"600 words by Esther J. Cepeda"

Dad was just doing his best

“600 words by Esther J. Cepeda”

Wrong is easy to spot, but “right” is sometimes trickier.

Ricardo Gonzalez, the 35-year-old Midlothian, Illinois man who is facing misdemeanor child endangerment charges for locking his two and five-year-old daughters in a makeshift cage in his pickup truck was definitely wrong to do such a thing. But his story tells me he actually was just trying to do the right thing.

Gonzalez was not a cruel monster bent on torturing his kids for fun – though there’s no end to those, a quick clip search will show you that parents from all races/ethnicities, socieoeconomic levels and geographies commit terrible crimes against their children. But let’s dig beneath the headlines: here’s a poorly educated guy trying to raise two small children with the girls’ mother – the same woman who, two years ago, had gotten herself in trouble for driving off to the store and leaving one of the girls, then 3, home alone.

So you’re this guy, scraping by on what you can make foraging and reselling scrap metal and whatever else you can find. You’ve got these two little girls who are out of school, you have no one to care for them (a neighbor was quoted in a news story as saying she would have watched the kids but let’s be realistic here, she probably didn’t mean all day every day) and you know well enough not to leave them home alone. You think about taking them with but you figure letting the girls roll around in the cab of the car isn’t a good idea either.

The lightbulb goes off and though you know a makeshift cage in the cab of your truck isn’t optimal you’ve solved the problem of not being able to have the girls near and relatively safe as you make your all-day rounds in the pickup.

Surely Gonzalez didn’t have the cultural or legal awareness to understand that sitting at a gas station with one daughter in your lap while the other cries in your makeshift cage is not going to go over well. In this country a concerned passerby will bust you out to the police. And so it happened.

Given his resources and expertise, was Ricardo Gonzalez abusing his daughters by keeping them as safe and as close as he knew how? I say no. Gonzalez is just one example of someone doing the best he can with what he’s got – people do unwise things out of desperation.

Either way he was clearly breaking the law and was badly in need of an intervention – good intentions aside, children cannot thrive in an environment devoid of familial support, safe shelter, and healthy stimulation, which anyone can see was not a part of the trash picking rounds.

I’ve heard people twittering about this latest sad story for the last two days, none of whom were able to look past what he did to see why he did it.

Some of us – the lucky ones – can cast an eye at what’s going on with the economy, oil and gas prices, and food prices, and cluck about how terrible this natural market correction is even as we get ready to go to Ravinia to enjoy A Prairie Home Companion and a bottle of wine.

For others, desperate times are calling for desperate and dangerous measures. They need help.

Tonight as I clap along to the Powdered Milk Biscuits song, my mind won’t be too far from Ricardo Gonzalez and his struggling family, and I’ll send them my silent best wishes that they can find any help they need to stay together and move on.

Language Barriers

"600 words by Esther J. Cepeda"

In the grand scheme of all the inappropriate remarks made at commencement speeches across the U.S. during graduation season – from snarky high-school clique announcements to college ceremony swearing – this one doesn't even come close, yet laws are being crafted as you read this to make certain this type never happens again.

Two co-valedictorian in Louisiana used one sentence of non-English language during their graduation speeches.

No, they didn't quote a long-dead philosopher in Latin, as many do. They didn't make offensive, disparaging remarks intended to disrespect their fellow students and faculty without their being able to understand them. It wasn't "'Ich bin ein Berliner'" though their intent was Kennedy-esque in aiming to bestow honor by speaking the native tongue of a special audience.

The young women, Cindy and Hue Vo, residents of Houma, La., dedicated one sentence to their Vietnamese immigrant family members which roughly translated into "always be your own person."

Terrebone Parish School District administrators were so distraught at this un-American display of a foreign tongue during their ceremony that according to the Associated Press which reported the story last weekend, officials there are forming a committee comprised of teachers to set school ceremony standards for the school board to adopt. Standards requiring English-only, and even other Bill of Rights benders such as requiring prayers during a ceremony. Not allowing, requiring.

Rickie Pitre, a board member, was quoted as saying, "I don't like them addressing in a foreign language. They should be in English." Man – that is cold!

Anyone who's been reading me for any length of time knows I'm all in favor of English-only in 99.9% of situations – English immersion is the number one way for immigrants to learn the language and culture of our country and translated everything is harming, not helping people acculturate – but this is ridiculous!

How trembling and frightened of anyone who's not exactly like them must a community be to risk becoming a national laughing-stock in the name of ensuring that no student ever utters a single non-English word of love or gratitude to a family member as a special acknowledgement?

The girls were not trying to make political statements, not trying to push a social agenda, not trying to disrespect the cultural or linguistic norms of their fellow students and teachers by cutting them out of their shared graduating experience. They just wanted to tell their families "I love you" in a special way.

"Out of the whole speech, it's one sentence dedicated to them to give thanks," Cindy Vo told an Associated Press reporter, "mine was personal and general for the entire Vietnamese community and something I wanted to share with graduates."

Her cousin Hue Vo remarked that she wanted to express gratitude to her parents for enduring the hardships of moving from Vietnam to the U.S. That would be the land of the free, last time I checked.

Being a buttoned-down, conservative-type, I'm sure Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, that state's first Indian governor, never wrestled with this sort of silliness. Rebuked among some of the Indian community for not being "Indian enough," I'm sure he always sticks to the English, but I'd bet even he's appalled.

If, sadly, we've become an America who no longer wants the world's tired or weary, and heck, let's just throw "uneducated" on that pile, preferring to only welcome the law-abiding, intelligent, and potentially profitable – which the Vo family certainly is – then for Pete's sake let's open our arms and stop harassing them at every turn.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact

eejaycee@600words.com

There's no need to fear – Hispanic babies are here!

"600 words by Esther J. Cepeda"

Dusty, barren ghost towns all over America? Forget it.

Public care facilities bursting with 80 to 90-year-old white people and no one to care for them? Nope.

An American society crumbling under the burden of too few youngsters to go out to work, play, pay taxes, and buy things – like the population shortage that's currently threatening Europe? Not in my lifetime – or yours, either – thanks to the Hispanic baby boom.

Monday's USA TODAY featured a front page story "Births fueling Hispanic growth" which tells the tale of an American populace buoyed by today's reality: most of the growth in the U.S. Hispanic population comes not from Spanish-speaking, slit-eyed ruffians violating chaste America's southern border, but from people just like me: U.S. born Latinos.

According to the story, this month's edition of the Population Council's demographic journal Population and Development Review reports that not only are Hispanic communities growing more from births than immigration in major Latino cities like LA and Chicago, but between 2000 and 2005, in 221 counties across the country, had the Hispanics not shown up and started families, many towns and villages would simply have started dying.

"Demographically they can't recover unless something like this happens," said Kenneth Johnson, a demographer at the University of New Hampshire's Carsey Institute, quoted in the story referring to municipalities in the Great Plains, "there's no way older white populations can replace themselves."

Ouch, that one must have stung to Mark Krikorian, from the Center for Immigration Studies, who just released a new book The New Case Against Immigration, Both Legal and Illegal in which he "argues that although mass immigration once served our national interests, in today's America it weakens our common national identity, limits opportunities for upward mobility, threatens our security and sovereignty, strains resources for social programs, and disrupts middle-class norms of behavior."

He goes on, "as the politicians argue about border fences and amnesty, they are missing the bigger picture: the harmful impact of large-scale settlement of all kinds of immigrants, whether legal or illegal, skilled or unskilled, temporary or permanent, European or Latin or Asian or African. Modern America has simply outgrown immigration, and we must end it before it cripples us."

No worries, Mark, according to the experts, immigration to the U.S.' established Hispanic communities is no longer numero uno.

Kidding aside, my curiosity is peaked about Mark's data but I haven't yet read his book so I can't gauge the validity of his sources. Either way his is a viewpoint – about legal and illegal immigrants from all countries alike – is shared by a large minority of people in this country. And the dislike and fear is generally not toward the brown-skinned computer programmers from India, but the brown-skinned peach-pickers from south of the border.

But in my conversations with economists, metropolitan planners, medical and military experts, and demographers I rarely hear such gloom and doom about the, yes, many many challenges that a whole generation of kids born to low-income immigrant children. Rather, the Latino community is seen by these experts as young, ready and able to work and eager to contribute to the success of this country.

Two years ago the Chicago Council on Global Affairs released an independent Task Force report called "A Shared Future: The Economic Engagement of Greater Chicago and Its Mexican Community." It cast a bright light on the multitude challenges – of language, culture, resources – the 83 percent increase in the Chicago region's Mexican population poses while also illuminating such opportunities as a potential 2.4 trillion dollars worth of business and cultural exchanges with the world's 21 Spanish-speaking countries.

Their bottom line was that the Latino community in Chicago, as in so many other states, is the fuel for our economic engine, their words: "play a vital role the region's prosperity and will do so even more in the future." This from people looking to make money, not lose money, on a bevy of social services and law enforcement programs.

Yes, like Bruce Springsteen – who sprung from Dutch, Irish and Italian immigrants – for generations to come there will be millions of Miguels and Marias making America better and proudly singing they were "Boooooorn in the You-Ess-Aayy."

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact

eejaycee@600words.com

See me in the funny papers

"600 Words" by Esther J. Cepeda

She came around! I knew she would!

I'm talking about Janis Day, the middle-aged mom on the comic strip Arlo and Janis, a 23-year-old nationally-syndicated comic strip which appears in Chicago's Sun-Times. She'd been struggling, for the last two weeks, with conflicting feelings about her son Gene's co-workers at his new summer job.

In last week's strips, Gene, home from college, is working outdoors with a presumably-all-Mexican lawn care crew. When he casually mentions to mom, and his dad Arlo, that his co-workers call him "gringa" – the Spanish, female form of an arguably derogative term for "whitey" – she got all upset.

Gene assured both Arlo and Janis that his crew-mates were just busting his chops, shared how much he was learning about the Spanish language and their culture, and even wished he had taken Spanish classes is school.

Last Friday, though, Janice was having protective mom thoughts that flirted with the kind of protectionist, almost racist stereotyping that's making things hard on all Latinos these days. She fretted: "I wonder what trash those awful men are talking to Gene today!!" even as they were teaching Gene the value of honoring your mother.

  Woah! I kinda freaked because I've been loving A&J for well over a decade and wasn't sure where creator Jimmy Johnson was going: are those scary Mexicans actually going to corrupt young Gene? Will Janis be proven right to be concerned or will there be a painfully beautiful slice-of-life learning moment for everyone reading? Why even bring such a controversial topic to a fun, 30-second diversion to begin with?

And that's really what I was excited about: Arlo, Janis, and Gene – just as white as 99.9 percent of all other mainstream comic strip characters – interacting with real, live, Mexicans. Stereotypical yard hands, sure, but give Jimmy Johnson credit – this is a huge act of bravery.

Don't get me wrong, I love Lalo Alcaraz, the Hispanic LA Times cartoonist who pens La Cucaracha – also nationally syndicated and, coincidentally appears only a few panels above A&J on the third comics page of the Sun-Times – but his audience is limited.

Some people don't read it because they think "I'm not Latino, it's not for me." Some Hispanics think he's too this or that and also don't tune in for Lalo's brilliant and funny social commentary.

But A&J is read by millions of people of all stripes, colors, and walks of life. This is big!

After Friday, I was on the edge of my seat but the story line was dropped Saturday through Tuesday. My attempts to contact JJ were fruitless, and I wondered if he'd gotten barraged with hate mail for bringing the contentious immigration debate into what's usually a light family 'toon and decided to drop the whole thing.

Unlikely. "Most of them are written so far in advance it's really hard pull back in a day or two, though the newspaper could decide not to run it, I suppose," Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich, and Brenda Starr cartoonist, told me yesterday as I struggled with the lack of new developments in the scary Mexican plot. Mary – no stranger to making waves with the dialogue of her characters (don't get her started on the use of the term "threesome!") – told me she doubted any cartoonist would be influenced either by backlash, hate mail, or even partial censoring.

The chances the writer would change it are very, very small. For a long time, people couldn’t give feedback and that was one of the beauties – it’s not like being a columnist where they can kick you in public – there was anonymity. It’s not like now where feedback is everything to everybody," Mary said. "And there is this notion, that I think is wrong-headed, that comic strips aren’t supposed to offend, this idea that comic strips are for kids – I don’t buy that. There was a time for kids but that’s not who reads the papers. I think readers could be well served with some edginess."

Edginess is good and it turns out I needn’t have fretted so. Today Janis – still crabby in the first panel where she "worries" about the heat Gene’s working in – takes lemonade to his job site and learns a little something about how Mexican lawn care workers respond to kindness.

I like to think Arlo and Janis’ readers will learn a little something, too.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact

eejaycee@600words.com

Black Star Project: shining a light on the darkness

"600 Words" by Esther J. Cepeda

It’s June 19th – not even officially summer yet – and the wave of violence in Chicago has already kicked into high gear.

Just in the last two days more shootings, more death. This morning the Chicago Tribune reports two teens, 19 and 15, are dead and one 14-year-old is struggling to live through a gunshot wound to the head.

Faced with this community-wide epidemic of violence, some look away or gnash their teeth and weep. Some have made a fuss about forming commissions to figure out what to do about murder in their streets. The folks over at The Black Star Project are just out there solving the problem themselves – one kid at a time.

"People say the way to end violence is policemen or with helicopters or automatic weapons. That’s not going to stop violence! If you can teach these young people to read, if we can give them some hope, some vision, and some skills…that’s the only way," Phillip Jackson, BSP’s Executive Director, told me Tuesday afternoon as the media whipped itself into a frenzy over 19-year-old Jose Rivera’s bloody end on a south side playground. "It’s not very popular, it gets almost no funding and people say to me ‘It’s too hard.’ I don’t care how hard it is, it’s the only way."

The "way" to stop the street killings Phil’s referring to is best described by the 165,000 black, Hispanic, and other-wise underserved young students BSP has tutored, mentored, and inspired at public and private schools all over Chicago and its suburbs during a 12-year quest to use education to lift kids above the clamor of their neighborhood’s dangers.

Not to mention the 4,000 parents at BSP’s Parent University program, who get classes and support, in both English and Spanish, on how to guide their kids toward becoming life-long learners.

Oh, and let’s not forget the hundreds of thousands fathers who have come out en masse across 238 American cities on the first day of school to pledge their commitment to their kids' education during BSP’s wildly successful, four-year-old Million Father March.

The Black Star Project is, as I've come to think of them, the most effective, nationally-recognized anti-violence program you've never heard of.

"I try not to do things that are sensational, we do work of substance with all children, even if they're gangbangers," said Phillip, a retiree of Chicago Public Schools' system, "but the newspapers [and television] want more pizzazz – it's only front page news whenever we have a weekend when people are shot and there's a child or woman killed. We're working on solutions not gimmicks so there's almost no interest."

Barriers like media interest matter little to Phil and his team of 5 full-time employees; there's work to be done BSP has put the power of the internet to it. Lucky you if you're one of the 16,000 readers who get their bright, yellow-topped, e-blasted newsletters exclaiming "He who controls the education of the children control the future of that race."

Though that might sound politically incorrect, in reality, the color-blind organization services children of all races and ethnicities but their niche is African-American. "Our board members, mentors and volunteers are diverse – we don't discriminate, we make no apologies," Phil said, "But when you make a concerted effort to reach black boys– the Consortium on School Reform found that of black boys in kindergarden only 3 out of 100 will graduate college by age 25 – then you curtail the pipeline to jails and prisons."

But there is a price to pay for being bold, and nationally lauded but locally ignored. Not being the most quoted, or "go-to" social service organization makes it difficult to get people with money excited about the work that gets done each and everyday out of the glare of camera flashes and TV lights. Though BSP does make up part of their meager budget with earned income from CPS payment for mentorship programs, and enjoy generous donations from The Chicago Community Trust, ComEd, and Toyota Motor sales, the needs are many.

"We need funding stability, I spend 50-60 percent of my time making sure the lights stay on and people are going to get paid rather than spending time with the children but it doesn't matter. I'm going to be leaving this planet soon but what does matter is that the children we leave behind are going to be able to live together, work together, and learn together. That's what really matters."

You want an antidote to the daily "violence in our neighborhoods!!" news drama? Sign up for the Black Star Project's e-blast and get ready to receive a dose of real solutions.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact

eejaycee@600words.com

"Suicidio:" death translates to Hispanic teens

"600 Words" by Esther J. Cepeda

Hispanic teens are screaming for your help, can you hear them?

The Centers for Disease Control, in their biannual National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, recently reported that in 2007 the attempted suicide rate for Hispanic teens was 17.5 percent, compared to 11.6 percent for blacks and whites.

In their survey of 14,000 U.S. high school students, the CDC also found that while fewer whites and blacks drink, smoke and engage in sexual activity now than 16 years ago, Hispanic teens have made no progress. Sadly, horribly – in the death department, they've gotten more organized: more than one in ten (1.3) Latinos and Latinas (1.4) had a suicide plan.

Having been a high school bilingual algebra teacher I can tell you it wasn't just the gang-banger-wannabes, the straight-from-the-farm-immigrants, or the "emos" (those sporting a style of dress reminiscent of the 80's new-wave style which leans into all-black "Goth" clothing indicating depression, but features splashes of color which symbolize strong emotions), who have serious emotional issues they want you to recognize, it’s the good, popular students, too.

In a story published in Hispanic Link Weekly Report, Glenn Flores, professor of Pediatrics and Public Health at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, is quoted thusly about why the rates of suicide attempts are higher among Hispanic youth. "One can speculate that it may relate to a combination on the extra stress of being caught between two cultures and languages…along with poor mental health care for Latinos," he says.

Understatement of the year!

According to the data, in 1991, the number of Hispanic high school students attempting suicide one or more times in the previous months was 7.9 percent. It spiked at 13.6 percent in '93, fell with some blips – one in 2005, which coincided with the rise in public animosity toward illegal immigration – and settled at 10.2 percent in 2007.

During all this time, few of the environmental factors have changed: these kids were still living in a society completely new and in many ways completely at odds with their parents' country of origin – a reality universal to all first generation Americans. Even when language isn't a barrier, trying to navigate the "old culture" while trying to fit into the new one they're immersed in is no walk in the park.

The culture at home – I generalize Hispanic households here – is one where rigid Catholicism is a main driver, and "depression" doesn't exist. If you're reading this and you're Hispanic, raise your hand if you ever heard the following statement: "Sad? What in the world do you have to be sad about? When I was your age we didn't have shoes or running water, we had nothing. You have nothing to be sad about."

And forget, for a moment, troubled kids – those with alcoholism or abuse in their families, those tied to rough gang-types, those who don't have a lot going for them – the "good kids" have serious struggles as well.

Again, raise your hand if you know what it's like to be the shining beacon of hope for your family, with all the promise of the family's future – and, not coincidentally – and all the weight of the world on your shoulders. First to go to college? Going to get in trouble if you don't get straight A's? Depended on to better the family's life? Some of you already know what I'm talking about.

These are but few examples from the spark-eliciting process of blending cultures with generations with sexes and new experiences during the torrid teen years.

None of these are judgements – many of these cultural norms and expectations have positive aspects, and a rightful place in the context of the immigrant and first-generation experience – they are simply realities you, and everyone who comes into contact with a young Latino man or woman, should know.

And don't fall into your own despair, there's nothing but upside here: now that you know, keep your eyes and ears open and just be there. Your informed, nosy, well-intentioned intrusion into a surly teen's life can make all the difference in the world.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the “600 Words” & “Pregunta del Dia” columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. “600 words” is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Doctors, please: “habla culture,” not language

"600 Words" by Esther J. Cepeda

If the English language unites us as a country, and other languages are what supposedly divide us, then cultural understanding is the bridge – and the best hope – for fixing health care inequities for U.S. minorities.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation recently announced it was going to devote $300 million to setting national standards to fix the problem, noting – just to take diabetes as an example – that African Americans lose legs to amputations at a rate nearly five times that of whites.

While the Johnson Foundation grant is designed to "reduce racial and ethnic disparities," none of their information even mentioned Hispanic/Latino patients, but I can tell you we aren’t far behind. The National Diabetes Education Program of the National Institutes of Health says that on average, about 2.5 million, or 9.5 percent of Hispanic and Latino Americans aged 20 years or older have been diagnosed with diabetes. Mexican Americans and residents of Puerto Rico are almost twice as likely to have diabetes as non-Hispanic whites of similar age, and are two to four times more likely to have their legs amputated due to the disease.

As with diabetes, obesity, breast cancer, Alzheimer’s, and so many other diseases, the impact on minorities is far greater than on white populations. And though the most-prescribed salvo is eliminating medical professionals’ language barriers, it’s obviously not just about linguistics.

Constantina Mizis, a nationally-recognized expert in the field of cross-cultural healthcare and the Multicultural Outreach Manager for the Greater Illinois chapter of the American Alzheimer’s Association, says, "You can’t think about speaking a language, you have to speak culture. I tell doctors and nurses that culture – the collections of how different groups of people see and feel life, death, joy and even their health – paints everything."

With such a wide assortment of cultures – not just in the population of sick people, but in the corps of doctors and nurses practicing medicine today – the most important cultural/linguistic tools for healthcare providers are open ears and eyes.

Understanding that, according to a June 2007 study titled Cultural Characteristics of African Americans: Implications for the Design of Trials that Target Behavior and Health Promotion Programs, African Americans’ driving cultural forces are religion, family structure, general mistrust of Caucasians, a feeling of being undervalued and not respected as a people, a feeling of limited resources and limited opportunities to make lifestyle changes and a deep desire to preservation their ethnic identity, is crucial.

Knowing that level eye contact, warm greetings that include hugs and hand-holding, chit-chat before and after asking for a count of ailments, and showing reverence are key to winning over Latino patients is also very important.

And yes, the highly educated doctors and nurses caring for us should know that certain cultures aren’t going to respond to "prescriptions" such as cutting down on rice – a staple in Latino and Asian households – or to going out for long walks which are, sadly, a danger in many minority communities.

But most important are the skills of trained observers, which might really go a long way to bettering healthcare for patients of all colors and ethnicities.

"It’s not just what [health care practitioners] say or in what language," Mizis says, "it’s how they say it. Notice if the patient is intimidated, look at the body language, talk in simple language and be friendly. It’s all about gaining patients’ confidence."

Esther J. Cepeda writes the “600 Words” & “Pregunta del Dia” columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. “600 words” is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Chicago columnists unite!

"Pregunta del Dia" by Esther J. Cepeda

"Pregunta del Dia" translates from Spanish into "Question of the Day" and today’s comes from K.C. (not of the Sunshine Band), a Lemont, IL reader who asks:

Q. I looked at your "events" page and so what’re you doing June 18?

A. Oh, K.C., bless your heart! Now I don’t have to contrive some way to plug this performance (and great timing, by the way).

Next Wednesday I’ll be moderating a pre-performance panel featuring my Sun-Times pal Neil Steinberg, the Tribune’s incredible Rick Kogan, Accessible Contemporary Music’s Executive Director Seth Boustead and The Moving Architects’ choreographer Erin Carlisle Norton.

You see, ACM and TMA are putting on two performances of "1,001 Afternoons in Chicago," a live, newly-composed music and modern dance piece interpreting a few of the stories of legendary Chicago newspaperman Ben Hecht.

Who?

Yeah, I didn’t know either, but Hecht was – during the 1920's – a writer at the Chicago Daily News who challenged himself to write a short story each day and publish it in the paper. Despite how ridiculously unlikely it would be that any editor today would allow such a thing – apparently back then newspapers actually printed more than five "column inches" on any given topic – Hecht’s stuff was wildly successful, spawning the "1,001 Afternoons in Chicago" column.

Was he "the Royko of his time?" Perhaps even better. Hecht was such a rock star in Chi-town he left for New York City, then to Hollywood to screenwrite movies (Scarface, A Farewell to Arms, A Star is Born) before being tarred, black-listed and…well you’ll just have to come to the panel Wednesday June 18 at 7:30 pm at the Music Institute of Chicago, 1490 Chicago Ave., Evanston to hear much more, but suffice it to say, the guy who once wrote this:

"Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock."

was fascinating.

But never mind all that, the real star of the evening will be the collaboration of Accessible Contemporary Music’s sounds paired with The Moving Architects’ corporeal expressions mixed in with video, all telling a selection of Ben Hecht’s stories.

New music sometimes scares people but I find if I can listen to it a bit before I experience it onstage, which you can do at http://www.acmusic.org/concert_1001.html (read some BH stories, too), I can really get into it live.

If I could even begin to describe the music along with the movement, it would take me 1,001 words and I still wouldn’t do it justice. I could try to convey Seth and Erin’s enthusiasm but I might overload you with breathless quotes like: "This project celebrates the golden era of journalism, when the newspaper was part of everyone’s daily routine!" Oh, if only there were millions more Seths around to save printed newspapers from certain extinction.

Don’t fret if you can’t make it next Wednesday – or if you don’t need the geeky newspaper-lovin’ pre-performance fawning – just don’t miss this Saturday June 14 ‘s show. It’s at 2 pm in Curtiss Hall of the Fine Arts Building, 410 S. Michigan Ave. on the 10 floor. It’ll be a perfect afternoon of "Afternoons."

Esther J. Cepeda writes the “600 Words” & “Pregunta del Dia” columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. “600 words” is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

How long are you Hispanic?

"600 Words" by Esther J. Cepeda

Did you see the Hispanic woman on the cover of June’s InStyle magazine? I didn’t either, though technically she’s there.

America’s sweetheart Cameron Diaz, graces that cover and she is, as she describes herself in the story, "a Cuban." She’s light-skinned, blond and doesn’t speak Spanish. According to Wikipedia, she once said:

"I go, ‘God, you know, it all sounds so familiar. I know what you're saying, I really do. I just cannot respond to you back in Spanish. I can barely speak English properly.’ I didn't grow up in a Cuban or Latin community. I grew up in Southern California on the beach, basically. And I'm third generation. I'm of Cuban descent, but I'm American."

But she did say she’s Cuban.

How about America’s hottest Latino quarterback?

What, you didn’t know about Tony Romo, QB of "America’s Team" aka the Dallas Cowboys? Yep, the good folks at Wikipedia verify he’s "a third-generation Mexican American on his father's side." Growing up the son of a Polish-German mom and US-born dad,TR didn’t speak much Spanish and like Cameron, he probably never got pulled over for "driving while Hispanic."

Here’s what I’m getting at: How long before "Hispanic" no longer applies? Does it wear off? Is it a label you can wear or discard depending on the immediate circumstances, or are you stuck with it if you’re dark-skinned and you have the "nopal en la frente" which means the cactus leaf on your forehead (a popular way to say someone "looks" Mexican)?

I was at a conference two years ago when a wise man said, in reference to a question about which term is more politically correct – Latino or Hispanic – "You know you’re an American if you call yourself either because those terms don’t exist anywhere but in America. Anywhere else in the world you’re just from your country."

Well, after seeing Cameron on the cover lookin’ gorgeous and innocent of any traffic violations which might result in her being asked for her "papers," I had to know: How long is one Hispanic? I blew in a call – to the wise man himself.

"Every group has had to face that transition, it’s not a unique phenomenon," said Dr. Jorge A. Girotti, himself a real-live Hispanic, who isn’t usually pegged Hispanic at first sight. Aside from being a cool Argentinian around town he’s also a top dog at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s College of Medicine. He hopes Latin-American descendents can find a better way to describe ourselves, since the terms have been hijacked into negative-ville by those who think "we" all illegally drag ourselves over the Mexican border (my imagery, not his). He notes it gets especially hairy when kiddies are involved. "I married a Venezuelan woman and I know my kids feel allegiance to both my ancestry and my wife’s, but those lines are going to keep blurring."

Indeed! Who knows what my cousin’s half-Filipino, quarter-Mexican, quarter-Ecuadorian kids will consider themselves. My other cousin grew up here but was born to a Mexican and Ecuadorian in Mexico, how will the baby girl he had with an African-American woman identify herself?

Cameron and Tony are about as far from Hispanic/Latino as I can imagine but they’re happy to identify themselves as such, even though they’re pretty far removed generationally and linguistically from their Latin American roots.

I went the other direction and had a couple of kids I knew to be English-only speaking and maternally Latino/paternally white fill out a form that asked to check off race/ethnicity. I don’t know if they fully understood the question but their answers were illuminating: Stimpson, age 9, said without missing a beat: "I’m white." When asked why not Hispanic or Latino, he elaborated: "I don’t know, 'cause I look more white." Asked if he would he want to be considered Hispanic because of his mom, he innocently said, "No, I don’t think so. I’m white, I want to be white."

His little brother Dignan, 7, first responded with "Peach, I think I look more peach." After explanation, and even throwing in hypothetical bilinguality in, he stood firm with, "I think I’d still like to be white."

Sort of shocked, but not really, was their father, John, who said, "On a technicality they’re Hispanic but I’m white, so I think of them as white." Mom plead the fifth.

Who can say when one stops being Hispanic when in this multi-cultural world it’s not even always clear when it begins.

"I direct the medical school admissions office and we see this every day," said Dr. Girotti, "it’s a struggle when we read applications. It’s not just the surname but the person’s identification with the label. Just checking the box ‘Latino’ per se doesn’t mean you have any pride or identification with [the label] or speak the language. It’s not only about a person’s identification but how society identifies them."

Bottom line: English/Spanish/Spanglish-speaking, white, Latino, Hispanic, Blacktina, Hispanasian, Wexican – whatever you want to call it – it’s all really only a state of mind.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the “600 Words” & “Pregunta del Dia” columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. “600 words” is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Eight national views on Chicago's Olympic Hopes

"Pregunta del Dia" by Esther J. Cepeda

(WASHINGTON, DC) "Pregunta del Dia" translates from Spanish into "Question of the Day" and I posed today’s question to my fellow Columbia University American Assembly Next Generation Project Fellows as we took a cocktail break during our three-day bull session on U.S. Global Policy & the Future of International Institutions in Washington, DC.

Q. Now that Chicago has been named one of four finalists – Tokyo, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro round out the list – to bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics, what do you think about Chicago city residents who might be skeptical that an Olympics will be no more than a big hassle whose funds and energy could go to other projects?

A. I asked several of the amazing brainiacs I was with, wondering if any of them would even care. In this ultra-elite group?– of course they cared! Here's what the country's best, brightest, and really young leaders had to say:

· "How much infrastructure is there – that would be my first question – but it would be great for global policy. The violence there? – it's horrible, but I don't think it'll have any effect on the bid." – Julie Schumacher Cohen, Legislative Coordinator, Churches for Middle East Peace, Washington, DC

· "Would da co-ach light da torch? It seems to me Chicago is always the second city for some reason, but it's a world-class city and this could be the opportunity to showcase that. Frankly, Atlanta is half the city that Chicago is and this is a tremendous opportunity for the city to show it's on the first tier with New York and L.A." – Tim Graczewski, Director, Strategic Alliances & Corporate Development, Intuti, Mountain View, CA

· "It's the perfect way to showcase the city! Largely, Chicago's self-esteem problem is the reflection of our own feeling of being the 'second city.' Of course, getting chosen is the number one big challenge now, then if we're chosen, getting the players to come through with funding, there'll be construction issues, opportunity for strike issues – it's phenomenal. We don't want to be like Greece, hopefully." – John M. Syrek, Citizenship Program Director, McCormick Foundation, Chicago, IL

· "It could be a lot of fun, I lived in LA during the last Olympics and it was fun and generally a good thing. If you do it right, it could show people that they don't have to drive anywhere for two weeks, though O'Hare could be an impediment. Will there be a 'Barack Obama Stadium?'" – Andrew Gettelmen, Scientist, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Climate and Global Dynamics Division, Boulder, CO

· "I'm from Vancouver, Canada and all I can remember from the Olympics was what a pain in the ass it was when things were shut down for construction."- Michael Levi, Fellow for Science and Technology, Council on Foreign Relations, New York, NY

· "People in the American press have been criticizing China saying its build-out disenfranchised the community because they were focused on revenue rather than rights. The question is, can we take this golden opportunity to put that rhetoric to practice and get capital and development to play a role in bringing communities to life?" – Mohammad Hanif Jhaveri, Chief Executive Officer, Hera Capital, Dubai via Texas

· "An Olympics puts the city that achieves that stature on the global platform. Chicago is ideally poised – not just from an infrastructure and cultural diversity aspect – to be a positive influence on global policy after that. A by-product of the Olympics could be a theoretical reduction in violent crime. The Olympics could mobilize the citizenry to be involved and have a tremendously positive impact. And it is a privilege – you are representing all the cultures in your city. Tell all your people to empower the youth with that." - De'Edra S. Williams, CRM Lead Consultant, Wipro Technologies, Dallas, TX

· "Chicago is a great U.S. representative! I ran the Chicago Marathon and it represented the world. All the neighborhoods had not only the American spirit, but also were so multicultural. Many American cities have that, but Chicago has that distinctiveness, that sense of diversity that comes into play." - Brett House, Policy Adviser & Senior Macroeconomist, Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY

Note: the International Olympics Committee members will pick the 2016 host on Oct. 2, 2009.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the “600 Words” & “Pregunta del Dia” columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. “600 words” is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com