Issue 11: Letter From The Editor

So here we are with only three issues to go before this semester's printing cycle comes to an end. One constant in life is change and some big changes are coming soon to The Corsair, but it isn't the time yet to make big announcements. But with so few issues to go before summer, it's a startling reminder of how time flies.

It feels like only yesterday that I walked into The Corsair determined to do just one thing: write. If my first semester at SMC felt like it dragged on, every semester since I joined the campus paper has felt like a fleeting, speeding moment. The last few semesters have been one chapter after another with different characters, friends, disappointments, achievements, heartbreak, happiness and experiences. I'll share more as we reach the finish line.

Time does indeed fly as our cover story shows. It has already been 70 years since the fall of Berlin and the defeat of Nazi Germany. Last weekend we interviewed veterans of the Soviet Red Army that eventually broke the back of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. Some of the veterans are already reaching their mid-90s, but they are some of the last, living connections to the defining event of the 20th century, World War II. Interviewing them reminded me of when I speak with my own grandmother, who is 95 years old.

I've always been grateful that she has retained a perfect memory and remembers in fine detail all the adventures, wars, revolutions and family stories she has lived through. I spent Mother's Day simply listening to her describe the great peasant uprising in El Salvador of 1932, when the regime of Maximiliano Hernandez slaughtered 30,000 peasants, or when she went on an impulsive boat trip around the Western hemisphere and met aged survivors of the Mexican Revolution.

History is our own kind of mass, collective memory, and we should always strive to record as much of it as possible. The veterans who attended the West Hollywood Victory Day event keep the memory of the struggles of World War II alive, but we ourselves are living through historic times that will define the world of the generations that follow us. The times we live in today will be memories recorded for history.

And that is one of the reasons why I have loved working in and editing The Corsair: because it isn't just a campus paper, it is a record of things as they happen on campus and in our community. I will receive phone calls here and there from individuals who were interviewed for an article four or five years ago, asking their names be removed because they suddenly recall a comment or quote they don't want recorded in print or online. Most of the time we have to decline removing the name or quote because if the information is accurate, then it is recorded history.

Our lives, our moments, our memories are history, and for the next three issues, we will try our best to record, document, experience, and live.