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Student newSpaper of the univerSity of Southern California SinCe 1912 | www.dailytrojan.com | vol. 180, no. 49 | monday november 4, 2013 InDEX 4 · Opinion 5 · Lifestyle 8 · Classifieds 9 · Crossword 12 · Sports Culture by Sheridan watSon daily trojan Alan Prieto, a native of Mexico, and Daily Trojan staff member, has never felt comfortable with calling himself Latino at USC. Though the university has a large Latino community, with more than 20 student groups geared toward Latino students, Prieto feels as if the organizations often force all who fall under the Latino umbrella into one entity. “I don’t like the term Latino or Hispanic, let alone Chicano — it’s very homogenizing to a whole culture,” said Prieto, a senior majoring in art history and critical studies. “Let’s try to differentiate between being Mexican and being Latino.” Before his move to the United States in the seventh grade, Prieto commuted to a California school from Mexico five days a week and learned English and Spanish simultaneously. His upbringing shows just one facet of the diverse Hispanic and Latino community at USC, a community that has grown to represent 14 percent of the entire USC student population. This 14 percent is made up of thousands of students who come from many countries and cultures. From second-generation Mexican- Americans to first-generation Peruvian- and Ecuadorian-Americans to Brazilian internationals, the USC Latino student body is one of variance. But that diverse student body is often blurred. “It’s not like I’m trying to be political about it and want to try and avoid being a part of those organizations,” Prieto said. “I just don’t think that they represent who I am.” Prieto’s issue is not uncommon. He’s one of many students who said they found themselves marginalized into being categorized as “Latino.” “Although these students tend to have many things in common, they themselves are very diverse as our community is represented by Mexico, Central America, South America, Dominican Republic, Cuba and Puerto Rico,” said William Vela, director of USC’s El Centro Chicano, a department in the USC Division of Student Affairs aimed at helping the Latino community at USC, in an email to the Daily Trojan. Geography is not the only element dividing Latino students. About 50 million Hispanics and 11 million undocumented immigrants currently reside in the U.S., according to the U.S. Census Bureau and the Pew Research Center. In California alone, about 38 percent of the state’s population identify as Hispanic or Latino according to the U.S. Census Bureau. “Then you have folks who are multiracial, first to fourth-generation, various religious affiliations as well as social class variance, amongst tons of other factors that make our community extremely diverse and not monolithic,” Vela said in an email. Many students feel the term Latino, as unifying as it can be to a segment of the population, is also limiting to the diverse cultures that lie under its domain. As Latinos at USC have faced numerous challenges ranging from misconceptions and to friction within the community, many students said identity plays an important role in their lives. “Who’s thIs guy?” “When I hang out with my friends, they all speak Spanish,” said Isadora Costa, a junior majoring in economics. “But I don’t.” Costa, an international student from Brazil, found that in the United States, the terms Latino and Hispanic are often used interchangeably, even though it is possible to be considered Latino but not Hispanic, Hispanic but not Latino, or both. Those who identify as Latino have cultural roots in a Latin American country in the Western Hemisphere, while Hispanics are those who speak Spanish, which can include people from a number of countries around the world. But many students feel that the diverse Latino student body at USC is often written off as solely Mexican. Jessica Vidal, a senior majoring in political science and sociology, has often been mistaken for Mexican even though she is a first-generation American whose family is originally from Ecuador and Peru. “I always get mistaken for Mexican on campus,” Vidal said. “When I first got to USC it was the strangest thing that everyone automatically assumed I was Mexican because I was Latina.” But the perception of homogenization doesn’t capture the many countries that the term Latino applies to. “A lot of the time, people think, ‘Oh Latino, oh you’re Mexican,” said Priscilla Hernandez, a sophomore majoring in international relations. “[Latinos] are very similar in some aspects but we’re so different in others; we have different types of culture, different types of food, different traditions — even the way we speak is different.” Hernandez grew up in West Covina, Calif., a town with a population of 53.2 percent Latinos according to the U.S. Census Bureau. “People are multiracial,” Hernandez said. “I think people just don’t know. They haven’t really learned a lot about Latin American history.” Stephanie Aceves, co-assistant director of the USC Latino Student Assembly, said that LSA is trying to change this misconception. Latino students reflect on their complex roles at USC Hispanic/Latino students account for 14 percent of USC’s student population. | see latIno, page 2 | humanitieS by david ahia ii daily trojan Doheny Memorial Library hosted “Lewis Carroll Outsiders,” an annual conference on the lasting influence of Lewis Carroll, mathematician and writer of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, on Saturday. Attendees of the event were greeted by a sculpture of distorted Alice in Wonderland characters when they entered the foyer of Doheny Library. Karen Mortillaro, sculptor and head of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America’s planning committee, created these Conference on Lewis Carroll attracts artists Attendees of the annual event included sculptors, authors and video game creators. | see WonDErlanD, page 3 | jessica Zhou | Daily Trojan Down the rabbit hole · Author Raul Contreras signs copies of his book, Alice’s Bloody Adventure in Wonderland at Doheny Memorial Library. by emily GoldberG daily trojan Though USC Viterbi School of Engineering assistant research professors Yu-Han Chang and Rajiv Maheswaran won’t be seen scoring slam dunks on national television, their experience in computer science could make them more knowledgeable about basketball than players in the National Basketball Association. Starting this season, NBA teams will have access to mountains of analytical data thanks to motion-tracking cameras developed by STATS LLC. Chang and Maheswaran have developed a software program that will help teams make sense of these numbers. “The data from the NBA will give teams the numbers,” Maheswaran said. “But we can turn the numbers into insight and helpful information that non-experts and non-technical people can understand.” The software system, called Eagle, will give teams information about where rebounds are most likely to fall, how to best defend pick-and-rolls, how to create the most efficient lineups and more. Chang and Maheswaran have licensed Eagle to the Los Angeles Clippers and three other NBA teams through their startup company, Second Spectrum. Chang and Maheswaran each have more than a decade’s worth of experience working in pattern recognition and motion data technology. The duo’s previous experience includes projects for the Department of Defense and the National Science Foundation. “I like to say it was great to transition from tracking military targets to tracking our favorite players on the court,” Chang said. The developments for Eagle began in the Viterbi Startup Garage, a resource for Viterbi students to learn how to turn their research into successful business ventures. The team’s first work won the Best Research Paper Award at the 2012 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. “The conference gave us a lot of publicity and we realized there was a clear need in the marketplace for someone to turn these numbers into something insightful and understandable. We wanted to create a product to address that,” Chang said. Major League Baseball has been using similar motion-tracking data for roughly a decade, but only recently has technology allowed for this information to be used for faster-paced sports such as basketball. Chang, Maheswaran and their students have become pioneers in utilizing this information for basketball. “We’re hoping this is going to be a Moneyball moment,” said Tal Levy, a junior majoring in computer engineering and computer science. “This will be a time when teams can make more informed decisions instead of solely rely on preconceived ideas, and I’m excited to see where it will go.” Levy became involved with the Second Spectrum team when Eagle was still in the research stages last fall. Currently, only professional teams have access to the STATS data that the Eagle system utilizes. Maheswaran anticipates, however, that motion-tracking data will become common at the college level soon. Second Spectrum would welcome the opportunity to bring Eagle to the collegiate level and especially to USC, said Chang. “We would certainly be interested in helping our home team out when that chance comes around,” he said. Chass Bryan, a sophomore guard on the USC men’s basketball team, recognized some potential benefits of utilizing Eagle at USC, but was conf licted about how much of an impact it could make. “A lot of basketball is numerical values, seeing who is most efficient and where strengths and weaknesses are, so in that respect the software would be useful,” he said. “But when you’re on the court you’re not thinking mathematically, and at a point you have to let the talent speak for itself.” Despite any doubt from athletes, Apratim Ghosh, an MBA student at Marshall, has been working at Second Spectrum for two months and is optimistic about the success of Second USC researchers bring data to the NBA Viterbi engineers have developed software to help players make sense of data. | see Data, page 3 | reSearCh Check out the third of the Daily Trojan’s three part series “Latino students refl ect on their complex roles at USC” Latino@USC
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Full text | Student newSpaper of the univerSity of Southern California SinCe 1912 | www.dailytrojan.com | vol. 180, no. 49 | monday november 4, 2013 InDEX 4 · Opinion 5 · Lifestyle 8 · Classifieds 9 · Crossword 12 · Sports Culture by Sheridan watSon daily trojan Alan Prieto, a native of Mexico, and Daily Trojan staff member, has never felt comfortable with calling himself Latino at USC. Though the university has a large Latino community, with more than 20 student groups geared toward Latino students, Prieto feels as if the organizations often force all who fall under the Latino umbrella into one entity. “I don’t like the term Latino or Hispanic, let alone Chicano — it’s very homogenizing to a whole culture,” said Prieto, a senior majoring in art history and critical studies. “Let’s try to differentiate between being Mexican and being Latino.” Before his move to the United States in the seventh grade, Prieto commuted to a California school from Mexico five days a week and learned English and Spanish simultaneously. His upbringing shows just one facet of the diverse Hispanic and Latino community at USC, a community that has grown to represent 14 percent of the entire USC student population. This 14 percent is made up of thousands of students who come from many countries and cultures. From second-generation Mexican- Americans to first-generation Peruvian- and Ecuadorian-Americans to Brazilian internationals, the USC Latino student body is one of variance. But that diverse student body is often blurred. “It’s not like I’m trying to be political about it and want to try and avoid being a part of those organizations,” Prieto said. “I just don’t think that they represent who I am.” Prieto’s issue is not uncommon. He’s one of many students who said they found themselves marginalized into being categorized as “Latino.” “Although these students tend to have many things in common, they themselves are very diverse as our community is represented by Mexico, Central America, South America, Dominican Republic, Cuba and Puerto Rico,” said William Vela, director of USC’s El Centro Chicano, a department in the USC Division of Student Affairs aimed at helping the Latino community at USC, in an email to the Daily Trojan. Geography is not the only element dividing Latino students. About 50 million Hispanics and 11 million undocumented immigrants currently reside in the U.S., according to the U.S. Census Bureau and the Pew Research Center. In California alone, about 38 percent of the state’s population identify as Hispanic or Latino according to the U.S. Census Bureau. “Then you have folks who are multiracial, first to fourth-generation, various religious affiliations as well as social class variance, amongst tons of other factors that make our community extremely diverse and not monolithic,” Vela said in an email. Many students feel the term Latino, as unifying as it can be to a segment of the population, is also limiting to the diverse cultures that lie under its domain. As Latinos at USC have faced numerous challenges ranging from misconceptions and to friction within the community, many students said identity plays an important role in their lives. “Who’s thIs guy?” “When I hang out with my friends, they all speak Spanish,” said Isadora Costa, a junior majoring in economics. “But I don’t.” Costa, an international student from Brazil, found that in the United States, the terms Latino and Hispanic are often used interchangeably, even though it is possible to be considered Latino but not Hispanic, Hispanic but not Latino, or both. Those who identify as Latino have cultural roots in a Latin American country in the Western Hemisphere, while Hispanics are those who speak Spanish, which can include people from a number of countries around the world. But many students feel that the diverse Latino student body at USC is often written off as solely Mexican. Jessica Vidal, a senior majoring in political science and sociology, has often been mistaken for Mexican even though she is a first-generation American whose family is originally from Ecuador and Peru. “I always get mistaken for Mexican on campus,” Vidal said. “When I first got to USC it was the strangest thing that everyone automatically assumed I was Mexican because I was Latina.” But the perception of homogenization doesn’t capture the many countries that the term Latino applies to. “A lot of the time, people think, ‘Oh Latino, oh you’re Mexican,” said Priscilla Hernandez, a sophomore majoring in international relations. “[Latinos] are very similar in some aspects but we’re so different in others; we have different types of culture, different types of food, different traditions — even the way we speak is different.” Hernandez grew up in West Covina, Calif., a town with a population of 53.2 percent Latinos according to the U.S. Census Bureau. “People are multiracial,” Hernandez said. “I think people just don’t know. They haven’t really learned a lot about Latin American history.” Stephanie Aceves, co-assistant director of the USC Latino Student Assembly, said that LSA is trying to change this misconception. Latino students reflect on their complex roles at USC Hispanic/Latino students account for 14 percent of USC’s student population. | see latIno, page 2 | humanitieS by david ahia ii daily trojan Doheny Memorial Library hosted “Lewis Carroll Outsiders,” an annual conference on the lasting influence of Lewis Carroll, mathematician and writer of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, on Saturday. Attendees of the event were greeted by a sculpture of distorted Alice in Wonderland characters when they entered the foyer of Doheny Library. Karen Mortillaro, sculptor and head of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America’s planning committee, created these Conference on Lewis Carroll attracts artists Attendees of the annual event included sculptors, authors and video game creators. | see WonDErlanD, page 3 | jessica Zhou | Daily Trojan Down the rabbit hole · Author Raul Contreras signs copies of his book, Alice’s Bloody Adventure in Wonderland at Doheny Memorial Library. by emily GoldberG daily trojan Though USC Viterbi School of Engineering assistant research professors Yu-Han Chang and Rajiv Maheswaran won’t be seen scoring slam dunks on national television, their experience in computer science could make them more knowledgeable about basketball than players in the National Basketball Association. Starting this season, NBA teams will have access to mountains of analytical data thanks to motion-tracking cameras developed by STATS LLC. Chang and Maheswaran have developed a software program that will help teams make sense of these numbers. “The data from the NBA will give teams the numbers,” Maheswaran said. “But we can turn the numbers into insight and helpful information that non-experts and non-technical people can understand.” The software system, called Eagle, will give teams information about where rebounds are most likely to fall, how to best defend pick-and-rolls, how to create the most efficient lineups and more. Chang and Maheswaran have licensed Eagle to the Los Angeles Clippers and three other NBA teams through their startup company, Second Spectrum. Chang and Maheswaran each have more than a decade’s worth of experience working in pattern recognition and motion data technology. The duo’s previous experience includes projects for the Department of Defense and the National Science Foundation. “I like to say it was great to transition from tracking military targets to tracking our favorite players on the court,” Chang said. The developments for Eagle began in the Viterbi Startup Garage, a resource for Viterbi students to learn how to turn their research into successful business ventures. The team’s first work won the Best Research Paper Award at the 2012 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. “The conference gave us a lot of publicity and we realized there was a clear need in the marketplace for someone to turn these numbers into something insightful and understandable. We wanted to create a product to address that,” Chang said. Major League Baseball has been using similar motion-tracking data for roughly a decade, but only recently has technology allowed for this information to be used for faster-paced sports such as basketball. Chang, Maheswaran and their students have become pioneers in utilizing this information for basketball. “We’re hoping this is going to be a Moneyball moment,” said Tal Levy, a junior majoring in computer engineering and computer science. “This will be a time when teams can make more informed decisions instead of solely rely on preconceived ideas, and I’m excited to see where it will go.” Levy became involved with the Second Spectrum team when Eagle was still in the research stages last fall. Currently, only professional teams have access to the STATS data that the Eagle system utilizes. Maheswaran anticipates, however, that motion-tracking data will become common at the college level soon. Second Spectrum would welcome the opportunity to bring Eagle to the collegiate level and especially to USC, said Chang. “We would certainly be interested in helping our home team out when that chance comes around,” he said. Chass Bryan, a sophomore guard on the USC men’s basketball team, recognized some potential benefits of utilizing Eagle at USC, but was conf licted about how much of an impact it could make. “A lot of basketball is numerical values, seeing who is most efficient and where strengths and weaknesses are, so in that respect the software would be useful,” he said. “But when you’re on the court you’re not thinking mathematically, and at a point you have to let the talent speak for itself.” Despite any doubt from athletes, Apratim Ghosh, an MBA student at Marshall, has been working at Second Spectrum for two months and is optimistic about the success of Second USC researchers bring data to the NBA Viterbi engineers have developed software to help players make sense of data. | see Data, page 3 | reSearCh Check out the third of the Daily Trojan’s three part series “Latino students refl ect on their complex roles at USC” Latino@USC |