Special Delivery

Last Friday, the Women’s Center’s emergency food drive for the Bridgeport Rescue Mission ended. HCC students brought the collections to the mission; the recipients were all extremely grateful.











Photographs by Brandon T. Bisceglia

Did you Ever Love Me?

By Shadaya Montgomery
Horizons staff writer

We were together for four years. You lived across the street from me, and I never thought you would be the guy I ever fall in love with. I never thought I would fall in love period. How we met was really awkward, and I never thought we would last because of your reputation around the neighborhood. Something about you captured my heart and you had me for the long run.

Me and you were new to this and neither of us knew what to expect out of this love thing. We so didn’t know what we getting into, but as we got further into it, it wasn’t an easy thing to go through.

Trust and honesty are some very important factors of the relationship, and they hold together and make the relationship strong. The trust in our relationship just wasn’t there, I didn’t trust you and you didn’t trust me. Our non trusting relationship led to a downfall. A downfall that gave us more problems that was ongoing and kept resurfacing. And its not like we solve the problems either, all we did was sweep them under a rug and pretended like they were dealt with.

Then you went to college, and I became really insecure in our relationship. Stereotypically relationships do not last when you try to pursue a long distance one. I had trust in you, but I can’t say I didn’t have that thought in the back of my mind that you were cheating. But I knew you loved me way too much to do that to me so I just brushed the thought away. You told me over and over how you weren’t feeding into the temptation of the wild college life, and I believed you because I loved you and your words seem so sincere and heartfelt.

After your first year a college, I guess you felt that you had to come clean about your experience. It hurt so bad hearing the words flow out your mouth saying how you gave in to temptation so many times as if you couldn’t control your actions. And your reasons of doing those actions were so stupid. I asked “why didn’t you just break up with me?”

It was so hard swallow; I couldn’t believe what you told me. You say you held these secrets from me because you were protecting my feelings and didn’t want to hurt me. But if you love me like you said you did why you would bother to put yourself in those predicaments and follow through with the actions that would eventually lead to my heartache.

But I can’t say that I don’t love you still , but I’m not really sure if you really loved me it’s like way before you went to college I believed your love for me was true. So did it fade? Or did you realize that you wanted to be free? So many questions runs through my mind, and yet you cannot answer the majority of them.

Love sometimes can have a bittersweet feel to it. By falling in love with you I put my heart at risk of heartache. And heartache isn’t a feeling that anyone wants to feel, and it happens way too often in relationships no matter how much love there is in the relationship.

Father-to-be or Not-to-be

By Adrian Agosto
Staff Writer

Many people like to enjoy life; it is not a statistic but a fact. People enjoy life in many different ways; different hobbies like swimming, biking or hanging out with friends—who put smiles on their faces—and others even enjoy (oddly enough) working. Young people enjoy life by going out to parties, drinking and having sex. But what happens when fun goes too far for young people and they make a mistake that they will have to live with for the rest of their life. Example having a child from a female whom you had a one night stand with!

When I was 17 years old partying seemed to be the only way to enjoy life. Once I was done with work and received my check, I went out the door, into a car, and on my way to a party to get hammered. My friends and I always competed to get the most numbers from the many fine females that would be around. One night, I met this one female, we started to talk; talking led to dancing, dancing led to kissing, and kissing led me to a hotel room.

The next morning my new friend and I woke up, got ready to leave the room and went for breakfast at the hotel. We chit chatted for a while and laughed at stupid jokes. Once breakfast was over we went our separate ways. I knew her name and her phone number but that was all. I didn’t want a relationship with her since I did not respect her as much as a female with whom I would take my time getting to know.

A month had gone by and I was still being a guy/dog. After my night at another party I went home to sleep off everything I had just drank. When I awoke my head felt as if someone hit it with a sledge hammer. As I was trying to get rid of my hangover the phone rang, it was a call from a friend; he told me that one of the girls I hooked up with was pregnant. The phone immediately dropped from my hand and I sat on my bed wondering “what the hell do I do now?” Meanwhile, my friend was trying to get my attention since he was still on the cell phone—really, I didn’t have a care in the world for him at that time; it felt as if someone threw a grenade my way that was seconds from exploding. The main concern of mine was the child on the way in 9 months.

A couple hours had passed, and the friend who told me of the pregnancy was incessantly trying to get into contact with me. I just kept ignoring the calls. I wondered what would be said to her when I made the call to see if what was told to me was true. Finally I got enough confidence to make that phone call that would change my life forever. Fatherhood here I come.

While the phone rang I kept telling myself “I can do this, it’s my mistake and I have to live with it.” The phone stopped ringing and I heard a hello on the other side of the line. It was not a depressed hello; instead, it was a I-am-happy-that-you-called hello. I asked how she was and then dove right into the question in mind, “are you pregnant with my child?” She started to laugh. “Why are you laughing?” I asked, I thought it was cruel to laugh when someone asks such a serious question.

When I heard her response, I took a DEEP breath and screamed “THANK YOU GOD!” It was “no,” she was not pregnant. I told her that a friend had said he had found out she was pregnant and she said no. She never was and was not planning on having a child until she was around 25ish. My heart was beating heavily with joy. That one day scared me half to death so for all those who read this article a few words of advice. Enjoy life to the fullest, never live a moment in regret, but always keep in mind that you have to be prepared to face your consequences for your action.

The Perils of Love, Pt. 1

In the first episode of this two-part series, host Brandon T. Bisceglia chats with Horizons Outreach Editor Deb Toresso, News You Can Use Editor Stephanie Mallozzi, and Distribution Manager Shadaya Montgomery about their experiences in relationships, as well as their views on communication, independence, and compromise.

Stay tuned for “The Perils of Love, Pt. 2,” to be released next week!

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Your Mother Doesn't Work Here.

Photographs by Brandon T. Bisceglia

The above photographs were taken in the bathrooms of Lafayette and Beacon Halls over the past week.

Do you think that most students at HCC have enough respect for their campus? What do you think motivates the kinds of behaviors depicted here?

Italianish

By Susan Smith
Staff Writer

Are we who our culture makes us?

It was only about a month ago that I sat across from my mother, over the linoleum countertops of a sticky downtown diner, who -only upon finishing her third glass of red wine- leaned over the table to reveal to me a family secret that had laid dormant for over 85 years. It soon became clear, (between regular intervals of "I shouldn't be telling you this") that the birthright of my grandmother held less water than the Titanic in its final hour. Over several minutes my previous pride toward my strict Irish/Lithuanian culture faded as I was told that my Grandmother's Irish background may have been a little falsified. It turns out that her father was not 100% Irish but Italian, a fact that was so frowned upon by family during that time that she was only able to be raised by a distant aunt, a woman who had claimed to be her mother until her passing. She, therefore, never knowing her parents and accepting what she was told to be the truth, raised her children under the false beliefs of an Irish upbringing. Generations passed, and eventually the secret was lost in the seams of time. Until a bottle of wine decided to speak up.

After looking around for reality show cameras and concluding that the only audience chuckling at my disbelief was the neighboring table, who shot a smirk of distaste, I sighed and began to regroup my thoughts before releasing on my mother a surplus of questions, “Who are my great grandparents?! When did you find this out?! Do we have ties in the mafia? What copious amount of alcohol did Grandma have to drink to tell you this in the first place?! Why aren’t I tanner?!” It was only after her silence and attention turned its back to my wonder and changed to the empty glass before her, that I asked myself the real question I needed to know: “Who am I?”

We see it everywhere: distinct demonstrations of cultural pride. The shamrock tattoo, the Puerto Rican flag adorning the rearview mirror, family dinner on Sundays, down to the refusal to alter a family bloodline (a problem dating back to Montagues and Capulets). Nationalities have defined people since the start of humankind. But should they? Should I be categorized by the nationality that lies in my chemical makeup, or is there something else defining my existence?

It’s the question of nature vs. nurture. If humans walked around with shirt tags, what would they say? “Made in Sicily” or “25% sarcastic, 75% well-natured”? What does my DNA have to say about my personality? Can a doctor know who a person really is by studying blood work?

I thought so at first. That was why I was so mad at this kept secret. I assumed that I was born who I was, and that while personality and character may change and shape a person, it was your background that really defines who you are. I even found myself sympathizing with Jason Bourne, bitter that my identity had been kept from me (and a little eager to idolize myself with a fictional character).

However, weeks went by, and I realized I was no different a person than I was a month before. I wasn’t just a 5’6” Italian/Irish/Lithuanian 20-something. I was a friend, a sister, a daughter (finally clean of resentment), and a million other little things I had grown to be throughout my lifetime. I was bits and pieces of experience, of life, of people. Sure, I may be made up of genetically specific blueprints, but I’m also made up of childhood memories, of a love for books, of good advice, of friendship, of sardonic humor, of a susceptibility to chocolate, of extreme skills at Mario Kart, of a warmness towards strangers, of years and years of stories, of scars from love lost and found and memories made and forgotten. But most importantly, I’m 100% unique from everyone else. And so are you.

Don’t Let Your Secrets Control You

Nick Geiste
Staff Writer

Everyone has secrets. Whether the secrets are trivial and the individual does not feel it necessary to share, or substantial secrets that they are ashamed of because of fear of rejection. Either way, everyone is hurting inside by some sort of feeling; their secret is the front they put on.

It seems that the media and what the general public expects from us causes people to lie and carry out activities that they wouldn’t normally do without any influences. This makes it hard for us to open up to others knowing that society is so engrossed with being perfect. After all, why should we feel the need to spill our secrets when we are run by a bunch of people that keep the biggest secrets from us?

What is striving people to not share these happenings or feelings, is what makes keeping secrets interesting. Maybe it's a secret that provokes the past so it is easier to not talk about it. It could be a secret that you keep because you don't want to hurt others feelings. It could be curiosity towards something that causes you to secretly do a task and not tell. However, rejection I feel is one of the main reasons why a person should feel the need to keep secrets. Whether the person has done something discouraging and they are ashamed to tell someone or they feel they are different and afraid of what people might think of them.

You don't have to be afraid of rejection if you tell someone close to you what has been causing all these problems. The longer you hold in a secret, the harder it is to find the truth within you.

I’m not saying that this an easy task to accomplish, I have kept harmful secrets from my friends and family and have told them harmful secrets. Telling your friends and family something that you know they will be ashamed of, hurts. The last thing you would want to do is hurt someone close to you because of something that you have done. For instance, I have had three surgeries on my knee in two years, the third one coming around my senior year. I was hopeful going into my senior year that I would be able to play soccer again for the first time since freshman year. Also, if that went well I was hoping to play basketball on our woeful basketball team. So bad, I could possibly start. Disappointingly, none of this happened. During the second soccer game of the season, my knee dislocated and I tore my MCL and meniscus yet again. I had to get another surgery. This time the doctors decided to put stabilizers in my knee causing me to rest it more. After the cast was off and all the pain medication was gone, I felt depressed. I wasn’t sure why. The summer was coming, my cast was off, I was more mobile, but yet I was walking around like a zombie. It felt as if I needed the medication just to be myself again even though my knee did not hurt that much. With no thanks to the valley, I started getting pain medication to get through my days. It wasn't long until people close to me started noticing that I have changed. I became much more irritable when I either had the pills or didn't have them, it didn't matter. When my friends and family asked me why I have been acting strange, I acted like I didn't change at all. After a while, I learned that this is not the lifestyle for me. I did not want to spend my day waiting on someone else, or being rude to people that I'm always nice to. As difficult as it was, I had to spill my secrets. I had to tell everyone close to me what was wrong with me and that I was sorry. I told my girlfriend, my best friends, my brother, and my mother. If I had told my father, I probably wouldn’t have lived to talk about it. My mother was the hardest to talk to. She didn't understand why I would take pain medication without having any pain. I didn't want to get too far into the reasoning with her, so I said, “I’m sorry I was dumb. It didn’t take me long to realize that I’m better than that.”

They were all upset that things turned out this way, but all of them also wanted to help. At a time where I felt so low in life, they didn't criticize me or turn away from me. They stood their ground. The same ground I would stand on for them. This showed me that I could tell them pretty much anything and it would be okay.

No matter how big of a secret you are hiding, someone that loves you wants to know, needs to know, and most importantly wants to help. So why not relieve your stress and let it all out.

A Call Lightens the Past

By Victor Rios
Co-Editor in Chief

It has always been a fleeting but inescapable thought, one that would present itself when his identity and whereabouts would be put to question either by strangers—who would later become my friends—or the parents of friends whose unselfishness so often guided them to teach me about the respect I never learned at home, once they found out.

Who was my father? Up until a few days ago I knew verbatim his name, the very stoic left side of his face, that he was a drunk and other insignificant “facts.”

More often than not, throughout the very turbulent years during which I developed—except when I was pissed off at them—I would ascribe the role of father to whomever lent their core selves to be considered my mothers husband (though as they would say in Mexico illegitimamente). I always enjoyed that pretending game. That is, up until I gained my first brother, whose existence justified—unjustly—a furious and heavily repressed (thanks in part to many ass-whoopings) jealousy that would take years to boil over and, not unlike a psychological improvised explosive device, explode with hatred directed at the one whom the rest of the human family generally loves: my mother.

Once in the US, I gained a new father, and a new set of step brothers and sisters. Once again, this helped to cement jealousy as part of my very being. Looking at my stepfather play with his children; carry the smallest on his shoulder while holding the other two’s hands on the way to mass, and me walking next to them intently paying attention to the other fathers and children—I tried to pass it off as a mark of coolness for a long time.

It never occurred to ask about him (my father) for fear that…well, for pure fear. I also knew that she (my mother) would tell me he was a drunk, a violent person and worst of all, gay—the root of a prejudice I held tightly until Professor Chance pried it away from my cold, still-living hands.
While I generally dismissed any profound wondrous sentiments, I did build (on top of many other unrelated negative aspects) a resentment towards him, for, despite the ten years I lived in Mexico, in the same residence only three blocks away form his mother’s house, he remained incognito and incommunicado.

More recently, (about two months ago) the curiosity that had yet to kill the cat returned, and resumed the nearly overbearing quest to find out more about the man I almost hated but had yet to meet. So I squeezed my balls really tight so as to not let any testosterone out of them, and asked—in a nice and kid-like squeaky voice—my mother to please find out his whereabouts. Surprisingly, she agreed—but unfortunately she never did get back to me. To her, I am just like my father: un alacran (a scorpion) who has lost his way much like his father did. Many times she related this to me (through loud explosive yells) and my ex-girlfriend (in a nicer way). In fact, she trusted my girlfriend so much more than she did me that she related to her the nature of my father’s untimely end.

“He died of a rare disease,” said Maribel, my ex-girlfriend.

“What? First of all, why would she not tell me to my face?” I responded fiercely. “Second of all, what does she mean, ‘a rare disease?’”

Without a second’s thought, Maribel’s saddened face (which as she later mentioned was expressed it for me) responded, “In Mexico, they usually refer to a ‘rare disease’ when people die of sexually transmitted diseases.” My mother was once again invoking my father’s supposed sexual preferences as the reason for his death.

A can of curious worms had definitely been opened, but extracting information from my mother’s “Pandora’s box” would be the most difficult aspect of the ongoing venture toward finding out more of my father. During the scant future meetings before the start of the semester, I would make simple attempts, not to pester her about my father—but I knew I had to somehow ease her into a comfortable state in order for her to talk to me about that. Instead, I asked about her family tree, of which she had such an ornate intimate knowledge. But when she got to the end of all she had to mention it—a venting that she had not gone through in a while. Like a squirrel that ungratefully runs from a human after having taken an M&M, she quickly recoiled and said her goodbyes. “We’ll talk some other day,” my mother said. “Thanks for calling.” (Of course, calling her, too, is something I barely ever do).

Coincidentally, after combing frantically (as I had done many times after finding out about my father’s death) through many directories in Guadalajara, looking for someone who may be even remotely related to my father, I gave up, as I had done before. It was 3 a.m. in the morning (and yes I was going crazy), but out of my—as the hot-head Glen Beck would say—gut, I said “let me check facebook. Hell, it’s the world biggest social networking site, my odds may be better there, and plus I can leave one of my meaningless messages.” I punched in the words “Rios Zubieta,” my father’s two last names; sure enough, the results brought with them one person—Luis Enrique Rios Zubieta. Before any attempt at asking whether he held any relevant information, I spied on his friends; it turned out that he had only 25, of which all but one were beautiful females of all sizes and shapes and backgrounds. But no one other person held his last name. I heeded no mind to this, the most looked at this man’s face—his flat forehead, his slanted eyes, and his serious face all added to the aura that he may be in some way related to my father.
The only way to know was to again to squeeze my balls and send him a message in Spanish, which read:

Hello, my name is Victor Javier Rios Lopez, I am from Guadalajara Mexico and I am looking for someone who has, or has had a very similar name to the one I have. If you know of anyone, I would appreciate it if you contacted me. If not, then, I am sorry for taking your time and, without a second’s thought, please discard this message. Thank you.

At that moment only one hope persisted, “this guy better get my message!" The chances that he would read it were very much diminished, since his last update to his facebook page had been on June twenty-third. Much to my surprise he did answer, though brief in content—“apparently you are my brother’s son, contact me at…”—it was enough to get those butterflies in my stomach rolling. For three days the thought of calling gnawed at my brain’s innards, “should I call? What if it turns out to be he is not?” At school, a surprise quiz which involved writing for the entirety of the class put whatever resolve to do well to the test, my fingers were jittery and I could not stop thinking about a person that may turn out to be someone else—in the end I got a meager B.

Around 7 p.m. while staring at the phone and unconsciously tossing and bending the phone card I obtained earlier that day, curiosity got the better of me; I picked up the phone to make the call of a lifetime. Dialed the card’s access number, the pin code, and the phone number to my uncle, and expecting the tides of enlightenment to pick up, I heard a disastrous and impersonal computer generated “you have dialed an invalid phone number.” “No!” From the other room I heard, “What happened?” It was Maribel, after explaining that I meticulously dialed every character, she said “let me try, I do this all the time.”—quite the comforting exaggeration for about two minutes when she too received the incessant response.

Ten minutes passed trying to figure out what we were doing wrong; finally we decided to call customer service—this turned into waiting far longer than expected, but finally the unusually nice lady on the other end related what we were doing wrong and connected the call. Within seconds someone did answer, “Bueno?”

Every nerve within me flinched into a brief pause, and then finally my lips broke through that mold and after what felt like a quaint introduction, I reminded him that I was calling as a result of his response on facebook. With hesitant sternness Enrique said, “Well, I am your father’s brother, ah…” as if searching for words he went on “well Victor, I would like to see you face to face.” My newfound uncle initially perceived my broken Spanish as a sign of inherent Americanism which included the availability of enough funds and time to travel to Mexico—of course, his idea could not be any farther from the truth. A brief intro into the current endeavors I am currently embarked in and hinting at the ‘funding’ issues Enrique related his own situation “I understand, I work as a paramedic and I am hurting too, like the President [Calderon] said, ‘When the US catches a cold, we get pneumonia.’”

“As for your father, well…how should I tell you…Your father, Victor, died three years ago,” Enrique said; though expecting some kind of grief to pour out he continued, “sorry, to have to tell you this over the phone, this was not my intention.” Despite the intense seriousness of the topic I shrugged it off and said to him in a composed and nearly happy manner, “I already knew that tio; mainly, I would like to know more about him, his family, and anything else that you deem important for me to know, seeing as I never met him in the 19 years that he was alive.”
The most revealing of conversations ensued; I held the phone closer to my ear than ever, pressing it hard and hoping that my eardrum would take account of every vowel, vocal expression and perhaps even give me a picture of what my uncle looked like and what he was doing. My father apparently had died of stomach cancer and complications from drinking too much alcohol in a Tijuana hospital—far from the rare disease account previously related to me. Victor remarried and had two more children; my uncle giggly said “you are the legitimate one.” Expecting never to see me again, he named the older of his kids Victor Javier Rios (8) and my young sister Irene Rios (5)—“I hope you are not offended because my brother named his kid the same as you,” my tio said. There is nothing that I could do or say to change that fact, what certainly does hurt is that they lost their father far too early in their lives, even if they did enjoy his presence more than I ever could.

Victor Javier Rios Zubieta was the youngest of 7 kids in a family that prided itself in the intellectual; two engineers, two doctors, two lawyers, and my tio, as he said, “well I am the least well-to-do of the family, I am a paramedic, but I love what I do.” My tio, coincidently spent my father’s last hours, by his bedside. While working in San Francisco, tending to artists needs while on tour in San Francisco area, he received a call from one his sisters; one of his brothers was in Mexicali, and needed someone to treat stabilize him, “I went with the though of stabilizing my brother and sending him to Guadalajara, where my sister would treat his hemorrhaging brain—which I did, but two days later, your brother’s wife called me, after years of not hearing from him, I immediately went to Tijuana, that’s where he went to look for you, obviously, he never did find you, but he stayed there, long story short, I got there three days before he died. Again, the plan was to stabilize him, and take him to Guadalajara, where again my sister would treat him—but it was too late,” said tio Enrique.

Father was an imperfect person—drunken spates of violence define the memories mom remembers him for—but my uncle knew that he loved me, in spite of all that he did (which he did not deny, and in fact, he added womanizer to the list of adjectives that describe my dad) tio says that he tried to get in contact with me, but every time he tried, my uncles (my mother’s brothers have more than just a screw loose) kicked his ass. “I remember your dad would go to your mom’s house and ask to see you, and between two of your uncles would fight him, he would then go back to the house, clean the blood off his face and go drinking again, after that, he would again go back for more, and again return empty handed, until he finally gave up. Years later, he would ask me whether I knew of you. Other times he would ask me to go ask for you. And then he completely fell off the earth, no one heard of him until his last days,” added tio Enrique.
Twice I returned to the store to buy new phone cards after being unexpectedly cut off—apparently, giving the caller a warning that the minutes are about to expire is too much to expect from any of the countless phone cards at the store (not even a beep). The talk of my father dominated merely a quarter of the conversation, the rest was a galore of discursion of each other’s lives which at time’s seemed like parallels. He turned out to be a gallant who loves talk of metaphysics, lover of books as well as of news of all kinds (with the exception of gossip), and of films from all over the world. “Do you like the movie ‘Déjà vu?” tio Enrique asked with a now usual and comforting mijo (my son). I never did watch the movie, but suddenly that place in time and the exact feelings running through my innards felt impressed the thought I had been there before; at the mention of this tio Enrique replied I felt the same exact way mijo.

The last time that he felt that way was a few years back, before he had to tend to both of his brothers illnesses while at San Francisco International Airport. There tio Enrique was stopped by immigration for carrying a friend’s baggage; in it were panty’s bra’s and other womanly garments. “Why are you carrying these clothes?” said the immigration officer. After explaining to him that his friend had forgotten the clothes one year earlier in Guadalajara for nearly two hours tio Enrique finally gave up, and told the immigration officer that he would no longer speak in English and that he would require a translator if immigration wanted to continue the very same line of questioning. Obviously exasperated by the constant interrogation tio Enrique gave up. “You know what officer, I am going to be attending the Gay Pride parade”—which coincidently happened to be the day after—the officer angrily responded with another question, “are you questioning my intelligence?” Soon after, a translator arrived and the officer retrieved to his office. After explaining to the translator the situation and relating to him the gay pride story, after a hysterical laughing session, the translator talked to the immigration officer, and had to resign to stamping my tio’s passport.

“Welcome to America…I hope you leave soon,” said the immigration officer; he then took tio Enrique’s baggage and dropped it on the floor. “You know what I did, I took all the clothes that fell out, stuffed them back into the baggage. I took my card out of my wallet, I gave it to the officer, I looked him right in the face and told him “Next time you go to Guadalajara make sure you call me, I will go to the airport, pick you up and show you what the meaning of hospitality really is,’” said tio Enrique. “In spite of all the bad things your dad and mom did…there is no more time available for this call,” said an automatic message.

I hung up the phone, sighed and went on to work on chemistry homework. Two weeks later I finally asked my mother again for some answers.

Continuum 14: Hit and Park

HCC’s garage is extremely crowded this semester, but some students are too distracted to pay attention to their surroundings. Host Brandon T. Bisceglia speaks with Sarah, a student who was a victim of this behavior, about the accident she had, courtesy, and the rules of the road.

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