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Erica J. Lee

I am a freelance writer based in Los Angeles, California. I specialize in feature writing, food and entertainment reviews and Best Of lists.

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El Camino College The Union •

Smitten with Badminton: New club invites all to play

Rubber sneaker soles squeak against the polished wooden floor of the basketball court.
The air is filled with a series of whooshing sounds, punctuated by the loud thwacks of shuttles as they hit the racquets before hurtling over the high net.
They play in doubles to accommodate the 28 people who have shown up tonight.
More people are expected to join in the coming weeks.
Meet the hot new club sweeping El Camino College.
El Camino College The Union •

Baking bonds: How an El Camino alumnus turned a small-time bakery into a local legend

It’s 9 a.m. on Sept. 20 and all anyone can think about is baseball.
Three men commune over coffee and doughnuts in front of Torrance Bakery.
Their laughter reaches a fever pitch as they recount the thrilling events from last night’s baseball game.
The night before, Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers sealed his place in the record books when he became the first player to achieve a 50/50: 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in one season.
Kirk Rossberg is just about to enter the bakery when he...
El Camino College The Union •

Local community reacts: campus death reminiscent of December attack

Local residents are on edge after a former El Camino College student leaps to his death at an ECC parking lot after stabbing his mother on Friday, Aug. 9.
The woman is in critical condition following the attack.
At around 5:20 p.m., first responders, including the El Camino College Police Department and Torrance Police responded to several 911 calls from witnesses who reported a shouting altercation between the victims near the intersection of Redondo Beach Boulevard and Stadium Way.
The former...
El Camino College The Union •

Noodles Noodles ladles out a taste of Thailand

Located across the street from El Camino on Crenshaw Boulevard, Noodles Noodles’ lunch specials offer a delicious range of dishes from fried rice and salad to noodle soups and curries chock full of fatty chunks of chicken, shrimp, and vegetables.

At first glance, Noodles Noodles is inconspicuous among the glassed-in storefronts, populating the strip mall it occupies. Visitors are greeted by a cheerful, airy dining room where colorful paintings of Southeast Asian motifs, including boats and elep
El Camino College The Union •

All That Glitters: Long-time El Camino instructor looks back on her years leading one of the oldest courses on campus

Walk past the open door of Jewelry Studio 131 on a Friday afternoon, when the campus is nearly empty and one could pick up on the flurry of activity inside.

Inside, over a dozen students stand in a semi-circle. Each one clutches an empty saw frame, intently watching their instructor for the next step.

At the front of the room, professor Irene Mori delicately threads the needle-like blade into her saw frame and tightens it into place. Her crystal clear voice and quick, purposeful hand movements
El Camino College The Union •

Bottoms Up: A beer run around the South Bay’s top breweries

First brewed by the ancient Sumerians as far back as 3400 B.C. in what is now modern-day Iraq, beer is one of the oldest drinks in human history.

Beer has sustained societies across continents and shaped history for millennia.

From the first meeting in a London pub in 1604 that kicked off the Gunpowder Plot, to the libations celebrating the 1810 wedding of a Bavarian crown prince in Munich that sowed the seeds for Oktoberfest, to 1969 when the first shot glass fired at the Stonewall Inn in New
El Camino College The Union •

Carl Turano: a story of a cat caretaker looking after 9 lives

No one is sure when the coyotes first appeared.

They seemed to come out of nowhere. It was as if, one foggy night, the coyotes suddenly materialized out of the mist like a nightmare straight out of a Stephen King novel.

Within 10 years, the once-thriving community of 300 cats who call El Camino College home has been whittled down to sparse colonies totaling somewhere between 30 to 50 cats.

The life of an El Camino cat has become more precarious since the recent pandemic. But they are not alon
El Camino College The Union •

El Camino College leads the charge in single campus lactation rooms in SoCal

When Jessica Euyoqui first enrolled at El Camino College in the 2002 summer semester, she was a 17-year-old single mother with a daughter.

Less than a year later, she dropped out of school.

“Honestly, I didn’t know what I was doing. As far as services and community, I was not exposed to much to that,” Euyoqui said. “So I was kind of intimidated by college, you can say; I stopped coming to school.”

Euyoqui returned to continue her education as a full-time political science student after 20 yea
El Camino College The Union •

Why I waited until my 30s to come out as asexual

Everyone thought Luke* was the perfect boyfriend for me. He was Asian-American from a biracial home studying computer science at UC Santa Cruz. We bonded during freshman year over a love of video games, zombie movies and “Doctor Who.”

We were dating by our sophomore year.

On the surface, everything looked perfect. We were two nerdy teens who found each other on a summer night at a bus stop across the street from the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Luke was singing “Still Alive” from “Portal,” and
El Camino College The Union •

El Camino College journalism students win big at New York conference

Nindiya Maheswari (left), Brittany Parris, Igor Colonno, Eddy Cermeno, Khoury Williams, Stefanie Frith, Ethan Cohen and Greg Fontanilla celebrate together after winning numerous awards at the College Media Association Convention hosted in New York on March 11. (Photo courtesy of Rosemary Montalvo)

The Union’s seven-student delegation made a triumphant return from the 2023 College Media Association Spring National College Media Convention in New York City, having scooped up an impressive 20 awar
El Camino College The Union •

Cherry Blossom Festival brings the storm indoors

Members from Asano Taiko’s UnitOne play the odaiko, a large drum, during the 23rd Annual Cherry Blossom Festival at the Social Justice Center on March 15. (Raphael Richardson | The Union)

With a roll of thundering drumbeats and a lightning-sharp crack of sticks striking together, members of Asano Taiko U.S. raised a storm indoors Wednesday afternoon.

At 10 past noon, the three performers took their places at their instruments.

They raised their thick wooden drumsticks high in the air.

And wi

Photojournalism

Nursing student Nicole Viramontes, 22, arranges butterfly cutouts on her mortarboard during the Grad Cap Decorating Event in front of the Student Services Building on Wednesday, May 28. Viramontes says she was drawn to the butterflies because they reminded her of her late cousin, Victoria. “I want to have some memory of her as she would have graduated before me,” she said. (Erica Lee | The Union)

Patrick Morehead sits at a Kawai baby grand piano in the Music building’s practice room on Monday, April 7. When he is at home, he composes music on an Arturia Keylab 88 keyboard. (Erica Lee | Warrior Life)

Anna-Marie Schäfer of the Arcis Saxophone Quartet helps to adjust the tenor strap on student musician Victoria Blanco after taking part in a master class at the Haag Recital Hall on Thursday, March 6. (Erica Lee | The Union)

El Camino College badminton player Montila Winyaworapon holds up the two rackets she used during the match against San Diego City College on Wednesday, March 23. The strings of one racket popped during a singles match. "I didn’t use it for some time, then when I use it for this game… pop," said Winyaworapon. (Erica Lee | The Union)

The playground outside of the Child Development Center at El Camino College is seen abandoned on Monday, March 3. The CDC closed in June 2014. (Erica Lee | The Union)

A warning sign alerts drivers to avoid Narcissa Drive while road crews work on the damage in Portuguese Bend on Sept. 7. The state of California recently declared a state of emergency in Rancho Palos Verdes due dangers the landslides poses.

A sidewalk vendor slices off portions of el pastor in Sawtelle on Oct. 8.

"Orange," one of El Camino College's campus cats, takes cover in the old Arts Building to avoid paying for kitten support on Sept. 30, 2024. Although it is estimated that there are 30-50 cats on campus, this unneutered tom has been known to father many litters of kittens.

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