Melanie Chan/Staff

One of the biggest challenges for sustainable international economic development is the need to control greenhouse gas emissions. Before we can make meaningful progress toward stabilizing the planet’s climate, we need to have an international roadmap for economic growth, job creation and poverty alleviation that still bends the curve on emissions.

Solutions for saving the planet need to be ones that contribute to economic growth! Certainly, for developed economies, we need to have a plan for sustainable growth that includes emerging energy-efficiency technologies, novel green generation technologies and new infrastructures. For the developing world, however, the path to development goes through an increase in per capita consumption of energy. A fundamental sticking point to agreeing to an international agreement on carbon emissions has been the concern in developing economies that such an agreement will stymie GDP growth.

I deeply believe, however, that it is possible to chart a course for economic advancement in both developed and developing economies while still curbing greenhouse emissions. On the demand side, overall energy consumption can be grouped into three categories: buildings, transportation and industry. For example, energy-efficiency technologies have the potential to reduce energy consumption in buildings in an economically viable fashion by as much as 50 percent in the next five years, with the consequent drops in greenhouse gas emissions. In countries in the midst of building booms, new advances in materials and green cement will lead to even higher savings.

On the supply side, new technologies such as smart grids, solar thermal, nuclear and hydrogen fuels hold rich possibilities. The specific trajectory to economic growth, however, will vary from economy to economy, and the overall trajectory will need to be set strategically through a rigorous and vibrant roadmapping process.

This carbon emission quandary, with stalled international negotiations and ineffective policies, is analogous to a problem faced by the semiconductor industry.

Although the semiconductor industry had been doubling every 12 to 18 months for close to three decades, by the late 1980s, the complexity of the semiconductor supply chain began to dampen innovation and cost billions. Semiconductor industry groups, academics and manufacturers met to discuss best practices and fundamental decisions underpinning their industry and created the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors in 1992. The plan continues to be updated annually and exists like a living document.

If the current boom in the Information Age and the ubiquity of devices such as smartphones, which rely on cheaper and faster semiconductors by the Silicon roadmap, is any indicator, the plan is working well.

To pursue the analogy between the Silicon roadmap and a carbon roadmap, with colleagues at UC Berkeley such as professors Spanos, Zysman, Ramesh and Doyle, we have launched the Center for Research in Energy Systems Transformation. CREST is under the rubric of the campuswide Berkeley Energy and Climate Initiative.

CREST is working to create roadmaps that are owned by implementers and are cooperatively developed for the purpose of guiding the world’s energy system toward high efficiency while producing fewer greenhouse gases.

The CREST carbon roadmap has two arms. The first is to develop long-term plans for specific carbon-reducing technologies. As a test case, Berkeley engineers are investigating how sensors and networks deployed in smart, green buildings can be designed for easy adoption on different scales. CREST makes use of Berkeley’s deep vein of multidisciplinary, smart building-technology research.

Second, CREST seeks to develop locally adapted tools and technologies that are sensitive to place, politics and culture. That’s why the second part of the CREST carbon roadmap is to identify obstacles to cross-national technology development and implementation. Colleagues such as professors Brewer, Miguel, Gadgil, Wolfram and others power the Blum Center for Developing Economies’ new partnership with USAID in a project called the Development Innovations Laboratory, which includes the development of sustainable energy technology roadmaps in economies such as India, Indonesia, Kenya, etc.

I was recently asked to serve on a new United Nations Scientific Advisory Board, which will provide guidance to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on international sustainable development issues, staffed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization with its mandate for science and technology.

I look forward to expanding on bringing the work that we are doing at centers such as CREST and Blum to the international conversation about sustainable development.

I am confident we can create a carbon-roadmap-style plan that outlines how equitable prosperity can be reached across the planet and shows that economic growth, job creation and greenhouse gas reduction are not mutually exclusive.

Shankar Sastry is dean of the College of Engineering and the faculty director at the Blum Center for Developing Economies.

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On Sept. 17 The Daily Californian ran an advertisement from Dr. Chase Lay, a San Jose-based plastic surgeon who specializes in Asian facial plastics throughout the Bay Area. The ad showed two unidentified Asian women in before-and-after photos of blepharoplasty, a procedure more commonly known as “Asian double eyelid surgery.” We want to share our opinions on why this ad is problematic and what steps members of the community can take to educate themselves on the damaging effects of Western beauty standards.

The controversy over receiving blepharoplasty boils down to one question: Are those who consider blepharoplasty or receive it motivated by a dislike of their Asian features? The specification of “Asian” in Lay’s practice confirms that Asian blepharoplasty, unlike breast augmentation, targets an ethnic group. Some Asians view it as an attempt to Westernize while others see it as just another way to enhance their beauty.

The most glaring message in the Facial Plastic Surgery ad lists “Double Eyelid Surgery” and “Asian Eyelid Surgery” toward the bottom. The distinction between double and Asian eyelid surgery unnecessarily racializes the procedure: The specification of “Asian” not only targets a certain group but also limits the practice to one demographic. On Lay’s website, there are before-and-after photos of patients who have undergone eyelid surgery. Under the category, “Eyelid Surgery,” many of the patients who chose the procedure are white and appear to be more than 40 years old, electing to undergo the procedure to look younger or less tired. This demographic differs highly from those under the category “Eyelid Surgery for the Asian Eye,” who are largely younger. One of the patients wanted to make her eyes look “brighter,” affirming how eyelid surgery for Asians is more often due to concerns over beauty than age or medical reasons.

The obsession over double eyelids in Asian culture, especially in South Korea, did not happen randomly. It stems from the standard of beauty in which Western eyes are more desirable because they are larger. Lay’s ad promotes more than just the practice of eyelid surgery targeting Asian Americans; it sends the message that in order to be accepted, Asian Americans must have the “Western” look, most noticeably in their eyes and nose. If individuals do not comply, they are excluded from this model of beauty. For a community that has struggled to represent itself in media, education and politics, it is a shame that the ability to succeed is dependent on conforming to a Western standard.

The TV career of Julie Chen is one example of what is at stake when Asian Americans are pressured to undergo eyelid surgery. Chen recently confessed she underwent blepharoplasty to advance her career. This announcement has sparked several reactions. The first is an attack on Chen herself as a cultural “sellout.” Angry Asian Man blog reports Julie Chen’s move to undergo eyelid surgery is essentially denying one’s own identity to be accepted by the dominant race. The second is in support and offers empathy, from both her fans and the Asian American community. The Asian American Journalists Association “applauds Ms. Chen for sharing this personal moment with her audience. Her story chronicles some of the daily struggles Asian Americans face in the workplace across all industries.” And lastly, others question whether Chen’s only option to advance her career was eyelid surgery. Clearly, Chen felt she had no other option at that time.

Most notably, these responses lack criticism of the agencies of power that made it very clear Asian eyes would prevent Chen from achieving her career aspirations.

By focusing on the individual, we fail to recognize that this occurs in the daily lives of Asian Americans, whether you are one of the nation’s most recognized talk show hosts or a UC Berkeley student.

At the UC Berkeley student level, ASUC Senator Sevly Snguon has asked for an official apology from the Daily Cal and more extensive screening processes for advertisements. Along with these requests, the Daily Cal must better represent the diversity of the students on our campus. The Daily Cal should reflect on what it means to “serve the UC Berkeley campus and its surrounding community,” which requires being more aware of the demographics it serves.

We believe this is an opportunity for the Daily Cal to reach out to the many resources that are here on campus, especially when screening advertisements for cultural sensitivity. One of those resources is the Multicultural Student Offices at the Cesar Chavez Student Center, equipped with staff and interns ready to respond. We urge the Daily Cal staff to approach its work with cultural sensitivity and be transparent about its selection of advertisements that may be offensive to minorities.

Christina Cho, Sam Lai and Whitney Wong intern at the Asian Pacific American Student Development Office at UC Berkeley.

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Ah, sexually transmitted infections. The modern scarlet letter. “Stay away!” we cry. Particularly if it’s herpes. Oh, religious deity, forbid it be herpes.

For many, STIs exist on an intangible parallel plane. This or that promiscuous so-and-so might have had it coming, but we’d like to think we’re far removed from that plane of existence. STIs are seen as “dirty,” a blight upon whoever might have them. We dread joining their ranks.

In truth, however, STIs are as ubiquitous as bedbugs in New York. And like bedbugs, STIs are often more discomfiting than necessarily nefarious. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly all sexually active adults will contract some strain of HPV at some point, but the body magics away most HPV infections.

This unfortunately isn’t quite the case with herpes, the second-most-common medically incurable STI. One in six people in the United States — 50 million people, y’all — have genital herpes, or HSV-2, and somewhere between 60 and 80 percent have oral herpes, or HSV-1, also called canker sores. Although there is no cure for either strain, both can be treated and their symptoms vastly ameliorated. And for the more notorious HSV-2, besides the occasional flare-up — which can lie dormant for years, in any case — there doesn’t seem to be any larger health issues. No complications with the female reproductive tract, no internal damage, no cancer.

Despite HSV-2’s commonness and relative harmlessness, it is still surrounded by social stigma second only to HIV, according to a 2007 Harris Interactive Poll. Not to cast HIV as some sort of extreme (modern medicine can help the HIV-positive live long lives full of salacious sex if they like), but herpes? C’mon. It’s like slightly misplaced acne.

Let’s start by asking you, the reader: Would you call a relationship off if your potential or current partner told you he or she had herpes? In the Harris poll, most respondents without HSV-2 said they would either avoid partners with herpes or end things with their partner if they were told he or she had herpes. That’s indiscriminately voting one out of every sixth potential mate out for something that doesn’t cause any problems and that doesn’t need to be passed on if you practice safer sex. For groups with one herpes-positive partner and one not, paying attention to breakouts and always using condoms and/or antiviral medications can cut your rate transmission down to 1 to 2 percent per year of regular sex — pretty minuscule, if you ask me.

The most alarming statistic in my eyes is that an estimated 80 percent of people with herpes don’t even know they have it. Yeah, we’ve talked about how herpes isn’t that bad. But the larger issue behind this stat — besides not possessing the ability to be open with your partner or practicing safer sex — is the fact that these people probably aren’t getting tested for other entirely curable — but more dangerous — STIs such as chlamydia, trichomoniasis, gonorrhea and syphilis, either. This convenient forgetfulness or ignorance about our own susceptibility to STIs could potentially be what damns us. We sexually active folk are likely all exposed to STIs at some point in time, so why do we evade the issue?

Chlamydia, trich, gonorrhea (the “clap”) and syphilis are all bacterial, so you can be rid of them for good with treatment. Left alone, however, they can have devastating effects in the long run, although they might not manifest any symptoms in the short run. Chlamydia — the most commonly reported STI — and gonorrhea can cause infertility if left untreated. Scary syphilis, if not caught early on, can cause damage to the brain, heart and nervous system and possibly even lead to death.

If you’re sexually active, whatever sex you identify as, the CDC recommend getting tested for chlamydia, gonorrhea and HIV once a year. The Tang Center covers an annual checkup for chlamydia, the clap, HIV and Pap smears (the last recommended to be administered every three years for women above the age of 21). Other STIs, such as trich, syphilis and herpes, aren’t generally tested for unless you feel you have been exposed to them or display symptoms, but you can ask for these screenings at either the Tang Center or Planned Parenthood.

Stigma won’t go down without a fight, unfortunately, but perhaps talking about it and dispelling falsehoods will help combat it. Hopefully with more openness and knowledge will come more testing, acceptance, treatment and discussion. It’s better to play it safe and get routinely checked, so if necessary, you can plan ahead or get treated accordingly — but remember, it’s not an end-all if you contract something. Life and sex go on. A tour guide and actor at Kink.com once told a classmate of mine about the first thing a colleague told him when he discovered he had herpes: “Welcome to the club.” You won’t be alone.

Vi Nguyen writes the weekly Sex on Tuesday column. You can contact her at sex@dailycal.org or follow her on Twitter: @yonictonic.

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Research in Antarctica is slowing to a halt, perhaps causing irreparable damage to invaluable scientific work on climate issues. Services and benefits for veterans are being cut, leaving veterans with no access to regional VA centers. Until a widespread salmonella outbreak became public knowledge, there was only one person responsible for tracking all domestic foodborne illnesses — the rest had been furloughed. While higher education has yet to be hit as hard as other sectors, college campuses will show greater signs of strain as the shutdown prolongs.

Important research tools such as federal libraries and data provided by the U.S. Census Bureau are available with limited access, if any. Grant deadlines for research projects may be pushed back, and some may be scrapped altogether. For a campus such as UC Berkeley that’s especially reliant on academic and scientific research, these effects of the shutdown are particularly damaging. Students should be angry that Congressional Republicans are wasting our time and resources to score worthless political points.

How did it come to this? How could our government close due to the demands of a minority within Congress, and how could this same minority potentially force a worldwide recession with the debt-ceiling deadline looming?

Let’s be frank: It’s the Republicans’ fault.

In the days leading up to the government shutdown, the Republicans in the House of Representatives worked themselves up into a frenzy. The Oct. 1 deadline for Congress to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government funded approached quickly.

Conservative activists mobilized, seizing this as their opportunity to defund Obamacare. These activists and their allies argued for attaching an amendment defunding the Affordable Care Act to any continuing resolution that would fund the government. The Republicans didn’t have the votes to get such a resolution through the Senate, and President Obama, as he had all along, made it clear he would veto any legislation that defunded the Affordable Care Act.

And even though 28 Republican representatives have stated publicly that they would vote for a “clean” continuing resolution — one with no amendments — Republicans on the House Rules Committee made that impossible. Just before the shutdown, they passed a rule change that prevents anyone other than the House majority leader, Republican Eric Cantor, from introducing a bill to fund the government. Simply put, these Republicans are interested in winning political victories to achieve substantive policy changes by holding the government hostage.

And while a government shutdown may have deeply felt economic and research consequences for the country, hitting the debt limit on Oct. 17 would bring on a complete global catastrophe.

Oct. 17 is a date far more important than the Oct. 1 deadline. If Congress doesn’t vote to raise the amount the Treasury is authorized to borrow in order to service the debts of the U.S. government, we will hit the “debt ceiling.” A relic of a time when Congress used a different budgeting process, the debt ceiling was never used to force major policy concessions until the Republicans used it for expressly that purpose in 2011. If we fail to raise the debt ceiling, the choice won’t do anything to curb our spending; raising the debt ceiling only enables us to pay the bills on things we’ve already spent money on, which are ostensibly decided through congressional budget negotiations.

As it stands, many Republicans in Congress have an incentive to behave like the so-called “suicide caucus.” Many come from rural, overwhelmingly white districts that wield outsized electoral power, and these districts will proudly re-elect their representatives for taking a courageous stand against corrupt liberal boogeymen. Many GOP members of Congress fear they will lose primary challenges to Republicans who are even more conservative than themselves, fueling a never-ending run to the extreme right wing of American politics. In essence, when we say that we’re fed up with broken “politics,” what we’re really frustrated with is the broken system that keeps handing power to a minority with an extreme conservative viewpoint. And it’s this minority that’s dragged us into the whole mess.

If the shutdown continues unabated through the end of the month, two national laboratories in the Bay Area will be forced to furlough their employees. While the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is safe because of contracts that fund the lab through the end of the year, research dollars could dry up eventually. This money and other research funds like it are a key part of the campus’s operations. When they disappear, Berkeley will feel the hurt.

The post Blame the Republicans appeared first on The Daily Californian.

“Kill the Mexicans!” my friend hollered as we watched a movie. Some of my housemates groaned. Others chuckled. I stayed quiet even though I’m Mexican American. We all continued watching the movie; it’s easy to shrug off discrimination when it’s not directly targeted at you.

Where I used to live, choosing not to challenge racist remarks was one of the compromises I made to fit in. I was a resident of a student housing cooperative where most of my housemates were white. And to be honest, not speaking up about racism wasn’t a compromise as much as it was a requirement. For instance, my housemates wanted to throw a “White Trash” party. In high school my friends called each other white trash, but I never thought I could, because I wasn’t white and didn’t live in a trailer park, as they did. Thinking about my high school friends, I opposed the party. Because of my position, I was booed. My housemates complained about not having the party until I moved out.

Racist remarks were also commonplace at my former co-op. During lunch, one of my friends, a humanities student with a 4.0, talked about interning with “dumb” blacks. Another housemate, a popular guy, posted a flier on his door depicting black graduate students laughing. It read: “Excellence Through Despite Diversity.” My housemates tolerated and ignored racist remarks such as this. Like minorities with strong cultural differences, individuals who were racists were seen as “transitioning” into a cooperative environment. The problem here is that minorities were the victims while racist individuals were the opposite. In putting up with these racist remarks, we effectively tolerated racism.

Some of my well-meaning housemates claimed that we live in a post-racial America and that thus, racism doesn’t exist. Yet students of color still face racist prejudice, meaning we can’t overcompensate for our progress toward racial equality by claiming racism doesn’t exist. Rather than condemning discrimination, other housemates told me to develop a “thicker” skin. Students of color are told this all the time. This may be well-intended advice, because we, like everyone else in the world, should learn how to deal with adversity maturely. It’s unfair, however, to say students of color need to be bullied into maturity. Certain students have the privilege of using discrimination to one-up others. They discriminate to make others feel bad. They also discriminate “jokingly,” as when my housemate hollered, “Kill the Mexicans!”

While it’s easy to show that remarks such as this are prejudiced, it’s much more difficult to prove that the actions of an institution are prejudiced. In the words of professor Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, individuals have the privilege “to be prejudiced without having to admit to themselves or others that race plays any part.” The pervasiveness of this privilege fuels the ambiguity and anxiety surrounding institutional racism. For instance, two years ago, the Berkeley College Republicans staged an “Increase Diversity Bake Sale.” They believed this could start a “debate” on campus. Mocking policies that give admissions preference to underprivileged communities under the guise of “starting a debate” is no less racist and equally problematic.

One way our university shows our enduring commitment to diversity is hanging up banners of nonwhite students on campus. Yet over the past few years, state funding for public education has been drastically reduced. As a result, UC Berkeley has more and more out-of-state students as well as reduced access to spaces intended for students of color. In other words, UC Berkeley had to choose between having nice things or nonrich Californians of color. As the banners demonstrate, underprivileged students are considered part of the university’s “nice things”; something it gets to parade around without having to answer for the consequences of what ensuring diversity actually means.

The problem here is not that the university doesn’t want to enroll more underprivileged students. It’s that in a time of economic hardship, our university was able to forgo its mission to educate Californians of different economic and racial backgrounds. It’s that, despite the university’s best efforts, budget cuts were not distributed equally. It’s unclear now whether an undergraduate education will be as affordable or accessible as it once was or whether international and out-of-state students will be pitted against Californians for enrollment.

Public institutions should operate on the same principles their constituents do. Their actions should be evaluated not only on the intent behind them but also on the impact they have on the communities they serve. And as I experienced, racist attitudes are still present and can go unchallenged throughout the community — whether it’s in a Berkeley housing co-op or at an event organized by college Republicans. Like most American cities, our campus struggles to integrate the student body racially even though diversity increases overall. It’s time we paid attention to what this means.

Josh Escobar writes the Monday column on the intersection of student and urban life. You can contact him at jescobar@dailycal.org or follow him on Twitter: @urbananimale.

The post Racism in Berkeley never left appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The morning of Oct. 1, online healthcare exchanges mandated by the Affordable Care Act opened up around the country against the backdrop of federal agencies closing down and UC Berkeley students grudgingly accepting the reality of class despite the explosion on campus. While the launch survived Tea Party inanity, it did run into technical issues. Some of these issues — such as higher-than-expected site traffic — were unforeseen. Many, however, were known even before the exchanges launched, as The New York Times reported earlier that week. Although this seems like a Washington problem, allow me to propose a very Bay Area solution.

Economics teaches us our activities are limited by the quantity of resources we have. No doubt some of the technical issues with the health care exchanges were due to limited resources — specifically, time, money and ideas. The government could hire only a limited number of individuals to write code for its software and only had a limited amount of time before the exchanges had to be launched. But what if such limits on resources could be lifted? What if instead of just a couple hundred employees designing the exchanges, a couple hundred thousand could? What if we crowdsourced the development to the general public? We could have a nearly unbounded number of man-hours. And the outcome would surely be greater than the sum of the efforts put in by each individual due to a synergistic effect.

Crowdsourcing — taking a job usually performed by a designated agent and “outsourcing” it to a large group of people — can go beyond just the health care exchanges. Every November, we are reminded of issues with electronic voting systems, which can hinder our ability to perform perhaps the most basic of our civic duties. Instead of making voters feel uncertain about whether their vote is properly counted, government can ask for their help in making sure it is. Similarly, budgets can be crowdsourced. Instead of politicians and special interests deciding how government makes and spends money, let the citizens offer their best ideas. I can almost guarantee education would be made a higher priority, while senseless subsidies would be rolled back.

Further, crowdsourcing allows citizens to take part in government in a uniquely 21st century manner. As Newark mayor and U.S. Senate candidate Cory Booker likes to say, “Democracy is not a spectator sport.” Being part of the democratic process is a responsibility of living in a democracy. Not everyone wants to run for office or work on a campaign, perhaps on account of the antics witnessed on C-SPAN. Yet many want to do more than cast a ballot. This gives those people a chance to take part in government in a very meaningful way. And given the fact that government touches nearly every aspect of our lives, I’m sure anyone who wants to will be able to find someway to get involved. At UC Berkeley, with our strong inclination toward public service and activism, trying to solve some of the challenges our country faces could perhaps become part of relevant classes.

Of course, there are many unintended consequences and points of concern that should be considered — cybersecurity perhaps being the most significant. With so many people having access to specifications of what government needs done, questions about data security are only natural. Before croudsourcing government activity can become a reality, a dialogue must be had over who can know what. And ideas and solutions that come out of crowdsourcing ought to be thoroughly vetted to prevent any harm. Admittedly, many activities, perhaps those dealing with national security, would remain private. But just because people cannot work on every aspect of government policy does not mean they should be prevented from doing something.

We hear a lot about government being broken. Politicians often run for election on the platform of being outsiders wanting to “fix government.” But if we really want to reform our government and minimize its inefficiencies, we have to let new ideas permeate it. These new ideas are not going to come in the form of soundbites and filibusters. They will come from all of us tinkering with the nuts and bolts of our government. And, at a time when our government can’t keep itself up and running, these new ideas are invaluable.

 Tejas Dave is a sophomore at UC Berkeley sophomore.

Editor’s note: Tejas Dave is a former Daily Cal staff member.

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Bookworms, that is.

Last month, I left work completely overwhelmed. The 49 wasn’t coming, so I walked home on the hottest afternoon, ever. I’m pretty sure parts of my skin melted off in protest of the high temperature — I have yet to discover the patches they left behind. On the corner of Ashby and College, I wished I could ditch my rock of a bag and the huge Amazon box in my arms without any regret. By the time I got to Telegraph Avenue, I was secretly wishing Cal had lost its game against Portland so the jubilant crowds sporting Cal gear would stop being so damn chipper and happy.

But somehow, by the time I reached Adeline, I had a wide smile on my face and an even bigger stack in my arms.

On the block between Shattuck and Adeline stands a small white house with a slanted, bridgelike white porch. And that porch was exploding with books. I could almost hear it grunting as it tried to support all the books it carried. A tiny handmade cardboard sign quietly announced that the books scattered on the porch cost 50 cents to $2, which made me wonder where the rest of the Berkeleyans were and why they weren’t there fighting over Dickens and Camus.

I have serious issues when it comes to buying books: I don’t know when to stop. Growing up in an Arab country, where the average a person reads was about half a page a year, limited the variety and quantity of books available. So I buy books like I’ll never have the chance to again. I had to smuggle in small piles last year and hide them in my bedroom because my sister swore she would fight me if I brought one more book inside our already cramped apartment. Having moved to a bigger place, I saw this as my chance to decorate.

I step inside, and suddenly I’m in paradise, where piles and piles and piles of books cover every inch of furniture. Excluding bookstores and libraries, I have never seen so many books in one place. I didn’t know where to start.

A tanned Armenian man in his late 40s walks into my newly discovered wonderland, wiping his hands on his apron as he informs me about his plans to cook for 40 friends that night. He then notices the book I’m holding, “Asterix et Obelix,” shouts its name in French and then expresses his deepest apologies: He cannot sell that book, as it has too much sentimental value.

I spent about 40 minutes with him, talking about a wide range of topics, from the Israeli treatment of olive trees — prompted by my interest in a book called “Cooking with Olive Oil” — to the library scene in Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast,” all the while my ADHD kicking in and drawing my attention to that stack of “Harry Potter” hardcovers perched precariously on the edge of the table, the worn-out Hemingway book on the ground, the discolored French children’s book on the old TV set.

I left his house promising I would stay for dinner next time and wobbled along with my new 17 books that I got for 40 bucks, plus an elementary Arabic book he gave me for free to give to my friend. As I skipped happily — and fell repeatedly — down Ashby, I remembered my trip across the border from Jordan to Syria a few years back. The soldier searching my bag nudged a book with the butt of his gun and asked me what that was doing in my suitcase. I didn’t know how to answer him. The person driving me hastened to answer, “Mu’allem, she studies in America: They make them read books there.”

No, I wanted to say, I read because when I was a kid, I fell deeply in love with reading. My father would stuff duffel bags with books and travel with overflowing suitcases halfway around the world, all so my heart would break with Fred Weasley’s death, so I would go through the war on Tara with Scarlett, so I would live every emotion that colors Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s beautiful stories.

But I held my tongue. I felt a wave of gratitude toward my father wash over me. He’s the one who introduced me to the world of reading, which in itself has millions of different ports to other universes, some filled with black holes that suck us in once we get too close and others we must avoid at all costs because they are too alien and put our brain cells at risk, such as “Twilight.”

College = zero times the number of minutes spent on external reading. But, I am positive my love for books will emerge as a survivor after I graduate. “Harry Potter” DeCals and random Armenian men will help me make sure that happens.

And a special shout-out to my dad: Thanks for all the books and all the love. I hope your backaches will not go to waste.

Sarah Dadouch writes the Friday column on global perspectives of Berkeley. You can contact her at sdadouch@dailycal.org or follow her on Twitter: @SarahDadouch.

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In signing the TRUST Act, Gov. Jerry Brown has taken a tremendous positive step in extending rights not only to students or lawyers but also to undocumented Americans guilty of minor offenses. The new law limits the duration undocumented people can be held to 48 hours maximum, provided they haven’t committed a felony.

And even though there are people who have succeeded in part because of the opportunities afforded by the DREAM Act and legislation like it, millions more will benefit from the TRUST Act.

Until now, the state Legislature seldom addressed head-on the issues of granting rights to undocumented Californians who probably aren’t future cardiologists or business executives. In demanding that these people be “model citizens” in order to access basic public resources — student financial aid, acquiring a driver’s license and so on — we affirm that you have to prove your worth in America, unless you were lucky enough to be born here.

Additionally, the TRUST Act has garnered support from surprising places. In a meeting last week with a group representing undocumented students and their supporters, UC President Janet Napolitano, who formerly oversaw the federal department responsible for deporting undocumented people, said she told Brown the new law would be “good for the State of California.”

Still, there’s a long way to for California to go.

In 2007, the median household income of undocumented immigrants nationwide was $36,000, nearly $15,000 below the national median. Furthermore, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that these families paid more than $10 billion in taxes in 2010 — money they are paying for services the government doesn’t allow them to receive. Simply put, undocumented immigrants are American  regardless of what their passports read, and they pay the tax dollars to prove it.

For now, legislation such as the TRUST Act is an encouraging sign of change to come. Let’s hope Brown and the state Legislature follow through.

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