Being bilingual is a blessing -- except when it's a curse. Imagine you're a family member of a recent immigrant or a deaf person who communicates only by sign language.
You're tagging along with mom, dad or grandma on a doctor's visit and the next thing you know you're called into an exam room to help explain to your loved one that there's something wrong. Never mind if the illness is of a personal nature or if it's heart-breaking or scary, you are duty-bound to be an intermediary in a delicate, complex medical conversation.
This happens all the time. Our medical centers are challenged by increasing numbers of patients whose English is not as good as their native language and by a shortage of trained medical interpreters.
Over the years, health-care providers have had to learn to handle patient issues with increased privacy and proper respect, but those efforts often sputter when there is no affordable professional available to translate.
Technology is stepping in, providing medical centers with highly trained medical interpreters 24 hours a day through the Video Interpreter Network, a national program being piloted in Chicago hospitals. Medical interpreters can be dialed up on a computer monitor to speak face to face with a patient and his doctor.
"Five of our member hospitals in the Chicago area have these systems up and running and the Network is in use nationally in hospitals in California, Texas, Washington, D.C., and New Mexico," said Dr. Michael Wahl, director of the Metropolitan Chicago Healthcare Council, which is helping 244 member and associate Illinois hospitals to learn and use the new technology.
"We estimate that nationally 10 percent of patients have low English proficiency. In Chicago it's about 15 percent, and you can imagine how difficult it is for health-care providers to deliver services in a compassionate, efficient way," Wahl told me. We talked the day before hospital administrators from across the state were to gather at the University of Illinois Medical Center to learn how the video link works.
Health-care facilities have relied on costly in-person medical interpreters who are fluent in a select few languages. Some interpreters use phone services, which can be cheaper but -- depending of the language -- still run as high as $3 a minute.
After the expense of buying and installing equipment, the Video Interpreter Network costs about 80 cents a minute.
"We can't charge Medicare or an insurance company more for patients who require translation, so it's really on the hospital's dime," Wahl said. "But we can't provide quality care if we can't speak with the patients."
Wahl estimated that nonprofit hospitals in Illinois spent more than $14 million on medical interpretation services in 2008, a financial burden that smaller suburban and rural hospitals -- where immigrants increasingly are showing up -- are finding especially tough. The alternative in a pinch, now frowned upon by hospitals, is to use untrained translators such as family members, children and non-professional hospital employees.
Dr. Ervin Hire, a medical oncologist at Mount Sinai Hospital, which started using the Video Interpretation Network in 2008, says he likes that the system allows family members to be just that: family.
"Sometimes we have bad news to tell patients and you start speaking about end-of-life issues. Is the granddaughter capable of speaking about these emotional topics? Is she telling the patient what I said correctly?" Hire said. "With an interpreter, I know what I'm saying is being communicated properly, and that's helpful for the whole family."
CHICAGO -- Appearances are important in most situations, but probably none more so than when the president of the United States goes on a foreign junket.
There is tremendous pressure to show an appreciation of the landscape and culture, and demonstrate willingness to work ever closer together -- all while upholding the gravitas, the very American-ness of the office of the president in an international spotlight.
So is it any wonder that, according to The New York Times, the spin doctors at the White House decided to take a pass on visiting India’s Golden Temple? It is beautiful, historic and revered by the authoritative Frommer's travel guide as "the most tangibly spiritual place in the country." But the deal-breaker was the traditional head covering -- a cloth wrap resembling a turban or head scarf -- required for entry.
In a perfect world, images of an American president taking off his shoes and tying a piece of cloth about his head in reverence to another country's holy site would be a healing moment -- a time to celebrate America’s proud history as a country that is tolerant, even welcoming, of varied religions.
This is not that moment.
Never mind that just months ago, the U.S. Army welcomed its third U.S.-born Sikh recruit in a reversal of a post-Vietnam War policy banning the turbans and beards that Sikhs wear as a part of their faith.
Never mind that Obama is not a Muslim -- though a recent Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life poll found that nearly one in five Americans believes he is.
Though White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said on Wednesday that the schedule for the India trip was not finalized -- leaving the door ajar to the possibility of visiting the Golden Temple -- just imagine the frenzy.
Images of this president with the head covering would ignite exponentially more hysterical fears about his allegiance to the United States than did the picture of him on his 2006 trip to Kenya, wearing the traditional robe and head wrap, which came out during the presidential campaign.
Presidential historian Brandon Rottinghaus of the University of Houston pointed me toward a charming picture of Gerald Ford wearing a Mexican sombrero in the Oval Office circa 1974, and noted that it was a different world then. He recalled a 2008 picture of George W. Bush wearing a Peruvian poncho but added, "My guess is you wouldn’t see a modern president wear very traditional items. Today it’s all about looking presidential.
"For instance, when Bill Clinton was president he would wear sport watches, but his aides eventually got him to wear a leather-banded one. In all moments the president is expected to be a reservoir of dignity and to look presidential."
It’s too bad about the Sikh temple. And now I know I’ll probably go to my grave never spotting an American president in a Burmese longyi skirt, a Libyan fez, or a red Cuban tracksuit either.
Esther Cepeda 's e-mail address is estherjcepeda(at)washpost.com.
By Esther J. Cepeda, Washington Post Writers Group
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
CHICAGO — Chancellor Angela Merkel declared the death of German multiculturalism at a conference of her political party, the Christian Democratic Union, last weekend. She said the very idea that guest workers who immigrated to Germany to fill a labor shortage during the 1960s could “live happily side by side” with native-born Germans was an illusion and suggested a hard line for those who refuse to assimilate.
The whole thing reminds me of Benjamin Franklin’s lament about German immigrants in colonial Pennsylvania. They didn’t speak English and therefore couldn’t be addressed “either from the press or the pulpit,” and he feared that their keeping to themselves would mean they’d never join the mainstream. Franklin even supported several schemes designed to dilute the Germans’ influence in the colony founded by William Penn to provide freedom of worship and religion.
Just as we in the U.S. struggle with the idea of how to define and proliferate “American culture” in the context of how to reform our clunky, sometimes laughably unjust immigration laws, other countries are dealing with similar issues brought into stark relief by the crippling global economic downturn.
Whether it’s Turks in Germany, Filipinos in Israel, or North Africans in France, it is time countries embrace the reality that the mobility ignited by our global economies will never end. Rather, they — like the U.S. — must formulate a plan for assimilating immigrants or suffer continued discord.
That’s why Merkel may be on to something. Multiculturalism — the idea that several different cultures can coexist equally and equitably in a single country — has always sounded a little too “separate, but equal” for my taste.
While the United States is far from a perfect example of complete brotherly love with recent immigrants — and the Great Recession has brought out the nativism in many — we come really close. That’s because we remain devoted to the American mythology of being a nation of immigrants that has always assimilated into a whole greater than the sum of its parts. We have a steadfast expectation that newcomers will become one of “us,” not stay one of “them.”
The fear of “otherness” is what unites Germany’s sharp conservative turn, Franklin’s angst about the Germans, and U.S. worries about immigrants from Latin America: a large group of foreign newcomers who are united by language and similarities in culture have the luxury of taking respite in each other rather than jumping into their new world.
By its own account, Germany has done little to foster the civic participation of its new residents, who were allowed into the country to combat a rapidly aging population and low birth rates among those in their child-bearing years. Polls have shown that more and more Germans fear that too many foreigners live in insular clusters with little or no connection to the mainstream culture.
The raft of “English-only” and enforcement measures that municipalities across the U.S. are trying to enact seem motivated by the fear that “they” are taking “us” over.
Both Germany and the U.S. ask that new citizens be able to speak the language, and pass a test, but neither country has nationwide standards or programs for welcoming newcomers who may or may not be interested in being more than legal permanent residents. This should change.
The word “assimilation” has always carried negative connotations — even Franklin disagreed with some of his fellow Pennsylvanians who called for banning the importation of books in German and a scheme to encourage government-subsidized intermarriage. But support for the newest members of communities is needed.
Reforming U.S. immigration laws promises to continue at the forefront of our national conversation. But how we stir all our immigrants into the melting pot is as important a part of any comprehensive plan as determining specific rules under which illegal immigrants can stay or must return home. Embracing the challenge of helping newcomers more easily become “us” is still, as it has been for most of our history, our great American opportunity.
Esther J. Cepeda’s e-mail address is estherjcepeda@washpost.com.
From the moment the iconic black-and-white archival footage rolls, then fades into shots of impoverished Latin American children playing ball to the tune of Jose Feliciano’s sweet rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner," Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s new documentary is a magic carpet ride through the last 20 years of baseball.
Never mind your crummy job (or lack thereof), never mind the pressures of everyday life — heck, never mind whether you’re a fan of the game or not. The momentum of this film carries you effortlessly off on the beer ’n’ hot dog, roasted peanut-scented American romp called baseball.
Manager Joe Torre and the Yankees celebrate after winning the 2000 World Series, less than a year before baseball would help New York and the nation heal after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
"The Tenth Inning," a two-part, four-hour documentary, is the next chapter in the 1994 series "Baseball." From the crippling 1994 strike to the increasing dominance of Latino and Asian players, to mega-stadiums, interleague play and the wild card, we see America’s national pastime at its best and worst. Two decades of ups and downs — from doping scandal darlings Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds to the Cinderella-story Boston Red Sox — are put under a microscope and into the context of baseball’s past heroes and villains, then held up to the mirror of today’s America.
With the same deep love of the hallowed institution that permeated "Baseball," "The Tenth Inning" wastes little time in tackling the 100-pound gorilla in the diamond and jumps right into a discussion of what doping has done for — and to — the game. But it does so by first putting the issue of steroid use into the context of other soap-opera-esque discrepancies that have hovered at the margins of the game since its infancy: bribery attempts, game-fixing conspiracies and corked bats.
Then, Burns walks the issue home, straight into our medicine cabinets.
"We are a society that turns to performance-enhancement drugs for everything. There’s vitamins, sleeping aids — there’s Viagra!" Burns said back in August when he was in Chicago to pre-screen his film for WTTW members. He was echoing the very point that historian Paul Thorn made near the beginning of the first night’s episode: "We live in a time when we think anything can be cured by medication. If you want to talk about a performance-enhancing culture, let’s look at Viagra, Levitra, all the things that are advertised on daytime TV. This is the time we live in. We believe that modern medicine can make us supermen."
The film’s writers, David McMahon, Novick and Burns, don’t merely rely on luminaries such as comedian Chris Rock to point out that human nature dictates most people would take steroids to make it big in the big leagues. They anchor two decades’ worth of lightning-quick record smashes on the story of how Barry Bonds went from being a frustrated, mostly ignored son of a record-setting right fielder to the buff, steroid-popping home run king who never felt he’d gotten the respect or the due he deserved from both ballclubs and fans.
Based on exclusive pre-screenings, there is already some criticism of the documentary that implies the filmmakers went easy on Bonds by telling his personal story in such heart-wrenching detail, but Burns continually points to the bigger picture beyond any one player. The filmmakers point out the role fans played in Bonds’ saga, but Burns says the tension between succeeding and succeeding at any cost essentially boils down to the complexities of being human in our modern world. "Baseball is a precise mirror of who we are," Burns said.
This is not to say that "The Tenth Inning" dwells just on scandal; there are many complex and intertwined themes. For instance, the stories of immigrant baseball players and their struggles are woven throughout the film. And those stories dovetailed nicely with the business and marketing aspects of the game that are both a threat and an opportunity as baseball becomes more global and America becomes more diverse.
One particularly touching section of the documentary recalls what happened to baseball in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York City’s World Trade Center. Then-Yankees manager Joe Torre talks about the morning the attacks occurred while archival footage plays, taking the viewers directly back into the moment before recalling Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2001, when the Yankees resumed play against the White Sox in Chicago.
Images of fans holding signs saying "We are all Yankees" immediately bring us back to Burns’ basic premise: that baseball reflects the continuing evolution of a diverse America seeking to hold its athlete heroes to high standards even while forgiving their peccadilloes in order to enjoy the game, warts and all, and that this instinct binds us together as a community.
Burns and Novick also spend time on the 1994 strike, and the dramatic way then-hero Roger Clemens brought an ethic of hard work and fan love to the game and drove a resurgence in the game’s popularity.
Though there have been phenomenal changes to how athletes get into the game and fans experience it — enhanced minor league baseball recruitment and marketing; split screen; real-time viewing; smart-phone apps for fans to follow games, which bolster fantasy leagues, and whole communities devoted to following baseball from a strictly statistical viewpoint — Burns and Novick were not able to fit it all into this installment.
"The biggest criticism I ever hear is about all I’ve left out, which is actually a huge compliment," Burns said. "But I think we did get in some really important turning points in this inning.
"Baseball reflects who we are as a community, as a country. It reflects the sentimental values we hold dear and is the greatest game that has ever been invented," Burns said. "It has a rhythm; it’s like breathing."
Burns’ reverence and enthusiasm are present in almost every moment of this film — from the looks on the faces of impoverished children in the Dominican Republic who play their hearts out with broom-handle bats in the hopes of becoming the next Sammy Sosa, to the looks on fans’ faces when the infamous "Bartman ball" was exploded, to testimonials from Boston fans about how life-altering was the Red Sox’s 2004 World Series win — their first in 86 years.
This is a TV experience well worth blocking out two evenings’ worth of time. Viewers will not only revisit where baseball has been for the last 20 years but also catch a glimpse of what it might look like for generations to come.
Esther J. Cepeda writes a weekly column for the Sun-Times
Excerpt from just one of the many letters I received after having included the phrase "the current anti-immigrant atmosphere" in a recent column:
"Unfortunately you are mistaken in using the phrase ‘anti-immigration atmosphere’. Many American citizens with brown, black, white, or even yellow skin are angry with ILLEGAL immigrants and the damage they have done to our country. If the millions of ILLEGAL immigrants, Hispanic/European/Asian etc, would have entered through the "front door" instead of the "back door", much aforementioned damage to our country would have been avoided. Now we have governments in bankruptcy due to these cheaters, and people are rightfully angry. You need to tone down your inflammatory rhetoric and see the issue realistically."
My standard response has been that while it’s easy to say that the anger and hatred currently aimed at Latinos is about "ILLEGAL" immigration, the fact of the matter is that I, my family, friends, and neighbors have all gotten called terrible names, sent hateful emails or been otherwise snubbed not based on citizenship or residency status, but because we "look foreign."
Baltimore officials arrested a 19-year-old man Saturday night after he gave a taped confession to police saying he "hated Hispanics."
Let me clarify here: he didn’t say he hated illegal immigrants – he said he hated Hispanics.
Not convinced? Here is a teeny-tiny selection of emails – some just subject lines – that find their way into my inbox, none of which make any reference to citizenship status:
"Immigrants are the scum of the earth. Latinos are the worst of the worst. Execute this scum. Enforce the freaking law. Kill this vermin - DEAD, DEAD, DEAD!"
"Mexico is a malevolent machine of evil malice. Why won't my country declare war on this evil menace - Mexico. Death to Mexico. Death to Mexicans."
You are a spic slut whore"
Hatred is, in fact, boiling over in the U.S. against anyone who does not seem to be from this country - regardless of whether they are U.S. born, or legal permanent residents, or illegal immigrants, or not. (Sadly, it’s not limited to those who look Latino, but is starting to boil over onto any brown-skinned individual who looks like they might be – GASP! – Muslim.)
So to all of those out there who dare say that the current anti-immigrant outrage is all just about legal residency status: stop kidding yourself because you aren’t kidding anyone else.
The fact is that immigrant and non-immigrant Latinos alike are facing pure, bald-faced hatred, ire, and discrimination that goes well beyond perennial annoyances such as being asked how much you charge for mowing a lawn (if you should happen to garden in front of your nice house) or being asked if you "Habla English" for no apparent reason other than the looks of you.
The real question is: what are we going to do about it?
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 reflect those of ISAC. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com
The United States of America has been buffeted by the winds of transnational change and the storms of our punctured economy. As a nation, we're looking in the mirror and wondering if what we see is the America we all thought we knew.
Times being as tough as they are, there is a growing chorus of people inclined to look at me -- and others whose skin is brown and have the gift of speaking a second language -- and very literally say things like: "I don't know you, why are you here? You're dragging our schools and our job market down. You need to go back home."
Home? I was born in a hospital on the North Side of Chicago, grew up 1.2 miles west of Wrigley Field. Ironic: My soccer-crazy family moved from south of the border to a country where the language is studded with baseball metaphors and settled a stone's throw away from one of the game's crown jewels.
Alas, I never really took to baseball. But I always reveled in its status as the quintessential symbol of Americana -- as patriotic a pastime as kissing your mom and eating apple pie. So when documentary filmmaker Ken Burns swept through town last week to promote "Baseball: The Tenth Inning," a four-hour follow-up to his 1994 Emmy-winning documentary, I sat down with him to talk about that mirror of America we call baseball.
In the first three minutes of the film, broadcaster Keith Olbermann gives this stirring testimonial:
"Other sports have some interest in its own history and will occasionally make reference to it but [in] baseball . . . it's there. You come in the start of the game or the start of the season or the start of your own family, you feel as if you're joining the river midstream and all that has gone before. You can enjoy as much as if you were there, it's as simple as that."
Gulp. That's exactly how I feel about the Latino population's integration into our country -- we're joining the great American river midstream.
Not everyone sees it that way, but even as anti-Hispanic sentiment has geared up in the last few years, there has been no lack of talented Latino players being actively recruited to enliven our national pastime.
Ever since 1928, when Emilio Navarro blazed the Hispanic major league trail by becoming the first Puerto Rican to play in the Negro Leagues, Americans have been able to see Hispanics not just as resource-sucking immigrants, but as sports heroes who make the game -- and our country -- better.
In the new documentary, Burns and his co-director, Lynn Novick, delve into the Hispanic contribution to baseball with great compassion, presenting a fascinating and honest look at the rise of Latino players in the game.
While we're on the subject of baseball, by the way, Burns gave me his take on White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen's recent inflammatory complaint that new Latino players don't get the red carpet treatment that superstar Japanese players get.
"Guillen was absolutely right," Burns said without hesitation. "Sure, it's not economically viable to provide translators to individual players, but we always have to be sensitive to the needs of new players."
When I asked Burns if he thought the current anti-immigrant atmosphere threatened to dull fans' love of the game, he said that hateful nativist sentiments are harming our society in many ways, and he tried to put it in historical context.
"There is this 'otherness' that people fear," he said. "And right now, the Latino population is growing and this is just a continuation of the story, this demonization of the 'others.' "
In time, he predicted, this will pass for Latinos, as it has for so many other groups.
"Baseball is such a precise mirror of who we are," Burns said. "It is the story of immigration -- and assimilation. There were the Italians, the Irish and of course now the Latin Americans; the most common names in baseball today are Ramirez and Rodriguez."
Burns revels in holding up this mirror to America, and in "Tenth Inning" he shows us the America that he sees -- this magnificent, diverse, baseball-loving melting pot.
Now that President Obama has given his definitive immigration law reform speech -- he said we need it but he didn't task anyone with making it happen -- and the Justice Department has filed its legal challenge to Arizona's law on grounds that state law should not preempt federal law, let's take a look at another, related topic: English language fluency.
It's one necessary ingredient in garnering popular support for any immigration reform.
The issue of not being able to easily communicate with newcomers to our neighborhoods, schools and businesses is one bone of contention people love to chew on, and it transcends any particular ethnicity or language.
The following comments from a widely circulated chain e-mail I received are representative of a popular opinion: "Today's American is not willing to accept today's new kind of immigrant any longer. Back in 1900 . . . people had to get off a ship and stand in a long line in New York and be documented. They made learning English a primary rule in their new American households and some even changed their names to blend in with their new home. They had waved goodbye to their birth place to give their children a new life and did everything in their power to help their children assimilate into one culture."
Concerns that newcomers don't want to become "real Americans" who will fully commit to our language -- much less our culture or values -- underlie the battle to reform our ineffective immigration system. Any reasonable reform plan must make English language fluency a required stepping stone on the path to legal residency.
Surrounding this touchy subject are two myths to be busted: that immigrants don't want to learn the language and that there aren't enough people to teach them. The truths are, of course, more complicated.
It's no secret that it's tough for immigrants of diverse nationalities to take classes to improve their English skills. Each day is a struggle for survival before adding impossible class times, money for books or supplies, child care issues or other barriers.
It's up to us as a nation to take a long honest look at how we -- merchants, marketers, customers, employers, neighbors -- can break down those barriers and encourage English-language fluency for all our residents. This effort would create both a sense of shared community and a multi- language bilingual work force that will help the U.S. compete in an increasingly global economy.
Then, we need to find ways to help organizations who already provide these resources to scale up for the massive task of helping those learning our ridiculously difficult language and find the skilled teachers and eager volunteers who can make it happen.
Mano a Mano Family Resource Center -- a tiny organization in Round Lake -- has hundreds of people on its waiting lists for all levels of English-as-a-second-language classes.
Carolina Duque, the center's executive director, says that in her neck of the woods -- a small town where in the last 10 years Latino immigrants have flooded once-exclusively middle-class, Caucasian neighborhoods -- there's also a waiting list of people ready to volunteer to help sharpen English skills.
"Both community leaders and residents get frustrated by feeling they can't talk to their neighbors, but we're really lucky that the community is working together to overcome those frustrations," Duque told me. "We mostly work with volunteers who don't speak Spanish -- they get so much joy from being able to help others learn English and they want to do more. Unfortunately, we just don't have the capacity to train more volunteers, hold more classes or service all the people who need the help or want to give it."
Round Lake is just one little town where the swirling torrents of immigration, language and culture are coming together with little rage or angst.
If the bipartisan immigration law reform architects can learn from this town's ability to address this critical cultural issue -- and put some muscular incentives behind uniting the country via the English language -- we'll be on a pathway to true reform.
Keeping Mr. Obama accountable on immigration reform
"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"
When I finished listening to President Obama's address on immigration law reform, I wished I could get the last 45 minutes of my life back.
His speech – designed to quell fears he is ignoring his campaign promise to pass comprehensive immigration law reform – brought no fresh ideas to the table, shot down immigrant activist demands for a moratorium on deportation, offered nothing substantive on Arizona’s anti-illegal immigrant law, and failed to put a timeline on any action.
By now you’ve heard the platitudes he trotted out – our history as a nation of immigrants, that this issue is one of the great challenges of our time, that the system is broken and must be fixed, the need for a bipartisan solution.
My disappointment stems from the fact that the president's speech at American University Thursday was supposed to be about accountability – for securing the border, for employers who are hiring illegal immigrants, and for those who are in this country illegally.
Yes, he touched on these topics. He even went out of his way to make clear that he would not consider a moratorium on deportations until reform measures were solidified – openly dissing the activist groups he’s been courting since his presidential run, and allaying the fears Republicans harbor about amnesty-type proposals.
At a speech-viewing rally in Chicago’s Douglas Park, a small cadre of activists openly yelled in anger when the president said such "an indiscriminate approach would be both unwise and unfair … and could lead to a surge in more illegal immigration and ignore those waiting in line to come here legally." Jose Herrera, an organizer with the Immigrant Youth Justice League, vowed: "From today on there will be a different response - we will be attacking his and his administrations’ policies and point of view. There is anger but we will mobilize people to demand the moratorium, we think it can be put in place while the larger debate takes place."
Completely lacking in the big accountability speech was any discussion of accountability for the legislators who are wasting their time either hiding under a desk somewhere or venting on TV pundit shows because they don’t want to tackle the tough compromises that will be needed to enact bipartisan reform.
Also absent was any discussion of accountability for a president of the United States who has seen fit to take over a failing car company, reform the supposedly immovable health care system, and kick the asses – and wallets – of the global oil company hemorrhaging oil into our gulf.
What, exactly, was the point of declaring that billions of dollars in annual tax revenue lost to under-the-table payments to illegal immigrants will never be captured because the issue is "held hostage to political posturing and special interest lobbying," if not to call on legislators to get to work and present a proposal by a certain date?
Sure, it might feel good to say that our southern borders are more secure today than they have been in 20 years, and that we have more boots on the ground near the border than at any time in our history. But when the president himself admits that the current system makes a mockery of all the immigrants who are trying to come here legally, he makes a mockery of his every-once-in-a-while devotion to this issue which he called one of our country’s most pressing economic problems and one of the greatest challenges of our time.
The President showed up to his speech without an endorsed framework for a strategy with which to move forward and, worse, failed to exhibit the needed leadership on an issue he says has been at the top of his agenda since he was in the Senate and will not become yet another can kicked down the road.
Obama spoke of the need to end the "patchwork of local laws" and "false debates that divide the country rather than bring it together" but never once indicated who should lead the effort, how progress should be defined, or a set deadline for when he expects to enact a well-reasoned bipartisan reform.
There’s no end to the disagreements that have shaped the battle to reform immigration laws in this country. But there should be an end to speculation about when the country will get around to doing something about it. Obama should make himself accountable to the businesses, citizens, and immigrants of the United States with a timeline and a plan for when this will actually happen.
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 reflect those of ISAC. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com
I’m finally back from my European travels and my task today is to report out on the state of the Ketchup in the United Kingdom.
As you’ll recall from my May column – "Conundrum over condiment could bottle up vacation" – I was all worried that my experience with the fish and chips of England, Scotland and Ireland would be less-than-spectacular due to weird-tasting ketchup.
A friend who’d recently traveled there (and knows I’m a super-picky eater) had warned me of the weird, vinegary ketchup. The good people at Heinz had mentioned that the European ketchup was, indeed, different and U.S.-style would be difficult to find in my first stop, England.
I put out the call to my dear readers about how to ensure I’d get ketchup smuggled into Europe and got many wonderful ideas.
Here’s what I did:
1) I gratefully gave my hotel information to Tracey Parsons of Heinz US, who had Stephanie Ackerman send via UPS two big, beautiful bottles of American Heinz ketchup to my London hotel – thank you, ladies, you made me unspeakably happy!!
2) Before I left I carefully put a fresh bottle in two ziplock bags (in case they exploded in the unpressurized cargo area) for transport in my checked baggage.
3) I purchased several bags of french fries in the airport and stowed a handful of ketchup packets in my carry-on bag.
Here’s what happened:
3) I the ketchup packets made it through security in London’s Heathrow Airport without a fuss.
2) The ketchup bottle I had packed arrived in my luggage unexploded.
1) I took my special-delivered Heinz ketchup to The Prospect of Whitby – London’s oldest riverside pub (opened in the year 1520!!!!!!) and did a side-by-side taste test on my first English fish-n-chips. And guess what?
The European Heinz ketchup was just as good as the U.S. version (maybe even a little better). In fact, the Heinz – and other brands – ketchup I had in Scotland and Ireland tasted really good – sweeter – than the U.S. brand.
As it turns out, Heinz also sells a lot of brown sauce (and the packaging looks very similar to the ketchup’s) which is, in fact, weird and vinegary, and I think there may have been some confusion on my pal’s part.
And guess what? In what is an ironic coincidence, shortly before I left for Europe the U.S Heinz announced that they are changing the classic recipe to lower the salt content. So now I might have to have some European Heinz ketchup imported to soothe my ketchup tooth.
Criminy!
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
DUBLIN, Ireland -- This column is a love note to the country that has -- more than any other -- made Chicago what it is today: a city defined by a group of immigrants who came to the U.S. tired and poor but overcame institutionalized discrimination to become a politically empowered majority.
Yep, I'm on the Emerald Isle, and everywhere I go I see a little bit of home. In addition to the Bulmer Vintage's thrilling billboard which cheekily asks "North Cider or South Cider?" there are the two stunning Santiago Calatrava creations -- the Samuel Beckett and James Joyce bridges over the River Liffey -- which make me long for the Chicago Spire to come to life.
Let me assure you, based on my admittedly unscientific but in-depth research, that your favorite Chicago Irish bar is a darned good replica of the pubs all over Dublin. And also, I met your Irish uncle; almost everyone I've spoken to in my travels has either been to Chicago or has a relative in our fine town.
Oh, and Dublin -- like the rest of Ireland and much of Chicago -- is filled with Polish immigrants whose ethnic grocery stores dot the town, displaying "mowimy po polsku" signs.
From the sparkling glass high-rises built during the tech boom to Ireland's standing as a top beef, lamb and dairy exporter (hog butchers to the UK) and the dueling Old St. Patrick's churches, there are a million similarities.
I've spent time here learning about Ireland's history of struggle, uprising, independence and migration. What impresses me the most is how these people made names for themselves in the U.S., and how their success could be a model for the Hispanic community.
The Irish started showing up on U.S. soil en masse in the 1830s. They spoke English, sure, but with an accent and were ridiculed, marginalized and discriminated against.
When they weren't being denied work just for being Irish, they generally were used as cheap, disposable labor. Unlike today's Latin American immigrants, they weren't singled out as "illegals" but were demonized as "immorals." Take your pick as to which could be considered worse in historical context.
The key to the eventual economic empowerment of Irish immigrants was a heavy involvement in the political process: They networked, building powerful organizations, then set out to work successful alliances with non-Irish ethnic groups.
That's the inspiring part, the part that makes me feel I'll be writing a similar success story about Hispanic immigrants in a few decades: The Irish came here poor, uninvited and uneducated. They were hated, used and abused, but they worked hard, found their own political voice and eventually became part of the landscape -- just another ethnic minority taking a fair shot at the American Dream while melting down in the great assimilation pot.
Latinos in the U.S. are getting there. For all the angst and gnashing of teeth the Arizona anti-illegal immigrant laws are causing, what cannot be denied is that today's divisive immigration anxiety is successfully uniting the Latino community into an all-American subgroup that can and will come together to have a strong voice in the U.S. It's a community that's starting to flex real political muscle and simultaneously create alliances with Asian, European and other immigrant groups on the rise.
Like the Irish, Latinos and their multicultural offspring will grow up to become just another part of the landscape, with representation in all walks of private, public and civic life. Oh, it'll take a while, but those days are coming.
Like the Irish, Hispanics will achieve complete assimilation through politics.
I can almost hear the cheers at the someday presidential inauguration: "Kiss me, I'm Latino."
LONDON, Eng. -- The beautiful thing about traveling the world isn't so much in getting to see how different other cultures are from ours. (In England they call soccer -- that game played with the ball and the foot -- football. Crazy, huh?!)
No, the truly cool thing is in seeing how similar we are. London, and Europe in general, is every bit as racially and ethnically diverse as the United States, every bit as dependent on legal and illegal immigrants, every bit as troubled by how many there are and how they're treated, and every bit as worried about how they're to be integrated into the larger society.
Last week, as U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's attention was pulled away from the White House's analysis of the constitutionality of Arizona's new immigrant legal status law (he's now on the BP oil case), 16 illegal immigrants from various eastern countries attempted to sneak into Britain by hiding in the top of a truck transporting a $1.5 million Aston Martin racing car returning from the Monaco grand prix.
Everywhere I went in London, I was welcomed with thick Polish, German, French, Indian, Vietnamese and Spanish accents. The fair-eyed tended to front desks with computers while the east Indians ran souvenir shops with a billion miniature red telephone booths. Thankfully, I didn't have the opportunity to see if Chelsea and Westminster Hospital was chock full of Filipino nurses, but I'm willing to bet they're there.
During a trip around Kensington Palace, one London tour guide -- explaining London's congestion -- told my group, "We don't know how many illegal immigrants we have in England, we've no way to count them." The city's mayor has been considering an amnesty that could produce an increase in tax revenue, which has gone over like the proverbial lead balloon. Sound familiar?
And there'll be no abatement to the congestion. Despite the global recession, the Migration Policy Institute has found that migration all over the world has diminished far less than originally expected and the amount of money "sent home" has remained relatively steady -- the World Bank said the tune was $316 billion last year.
Arizona is not alone or unique in its varying degrees of populist, protectionist angst among the natives. It's to be found in all the places dealing with the pleasures and perils of new immigrants. I never hesitate to point out that Mexico itself has long been criticized by its neighbor to the south for the terrorizing brutality illegal immigrants are submitted to once they cross onto Mexican soil.
A European example: In January, Italy had large race riots when African migrant farmers fought back after an unprovoked attack by white youths who prey on them for sport.
Still, in lots of places across the United States, there's just quiet acceptance and meaningful attempts at assimilating new arrivals. Immigrant aid organizations in Trenton, N.J., have begun issuing identification cards that city and county government agencies are recognizing in the service of fighting crime, treating the sick and increasing trust in local law enforcement.
On the other side of the globe, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has waived rules so that companies hiring foreign workers no longer are subjected to quotas for work permits and visas, and they won't have to submit diplomas to prove a candidate's qualification.
Simply by doing that, says Ernst & Young, Russia has moved "from one of the least welcoming to one of the most positive immigration systems in the world for top talent."
Yes, the true beauty of getting away from home is that you can really appreciate that we're all in this big global boat together, facing the same issues, floundering and flourishing.
But those who flourish are those who look at legal and illegal immigration as both a challenge and an opportunity, not just a roadblock.
Feds have to stop inhumane treatment in deportation
April 5, 2010
BY ESTHER J. CEPEDA Sun-Times Columnist
Boneheaded. Ham-handed. And let's not forget tone-deaf. These are the only adequate ways to describe the Obama administration's bungling of the issue of illegal immigration.
Forget politics for just a moment, forget the oh-so-important "Latino vote" and forget the activists pushing the family togetherness agenda: You don't pony up 100 million bucks in aid to a country devastated by an earthquake in what is described as "one of the largest relief efforts in history" only to allow Haitian refugees to be thrown into an American gulag immigration detention system by our very own Immigration and Customs Enforcement Keystone Kops.
If you didn't catch last week's New York Times' latest immigration revelation, here it is: Survivors of January's Haiti earthquake who were escorted onto planes by our very own Marine Corps landed in Florida and were immediately arrested and held for deportation -- even though deportations to Haiti were suspended almost immediately after the gravity of the quake was known. Letters and calls for their release went ignored, as were offers of free trauma therapy for these law-abiding victims of a natural disaster who were -- and some still are -- held as criminals in the sometimes bottomless pit of immigration jails.
Let's throw more on the pile: The New York Times heightened awareness of a new study by the Texas Appleseed public interest law center that documented the egregious treatment of mentally ill individuals trapped in federal immigration jails.
The Washington Post uncovered private Immigration and Customs Enforcement memos that encouraged agents to meet "deportation quotas" by going after the low-hanging fruit of those who can be deported quickly -- a k a illegal alien workers -- instead of the violent or otherwise dangerous criminals whose cases take longer to litigate.
But I've gotten carried away ... Let's not get caught up in the myriad ways that the federal government's responsibility to humanely treat even those awaiting a swift farewell from the U.S. for good reason is routinely ignored. Let's focus on boneheaded, ham-handed and tone-deaf.
Look, we all get it: The lip service coming out of this administration says immigration is important, even though month after month after month the issue has been put on the back burner. Immigration law reform never gets mentioned as a major White House agenda item. The moment health-care reform was passed, the talk started about Social Security overhaul, not immigration. And that's fine, it's really not the most pressing issue facing the country at the moment. How about they just come out and say it, though?
OK, so stark honesty from the Obama administration on setting a timeline for a rigorous national conversation on the issue of illegal immigration might be too much to ask this year, but how about some good old-fashioned competence in the meanwhile?
String the ardent supporters along if you must, White House. Go ahead, demand prerequisite Republican support for meaningful, comprehensive immigration law reform -- before the ball even gets rolling -- with a straight face. Keep throwing one-line references to the issue into nationally televised speeches while you're at it.
But in the meantime, run our federal system for processing illegal immigrants with the professionalism that befits this country of immigrants.
No bells and whistles, no red carpets -- just follow the letter of the law when it comes to the dignity and physical well-being required in processing, housing, transporting and caring for such people while they're on our glorious American soil.
And before the administration's left hand points to exemplary humanitarian aid to Haitian earthquake victims, let's make sure the right hand isn't choking the immigrants we deliberately flew here, treating them in the same rough manner as the ones who show up uninvited.
The Department of Homeland security provided a keyhole of hopeful light for the reform crowd on Tuesday. They published "Estimates of the Unauthorized Immigrant Population Residing in the United States: January 2009" which was written by Michael Hoefer, Nancy Rytina, and Bryan C. Baker.
The report provides estimates of the number of illegal – they use the term "unauthorized" – immigrants residing in the United States as of January 2009 by period of entry, region and country of origin, state of residence, age, and gender. It also provides a favorable environment for the comprehensive immigration reform movement in that it shows that there are now less illegal immigrants residing in the US than there once was. This lessening will surely be attributed to better practices in DHS’ enforcement of existing laws, though they do also credit the Great Recession.
The bottom line is that true reform was not going to be a palatable concept to the illegal-immigration-is-killing-this-country crowd while illegal immigration was booming. The rallying cry on that side back in 2005 when the Sensenbrenner bill was introduced was – and continued to be – that you cannot talk about human reform and dealing equitably with those already here when the borders were still bleeding illegal immigrants daily. I always thought that was a good point that never got the attention it deserved.
At any rate, as you’ll see from DHS’ report -- whether for enforcement climate reasons or economic reasons -- illegal immigration has slowly abated and this might provide an opportunity for productive reform talks between both sides of the aisle.
Here are the items I’ve selected as the report’s highlights:
Between 2000 and 2009, the unauthorized population grew by 27 percent. Of all unauthorized immigrants living in the United States in 2009, 63 percent entered before 2000, and 62 percent were from Mexico.
Between January 2008 and January 2009, the number of unauthorized immigrants living in the United States decreased seven percent from 11.6 million to 10.8 million.
Here are state stats:
Between 2000 and 2007, the unauthorized population grew by 3.3 million from 8.5 million to 11.8 million. The number of unauthorized residents declined by 1.0 million between 2007 and 2009, coincident with the U.S. economic downturn. The overall annual average increase in the unauthorized population during the 2000-2009 period was 250,000.
Here is country of origin info:
The unauthorized resident population is the remainder or "residual" after estimates of the legally resident foreign-born population – legal permanent residents (LPRs), asylees, refugees, and nonimmigrants – are subtracted from estimates of the total foreign-born population
Here are demographic details:
The unauthorized resident immigrant population is defined as all foreign-born non-citizens who are not legal residents. Most unauthorized residents either entered the United States without inspection or were admitted temporarily and stayed past the date they were required to leave. Unauthorized immigrants applying for adjustment to lawful permanent resident status under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) Section 245(i) are unauthorized until they have been granted LPR status, even though they may have been authorized to work. Persons who are beneficiaries of Temporary Protected Status (TPS)—an estimated several hundred thousand—are not technically unauthorized but were excluded from the legally resident immigrant population because data are unavailable in sufficient detail to estimate this population.
DHS has said that from now moving forward, this report will be updated and made available annually based on "the [annual] foreign-born population collected in the American Community Survey and on the estimated lawfully resident foreign-born population derived from various administrative data sources."
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
Our constitutionally protected freedom of speech is a beautiful thing. "The freedom to speak without censorship and/or limitation," as Wikipedia so elegantly puts it, is "the synonymous term freedom of expression,sometimes used to indicate not only freedom of verbal speech but any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used. In practice, the right to freedom of speech is not absolute in any country and the right is commonly subject to limitations, such as on 'hate speech.'"
Ahhhh, hate speech -- like an oft-quoted remark about pornography, people may have trouble defining it, but they seem to know it when they hear or see it -- or so they think. But hey, I'm not here to induce a legal argument for one over the other, the topic simply sprung to mind once I started getting the inevitable emails about the "filthy animals [in Haiti] getting government welfare [from the "American people"] when we've got our own crisis going on." But don’t take my word for it, you’re only a quick Google search away from reading the truly vile things people are saying about Haiti.
I’m sure you've heard it, too. For every kid who's hit you up for a dollar to add to their school fund for Haitian relief efforts, you've heard someone in a corner muttering (quietly now, but they'll get louder, believe me) about how "we" here in the United States are in a crisis because so many hardworking Americans are out of a job and the economy is in the crapper.
The backlash was inevitable, but I choose to believe that in most cases people did not know that -- hello!!! -- Haiti has been so poverty stricken for so long that last year mothers were baking mudcakes in the sun to fill their children's stomachs with something that would keep them from bloating up and dying in that same sun.
Most people --especially those who don't travel out of the country often -- don't really understand the dire circumstances abroad and can't imagine that most Americans, even those suffering through the toughest of economic times, are still better off than millions around the world.
Still, I was ornery when my inbox sported a bulletin from theCenter For Immigration Studies. They took the opportunity of this nation's unified response to the impoverished country to put out a Fact Sheet on Haitian Immigrants to the U.S.
Why? It appears to add facts to underlie angry blog posts such as: "The Answer to the World's Problems — Immigration to America," "Help Haitians — in Haiti," "Illegal Use of Welfare Can Justify Fee Waivers for Haitian TPS Applicants," and "Spreading the Inevitable Flood of Haitian Refugees Around the Region," which they are also promoting.
My thought: what, not enough Haitians just plain dead enough for ya, that you have to whine they might be coming – gasp!— here?
Nope, I'm not complaining. As residents – not "citizens", but merely residents – of this great country, we're all entitled to our opinions, informed, uninformed, malevolent, concerned or otherwise.
And because of that I send out the only thing you can extend to people so bitter and angry that they can only ooze hatred on the weakest among us: I send love.
Yes, to all those who may read this and rail against the Haitians who have mostly captured this country's compassion, consider yourself hugged.
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
I was flying back to Chicago from the Dominican Republic two days before Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to blow up U.S.-bound Flight 253 on Christmas Day, chuckling about how easy it would have been for some nutball to hijack my plane.
To begin with, my family and I waltzed through the last security checkpoint clad in bulky Chicago-weather-appropriate hoodies and were never asked to take off our shoes. Realizing that in the shuffle I'd forgotten to take my laptop and camera out of my carry-on bag -- and thinking I was about to get in trouble -- I informed the security person that there were electronics about to go through the machine, but he waved it off with a "no problem" and a smile
Even as I type this, I'm marveling that no one blinked about the 20-inch souvenir wooden machete that one of us took aboard the plane.
The laxity of security at that particular airport underscores a critical weakness in our air travel security system -- we must rely on other countries to hold up their end of the screening and security conundrum. Under rules established by the International Convention on Civil Aviation, each country is responsible for the safety and security oversight of its own air carriers. Although other countries can conduct certain specified surveillance activities -- principally involving the inspection of required documents and the physical condition of aircraft -- our Federal Aviation Administration is not permitted to evaluate a foreign carrier within its own sovereign state.
That's not so odd. I can't imagine that anyone here would be thrilled about some other country's designated government agents being posted at our airports to inspect U.S. aircraft bound for their countries. It is true that nobody from the United States has attempted a terrorist attack against any other country, but you see the stickiness of the issue.
Our conciliator president must approach air travel safety not solely as a domestic issue, but as one that requires even greater international cooperation.
In the days after the Christmas Day attack that thankfully never was, President Obama rightly railed about all the missed signals and unconnected dots that allowed Abdulmutallab to board an American-bound plane, calling it a "systemic failure" of our nation's intelligence apparatus. But something more is needed -- a conversation about how the entire international community can put aside political posturing and act as one to improve security.
Terror threats and the measures we take to counter those threats -- including ever greater security screening at airports -- already make air travel a punishing gauntlet for business and pleasure travelers. This can only hurt countries around the world that are still struggling to rebound from the global recession.
It galls me that our knee-jerk response to terrorist threats will be to harass millions of completely innocent, nonviolent people, from all over the world, by imposing extremely personal security checks -- even monitoring their toilet time while in the air -- rather than approach the problem with pragmatism and greater international cooperation. Governments need to work together better to share information and establish baseline safety standards.
I sure hope that if I were to go through the Dominican Republic's airport today it would be a much, much different scene: my shoes and hoodie would come off and more attention would be given to all the electronics and potential weapons in my carry-on.
But how long will it be before the predictable "day after" hyper-attention to security fades, given the daily grind of moving millions of people around the globe?
Picture an idealistic Northwestern University cello student, circa 1993, playing a tune for a crowd of colorfully-robed monks from all over the world and you'll have visualized Michael Fitzpatrick.
Since his years in Chicago, Michael - golden-curly-haired, tall, and possessed of a chill-axed surfer dude vibe - has been featured on the recent PBS special "The Music Instinct: Science and Song" and has performed for political and religious royalty around the world. Really, the plaudits are so lengthy one's eyes glaze over.
I met him when he was in town giving a live performance of his musical accompaniment to the new Frederick Marx documentary "The Journey from Zanskar," a labor of love in a similar vein to the work he's done on his signature "Compassion Rising" project. The project serves - as the title of one of the tracks declares - as an "Invocation for World Peace."
What Fitzpatrick does with a cello cannot be adequately described as mere music; I can best describe the sounds Michael pours out of that four-stringed instrument as simple beauty that fills one's soul with nothing less than pure joy and peace. Plus, he just flat-out ROCKS, too. No kidding.
How Michael Fitzpatrick went from being a socially-conscious musician to becoming the virtuoso who travels the world injecting musical spiritualism into sacred events large and small - he's served as featured Soloist, Music Director, and Producer for the unprecedented musical collaboration recorded and filmed at sacred sites including Mammoth Cave, the largest cave in the world; the Abbey of Gethsemani; and the Furnace Mountain Zen Temple - is too a long a story for today.
But I was able to get Fitzpatrick on the phone for a few minutes in the hour before he went onstage with His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet who is in Melbourne, Australia this week addressing the Parliament of the World’s Religions. Here's Fitzpatrick on the art of making music, spreading compassion, and providing the soundtrack for spiritual leaders, pictures from the morning performance, as well.
EJC: What are you doing right now?
MF: I just got done with the sound check and am on my way back into the theater among the high, high security protocols. I'll go onstage first, with the Dalai Lama, Wednesday morning for the morning keynote and invocation.
EJC: What's the extra-special magic for you with this set of events?
MF: It's very, very special! We're performing Wednesday and Thursday. And December 10 is the 10th anniversary of the death of Thomas Merton who was regarded as the most influential monk of the 20th century. Also December 10, 2009 is the occasion of the 20th anniversary of His Holiness the Dalai Lama being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. December 10th is also the anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and of course, the day President Obama will be accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, so it's very, very exciting.
EJC: How does one gear up for THAT?
MF: (Laughing) How do you prepare to go on stage with the man many people consider the most enlightened being of our time?
I eliminate the extraneous thoughts from my mind then I prepare to send the notes out to everyone in the world to touch their hearts and move them to the compassion that the Dalai Lama is the embodiment of.
I meditate before I go on stage but not like, "oh I’m going to set 15 minutes aside," I do more of a walking meditation but so much of the time I’m already in a meditative state – I hold everything in, the energy, the creativity and when the show is going to happen I delve deep into that internal place. I review in my mind the Compassion Rising project then force myself deeper into remembering why we’re all here: to come together in peace, love, compassion and to hold that space.
Basically, it's like getting ready for the big basketball game.
EJC: So what's it like to be onstage with His Holiness? You've performed for and with him many, many times - spent a lot of time with him, actually, for a non-monk. So you're probably not nervous per se... Does His Holiness' vibe throw off your tuning or anything like that?
MF: Yeah, it's a very specific frequency he resides in it's an extremely high vibration but a really heavy grounded vibration at the same time. I've been working with him for 13 years and I've just learned how to adjust my frequency to him. It's kind of like downshifting.
Playing my cello is a bit different, yes. Being in the presence of the Dalai Lama and many other powerful beings, playing in sacred places all over the world - I’ve played on the site where Jesus was baptized, in sacred caves where there is ancient earth - the resonances are so different! When I start to play, [the energy] starts to wake up the sound vibrations and the sound molecules in the wood - it, like, heats up and the sound and quality leaps and takes on a mystical dimension.
EJC: Tell that story about when you first met the Dalai Lama.
MF: I was attending Northwestern University in Evanston, working on a master's in performance in 1993 when he was in Chicago and I met him for the first time. I didn't really know a thing about him except that he was the Dalai Lama. There I was in the Palmer House Hilton surrounded by every colorful turban-ed, robed monk - it was like something out of a movie.
EJC: What was happening in your training that was preparing you for the path you started on after that Palmer House Hilton performance?
MF: At Northwestern I had two exceptional cello teachers who gave me a tremendous amount of creative freedom to explore the other types of sounds a cello could make - overlaid on the basics of the core principles, of course.
As a student in Chicago I was very concerned about the role of the musician in 21st century and the need to not just entertain but to inspire and uplift. In particular, my teacher and conductor Victor Yampolsky really allowed for that next-level of exploration of the music. He had a titanic energy about him! I remember performing Beethoven's 9th Symphony at Pick Staiger Hall and feeling the truest expression of spirituallity - it just blew me away! The way this master musician from Russia brought through this most ancient energy to that work was life-changing.
EJC: What about now? What keeps you going on this quest to bring compassion to the world through your music - it's not a bed of roses every day, right?
MF: There’s this great line that Tom Petty said during his 30th anniversary concert, he was just riffing, and he said something like "just for one moment I want to believe everything is OK, because then there might be another moment where everything is OK." That’s how I feel when I’m making music for the world – if that "one moment" is possible, then the reality of the violence and the dark side of life can start to be replaced with peace and compassion.
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
What’s far scarier than the thought of Guantanamo Bay terrorist suspects cooling their heels behind maximum security bars in Thomson, Illinois?
Fear-mongered people – already stretched to the limits due to the ravages the economy has inflicted – acting out against anyone who looks like a foreigner because the TV and newspaper headlines are hyperventilating about terrorists living among us.
There is no doubt that the recent Fort Hood Massacre left the country wondering where they can feel safe from terrorism. If the young men and women who have pledged to protect the good old U-S-of-A can’t be kept from being slain in the name of Islam on a military base filled with their peers, the dark thought goes, then what level of safety can the average Joe hope for?
I won’t deny that the concern does give one pause, but honestly, I’m less scared of the possibility of an armed Islamic radical coming into my life than I am about the everyday bigots.
Take Valerie Kenney, resident of Tinley Park which was just named by BusinessWeek Magazine the "Best Place in America to Raise Kids." She is accused of yanking off a Muslim woman’s headscarf at the checkout counter of the neighborhood Jewel.
Two days after the Fort Hood shootings Kenney, 54, allegedly walked up to a woman in a hijab – who was almost certainly loading sugary all-American kiddie cereal and milk onto the conveyor belt to take home to her four young daughters – and shouted "That guy that did the Texas shooting, he wasn’t American, and he was from the Middle East." Nidal Malik Hasan was born in the U.S., in Virginia, to Palestinian parents.
Gee, I wonder how those four daughters – or the other families who have reported derogatory terrorist-related terms graffitied on their Tinley Park property – feel about Tinley being the "Best Place in America to Raise Kids."
Speaking as someone who has actually been slurred a terrorist in public – dark skin, hair and eyes makes for a great many terrorist suspects – I can tell you that the shame and humiliation of the words alone are painful enough, I can’t imagine how devastated the young woman was to be violated publicly in such a religiously-offensive way. Just think about someone ripping a shirt off a nun and you might get how serious that is.
So we were already on "high" for terror alert when the Thomson, Illinois situation reared its head. Last Saturday the White House floated the idea of holding terrorist suspects who are currently in Guantanamo Bay in rural Western Illinois. Never mind the Thomson facility is a maximum security prison and the prisoners in question would be held to military detention standards which precludes all but the essential legal or enforcement visitors. Still, the fear mongers would have us believe that – I’ll quote running-for-Senate U.S. Repesentative Mark Kirk – "If we transfer al-Quaida terrorists to Illinois, the Chicago area will receive increased attention from the jihadist world. As home to America’s tallest building and her busiest airport, this is not a risk we should impose on Illinois families."
Really? Kirk wants to run for Senate to represent all of Illinois in Washington and the best he can do to whip up votes is dissuade potential economic development for a rural area – and state –
that badly needs it is because otherwise, scary terrorists will have never heard of the Willis-formerly-Sears Tower and O’Hare?
Please! That’s crazy talk coming from someone who should just know better for all sorts of different reasons. And it puts Kirk in the same class as Valerie Kenney: frustrated, scared, and just plain wrong about credible terrorist threats to Illinois’ residents.
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
I have a three-parter for you: first my FOX business channel interview about today's announcement, which aired at 3:40 pm CST. Then the White House's official announcement, and if you keep scrolling, the White House Q & A.
Following Posted at 7:38am Sept 28, 2009
I just got the official word from the White House, folks, President Obama will be travelling to Copenhagen. Here’s the release from the White House, sent out at 7:18am this morning:
President Barack Obama to Travel to Copenhagen
President will join the First Lady to Support Chicago’s Bid for the 2016 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games
WASHINGTON – Today, the White House announced that President Barack Obama will travel to Copenhagen, Denmark to support Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games at the 121st International Olympic Committee (IOC) Session. On Friday, October 2nd, IOC members will elect the host city for the 2016 Summer Games.
President Obama will join First Lady Michelle Obama, who will be leading the United States delegation to Copenhagen. Mrs. Obama will arrive in Copenhagen on Wednesday, September 30, along with Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to President Obama and head of the White House Office on Olympic, Paralympic and Youth Sport.
President Obama will depart Washington on the evening of Thursday, October 1 and arrive in Copenhagen on the morning of October 2 local time, just prior to Chicago’s presentation to the voting members of the IOC. He will arrive back in Washington on Friday afternoon.
President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will both make presentations to the IOC during Friday’s session. They will discuss why Chicago is best to host the 2016 Summer Games, and how the United States is eager to bring the world together to celebrate the ideals of the Olympic movement.
While in Denmark, the President and First Lady will meet with Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness, the Prince Consort. President Obama will also meet with Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen.
What does it mean in layman’s terms? The President is coming in to seal the deal after national attention was put on whether this squeaker of a contest would be lost because the U.S. rock star president didn’t show up to schmooze ala Tony Blair and Vladimir Putin.
As late as Sunday night, aroundtherings.com was scoring the U.S. bid at an 82 – one point behind Rio but this political calculus might be changed now that the President’s presence is official.
UPDATE: (Here are portions from today's briefing specifically referencing today's announcement)
September 28, 2009 at 1:39 pm EST
PRESS BRIEFING BY PRESS SECRETARY ROBERT GIBBS
James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
Q Thanks, Robert. Why does the President think a trip to Copenhagen is going to make that much difference? And what does he hope his appearance there will help?
MR. GIBBS: Well, obviously, I think he hopes that he can make a strong case for Chicago and America's bid for the Olympics in 2016. Obviously any Olympics showcases the country that those Olympics are in and there's a tangible economic benefit to those Games being here. And the President wants to help out America's bid.
Q Did he get a hint that an appearance would help America's bid?
MR. GIBBS: Well, I certainly hope that an appearance wouldn't hurt it. But we have gotten no intelligence on it.
Q Robert, what can you tell us about the lobbying effort behind the scenes that the President has already started with the IOC?
MR. GIBBS: Well, I don't know that it's much behind the scenes if you're asking me about it. I think it's -- obviously the President has mentioned this in meetings when we were at the U.N. and at the G20. He's going to continue to talk to people, including in person in Copenhagen, in an effort to bring the 2016 Olympics to the United States.
Q What's his best pitch? What is he telling them?
MR. GIBBS: Well, look, I think, having spent some time in Chicago, I think it is a -- it's a perfect place to hold the Olympics. It is -- it offers a great place for the world to see. It offers all the amenities that one would want in the Olympics. And I think, far and away, it's the strongest bid of the four that are out there.
Q What if he goes and he doesn't get it?
MR. GIBBS: Well, we'll -- you can call Tommy on Saturday -- (laughter.)
Q The President said, I would make the case in Copenhagen-hagen personally if I weren't so firmly committed to making real the promise of quality affordable health care for every American. He sounded pretty clear that 12 days ago he was not going to go. What changed in the meantime? Is it health care that changed? Does it look like it's in better shape, or is it that this is in worse shape?
MR. GIBBS: I think the President believes health care is in better shape. I believe he felt strongly and personally that he should go and make the case for the United States, and that's what he's going to do.
Q And he's not worried about health care, as he seemed to be just 12 days ago, suffering if he went?
MR. GIBBS: I think he believes he can do this and get back in time.
Q Right. I wanted to ask, you know, when you look at the sort of picture here, you have a planeload of, you know, top level officials, the President himself, Mrs. Obama. The risks are obviously huge if he doesn't bring home the Games for Chicago --
MR. GIBBS: Call Tommy. (Laughter.)
Q But to what degree --
MR. GIBBS: I appreciate getting into what happens on Saturday, but I don't even know what I'm going to have for dinner tonight.
Q I understand. Okay, let's go forward then. So what degree is this pre-cooked in any way? Are there any assurances, anything --
MR. GIBBS: I think I looked back and addressed this not long ago.
Q It just seems you folks are too savvy to do this with it being totally up in the air.
MR. GIBBS: I appreciate that. Thank you. (Laughter.)
Q Is the Chicago Host Committee paying any of the costs for President Obama or Mrs. Obama to go to Copenhagen?
MR. GIBBS: I can check but I don't know the answer to that. I assume this is being handled as all presidential travel would be.
Q Are you saying that the reason that he wasn't going to go to Copenhagen and now is, is that health care is in better shape?
MR. GIBBS: Well, no, I don't -- as I understand it, Chip asked me, that was one of the reasons that the President stated --
Q It was the reason.
MR. GIBBS: -- and that while I believe that health care is in a better place, and I think he believes health care is in a better place, he also believes it's important for him to go and personally try to persuade the International Olympic Committee to pick the United States in 2016.
Q I'm just trying to close the logic loop here. (Laughter.) So did anything else change --
MR. GIBBS: I thought I did with Chip, but go ahead.
Q Okay. But did any -- so, are you -- so it's okay for us to infer, then, even though you're not going to say that's the difference between last week and this week?
MR. GIBBS: Well, I acknowledged to Major that -- and I acknowledged to Chip and I think to at least one other -- that I thought health care was -- so we can -- I'll go on background as a senior administration official -- (laughter) -- with intimate knowledge of the press secretary's thinking and say, yes, we think health care is in a better place.
Q And how does he see going to Copenhagen as part of his core mission as President?
MR. GIBBS: Well, I think everybody is proud of the Olympics. I think everybody is proud of the Olympics when they're in their country. It provides a wonderful opportunity to showcase the United States. It's, as I said earlier, a big economic benefit. Surely it's within the purview of the President to root for America, but maybe I'm wrong.
Q Yes, but is there a fear that the delegation that was going was not going to be on par with the heads of state from the other countries going?
MR. GIBBS: No, I've said this many times in the past five years, and I think the President would agree that Michelle and Michelle alone is a powerful presence and will be a powerful voice for the Olympics coming to America. The President simply wanted to lend his voice, too.
Q Then why do you need Oprah going, too? (Laughter.)
MR. GIBBS: Ask the Olympic Committee. (Laughter.)
Q This is all about Tommy. (Laughter.)
MR. GIBBS: Right, Tommy on Saturday. (Laughter.)
Q The First Family's Chicago ties, are they a factor in the decision to have both the First Lady and the President make this trip? And is there a feeling in the administration that it's a proper role for them to make this pitch than, for example, if it had been another city where they didn't have the same kind of long-standing ties?
MR. GIBBS: Well, look, I don't think that there's any doubt that the President is enormously proud of Chicago and would be enormously proud of the city hosting the bid. I think it's somewhat silly if it had been Los Angeles, I think the notion that the President would have done less because it was a different U.S. city just doesn't hold water.
Q But, I mean, I'm just saying did they have, by virtue of being from Chicago do you think that they have maybe a special message that they can carry?
MR. GIBBS: Well, I think there's no doubt. I think you'll hear directly from both the First Lady and the President about what they think the Olympic Games mean and how Chicago hosting those Games fits with what we all believe the Olympics mean.
Q On Copenhagen, is this more official or personal for the President, this trip?
MR. GIBBS: This is official, as the President of the United States representing the bid of the United States to host the 2016 Olympics.
Q So is it more about the United States versus Chicago?
MR. GIBBS: Yes, it's about the American bid which is Chicago.
Q Chicago doesn't have a great record, especially recently, of spending public money. Is the President convinced that there are safeguards in place to make sure that money that goes to the Olympic bid will not be misspent? I mean, the City Council, for instance, has a pretty big oversight role in the way it's been --
MR. GIBBS: And I think obviously the onus is on the city to ensure that whatever money is used is spent wisely and efficiently. The President is going to make the case for the American host city -- for the American city of Chicago, which is the bid that this country put forward -- is going to go advocate in front of the International Olympic Committee for that bid.
Q I just want to make sure, he's sure that the city is up to that task?
MR. GIBBS: Not only is he, but as is the U.S. Olympic Committee that picked Chicago over other cities.
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
There really shouldn’t be much suspense here – I heard the man say it plain-as-day during Wednesday’s White House rah-rah for Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid: "I would make the case in Copenhagen personally, if I weren't so firmly committed to making -- making real the promise of quality, affordable health care for every American." President Obama said. "But the good news is I'm sending a more compelling superstar to represent the city and country we love, and that is our First Lady, Michelle Obama."
"I promise you, we are fired up about this," he said, making it obvious that he needed to make that particular point crystal clear to his audience.
The guy has several no-win situations:
A) He’s a deadbeat for ignoring health care reform and the war in Afghanistan to go schmooze the International Olympic Committee on vote day, October 2, in Copenhagen if Chicago gets it.
B) If instead the bid goes elsewhere, Obama looks like a total loser if he went through all the trouble of going there to kiss the Olympic committee’s ring for naught.
C) He looks bad if he doesn’t go "represent" his fellow Chicagoans and his absence is blamed for a loss.
The only way he looks good is if Chicago gets it without him there, which is not likely according to at least one guy who oughta know, but I’ll come back to that.
I spent almost three full days this week immersed in the minutiae of the 2016 proposal during DePaul University’s 2016 Olympics Specialized Reporting Institute and picked up a bunch of interesting tidbits I’ll just list for your reading enjoyment:
· Charlie Besser, a sport television media specialist, estimates that a U.S. 2016 Olympic games would bring in $400- $500 million more U.S. dollars in sponsorship revenue than a Rio, Madrid or Tokyo games. He said that if you aggregated media rights revenues from all of Europe, it would come out to be about a third of the estimated $2-billion-plus the U.S. summer-winter package would bring in - and he made it clear the IOC knows this.
· Misty Johanson, a Hospitality Leadership professor who was immersed in Atlanta’s 1996 summer games, said their games revitalized downtown Atlanta and had an estimated $5 billion economic impact from over 2 million visitors during the Olympic and Paralympic games. Give the lady her honesty points: she was clear that people were displaced in the process and that all these years later, there are lingering issues over the loss of a key housing project.
· I’ll credit this quote to Rita Athas, the executive director of World Business Chicago, though nearly every expert who addressed the press corps during the conference said exactly the same thing: "No summer games in the United States has ever lost money." Sure, breaking even is a far cry from the $22.5 billion she said the bid expects to bring to Chicago, but still.
· Over at Washington Park, home to the proposed Olympic Stadium, a Bid representative said that although opponents are complaining about the crowds, even the largest estimated number of people clogging the area during the games wouldn’t compare to the number of kiddies, bands, and grannies that choke the place up every year during the annual Bud Billiken Parade.
· Also over in Washington Park, Cecilia Butler, an outspoken neighborhood activist, responded thusly when I told her about all the people who contact me daily to say how pathetic the 2016 Olympics committee’s outreach has been and how dearly they want Chicago to lose the bid: "We’ve had close to 50 meetings here, this has been in the minds of people for a long time. The very fact that we’re here talking is a good thing." Butler said, "And a lot of those people who are against this – they’ve never lived here."
Some thoughts from Richard Pound, a voting member of the International Olympic Committee:
· "One of the problems Chicago has is that not as many [evaluation committee members] have been to Chicago as have been to Madrid, Rio, or Tokyo."
· "Who wins is not necessarily based on which is the best bid, but which has the least risk associated and you don’t want to make a mistake."
· "I don’t think the International Olympic Committee pays attention to opinion polls they figure if the city gets the bid, public opinion will come around. I think that’s a very minor part of it – besides, if you had 98% of the people in Chicago in favor of it, I’d be really worried."
· "It’s very hard to tell [who the favorite is], if you’re in my position you kind of follow the media. There’s not the slightest doubt that Tokyo would put on a good games, that Madrid would build on Barcelona…no one has any doubts Chicago can organize a games. To say they’re all good – that’s a waste of time."
Now, getting back to this Obama business…nearly every single expert was asked about the Obama Factor. And all of them said that hands-down, the President not showing up would certainly not bode well for the bid and his presence could make the big difference.
Mayor Daley had, earlier in the week, said he had a "glimmer of hope" that the President would change his mind and be in Copenhagen for the big day, but chose not to press the President on the South Lawn of the White House Wednesday. He instead expressed gratitude that First Lady Michelle Obama is going.
That’s gotta hurt, but don’t count Obama out yet…those who know him say hope is still alive.
"I’ve been following Obama since he went to Springfield, I know him pretty well, and I think he’s going to go," long time political reporting star Andy Shaw, now Executive Director of the Better Government Association, told us during a breakout session. "He’s going to carry the day – he does some things on gut, he believes in giving things his best shot."
Richard Pound, who himself will be casting a vote, said it loud and clear: "I think it’s pretty important for the President to go to Copenhagen for the vote, if he doesn’t, you’re not maximizing the chances of winning. If you can twist the Presidential arm to go…it could make a huge difference."
If Obama shows up in Copenhagen in October, I don’t think anyone will have to wonder who did the twisting.
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
Not on Twitter? Who can blame you, I’m sick and tired of hearing about it too, but, it’s soooo cool.
For instance, I was privileged to be one of a few journalists selected to attend DePaul University’s College of Communications 2016 Olympics Specialized Reporting Institute (which was generously supported by the McCormick Foundation) from Sunday September 13 to Tuesday September 15.
We had full access to elite Olympians, internationally-recognized Olympics experts, and even a voting member of the International Olympic Committee. (Read the column I wrote about it HERE)
If you had been following me on Twitter @ejc600words , you would have seen tidbits – quotes, pictures, and video – from the conference posted in real time. Those of you who keep up with me on www.600words.com could have seen the updates scrolling up the left hand side of the screen, also in real time.
Even if you aren’t on Twitter, you can check out my Twitter stream at http://www.twitter.com/ejc600words and click on anything you like without even having to join.
But if you’re like Mama Cepeda – who will follow me on Twitter when hell freezes over – I understand, so here’s my Twitter stream for you.
Read from the bottom up (or just know that the whole thing is in backwards chronological order) and don’t forget to click on the photos and videos, they’re fun!
Enjoy!
RT @Brooke22, after hearing IOC's Pound talk about voting process last night I'm less confident but it is 100% up in the air2:01 PM Sep 15th from web
If we don't get the Olympics? Lori Healy says:"The answer to that question is that we're focused only on 2016, it is the right place/time."9:44 AM Sep 15th from TwitterBerry
IOC’s Pound says no one's worried about who will be Chicago's mayor in 2016, "[Daley]'s the mayor now, that's really all that matters".7:13 PM Sep 14th from TwitterBerry
IOC's Pound says IOC not paying attention to local opinion polls of community support. "A very minor part of it."7:10 PM Sep 14th from TwitterBerry
"I think pretty important" for pres Obama to go to Copenhagen for deciding bid...if not, not maximizing chances of winning" says IOC Pound7:05 PM Sep 14th from TwitterBerry
IOC's Dick Pound says picking: "not necessarily which city is the BEST, but which has the least risk? You don't want to make a mistake."6:40 PM Sep 14th from TwitterBerry
Richard Pound, voting member of the Int'l Olympic Comm. tonight, Lori Healy tomorrow am, then documentarian Ken Burns after lunch whew!4:25 PM Sep 14th from TwitterBerry
The answer to #1 question is "no development east of Lake Shore Drive" because they are protected parklands says a 2016 rep.2:12 PM Sep 14th from TwitterBerry
2016 will require development contracts to be awarded 30% for minority/disadvantaged and 10% women - higher than City of Chgo requires1:01 PM Sep 14th from TwitterBerry
Redevelopment RFPs have already been written for M. Reese site: 1 for if we get games and 1 for if we don't12:59 PM Sep 14th from TwitterBerry
One 2016 representative says the Michael Reese facility will very definitely been demolished if Chgo gets the games (as planned)12:54 PM Sep 14th from TwitterBerry
Jimmy DeCastro is sitting across the table from me telling me he has the inside scoop - says we're definitely getting the 2016 Olympics8:43 AM Sep 14th from TwitterBerry
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
The President is trying to pass a healthcare reform bill, businesses are going under left and right, and we still haven’t seen the worst unemployment figures. All while our children are subject to ever-worsening educational conditions and the scholars of our era are beginning to wonder if America will have the brainpower to innovate our way out of this slump.
The United States needs to get its groove back, get a little excitement on, maybe raise a little spending cash. How about we sell U.S. Citizenship?
C’mon, this is not blasphemy (ok, maybe a little).
You can say whatever you want about the United States’ economic woes, but we still have the number one economy in the world, clocking in at about 14 TRILLION dollars in Gross Domestic Product – over triple that of the number two country, Japan. Not too shabby.
To put it differently, you may not be getting yourself a BMW for Christmas but you can go out, right now, and buy yourself a burger and a Coke at McDonald’s for about two bucks, have access to 7 zillion books, movies, and music albums for free at your public library, and get treated for a broken skull at your local hospital whether you have insurance or not.
People all over the world know this and want to come to this country but can’t get in because the "line" to get into this country is – for all intents and purposes – fiction.
So while politicians and the community activists gnash their teeth about border patrols, "letting poverty in," and the "stealing" of U.S. jobs by both low-wage farm workers and high-tech computer experts, why don’t we create a special visa to let people pay their way in?
Never mind the $2,000 bucks or so that U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services charges the hardy souls who live long enough to make it through their maze of red tape, let’s talk about some real cold, hard, cash.
For example, in late June, the Associated Press put a story out of Arizona on its wire about Tucson Medical Center which markets posh medical packages to wealthy pregnant Mexican women who arrive in the U.S. shortly before their due dates to deliver healthy, bouncing U.S. Citizens.
The cost? Ridiculously paltry: "$2,300 for a vaginal birth with a two-day stay and $4,600 for a Caesarean section and a four-day stay, assuming no complications. That includes exams for the newborn and a massage for the new mother. There is a $500 surcharge per additional child," the Sierra Vista Herald story says.
C’mon, we can do better than that, right?
How much do you think Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helu would put out for U.S. Citizenship? What about Swedish billionaire
Alright, how about for a "regular" person - the cost of the
average U.S. home? The cost of a Harvard education? Could our fine financial institutions give out mortgage-like loans to the horde of idealistic, English-fluent, hardworking foreigners who’d be willing to pay off a Citizenship debt for the rest of their American lives?
So how about it? How much is U.S. Citizenship worth – or better yet, for you true patriots out there – how much would YOU pay for your American birthright?
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
I am in Ecuador, smack dab in the middle of world and having a wonderful time... ahhhh... researching, yes, that's what we journalists call it.
There's so much to say about the scene here: I was full-body scanned upon entering the country in order to determine my health as the AH1N1flu scare is going strong across Latin America.
It's been rainy and dreary, and the wall-to-wall Michael Jackson coverage has eclipsed the presidential corruption scandal (Rafael Correa, whose brother denounced him openly in the media here), the big flu tally in Brazil (74 confirmed), and the mess in Honduras (I'm disappointed the White House Press Office has completely dropped talking about the Zelaya situation in favor of the admittedly critical talks with Russia, the G8 meeting, and this emerging China situation).
But my mind has been on other things: So far, I have traveled to the center of the Earth and hopped from the northern to the southern hemisphere, I've traversed several roaring rapids via suspension bridge and base jumped off of one of them - twice.
I've climbed multiple mountain peaks, scaled several rock faces next to waterfalls, visited a farm, seen Quito's first newspaper printing presses, and eaten lots of cool stuff, though not the cuy (guinea pig) pictured here - my adventurous nature goes only so far.
There's much to talk about but, frankly, this respite from the United States is doing me a world of good. See you sometime next week!
-Esther
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Post Script ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
July 15, 2009:
I've returned stateside refreshed and invigorated, and just damned happy to be back in the most beautiful city in the world.
I didn't go so far as to kiss the ground when I walked out of O'Hare, but I was darned happy to have made it back with nothing more than a few minor bruises from falling 50 feet down the side of a steep volcano cliff into a cold river.
Also, to add to the above list, I rode horse up and down the side of a volcano, traversed several very long rope bridges across angrily roiling rivers swelled from the seemingly constant rain, rode a dune buggy through a busy downtown square (at night), ate shrimp freshly plucked from the sea, threw myself off a suspension bridge (twice) over a rocky river, hiked in the jungle, covered my face in mud and drank mineral water straight out of a puddle in the ground.
A few things I learned while in Ecuador:
1) The culture is laid-back, like REALLY laid back and if you have a Type-A personality, you'll be a tad frustrated while there. For example, like most restaurants and stores, Mc Donald's doesn't open until 9:30 or 10 am and closes about 12 hours later. Sundays are particularly tough to find anything open.
2) There is no such thing as coffee "To Go." And if you want it, let's say, at any time before your food arrives, or during the eating, you'd better ask for it as their custom is to deliver coffee at the very end of any given meal. Consider asking for two at a time if you require more than 4 ounces of regular brew at any sitting.
3) Gosh those Ecuadorians love the animated cartoon "The Simpsons"! So much so that they show it many times a day, and several times in a row. The show has become such a consuming passion that today the government is considering censoring it because it is inappropriate for families and may be damaging the populace's brains. Oh, and also, the translation voice-overs are spot-on but when there is singing, the singing is not translated and occurs in English.
4) It was my experience that the cities of Quito, Machachi, Ambato, Banos, Guayaquil, and Salinas are gorgeous, very safe, and filled with extremely nice people who are, frankly, just happy you're there to visit. The natural wonders are wonderful indeed...there's just no getting tired of looking at the mountains, the waterfalls, or the wide and diverse variety of stray dogs who seem to troll every street in a friendly, non-threatening way. (They don't, however, respond favorably to cookies as they are so unaccustomed to being offered such, ahhh, domesticated fare).
5) There is no shortage of newspapers: broadsheets, tabloids, digests, you name it. There are at least 3 national dailies and several local rags to pick from on any given streetcorner and lest you think that this is because there is no internet, forget it. There are internet cafe's (an hour costs 80 cents) on nearly every street corner as well, and every newspaper has all the social media tools like Facebook and Twitter firing on all cylinders, as evidenced by their mastheads.
So there it is - Ecuador in a nutshell. And what a very deliciously nutty place it is!
Let’s see…it’s been a whopping 22 months since my favorite cyclist, Isai Madriz, mounted his rickety bicycle –the one with the picture of his girlfriend Danielle taped to it – to pedal from the ‘burbs of Chicago to Argentina and back up to Venezuela to raise money for low-income students to go to college.
I’ve written about him several times (read the September post on him here, and the most recent post from March here), chronicling his amazing adventures as he rides 22,500 miles from Montgomery, IL, a tiny ‘burb outside Aurora, to Tierra del Fuego (''Land of Fire'') at the southernmost tip of Argentina, then up to Caracas, Venezuela.
Why in the world would anybody do that? He’s doing it because after struggling to pay tuition and board at Humboldt State University in California, he wanted to make it easier on other young Latino students pursuing their college degree. So he decided to make the bike trip to raise funds for college-bound low-income Hispanic students.
On this incredibly long journey he’s been chased by dogs, broken several bones, been bitten by truly horrifying bugs, and fought off several debilitating viruses.
He crossed into South America August 11, 2008 and was in Colombia in early September. In February of 2009 he crossed into Argentina and just this week he sent me a note from Buenos Aires.
"During these last three months I’ve been a volunteer at the Patagonia Nature Foundation," Isai wrote in Spanish. "During my stay I’ve [helped] rehabilitate vulture, liberated a small, hairy armadillo, and served only the best lettuce leaves and roots to a very discriminating turtle."
"In mid-May I met a new friend, Adrian Marino, an Argentinian from the Silver City – who I met, ironically, one morning out on a deserted road back in January when he, too, was riding his bike. We hooked up and he introduced me to an engineering student named Javier Grange who let us use his garage to make a contraption to ride the rails."
Apparently, the boys designed, built, ripped apart, and rebuilt this two-bike frame five times before they got it to work on the rails serviceably, though screechily, but the friction on the rails made for too many sparks and they shortly abandoned the contraption for just regular biking (folks, I am NOT making this stuff up!).
Not to be discouraged, Isai and his travelling companion decided to try again.
"Right now we are preparing to continue our journey anew and we have constructed a new and improved apparatus for riding the rail so we can traverse the next 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) to Bolivia by rail," he gushed in his note. "I will keep you abreast of what happens."
No mention of how his fundraising efforts for the low-income college students are going, but in his earnest and self-effacing dispatches he seems to be having so much darned fun I just don’t have the heart to ask what I already know: you can’t squeeze blood from a stone – folks in South America are even poorer than "starving" college kids in Illinois.
But that’s where you come in!
As Isai continues on his way I’ll keep sharing his stories with you. If you’d like to help him help poor college kids you can send donations – which will go to the education fund, not to Isai’s travel expenses – to: Jesus Guadalupe Foundation, 902 S. Randall Road, Suite C-322, St. Charles, IL 60174. Write "For Isai" on the check.
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
President Barack Obama met with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe earlier today in the Oval Office around 3:40 p.m. EST. Seated in chairs in front of the fire place – beneath the George Washington photo – Presidents Obama and Uribe made remarks, paused for translations and photos, then took two questions. Sorta boring, really, in terms of theater.
But the drama of the developing situation in Honduras – against the backdrop of a White House administration furiously attempting to forge closer ties with the Latin American countries that were largely ignored by the Bush administration – made for a head-craning afternoon for those of us who care about our foreign policy toward Latin America.
I’m passing this along because – if today’s opening White House press conference question about whether the Obamas mailed a written condolence to the late Michael Jackson’s father is any indication – you won’t read much about it in the mainstream media. All quotes came from the White House Office of the Press Secretary, and my special thanks to today’s trusty pool reporter , USA Today’s David Jackson.
Obama started with the niceties, then zoomed in: "We discussed, most prominently, the interests of both countries in moving forward on a free trade agreement. This is something that has been discussed for quite some time. I have instructed Ambassador Kirk, our United States Trade Representative, to begin working closely with President Uribe's team on how we can proceed on a free trade agreement. There are obvious difficulties involved in the process and there remains work to do, but I'm confident that ultimately we can strike a deal that is good for the people of Colombia and good for the people of the United States."
Then President Obama made a quite bold statement, one that will surely be argued more in the coming days:
"I commended President Uribe on the progress that has been made in human rights in Colombia and dealing with the killings of labor leaders there, and obviously we've seen a downward trajectory in the deaths of labor unions and we've seen improvements when it comes to prosecution of those who are carrying out these blatant human rights offenses," Obama said. "President Uribe acknowledges that there remains more work to be done, and we look forward to cooperating with him to continue to improve both the rights of organized labor in Colombia and to protect both labor and civil rights leaders there.
Along those same lines, we obviously think that the steps that have already been made on issues like extrajudicial killings and illegal surveillance, that it is important that Colombia pursue a path of rule of law and transparency, and I know that that is something that President Uribe is committed to doing."
Obama, taking a page from Hillary Clinton’s book when she spoke in Mexico back in April, Obama too, took responsibility on behalf of the American People for the drug violence gripping so much of Latin America:
"It's important that the United States steps up and cooperates effectively in battling the adverse effects of drug trafficking.
And that includes, by the way, the United States reducing demand for drugs. We have responsibilities. We have responsibilities to reduce the trafficking of guns into the south that help strengthen these cartels and the flows of money and money laundering that at times involves not just the south – Southern Hemisphere but also the Northern Hemisphere. And so looking for additional ways that we can cooperate on those issues is very important."
The action then stopped, according to Jackson, "In what is beginning to become a tradition, the Colombian press corps requested and received a group photo with the president."
Apparently, Obama teased members of the pool for not wanting a picture of their own.
"You guys don't want to take a picture with me?," reporter Jackson quoted Obama as saying. "When a media member informed him that we're ‘too cool’ for that sort of thing, Obama said: ‘You're too cool, exactly - you guys are just too cool.’"
Uribe took the podium and, speaking in English, added his own bold statements:
"In the case of human rights, Colombia is rule of law in the utmost expression of public opinion participation. We -- I am the first with a duty to support of our armed forces, but for that reason of their honor, every soldier, every policeman in Colombia understands that we need credibility for this policing of democratic security, and credibility depends on effectiveness and on transparency. And transparency is a question of human rights.
Therefore, we are open, we are very receptive, to receive any advice, any suggestion on how we are going to fulfill our goal of ceasing civil violations of human rights in Colombia."
Wow, really? That’s a pretty humbled stance. What does that really mean? I have no idea.
Uribe, a president who enjoys a 70% approval rating in Colombia, followed up on a question from a reporter: "We have a recognition to advance in security, human rights, state restructure, to advance in economics, to advance in social cohesion, and for all these things it is very important to have the permanent support of President Obama, of the government of the United States, of the Congress of the United States."
During further Q&A, President Obama made this statement regarding the situation in Honduras:
"Well, let me first of all speak about the coup in Honduras, because this was a topic of conversation between myself and President Uribe.
All of us have great concerns about what's taken place there. President Zelaya was democratically elected. He had not yet completed his term. We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the President of Honduras, the democratically elected President there. In that we have joined all the countries in the region, including Colombia and the Organization of American States.
I think it's -- it would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition rather than democratic elections. The region has made enormous progress over the last 20 years in establishing democratic traditions in Central America and Latin America. We don't want to go back to a dark past. The United States has not always stood as it should with some of these fledgling democracies, but over the last several years, I think both Republicans and Democrats in the United States have recognized that we always want to stand with democracy, even if the results don't always mean that the leaders of those countries are favorable towards the United States. And that is a tradition that we want to continue.
So we are very clear about the fact that President Zelaya is the democratically elected President, and we will work with the regional organizations like OAS and with other international institutions to see if we can resolve this in a peaceful way."
(Earlier in the day at the press briefing, Robert Gibbs the press secretary had confirmed that President Obama had not had any contact with President Zelaya Monday morning. He did say the White House had been working to avert the coup previous to the Friday incident, but didn’t give specifics on that or on whether there is a working plan for incentives or consequences for resolution of the incident.)
President Obama continued:
"With respect to the free trade agreement, obviously a lot of work has already been done on the free trade agreement, and we are hopeful that we can -- we can move forward to completion. I don't have a strict timetable, because I'm going to have to consult with Congress obviously on this issue. We've got a lot on our plates, if you haven't noticed. And I think that the burden is not simply on Colombia; I think Colombia has done a lot of excellent work. It is a matter of getting both countries to a place where their legislatures feel confident that it will be ultimately to the economic benefit of these countries.
I have noted a special concern that is bipartisan and shared both by this administration and Congress, that the human rights issues in Colombia get resolved. President Uribe has assured me that he is interested in resolving those issues. And, as I said, great progress has been made. I trust that we can make more progress. And I think that will help shape the overall environment in which this issue is being debated in Congress."
Asked by a Colombian reporter about term limits and whether Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez should be limited in any way from running for re-election, Obama gave his standard answer about not getting involved in other countries’ democratic elections.
President Uribe, took the question as platform to discuss Colombia’s brand of democracy:
I said to President Obama, first, I am concerned, because I am a member of one generation of the four or five generations that have not lived one single day in peace in Colombia or prosperity. Therefore, I consider that Colombia needs to extend in that time security, democratic values, investment in social responsibility and social cohesion – with adjustments.
And I have said to President Obama what I want to say to you. Colombia is a country of solid democratic institutions. When we speak about institutions, we cannot speak in abstract about institutions. We have to speak about institutions in concrete terms. We have 1,102 mayors directly elected by the people; 32 governors. The regions in Colombia invest 51 percent of the public expenses. My government has built governments with all the regional governors and mayors regardless their political regions, and they have many, many political regions.
The justice, administration is independent in Colombia. Colombia has solid free press. Colombia has bodies, independent bodies, for control. Colombia is a country with very solid institutions.
I beg you, journalists, to separate the convenience or inconvenience of perpetuating the precedent with the qualification of our institutions. Anyway, our democratic institutions are totally solid."
Barack Obama and Alvaro Uribe, Chapter 2, to come.
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
Long story short: nearly every time there’s any sort of Who’s Who/Mover-Shaker/One-to-Watch list in “mainstream” publications there are few, if any, Hispanics on it despite there being a ton of awesome Latinos doing truly amazing things here in Chicago.
So, in order to help blunt this perceived shortage of Latino superstars I decided to start one.
I asked for nominations, got about 120, threw out the “usual suspects” – like elected officials and already well-publicized business and community leaders – narrowed the field to get a diverse group of immigrants, U.S.-born, younger, older, community, and business types, then did one-on-one interviews.
At the conclusion, I found five men and five women all dedicating their personal and professional excellence to making Chicago, Illinois, the U.S. – and sometimes the world – a better place.
Let me say it again: these people are not merely engaged in the noble task of empowering the Hispanic community, they have their sights set on making life better for blacks, whites, multi-ethnics, rurals, suburbans, urbans, immigrants, U.S.-born, and everyone in between.
And, yeah, these rock stars just happen to be Hispanic.
Please join me in getting your inspiration on as you read the stories of the ten incredible people who comprise the first annual “Chicago Latino List.”
A bilingual Funeral Director and embalmer, reformed gang member and volunteer gang intervention specialist, Rodriguez shows children and teens the grisly ravages of drugs, alcohol and the gang culture. She also talks to communities, affluent and needy alike, about how to reach out to kids they might not even think are at risk. Through her work, she has single-handedly saved the lives of hundreds of Chicago children.
A single mother and professional living with a traumatic brain injury after a brutally violent crime, La Boy was told by her doctors she’d never be able to care for herself – much less go to college or have a career. Today she works at the Lake County Housing Authority as a bilingual assistant property manager connecting families to clean, safe living conditions and teaching them how to be responsible homeowners. A living miracle, she’s an award winning advocate and authentic voice for people living with disabilities.
Martinez walked away from a successful dream career in sports marketing to become one of a very few Latinos in the field of professional fundraising. As Assistant Director of Development with the Chicago Community Trust, Martinez raises money to serve the basic human needs of the entire Chicago metropolitan region by supporting vitally-necessary community-based non-profit organizations.
An accountant by trade and lifelong community activist by heart, Viramontes dedicates his time to major issues including predatory lending, housing parity, rights for visual artists, and immigration. On an eternal quest for social justice, he’s devoted to improving the quality of life in Chicago neighborhoods and empowering struggling artists nationally by being a community presence and passionate spokesperson.
A tenured University Professor at Northeastern Illinois University, author, esteemed community leader, and forerunning advocate for Latino educational leaders, Gil-Garcia is a three time Fulbright scholar and an internationally acclaimed professional.Gil-Garcia, a published author, works tirelessly for a variety of community organizations and devotes most of her passion to ensuring the Chicago Public School system is a nationally-recognized leader in employing school administration leaders who accurately represent the diversity of their student communities.
A Policy Coordinator with Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, Oliva is a driving force behind the legislative push to earn restaurant workers such common benefits as paid time off and job opportunity training. As the voice of both affluent teens working summer food service jobs and adults who support families with their back-of-house restaurant jobs, Oliva labors to fight poverty, racism and sexism while mobilizing local worker organizations. He not only teaches these groups how to become active and engaged in the federal political process, but he represents them in Washington, DC, as well.
As Assistant Director for the UIC Center for Research on Women and Gender and the Director of Women in Science and Engineering Program, Arreola is a dedicated advocate for women’s rights, helping them maneuver professions that even today are still dominated by men. As a mother, accomplished blogger, and activist for women’s reproductive rights, she has won numerous awards for her work and is dedicated to helping women and girls advocate for themselves in Chicago and around the country.
The Chief Operating Officer of the Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Cornelio – a former top executive at Fortune 500 companies – works to raise the funds, nurture the relationships and promote the programs that drive Hispanic business growth and foster the next generation of Hispanic business and business leaders. His work makes it possible for the Latino community’s instinct for entrepreneurship to thrive and, in turn, deliver jobs and opportunities to contribute to the overall economic development and job creation in Chicago and across Illinois communities.
Attorney and dedicated special education advocate, Aguilar – mother to a son with Autism – works to protect the educational rights of children with disabilities. One of only approximately 15 lawyers specializing in the rights of students with special education needs, she campaigns for State and Federal law reform to help families’ secure medical, educational and recreational opportunities for their special needs children. Better still, she trains the next generation of attorneys who will serve the hundreds of thousands of Illinois children with disabilities.
A former Pilsen/Little Village caseworker, recent college graduate and eternal optimist, Montez has just committed the next two years of his life to the Illinois Student Assistance Corps. After a seven-week training camp, he’s moving to Rockford to teach high school students how to prepare for, apply to and pay for college. Inspired most by those who avoid controversy and succeed despite adversity, his mission is to connect with high school students who will be the first in their family to go beyond a HS diploma, and teach them how to build enough social capital to get themselves into and through the rigors of college.
“Chicago Latino List 2009” was generously sponsored by the Chicago Sinfonietta, the Chicago White Sox, and Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises Restaurants. All nominees were independently nominated for this recognition; their rejection and/or selection to “Chicago Latino List 2009” was not, in any way, influenced by any disclosed or undisclosed personal or professional proximity to Esther J. Cepeda or to any sponsor of “Chicago Latino List 2009”.
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
It would take well over six hundred words just to list the many, many accomplishments of Dr. Ana Gil-Garcia.
She’s a
tenured University Professor at Northeastern Illinois University, a published author, a three time Fulbright scholar, and an internationally acclaimed professional.
When she’s not hosting professional visitors from Belarus, Italy, Armenia, Russia, Georgia, and Ecuador as a member of the International Visitor Center of Chicago, or advocating for Latinos in the academic field of science, she’s a member of the Advisory Council on Latino Affairs of the City of Chicago and a director of the Rotary One Club of Chicago for 2009-2010.
But what realllllly drives this woman is her quest to ensure the Chicago Public School system is a nationally-recognized leader in employing school administration leaders who accurately represent the diversity of their student communities.
“Latino school leaders are the minority. There are 70,000 Hispanic students in CPS but only 13.6% of school administrators are Latino, in Chicago! How can that be in such a multi-cultural city?” Gil-Garcia told me “There are 114 languages spoken in Chicago!”
The Venezuela-born, 54-year-old Gil-Garcia has a bit of a different view – a more global one – when it comes to why it’s important for there to be an equally representative cadre of Latino teachers in CPS.
“Chicago is not only for one racial or ethnic group. We have, in every school in Chicago, Hispanics mixing with the other groups,” she said, in response to my questioning how her crusade affects non-Latinos. “By having someone who is coming from a different background than the mainstream, that person will be more sensitive not only to Latinos but to anyone who is coming from a different cultural background, or who speaks a different language.”
I’ve not been on the bandwagon, instead advocating for high qualifications as the most important aspect of any school administrator, but Gil-Garcia makes a compelling case.
“Being a Latino or Hispanic doesn’t mean the administrator will be only serving one portion of the population, but that person would be serving a very large population of the entirety of CPS,” Gil-Garcia pressed.
“Last September Latinos used to be the second-largest population as it had been for 7 years, since this past year we are now number one – the largest population – followed by African-American students, then Caucasian kids, then Asian and Pacific Islander,” Gil-Garcia said. “When you take a look at the demographics of the teachers, white teachers are the majority, then second African-American then third are Latinos. It’s so much more dramatic in the numbers of school administrators and the number has been like that for 11 years – we haven’t grown.”
I, of course, immediately went to bat for the many, many kids who speak languages other than Spanish – like Polish – and are far from well-represented in CPS or in any other districts across Illinois, and Gil-Garcia retorted:
“When we get qualified Latino school administrators, the schools benefit not because she or he is Hispanic or Latino – it’s that the person, being from a different language and culture, has a deeper understanding of what the student and his or her family might be going through to get the learning to occur.”
Certainly I couldn’t argue that point, and more importantly, the work that she’s doing at Northeastern Illinois University – teaching graduate courses in the field of educational leadership to teach teachers who are in the process of becoming school leaders for K-12 schools – will absolutely ensure that there are highly-qualified administrators of all races and ethnicities to lead our diverse school populations.
It’s no easy task, but Gil-Garcia is inspired. “My inspiration is my mother, she taught me not to give up, not to despair,” Gil-Garcia said. “We talk every Sunday for at least two hours and she always asks me the same question: what have you done this week to help others?….I must always have a response.”
And the other thing Gil-Garcia’s mom always taught her?
“‘Haz bien y no mires a quien,’ which means ‘do good – for everybody.”
“Chicago Latino List 2009” was generously sponsored by the Chicago Sinfonietta, the Chicago White Sox, and Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises Restaurants. All nominees were independently nominated for this recognition; their rejection and/or selection to “Chicago Latino List 2009” was not, in any way, influenced by any disclosed or undisclosed personal or professional proximity to Esther J. Cepeda or to any sponsor of “Chicago Latino List 2009”.
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
After walking 17 four-to-twelve-year-old kids over a 17,500 foot pass from one of the most remote places on earth to a Buddhist monastery, Frederick Marx is coming home to Chicago to lead us on a journey toward the place in our hearts that’ll help these children finish their education.
Marx – now fifteen years removed from his star turn as the writer/producer who brought us the story of two black Chicago high school students who thought they had a shot at being pro basketball players in the critically acclaimed documentary Hoop Dreams – is again giving us the opportunity to study how people sacrifice in order to gain.
In The Journey from Zanskar, Marx chronicles the passage of a small band of children who were delivered by two Dalai Lama-dispatched monks from their remote village to a monastery where they’ll get the opportunity to learn their own language, culture, history, and religion.
The kids’ voyage away from family and to a life of study is critical because a new road will soon bring the outside world to Zanskar – the last remaining original Tibetan Buddhist society with a continuous untainted lineage dating back thousands of years – endangering its traditions and religious practices. It’s the sort of decimation that has already happened to many other Tibetan towns experiencing this version of gentrification.
Marx was drawn in by this slow, quiet drama.
"What really interests me as a filmmaker is the landscape of the human heart," Marx told me from his San Francisco home last week as he prepared the "preview cut" he’ll be screening at PRIMITIVE Gallery on June 26 and 27. "I’m so interested in heartbreak, in what people do, how they feel, what they think, and why they do what they do. Then when you throw all the layers of cultural differences and socio-economic realities, there’re just such amazing stories."
Marx started out on his own journey toward emotional and financial investment in these 17 kids when an old friend from Chicago called him up and asked if he’d be interested in a gig to go to Zanskar and film the monks for a group of people putting together a non-profit to support their work.
After Marx’ incredible expedition – "when, after climbing 14,000 to 17,000 feet to get over the pass, none of the animals could carry us I just thought ‘I’m going to die today,’" he chuckled – the non-profit failed to take off but Marx took the project upon himself.
"I said, ‘this is crazy, we have to do what we can to help these monks, these kids, and this school.’ So I took it over and it’s been my company’s project ever since," Marx said. His company, Los Angeles, CA-based Warrior Productions, is a non-profit, and his commitment to the 17 children whose story he tells in The Journey from Zanskar is 100% of the revenues – above the cost of production – the films garners.
Those pesky "cost of production" dollars are what brings him back home to the welcoming embrace of Chicago’s PRIMITIVE Gallery for an exclusive set of intimate screenings of this unfinished film in one of the holiest spaces I’ve ever visited.
"In terms of cash dollars, we only need about two hundred grand to get through the post production and then it’s all gravy," Marx said. "Then all the profits from the film will be funneled back to Zanskar for the monks and the kids."
Marx will be at the Friday screening at PRIMITIVE, 130 N. Jefferson, but if you can make it to the Saturday screening, Michael Fitzpatrick, the film’s composer, and Chicago’s own Harold Ramis (on a break from promoting the new Ghostbusters game) will gather with Marx in the breathtaking "Buddha Room" to watch the film.
"What you’ll see is this amazing example of service, of these monks doing what they can for these children, for these families and for the culture of this place they call home," Marx said. "To me there is no grater modeling of leadership than how they sacrifice and risk their own lives to help these families get a leg up."
"These monks demonstrate that the greatest joy in life just might come in doing what you can for others, and that’s the key message I hope people will respond to."
Watch YouTube clips of The Journey from Zanskar here or call PRIMITIVE at 312/575-9600 for more information on attending either the June 26 or 27 screening.
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
How must it feel to walk around, stunned, at the fresh bout of violence gripping this country that only days before was looking, to the rest of the world at least, like it was going to pull a u-turn under the leadership of a new president who might have been expected to not spew hatred toward the United States at every turn.
Don’t misunderstand – not everyone in Iran is upset today, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had many supporters, not the least of which were the poorer, working class, and many rural residents of the Middle Eastern country which lies snuggled between the Caspian and Arabian Seas.
Still, the images are indelible: yound green-clad students, fans of the losing candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi, setting fires to cars and throwing stones, older, black-draped women literally weeping and gnashing their teeth in what the New York Times, and many other news outlets, have called the worst street protests in a decade.
There’s anger, disappointment, and I imagine, a little something like what Charlie Brown felt every single time Lucy bamboozled him into thinking she wasn’t going to yank that football away from him at the last moment; loss. Loss of the hope that had seemingly blanketed Iran in the last weeks, the loss that comes with the feeling that an important election has been stolen from voters.
It reminded me of July 2006, when Mexican President Felipe Calderon and his opponent Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) wrestled with the razor-thin margins for months to see who won the Mexican presidency. After several nail-biting months of re-counts, allegations of corruption and general uproar, Calderon was declared the winner on September 5, 2006, winning by a mere 243,934 votes (0.58%).
That July election set off nightmarish, sometimes violent protests that literally shut the city down for months and months as AMLO set up a shadow presidency and his supporters occupied the streets of Mexico vowing not to leave until justice was carried out.
I mentioned this parallel as a Tweet yesterday morning: "Crap! In Iran, Ahmadinejad claim's victory, as does his opponent. Hope it’s not another months-long drama like Calderon/AMLO in MX" to which one interested observer said, "right... or Florida in 2000!"
That gave me pause...No, I don’t think so.
Oh, I recall being as disheartened and angry as the next (non-Republican) guy that Al Gore lost to George W. Bush, and that the victory appeared to have been either the result of some horrible mechanical mishap or that – gasp – the people had gotten what they’d asked for and were about to get it good and hard.
But I don’t remember anyone getting into the streets for a good old-fashioned riot. Endless late-night talk show skits about "hanging chads" and "butterfly ballots" yes; fires and overturned cars like what happened in Chicago when the Bulls won the 1992 basketball championship – no.
I’m not saying we should have, I’m not saying violence is a good answer to any disappointment – no matter how devastating to a people or a country – but we are a long, long way from the Sam Adams tactics of our Founding Fathers.
There had been those who were very concerned that if President Barack Obama lost the 2008 election that all hell would break loose (read my column on Chicago election night plans here), but we can’t know what would have happened because our home-town boy won. In any case, I can’t imagine the sort of passion being aroused like what we’re seeing in Iran today.
God bless America, that security is our American privilege. Our thoughts should be with the people of Iran tonight.
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
I’m taking a look at the presence of Ecuador in Chicago because in less than one month, Ecuador will find a piece of Chicago in it.
That’s right, I’m going to miss out on the barbecue and the fireworks (my first 4th of July outside the U.S.) because I’ll be travelling to the "Center of the World" with no itinerary and no reservations, just a rumpled piece of paper my aunt gave me last week at a family picnic with some long-lost uncle’s email and phone number. And I haven’t been there since I was four.
The plan is to land at Mariscal Sucre International Airport and let my stomach and eyes lead the way to the peaks of the Andes mountains, the monument to the Center of the World – where one can straddle the southern and northern hemispheres at once – and the Galapagos Islands – celebrating the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s "Origin of Species" – in no particular order. In a two-week time period, not including en-route stops to Miami and Panama.
So my first natural instinct (once I realized I’m less than 30 days from this trip I’ll literally pack for in twenty minutes time) was to look at my own birth place for insight.
According to the Chicago Community Trust’s Latino Landscape 2008, Chicago is home to 18,796 Ecuadorians who make up 1.09% of Chicago’s Hispanic community (these numbers are from 2006). We are the fifth largest national-origin group in Chicago behind Mexico, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, and Cuba.
My dad was part of the first wave in 1965–1976 (though he came from Quito via Mexico City where he’d lived for several years) who came and worked mainly in factories, retail and service industries and a second wave arrived in the 1990’s, frequently to join family, and to work in the restaurant, hotel, and garment industries.
Like the majority of Ecuadorians in Chicago, my half-Ecuadorian-half-Mexican family lived on the Northwest side – in Logan Square, Albany Park, Uptown, Lakeview, Irving Park, Belmont Cragin, Edgewater, and West Ridge – which, not surprisingly, is where all of the Ecuadorian restaurants in Chicago can be found.
One thing no one will tell you about Ecuadorians is that though they are intelligent, generous, and kind, they are also incredibly flighty! They are internationally-known for their tardiness, and in fact, Ecuador tried a campaign to eradicate "unpunctuality" but it flopped. And their government, well, let’s just say their new, University of Illinois-educated president Rafael Correa has now been around longer than many other presidents past.
Just as a quick example, I tried to call the office of the Ecuadorian Consul General in Chicago to verify the stats I cite here and none of the four phone numbers listed on various search engines and Ecuador-centric web pages actually worked. Tsk-tsk.
But we’re here, by golly, and in a few weeks I’ll be there.
I’ve already researched the fine points of the bull-penis soup and roasted guinea pig dishes I’ll surely confront in the local restaurants (though I’ll stop in a McDonald’s to see if everyone there eats Big Macs like my cousins do when they visit here: in layers starting from the top down!).
And I logged onto Tu Babel, the on-line regional Spanish dictionary to refresh myself on all the Ecuadorian-specific slang I grew up with in my grandmother’s house that I’ve since forgotten (I still get to hear "achachai!" every once in a while from my dad when he gets cold, but other words – like "canguil" for popcorn and "guagua" for child – will jar me into nostalgia).
So, I’m pretty much all set; now all I need is for any of the 18,796 Chicago-dorians to tell me where to go (or where to stay away from) while I find the other half of myself at the center of the world.
UPDATE: This came to me at 7:30am 6/11/09 from the White House Office of the Press Secretary:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 11, 2009
Statement by the Press Secretary on the President’s call with President Rafael Correa of Ecuador
The President spoke with President Correa yesterday to congratulate him on his recent reelection and to commend the people of Ecuador for their commitment to democracy. The President stated his desire to deepen our bilateral relationship and to maintain an ongoing dialogue that can ensure a productive relationship based on mutual respect. President Obama expressed his support for a vibrant democracy in Ecuador that includes a free and independent press as the means of promoting human prosperity, security and dignity, which are important goals for both of our countries and for the people of the Americas.
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
People, bear with me here, I’m only a few days removed from having completed a frustrating and maddening master’s level class in effective teaching strategies to help English language learners pick up our baffling but beloved language, and a report that was just released has me climbing the walls.
But more about that in a moment, let me vent some more:
It was the kind of class where the teacher framed everything in terms of "cultural respect" and where all the students felt it was imperative to teach kids in their native language and that to insist otherwise was to buy into the evil construct of the "white man" trying to keep poor Latinos "down."
Much like my experience being an actual teacher in a classroom of non-native English-language speakers, where I was castigated as the lone weirdo who insisted on talking to and teaching her students in English, I was the freakish anomaly in this class.
I was the nutcase in the back of the room advocating for the hundreds of thousands of non-Spanish speaking students in school districts across the country, insisting that segregating students into Spanish-speaking sheltered classes was a recipe for a permanent underclass.
Every week we discussed interesting language acquisition stories in the media and I almost wish I could have one more Saturday to beg the others to understand the perils of "bilingual classes" taught exclusively in Spanish and how damaging it can be to those who need to learn flawless English in order to thrive in this country (this was my idea of "fun" if you can conceive it!).
My pleas surely would have fallen on deaf ears – after all, who is more committed to the status quo than "bilingual teachers" whose main claim to fame and employment is the ability to teach solely in Spanish? – but check this out: a report from the National Center for Education Statistics on Basic Reading Skills and the Literacy of America’s Least Literate Adults.
You can go directly to the PDF here, but let me just give you a taste of the horrifying statistics, gleaned from the 2003 National Adult Literacy Survey which was designed to measure functional literacy and administered to more than 19,000 adults (ages 16 and older) in households and prisons:
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Basic reading scores were highest for White adults and lowest for Hispanic adults
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Among adults with Below Basic prose literacy scores, 39 percent of those who spoke only English before starting school read fewer than 60 words correctly per minute (i.e., at the lowest Basic Reading Score level), compared with 72 percent of adults with a Spanish language background
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30 million adults have Below Basic prose literacy; of those, 7 million are Hispanic
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Among adults who spoke a language other than English before starting school, BRS scores were lowest for adults who learned English at a later age. The average score was lowest for adults who learned to speak English after they turned 21 and highest for adults who learned English at age 10 or younger
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The BRS score of adults who learned to speak English after age 20 was 35 points lower than the BRS score of adults who learned to speak English at age 10 or younger.
I’ll cut the numbers off right there, though you should plow into this report if you’re interested in knowing at just how much of a disadvantage some people in this country are.
But the point I’m trying to make is illustrated by those last two bulleted items – and you didn’t need a fancy report to tell you this – it is absolutely crystal clear beyond any doubt that the key to Hispanic and Latino success in the United States is fluency in the English language.
It doesn’t require giving up culture, giving up a native language, or giving up speaking a native language in the home – it very simply requires a country single-mindedly dedicated to making learning English the number one objective for public school students. By hook or by crook.
Some people reflexively rail at the very thought of "English-only" legislation; there is currently a bill called the "English Language Empowerment Act" being bandied about in New York state. Pro-Spanish-language education advocates are already complaining that such a move would make it mandatory to teach children in – gasp!!!! – English.
But the unacceptable alternative is hoards of students who get dumped into public school "bilingual ed" classes and, after years of sheltered Spanish immersion classes, walk out of high school still not fluent in English (read more about my experiences as a bilingual ed teacher here).
And that alternative is a denial of the American Dream. It is, in fact, an American tragedy – and not just for them, but for us all.
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
There I was, sitting inside my favorite Mexifood joint, Tacos El Norte, last Saturday enjoying my steak torta, watching the Phillies/Mets game on Fox en Espanol when I heard the play-by-play guy say something surprising, in Spanish:
"Don’t forget, opening this Friday – Star Trek like you’ve never seen it before!" My immediate reaction was: but I’ve never seen it before – at all.
Thinking it was some freakish anomaly, I went back to my torta when I heard it again – this time with a logo, indicating to me that it was a planned thing. The announcer said, in Spanish, "This isn’t your father’s Star Trek!" Uh, yeah, I know, because my dad never watched it!
My lunch companion, a gentleman as pasty-white and as "Trekkie" as a man who could actually score lunch with a woman could be was perplexed by my reaction. "Why’s that so weird?" he asked innocently.
"Latinos don’t watch Star Trek!" I gasped. Then I did two things:
1) I ranted, for a full three minutes (he timed me – this happens quite often and he’s keeping track as a sort of science experiment) about marketers who decide to spend money on advertising to Spanish-speaking audiences but don’t bother to create culturally-relevant messages to maximize their ad buy.
Sure, Star Trek went viral before "going viral" meant "global internet sensation" but the vast majority of Latin American immigrants to this country are from Mexico and, based on my own life experiences, Mexicans weren’t exactly saying "lo estoy dando todo lo que tengo capitan" – "I’m givin’ ‘er all she’s got captain" – in times of duress.
And here in the U.S., well, let’s just say William Shatner is no Don Francisco!
Star Trek was never on in my house and when it was I never got interested. I’ve written before about how in my honors science class our final project was based on the "prime directive" and I was clueless, and ultimately got a bad grade. (Read more on William Shatner as Jesus here)
2) I sent out a Tweet calling for Latino Star Trek Fans and I got a few interesting remarks:
Luis said: "Beam me up - esse!" Alexander said: "Esther Live long and prosper. There is no bigger fan than me. " Gerardo chimed in with: ""To boldly go where no man has gone before. That was my motto in high school too. HA!" And Gabriel added: "I'm a Mexican Star Trek fan!"
I did speak to two people, though who had something more to add. Victor Soto, a 29-year-old freelance TV producer whose parents emigrated here from Mexico before he was born told me, "Yeah, I obviously didn’t watch it with my dad – he probably didn’t even really know it existed so he’s definitely not a fan."
Victor, however, is a different story, "I’m a guy, y’know, I think it’s a cool show, I like the gadgets. I grew up watching ‘Next Generation’ with Patrick Stewart and all them. I’m definitely going to go see the new one."
I also had an interesting back-and-forth with labor-rights activist Jorge Mujica, the mastermind of the March 15 Movement and immigration reform rallies in Chicago. He said he’s definitely going if he can score some tickets and shared this about his deep love for Star Trek:
"Lemme put it this way: they had a black woman, an Asian, a Russian and an [assload] of "aliens" – now, that's diversity! The miniskirts played a role, also," Mujica said. He then brought up a great question: "Let's see if they have Latinos now."
You’re in luck Jorge! The miniskirted hottie this time around is indeed a Latina – Zoe Saldana, a Jersey girl from the Dominican Republic. The stars aligned!
Then Jorge said one more thing that made me really re-think the impact Star Trek has had on past and will on future generations:
"No, I don’t think my dad saw "Viaje a las Estrelas" ever in his life. I watched it at my cousin's because we didn’t have a TV and I always loved it," Mujica said.
"After being Tarzan and Robin Hood, I became Spock, I guess it always helped me imagine there had to be a better future than our present."
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
I have the diagnosed cure for the Mexican Swine Flu Heebie-Jeebies, folks: take a chill pill.
Yes, just relax…all this stress about whether Juan Gonzalez is going to sneeze on you and make you sprout a pig-snout is just weakening your immune system.
And it’s not just the light-skinned, bilingually-challenged among us that are nervous about heading down to 26th street for the Wednesday night enchilada run, the brown-skinned, soccer-skill-blessed among us are trippin’ too – I’ve gotten several email messages from Latinos all over the country who are re-interpreting every sideways glance as some sort of anti-Mexican snub.
Not that it takes much for some to get freaked out, but there is, if you’ll pardon the pun, a germ of truth there. Since Sunday, the nation has gone from zero to hysterical and the "dirty Mexicans" everyone has been fretting about since the illegal-immigration issue reared its ugly head exactly four years ago just got dirtier.
Sunday, the press corps at the White House were nearly hyperventilating about whether Obama had been tested for Swine Flu since he’d been cavorting in the United States of Mexico with the likes of President Felipe Calderon two weeks before. Then they freaked out Monday when they found out one of the dignitaries whom Obama met while in Mexico dropped dead last Thursday. Not to worry, Mr. Felipe Solís, Director of Mexico’s National Anthropology Museum, died of a non-Swine-related pre-existing condition.
There’s been something for everyone in this almost-crisis: mainstream media have been having a field-day with this health scare because it’s made them feel necessary and relevant, immigrant bashers who’ve been waiting for just such an occasion to gleefully announce that THIS is exactly why we should have sealed the borders after the 86 amnesty are lovin’ it, and the special interest groups who are offended by everything are enjoying rightfully calling these extremists, um, extreme.
This press release arrived in my inbox from the National Council on La Raza today: "NCLR CONDEMNS THE SHAMELESS EXPLOITATION OF A PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY: NCLR today condemned the assertions made by some members of the media that the outbreak of swine flu is linked to immigrants."
Tip for NCLR, don’t dignify the likes of a Michael Savage – who makes his dinero on talking smack about people – when, in reference to a U.S. outbreak that might well be linked to rich kids who went to Mexico on Spring Break, says something silly like: "Make no mistake about it: Illegal aliens are the carriers of the new strain of human-swine avian flu from Mexico."
Whatever.
It’s items like the one the Sun-Times News Group reporter Nick Firchau ran Wednesday about the Club America Mexican soccer team being asked to wear face masks as they walked through O’Hare airport that creep me out. They were also asked not to touch the fans, but you gotta admit, that’s probably decent advice.
In other bummer Mexican news, this city has canceled a Cinco de Mayo celebration this weekend over concerns over the swine flu. We’ve got all manner of travel between Mexico and the U.S. suspended – which is a downer for the 1,357,353 people of Mexican descent living in the Chicago area.
And the organizers of this year’s Million Mexican May Day March might be disappointed with a low turnout at Friday’s rally – they city is pressuring them to cancel or at the very least promise to wear face masks – though I’d imagine it’s hard to get too wound up for that sort of thing anyway, seeing as how the President and his whole administration have solemnly vowed to fix the U.S.’ batty immigration laws.
Nope, like a May 6 Dos Equis and Jose Cuervo hangover, this too shall pass. Scary Mexican Swine Flu 2009 (has FOX composed a special ominous theme jingle yet?) is no Captain Tripps, it will come and go like the Avian Flu scare did.
Remember, just relax. Keep your wits about you and like 99.9% of your continent-mates, you’ll be just fine.
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
If you know me at all, you know I like to eat. A lot. My runs to the Taco Bell border are legendary – don’t get me started on the cinnamon twists, we’ll be here all night.
And so in that vein, I bring you some fast foodie news, one involving a pathetic and cowardly caving to political correctness and another violating the sanctity of two all-beef patties!
Exhibit A:
Burger King’s pathetic caving to lunatic political correctness.
Here’s the recap; so, according to The Nation’s Restaurant News, a restaurant industry trade paper, Burger King sells a thing called "the Texican Whopper" in Europe. It’s a flame-grilled patty topped with chile-con-carne, spicy jalapenos, onion, crispy lettuce and Cajun mayonnaise on a sesame seed bun, but that wasn’t the controversial part.
BK created an ad campaign featuring – gasp!!! – a tall "American cowboy" next to a midget (oops, I meant to say "little person") lucha libre wrestler with a Mexican flag cape.
Long-story-short (if you’ll pardon the pun – I just couldn’t resist!) Mexican ambassador to Spain Jorge Zermeno – who clearly hasn’t been to ANY lucha libre matches because he’d see all manner of tall and tiny luchadores wearing Mexican flag underwear, capes, masks, etc. – complained about the ads denigrating Mexico’s national image and improperly using Mexico’s national flag.
O.K., so I guess no more girlies wearing Mexican flag thong bikinis at Cinco De Mayo celebrations, huh? Darn.
But, I’m not going to complain about Jorge "I’ve got a stick up my butt" Zermeno, it’s his job to defend his mother country’s honor, ahem, abroad.
Nope, I reserve my disgust for Burger King – they’re cowards to bow to the pressure of a humorless bureaucrat. Their PR flacks released a statement Tuesday that said the commercials "were not intended to offend anyone." Duh.
It further stated: "Burger King Corp. values and respects all of its guests as well as the countries and communities we serve…With regard to the Texican Whopper advertisement shown in Spain and the United Kingdom, it was our intention to promote a product whose culinary origin lies in both the American and Mexican cultures, and was meant to appeal to those who enjoy the flavors and ingredients that each country offers."
Apparently Burger King will, from now on, appeal only to those who cannot bear to laugh at Mexican midgets who dress up in their country’s flags to make money off people who come out to laugh at them.
What’s this world coming to?
Exhibit B: Darn that Jim Skinner, what the heck is he doing to my Big Mac’s honor? Doesn’t he know wrapping it in a flour tortilla is going to make the racists hate Mexicans even more?!?!?!
O.K., so it’s not quite that serious. But, if you hadn’t heard, according to Advertising Age magazine, our pals at Oakbrook-based McDonald’s are testing the "Snack Wrap Mac," a half –beef-patty, with lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions that’s smothered in "special sauce" and wrapped in a flour tortilla. For a buck-forty-nine.
Huh?
Why would they do this? And, more importantly, why can’t I get one?
Of the 400 of the chain's 14,000 locations who get to take the new snack for a spin, our neighbors in Wisconsin, and those crazy Texas Hustonians get to feast their tastebuds on the Big tortilla-clad Mac but Chicago doesn’t get to take a taste test – that’s just plain loco.
Note to Jim Skinner: like the geniuses who combined peanut butter and chocolate, you might just have created my newest taste treat sensation by mixing my Taco Bell needs with my Mac daddy love…so let me at it, already.
Perhaps a trip to the Oak Brook McLaboratory for a quickie taste?
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
Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t go with his Obamaness to Trinidad and Tobago but I am privileged enough to get readouts of press briefings and press releases delivered straight from the White House to my inbox, so I’ve had the opportunity to experience this trip to Latin America from a different perspective than most.
It’s been a whirlwind important trip and, as some media outlets have opined, probably the only time Latin America will get this much attention for some time, since there are so many pressing domestic issue for Obama to contend with.
But there are tons of Cubans here too – 18,875, to be specific (the fourth largest Latin American group in Chicago) – not to mention another 346,615 people from all the countries that gathered at Port of Spain in Trinidad and Tobago this weekend to be awed by the newest President of the United States.
Of course, all of the usual suspects came out including Evo Morales of Bolivia, Lula or Brazil, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign-educated prez of Ecuador (my father’s mother country) Rafael Correa, and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua.
But some of the juiciest bits that happened this weekend were comments made by White House representatives – and Obama himself – during pressers in response to questions from pool reporters. Here are a few:
Friday April 17 Obama said this during the opening ceremony of the Summit of the Americas:
"To move forward, we cannot let ourselves be prisoners of past disagreements. I am very grateful that President Ortega -- (applause) -- I'm grateful that President Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was three months old. (Laughter.) Too often, an opportunity to build a fresh partnership of the Americas has been undermined by stale debates. And we've heard all these arguments before, these debates that would have us make a false choice between rigid, state-run economies or unbridled and unregulated capitalism; between blame for right-wing paramilitaries or left-wing insurgents; between sticking to inflexible policies with regard to Cuba or denying the full human rights that are owed to the Cuban people."
Later Friday night, an unnamed Senior Administration official relayed this:
"And during that time, the President -- as I say, President Obama, walked across the room and introduced himself to President Chavez, and President Chavez said a couple of things. Consistent with the policy I took some heat from Scott for yesterday, I will not read out what President Chavez had to say. But it was very, very short. The President shook his hand, smiled, and then went back to his position in the line.
While in his position in the line he also had an opportunity to greet President Bachelet of Chile. The President has developed a very good relationship with her over the course of the last several months, and the President was eager to meet her and was glad he had the opportunity to do so. He had a long conversation with President Lula, who, as you all know, he's also developed a very good working relationship with. And while they were all chatting, President Ortega of Nicaragua came in and introduced himself to the President. And I think President Obama said in Spanish, it was his "gusto" to meet him, as well.
Q Said what?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: It was his "gusto."
Q His pleasure.
Q Ortega walked over to him?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Ortega walked into the room, in the back of the room, and since the President was at the end -- back of the line, he basically had to walk past President Obama, and stopped and introduced himself.
Q They shook hands?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: They did.
From the Saturday April 18 background briefing before the UNASUR countries meeting:
ON CHAVEZ:
Q A follow-up on that- Can you say what message you took from Chavez giving a book about the exploitation of South America to President Obama?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: My personal view is, you know, it's a way for Chavez to get press questions and his picture taken again. I don't think, you know, I can really comment on what other individual leaders are trying to do. I think all of the leaders here from South America think that they are leaders of South America.
Q No, I understand that, but the platform -- he appears to be getting a -- doing everything he can to insert himself.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, this is the nature of the person and anybody who's been at international conferences with Chavez knows that if there's a camera around, he's going to find a way to get in it.
Q Yes, just a follow-up. In Mr. Chavez's brief comments, were they anti-U.S. in nature? And do you have any sense of whether his warmness, I guess you could say, over the last couple days is an indication of a new attitude from him towards the U.S.?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Look, I wouldn't want to characterize Chavez's emotions. He was critical of past U.S. policy. He was -- his comments about President Obama were -- expressed the hope that things have changed. He was civil in his remarks; he was critical of the past, however.
Q Follow-up on the question that she just asked, do you foresee in the near future or there has been any substance to this closeness between -- or new approach, let's put it that way, between Hugo Chavez and President Obama about exchanging again ambassadors? As you know, Chavez kicked out the U.S. ambassador last year, and the U.S. did the same. Do you think that, since there's a new chapter here, that the relationship between Venezuela and the United States could normalize with ambassadors?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: That question did not -- that issue of exchanging ambassadors did not come up. I think in a more general sense, given what the President is saying about dialogue with these countries, dialogue has obviously helped when ambassadors are in place. And that might -- that is something that's pretty obvious, it seems to me. But the kicking out of ambassadors is something that the Venezuelans did in solidarity with the Bolivians, actually. And it seems to me that it's -- the ball is in their court to try to fix that issue if we're going to have real dialogue.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I'm sorry, what?
Q Is it the President's intention to actually read the book that was offered by Mr. Chavez? And I have another one on Cuba.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: The President is a very well-read man; I don’t know what his reading list is, though.
ON CUBA:
Q When you say -- when you say the President wants dialogue, do you think the President might go to Cuba soon to speak with the Cubans?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: No. There was absolutely no discussion of that.
Q Did the discussion get past kind of microphone rhetoric -- did anybody bring an actual message from Cuba?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: No.
Q And on Cuba, the President has said for some time that Cuba has to take concrete steps for the U.S. to engage more with Cuba. Does that position still stand, that Cuba has to take those additional steps or concrete steps?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Look, I think what we are is at a beginning, an initiation of a new process. The President has been clear that our goals are to see a democratic Cuba. He's also been clear that there are many issues that we have that we could discuss with Cuba -- human rights being one of them -- but there are other issues that relate to just the nature of a relationship between two countries in the same hemisphere. Migration, for instance, is a big issue that I don=t believe we've had recent talks with Cuba about.
So, no, there's no concrete benchmarks that have been laid out. What we're talking about is a process here.
Q The President has been asking for help to -- the other countries to participate in this process towards Cuba. I would like to know what kind of help can they offer. Do you expect, for example, Brazil to be a mediator, a facilitator, or what kind of support?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: There is no request on the table by the President for any other country to be a mediator.
Q But when he speaks about helping, well, what does he mean?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, I think when he speaks about helping is the concern that we have that we live in a hemisphere of democracies, and for many of the countries, including many of the countries at the table this morning -- although he did not say it this way, I'm not putting words in the President's mouth -- they've lived through periods of dictatorship themselves and have a real understanding of what it means not to have a free press and open discussion and political parties and what have you. And that experience, perhaps, should in some way be reflected in how they deal with another dictatorship.
