Dating Violence, an Intro, By Gaby Rodriguez

Teen Dating Violence is a very dangerous situation to be in. Violence does not have to be physical it can be emotional. This problem is a big issue among our young community. Only 33% of teens that are in an abusive relationship tell someone. The other 67% go without telling anyone. Sometimes, when we are in a violent relationship, we don’t even realize it.

Some ways to identify abusive relationships are:
-If your boyfriend/girlfriend are jealous or possessive habitually
-They put you down or criticize you
-They try to take control of you, or force you to change your lifestyle

If you find yourself in this situation you can take action and seek help. There are many places where you could find resources to stop this abuse in Salt Lake City. There are women shelters and community centers where you can find aid to maintain a healthy violence-free life. One place where you can find help is the South Valley Sanctuary. This shelter can provide you with basic needs such as a safe shelter, food, clothing, and personal care items.

Resources
http://www.southvalleysanctuary.com/services_svs.htm
http://www.utahbar.org/bars/umba/assets/utah_domestic_violence_shelters.pdf
http://health.utah.gov/vipp/pdf/DatingViolence/Toolbox.pdf
http://www.loveisrespect.org/

Gender roles in the media By Diana Ortega

The media nowadays has a huge impact on the way we see ourselves. It's typically hard to avoid all the relentless advertisements that we see plastered everywhere. The media affects the socialization of gender roles and can affect people's behavior/attitudes towards the opposite sex and ourselves.

Why do commercials that advertise cleaning products generally show women cleaning the house instead of men? Why do beer commercials seem to always have a group of men drinking beers, usually while watching sports? Who should we blame for creating these acceptable social standards that determine who we are according to our age, sex, and even wealth?

We live in a socially derived world in which we are expected to fit to specific gender roles. But it's not only the media we should blame but also ourselves for accepting these social standards. In today's world it's not only the man who works and provides for his family. In fact, women are now becoming the financial providers for their families while men stay at home and become the main caregivers. Still we feel the need to accept and mold ourselves to certain standards that determine how we should look and act.

The expression "sex sells" is one stereotype that has become acceptable and highly exercised among women. We tend to believe the prettier you are the more you can get away with. It is the media that has lead us to believe that a woman's body should look and be a certain way. We tend to try and duplicate this "ideal woman" that doesn't exist. There is no perfect woman. We can try to fit this fantasy or instead, try to be the best version of ourselves.

Ageism and Respect, by Amy Novoa

Whether you are old, middle-aged, or young, we all discriminate based on age. This is called ageism: disrespecting, or excluding someone from something because of his or her age. Ageism starts at a young age in most individuals. As a young child, my parents taught me to respect my elders. Through the years, I learned many misconceptions from friends, the media, school and other places in my community. It took me a few years to realize that what I learned growing up from everyone around me, I put into practice without the intention of doing it.

A stereotype like ageism can be very hurtful. I think, It can shorten the life of an adult. Many adults feel pressured to look young. One of the main motives for cosmetic surgery is this value of being “young” that society portrays. The effects of ageism towards elderly may be that they begin to see excessive effects in aging that make them less satisfied with their bodies. The media often portrays older adults as incapable of things like driving and working, or they are portrayed as overly opinionated people, who are very demanding. In American society, when I’ve heard that an adult has retired, it means they are “ready to be put out” even if the individual is happy with his or her life and has no means of feeling down because they are older. These negative perceptions of older adults cause people, literally, to treat them differently, unfairly. I strongly believe this is the reason we see discrimination towards the elderly in the workforce. Elderly people may be capable of working a job but because of their age, they are not considered for the job.

As children, or young adults, we often feel we are disregarded. Young adults also experience ageism. Teenagers are stereotyped as “a know it all”, causing drama, slow, lazy, uneducated, etc. Ageism can strongly affect a teenager as well as an adult. Adults have a tendency to target the younger generation because adults might feel they have more knowledge because they have lived more. This tendency causes the older group to exclude the younger leading to intimidation and insecurity. Insecurity in our youth may lead to rebellious attitudes, depression, or over-confidence. The list goes on. Every individual is unique but especially the young generation. Through the years, what I learned has all become a part of my character. I’ve experienced adults ignoring my opinions because they see I am a lot younger than them. I think this is where adults make a mistake. These adults obviously didn’t know exactly how this would affect me, or if it would affect me at all. Age does not mean superiority or inferiority.

“Just because we can, should we?” The choice is yours, although making the choice of discriminating will only lead to greater struggles. Our society is described as maintaining a stereotypic perception of adults and young ones. We are all victims but we are sometimes the offenders as well. I see our society struggle for equality because of our diversity, which is why everyone should recognize ageism and try to get rid of it in our society.

Introduction to STIs: HPV

HPV, or Human Papilloma Virus, is the most common sexually transmitted disease in the world. There are over a hundred different types of HPV; many cause skin warts, some cause genital warts, others can cause cancer.

Genital warts are a mild symptom that are nothing more than small lumps of wrinkled skin. They may be itchy or uncomfortable but they mean that you do not have HPV related cancer. Also in over 90% of genital wart cases the body's immune system will clear it up in under two years.

A more serious effect of HPV is cervical cancer. This cancer does not have symptoms until it is very advanced, so the mortality rate is very high. Over 12,000 women in the US alone are diagnosed with cervical cancer each year. To diagnose cervical cancer early, it is best for women to get frequent PAP tests.

Two vaccines are available to provide protection against the types of HPV that cause cervical cancer.These two vaccines are Cervix and Gardisil. The main difference between the two are the age ranges they were approved for. Cervix is approved only for females between the ages of 10 to 25; Gardisil is FDA approved fro both males and females ages 9 to 26.

The vaccines are available at many clinics so get vaccinated today.

For more information on HPV:
*http://www.kaiseredu.org/Issue-Modules/HPV-Vaccines-and-Cancer-in-the-US/Background-Brief.aspx
*http://www.cdc.gov/std/hpv/stdfact-hpv.htm

Religious Diversity in Salt Lake City/Utah by Amber Smith

Utah’s large population of “Mormons”, or people who adhere to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is a well-known and unique characteristic of the state. But what other religions exist in Utah/Salt Lake City? According to USA Today, percentages of Utahans who adhere to various dominations are broken down as following:
57% Mormon/Latter-Day Saint
17% claims no religion
6% Catholic
3% Episcopalian/Anglican
2% Baptist
2% Christian
1% Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Evangelical
1% Muslim
And less than .5% of the population claims Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Non-denominational, or Pentecostal.
(USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/graphics/news/gra/gnoreligion/flash.htm)

This, however, is Utah as a whole. We must consider that Salt Lake City, being more urbanized than the rest of Utah, would prove to be much more diverse.

Through this blog, I hope to familiarize myself, and you, with the less common religions of Salt Lake City, and help us gain insight into their communities. Some of the questions I will answer are: What do they believe? What background do the adherents come from? Where do they meet/worship in our community? What misconceptions are there about these religions? And what social issues concern them?
With knowledge about these communities, we can promote better understanding and cooperation in our society.

Chris Buttars Retires by Hector Zumaeta

During the closing stages of the 2011 Utah Legislative Session, a curious thing happened; an old political player in Utah turned in his resignation. I am talking about Utah State Senator Chris Buttars, who retired from the Utah Legislature on the final day of the Legislative Session. Buttars was 68 when he retired and throughout his career he has become well known for making very offensive comments on record and passing through legislation which was very prejudiced and outspoken. In his closing remarks before putting in his resignation, Buttars also said that he was very proud that throughout his career he “upheld Utah values”, and coincidentally, Buttars also retired after serving the required time on the state legislature to be eligible to receive President Obama's Health Care for life.

Buttars was first elected to the Utah Senate from District 5 in the 2000 elections. In 2004 Buttars ran for District 10 and won, and he did the same in 2008; but he retired before finishing his 4 year 2008 term. Buttars has represented South Jordan and West Jordan in those above terms. Since his election, the former senator has made it his job to stand against gay rights, and education, all while promoting religion (more specifically Christianity), as well as making racist remarks consistently along the way.

In 2010 Buttars spoke to the Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee in the hopes of convincing them that the 12th of public schooling was a waste of time. Thankfully his thoughts never materialized themselves into a bill and he dropped the subject, pledging to bring it up in 2011, which he didn't. His argument for such an idea was that too many kids wasted their senior year of high school, he assumed that instead of studying students spent their time pursuing other interests. What the ex-senator failed to notice was that the 12th grade is a big part of the transition between high school and college, and many students take college level classes during this year to get them more prepared for college, but without having to go through the full pressures of being a full time degree seeking student.

On gay rights, Buttars has said that the pursuit of rights for the LGBTQ community is, “probably the greatest threat to America.” An exaggeration at the very least! Buttars has constantly voiced his opinion about the gay community because he thought that homosexuality was “immoral”.

Buttars has also been very open about Christianity and promoting it. In 2009 Buttars also put the idea to the legislature that would encourage retailers to say “merry christmas” to their customers. He expressed his thoughts that the U.S was a Christian nation, and clearly ignoring the tenet that divorces church and state. Another of his ideas was teaching creationism in public school science classes. Many people were relieved when neither of these propositions became law.

Throughout his time serving the state of Utah, Buttars has made racist comments. At one point he referred to a bill as a black baby, a dark, ugly thing. He has also said that Brown vs. Board of Education was, “wrong to begin with.” Such a blatant use of language and ignorance was surprising to find in someone of power at the state legislature.

So when it came time for Buttars to give his last talk as a senator, it came as a surprise to my colleagues and I when he stated that he stood for Utah values, we had to ask ourselves which values he stood for? He stood for Racism, forcing religion on people who don't want it, oppressing the gay community, and devaluing education. All while being a hypocrite seeing as he spent enough time on the legislature (10 years and no more) to receive the current government health care for life (President Obama's Plan), something that Republicans like himself and his colleagues have long stood against.

Misrepresented by Amy Novoa, Amber Smith, Diana Ortega, Brianna Lewis and Gaby Rodriguez

We are interns with Mestizo’s Arts and Activism. As interns, we lobby, blog and interview community members to raise awareness on legislative and community issues. We spent the last two months at the Utah Capital and during the legislative session of 2011, we felt that we were misrepresented. As students, mostly women, of different backgrounds: Latina, Peruvian, Salvadorian, Caucasian; we felt like outsiders. We heard negative comments directed to us like, “well there’s some interesting people,” from Eagle Forum lobbyists.

Representatives Paul Ray and Stephen Sandstrom and Senator Margaret Dayton never came off the floor to speak with us, although we tried multiple times. These representatives sponsored anti-affirmative action resolutions, hard line immigrant deportation proposals, and a resolution to urge the US Congress to repeal the 14th amendment right for children born in the US to be US citizens. Whereas, a representative like Rebecca Chavez Houck, who voted no for a strict Freedom of Consciousness Provider anti-abortion bill, came out to speak with us, and openly answered our questions.

We saw a total of 502 bills pass the entire legislative process. And now, it is up to Governor Herbert to make them official laws. Many of these bills will change the lives of Utah residents, for good or bad. Here are some that we think will affect our communities most. Our first concern is bill HB497, Illegal Immigration Enforcement Act. This bill lets officers ask for verification of immigration status of a person detained for a class C misdemeanor or higher. We think this catch and release enforcement style will lead to racial profiling in our communities.

A law that will positively affect our community is HB 64; it will lower the blood donation age requirement to sixteen. Bill H.B. 64 increases the blood supply (ten to twenty percent) and establishes a lifelong habit of blood donating for Utah's youth. The law may also increase Utah teens' sense of community and purpose. Blood donations save thousands of Utahans lives; we are excited for this bill to contribute to the heath and well being of our community.

We are dissatisfied with the education budget passed for 2012, 96% of what it was last year, dropping millions of dollars from the education system. These cuts will lower the quality of education in Utah. As 1500 new students enter the school system this upcoming year, they will cost the school system 50 million dollars, which Utah cannot afford. With all of these costs, plus the cost of supplies and programs, the school system needs funds to be raised, not cut to support our youth’s education.

Utah has also become the first state in the country with it’s own guest worker program, allowing permits to undocumented immigrants to live and work in the state legally. H.B. 116, the guest worker program act, in theory, could be very beneficial to Utah’s 100,000 undocumented persons; but many flaws lie within it.

The measure passed the state legislature as part of a bipartisan deal that also included enforcement laws, similar to HB 497, that require police to check the immigration status of suspects in felony or serious misdemeanor cases. This type of guest worker program does not provide a path to citizenship or any other type of residency. Under this bill, workers who apply for a permit must already be living in the state, pass a background check, and pay a substantial fee. In any case, H.B. 116 relies on the federal government granting the state a waiver to operate this type of program. There is no mechanism within the federal government for such a waiver to be granted, making the program unconstitutional.

Lastly, we are concerned with the lack of representation of minorities in the legislative session. We asked ourselves why minorities don’t get involved, or educate themselves about the laws that are going to affect their lives. Our team unanimously agrees that the majority of elected officials underrepresent our communities, making minority members feel unwelcome in the capital. It feels like; the capitol is a building of power and privilege where our communities are unwanted. We feel some representatives’ work to serve themselves and not Utah community members. Some represent their ideology rather than their constituents. We believe all our representatives should be more involved on our communities, work with the people, and not discriminate against our heritage, age or gender. We want to thank Rebecca Chavez, Mark Alvaraz, Gina Cornia, David Litvack, Jennifer Seelig, and Matt Bradley for making us feel welcomed, wanted, and included in the legislative process.