Claremont Undercurrents

Real fights for a better Claremont, LA and world

In August, Pomona College dining workers entered negotiations with an unsympathetic new treasurer, reaching an impasse that resulted in a strike. LA County's Board of Supervisors began meeting in person again, dragging their feet on an ambitious decarceration plan while thousands of incarcerated Angelenos continue to face horrific conditions in overcrowded jails.

Student groups have big roles to play in these fights. Claremont students frequently make up more than half of JusticeLA's Board of Supervisors meeting presence, while the Claremont Student Worker Alliance mobilized more than a thousand students, faculty, parents and alumni to pressure Pomona College for better worker wages — a fight with ramifications for the entire Inland Empire.

But with a 1.5-year gap in being on campus, the only student leaders who have seen pre-COVID organizing are about to graduate, threatening a loss of historic and strategic community knowledge.

This fall, I left The Student Life to start a publication dedicated to covering campus and community activism. Similar publications existed pre-COVID, but the pandemic shuttered them, leaving The Student Life stretched thin. The publication has already played a significant role in informing and mobilizing students in support of Pomona workers' strike.