As Gov. David Paterson prepares to announce his executive budget, CUNY Contingents Unite, an organization of students and CUNY workers, is organizing several CUNY-wide protests, including a mass rally on Dec. 16 at Gov. Paterson’s New York City offices. These protests are meant to rail against the proposed $600 tuition hike to City and State Universities of NY as well as budget cuts to these institutions that total more than $250 million. SUNY students have also organized their own protests.

Budget cuts have already resulted in class cancellations and layoffs. In addition Gov. Paterson is also proposing a 10 percent decrease in aide to  colleges per student. A source of contention is the recent 14.9 percent raise received by CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein, who supports the increase, which leaves students wondering where are their tuition dollars going and what will they get for the extra 15 percent a year, which will total an extra $600.

Budget cuts have already translated to larger class sizes where personal attention will be more difficult and fewer adjunct professors, who offer real world experience, since these professors are not protected by tenure.
With a state deficit looming budget cuts and tuition hikes are to be expected.

The SUNY Student Assembly has proposed smaller predictable increases of 2.5 to 4 percent, which won’t be such a huge blow to the pockets of CUNY and SUNY’s working class students, many whom already have difficulty affording the tuition as it is. These students will have to turn to other options like part time study, which will mean more years before they graduate, loans, which will add to the current credit crisis, or simply not enrolling once the tuition is increased.  In these tough economic times the latter seems probable.

Many CUNY students already work full time jobs in addition to their studies. It would be a nightmare to add a part time job to supplement the increase, not to mention that jobs in the current market are not abundant.  According to the New York State department of labor the unemployment rate for New York City is 5.7 percent.
These cuts and tuition hikes seem to target the working class.  The same can be said of the massive cuts to other social services proposed by Gov. Paterson and MTA fare hikes.  By raising tuition and cutting aide he is making an education more difficult to obtain for working-class people. While $600 doesn’t seem like a lot to some, especially those who attend who have attended private universities, to others it may be the difference between being able to afford another year of college or not.

Having six brothers prepares one for being the sole female member of a band. DK Dyson has traveled to many countries with many different bands, holding her own in her tiny frame. After weeks touring with Ice T’s band Body Count in 1992, as the opening act,  Dyson still had not met the headliner. A roadie from Ice T’s camp approaches DK and informs her that Ice T would like to meet her now. DK sent the roadie back, with a message, “A queen is never summoned”
Dyson has lived her life knowing she is a queen. She has emerged from East New York, one of Brooklyn’s most infamous neighborhoods to become a soulful singer who has worked with Debbie Harry, Bette Midler, Bill Cosby, and many others.  She has had her share of successes as well as disappointments. Dyson’s perseverance and spirituality have taken her many places, most recently to an outstanding and critically revered show at Joe’s Pub in New York City. Ahead of her lay a slew of projects which include a discussion panel at a university in Guadalajara, Mexico on walking your own path. And although she resides in NJ, Brooklyn will always be her home.
Dyson grew up in Brooklyn, NY, on a block that was mixed income. “You could tell who owned their house and who rented, the people who owned had nice lawns” DK said. DK’s parents owned their house. DK was the only girl of seven children, most of whom were adopted. One of her brothers was a Black Panther, two of her adopted brothers were Puerto Rican and at the head of this diverse household was DK’s mother, Virginia Dyson, from North Carolina. She refused Spanish to be spoken in their house, and cooked how ever she liked, even if DK refused to eat her mother’s cooking. When her adopted brothers’ biological mom would visit and bring her Puerto Rican cooking the flavors made Dyson understand a part of herself she never knew. The flavors in the cooking made her know she had some Latina blood in her.
She didn’t look like the rest of the girls on her block. She is light skinned with long wavy brown hair. She would go on to find out that she was black, Latina, Native American, and East Indian. She says she embraces all of these cultures that mean so much to her, from which she draws a lot of her spirituality.
This was a tumultuous time on her block. The Black Panthers were involved in helping the education system, by organizing after-school programs, while drug addicts  broke into houses and stole copper pipes. DK was 15 years old when her neighbor Gwen, of the same age, was raped. “Gwen was never the same after that,” DK laments. She enrolled in self-defense classes and regrets not sticking with them because years later, at the age of 21, Dyson was a victim of rape herself. “That taught me that I wasn’t invincible”, Dyson says. But she kept going. As she says it is the “Brooklyn way: You can live or you can die.” Live, she did.
Dyson always knew she wanted to be a singer. She remembers being in her crib thinking she had a gig to get to. Her first experience as a singer was performing at the Waldof Astoria, singing a cappella as accompaniment to a dance troop. She later went on to join the funk metal group, Living Colour, but moved on to start Eye & I before the band achieved mainstream success.
With Eye & I, Dyson signed a deal with Epic in 1991. They released their album and recorded their first and only video which aired on MTV. The song was a cover of Lou Reed’s “Venus in Furs.” The video, like the song, has a sadomasochistic theme. “Then the record company didn’t know what to do with them” says Dyson’s husband Rudy Gutierrez. But the band did receive favorable critical mention being chosen as one of Rolling Stone’s Hot Picks. David Browne for Entertainment Weekly wrote, ”In lead singer D.K. Dyson, the band has a full-fledged pop diva who nonetheless knows restraint; her warm voice swoops and soars around the songs but never overpowers them…The result makes for an audacious, exhilarating album that tackles you, grabs you by the collar-and then smiles in your face”.
Since then Dyson has moved on to a milieu of solo projects, and will no doubt continue to live on. When asked what has been her proudest achievement she simply said, “That I’m still here”.
Dyson will appear at the Apollo Theater in New York City on December 27th at 7:30pm in Kwanzaa Celebration Featuring Forces Of Nature.

By Jessica M Torres

Imagine going on vacation and returning with not only a beautiful bronze tan, but a new set of breasts as well. This is the image many women have when they opt for cosmetic surgery in Latin America. The reality is much more serious. People travel for cosmetic procedures ranging from dental work to bariatric surgery. Sometimes those procedures don’t go so well. Other times they are a success.
Ellen Lima of Brooklyn recently traveled to Mexico for dental work. “I got a root canal and two fillings done,” she says. “Since I don’t have dental insurance I scheduled to do it while I was on vacation. It would have just been too expensive to do it here,” she says. “I got a vacation and dental work for the same price as I would have spent at the dentist.”
According to the American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, in 2007 more than $13 billion was spent on plastic surgery in the U.S. Instead of the demand lowering the price of plastic surgery, doctors have opted to offer clients financing to make it more affordable.
Some Hispanic women have turned to other options. Instead of getting into debt for a new nose or a flatter stomach these women are traveling to Latin America where they will be able to work with doctors who they believe understand their culture better. This trend has lead to the creation of the term “vanity tourism” Sometimes these procedures have unfortunate endings. But are the cases of botched implants the norm or is surgery abroad just as safe as procedures in the US?
Dr. Neil Sadick, whose titles include president of the Cosmetic Surgery Foundation and clinical professor of dermatology at Weill Cornell Medical College, says that South America and Mexico are the most common destinations for Hispanic women in search of affordable cosmetic procedures. But the lack of regulation makes these procedures risky. “A patient came in after having unknown filler injected which is not FDA regulated,” said Sadick. “The patient developed granulomatous nodules” which are a collection of immune cells trying to destroy a foreign substance.
Delayed infections after surgery are also common. Doctors recommend follow up visits up to six months after a procedure. These visits are difficult or nonexistent in a medical tourism setting.
To make matters worse there are no medical records for the follow up visits that are done in the U.S. Traveling after surgery also increases the risk of complications.
Sadick touts Brazil and Argentina as Latin American countries that have an advanced cosmetic surgery industry, while others are not very advanced and lack the level of care in hospitals and doctors office settings that are found in American hospitals.  But plastic surgery in these countries with reputable doctors is not necessarily less expensive than in the U.S.
Hispanic women are more interested in body sculpting procedures than facial rejuvenation surgery.  One of the most popular procedures Hispanic women travel abroad for is breast augmentation. The national average fee for this procedure with saline implants is $3,960 according to the American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. A quote from Go Sculptura Brazil, a leading medical tourism agency, for the same procedure including an eight-night stay at The Mercure Apartments Sao Paulo was $5,340. This does not include a roundtrip flight.
Another popular surgery, especially in Mexico and Costa Rica is bariatric surgery. This is a delicate procedure even when done in the U.S. The reasons for going abroad for this surgery are different than those for other procedures.
“Sometimes patients who want bariatric surgery don’t qualify because their BMI isn’t high enough to make them a candidate for the procedure, so they go abroad where the restrictions aren’t as stringent. This leads to a host of problems,” Dr. Sadick. Typically follow up care for this procedure is a crucial part of its success.
When looking for a plastic surgeon Sadick recommends finding a doctor with “excellent credentials, and board certification, expertise in the area the patient is concerned about, and someone who spends time to educate the patient regarding requested procedure.” If traveling abroad for a procedure, he says,

“Be aware of potential adverse consequences, i.e., complications and non-certification of physician. Find out what are emergency back-up procedures.”

By Jessica M Torres

Bianca Valdez’s bathroom in her studio apartment in Astoria is starkly lit. A row of vanity lights hang over her mirrored medicine cabinet. Another lit magnifying mirror sits by the sink. Once opened the cabinet reveals shelves stocked with products in impressive packaging, a frosted glass jar of thick cream, a clear plastic bottle a quarter full of blue sloshy liquid, a small push up tube of mysterious ice blue balm, and many others. Among the myriad of jars and bottles several age-defying products can be found including one specifically for eyes, another which contains SPF for use during the day and yet another for use at night. All of these products have a surprising user, 22 year old Bianca Valdez, who uses them religiously.

Valdez, with her impeccable olive skin and wide brown eyes, calculates that she spends well more than $50 a month on anti-aging products. This does not include services like facials that are also attributed to her flawless skin. This is a remarkable sum for a young woman who works at retail store for a living.

“It’s worth it. It’s better than getting a face lift by the time I’m 40”

she states, although she doesn’t rule out plastic surgery when she is older.

The beauty industry has turned its sights on younger women and is exploiting their hidden fear of growing old and losing their looks. This is evident in their profusion of new anti-aging products that have hit the shelves of department stores, pharmacies, and beauty chains like Sephora, that are marketed to younger women. While celebrities are looking young longer due to costly cosmetic interventions like Botox and surgery , some women have a growing insecurity of the longevity of their own looks. Actresses like Demi Moore, 45, and Sharon Stone, 50, who may or may not have had help from cosmetic surgeons, set a standard that women may worry they will not reach.

]]> http://jessicamtorresjournalist.wordpress.com/2008/12/10/the-age-for-anti-aging/feed/ 0 jmtorres http://jessicamtorresjournalist.wordpress.com/2008/10/15/times-are-hard/ http://jessicamtorresjournalist.wordpress.com/2008/10/15/times-are-hard/#comments Thu, 16 Oct 2008 02:49:40 +0000 jmtorres http://jessicamtorresjournalist.wordpress.com/?p=12 ]]> I jumped on the M42 bus, this afternoon, on 42nd street in Times Square going east across town. I settled into the first seat that was available on this fairly empty bus. It was a single seat behind a well dressed elderly woman. She sat there in her nice black coat with a mass of well coiffed white hair and a good leather purse. The ride was short and my hands were full of bags, so instead of digging for reading material I sat there daydreaming and letting myself get distracted. Then the woman pulled out something to read. It was a letter printed on bank stationary, nosey I know, but I read over her shoulder. I can’t remember word for word but I do recall the words “ 60 month Retirement Statement” and “Principal value: $7,367”. Before I realized what I was looking at I heard soft weeping and saw the woman’s shoulders tremble. I was filled with guilt, sadness and sympathy as my stop approached and I gathered my things and got off the bus without looking back because I didn’t want her to see me see her crying.

-Jessica Torres