"600 words by Esther J. Cepeda"

Se habla Oprah: Spanish-language translation actually ignores Hispanics

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

Oprah Winfrey spoke to "Hispanics" on Monday. This is what she said: "You don’t need to learn English, I’ll tell you what to buy and how to live your life by my tenets in Spanish. And those of you who only watch English-language TV - I don't care about you."

Well, she didn’t actually say that, nor did she actually learn to speak the language of the very people she’s targeting. Instead Harpo Productions, through the magic of Secondary Audio Programming and closed captioning (sponsored by a tortilla-maker, perhaps?) started broadcasting her cult of personality in Spanish in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Houston, and Dallas on Monday.

"With this action we want to serve the largest-growing segment of the population in the country: Hispanics," Angela Depaul, a Harpo Productions, Inc. spokeswoman told a reporter for Hoy, Chicago’s Spanish-language daily newspaper. "With Spanish subtitles, Hispanic viewers will a have a more direct experience with Oprah."

And Oprah gave Spanish-only speakers yet one more reason to not have to learn English to "get along" in this country.

But Oprah’s crack market-research team didn’t do their homework. The fastest-growing segment of the population is overwhelmingly U.S.- born and fluent in English.

And guess what? Despite the breathless banner ads on Oprah.com exclaiming "Finally! Oprah in Spanish!" the kind of women living in the U.S. who don’t speak English are probably not the type who are going to be able to afford the $60 LeMystere bras or $30 Yves Saint Laurent lipsticks that the Queen of Consumerism shills on her show, in her magazine and on her website.

No, that would be me: young, female, affluent, English-speaking, U.S.-born Latinas.

Let’s compare: Oprah’s 7.4 million daily viewers are overwhelmingly female, white, and over the age of 55, according to MSNBC’s Aswini Anburajan. She also reported that Oprah’s reach among the Hispanic population is tiny -- only about 230,000.

Now, will Oprah do the things that would actually make me stomach her show like easing up on pop stars like Ricky Martin, and feature more Hispanic doctors, lawyers, scientists or dieticians in her stable of experts? How about having a touchingly emotional segment on racism against Hispanics? Or just flat out making an effort to have any Latino faces in her hyper-estrogenized audience?

"I can’t comment on that," spokeswoman Depaul told Hoy in answer to a direct question about whether we can expect to see more Latino guests on the Oprah show. "Of course that would be spectacular." Nice save, but I’m not holding my breath.

Oprah has been called the most-successful business woman in History. Is she smart enough to actively and meaningfully tap into the Latino market by truly speaking to a Hispanic audience in a way that reflects and respects them?

Nah. Why should she? No one else does.

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

Two white guys “At the Movies”

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

First off, let me put this out there… I love white people. Half my family (the half that isn’t, by the numbers, even more Filipino than it is Hispanic) is white.

I’m also not the type to go around being all bitter that "da man" is trying to keep me down. But sometimes it sorta, kinda feels like maybe…

Here’s what gets me: Roger Ebert and Rich Roeper walked away from At the Movies and were replaced by...drumroll please… two pasty white guys.

Fine, upstanding, imminently qualified guys, perhaps funny and – to some tastes – attractive guys. But… well… white guys!

It’s 2008 and some black dude is running for president, but the movie review show based in Chicago – which has one of the largest black and Latino populations in America – couldn’t find one single movie writer, reviewer, or blogger "of color" as the kids like to say, to fill one of the seats? Give me a break!

Back when the world was young and movies were no longer the sort of place you got dressed up to go to, Roger Ebert invented the newspaper beat of "Movie critic." And God bless him for doing so, he took what could have been a meritless, fluffy opinion column and created serious scholarly discourse on an important American art form.

In 1982, Rog, along with Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune brought movie criticism into the mainstream with their inimitable TV show Sneak Previews which went onto become At the Movies. About a year after Gene died in 1999, Roger’s fellow Sun-Times columnist became his new balcony-mate. I was thrilled!

Never mind that Rich was totally cool, an awesome writer on many things including –

but not limited to – movies, he had great chemistry. But not only that, Roeper was the final pick after a long slew of many male, female, and diverse "guest hosts" auditioned for over a year. He was the best, no problem – merit-based success is really the only kind that should exist.

I’ll take a side-note here to say I’m sure the show’s producers had a really hard time finding such a diverse array of talent to fill that guest slot. There are very, very few popular minority media people, much less those with cushy entertainment beats…editors generally send black reporters to the South Side and the Latino ones to the local factories to investigate immigration raids. (Yes, that is a true statement.) Let’s face it, people who aren’t white have had a tough time cracking into such elite white-collar positions as "movie critic."

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not just crushing sour grapes here, it’s not like I sent an audition tape, but last week when I read about Ben Mankiewicz and Ben Lyons’ new gigs in Sun-Times columnist Robert Feder’s piece ABC 7 ready to raise curtain on new 'At the Movies' , what could I do but just shake my weary head?

I’ve got nothing against Ben and Ben. Feder called them "both scions of famed show-biz families; Mankiewicz was a host for Turner Classic Movies and Sirius Satellite Radio, and Lyons reported for E! Entertainment," so clearly they’re qualified. But c’mon, only white people get to give their take on talkies?

What about George Singleton? What about some talented blogger? Hey, how’s this: how about a woman – any color’s fine.

Yep, it’s 2008 and women and blacks are not only allowed to vote but they get to do so for someone who looks like them. Good times, in perspective.

But though I don’t think there’s some anti-minority media bias, sadly, there seems to be a terrible confluence of managerial blind spots and lack of imagination and – even worse – a lack of opportunity for writers who aren’t white.

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

Melendez made Snoopy dance and sing

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

If Charles M. Schulz gave birth to the inimitable beagle Snoopy, it was Bill Melendez who gave him his strut, his voice, and ultimately his spirit.

The "happy dance," the way his floppy black ears moved when he was being sneaky, the look on his face when sailing through the skies of his own imagination as the Red Baron; the furrow of his dog brow as he tapped out "It was a dark and stormy night" on his roof-top typewriter – they were all due to Melendez' deft hand at animating the Peanuts characters.

Melendez died of natural causes a few days ago at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California at the ripe old age of 91. I read his obituary in several different places, thrilled to death that none of the headlines I saw said anything about him being "Latino."

That would have been incorrect, as I quickly learned, because he wasn't Hispanic, he was Mexican. It turned out Bill Melendez was one of those success stories that, happily, went untold because his nativity, professional struggles, and barrier-breaking were completely overshadowed by his talent and his incredible success.

Born Jose Cuauhtemoc Melendez in Hermosillo, Mexico on Nov. 15, 1916, he moved to Douglas, Ariz., in 1928, and later to Los Angeles, where he started drawing as a child, according to the Washington Post.

The New York Times mentioned in their obituary: "One of the very few Hispanics in the business when he began his career in the 1930s, Mr. Melendez was the only animator Mr. Schulz allowed to shepherd his characters onto the screen. He did so in more than four dozen TV specials, four feature films, a slew of Saturday-morning cartoons and scores of commercials."

I won't reprint Mr. Melendez' long, long list of incredible accomplishments, but will highlight what some would shake their heads in disappointment as "go along to get along" and I find admirable and the perfect example of another great American immigrant story: he let his name be changed.

As the story goes, as a twelve-year-old he was put into a kindergarden class because of his inability to speak English fluently – a great humiliation, according to his son Steven Melendez' comments to the New York Times. He learned the language in a flash, even as he started honing his skills by drawing everything in sight. After making his opportunity to crack into Disney in 1938 – a mere seven years after Mexican children had been turned away from Lemon Grove Middle School, leading to the first successful school desegregation court decision in the history of the United States – he went to work helping to animate "Fantasia" and "Pinocchio"

When it was time to be credited on-screen, Melendez' ultra-Aztec moniker was dumped. Disney said "Cuauhtémoc Melendez" was too wide for the credits and they informed him he would hereafter be known as Bill.

Living, as we do, in a time of political correctness and respect for diversity, it's almost unbearable to imagine having to change one's name for work – whether it because it's "too long" or, frankly, just too ethnic. But those were different times, and Bill must have imagined himself bigger than his given name, and willing to leave it behind. He was right.

A true Mexican through and through, though, he wound up leaving Disney after a strike he helped organize! From there he formed his own studio and then took up with Schulz, who died eight years ago.

Melendez went on to change the world through his work on the internationally-adored animated Peanuts specials like "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and, my favorite, "Snoopy, Come Home." One little-known fact is that Snoopy's voice, often heard when the pup's ire was up, was actually voice track Melendez made by talking into a tape recorder then playing it back at a faster speed.

The Mexican boy who had been put into a kindergarden class to learn English grew up to become the animator and voice of one of America's favorite dogs. That's a perfect American story.

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 next extinct species: the Latino journalist

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

UNITY 08, the quadrennial gathering of the National Associations of Asian American, Black, Native American and Hispanic journalists, hits Chicago this week surrounded by wall-to-wall bad news about minorities and the media.

Never mind that the headline duo of McCain-Obama let the UNITY planners down by flaking out of the main-draw debate because of international travel schedules – Obama eventually decided to make nice by dropping by Sunday morning – it’s a shock there are enough employed journalists of color left to even have a convention!

Hardly a day passes when you don’t hear about some major newsroom losing hundreds of journalists due to a newspaper industry collapse resulting from advertisers spending what little money they have on the internet and not on the dead trees that consumers under 35 shun like the plague.

What you don’t hear about is that the hard-fought gains in newsroom diversity that were made throughout the last three decades are being flushed down the toilet by the common "last-in, first-out" practices. "Seniority policies" are shutting what few journalists of color there are out of major American newsrooms, I was one of them.

In January of this year when the Chicago Sun-Times let go dozens of journalists, I made headlines (visit my Press Room and read from the bottom up) by being let go even though I was Chicago’s only Hispanic metro columnist and the newsroom’s only Latino reporter. With no seniority on a roster that included people who had been there for over twenty years, I was out on my can despite the fact there are 1.7 million Latinos in the six-county Chicago metro region and the number grows every day.

You’d think the same editors and station managers who complain they can’t get new audiences would add Hispanic journalists to their line-ups. But no, they’re usually the first to go. Just in the last six months Chicago’s CBS affiliate WBBM-Channel 2 lost Antonio Mora – its’ first Latino anchor – and let go Rafael Romo, a Latino TV reporter. The Chicago Sun-Times waved bye-bye to me and Guillermo Munroe, a gifted artist who was the staff illustrator. Chicago Tribune Managing Editor George DeLama just stepped down after having ushered in an era of rich diversity in the paper’s pages that took it from being a singularly white paper to offering in-depth coverage of all of Chicago’s multi-colored communities. The Trib is back to having no Hispanic leadership.

Even two years ago things weren’t looking so great, a report from the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) found the percentage of Hispanic journalists employed in the nation’s English-language newsrooms declined slightly in 2006 from the year before for the first time in 29 years that ASNE had been keeping track. Way back then – when things were much rosier – the expected date for American newsrooms to reflect the U.S population was 2025. I’m guessing today it’s looking like 2080, not that any major media outlets are taking notice.

Brandon A. Benavides, Region 6 Director of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and News Producer for KSTP-TV/5 Eyewitness News in Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN has been keeping NAHJ members informed of the carnage with seemingly daily emails detailing the fallen.

"Nearly a dozen NAHJ members were laid off this year," Benavides told me in an email last week. "The layoffs affected print and broadcast journalists just entering the field and veterans. This is devastating news as a journalist of color."

Gary Pina, a 52-year-old page designer with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram with 23 years in the biz had his position eliminated last month. He told me, "I was shocked when I was told I was being laid off. I didn't think it would happen to me. On our design desk, there's four or five of us over 50, and I'm the youngest. I was also the only Hispanic on the design desk. ... I was expecting to receive an envelope with the buyout option like everybody else, but instead, I got a bigger envelope telling me my position was eliminated. I couldn't believe it. I've seen two young Hispanics, both in their early 20s, lose their jobs because of the last in-first out concept."

He’s not mad or bitter. But like me – and like all people of color who are concerned that negative or limited portrayal of minorities in the media feed racial stereotypes such as reported in a recent University of Illinois study – he worries about what this means for America’s view of the society we live in.

"At the moment, I think diversity has been thrown out the window in newsrooms across the country. This is now a business, and the company has to make money. I've been told that the Star-Telegram makes money, and is one of the top producers in the McClatchy chain, but apparently we aren't making enough.  I only hope that they consider keeping as diverse staff as possible when they are making their cuts."

"News is news," Gary continued, "our stories will be told if it's newsworthy, and if there's space to do it. The stories will likely be shorter, and probably won't appear as often as they should. And they may not be told by Hispanic reporters."

I’m not as optimistic as Gary. Those are too many "ifs" for the fastest growing segment of the population – and the rest of the people who live alongside them.

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

Amy Jacobson Redux

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

It takes a lot of guts to relive a humiliating – and very public – professional embarrassment. But, hey, Amy Jacobson has got guts in spades.

I was in a Chicago newsroom one year ago when the story broke of how Amy Jacobson came to be suspended from WMAQ-5 in Chicago after she was caught on tape at the home of presumed-killer Craig Stebic in a bikini, and I can tell you the comments and snickers from both male and female journalists were both highly sexist and vilely cruel – and this was before anyone had even asked for Amy’s side of the story.

According to Jacobson, then a popular reporter who’d been with WMAQ-5 in Chicago for ten years, she had been on her way to the East Bank Club for a swim date with her two little kids when she got a call from Craig Stebic's sister inviting her –and her kids – over to the house to talk.

On July 10, 2007, a few days after CBS-affiliate/rival station WBBM-Ch. 2 aired video of her in a bikini top with a towel around her waist at the Stebic home – where perky suburban mom Lisa Stebic had lived with her two kids and presumed-guilty husband until her April 2007 disappearance – she got fired from WMAQ-Ch. 5.

This week Jacobson filed suit against Channel 2, seeking more than $1 million in damages – and some vestige of her professional dignity – for portraying her as "’an adulteress and disreputable reporter.’" According to Jacobson, her reputation was tarred and feathered such that even though a year has passed she hasn’t been able to get a comparable job in a comparable media market and had to sell her house and move her family into a small apartment. They’ve already said the suit has no merit.

How Channel 2 got the video was never made public and Amy’s side of the story was literally laughed off by both media people and Chicago viewers. Not only was she made the butt of countless tasteless jokes, but she was highly criticized for not exercising "better judgment" though she did what most reporters would have done.

It’s a jungle out there in the media world. Even a year ago the journalism career path was a fool’s errand, and the adage that you’re only as good as your last top story or front page piece will never die. What they don’t teach you in Journalism school, however, is that no one cares how you get that story.

Good judgment? Journalists are not trained to exercise good judgment, they are conditioned to squeal "how high" when editors say "jump," and even when they aren’t blessed with the obedience gene, they instinctively run toward the gunshots, toward the burning building, and toward the lunatics. And if the family member of the summer’s hottest wife-murderer story happens to call and you might get the scoop of the city YOU RUN.

After hours or on your day off? Of course! In a bikini? You grab a towel. With your kids? Hmmmm…are there other kids there? According to Jacobson, she was told she was walking into a family get-together and decided it was probably ok, little did she know she was the one in danger.

And now, she’s living the nightmare over in a quest to clear her name, and she should get a medal for courage in the line of fire.

There’s no question in my mind that if any of the lead reporters on the ex-cop Drew Peterson story were called by a family member with the promise of a break in his young wife Stacy Peterson’s disappearance case, they’d be on it like white on rice under any given circumstance, and no one would bat an eye – such are the pressures to drive a news story that reporters are under these days.

But if you happen to have a pretty face attached to a hard-nosed reporter’s brain it seems there’s a double standard that opens you up to every dirty insinuation in the book.

Bravo to Amy for sticking up for herself, even if she loses the lawsuit, she’s won her integrity. No, scratch that – she never lost it to begin with.

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

Men are from Mars, Women are from Shoe-piter

"600 Words" by Esther J. Cepeda

The most recent pop-culture phenomenon uninteresting to anyone possessing what Shakespeare referred to as a "bauble" in Romeo and Juliet (read between the loins!) is the chick flick Sex and the City – aka an extended advertisement for shoes.

Frankly, I can't conceive of any shoe that would make S&tC worth sitting through, but it does bring up the question: "what is it with women and shoes?!"

It seems inexplicable – I don’t know any men who give a rat’s ass about what a woman has on her feet. The way I hear it, the male glance usually doesn’t get that far in the few moments he has to adequately check a woman out.

Sit and learn, grasshoppas, I shall clue you in to the truth behind the shoe fetish: women don’t wear nice shoes to impress men, or convey their sexuality or personality to men- they do it to convey all those things to other women. "I’m sexy, I have it all together, I’m professional, I have impeccable taste, I may be older but I’m still flirty," or as the Abercrombie and Fitch t-shirts used to say: "Hotter Than Your Girlfriend."

It's the wrath of the garden-variety amateur fashionista that instills fear into women dressing for the office, a club, and even grocery shopping. As little girls this same lot might have gone for the jugular with: "You look funny. I don’t like your clothes. You’re ugly!" The grown-up equivalent of these daggers to the heart is quietly whispered to a female co-conspirator, intoned perfectly so that the comment will be sure to be heard by its intended victim: "Oh my God, will you look at her shoes?!"

On the flip side, the ultimate compliment women give each other is comprised of four little words: "I love your shoes."

But there's more! The varying degree of admiration is all in the delivery. Train your ears for these:

"I love your shoes" conveys a conspiratorial, rushing-to-the-defense-of-a-sister benevolence.

"I love your shoes" is a breathless testament to the coolness of the wearer, or could be more a statement that the wearer has met certain standards of taste where others usually fail.

"I love your shoes" is the natural reciprocation of female adulation and in some circles is considered a requirement before any conversation is allowed to continue. Lack of reciprocation in such situations could be grounds for at least a minor blow up.

‘I love your shoes" puts the focus on the shoes themselves and suggests that they, and not the wearer, deserve the credit for delivering themselves to said wearer thereby elevating her appearance for the day to a higher level. This is not the warmest incarnation.

Let us not forget the show stopper: delivered at ear-busting decibels, designed to shock your target and turn every head within a 12 foot radius. This visceral, primal scream of adoration for both wearer and shoes is articulated very slowly "I-LOVE-YOUR-SHOES!"

There’s your money shot, that’s the one you deliver at the second job interview, the one that goes out to your future mother-in-law, the one you give a cranky manager when every other attempt to cut ahead in line has failed and your crying baby won’t shut up.

Sometimes the show stopper can be truly honest and come as a complete surprise to both wearer and witnesser. Even I'll admit to spotting shoes so sumptuous, so beautiful, and so desirable that I've exploded with the simultaneous emotions of pure aesthetic delight, deep longing for a pair just like it, and stinging green envy that the wearer has them, you don’t and now it’ll be really lame to go out and buy the same exact pair. Drat!

The "great knowledge/great responsibility" part: Ladies, use this wisdom for good, not evil.

And gentlemen: observe and take note. But unless you want the female in question to suspect strongly you are gay – by the way, this will be the de facto assumption if you're at a screening of S&tC without having been dragged kicking and screaming by your girlfriend – limit the sharing of these secrets to your buddies.

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

I'm not a terrorist

“Pregunta del Dia” by Esther J. Cepeda

“Pregunta del Dia” translates from Spanish into Question of the Day and today’s was delivered at 12:15 am this morning at the McDonald’s inside Chicago Union Station by a seemingly stone-cold-sober Cubs fan catching a snack before boarding a Metra train out to the ‘burbs.

After the blond-haired, blue-eyed young man let loose a string of vile expletives to his eating companions, then caught my icy glare for polluting our communal space with his negativity, he retaliated against my silent protest of his rude behavior by asking me the following:

Q. Do you have fun blowing up buildings, you ------- terrorist? Huh? You heard me, you ------- ---- terrorist!

A. How to reply?

My mouth dropped open and I smiled, 100% sure he was kidding. His mocking face followed by another string of even worse garbage set me straight.

I tried to lighten the mood with the platitude: “Would you talk like that in front of your mother?” Things devolved from there and after he reiterated today’s “pregunta,” with various vivid details added, my loud indignation had attracted one of Chicago’s finest who directed him and his posse to leave the station.

Let me back up. Twenty-four hours prior to the incident, I had decided to write for Friday about the ridiculous accusations made about Food Network star Rachel Ray’s Dunkin’ Donuts commercial being taken off the air. Conservative Filipina columnist Michelle Malkin, and other bloggers, said Rachel’s scarf looked like a keffiyeh reminiscent of those that some Middle Easterners wear. Malkin has dropped bombs like this on America’s dark-haired sweetheart over the last week: “many readers have e-mailed about, Dunkin Donuts’ spokeswoman Rachel Ray’s clueless sporting of a jihadi chic keffiyeh in a recent DD ad campaign. I’m hoping her hate couture choice was spurred more by ignorance than ideology.” Apparently Rachel would be a lot sweeter if her costume designer was less flamboyant.

Early Thursday I’d started my day at the Chicago Google offices munching on bagels with some of the smartest innovators in the world and brightest young business people in town at the Executives Club of Chicago’s New Leaders general meeting.

A few hours later I lunched at a fancy downtown restaurant with the leader of a multi-million dollar business. Later I hopped into a cab – the driver had greeted me warmly in a language I didn’t understand because he mistook me for a fellow Indian – on my way to a lecture at the Arts and Business Council of Chicago’s “Rise of the Cultural Consumer” program at the Alliance Française where I learned about the bright future of our society. I topped the night off with not one, but two, fancy parties with some of Chicago’s most influential young professionals. Shortly after midnight I was attacked because I quietly resisted someone’s foul language with a disapproving look.

For the first time in my Cinderella-story-book life, I was simply one of so many others who are looked at with suspicion because of the color of their hair, eyes, and skin. I was shamed in front of an instantly-alarmed crowd at a major Midwestern transportation hub by a dangerous federally-defined insult.

Informing my fellow midnight-snacker that I was born in the United States as I gathered my things – and as the policewoman started getting heavy on him – probably went unheard. Besides, I was too busy scurrying away to cry out of sight to enunciate properly.

Here’s my answer again: On behalf of myself, of good-lookin’-and-good-cookin’ multi-millionairess Rachel Ray, and on behalf of every other person in this country with dark hair, dark eyes, but no dark intentions: I am not a terrorist.

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

John Lennon was no William Shatner

by Esther J. Cepeda

"Pregunta del Dia" translates to Question of the Day and today’s is a rumination from myself (I can do that y’know)

Q. Is Star Trek "God" and is William Shatner "Jesus?"

A. Yes you read that correctly, and no, I did not mean is Captain James T. Kirk "Jesus."

Allow me to set the dots and then I’ll connect them for you.

No, I’m not a heretic, it’s just that coincidences (events that coincide i.e., correspond exactly) this week have led me to wonder.

Not only did William Shatner, hereby referred to only as SHATNER, appear to me in the form of a direct mail piece sprung on me late at night in a tired stupor and as a four-color animatron as I purchased on-line, but so did "Star Trek"(which I hated, hated, hated as a child because it was boring to me and seemed to be always on TV on my lonely Saturday afternoons). This flowed from the mouths of two people I admire greatly within 24-hours of each other.

Thursday morning – at the top of the world – on the 66th floor of the Sears Tower in Chicago, John W. Rowe, 62, chairman and chief executive officer of Exelon Corporation at a meeting of the Executives Club of Chicago, talked about reducing carbon emissions by 2020 and invoked a Star Trek episode in which some-thing-or-other tried to eradicate the carbon-based life forms.

Friday morning Neil Steinberg, Chicago Sun-Times columnist, wrote about ex-Gov. George Ryan mis-quoting Lincoln by actually quoting someone who was playing Abraham Lincoln in an episode of…you guessed it.

The other obvious contender for such mythical status is "Star Wars" and its’ "force," (another pop-culture phenomenon I know nothing about) which is openly practiced as a multi-lingual, multi-cultural religion in some corners of the world, but: 1) Darth Vader doesn’t actually walk among us (James Earl Jones isn’t nearly that tall or intimidating) like SHATNER. And 2) SHATNER is, well…SHATNER!

How a show that accurately predicted the future -- today's realities -- and how Shatner can become one man-character-god, infused into my life in a billion different ways (my freshman AP biology teacher made our final "A nature example of the Prime Directive." I had no idea whatsoever what that even meant. I can’t believe I slid out with a "C.") is beyond comprehension. John Lennon once got himself in hot water for comparing his fame to Jesus. SHATNER has legions doing it for him (Oh yeah, just Google it).

I surrender. I have no answer to whether SHATNER is "the savior" but I’m going to paint him as the Virgin Guadalupe on black velvet just in case.

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

Loving Lorena

"600 Words" by Esther J. Cepeda

Like Roosevelt Hicks longing for the same respect in business he finally got on the links of Pittsburgh in August Wilson’s play Radio Golf, I longed to roam the back nine.

Not as a pro, nah, just good enough to go out on a Saturday with rich white people and not make a fool of myself.

To me, like to many others, getting out on the green was the ultimate symbol of "making it." Never mind the satisfaction waltzing into private clubs previously closed off to women and minorities – the passage of time mostly took care of that – to me, gaining access to the venue of big money deals and long-lasting partnerships was the important part. I knew the very fabric of American business was forged out in the sun somewhere between the fifth and the twelfth hole, and I wanted in.

Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. Immediately after Tiger made golf accessible to just about anyone – heck if a "Cablinasian" could become a golf rock star, what would stop me from donning the silly shorts? – and I’d finally bought a set of golf clubs, fate stepped in. I shattered my wrist, and summer of 2004 passed without me making it to the driving range.

Leave it to me to be a Juana-come-lately.

It’s not enough that one of the top golfers in the world is a tiny woman who, as a child, fell and broke both wrists but somehow emerged with magical carpals. Not enough that this young Lorena Ochoa – all of 26 and just won the Sybase Classic for the third straight year on Sunday – is an international superstar and a national hero in Mexico. Yes, that country where the only white ball that gets around grass is made of leather and aimed at a net, and the only multi-millionaires golf.

Nope, my moment has passed because golf is on the outs.

In towns all over America dilapidated golf courses are being turned over to suburban mommies and their energetic broods who need a place to kick soccer balls between snacks. And just in time. After all, modern man is too devoted to family to spend endless hours perfecting his double-cross on an ocean of chemically treated, water-hogging, ecologically abominable turf. What sort of monster leaves his (or her) family at home and drives his SUV out to the suburbs to walk on sublime eco-terror? And in these economic times, who can afford it?

Not me and not a lot of people. According to the National Golf Foundation and the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association the total number of people who play has declined or remained flat each year since 2000, dropping to about 26 million from 30 million. The number who play 25 times a year or more fell about a third to 4.6 million in 2005 from 6.9 million in 2000, and those tee-ing up eight or more times a year is slipping as well. In my neck of the woods angry words and white, dimpled insults are being driven home as park districts struggle to placate residents fighting over what to do with thirsty, decaying golf courses.

It all adds up to me not discovering whether my wrist’s metal plate would help my fade. Never will I get to know my bogeys from my birdies, or my shambles from my scrambles. Seal a big money deal while swinging through the sweet spot? Not meant to be.

Farewell to my fairway fantasies, the great game shall never be mine. I guess I’ll just have to live out my golf glory on TV through the great Lorena. Not the same as mulligan-ing with money men, but it’ll do.

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

“We’re on a mission from God”

“Pregunta del Dia” translates into “Question of the Day,” and today’s question is from a young woman who preferred to remain nameless:

Q. Why are you doing this?

A. Like Jake and Elwood Blues, I’m on a mission.

Set aside Spanish-language media, Major League Baseball, Jennifer Lopez, Ugly Betty and George Lopez.

Do you watch news on TV? Ever looked on the op-ed pages of major American newspapers? Or watched political shows Sunday morning? Or checked out the covers of best-selling books at Borders? Take note: there’s a whole lot of white, and a good amount of black. But the brown barely exists.

When the whole “Will Barack Obama capture the Latino vote?” issue was hot, how many Latino op-ed contributors did you read in the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times? How many Hispanics did you see opining on “Meet the Press” or “Real Time?”

There are 45.5 million of us, according to the newest U.S. Census data – 15% of the population, projected to be 30% by 2050 – but we’re still largely invisible in the mainstream media. Do you think “The View” could get away with not having a black woman (or two?), how about any other major network entertainment or news show? Not happenin’, but there seems to be no problem with the stunning lack of brown.

Any idea how the “last in, first out” hiring/firing policies at major American newsrooms are affecting the historically low number of Hispanic journalists working in English-language media – most of whom are relegated to the status of “Hispanic/Immigration reporter,” few of whom ever decide what is considered “news?” Not pretty.

Is there any wonder that the overwhelming majority of news stories about Hispanics almost always paint us all out to be immigrants (possibly illegal at that), criminals, or – even worse – victims? The few “positive” news stories talk about our consumer buying power, and projected voting power (though that tide is turning).

I could go on, but I’d rather just spring into action. The internet and self-publishing are not the wave of the future, they are the reality of today. Rather than try to get a foothold on the traditional  media structures, I’m doing my own thing on the internet were all the cool kids hang, writing about everything and anything whether it’s “Hispanic” or not – just ‘cause I can.

Hope you’ll hang with me.

Post your comments on http://www.pregunta-del-dia.com and visit “600words.com” to read this week’s columns.

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