Arcadia couple Harry and Sarah Sneider are fitness trainers. Harry is 69 and Sarah is 66 years old. They say that fitness icon Jack LaLanne, who died last week at the age of 96, was their personal inspiration and friend, whose motivation encouraged them to expand their training business and better inspire others to reach their fitness goals.
Harry Sneider and his wife Sarah Sneider, of Arcadia, are leaders in physical fitness for senior citizens. Sarah Sneider recently won 10 gold medals in the 2011 San Gabriel Valley Senior Olympics.
Betfair Hollywood Park to cease horse racing. Santa Anita Park is positioning itself to pick up racing dates in 2014. Hollywood Park opened June 10, 1938, by motion picture moguls Jack and Harry Warner, of Warner Bros. fame.
Birth-tourism sites not easily detected.Terry Moore-Corse, a code enforcement officer in Arcadia has encountered three maternity homes in the past six years, most recently in 2009, when a resident reported "a lot of pregnant women" coming out of a house. Beyond building code and business license violations, there is nothing illegal about coming into this country to give birth, according to the U.S. State Department, which issues visas. Maternity tourism is a money-making cottage industry in which wealthy women from Asia pay anywhere from $25,000-35,000 to have American-born infants.
Arcadia-born artist Quinton Bemiller is painting a mural to be displayed at The Armory Center for the Arts through March 21, 2010. This work was inspired by the natural environment of Hahamongna Watershed Park.
Erica Wu's parents are ready to cheer for their daughter, competing in table tennis in the summer Olympics in London, UK, on August 3. Wu, 16, was born and raised in Arcadia and attends Westridge School in Pasadena.
Honorary degrees were awarded to Japanese-American former Pasadena City College students who had their educations cut short by internment during World War II. Japanese-American "nisei" students at what was then Pasadena Junior College never got the chance to graduate with the Class of 1942. One honorary graduate, Fusae Hamane (died in 1997), born and raised in Pasadena, was told to report to Santa Anita Park race track before being sent to a camp in Gila Bend, AZ. The graduation came 68 years later.
Dwight Chang of Arcadia is owner of a house on the 1300 block of South Palm Avenue in San Gabriel. The building has been operating as a makeshift maternity ward with 10 newborns and about 12 Chinese nationals, crammed into an illegally converted townhouse. Chang has been warned twice before for operating a business that primarily caters to Asian "maternity tourists." Chang denied any wrongdoing and was fined $800 for building code violations. Children born on American soil automatically become United States citizens, under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Maternity tourism caters to wealthy Taiwanese, Chinese and Koreans. Throughout the past decade, similar set-ups have been uncovered in Rowland Heights, Hacienda Heights, New York, and Quebec.
Revisiting Anita Baldwin. Margaux Viera (photo) of Riverside, the great-great-great granddaughter of Arcadia founder Elias J. "Lucky" Baldwin, has unexpectedly come into possession of some personal items that belonged to Anita M. Baldwin, the only daughter born to Lucky Baldwin and his third wife, Jane Virginia Dexter. The items were discovered by a farmer on a rural, central Nevada ranch once owned by the Baldwin estate. The items include Anita Baldwin's daily journal from 1935, a gold calligraphy pen and Art Deco glass bottle used as an inkwell, an address book with her name and signature, a leather passport holder with her name and a wallet containing several of her identification and membership cards. See hard copy in VF "Baldwin, Anita."
Fired Arcadia High School cross country coach James O'Brien questions reason for dismissal. The Arcadia Unified School District's Board of Education upholds its decision to not reappoint Mr. O'Brien as head coach for the 2013-2014 year. He will continue to teach at Arcadia High School.
Arcadia city officials are cracking down on "maternity tourism" boarding houses by dedicating a full-time police detective to investigate the issue. Maternity or birth tourism is a phenomenon in which women, often from China, pay a handsome fee to have their babies in the United States, so the children can be citizens. While that is not illegal, at least five establishments have been shut down for violations, such as unlawfully operating boarding house businesses in residential zones.
An ancient Chinese maternity tradition, from the Sung Dynasty (960-1275 AD), known as "Zuo Yue Zi," is translated as "doing the month."It refers to the care of a Chinese woman during the first month after giving birth. The practice is explained here by Wei-Chen Tung, a former registered nurse at Arcadia Methodist Hospital and now an assistant professor of nursing at University of Nevada, Reno. The practice requires new mothers to follow a strict diet and rest for 3-4 weeks following a pregnancy. Tung says a lot of Chinese women still practice this, so hospitals should be aware of this part of Chinese culture. Maternity tourists--women who want to come to the United States to give birth to a full-fledged American citizen, have given rise to businesses that cater to them, such as the maternity home that was shut down in the 1300 block of South Palm Avenue in San Gabriel on March 8. It had been 5 townhomes illegally converted into a maternity home.