L.A. Berns story by | Jessica Chortkoff photos by | Eve Moreno and Liam Hayes
W
HEN I FOUND out Bernie Sanders was in town for a last-minute rally at the Wiltern Theatre in Koreatown, I couldn’t get there fast enough. Sanders supporters crowded the theater long before he arrived, and even though we were packed in like sardines, it didn’t
feel that way. Once he arrived, he was greeted with thunder-
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ous chants of “Bernie, Bernie, we want Bernie!” I saw mostly young students, but peppered throughout the crowd I saw older supporters. What struck me the most was how friendly and happy their faces looked. For Shantale Ramirez, a public health major at Cal State Northridge, this coming election will be the first in which she is old enough to vote. I talked to her because she had a big smile and a huge poster featuring Sanders in a Che Guevara wig. She also sported a temporary tattoo of the
presidential hopeful wearing a Robin Hood cap. “I’ve always been a Bernie supporter,” she said. “I’m just really passionate about what he is saying, the way he shows it – I feel like it’s sincere.” Her friend, Balcaceres Castillo, a 19-year-old aerospace engineering major at Santa Monica City College agreed. He said he was there to support the Hispanic community, but that he also wants to learn more about Sanders. “I see that he’s the type that doesn’t really try to hide anything from the people,” Castillo said. “He
just represents everybody.” As I exited the rally, I joined a crowd gathered outside the theater. They cheered, waved banners and elicited a cacophony from the drivers stuck in the heavy traffic on Wilshire Boulevard. Outside, I approached two nurses from National Nurses United (NNU), the largest union of registered nurses in the United States. The union advocates for easy access to healthcare, water and healthy food as a basic human right. While speaking with them I decided to bring up something Sanders talked about that night: wages. NNU supporter, Dolly Wilson, talked to me about why the $15 an hour minimum wage hike is so important. She said that the public is not very aware of what poverty means for health. “Your zip code can actually determine your life expectancy, and it’s not right, that is not what America is about,” she said. Her friend, Marcella Crowley, who is also a registered nurse, said people like herself will be retiring in the next five to 10 years, which will provide many
job openings for today’s young people. I asked her why most “Berners” were so young. “I think when you are young you are willing to work for change,” Crowley said. “As you get older ... people get jaded because they see it’s a long process.” Crowley said she participated in the fight for the $15 minimum wage increase in California. The minimum wage has passed, but it will be raised in small increments each year, and will not reach $15 until 2022. She said she was very disappointed at that outcome, but is glad it passed. “I think you have to realize nothing changes overnight,” Crowley said. “Like what Bernie says, you cannot give up on it, and you gotta keep working for it, because if we don’t do it, nobody is going to do it.” Crowley said older folks like her should never be complacent. “Go outside the box,” she said, “if they really hear what he has to say, they would support him. He’s just so honest about what he says he wants to do. We have to be the change.” ¶
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