Blogging Session for Immigrant Youth

David Cho was one of four immigrant youth I worked with this morning.

I had a terrific time this morning teaching a 90-minute session about finding one’s voice and blogging to four immigrant youth at the Korean American Resource Center.

It was a talented group who was in Chicago for the weekend courtesy of National Korean American Service & Education Consortium, or NAKASEC, whose communications director Jane Yoo was responsible for inviting me to the session.

David Cho, a graduate student from UCLA who was the first Korean to be the drum major for the school’s football team, has already spoken at national conferences about his desire to have the Dream Act passed.

In addition to being mentioned in speeches by Sen. Dick Durbin, David issued a passionate call for youth engagement and political change in this four-minute clip.

As you can hear, David consciously wove in elements of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech-at different points in the speech he urges us to “rededicate ourselves” and talks about Arizona “sweltering with the heat of oppression”-with his family’s journey from South Korea to the United States.

He also shares in the speech that he and his family members are undocumented.

During the session David also pointed us to Yolitical, the blog of his sister, Shine Cho.

I don’t know about you, but I found it hard to believe that she is just 13 years old.

Pushing for the rights of the undocumented is an important cause for Josh Joh-Jung, a classmate of Aidan’s at Evanston Township High School who marched in Washington, D.C. last fall to advance that issue.

In this piece about that march, he writes convincingly about the need for a “better” immigrant coalition that more fully includes Asian and Asian-American members.

For her part, Joyce Yin argued in one of her previous posts that the Midwest’s Asian-American population has also received short shrift.  In the piece, she uses a brief interaction on Twitter as the starting point to explore the history, current state and future direction of the community within the region.

She also states her commitment to stay here and do the hard work of community building.

Finally, Chris Ly a freshman who is involved in an organization in Georgia, talked about how he sifts and weighs different perspectives in the process of arriving at his own opinions.

All in all, an impressive group with plenty to offer.  As in many teaching situations, I left feeling that I had received more than I had given.

I look forward to following their work.

Gas prices: where are we heading?

Nevada is one of the 15 states hit hardest by the gas price spike. Where are we headed?

The price of gas has been all over the news this week.

Here in Chicago, came the milestone that, at more than $4.00 per gallon, the city had the highest price of any city in the nation.

At Hoy, in an analysis of Census data that will run tomorrow, we found that 72 percent of Latinos drove to work in 2009-the highest figure among white, black, Asian and Hispanic drivers in the city.

The citywide figure was 61 percent, just to give you a framework.

President Obama has tried to staunch the political bleeding that has come his way from this issue by calling for Congress to take immediate action to deal with the issue.  Talking Points Memo wrote about alternative fuels, The Washington Post talked with disgruntled drivers and  Marathon Pundit covered a growing trend of gas siphoning in California.

Meanwhile, our editor Fernando dug up a 2005 GAO report about the factors that influence the retail price of gas.

While I have very much enjoyed previous GAO reports, this one was a tad on the elementary side that was heavy on talk about state and federal taxes on low on a central element in the equation: the seeming insatiable avarice of oil owners for the inky liquid Daniel Yergin aptly called the prize.

In keeping with yesterday’s infographic theme, I’d like to share this piece from Business Insider that neatly illustrates both the price spike in the 15 states hit hardest as well as how the nation’s drivers, myself included, still pay relatively low rates compared to the rest of the world.

Where are we headed with this?  Will the increased prices truly lead to changed behavior?  What about the whole of peak oil?

E-book publication according to Visual Link

So I’m going to try something different today: to add an infographic.

This one is about a subject that is very close to my heart: the publication of books.

This particular graphic is from Visual Loop and is about the publication of a growing genre of work, e-books.

It’s a pretty comprehensive look at the subject, delivered in a different way than my standard blog post.

Please let me know what you think.

Thanks.

VisuaLoop

Judy Atkinson quotes Ian Bland

I've continued to learn from Judy Atkinson, aboriginal healer.

I wrote last year about Judy Atkinson, the aboriginal healer who I met in Orvieto, Italy at the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma.

Judy shared a lot about her community in large and small group settings during the two weeks, and I consider myself fortunate to have continued to benefit from her knowledge and wisdom in the months since we left in late November.

I have seen connections between journalism and mental health treatment many times during the conversations we in the course have had about how to interact respectfully and to help stimulate healing in and for others.

Feeling under the weather. Back tomorrow.

Cuba’s “Transition,” Humberto Solas’ films.

Fidel Castro appeared last week in public for the first time in five years

The much ballyhooed appearance in public last week of Fidel Castro for the first time in five years may have made an impression, but his brother Raul’s promise to rejuvenate the party fell flat when he appointed an 80-year-old.

It’s been more than half a century since Fidel and his band of revolutionaries rode into Havana, ending the regime of American-supported Fulgencio Batista and setting up a Communist regime just 90 miles from the United States.

The euphoria and passionate idealism of equality and non-racialism many felt at toppling Batista quickly ended as Castro moved in a highly authoritarian direction, forcing many families to flee the island they had loved ardently.

Cuban filmmaker Humberto Solas examines Cuba’s history of race-based slavery and deeply entrenched aristocracy, the decades before Castro’s rise to power and the wrenchingly painful separations in three of his films.

Cecilia explores the history of race, hearkening back to the African culture that is an integral part of Cuban society.  In the film, he also probes the issue of mixed race and the pretentious dances and mating that occurred.  It is an honest if not uplifting view.

A Man of Success chronicles the history of two brothers from the early 1930s to Castro’s triumphant entry into Havana.  One of the brothers retains his political purity and commitment, and thus appears a heroic martyr to the cause.  The other emerges as  a cynical and calculating Andrei Gromyko-type figure.

Neither has a particularly joyful ending.

Unsurprisingly, this project, with its positive conclusion for Castro, won the Grand Prize at a Cuban film festival in 1986.

In Honey for Oshun, Roberto is a literature professor from Miami forcibly removed from his native land in the early years of the Castro regime.  After wondering for 32 years why his mother never came for him, he returns after his father’s death to find out the truth, and, on some level, to exorcise his demons.

Solas is not a subtle storyteller, and the acting often feels more than a bit wooden.  Nonetheless, for aspiring Spanish speakers and those looking to more about the beautiful island’s often tortured history, these films can do the trick.

Gun owners as Holocaust victims. Really.

Oh, brother.

I’ve been writing since 2009 about the inappropriate use of Holocaust imagery, largely focusing on the comparisons between Adolf Hitler and Barack Obama.

These images have come up time and time again.

In today’s Chicago Sun-Times, on the same day that The New York Times had a thoughtful review of Illinois’ Holocaust Museum in Skokie, I saw a new and, in some ways, at least as troubling twist:

Gun owners as Holocaust victims.

It’s true.

Downstate Illinois gun advocates have portrayed themselves as having to wear a Jewish star, similar to Jewish people first in Germany, and eventually throughout Europe, during the Nazis’ insidious and ultimately genocidal reign of terror from the early 1930s until their defeat in 1945.

According to the Sun-Times,

In its April issue of GunNews, the gun-rights group has a bold headline titled “Madigan’s list” in an apparent play off the movie, “Schindler’s List.” And below that is a graphic showing the Israeli flag with the phrase, “Armed, people fly their colors,” next to the gold Star of David with the phrase, “Disarmed, victims wear them.”

In another disturbing irony, John Boch, the head of the group sponsoring the ad, criticized State Senator Ira Silverstein for objecting to it:

“What is offensive is people wielding the victimhood card against others and trying to intimidate others out of their First Amendment rights. Sen. Silverstein ought to be thanking us for our advocacy of his First and Second Amendment rights, not whining and crying that he feels offended,” Boch said. “He doesn’t have a copyright on Holocaust imagery.”

Let’s look at this.

There is no legal definition of gun owners as a lower group of people.

There is no effort to have gun owners live in a separate designated section of the state.

There is no ultimate plan to take gun owners’ property, to have gun owners shipped off to camps and to attempt to kill one, let alone all of them.

And on and on and on.

It is true that the gun owners are, as Mr. Boch suggests in his derisive comment, within their rights to use Holocaust imagery. Neither survivors nor family members nor anyone else has a monopoly on drawing on the horrific experiences to learn, to reflect and to even use as creative inspiration.

For me, it’s the crass and so wildly inappropriate use of the Jewish star for overtly political purposes, followed by the aggressive critique of those who find it objectionable, that’s so troubling to me.

How about you? Is this a legitimate exercise of First and Second Amendment Rights? Is this yet another example of distorting one of history’s worst events for political purposes? What will happen when the survivors are gone?

RIP, Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros

Tim Hetherington

Chris Hondros

Photojournalists Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros were killed yesterday in Libya.

Although I did not have the privilege of knowing either of these men, many in the Dart Society did.  Deirdre Stoelzle Graves, our executive director, communicated with Chris while he was in Libya just days ago: he was planning to donate a print to our May 12 fundraiser in New York City that will feature Gloria Steinem and Jonathan Alter and highlight many photographers’ work.

It takes a special kind of fortitude and dedication to go to the world’s most dangerous places over and over again and document what is happening there so that the world can see.

As Frank Ochberg has noted, at times journalists do this work not because there is a prospect of change, but simply so that there is some record of what happened there, so that humanity can know and confront evidence of what we can do to each other.

As a writer and “word person,” I of course love reading people’s accounts of what has taken place.  And my brother Jon and his band of photographic friends and colleagues have steadily, over the past 15 years, helped to expand my understanding and appreciation of the unique contribution photography can make to recording historic events and telling meaningful stories.

Our condolences go out to Tim and Chris’ families.  Many in the Dart and journalism communities around the world are hurting today, as, unfortunately, these events are happening all too often, due to a combination of global social upheaval and a seeming increased disregard for journalists’ safety.

Strange Days Indeed, Part II

A Republican official in California sent this image of President Obama in an email. Ouch.

Lest anyone think we are in a post-racial and post-partisan era in this country, I give you the following:

Potential Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, after raising the birther issue-a position about which Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer today vetoed legislation-recently said that Obama’s 2008 victory was due to “the blacks.”

This came right around the time a Republican official Marilyn Davenport  in California brought the two issues together by posting a picture of the president resembling a young chimpanzee, saying that this explained why he has no birth certificate.

She later apologized and said she was not a racist.

Happy Passover, People!

Tonight marked the beginning of Passover.

The story of the Exodus has always been particularly meaningful to Dad, who, I believe, connected on a profound level with the tale of our people being lead from slavery to freedom.

Our passover celebrations have taken different forms over the years.

One at Mom’s house shortly after her accident we called the ‘sushi seder’ because of the prodigious amounts of raw fish she bought from a local vendor.

Another at Jack Weinstein’s home in California had the shortest seder I’ve ever attended.  To wit, “They tried to kill us.

They didn’t succeed.

Let’s eat.”

Tonight we were at dear friend Cheryl and Eddie’s house for yet another warm evening filled with a brisk seder ably led by Stewart Flack, Cheryl’s brother, an extended version of Dayenu, and an utterly delicious feast of matzah ball soup, chicken with olives and plums, eggplant and cucumbers salads, popovers and asparagus.

We of course washed the food down with wine and Cheryl and Stewart’s grandfather’s favorite brandy.

Each year I reflect on a different aspect of Passover.

Tonight it was about the need each year to renew the story, to reflect on it again and to discover in it the importance of ritual through repetition and seeing just a slightly different slice of the meaning of freedom each year.

We are fortunate.

Now onto the week of eating matzah and, this weekend, making matzah ball soup with the same recipe Grandma Hilda used when Dad was growing up.

Now comes