Et Tu Flu?

Every time some new super bug or other pathogen rears its ugly head in the news, I think about the now forgotten Spanish Flu pandemic that hit the world at the turn of the 20th century.  Reading about it when I was kid, the Spanish Flu burned a place among my neurons for all time not only because it killed somewhere between 20 and 100 million people worldwide, but also because I hated the fact that it was called the Spanish flu.  Why couldn’t it be German or English?  Initially, España got the worst of the casualties (around 8 million); so, the whole world was looking to it as ground zero for the epidemic.  Ironically, most scientists now believe that the bug started in Kansas.  

In any case, the name stuck. I can’t say definitively that Americans were quick to call this negative creature Spanish.  I can’t say they were also quick to characterize the 1957 Asian flu pandemic or the 1968 Hong Kong Flu as Asian..   I can only say that life must have sucked if you were Spanish or Asian in those days.  

So now we have the Swine Flu which may or may not have originated in Mexico and may or may not have been caused by the US corporation, Smithfield.  I won’t say that I am not scared as hell, but I am ECSTATIC that no one is yet calling it the Mexican Flu!

But I wonder: did that guy in the elevator with me this morning cover his face with his jacket because he was cold?

Are Segregated Schools Inferior or am I a Snob?

Click on the photo to the right to enlarge.  Image of the Wilson “Mexican School” class of 1934 courtesy of La Raza Lawyers of California

My sister recently became another casualty of the economic recession.  She and her husband just could not keep up with their adjustable rate mortgage that had skyrocketed to over $4500 a month.  Of course, a lot of people—including me—told her not to get in over her head.  But ultimately the smooth talk of her mortgage broker won out over family and friends.

 By the time my sister had finally accepted that she would have to leave her beautiful home, she only had a few weeks to find a suitable place for her, her husband, her three school-age children, and her two cats.  She found a large, attractive 3-bedroom apartment in Santa Ana, California on the border of Costa Mesa, both in Orange County.  Although it’s a very nice community, my sister hadn’t realized that her children would have to go to some of the worst schools in Orange County (despite being in OC, the schools are below the California average for reading and math and most of the parents dropped out or at best only completed high school). 

In evaluating these schools, I realized that not only did the performance data alarm me but so did the fact that roughly 70% of the kids at my nephew’s new high school would be Latinos.  I asked myself: how could I, a life-long activist, have such a visceral reaction to this fact?  I hate to buy into stereotypes.  And in any case, who am I to say where my sister should send her kids to school?  I don’t have children.  Further, I went to Sierra Vista Middle School and to University High School both in the Irvine Unified School District.  Perhaps I have developed a snooty filter that is causing me to look down on these schools as being somehow not good enough for my nieces and nephew.  I hope that is not the case.  I’d like to think that ever since California’s groundbreaking desegregation case, Mendez v. Westminster School District (1947), we Latino activists have been conscious about segregation and its pernicious effects.  I also have some personal knowledge related to the disparities since I spent two and half years with my Grandparents in the South Central/South Bay area where I attended some of California’s roughest schools (long story) .  But who knows what else is going on?–perhaps that’s for a therapist to figure out!

What I do know is that many Latino and African-American parents who have children in all Black or all Latino schools, have a sense that such schools are inferior.  They know that their schools get fewer resources and generally lower quality teachers.  They also know—as my mother commented recently—that if the school is all Latino or all Black, there is sure to be some violence going on!  

NPR ran a fantastic story today about the increasing segregation of schools in the suburbs of Chicago.  Many of those interviewed, expressed gut-feelings like mine as well as commentary similar to that of my mother.  I don’t have a solution to the segregation problem.  Some of the best minds and organizations have been tackling it for a very long time.  At the end of the day,  I only know that most segregated schools end up being separate and unequal.  So separate and unequal, that the mere thought of a loved-one going to a segregated school can produce feelings of fear and anguish even in the hearts and minds of self-proclaimed activists like me.

Ok, don’t despair, here’s some hope from the Bronx:

The Latino Image

Ok, it’s bad enough for the Latino image that the media are obsessed with the narco-killings in Mexico (so much so that my failure to possess a Heckler & Koch G3 Asault Rifle or equivalent weapon has made me feel less Mexican); but, now the big news is the addition of Daniel Andreas San Diego to the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list.

If you read my blog entries on Latino sovereign militia crazies or Latino consumer fraud, then you know my Weltanschauung has taken a beating lately.  But this Andreas San Diego thing is the last straw.   Tactfully, the media have not pointed out his ethnic persusasion, focusing instead on his animal rights activism and vegan diet (though they did mention that he was thought to be hiding in Costa Rica).  And thankfully they have not yet talked about a Latino wave of domestic terrorism–they haven’t done anything like that since the Zoot Suit era.  But lest you think this is an aberration, let me remind you about Jose Padilla, the Latin King/Muslim/Puerto-Rican/My Name is Pa-dill-a guy and his dirty bomb–to some, he was our very own Timothy McVeigh.

What is happening to us Raza?  Latino ponzi schemes, sovereign militias, domestic terrorism? Is this some new, perverse form of assimiliation that the framers of the controversial melting pot theory failed to forsee?  Or is it just that Latinos are now taking jobs as Angry White Men?

Photos from CNN.com

Is Torture the New Black?

Every time some new document is released about the Bush administration’s War on Human Rights, I can’t help thinking that what has been released is not nearly as bad as whatever was deemed not releasable.  President Obama has received a lot of criticism for disclosing torture memos.  But for those of us Chicagoans who are familiar with Barack’s style (i.e. he is not crazy), we know that he probably provided the documents that were just bad enough to get the public to pursue the issue  (perhaps forcing the administration to turn over the truly horrible stuff).

Several politicians, including Senator Arlen Specter (R), have said that there is no need to shine light on the Bush years.  After all, he said, “This is not Latin America.”  He said this unqualified remark in response to Senator Patrick Leahy’s (D) suggestion that some sort of truth commission be established to get the information that everyone knows has been hidden from them.  Perhaps we are not as bad as some of the governments in Latin America, but I can’t say that definitively without more information (though a February article in the Christian Science Monitor did point out some similarities).   

I guess “truth commission” does sound a little formal.  For some it may invoke visions of Nuremberg.  But truth commissions are not like that at all.  They are often used in countries where dictators have  gotten away with their crimes.  Commissions like the ones set up in Argentina and in Central America in the 1980s are bodies that investigate, report upon, and acknowledge the truth about past abuses.  It is much more a tool for reconciliation than it is a tool for lex talionis (an “eye for an eye”).  People who have lost loved ones to government oppression or who have themselves been tortured, raped, or abused in some other way get the precious gift of closure. 

In the last decade there has been growing support for the idea that not only do individuals have the right to closure, but also the idea that the public has a collective right to the truth.   What Specter and his ilk deny is that we Americans have a right to the truth at all.  For them the truth is whatever they say it is.  They are Orwellian pigs trying to convince us that their new commandments are just like the ones we had before, only improved. Thou shall not torture has become Thou shall not torture unless national security is at stake.  They act as if torture were the latest thing, implying that those of us who still support old-school principles like those found in the Geneva Conventions and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are stuck wearing last season’s fashion.  For them, torture is the new black.

Picture from BoRev.net

We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Gun Control

A good friend of mine wrote an article recently for the Southern Poverty Law Center about the resurgence of the Far-Right movement and the tendency for some of its leaders to defraud their own followers.  I was not all too shocked by the shenanigans involved:  1) Crazy dominant personality gets group to speak out against the government’s encroachments on their liberty. 2) Crazy guy then encourages crazy followers to get fully armed.  Crazy guy and followers do crazy militant things like taking over a bank and strip mall by force. 3) Crazy guy also defrauds his own flock 4) Crazy guy and followers get either killed by snipers or arrested.

What shocked me was that the perpetrators had names like Angel Cruz and Cirino Gonzales.  I contacted my friend to verify that that there hadn’t been a misprint–were these armed militia nutjobs really Latinos?  Yes, he said, though their identities were more tied to the militia-type groups than to any Latino cause.  

Then, today’s Sun-Times posted an article online about sky-rocketing gun sales since the Obama election. The guy in this picture is Mark Cruz, a gun dealer in Waukegan, IL (of all places).  I wonder if he went into business after the city implemented a series of anti-immigrant policies (which incidently led to so much backlash that la gente organized and kicked out the Mayor)?

So there goes my stereotype of right-wing militia crazies as being poor white people or Nazi-wannabes.  Gosh, I hate enlightenment.

Photograph by Tom Cruze for the Sun-Times

And a Laptop for All

Today’s Le Monde has a serious story on Sergio Cabral, the Governor of Rio de Janeiro, and his idea to bring free Wi–Fi to favelas (vecindades or ghettos).  The program is being touted as a way to help “liberate” the Brazilian poor by helping to socially integrate them with the rest of the world.

I guess Cabral isn’t on the net much. And if he is, he’s more likely to be on Facebook than MySpace according to a UC Berkeley study.  Unless you already know somebody it isn’t the great vehicle of integration that he thinks.  I admit that I am a Facebook guy.  It’s mostly a tool to help me manage my already large network of mostly professional friends.  The net really mirrors the divisions already in society.  What poor Brazilians likely need is better education, running water, and access to political power (although the government has implemented more programs and has been actively taking down drug cartels lately).  If favela residents can build enough clout to make real public relationships with power brokers or, better still, become power brokers themselves, then maybe they will have a presence on the net that reflects their new-found social power.  But, let me reiterate, that liberation is going to have to be won the old fashioned way through organizing and speaking truth to power.

The New Caciques

A good friend of mine participated in a scheme that robbed four families of the equity in their homes.  Shockingly, my friend, let’s call him Alfredo, had no idea that he had done this.  Alfredo is certainly no Bernie Madoff.  In fact, he his someone I could trust with the keys to my home or even the password to my bank account. So how did this happen?

Alfredo got a mortgage from a prominent Latino mortgage company in Chicago.  This mortgage company has a CEO that is a very hands-on kind of guy, providing direct customer service to many of his clients.  One day, he showed up at Alfredo’s door to talk to him about a program his company had started to help his paisanos (countrymen) stay in homes that were in danger of foreclosure. This millionaire CEO talked up the program as a way to help la raza (our people) get back on their feet after having missed a few mortgage payments.  But for the program to be successful, the CEO continued, people like Alfredo needed to help out.  Alfredo tenia que prestar su credito (he had to lend his credit) to those people so they could get a new mortgage and resume payments.  What a slickster!  Alfredo trusted this guy, after all he had secured the mortage for his own home.   And how could a good person like Alfredo refuse to lend his credit to a paisano in need?  Of course, the CEO’s novel concept existed only in his head.  Through what can only be described as magical math, the CEO ended up getting Alfredo to be an owner of 4 different mortgages, notwithstanding Alfredo’s status as a part-time maintenance man.  The actual homeowners lost their homes but remained physically in them as they made payments to the CEO’s mortgage company which then forwarded payments to the banks.  The mortgage company took all the equity and in return gave Alfredo $2,000 for each mortgage.  the company made a killing, but all the risk had been transferred to Alfredo!

As someone who grew up in the States, the idea of “lending my credit” to someone seems absurd on a gut level.  How could Alfredo be fooled into this?  But remember, Alfredo was a hardworking immigrant who had not gone to college and who had never lived in a community where credit was so abundant.  The millionaire CEO knew how the system worked and as a result had done very well for himself.  Alfredo trusted that the CEO was doing the right thing to help these people.  If he received a couple of bucks in return for lending his credit, then that was great.

Of course, all those people lost their homes and Alfredo is now in bankruptcy.  The mortgage company seems to have insulated itself from any of the fallout.  

A lot of us who focus on community organizing and politics often take for granted that the system is rife with racism and anti-Latino schemes to keep us down.  But what about these slick Latino professionals in our community that our exploiting our people in ways that no white guy could ever think of?  Most of the victims of these schemes are immigrants who are afraid to speak out. In fact, Alfredo started a complaint with the Attorney General, but became scared that his family might be outed to immigration authorities so he backed off.  We organizers have to be willing to take on caciquism in our neighborhoods. Caciques are not just the political bosses like Al Sanchez in Chicago or José Rivera in New York, but also some members of the Latino professional class the create traps like the one that ensnared Alfredo.  I wrote earlier that Alfredo was no Bernie Madoff, but we do have our Bernie Madoffs.  If you don’t believe me, read this article from the LA Times about a major Latino-run ponzi scheme targeting other Latinos across the country. 

The Aztecs used to execute their leaders for immoral public behavior (e.g. public drunkeness).  I’m not saying “off with their heads,” but some accountability would be nice.

Castro’s Cojones

A law professor of mine once told me that the Cubans in Florida can be nasty if you are the guy who happens to disagree with them about Cuba or Castro.  Professor Coll knew this to be true because he had made the mistake of questioning America’s embargo against the Cuban people. He said that the embargo only hurts the poor in Cuba with little effect on the regime.  I had heard that before, but his statement rang strong with me because Coll was not the typical leftist cat who loves Castro’s cojones vis-à-vis the United States.  His father was jailed by Don Fidel; so, he’s the last guy to defend him.  Yet Coll admired the truth enough to anger a lot of people.  Read more about his story here.

I admit that I sometimes have been the guy to admire Fidel Castro’s testicular fortitude from a far  (I’m still evaluating Raul!).  But whether you love him or hate him, there is no evidencewhatsoever that the embargo does anything to spread Democracy in Cuba.  The partial lift on the embargo that the Obama administration announced on Monday was a great step in getting rid of our ridiculous policy against the Cuban poor.  Yet the lifting of restrictions for Cuban-Americans does not go far enough.  The embargo still stands.  If people really want Democracy to flourish in Cuba, then it has to win the hearts and minds of Cubans in an open marketplace of ideas.  I know that the Cuban government may not reciprocate, but what do we gain by digging our own heels in?  What Milton said said long ago about the press applies equally to our doctrinal posturing with Cuba:

“Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so truth be in the field, we do ingloriously…to misdoubt her strength. Let her and falsehood grapple; who ever knew truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?” 

–John Milton, Areopagitica Speech, 1644

There is nothing more powerful than getting to know people and sharing information with them about how you live.  Only by letting all Americans see Cuba for what it is and vice versa, will the truth prevail.  Not Castro’s truth, not America’s truth but the Truth and nothing but the Truth in all her glory.  

Day of Light

Sometimes I forget what kind of experiences some of our brothers and sisters from Latin America bring with them.  It’s easy to get caught up in community life thinking that merely transferring a sense of entitlement to our people will suffice (e.g. getting them together to pass a bill for more resources or to fight for a stop sign in their neighborhood).  Often, our gente don’t find themselves to be the downtrodden or the wretched of the earth–back home they might even be considered rich.  I remember one family I used to work with in Cicero, IL that was active in church and in the community but never viewed themselves in the way some us of us Chicanos do (i.e. as the have-nots).  That’s probably because they left a town in Mexico that had no running water or electricity.  In Cicero, they have a basic infrastructure, two cars and own a 3-bedroom home.   Maybe, to someone in Oakbrook or Winnetka, IL they are certainly the have-nots–but to them they had finally “made it.”  Their motivation for a sense of community was not out of mere self-interest to better themselves–it was about some part of their soul or psyche that led them to believe they had to help others acheive success as they had defined it. My point is that those of us who work in the community can’t take for granted that the civil rights history we have had (the Black Power and Civil Rights Movement, the Chicano Movement, the Women’s Movement, Gay Rights Movement,etc.) has enough explanatory power for what immigrants are dealing with here in the states (whether or not our parents were immigrants).  Further, we have to tailor our work (especially community organizing) to take into account the latino immigrant version of the nouveau riche syndrome that is causing our people to work 6-7 days a week for 10+ hours so their kids can have the XBOX 360 they never had–y luego nos sorprendemos cuando los hijos se meten a las pandillas…This video is from the so-called “trash dump community” of Managua in Nicaragua.

Day of Light from Love Light & Melody on Vimeo.