let her take the class, she was going to go to another counselor. “I ended up getting an A in that class,” Cruz says, setting her up to finish high school early with a 3.5 GPA. She then went to Cabrillo College, working full-time to pay for it, while also applying for DACA.
After six months of waiting to hear whether she would be awarded DACA or denied the stability that the program offered—all the while leaving her personal information in the hands of the government—Cruz got the good news. She saw an opportunity to live as an independent adult who could apply for an apartment without being asked why she didn’t have a social security card. Now she could build credit and provide a credit score in a rental application and move out of her mom’s house. She took a break from her college education to work at the bank full time, and she didn’t go back.
LIFE DEFERRED
Cruz recently returned to Santa Cruz from an internship with United We Dream in Los Angeles, where she worked with other immigrant youth on a civic engagement campaign to get out the vote in the 2018 primary elections. She covered notoriously red corners of Orange County to help turn the entire county blue—an undertaking that received national attention. Next, she went to Modesto, where she joined the United Farm Workers union to help elect pro-immigrant rights Democrat Josh Harder to Congress.
“She gave up the safety of her job to pursue social justice work,” Stombler says. “I have the impression from getting to know her that she’s always played it very safely, and now she’s just following this spark that’s been ignited in her. She’s really extraordinary. This activist has been ignited in her.”
Quitting her job to become a full-time activist was easier with Cruz’s growing support network. Stombler introduced her to Vicki Winters, a web design consultant and Sanctuary Santa Cruz member, who Cruz worked up the courage to ask to go in her place to protest child detention centers in Tornillo, Texas. Though Cruz was helping UWD organize the protest, she needed a U.S. citizen to stand in for her because it was on federal property so close to the border. Winters agreed.
“She was in over 100-degree weather—in the heat and melting ice on her face because it was so hot during this action—waiting to get arrested,” Cruz says. “I’ll never forget that she was willing to put herself on the line for me personally, and people like me.”
STILL DREAMING There has been a wave of activism nationwide since President Donald Trump rescinded DACA in 2017.
Winters did not get end up getting arrested. Partly, she thinks, because local law enforcement there also did not support the camps. Though it is not a new U.S. policy to detain unaccompanied minors, Winters says she saw the protest as a way to bring attention to what she describes as Trump’s new practice of “creating unaccompanied minors” by separating them from their parents.
“We really need to get in there and interfere with this system that’s ruining people’s lives,” Winters says. “Being an ally, I think you need to take the cue from the affected people.”
As Cruz turns her newfound organizing acumen back to her hometown of Santa Cruz, she hopes to bring the organizing force of United We Dream to local schools. One of Cruz’s goals is to work with high schools, UCSC and Cabrillo College to create support systems for students that she didn’t have.
Cruz is also helping documentary filmmaker Brenda Avila-Hanna promote a documentary, Vida Diferida (Life, Deferred), which follows a young woman through the DACA process over several years. The film, they hope, will serve as a starting point for discussions about supporting undocumented students through United We Dream’s established toolkit.
Thinking back to the honors U.S. History class that she fought to get into, Cruz recalls a project she did on the Little Rock Nine, and how much learning about history has shaped her current activism. Now, she hopes to help students forge similar connections between the classroom and civic engagement.
Ultimately, Cruz hopes to create UWD groups at each local school, where immigrant youth are encouraged to develop their voices and become leaders in the community, especially on issues related to immigration.
TAKING FLIGHT
On August 3, 2018, federal courts ordered the Trump administration to fully reinstate the DACA program. But the ruling only applies to renewals, not new applications, and Congress has yet to address the long-term fate of affected young people. Cruz is hopeful that newly elected leaders in Congress will finally move forward on a clean Dream Act. Cruz has successfully renewed her DACA status and carries a DACA ID, but is hesitant to show it and flag herself as an immigrant—and a vulnerable one at that.
As I was talking to Cruz on the phone during a recent last-minute trip to Las Vegas, to surprise a friend for his birthday, there was a scare with her boarding pass. Cruz’s middle name wasn’t printed on the ticket, but it is on her new California ID. Hoping to avoid unnecessary attention that might provoke further questioning, I heard her calmly asking a gate agent to reassure her about going through security. Later, she called me, relieved, on the other side of the security checkpoint.
In instances like this, she takes some comfort in an app that UWD has developed called “Motifica” that is available to the public. It sends an SOS with her location and a prepared text to her attorney and loved ones, and then deletes the contacts. “I keep my phone with me all the time,” she says.
This week, Cruz is sending five volunteers from Santa Cruz to Washington D.C. as United We Dream mobilizes youth leaders in an effort to make their voices heard. “We want to have our presence known at Capitol Hill while the ‘negotiations’ for Trump’s wall funding continues,” Cruz says.
While her future and the future of millions of other immigrants is far from settled, Cruz still finds inspiration in the Monarch. Just as she and her classmates looked up at butterflies just taking flight all those years ago, she now sees other potential activists everywhere.
“I see just a normal person before they find their voice,” she says. “You do not need to be a U.S. citizen to be worthy of having rights and feeling safe in the only country you’ve ever known.”
