Ethnic labels hurt U.S. identity / 4
on
JL_J
trojan
Volume CXVI, Number 10
University of Southern California
Monday, September 16, 1991
L.A.ttitude
Watts history goes beyond \ violence of 1965 riots
By Paul Malcolm
Staff Writer
In August of 1965, the city of Watts was seared into the consciousness of the American public when six days of rioting left 34 dead and 1,000 injured and caused more than $40 million in property damage.
That year, beneath the looming Watts Towers, dizzying sculptures by Italian artist Sabato "Sam” Rodia, the Simon Rodia Art Center was formed.
Today, John Outterbridge, director of the center, is actively putting "that consciousness (back) where it should be."
"The Towers have been neglected for years . . . (people) at times don't recognize the potential and ... the treasures that we hold in our own pockets," Outterbridge said.
Outterbridge referred to a recent fire at the Jordan Downs housing project in Watts, where two blacks are suspect in the death of five Latinos, as an example of the straining racial tensions that stereotype Watts residents.
"I was passing by a lot in Jordan Downs," he said. "It was a very touching thing to see (blacks and Latinos playing together) in a soccer game ... no one sees this. (The media) never says anything about the families that are close here."
Jim Lyons, a drummer and barbecue chef raised in Watts, also emphasizes the positive aspects of a commuity, known more for its violent past than its future potential.
"The Towers are something unique in the neighborhood, something special," Lyons said. "This here was mostly fills, dirt lots. It was a ghetto. But just imagine in the middle of all this, there they are. Standing there taller than anything. This was a place to come and play. A place to get away," Lyons said.
Rodia completed the Watts Towers, or "Nuestro Pueblo" as he called it, in 1954 after thirty years of painstaking labor, said Leon Whiteson in his book, The Watts Towers of Los Angeles. He left Watts and told the people to "do whatever they please" with his sculpture.
The Towers, revered in the art world as an example of innovative architectural techniques, survived the riots, the worst of which were on 103rd Street, or "Charcoal Alley" as it came to be known because of the almost perpetual fires.
What the people of Watts did is turn the Towers into a symbol of hope, proof of what can be done when dreams are allowed to be realized.
Outterbridge, a conceptual artist himself, is passionate in his dream to (See Watts, page 3)
LAPD breaks up dance
Sexual battery also on campus
By Aric Johnson and Brenda Rosales
Staff Writers
A fight at a dance sponsored by a black fraternity brought approximately 20 Los Angeles police officers to campus Saturday, a response several witnesses called excessive.
Witnesses attributed the heavy police presence to the fact that the dance was sponsored by Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity and primarily attended by blacks.
In unrelated incidents last week, a female student was sexually battered, and another student's car was stolen at gunpoint on campus.
University Security arrived at the dance because the Anneberg School for Communication was overcrowded and those in line were shouting and banging on the
(See Crime, page 10)
John Hoffman / Special to the Daily Trojan
Los Angeles Police Department officers direct partygoers away from the Annenberg School for Communication, where a fight canceled a fraternity-sponsored dance.
Fraternity suspended
By Julie Yamamoto
Staff Writer
Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity has been placed on interim suspension pending a Student Conduct hearing after hazing charges were filed last week, said Valerie Paton, assistant dean of student affairs.
Interim suspension means the fraternity may not participate in any university-sponsored activities or have the privileges of a recognized student organization, Paton said.
The fraternity did not participate in rush this fall, Paton said.
Sigma Alpha Mu — commonly known as "Sammy" — was informed of the action Sept. 6 in a letter from James Dennis,
vice president of student affairs.
Among other things, the letter stated that, "the continued activity of Sigma Alpha Mu as a USC student organization poses a substantial threat to members of the university community."
The alleged hazing incident was reported to the Los Angeles Police Department one day before the fraternity received the letter.
Attached to the police report is a memorandum from Captain Fred Smith, professor of naval science at the university, describing what happened one night during the week of Aug. 19.
According to Smith's memorandum, a 20-year-old Navy ROTC midshipman
who was rushing the fraternity was "required to perform physical acts . . . and was submitted to forms of physical abuse that caused the reinjure of his shoulder which will require surgery within the next two weeks."
The memorandum states that members of Sigma Alpha Mu knew about the cadet's previous shoulder injury.
The cadet reportedly told Smith that "the new initiates were required to drink alcohol in excessive amounts," according to the memorandum.
Smith wrote that, as a result of this injury, the cadet may not be physically qualified to receive a commission in the
(See Row, page 15)
Soviet student flees coup
By Robert Moran
Staff Writer
It was Monday morning, but Valentina Apresian didn't have to think about classes or work. In a few days, she would be on an airplane heading for America. Soon Apresian would be studying at USC.
She was asleep when the telephone call came.
Mikhail Gorbachev, president of the Soviet Union, had "taken ill" and com-
munist hardliners were now in charge of the country, a friend told her.
Apresian stayed on the phone all morning, talking about the shocking development.
For Apresian, a life-long Moscow resident, the conservative takeover was bad news.
"For all of us, it was something like the end," said the 21-year-old, now a graduate student in the university's linguistics department. "We didn't think it could happen. It was our parents who thought it would happen."
Curled in a chair, Apresian is dressed in a loose red and white outfit. She is relaxed now as an open apartment window lets in the sounds of Los Angeles at dusk.
Halfway around the world, dawn will soon break for the loosely-knit Soviet republics. The sounds there are of an authoritarian government coming apart at its seams. Democracy and freedom are in the works.
On the first day of the coup, however, the air was filled with the sounds of militarists consolidating power and reinstating authoritarian rule to the Soviet Union.
Throughout that first day, the radio kept repeating an emergency decree by (See Apresian, page 10)
President Sample’s inauguration this week
President Steven Sample will be inaugurated as the university's 10th president Friday, and campus events are scheduled all week leading up to the festivities.
This semester's three-week deadline to add / drop classes will be extended to Monday, Sept. 23, to account for Friday's ceremonies, said Ken Servis, dean of academic records and registrar.
The week's festivities will include:
•	A staff luncheon in Mayor Auditorium on the Health Sciences campus today at noon with Sample speaking.
•	A reception for students, staff and faculty with Sample from 4-6 p.m. to-
(See Sample, page 3)