Letters to the Editor

Fashion an unimportant topic

In regards to the “A trendy new man” article by Erika Lindquist and the “Individuality is fashionable” insert in the March 9 Collegian, I would just like to say that both of these are extremely atrocious.
Clothes are merely material objects that are not needed to express who you are and make you stand out as an individual. You are who you are regardless of what you wear and you do not need people or society to determine what you should wear or what you should be like.
People should not feel like they have to make an effort to look different. Both the article and the insert project a theme of artificial self-worth and materialism, making already poor or desperate college students want to dress a certain way because a newspaper told them that it is what’s in.
Also, these are only trends that come and go with the change of the seasons (literally), and none of these styles are original anyway. They are all weak imitations of something that came before.
There are bigger issues at hand. The majority of the clothes people wear are made in sweatshops or contain animal products. There are many other ways of expressing yourself besides through empty products that only serve to divide society even more.
People are never remembered for what they wear, but for what they say or do, and too many people of our generation are too concerned with looking cool or having the right product.

—Elizabeth Trujillo
Junior, political science

Farmworks make poor villain

Upon reading the March 4 article which addressed the role of Taco Bell in the boycott, I couldn’t believe the views and ideas that were expressed by the author.
Although the beginning of the article was informative to people who wanted to read a brief background of the boycott, the rest of the article proved there are people who take many things for granted.
Just the idea of attempting to blame the farmworkers for the boycott is absurd because of the backbreaking work they endure so others can complain about their reasonable demands for higher wages and better working conditions. Farm laborers go unnoticed by many, which is a shame because they are entitled to the rights and benefits the rest of the population receives.
A great deal of farm workers are undocumented, which makes it difficult to “get out of the whole manual labor gig once-and-for-all,” as Jennifer Palmberg so bluntly states. Do you honestly think, if it were that easy to get another job, people would choose to live and work in those conditions when they have families to provide for?
It is obvious the author hasn’t suffered through the conditions farmworkers encounter on a daily basis, because if she had, her biggest concern wouldn’t be defending the “innocence” of Taco Bell.
Fortunately, there are a great number of people who recognize the hard work of the farm workers and continuously support their struggles. SI SE PUEDE!

—Ambar Alvarez
Senior, history and Chicano studies