"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

Say goodbye to XP and embrace change

"600 words by Esther J. Cepeda"

There is no life after death for hard drives – not mine anyway. Having lost everything a few weeks ago, I started anew. Which is how I came to learn a lesson in death, rebirth, change, and surrender through Microsoft's Vista operating system.

I ordered "one of everything" from my favorite PC manufacturer, knowing I was getting all the newest stuff but not predicting that the moment that baby fired up, I'd be reduced to a computer novice, unable to execute the simplest function – "save as" – at the worst possible moment: on deadline.

After several days of chanting "change is good, change is good, change is good…" while bumbling through folder architecture that only vaguely looked familiar, then finally coming to some rudimentary ability to navigate my electronic life, I let go of my self image as "tech savvy" and blew in a call.

"When in doubt, hover," said Adam J. Hecktman, a Director at Chicago's Microsoft's Technology Center, referring to the instantly expanding and, for my taste, waaaay too smart tool bars crowded at the top of Microsoft Word. I sheepishly admitted to him that after about two weeks of typing like a tourist strolls down Michigan Avenue, I finally realized that the circular logo on the top left hand corner was clickable and contained the "save as" function I so desperately needed. Like on Michigan Avenue, there's a lot to look at.

"We call [the toolbars in the office suit] the ribbon. It's laid out so that the tools you need are grouped together by functionality and instantly accessible and fully customizable based on what you're trying to do," he said. Which brought me back to what I was trying to do: that is, the same thing over and over again – type a text document – in the same way I always have, so I didn't have to think about the process, only the final product. But that's not how life is, is it?

Sure, when I bought my new computer I could have ordered XP, and stayed in my comfort zone, but I saw the storm clouds gathering and decided to just get wet now.

"The magic date [for XP] is the 'end of sales' date – June 30, 2008 – but that's not an 'end of support' date. We will continue to provide security updates and other critical updates for Windows XP until April, 2014 – there are some people who will keep their Windows-based PCs for many, many years."

Adam and I had a hardy laugh at the thought of there being people "somewhere out there" still proudly running their PCs on DOS, writing manifestos in WordPerfect. Then we laughed hardily at me who has a step-by-step guide to installing DOS on Vista – so a certain video game can be played – sitting on the desk in front of me. Some things, after all, are worth holding on to.

I stopped to think: Adam and I have had full, rich lives in the twenty-two years since Microsoft launched Windows. That's twelve versions, and a whopping six years since the last new opsys, XP, was released. Many, many, lifetimes in the computer world – it was time to get used to something new, and in no time all my pals will be asking me for tech support again.

Until then, I'm meditating on the teachings of Buddha who said, "Everything changes, nothing remains without change." And I'm keeping in mind the words of Adam, my new Microsoft friend, who gave me wisdom I believe I'll be able to carry with me for a lifetime: "When in doubt: hover."

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

Who loves ya, baby? McCain, Obama court Latinos

"600 Words" by Esther J. Cepeda

Oh look! It’s a slow news day and the topic of immigration has come up, so the mainstream media all of a sudden actually cares what the presidential candidates think about Latinos.

And how could they resist? John McCain and Barack Obama both showed up to a sleepy Saturday gathering of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) in full woo mode – all smiles and happy Hispanic messages.

The two candidates – who, of the 20 votes they both cast out of 30 immigration-related votes since May 17, 2006, voted identically 11 times – turned on the charm with such pithy quotes as this one from John McCain who became a target in the Republican party for championing immigration law reform but had recently taken a harsher tone:

"It'll be my top priority yesterday, today and tomorrow. We must also understand that there are 12 million people who are here, and they're here illegally and they are God's children," Bloomberg quoted McCain as saying.

Reuters quoted Obama’s gushing thusly: "I'm hoping that somewhere out in this audience sits the person who will become the first Latino [presidential] nominee of a major party." Gee, I wonder what Hispanic pre-candidate and former Clinton devotee Bill Richardson thought of that one!

So we’re alternately the chosen ones and next in line for the White House after the black guy, huh? Gee, thanks a lot fellas.

And why the fuss?

Because this utopian "Hispanic vote," estimated to be approximately 9 percent of the national electorate and always referred to as the "fastest growing minority group in the U.S., is up for grabs now that Hillary is out of the picture.

Take their not-completely-opposite voting records on immigration matters and weight their actions versus their words: by all accounts, even from those inside the campaign, Obama has had a blind spot for Latinos throughout the race.

Contrast that with John McCain who was the only Republican candidate who agreed to Univision’s Spanish-language presidential debates last August (it was subsequently cancelled due to lack of Republican interest). Oh, and McCain is touring Mexico and South America early next month, presumably on a listening tour.

Barack must not be compelled to the poor south, though he’ll be gallivanting through more affluent Europe and the Middle East next month well. Still, I’ll give him brownie points, pun intended, for actually trying to give Latin America attention even though his viewpoints on our neighbors to the south rarely make it on the air or into print.

I don’t fall for sugary political pandering so, frankly, I don’t care who makes the better pre-election overture but this is just the beginning. There’ll be plenty of immigration finger-pointing – probably punctuated by some ethnic stereotype mishap – and wobbly, unsubstantive Spanish-language pleas in targeted media.

I suggest both McCain and Obama proceed with caution. If either of them go overboard – I can just hear promises of "a taco in every pot!" – they’ll stand a chance of turning off a ton of U.S.-born Latinos who are much likelier to vote come November than the May Day marchers you see on the TV everyday.

Here’s a thought, John and Barry: not all of our votes hinge on your stance on immigration, so when you see me, think of something compelling to say other than something along the lines of: "Gosh I love immigrants! My ancestors were immigrants, y’know?!"

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

Some of "them" are "us"

"600 Words" by Esther J. Cepeda

If you've seen TV footage of a community reeling from an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement raid – like this weekend's in Lake County, IL – you've likely seen a Latin American family upset about their family members' arrest, followed by what's called "b-roll" video footage of past immigration reform marches where thousands of Latinos hold enraged protest posters demonizing ICE.

But what you don't know is that Latinos are the largest minority subset of ICE's workforce, providing jobs that, with overtime, can pay a person without a high school or college degree up to $70,000 a year. Those great benefits, coupled with a pressing need for more warm bodies, has led ICE to target African American recruits for border patrol duty, as reported in Monday's New York Times. Their story, focusing on the need for recruits to bring the number of agents patrolling the U.S.' southern border up to 18,000 by the end of the year, mentioned that 52 percent of border patrol agents are Latino.

Agency-wide, the Department of Homeland Security agency known as ICE has 17,272 employees of which 3,792 (21.95 percent) are Hispanic according Tim Counts, a spokesman I spoke to Monday.

Can you just imagine what Thanksgiving is like for those families? Talk about being caught in a cultural cross-fire!

Having gotten interested in the dissonance of Hispanics at DHS last year, I spoke to several Latino ICE employees mostly in the Chicago area, and a few close to the border that I correspond with occasionally, none of whom wanted their names used because it's…a touchy subject. I detected two camps: the "make no apologies" group and the "don't ask don't tell."

I'm not naming names so I can't quote directly, but, one female border guard out west told me it's very simple for her: she's doing a government job and her duty is to use her special language skills and cultural insights to smooth the process for everyone involved. The spirit of her comments were along the lines of: "I don't give a damn about people who consider me a sellout or a traitor."

Another agent, who's not in the field, told me she understands how emotional the whole issue of immigration is and never wants to be put in the position of bringing up the boogey-men ICE agents, so she just never brings it up. Her family has gotten used to her refusing to be called to account for every violent or saddening enforcement action that makes headlines.

One agent whose sole job is to interact with immigration-related detainees in the McHenry County Jail in Illinois told me last year, when I was investigating living conditions there for the Chicago Sun-Times, that his family and friends have a totally different take on things, though he tries to always keep his job out of conversations. I'm paraphrasing: "They figure I'm there, I'm doing my best everyday to help [the detainees] get in touch with advocates, resolve their problems as best they can – it's a good thing. Aside from a few people who can't stand that I work for ICE, it's usually not a problem."

Indeed, there are lots of Latinos out there who think the Department of Homeland Security is evil incarnate. But like with everything else in life, when you scratch beneath the surface – and see the many Hispanic agents who are enabling their families to live the American Dream through their steady, good-paying work at ICE – some of "them" are "us." And "we" aren't so different.

Note: In case you were wondering about the June 20-21 raids in Lake County, you didn't hear about them because none of the mainstream media reported on them – I read about it in HOY, the Tribune's Spanish-language daily newspaper.

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

The Tao of Jack Black

"600 Words" by Esther J. Cepeda

He's fat. He's jiggly. He can belt out a tune and makes me laugh. He is my sage.

Jack Black, in his cinematic tromp through the wisdom of the ages, has done it once more. He is, again, the protagonist in a film whose undercurrent is the power of positive belief in your grandest dreams.

This time he scatters Lao Tzu and Taoism's "10,000 things" of inner love and outer peace across the silver screen in Kung Fu Panda, where he "stars" as "Po," the fat panda who emerges as the unlikely Dragon Warrior who will save the animal populace of the Chinese Valley of Peace from the evil Tai Lung who himself is bent on snatching the powerful Dragon Scroll from the temple of wisdom.

This is not the first time the jelly-bellied comic actor has contorted himself within a story-line featuring a sweet underdog who sees beyond the practicalities of those who tell him it can't be – when he knows it can – then makes it so.

From his debut in one of my favorite movies, Bob Roberts, as a true-believing devotee of the eponymous questionable senatorial candidate (Tim Robbins) to the bumbling and Shallow Hal who falls in love with a big, fat blonde but only sees her true inner beauty, Black has mostly picked projects with undeniably uplifting themes.

Who can forget Black's turn in School of Rock as Dewey Finn who literally manifests a rock band out of a pack of spoiled rich kids? Or Nacho Libre where the once-orphaned brother Nacho realizes his dream of becoming the greatest Lucha Libre "luchador" in the world? Long before he triumphs in a dusty Mexican ring against such prize-fighters as "Silencio" and "Ramses," he tells himself: "I am the gatekeeper of my own destiny, and I will have my glory days." He sure does.

Kung Fu Panda pushes major tenets of Taoism to a mainstream audience in a way that that Mike Myers' new film The Love Guru, replete with penis jokes and other entendres, couldn't, though I think it half-heartedly wanted to.

Take Oogway: "There are no accidents." And "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present."

Also: "One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it." And my very favorite: "There is no good news, there is no bad news, there is only news."

Shifu, the kung fu teacher, tells us: "I ask you to trust in your master as I have come to trust in mine." Beautiful.

Po, in his opening dream – before he begins to fulfill his destiny as the true Dragon Warrior – says of his kung fu prowess: "It is said that his enemies would go blind from over-exposure to pure awesomeness!" (That's so "hard core!") If that isn't the power of positive thinking to manifest your own destiny, then I'm Deepak Chopra.

Obviously, I'm not Deepak, and Jack Black is no Lao Tzu. But sitting in a darkened room with popcorn and JB's jiggling inspiration, I call him "teacher."

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