The Class of ’93

This school year, City Times has honored the Central City’s best on the football field, basketball court and baseball diamond.

Today and next Sunday, City Times pays tribute to area high school valedictorians.

The outstanding students were asked: “What kind of future does Los Angeles hold for you and your classmates?”

Cathedral

Justin Gutierrez

Monterey Park

Future: University of Pennsylvania, sociology

“Los Angeles has a very bright future if we, the students, decide to mobilize and make things happen. The city of Los Angeles is filled with resources that we must take advantage of to forge into the future.”

*

Ronald Zabala

Echo Park

Future: UC San Diego, marine biology and art

“Los Angeles is a place filled with different opportunities for different experiences. Though some of these experiences may be negative, I feel most of my classmates will choose the positive ones, and make something great of themselves.”

Garfield

Armando Rodriguez

East Los Angeles

Future: Stanford, economics

“Los Angeles holds within it the dreams and hopes of many of my classmates as well as myself. Los Angeles can provide us with the opportunity to achieve personal growth and career success. I believe we can all look optimistically into the future.”

*

Sergio Salas

East Los Angeles

Future: Notre Dame, accounting

“Los Angeles offers great opportunities to me and my classmates. This city’s future offers us the chance to involve Mexican-Americans in U.S. affairs. We will be given the chance to become executives of major corporations and even hold some government offices. All we have to do is struggle and fight together as a people, as the Mexicans we are.”

HUNTINGTON PARK

Elba Romo

Huntington Park

Future: Stanford, biology

“Los Angeles, I hope, holds a brighter future for my generation if society has learned from its mistakes in the past. Past events have united communities. I hope the unity continues for the future benefit of the residents of Los Angeles.”

Jefferson

Ana Guzman

South-Central

Future: USC, computer science and engineering

“Los Angeles holds a future full of dreams that come true. My classmates and I will be successful individuals who through college have achieved their goals and have bettered their community.”

LOCKE

Eugenia E. Elias

Huntington Park

Future: To become a teacher in the inner-city after college

“In the future I see a greater ethnically diverse Los Angeles with an abundance of opportunities for every disadvantaged ethnic group. I also predict more Latinos and blacks returning to their communities with their college degrees in order to strengthen their old neighborhoods.”

LOYOLA

Michael Wolf

Sherman Oaks

Future: Stanford, mechanical engineering

“Los Angeles’ increasingly serious problems will be solved only when its citizens develop more respect--for another’s property, for another’s point of view, and most importantly for human life in general. The class of 1993 has a responsibility to find solutions for, and not contribute to, the problems.”

ST. MICHAEL’S

Diana Angelica Carlos

Los Angeles

Future: Cal State Dominguez Hills, bilingual education

“Los Angeles holds a competitive and struggling future for the class of ’93. We will have to face obstacles such as racial discrimination, competition, and family and financial problems but we can destroy them with the strength of our mind and our ability to want to succeed. As Dan Rather said: ‘Courage is being afraid, but going on anyhow.’ The future that Los Angeles holds for us is not an easy one, but nothing on Earth is impossible if we make it possible.”

SALESIAN

Antonio Ochoa

East Los Angeles

Future: Loyola Marymount, science and engineering

“Coming from Latino families, my classmates and I have refused to doubt ourselves but took the advantage of furthering our education and finding a future in Los Angeles. In the future I believe we will see more Latino involvement in city decision. As a result, Los

Angeles will be a place of

opportunity for all people.”

VERBUM DEI

Demetrius W. Washington

Compton

Future: UC San Diego, microbiology

“Looking beyond our city’s present conditions--economic decline, unemployment, cutbacks in education funding, racial and job discrimination, gangs and drugs--we feel that Los Angeles will grow and once again become the best place in the country to live. Our talents and abilities will make us ideally suited for life in Los Angeles.”

WILSON

Noah Rodriguez

El Sereno

Future: Stanford, pre-med biology

“As of now, Los Angeles does not hold such a promising future for me and my classmates. Riots, unemployment, and racial tensions have cast a shadow over our future. Yet I believe that every dark cloud has a silver lining.”

*

Eugene Chun

El Sereno

Future: Caltech, computer science

“Insofar as I am concerned, the ethnic tensions in Los Angeles limit all our our futures. At the same time, we have a wonderful opportunity to rebuild Los Angeles.”