Submission: USAC councilmembers must represent student voices

Editor’s Note: The following submission contains strong language. We feel its inclusion is necessary to accurately depict the author’s experience.

For a period of five months earlier this year, I received death threats.

On Feb. 25, I ignored my normally silent position as a minute-taker for student government and spoke my mind. I was standing up against what I believed was a flaw in the Undergraduate Students Association Council and how the council voted that evening.

To this day, I’m paying for my decision to speak up. I’m even writing this now, five months later and out of school, to protect myself.

I was working and taking minutes that day in February when Students for Justice in Palestine introduced “A Resolution to Divest from Companies that Violate Palestinian Human Rights.” The students called on the UC Regents to divest from companies such as Caterpillar, Cement Roadstone Holdings, Cemex, General Electric and Hewlett-Packard.

When I came into work that evening, I didn’t know much about Israel or Palestine.

I was raised in San Diego, a first-generation Filipina born to immigrant parents. I’m a third-year biology student involved in research and volunteering rather than any political groups on campus.

But the night the resolution was introduced, I found myself thrust into the political controversy of the Israeli-Palestinian debate.

Students for Justice in Palestine presented the resolution because they believe these companies are contributing to Israel’s violation of Palestinian human rights while students from Hillel at UCLA and Bruins for Israel opposed the motion and argued that these companies keep Israel safe. Approximately 500 people testified during public comment that night, some crying while others were yelling. I typed their statements verbatim. Some said they didn’t feel safe in Israel. Others said they didn’t feel safe in Palestine or complicit in investment.

I was deeply moved by the testimony, seeing my peers on both sides feel so impassioned by the issue. For nine hours I sat silently typing. At the end of the debate as a non-voting member, I read aloud the final vote tally.

The result was 5-7-0. The resolution had failed. Afterwards, councilmembers and I retreated to share our thoughts.

The council proceeded to good and welfare, a conversation about the meeting that is off minutes and technically after the meeting is over. Although it’s off the record, the live stream was still running, unknown to anyone on council.

Good and welfare began 12 hours later at 7 a.m. I was exhausted, upset and broke down in tears. I was deeply disappointed with council voting members.

I was angry these elected officials sat through nine hours of testimony from 500 students, yet barely listened to their cries, already knowing how they would cast their votes.

During the discussion, I was so upset that I blurted out “fuck Council” several times.

But I never once said anything about Palestine or Israel during my “meltdown.”

I don’t know why I was later portrayed as an anti-Israel advocate or a Palestine extremist when all my comments were directed toward actions of the student council.

To my horror, my poor choice of language was plastered on extreme, pro-Israeli websites, some of them veering into anti-Palestinian racism. Several extremist websites accused me of “trying to dismantle the Israeli state” and being “infected with hate.”

In the following weeks, I received a half-dozen texts, emails and Facebook messages calling me a “useless piece of shit,” and an “ugly racist privileged useless cunt.” Someone said they hoped I would “suffer in life.”

I was frightened for my life. I couldn’t sleep. I had trouble eating. I was living a nightmare. When I Googled my name, the first results that appeared were right-wing posts accusing me of being anti-Semitic and “infected” with “hate” – simply because I showed empathy for the students at UCLA who were angry, crying and ignored.

Having your worst emotional moment leaked to the media is painful and difficult, especially when your words are misconstrued and taken completely out of context.

But what is worse is that the point of my outrage – the fact that I felt councilmembers continually ignored the voices of the students – was completely overshadowed.

I’m still waiting for a discussion about how the council should represent UCLA students, a conversation that needs to rival the volume of petty Internet notoriety I’ve experienced.

USAC representatives are meant to do just that: represent. But right now that responsibility is not being fulfilled, and all constituents are not being given an equal voice. A lot of people and their families are affected on a daily basis by decisions made at that council table.

I’m not ashamed to have been shaken by the accounts of human rights abuses shared on both sides that night. I do believe the world would be a far better place if more of us shook off our apathy, along with the belief that we can’t do anything to affect positive change.