"600 words by Esther J. Cepeda"

Obama's dog? A Chihuahua, of course!

2008-12-02T07:08:56-06:00

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

On election night, in front of the world, newly-elected President of the United States Barack Obama promised his daughters Malia and Sasha a puppy.

It took about 5 seconds for the debate to rage about what type would be best suited to be the First Doggie.

Obama wanted a hypo-allergenic dog, but several Canine experts were quick to point out don't exist. Then the American Kennel Club and the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals decided to throw down about whether the big O's should get a purebred pup or, as Obama himself said, a "mutt like me."

But here we are nearly a month after the historic election and despite fact that the publicists of every four-legged thing that barks have been working their angle for why their full-blood or mongrel is the most presidential – nothing yet.

My automatic response to the canine conundrum is the obvious: Obama needs a Chihuahua.

Let's face it, Obama getting a Chihuahua is the only way we'll ever get a Mexican in the White House! Don't believe me? I give you exhibit A: Bill Richardson.

Never mind Big Bill was kicked out off of the Democratic presidential primary dogpile because he couldn't compete with the woman, the black man, the guy who's wife got cancer and because he refused to run as "the Hispanic." And really, no one west of New Mexico even knew or cared that Bill Richardson was Latino.

Then he gets punked on Secretary of State (which he would have rocked at, by the way) for Hilary Clinton – his main woman who he threw under the bus to support Obama!! Obama clearly isn't going to let anyone accuse him of taking all his friends to DC with him.

Exhibit B) the "Latino vote." Hispanics voted 2-to-1 for Obama versus McCain on Election Day (duh, I can't believe this was ever in question), offering up two-thirds of their vote for the Black candidate. If you'll recall, some shadowy band of idiots decided to float the notion that Hispanics were too racist to vote for a Black man and the news media were on it like white on rice, but I've digressed…

My point is that some of those Latino voters feel they are "owed" for their troubles and, on the issue of immigration law reform, many have already threatened to storm the capital with marchers the day after Obama's inauguration to demand it.

If Obama gets a Chihuahua – not the prissy kind like the Beverly Hills Chihuahua – a strong, brave one (like the Beverly Hills Chihuahua's gardener's dog!) it'll soften things.

Can't you just imagine the press release? "President-Elect Barack Obama runs for the border with pup pick: Chihuahua brings dog-acity of hope to relations with Latin America."

Now, the fact is that Obama told Barbara Walters he didn't want a "little, yappy, dog…that, like, sits on your lap and things." Well, that's a toughie but if he can't handle all the trash talk coming out of a Chihuahua's mouth, how's he going to broker peace in the Middle East? Besides, there are many other reasons to get a Chihuahua into the White House.

He's already getting heat over there being too much "Chicago" in the White House, Chihuahuas are definitely more L.A. and New York.

They're so small he can get two – one for each daughter.

If he gets two girl Chihuahuas he can buy Sarah Palin's wardrobe and get the White House dry-cleaner to shrink them down to tiny-doggy size – for state dinners and such.

If he get's an (un-related) boy/girl pair, he can be the first black president and the first president to require a Presidential Whelping Box.

But the best reason for Obama to get a Chihuahua is…they perfectly represent Obama: they were mutts of Toltec and Chinese descent, they're frequently cast as the strong and ultimately victorious underdog, and…they're known for getting what they want. Like Obama, they're definitely a mutt above the rest.

A Chihuahua in the White House? – that's my dog-acity of hope.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission. Her views and reporting do not necessarily reflect those of ISAC. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Under-qualified teachers in high-poverty schools need a No Teacher Left Behind law.

2008-11-29T20:35:13-06:00

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

Last week a study was released that detailed how frequently high-poverty schools employ teachers to teach a subject for which they don't have an undergraduate degree.

The Associated Press story said, "Math can be hard enough, but imagine the difficulty when a teacher is just one chapter ahead of the students. It happens, and it happens more often to poor and minority students."

It certainly happened to my students – I was one of those teachers. I taught pre-algebra, algebra 1, and algebra 2 as a bilingual teacher to low-income Spanish speakers in a north suburban high school in Illinois. Was I always "just a chapter ahead?" Heck yeah it happened – my undergrad was in journalism! But let me start back at the beginning…

In their report, CORE PROBLEMS: Out-of-Field Teaching Persists in Key Academic Courses, Especially in America's High-Poverty and High-Minority Schools, the Education Trust, a children's education advocacy group, found that "in America’s secondary schools, low-income students and students of color are about twice as likely as other students to be enrolled in core academic classes taught by out-of-field teachers… who possess neither certification in the subject they have been assigned to teach nor an academic major in that subject."

They found that in middle and high school mathematics, for example:

· Four in ten classes in high-poverty schools are taught by an out-of-field teacher, compared with 16.9 percent in schools serving the fewest low-income students.

· In schools with high percentages of African-American and Latino students, nearly one-third of mathematics classes are taught by out-of-field teachers, compared with 15.5 percent in schools with relatively few minority students.

Tell me about it. When I started teaching all I cared about was providing excellent teaching to the neediest of students – the poor ones who couldn't speak English. I passed the state of Illinois' exams to prove I was fluent in written and spoken Spanish and assured the principal of the school who had approached me about the position that I could definitely teach algebra.

Well, that part wasn't a complete lie – for the most part the classes were a walk in the park for two reasons: 1) I love math and found all the material covered in the state-and-federal-teaching-standard-approved text books to be super-easy and 2) the students were operating a good two full grade-levels behind their peers and needed to be taught the most basic math skills before even tackling the more abstract aspects of Algebra. It was tragic.

And why, you ask? Because many students showed up to class with no more than a Mexican fifth-grade education. Because every year for the past three years the high school had burned through yet another non-math-degreed bilingual teacher (the guy before me had been dismissed for stealing money from the soccer team). And because, generally speaking, kids in bilingual ed got promoted no matter what their grades or abilities were.

I had kids in pre-algebra who didn't have the basics of multiplication or division down pat, and kids in algebra 2 who absolutely could not maneuver the very simplest of algebraic equations. It didn't help that they were stuck with the odd, hard-core teacher who insisted on teaching mostly in English – the language of the work-force they'd be entering in a few months.

Still, I was a true-believer and felt that as long as I brushed up on all my lessons the day before – and took full advantage of tutoring from the real math teachers who were blown away by my dedication to uphold the department's math standards and get my crews up to snuff like the white kids – everything would be alright.

It was and it wasn't. There were times I fumbled a lesson and confused the kids more than I taught them, but mostly I worked my ass off and learned – then learned how to teach – complex lessons that boggled even the "regular ed" kids. Not that they are immune.

The Education Trust points out that "while out-of-field teaching is particularly acute in mathematics and in high-poverty and high-minority schools, the problem is pervasive. Nationwide, more than 17 percent of all core academic courses (English, math, social studies, and science) in grades 7-12 are taught by an out-of-field teacher. In the middle grades alone, the rate jumps to 40 percent."

How can this happen even in Illinois, which has some of the most stringent teaching requirements in the nation?

Seven years ago, Congress required all core academic classes be taught by "highly qualified" teachers and asked districts and states to assure that poor and minority children weren't taught disproportionately by inexperienced, unqualified, or out-of-field teachers.

But, the federal law gave states wide latitude to define "highly qualified," and most states used that discretion to deem nearly every teacher as "highly qualified." The U.S. Department of Education essentially looked the other way, refusing to use its authority to press states either to set high standards for teachers or to solve the equity problems.

Apparently, secondary teachers certified in one subject continue to be assigned frequently to teach classes in additional subjects for which they're often unqualified and unprepared. States may be sweeping this problem under the rug – but out of necessity, not malevolence. Frankly, there are probably one or two bilingually fluent "real" math teachers in Illinois and they are probably working for somewhere close to a zillion bucks at a "good" school. So, my students were stuck with me.

As it turns out, they started cracking down at the end of the school year – 2006 – and despite my master's degree in education, I was terminated from my math teaching gig and offered a job back in the primary grades where my undergraduate degree supposedly would have no bearing on my ability to teach well.

So when the last bell of the school year rang, the rapport and trust I'd built with the lowest achievers in my school went out the window. The phenomenal gains in math ability that almost every single one of my students made throughout the year came to a screeching halt – as did the incredible gains in English-language acquisition most of them made. There was no candidate in sight who could do the job better than me but it didn't matter: after summer break my students would be welcomed back to class by yet another new person who probably would not last.

"Conversations about the achievement gap often turn too easily to what’s not happening in students’ homes. These data make clear that we need to put much more emphasis on what’s not happening in classrooms," said Ross Wiener, vice president of The Education Trust said in the press release they sent me. "Unless we boost the overall strength of our teaching force and ensure that all young people have equal access to well-prepared teachers, other strategies to improve student achievement are unlikely to succeed."

Hear, hear! And unless school systems across the country start making it easier for teachers who really care to teach the most underprivileged students in the toughest schools – but can't afford yet another four or five years of pricey post-secondary classes to bone up on those core classes – there will never be enough highly-qualified teachers to go around.

Saving yourself for marriage: a quaint new custom for the next generation

2008-11-27T09:15:46-06:00

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

Back in 1996, when Melody LaLuz turned 16, she'd already seen it all: friends gettin' busy, gettin' sick and gettin' pregnant, and she wasn't having any of it.

When she learned that 2,000 teenage girls get pregnant everyday and 52,000 cases of sexually transmitted diseases are diagnosed daily (10,000 in teenagers) at a True Love Waits assembly at Lane Technical High School, she vowed to stay a virgin until she got married. What Melody didn't expect was that no one, not even her family, would think this was a good idea.

"I went home and I said, 'Mami – I’m going to wait until I get married to have sex' and she was skeptical," a now 28-year-old Melody told me four days before her wedding this Saturday. "She said 'How is this possible? Oh my god you’re not going to be able to get a man! And what if you married and you’re not compatible?'"

And so, four days before their wedding night, Melody the 28-year-old virgin and Claudaniel Fabien her 30-year-old "renewed-virgin" fiancé who's been abstinent for the past seven years – who have never even tongue-kissed!!! – addressed the question of…compatibility.

"Well, if we don’t get it right the first time we’re going to do it again, and, again and again!" laughed Claudaniel, better known to his friends as CD.

Uhhhhhh…but seriously, what if it's a flop? I mean, geez, not even any kissing?!?!

"I told her if we date I don’t even want to kiss until we get married – I’m not going to start something we can’t finish!" CD said. "There is such a sexual tension between us, we have to keep physical boundaries…no we don’t have any fears or concerns that physically anyone's going to be inept."

Melody and CD met in July 2006 in a New York airport as they were waiting for a plane to Uganda, Africa where they were headed on an abstinence mission trip to teach young people in the AIDS-ravaged countryside the value of blood-testing, commitment and faithfulness. As they visited orphanages bursting with over 2,000 children who were orphaned by AIDS-stricken parents, the couple sparked a friendship which will culminate on Saturday with their first kiss – after they're pronounced man and wife.

So what's it like being pure in the 21st century?

"People would always tell me I was crazy, they'd say 'Girrrrrl you do not know what you're missing!' I'd say 'What am I missing, baby-mama-drama, getting herpes?'" Melody said. "The young woman who came to talk to us at school was gorgeous and so I thought, 'See? I can be fine and abstinent.' Today I go around talking to other young women and being that living role model." Melody is now a program director for the What's Good abstinence program which operates out of the Lydia Home on the Northwest side of Chicago.

CD, who sowed his wild oats as a freshman at college then made the commitment to value and respect himself and others on way-deeper-than-surface level, responded to my pointed inquiry about whether their respective pledges were an expression of a freakishly deep religious faith.

"When we're in the schools we intentionally don't talk too much about our faith because this message is for those who walk with the faith and for those who do not," CD, now also an abstinence educator and a news editor for the Confederation of Spanish-American Families said. "The religion – that’s a completely different talk, that’s not the be-all-and-end-all of the abstinence message. This movement is for everyone, it's to have a healthy lifestyle regardless. I don’t ever want people to feel like they got Jesus after talking to us, no."

"We're both Christians," Melody chimed in, "but it’s more to do with our spirituality because your belief system affects your values. The principles that are behind this – self control, delay of self-gratification, a vision and goal for a future – are just useful in life."

And how well does their example go over in the Latino community where teen girls get pregnant at a rate of twice the national average every year?

"We're both from broken homes and both felt the repercussions but it’s still hard," Melody said. "We’ve both had those moments where people aren't havin' it. Being a Latina livin' in the hood near Logan Square I hear a lot of 'I don’t want it, don’t need it!' but I'm surrounded by people already on their second marriage, having had one or two abortions…there's a mentality in the hood that that’s just the way it is. No! It doesn’t have to be that way."

But, even Melody and CD will readily admit that their chosen path hasn't been easy. Frankly, during the course of our conversation I intuited (while blushing profusely) that while they've savored their journey together, they're realllllly ready for it to be over.

I won't go into specifics, but if there are news reports of a mild earthquake in the Chicagoland area Saturday night, you'll know why!

"There is such a desire – but it’s rooted in deep friendship, love, and respect. Our desire for each other is based on love and concern for the other person." CD gushed as he visualized their wedding night. "There’s nothing like knowing someone loves you 100%. We’re not afraid. We're looking forward to it like crazy."

Boys perform badly in school because many teachers are "anti-boy"

2008-11-23T20:06:17-06:00

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

It's two days before parent-teacher conference night and I had to sign this note, written to me by my 7-year-old son:

"Dear Mom and Dad, I didn't follow Mrs. S's direction. I'm sorry."

When asked what the infraction was, my darling told me – as he held back big, fat tears – that he had been tapping on his desk during quiet time.

My precocious 7-year old – the one who has a seven-piece drum kit in his room and has been taking private lessons to learn such hits as "Iron Man" and "Purple Haze" – got in trouble at school because he was tapping when he should have been quiet. I never have to wonder why he and his brother hate school.

If you're a boy, school is not just hard, it's hard time – I should know.

When I was their age I was pretty much a boy, too. Talkative, quick to raise my hand to answer an easy question – and just as likely to answer without being called on – prone to staring out the window and constantly fidgeting at my desk, I was way more like the boys in my class than the prim and proper girls who were my teachers' favorites.

I can't tell you how many times I was put in the corner – or out in the hallway – yelled at for talking too much, or otherwise snapped at for being overly boisterous. Mrs. Smith, my third grade teacher at St. Andrew's School in Chicago, once resorted to begging me to stop whistling in class, "because it makes the angel's cry." For eight years I got good grades in all subjects except for behavior. At graduation I was voted the class clown.

While you can't deny that teachers have the incredibly difficult task of teaching 20-30 kids all at once, the economics of the quiet behavior required to make sure at least some of them learn something means that boys have it tough in school.

Every couple of years or so someone writes another book saying as much and pointing to the American school system for turning boys off of school. The latest entry is The Trouble With Boys: A Surprising Report Card on Our Sons, Their Problems at School, and What Parents and Educators Must Do, by Peg Tyre.

In it, she details how the most popular educational practices (sitting motionless while being lectured to, reading quietly about a topic, writing answers to questions) fly in the face of how boys' physical chemistry hardwires them to learn (by doing, if you hadn't figured it out). Of course she got attacked by militant feminists, complaining about misogyny, etc., but her book offers keen insight into why so many boys will end up in jail rather than in a corporate boardroom after a mere 13 or 14 years in the classroom.

It's a great book to read if you don't remember your school years well and want to be depressed about every single boy who is almost literally chained to his desk all day (as a special and regular ed. teacher, I saw it all, folks!).

Mostly it's a helpful tool for understanding your kid and interacting with his teacher in a way that will make him or her see your young darling as more than just the daily pain in the ass.

Read the book if you have boys, or if you ever plan on having boys, or if you remember being a boy and need to send some kind thoughts into the ether to other boys who are struggling in school, probably at this very moment!

Seriously, you'd be shocked at how differently teachers treat girls and boys. To say that the current educational system, in which women are the predominant-gendered teacher, is rigged against boys is the understatement of the year.

Let me tell you: the way female teachers talk about their students – especially the rambunctious male ones – in the teacher's lounge would make you cry. "Billy won't sit down and shut up," "That James needs drugs," "If I were Greg's mother, I'd kill myself." I spent most of my lunch periods alone in my classroom to keep away from it.

We're lucky…very lucky! My 7-year-old darling has a wonderful young teacher (in stark contrast to the old battleaxes my 10-year-old has had to deal with) who will tell us how great the kid usually is, before moving on to more pressing matters.

Don't email me; of course I don’t mean "every-single-teacher," but too many, take my word for it. Of course, that's the word coming from someone who never quite acted the way she was supposed to, even as a teacher.

As I signed the note that's to be delivered to the always-loving Mrs. S tomorrow, I told my darling "It's OK, sweetheart, I know exactly how you feel."

Ode to a beermonger: Heileman’s Old Style beer distributor dead

2008-11-19T21:18:00-06:00

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

The man who made my father happy is dead.

William P. Schirmang, the beer monger who popularized Heileman’s Old Style in Chicago – and in casa Cepeda – passed away November 13, according to the obituary in today’s Chicago Sun Times.

Apparently, a decade before my mom and dad moved to Chicago, Old Style beer was virtually unheard of here. By the time I was old enough to be sent to the fridge to fetch a cold one, Schirmang had wheedled his beer out of his car trunk, and into Wrigley Field, not to mention the hearts of beer drinkers across town.

Schirmang ultimately brought over 2 million cases of Lacrosse, Wisconsin’s finest to Chicago through the 70’s, when it became a symbol of America in my refrigerator.

Now, most white people think that Mexican’s love Corona. I can’t even say that word in my father’s presence without eliciting a groan. Nope, depending on what part of Mexico you hail from, it’s all about the Tecate, the Negro Modelo, Carta Blanca, Bohemio. Whatever those tasted like, there must have been some whiff of nostalgia to be consumed along with the OS upon popping the keyhole shaped tab.

I loved staring at the beautiful, artfully cryptic can but to my six-year old palate, it was super yucky. On one of innumerable runs to the fridge – I recall it being a sunny, but not hot day – to retrieve the beloved beverage which was to accompany two salted, hard-boiled eggs, I begged for a sip of what was made out to me to be some sort of magical elixir.

I couldn’t spit it out fast enough. Old Style tasted like a mouthful of rusty pennies, and frankly, I’ve disliked beer ever since (don’t be alarmed, I have, in fact, tasted a variety of finer lagers over the years but the Old Style trauma seems to have sustained a decades-long aversion).

Either way, I count the moment as an important and happy childhood memory. As the years went on Old Style was eclipsed by the ferocity of Miller and Budweiser’s dueling marketing budgets and, while still available, rolls off (or on to) the tongues of few I know.

But for a while, there, that Old Style – and the man who brought it south to Chicago sure made a lot of people happy…including me and my dad.

Chicago’s greenest hotels

2008-11-18T21:20:52-06:00

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

I slept better last night than I have in years because Mayor Daley sent me an electronic lullabye about the greening of Chicago Hotels.

As it turns out, our town leads the nation in green-certified hotels. That sounds like a load of PR hooey but, to someone like me who literally must turn the mind away from such nearly-paralyzing thoughts such as "how wasteful is it to throw away all the little soaps after just one use!?!?!?!" when I travel (which is very often) it’s pretty darn cool.

We have five Green Seal Certified Hotels (none of which offered me a free night’s stay…yet, ahem…)

1. Hotel Monaco Chicago

2. Hotel Burnham

3. Hotel Allegro Chicago

4. InterContinental Chicago

5. Talbott Hotel

In the oddly dated and titled press release "CITY RECOGNIZES ENVIRONMENTAL leadership OF HOTELS: Chicago Leads Nation in Green Seal Certified Hotels" one of the city’s many, many PR people walked us through the myriad waste-reduction efforts that those hotels tracked and measured to get on the list of twenty five Chicago hotels trying to get certified (see list at end).

To quote the press release: "The Green Hotels Initiative challenges hotels to obtain Green Seal certification, an environmental lodging standard with requirements in waste minimization, energy efficiency, water conservation, waste water management and green procurement."

Blah, blah, blah…getting to the good stuff, here’s a choice sampling of the ultra-hard-core, didn’t-even-know-such-things-existed measures each of these hotels took to earn Da Mayer’s green stamp of approval:

Hotel Monaco Chicago

Conducted an extensive amenity study to examine the smallest practical size that amenity bottles could be based on the average use of guests.

Hotel Monaco reduces paper consumption by having a paperless check in at the front desk, no paperwork to sign, and all printers for office use are set to print double-sided.

The hotel is committed to using eco-friendly paints – low VOC and free of heavy metals.

Hotel Burnham

The hotel minimizes disposable service ware by using durable, ceramic cups in guest rooms and the lobby.

All coffee served to guests is shade grown, organic or fair trade.

Hotel Burnham uses non-phosphate, nontoxic, biodegradable laundry detergents and cleaning products by Sierra Environmental, a leading provider of natural, environmentally safe, commercial-grade cleaning products

All lights that are on 24 hours a day such as hall ways, the lobby, and exit signs are energy efficient. The Burnham Hotel has established a comprehensive 5 year plan to retrofit all lighting.

Hotel Allegro Chicago

The hotel has recycling receptacles in all guest rooms. The Hotel Allegro along with Hotel Burnham and Hotel Monaco are part of a collection of Kimpton Hotels, which is the first hotel company to start recycling in guest rooms nationwide.

The hotel recycles clothing wire hangers from dry cleaning ~ about 300 - 500 hangers per month
·

Hotel Allegro uses dual purpose nylon dry cleaning bags. These bags are used to send clothing to the dry cleaners, and the dry cleaners use the same type of bags to send the hotel the dry-cleaned clothes.
·

Uses suppliers that take back reusable packaging and shipping pallets.
·

InterContinental Chicago

Earlier this year, the InterContinental was awarded EPA’s ENERGY STAR Label, which means the building achieved a score of 75 or higher in energy efficiency for a building of its size and use.

The hotel purchases Green-e certified renewable energy credits for 50% of the energy the hotel consumes annually.

The hotel installed refillable amenity dispensers in one floor to test the product and gather customer comments.

The hotel uses solar powered water faucets in public washrooms.

The Talbott Hotel

The hotel donates left over food from banquets to the employee cafeteria and minimizes a majority of food wastes.

The hotel’s landscape company uses organic insecticides, fertilizers and biocides.

The hotel purchases wind energy credits to offset 100% of their electrical footprint.

The Talbott Hotel implements a "Greenificent Lifestyle" program for guests and employees. If guest push "Eco Mode" on their thermostat, the housekeeping staff will replace bed and bath linens every other day. The thermostat will automatically adjust when the guest is not in the room. By opting for this program, the hotel rewards guests by offsetting the guest’s household electricity consumption for a month.

Employees were given 2 free CFLs and an offset for one month of their household electricity consumption to encourage sustainable living.

It ain’t easy being green – it costs a lot of money, in fact. Who knows just how much solar-powered water faucets or eco-friendly paint costs? But most businesses know that in the long run being a good steward of the earth’s resources pays off.

I’m not even going to lie and act like I could afford to stay at these places so I can show my support for the amazing lengths they go to in order to save precious resources, but that’s completely beside the fact.

As this sort of intense attention to environmentally-friendly detail spreads, eventually even the sort of one-star joints I stay in when I’m footing the bill will use less chlorine, not wash my towels every night by default, and let me use each little bar of soap until it’s gone.

***

Chicago Green Seal Audited Hotels include:

1. Drake Hotel

2. Essex Inn

3. Fairmont

4. Four Points Hotel

5. Four Seasons

6. Hard Rock Hotel

7. Hilton Chicago

8. Hotel Allegro

9. Hotel Burnham

10. Hotel Monaco

See the rest of the list here. Founded in 1989, Green Seal is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, DC that provides science-based environmental certification standards that are credible, transparent, and essential in an increasingly educated and competitive marketplace. Their industry knowledge and standards help manufacturers, purchasers, and end users alike make responsible choices that positively impact business behavior and improve quality of life.

Immigration reform battles on hold, but not for long

2008-11-16T17:11:06-06:00

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

My good friend asked me the other day why no one is talking about immigration anymore. "It seems to have fallen completely off the radar, and I don't get why," he wondered.

After July 2007's political failure to come to consensus on how to reform the currently broken U.S. immigration laws, no one wanted to touch the issue with a 10 foot pole until after the 2008 presidential elections.

The theory when like this: immigration reform would be a major sticking point in the nominating process by the two major parties and then in the final presidential contest and the debates would flesh out what a new administration's stance on immigration reform would be.

Then, once the new president took office, major gains would be made in instituting a bipartisan legislative compromise that would honor the contributions – and weigh the costs – of the millions and millions of illegal immigrants currently living and working in the U.S.

Don't hold your breath – the perfect storm that begot the current economic crisis took care of that.

Not only did the headlines start screaming about yuppies giving up their 4-dollar lattes instead of the latest workplace immigration raids, but the slumps in housing and manufacturing have driven hundreds of thousands of immigrants out of their formerly bearable "illegal enclaves" back home. Though, according to a recent Associated Press story, of the "estimated 12 million" always bandied about, approximately 500,000 illegal immigrants are actively defying deportation orders.

Already several immigrant rights groups are circulating emails calling on Obama to put immigration reform on his soon-to-be released list of top ten domestic priorities for his first 100 days.

Thinly-veiled are the insinuations that "they" – legal immigrants, supporters of illegal immigrants and minorities – are owed lenient immigration law changes for voting Obama in. Puh-leeze, as if there had been any chance in hell they would have voted for McCain/Palin even if they'd promised to eliminate all the borders.

In that spirit, more marches are being planned for Washington, DC on January 21, the day after Obama takes office as our 44 President.

Never mind that the marching tactic has not proven to do anything but stoke yet more anti-immigrant hatred. Never mind that portraying Latinos – who make up a large portion if the illegal immigrant population – as entitled flag-waivers only made everything worse for anyone who happened to be brown…there it is.

Because all things Obama and Chicago are in vogue these days, the Washington Post actually reported on a press conference Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez held Saturday spotlighting "mixed-status families" who would be torn apart by the current laws if one or more members of the family were deported. Showing how U.S. citizens’ lives could become deportation nightmares is a far better appeal than marching for "rights."

But that won’t stop them.

Buried in that Washington Post story was a small mention of Marcelo Lucero the Ecuadorian immigrant who was in the wrong place at the wrong time when a gaggle of unruly Patchogue, NY, teens went out literally hunting for "a Mexican" to attack and stabbed to death the first brown-skinned person they found. The reporter put into context how the past marches stoked ire in some communities that have experienced a large influx of legal and illegal immigrants in the past decade.

You can count on Obama not going out on a limb on such a hot-button issue so early in his presidency (who could blame him?) yet January 21 can’t come soon enough for the "manifesters" – as the marchers call themselves (roughly translated) in Spanish.

I guess when that news cycle passes, then we’ll see how many more "Mexicans" will die at the hands of people who go insane when faced with large crowds of people "demanding" immigration law reform.

The tale of the tape: child almost gets left behind

2008-11-13T07:55:00-06:00

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

Two days before Columbia University Teachers College’s Campaign for Education Equity announced its soon-to-be-published research papers on the topic of poverty as the key barrier to closing U.S. education gap – I got a personal taste of how children in this country get left behind despite the massive amounts of resources being poured into education.

I was sitting in my living room Tuesday, working on the computer when my doorbell rang. Out in the cold drizzle stood a squat forty-ish Hispanic woman in a worn coat and scarf accompanied by a young, equally-damp eleven-ish girl. The woman asked me if I spoke Spanish and when I replied in the affirmative she asked for my help.

Her story – which I have no reason to doubt – was that she and her daughter had been walking the streets of my suburb all morning trying to gather materials for a school project and the girl, who’d been wearing brand new snow boots, was now suffering from bleeding feet. They wanted to know if I’d be kind enough to lend them a pair of shoes so they could complete their walk home.

Once it dawned on me that my garage door was up and my car inside was parked in front a rack piled with worn-out running shoes destined for the local Goodwill, I realized why they’d stopped at my house.

I coaxed them inside to the warmth of my home so the girl could put on my two-sizes-too-big pair of shoes, and got mom to tell me about their morning.

They’d set out that Veteran’s Day morning to gather the materials for a class project. Using the school – which services both the upper-middle class families who live in my neighborhood, as well as the low-income families that surround it – as their compass, they’d gotten lost in the tangle of cul-de-sacs and dead-ends in their search for the public library.

After two hours they headed back onto Main street and into a community center which opened a few years ago to assist the booming Latino population, looking for a computer. "But they told me to come back another day because the Internet was not working," Mom told me.

They then walked the three-quarters of a mile to Walgreens to buy colored construction paper and adhesive tape…which they ended up not being able to afford.

Stupefied by the situation, I fished out a brand new roll of tape, and offered hot chocolate – oblivious to the next request.

"She has to do a report on ‘Women in the Revolutionary War’ and we’re not going to be able to get to the library now," Mom said sheepishly as the young girl with the bloody, blistered feet literally squirmed in embarrassment, "Can she use your computer?"

What to most people would have amounted to no more than a routine annoyance – "Geez, I gotta get supplies for my kid’s school project!" – became for this family an epic odyssey that nearly ended badly.

We’re all concerned about the economy and our jobs but who among us can honestly say we don’t have nearly 24/7 access to an Internet-accessible computer? Who among us has ever not had enough money to buy a 99-cent item at Walgreens? How many times have we been so desperate to provide for our children that we literally relied on the kindness of strangers?

Billions of dollars are spent every year in researching and analyzing what keeps kids from succeeding in schools; the answer to ensuring no children get "left behind" isn’t more cash to schools, it’s more resources to people – a task lying far out of the scope of any school district and thus seemingly impossible.

According to Wednesday’s announcement, on November 17 and 18, the Campaign for Educational Equity will outline a comprehensive national plan that would deliver $15,000 to one million students whose families fall within 75 to 125 percent of the federal poverty line.

The difference between this plan and others I’ve seen in the past is that it funds the standard smaller class size and effective teaching initiatives but also "a full array of out-of-school assistance from in utero through age 18, including prenatal care, after-school tutoring, health care, nutrition and physical education, and family support."

According to the press release, the $15,000 investment would include federal, state and local funding but also recoup many of it’s costs "through subsequent reductions in costs for special education and compensatory educational services for older students and savings from the reduction in costs in health care, crime, and welfare that are associated with poorer educational outcomes and the increases in worker productivity and tax revenue associated with improved educational outcomes."

Most people don’t buy that line of thinking, under the guise that it isn’t their job to provide unknown schoolchildren with all the infrastructure that those kids’ parents should be providing.

If you think that’s not your job, then whose job is it? On Tuesday, it was mine, and I did it happily. Mom and girl got home armed with 12 pages of Internet research on the role of women in the Revolutionary War.

Maybe when the Campaign for Educational Equity’s full report comes out next week it’ll get national media play and shine a spotlight on those who really don’t have any of the social and financial resources most of us take for granted – those who have to ask strangers for shoes, and tape, and information just to get simple fifth-grade class reports completed.

More diversity in workplace? Black man in White House no silver bullet, but a start

2008-11-11T08:43:04-06:00

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

Scores and scores of newspapers, magazines and TV clips are featuring interviews of minority families beaming that Barack Obama’s history-changing race to the White House will change their children’s lives and careers.

Yes! And, sadly, no.

There is absolutely no question about it. In the days since the elections I’ve had messages pouring in from literally all over the world, as well as from right here in Chicago, with the same message, like this one from Valarie King-Bailey a successful Chicago entrepreneur who’s made history in her own right:

"I am receiving emails from all over the world breathing a sigh of relief. What this says to me is that ‘we have overcome’ as a nation. This does not solve all of our problems but I do think we need to all pause and reflect."

Obama’s election to the highest office in the land is remarkable, and joyous but there is no shortage of really smart people reminding us we need to get our heads out of the clouds and see what kinds of lessons we can take from the history books to the board room.

In an email last week, Gloria Castillo, president of Chicago United – an organization that advocates for diversity in business – expressed to me her jubilation with Obama’s win before lamenting, "his victory didn’t suddenly erase the fact that high school graduation rates are frighteningly low in too many American communities. It didn’t reverse the under representation of minorities at the highest levels of corporate leadership…and it didn’t solve the disparity that has minority-owned businesses receiving less than 3 percent of all sales and receipts even though they own about 20 percent of all firms."

True enough. Although it did seem like it, the world didn’t change completely overnight, but as Gloria waxed on about the state of diversity in Chicago business, she drew out some changes any corporation, small business, or non-profit can embrace.

"The Obama lesson for corporate directors and CEOs is that they must accept accountability for proactively seeking out executives of difference to unleash even greater innovation in their enterprises," Castillo said. "Once they institute true diversity and inclusion in their businesses, other leaders throughout the organizations must follow that lead and actively create an environment that fully engages the best qualified stakeholders—employees and suppliers included—regardless of ethnicity."

For me, that’s the key: regardless of ethnicity. There are a whole lot of people out there that have already overlooked that Barack Obama specifically avoided running as "the first black president," he was all about being the best person for the job.

Castillo hit on this: "Obama himself regularly spoke of personal accountability. Translating that message in the corporate workplace, it means that executives of color can and should take control of their own advancement. For instance, those who aspire to greater leadership roles can chart their own paths by taking on stretch and rotational assignments, by understanding and maneuvering within their corporate culture."

Easier said than done, but – I hope – easier today than it was on November 3. What should be easy for the suits currently in executive roles – the sorts of roles that have the ability to shape their workplace’s culture and business strategy – to learn is that the people of the United States have power. Regardless of demographics.

"[Obama’s] appeal to voters from different ethnicities, generations and geographies was enriched by the diverse campaign team he assembled for their mix of experience and viewpoints," Castillo said. "His victory demonstrates that when we bring diverse thinking to the table, we all gain tremendous benefits and a competitive advantage. That’s a striking reminder for corporate America."

Berlusconi “slur” against Obama? Give me a break!

2008-11-07T20:09:00-06:00

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

All right, the first post-election bobbles have occurred, let’s recap.

Friday, during his first press conference as the President-elect, Barack Obama made an off-hand remark about Nancy Reagan’s séances. His comment, "I didn't want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about doing any seances," was only a misstep in that no human really ever expects his fellow man to be so utterly joyless as to suggest the quip is a knock on a presidential widow. Obama’s people immediately released a statement assuring everyone he was "sorry for the careless, off-handed remark."

The best one, though, came a day before – on Thursday – when Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, while meeting with President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia dropped this one-liner; "[Obama] has all the qualities to get along well with you: he’s young, handsome and suntanned…"

And with that the world roared! According to Associated Press and New York Times reports, the Italian press made as much of a deal about Berulsconi’s comment as they did of the news that the first Black President had been elected in the United States.

One Italian journalist remarked that Berlusconi made: "a miserable, vulgar and racist remark, for which he didn’t even have the courage to take responsibility or the dignity to apologize."

Dude, get over it. Since when is it vulgar to imply a guy is hot? Or, for that matter, why would anyone jump to the conclusion that being referred to as suntanned is racist? News flash: dark-skinned people tan, too. It’s November, I’m looking café-au-lait right now, check back with me in August and I’ll be more mocha latte. What’s the big deal?

Honestly, there are enough people out there trash-talking anyone who isn’t white to throw well-meaning defenders of brown-skinned dignity into the mix of slur spotters.

Berlusconi said it best, so I’ll give him the last word: [The Italian left is wrong about everything] "including their lack of a sense of humor. Too bad for them. God save us from imbeciles."

Amen! And now that we’ve gotten the ultra-sensitive silliness out of the way, on to more pressing matters.