The voice of De Anza since 1967 Volume 62, Issue 2
Tuesday, June 3, 2025
lavozdeanza.com
Student activists feel silenced on campus
PHOTO BY FRANK MAYERS
Austin Wong, 20, business economics major, speaks to reporter Mitchell Park on De Anza campus on May 27.
From Hong Kong to US
Pro-democracy protester’s path to asylum By Mitchell Park
Austin Wong, 20, business economics major, says he never imagined he’d be living in the Bay Area. Part of that is because he’s a loyal LeBron — and now, Los Angeles Lakers — fan. Wong said he started watching the NBA during the height of the Warriors-Cavaliers rivalry while growing up in Hong Kong. “Personally, I don’t like how KD (Durant) joined the Warriors,” Wong said. Three years ago, Wong was sitting in a U.S. Customs and Border Protection holding room at the United States-Mexico border. Two years before that, he was on the streets of Hong Kong speaking out against the Communist Party of China. Wong said, at 14 years old, he joined the 2019 Hong Kong protests despite his parents’ concerns. The protests began in opposition to a bill that would allow extradition to China and grew into a large-scale movement promoting independence for Hong Kong. Next Magazine, a sister publication of the defunct pro-democracy paper, Apple Daily, documented Wong speaking out against the extradition bill in 2019. In 2020, Beijing passed the National Security Law, criminalizing a broad range of acts deemed threatening to Beijing’s authority in the special administrative region. In 2020, authorities raided Apple Daily and imprisoned its founder Jimmy Lai for violation of NSL. The publication closed in 2021. Fearing arrest following his appearance in the news, Wong, his brother and their parents began planning their departure. His father lived in Texas decades earlier — the reason for his English name, “Austin” — so in May 2022, he proposed the family cross into the U.S. via the southern border. Mexico, unlike the U.S., does not require visas for Hong Kongers, making it a
feasible route for asylum seekers to enter the U.S. “We think he is crazy, but we just give it a try,” Wong said. After saying goodbye to friends and family, Wong and his family flew to Istanbul on June 6, 2022. From Turkey, they flew to Mexico City then to Tijuana, where they would purchase a dilapidated Nissan Cube – the first available car with U.S. plates. They waited for hours in line at the San Ysidro Port of Entry and declared asylum as soon as the car crossed to the U.S. side. Wong said the family was taken into custody and separated into holding rooms. Wong and his brother were placed in a room with about 15 other boys where they spent the night eating chips and watching the movie “Up” on repeat. “(The officer) goes back to my mom and just says three sentences: ‘They are good. They are fat. They eat a lot.’ And my mom knew me and my brother were all good,” Wong said. The family was released within 24 hours under asylum protocol and rode into San Diego by bus. “It was Highway 5. I saw the sunset with the beach and everything,” Wong said. “(It’s) the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen in my life.” Today, Wong is headed to Los Angeles. He plans to transfer to the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business in the fall. Wong works at Higher Education for AB 540 Students at De Anza College so he can help students who are new to this country and feel lost like he once did. “It might be a little bit cringe, but I feel like I’m living my dream right now,” he said. Wong said his journey to America proved he could make the most of limited resources – that he could be “successful without anything.” If he had to do it all again, with nothing in his pocket, Wong said, “I would be back in this chair. No doubt.”
Women’s badminton smashes PAGE 7
Fact Friday weekly broadcast lavozdeanza.com
LA VOZ STAFF
FILE PHOTO BY FRANK MAYERS
Students gather in the library quad on May 9, 2024 for a walkout protest calling for an end to U.S. aid to Israel following the Israeli invasion of Palestine.
Anonymous organization dedicates website to exposing activists, community feels freedom of speech at risk
By Wylder Robison LA VOZ STAFF
Students at De Anza College say fears of doxing, harassment and threats of violence discourage them from participating in activism and speaking freely on campus, such as staging demonstrations supporting Israel or Palestine or expressing communist views. Pro-Palestinian students risk being published on Canary Mission, a website that posts the personal information, social media accounts and offenses against the state of Israel of students and faculty who support proPalestinian or anti-Israel causes across college campuses. While Canary Mission exposes individuals who share antisemitic conspiracy theories or neo-Nazi propaganda, the site also includes people such as Desiree Humphers, a former De Anza student who served in DASB (now DASG) from 2016 to 2018. In 2017, Humphers helped pass a resolution that required the FoothillDe Anza Foundation to divest from companies that partner with Israel in the occupied territories of Palestine. She was subsequently listed on the Canary Mission site. “It affected my activism,” Humphers said. “I was discouraged because I don’t like being stalked, and that’s more or less what they were doing.” Twenty De Anza alumni are on Canary Mission, including 12 students who voted for the 2017 divestment resolution. The site lists no current De
Academic Senate raises dues PAGE 3
PHOTO BY WYLDER ROBISON
Ariel Shalev, 19, history major, engages students at the Jewish Student Union’s Spring Club Day booth on April 24. Anza students, but some still fear being doxed for activism. Ariel Shalev, 19, history major and member of De Anza’s Jewish Student Union, said he supports the Canary Mission but thinks it should be used responsibly. “The majority of times I’ve seen it used, it’s actually been warranted,” Shalev said. “I don’t want it to be abused … I don’t want every single pro-Palestine person (on there).” Shalev said JSU experienced harassment last fall — vandalism of a temporary, on-campus memorial built to honor Israelis who died in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel in 2023. “For the most part, the school administration has been quite helpful,” Shalev said. “We spoke to the dean of equity … she’s been very supportive,
very cooperative.” Kavi Kumaresan, 20, film and television major and member of the Revolutionary Marxist-Periyarist Panthers, a Marxist-socialist club at De Anza, said his club was targeted for exercising its freedom of expression and its members received death threats. “Our posters were vandalized with disgusting words,” Kumaresan said. “There was a quote above my head (on the poster) that said ‘(the) only good communist is a dead communist.’” Kumaresan also reached out to the administration about this issue, but he said they weren’t taken seriously. The vandalizers of the JSU’s memorial and the RMPP’s poster have not been apprehended.
Euphrat opens student show PAGE 4
Labubus take over De Anza PAGE 5
Activism continues on page 3