Since my last post, I have been busily working on completing a couple of projects as my time at the Lawyers' Committee comes to a close. The last assignment I completed was charting the testimony of witnesses called before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees in relation to the firing of the U.S. Attorneys. Working with another intern from the Brennan Center, we charted the witnesses' evasive responses and who each witness deferred to as having the answer. I am confident that our chart was put to good use during Attorney General Gonzales' latest hearing.
Since then, I've been working a lot with our Campaign Manager to set up our operations for Election Protection 2008. Election Protection is a program that seeks to provide on the ground support for voters during elections. This involves coordinating a large amount of volunteers, both legal and non-legal, to help answer any questions or resolve any problems voters may encounter before or on election day. The main project I've been working on is compiling data on our target states for 2008. Though the general election is a little more than a year from now, the primaries are rapidly approaching. The Lawyers' Committee expects to run limited Election Protection programs in key states for the primaries. For the general election, we expect to have a program far larger than our 2004 and 2006 efforts.
Lastly, I am working on a project for our Emerging Communities Initiative (ECI). As I've mentioned before, ECI seeks to empower immigrant communities by educating them of their legal and political rights and options. My current task is to track anti-immigrant ordinances that have been cropping up all across the nation following Congress' inability to move forward with immigration reform. In doing so, I will be trying to pinpoint where our efforts with ECI should be directed. In particular, I am trying to identify the best areas in the South that could be test sites for ECI.
As my last week begins, I find myself frantically scrambling to finish these projects. I really hope to be able to finish the work for the Lawyers' Committee before I leave; though, I won't be too surprised if I lend a helping hand to the Committee when I have time in the coming year.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Incredible...
Definitely an amazing, amazing week for me in so many ways. Because it's fresh in my memory, I'm going to start off with how I spent this afternoon.
You may or may have not heard of the great Black Arts Movement poet Sekou Sundiata. He was at Stanford in the winter of '05 through IDA, and I took his class as a freshman. He also produced two shows at Stanford: "Blessing the Boats" and "51st Dream State," and for his premier of the latter I got to reunite with him. I could probably say that he was the first teacher to really have me approach poetry analytically, from both the writing and performance standpoints. Because of Sekou, I take poetry seriously. I was very, very sad to hear a couple of days ago-- to my shock-- that Sekou passed away last week.
At the Bowery, a legendary NYC poetry club, there was an amazing tribute for him this afternoon. It was a truly moving experience with the most incredible cast of characters appearing to honor the great poet. Suheir Hammad and Beau Sia, two of the greatest spoken word artists in the business, graced the stage. Sitting (literally) right next to me, however, was the incomparable and legendary Amiri Baraka, one of the fathers of the the Black Arts Movement and the founder of the Black Repertory Theatre. I was a little too shy to talk to him, but he performed a beautifully eloquent eulogy. I had the unbelievable honor of gracing the same stage as Baraka and Hammad and performing my piece "Model Minority," which was written for Sekou's class, in Sekou's honor. All in all it was a beautiful event, and I rode the subway back with Luis Rivera, Sekou's old friend and contemporary, who invited me onto his radio show if I ever return next year to New York.
So that was this afternoon.... Before that was my competition in the Harlem youth poetry slam, which finally concluded this Friday. Originally I had intended only to attend for research purposes (much of which detailed on my last entry), but I ended up performing and advancing to the semifinals, and then even the final round. I didn't win, but I really developed some great relationships with my fellow poets; I think I'm no longer just some newcomer dweeb, too-- like, the poet community now knows that I can hold my own. It was really an honor to be a part of that, and also to interview a poet from the competition for the research.
Then there are the Urban Word workshops... really great stuff. In our thursday workshop, a major activist/performance artist talked to the students about globalization, and eventually he led us through a writing exercise in which we were supposed to describe our consumer habits. Then, the punch line: he had us walk out of Urban Word and perform these pieces in front of McDonald's, both to disrupt the social norms via performance and to protest the grander mechanics of capitalism. A very interesting sight to behold in many ways: on the one hand, talk about an incredibly liberating experience for the teen poets. But on the other hand, I did notice that the male poets dominated the scene, with the women poets rather reluctant to share their work, and when they did, they did so quietly. The issue would appear in an interview I would conduct later with a different woman poet, in that she said that as a woman, she feels like she is being compared to the other woman poets, whereas "guys can just spit."
Currently reading my Victor Turner. Real good stuff.
Anyway, here's Takeo signing off. Take care, y'all.
You may or may have not heard of the great Black Arts Movement poet Sekou Sundiata. He was at Stanford in the winter of '05 through IDA, and I took his class as a freshman. He also produced two shows at Stanford: "Blessing the Boats" and "51st Dream State," and for his premier of the latter I got to reunite with him. I could probably say that he was the first teacher to really have me approach poetry analytically, from both the writing and performance standpoints. Because of Sekou, I take poetry seriously. I was very, very sad to hear a couple of days ago-- to my shock-- that Sekou passed away last week.
At the Bowery, a legendary NYC poetry club, there was an amazing tribute for him this afternoon. It was a truly moving experience with the most incredible cast of characters appearing to honor the great poet. Suheir Hammad and Beau Sia, two of the greatest spoken word artists in the business, graced the stage. Sitting (literally) right next to me, however, was the incomparable and legendary Amiri Baraka, one of the fathers of the the Black Arts Movement and the founder of the Black Repertory Theatre. I was a little too shy to talk to him, but he performed a beautifully eloquent eulogy. I had the unbelievable honor of gracing the same stage as Baraka and Hammad and performing my piece "Model Minority," which was written for Sekou's class, in Sekou's honor. All in all it was a beautiful event, and I rode the subway back with Luis Rivera, Sekou's old friend and contemporary, who invited me onto his radio show if I ever return next year to New York.
So that was this afternoon.... Before that was my competition in the Harlem youth poetry slam, which finally concluded this Friday. Originally I had intended only to attend for research purposes (much of which detailed on my last entry), but I ended up performing and advancing to the semifinals, and then even the final round. I didn't win, but I really developed some great relationships with my fellow poets; I think I'm no longer just some newcomer dweeb, too-- like, the poet community now knows that I can hold my own. It was really an honor to be a part of that, and also to interview a poet from the competition for the research.
Then there are the Urban Word workshops... really great stuff. In our thursday workshop, a major activist/performance artist talked to the students about globalization, and eventually he led us through a writing exercise in which we were supposed to describe our consumer habits. Then, the punch line: he had us walk out of Urban Word and perform these pieces in front of McDonald's, both to disrupt the social norms via performance and to protest the grander mechanics of capitalism. A very interesting sight to behold in many ways: on the one hand, talk about an incredibly liberating experience for the teen poets. But on the other hand, I did notice that the male poets dominated the scene, with the women poets rather reluctant to share their work, and when they did, they did so quietly. The issue would appear in an interview I would conduct later with a different woman poet, in that she said that as a woman, she feels like she is being compared to the other woman poets, whereas "guys can just spit."
Currently reading my Victor Turner. Real good stuff.
Anyway, here's Takeo signing off. Take care, y'all.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Latino School Board of Education Association Conference
Last Friday I attended a conference in Visalia for members of the California Latino School Board of Education Association. When one of my supervisors first mentioned she had been invited to present at this forum, I was surprised to learn that there was a statewide association for Latino School Board members. In my experience, the majority of school administrators, teachers, school district staff, etc. have not been representative of the current demographics. Since there were no Latino administrators at my school or school district that I knew of (until my senior year in high school when our newly hired principal was Latino), attending this conference where educators and community advocacy members were of my ethnicity was very empowering for me. Although I did not know any of them, and had barely met them that day, I saw them as leaders in my community and only hope that they are truly advocating for fair educational opportunities for students of color.
There was one presentation that focused on high school drop out rates and college opportunities made available to low-income students of color. What was said during this presentation did not surprise me, as I have read articles and have been at forums where the low performance and low college attendance rates of minority students is discussed. Over and over again I have read and heard (and have personally experienced it as well) that more affluent suburban schools are able to provide its students with all the resources, state-of-the-art facilities and qualified and experience teachers, while low-income minority and English Learners who most often attend poverty-stricken inner-city or urban schools experience the opposite of that. Again, I ask myself how will we ever expect the latter students to be able to perform well on standardized exams if we are not providing them the resources they need to succeed?
Another part of the conference that was inspirational for me was a short video on a student run campaign in the LA Unified School District that demanded the School Board members to adopt a policy that would require all high school students to take A-G courses as part of graduation requirements. Many students appeared in the video, chanting and holding signs that said “education for all” and “we want to go to college.” The LAUSD School Board recently voted on a policy that will make it a requirement for all high school students to take these college preparatory courses. Although students can opt out of the requirement, at least all students will supposedly have the opportunity to take those classes that would make them eligible for college.
There was one presentation that focused on high school drop out rates and college opportunities made available to low-income students of color. What was said during this presentation did not surprise me, as I have read articles and have been at forums where the low performance and low college attendance rates of minority students is discussed. Over and over again I have read and heard (and have personally experienced it as well) that more affluent suburban schools are able to provide its students with all the resources, state-of-the-art facilities and qualified and experience teachers, while low-income minority and English Learners who most often attend poverty-stricken inner-city or urban schools experience the opposite of that. Again, I ask myself how will we ever expect the latter students to be able to perform well on standardized exams if we are not providing them the resources they need to succeed?
Another part of the conference that was inspirational for me was a short video on a student run campaign in the LA Unified School District that demanded the School Board members to adopt a policy that would require all high school students to take A-G courses as part of graduation requirements. Many students appeared in the video, chanting and holding signs that said “education for all” and “we want to go to college.” The LAUSD School Board recently voted on a policy that will make it a requirement for all high school students to take these college preparatory courses. Although students can opt out of the requirement, at least all students will supposedly have the opportunity to take those classes that would make them eligible for college.
Audre Lorde, Political Consciousness, and a Poetry Slam
So the first day of "Revoliterature" went off without a hitch, more or less. Our workshop leader was an accomplished poet from the organization Louder Arts, and to my surprise, he didn't pull any punches in terms of intellectual challenge. The man whipped out a series of Audre Lorde and June Jordan poems that the students had to deconstruct and analyze. We were covering complex topics, particularly around discourses of power, and the idea of the erotic as a liberating force. Pretty heavy topic for high schoolers, I was thinking; while I was a participant of this workshop I took a step back and only contributed to the discussion when I felt it might open up interesting directions for poets to analyze. I did find that many of my suspicions were correct: the workshop leader made perfect sense to me because I had gone through three years of CSRE classes, but many (though not all) of the high school students were oftentimes lost. Fortunately, those students who did get a grasp of what she was saying were extremely patient and helped along those who were completely missing the point of Lorde's work; I was impressed with that steadiness, that patience, and how it remained a very nurturing environment.
What was fascinating about this particular workshop was that there was actually no writing-- it might as well have been one of David Palumbo-Liu's discussion sections (the conversation, in fact, really steered toward a lot of the same questions of his class Ethnicity and Literature-- you know what I'm talking about, Matt). The goal of the workshop leader, it seemed, was really to expand consciousness, rather than to examine the mechanics of the poetry. This makes a lot of sense to me; the ideal aesthetic in spoken word could be characterized by its "truth," its "authenticity." In becoming an astute sociologist, you become a better poet-- find the truth, and the poetry will follow. This reflects much of what an Urban Word admin told me in interview; he really wanted to see poets become more than just writers for their own sake, but also successful students and activists.
Later that night, I decided to compete in a poetry slam. Originally I had gone merely to observe and find interview subjects, but it turned out I would save two dollars if I competed, so I did. The poetry slam is a slightly different phenomenon from the open mic, and dramatically different from the workshop, and after three years of experience slamming in the college circuit, I could go on about it, but I won't. Suffice to say that it was really interesting (though not at all unpredictable) seeing how the poems were scored. As always, poems in the second half of the event got big score inflations (because the audience becomes conditioned to listen to the poems more closely by that time), and poets who had memorized their pieces, even if they were by and large cliché, always scored better than poets who brought up paper, even if the page-poets produced more poignant writing. Lots of verbal affirmation from the audience when they heard lines that they liked, but on most of these affirmative head-nods, I had heard lines I had heard a million times before (making plays on Dick Cheney's or Bush's names, or lecturing-- without using imagery-- how blacks are still oppressed). It seemed to me that the phenomenon was that there were affirmations for those things that folks already knew or agreed with, but then again, I didn't see much poetry that strayed outside of the general opinion anyway (mine didn't either). I may have also been imagining it, but I also perceived a bias toward male poets, and the woman poet who did the strongest projected and hit her points much like the men in the room. I don't think it would be accurate to say that she had a "masculine" method of performance to cater to a "masculine" aesthetic, but it seems to me that for whatever reason (perhaps institutional confidence in the public arena), the men did have a general advantage in the scoring.
By the way, I had the major disadvantage of performing first in the slam (the first poet almost always gets scored lower than usual, and I was no exception, scoring lower than later poets who would forget their poems midway through). Yet by some miracle, I've advanced to the semifinal round, which happens in a couple of days, so I'll let you all know how that goes....
What was fascinating about this particular workshop was that there was actually no writing-- it might as well have been one of David Palumbo-Liu's discussion sections (the conversation, in fact, really steered toward a lot of the same questions of his class Ethnicity and Literature-- you know what I'm talking about, Matt). The goal of the workshop leader, it seemed, was really to expand consciousness, rather than to examine the mechanics of the poetry. This makes a lot of sense to me; the ideal aesthetic in spoken word could be characterized by its "truth," its "authenticity." In becoming an astute sociologist, you become a better poet-- find the truth, and the poetry will follow. This reflects much of what an Urban Word admin told me in interview; he really wanted to see poets become more than just writers for their own sake, but also successful students and activists.
Later that night, I decided to compete in a poetry slam. Originally I had gone merely to observe and find interview subjects, but it turned out I would save two dollars if I competed, so I did. The poetry slam is a slightly different phenomenon from the open mic, and dramatically different from the workshop, and after three years of experience slamming in the college circuit, I could go on about it, but I won't. Suffice to say that it was really interesting (though not at all unpredictable) seeing how the poems were scored. As always, poems in the second half of the event got big score inflations (because the audience becomes conditioned to listen to the poems more closely by that time), and poets who had memorized their pieces, even if they were by and large cliché, always scored better than poets who brought up paper, even if the page-poets produced more poignant writing. Lots of verbal affirmation from the audience when they heard lines that they liked, but on most of these affirmative head-nods, I had heard lines I had heard a million times before (making plays on Dick Cheney's or Bush's names, or lecturing-- without using imagery-- how blacks are still oppressed). It seemed to me that the phenomenon was that there were affirmations for those things that folks already knew or agreed with, but then again, I didn't see much poetry that strayed outside of the general opinion anyway (mine didn't either). I may have also been imagining it, but I also perceived a bias toward male poets, and the woman poet who did the strongest projected and hit her points much like the men in the room. I don't think it would be accurate to say that she had a "masculine" method of performance to cater to a "masculine" aesthetic, but it seems to me that for whatever reason (perhaps institutional confidence in the public arena), the men did have a general advantage in the scoring.
By the way, I had the major disadvantage of performing first in the slam (the first poet almost always gets scored lower than usual, and I was no exception, scoring lower than later poets who would forget their poems midway through). Yet by some miracle, I've advanced to the semifinal round, which happens in a couple of days, so I'll let you all know how that goes....
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Another Post from Takeo
Sorry I'm doing a poor job being up-to-date with updates and such... again... but here goes...
It's kind of exciting in that this week, the intensive summer poetry workshops actually begin at Urban Word. The last several weeks I've been pitching in with preparation type stuff... mostly recruitment, logistics, that sort of thing. But this week, they're actually going down, and they look absolutely exciting.
One workshop, entitled "Revoliterature," revolves around social justice poetry; looking at a lot of politically conscious poets and how they use poetry to produce social change in the world around them. Very pertinent to my project, and I'm going to try to audio-record the process so as to study the sort of techniques that are employed. Another workshop is entitled "Applied Poetics," primarily about the practical application of poetry to one's everyday life; again very exciting in the sense of spoken word poetry as a liminal process. And then there's the "Write the Power" masters class, which brings in famous poets to work directly with the young students, and at Urban Word, they're not kidding: Amiri Baraka is teaching the final workshop (literally the last day of my internship).
Definitely been out and about interviewing different folks and their perspectives on poetry. Reading Victor Turner's "Anthropology of Performance" while simultaneously talking to folks about their work is extremely eye-opening. The sort of primordial performance studies-type writing that Turner elaborates upon (especially when he compares/contrasts his views with Erving Goffman) is giving me a great theoretical base with which to examine things. Naturally, not everything fits sociological/anthropological theory, and it's really exciting to see how ideas of structure, process, and performance get affirmed but sometimes stretched by my findings. I'm really intrigued by Turner's idea of the "social drama," and how that manifests itself in the context of spoken word poets. Prof. Elam in "Taking it to the Streets" explains how El Teatro Campesino utilized the very real social drama of the UFW strike, such that a Luis Valdez acto produced a ritualized, liminal space where the possibilities of change were boundless. In the case of the spoken word artist, there does not necessarily need to be a single "event" (or "crisis," by Turner's terminology) for the poet to be engaged in directly in the moment: i.e., there does not need to be a rally for the poet to recite in. Rather, the open mic session becomes a sort of rotation of three-minute crises that the work both responds to and invokes simultaneously. Definitely something I've been thinking about as I go from performance to performance, open mic to open mic...
I'm also really trying to get a handle on the more aesthetic analysis of the experience... i.e. how does a community regulate the aesthetic of spoken word. Going from Spanish Harlem to Bed-Stuy to midtown Manhattan, I'm noticing certain patterns in-group, but my ability to analyze is based off of my own experience writing and teaching spoken word in a kind of self-trained, "naïve" sense rather than in any formal grounding in English classes. Furthermore, I've remained intrigued by the ubiquity of "poet names"-- in what sense is a different identity being performed once the poet enters a stage space. And to bring it back to Turner, in what ways is that space liminal-- that is, an in-between ritualized space-- or liminoid, which imitates the liminal but with a universal understanding of its fiction?
But yeah.... More to come...
It's kind of exciting in that this week, the intensive summer poetry workshops actually begin at Urban Word. The last several weeks I've been pitching in with preparation type stuff... mostly recruitment, logistics, that sort of thing. But this week, they're actually going down, and they look absolutely exciting.
One workshop, entitled "Revoliterature," revolves around social justice poetry; looking at a lot of politically conscious poets and how they use poetry to produce social change in the world around them. Very pertinent to my project, and I'm going to try to audio-record the process so as to study the sort of techniques that are employed. Another workshop is entitled "Applied Poetics," primarily about the practical application of poetry to one's everyday life; again very exciting in the sense of spoken word poetry as a liminal process. And then there's the "Write the Power" masters class, which brings in famous poets to work directly with the young students, and at Urban Word, they're not kidding: Amiri Baraka is teaching the final workshop (literally the last day of my internship).
Definitely been out and about interviewing different folks and their perspectives on poetry. Reading Victor Turner's "Anthropology of Performance" while simultaneously talking to folks about their work is extremely eye-opening. The sort of primordial performance studies-type writing that Turner elaborates upon (especially when he compares/contrasts his views with Erving Goffman) is giving me a great theoretical base with which to examine things. Naturally, not everything fits sociological/anthropological theory, and it's really exciting to see how ideas of structure, process, and performance get affirmed but sometimes stretched by my findings. I'm really intrigued by Turner's idea of the "social drama," and how that manifests itself in the context of spoken word poets. Prof. Elam in "Taking it to the Streets" explains how El Teatro Campesino utilized the very real social drama of the UFW strike, such that a Luis Valdez acto produced a ritualized, liminal space where the possibilities of change were boundless. In the case of the spoken word artist, there does not necessarily need to be a single "event" (or "crisis," by Turner's terminology) for the poet to be engaged in directly in the moment: i.e., there does not need to be a rally for the poet to recite in. Rather, the open mic session becomes a sort of rotation of three-minute crises that the work both responds to and invokes simultaneously. Definitely something I've been thinking about as I go from performance to performance, open mic to open mic...
I'm also really trying to get a handle on the more aesthetic analysis of the experience... i.e. how does a community regulate the aesthetic of spoken word. Going from Spanish Harlem to Bed-Stuy to midtown Manhattan, I'm noticing certain patterns in-group, but my ability to analyze is based off of my own experience writing and teaching spoken word in a kind of self-trained, "naïve" sense rather than in any formal grounding in English classes. Furthermore, I've remained intrigued by the ubiquity of "poet names"-- in what sense is a different identity being performed once the poet enters a stage space. And to bring it back to Turner, in what ways is that space liminal-- that is, an in-between ritualized space-- or liminoid, which imitates the liminal but with a universal understanding of its fiction?
But yeah.... More to come...
Sunday, July 22, 2007
NCLB & its many issues
This last week was extremely busy for me as I attended two separate forums on Monday and Friday and the other three days I was in the office reading and summarizing some articles for my supervisor. Monday's event was held at Boalt Law School and the topic of discussion was on the No Child Left Behind Act (NLCB) and the parental involvement provisions. As some of you may or may not know, this 1,100 page document is up for reauthorization in Congress in the next few months. It's interesting to note that parental involvement is mentioned more than 100 times and is one of the main focus of the law. President Bush's philosophy was that if parents are directly involved at their children's school site, the parents will hold the schools and school districts accountable. Although schools and school districts are required/mandated by NCLB to create and implement policies that will involve parents, these policies are not really reinforced by the state or federal government.
It was really interesting to attend the roundtable at Berkeley since many researchers, community organizations, and educators were present to give their take of the law. Most people seemed to be in disfavor of how it has turned out and what its rhetoric has been. Supposedly, by the year 2014 all students across the US will be 100% proficient in both reading and math. How will this be possible if many students are no where close to making that much progress (lack of resources and qualified teachers, just to name two main issues)? John Rogers, a professor from UCLA, predicts that by 2008-2009 75% of schools in California that serve predominantly minority students will be labeled as "failing" based on the NCLB standards.
Others argue that since students are being tested on reading and math, teachers are being forced to narrow the curriculum and what is being taught. The instructional minutes for other core subjects like social studies and science are being reduced in order to concentrate on reading and math proficiency. Instead of being taught how to analyze texts, how to write lab reports, or how to critically think, students in the US are being taught how to take multiple choice exams. How can this type of assessment really test what students are learning, of if in fact they are learning anything? How will students from the US be able to compete with children from other countries who are learning two foreign languages and are being taught to conceptualize and apply what they are learning?
If we truly expect ALL students to be proficient by 2014, we ought to re-evaluate the way we teach, what we are teaching, who is teaching, how we are testing, and how much money we are willing to invest in the future generations (who more than ever will need to compete in a highly-advanced economy).
It was really interesting to attend the roundtable at Berkeley since many researchers, community organizations, and educators were present to give their take of the law. Most people seemed to be in disfavor of how it has turned out and what its rhetoric has been. Supposedly, by the year 2014 all students across the US will be 100% proficient in both reading and math. How will this be possible if many students are no where close to making that much progress (lack of resources and qualified teachers, just to name two main issues)? John Rogers, a professor from UCLA, predicts that by 2008-2009 75% of schools in California that serve predominantly minority students will be labeled as "failing" based on the NCLB standards.
Others argue that since students are being tested on reading and math, teachers are being forced to narrow the curriculum and what is being taught. The instructional minutes for other core subjects like social studies and science are being reduced in order to concentrate on reading and math proficiency. Instead of being taught how to analyze texts, how to write lab reports, or how to critically think, students in the US are being taught how to take multiple choice exams. How can this type of assessment really test what students are learning, of if in fact they are learning anything? How will students from the US be able to compete with children from other countries who are learning two foreign languages and are being taught to conceptualize and apply what they are learning?
If we truly expect ALL students to be proficient by 2014, we ought to re-evaluate the way we teach, what we are teaching, who is teaching, how we are testing, and how much money we are willing to invest in the future generations (who more than ever will need to compete in a highly-advanced economy).
Friday, July 20, 2007
Photovoice 7/7/07
Today, the interns did some work in the field. I went along with one of the other interns, to Woodside,
Since, I actually live in Woodside, where there is a large concentration of Filipino Americans, I was assigned to document the community there. We visited a catholic church, a few doctors’ offices, a Filipino bakery, several banks and remittance companies, a couple of cargo companies, and a number of Filipino restaurants. Overall, most of the places did not have any problems with our taking pictures. However, we met some resistance at the church and at some of the banks and restaurants. I was glad to be able to get some use out of my Tagalog language skills, limited though they are. Along the way, we had some food from one of my favorite Filipino restaurants named Ihawan. The food was amazing but, as usual, rich, salty, and oily. The other intern is a nutrition science specialist and she commented on this. I’ll grab some of the best photos from the trip and post some of them in my next post.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Takeo's Third (late) Post
Yeah, sorry I didn't post last week... I'll make up for it by posting twice this week. Now for a long-overdue update...
Work at Urban Word has been pretty chill. I had three primary tasks in the last several weeks: data entry of thousands of names into a database, calling hundreds of poets to participate in next week's poetry workshops, and arranging things with a publisher to produce Urban Word's next poetry anthology. But in the process I've managed to attend a slew of events, open mics, and gather exposure for Urban Word's other projects. I've also performed several times throughout the city, including in Manhattan, Bed-Sty, and Spanish Harlem, each location rich with its own dynamic and feel.
The research end has been two-fold; the interviews are progressing, and I'm beginning to really discover some interesting things. The more I talk to poets connected to Urban Word, the more I hear that what is thought of as "a poem" becomes increasingly distant from the text itself. When I ask aesthetic questions, the tendency I'm finding is that "good poems" are described in terms of how they're spoken, rather than how their writing is constructed. It's really getting me thinking to Diana Taylor's distinction between two forms of cultural memory: archive and repertoire, with the archive representing physical objects that can be cited, and the repertoire being sort of embodied performances and knowledge (i.e. oral tradition). Spoken word poems surrounding Urban Word, it seems, become more and more distanced from archival knowledge and closer and closer to repertoire. And the community that Urban Word facilitates appears to perpetuate this aesthetic. It's really really interesting...
It always is kind of awkward for me to post on this blog, by the way, mainly because I'm trying to figure out both what's relevant and what's interesting in my experience here; sometimes they don't align. Like, in my preceding paragraph, I said it's interesting, but that's not to say you actually found it interesting... haha, well... I hope to be more detailed/intriguing in my next post later this week.
Work at Urban Word has been pretty chill. I had three primary tasks in the last several weeks: data entry of thousands of names into a database, calling hundreds of poets to participate in next week's poetry workshops, and arranging things with a publisher to produce Urban Word's next poetry anthology. But in the process I've managed to attend a slew of events, open mics, and gather exposure for Urban Word's other projects. I've also performed several times throughout the city, including in Manhattan, Bed-Sty, and Spanish Harlem, each location rich with its own dynamic and feel.
The research end has been two-fold; the interviews are progressing, and I'm beginning to really discover some interesting things. The more I talk to poets connected to Urban Word, the more I hear that what is thought of as "a poem" becomes increasingly distant from the text itself. When I ask aesthetic questions, the tendency I'm finding is that "good poems" are described in terms of how they're spoken, rather than how their writing is constructed. It's really getting me thinking to Diana Taylor's distinction between two forms of cultural memory: archive and repertoire, with the archive representing physical objects that can be cited, and the repertoire being sort of embodied performances and knowledge (i.e. oral tradition). Spoken word poems surrounding Urban Word, it seems, become more and more distanced from archival knowledge and closer and closer to repertoire. And the community that Urban Word facilitates appears to perpetuate this aesthetic. It's really really interesting...
It always is kind of awkward for me to post on this blog, by the way, mainly because I'm trying to figure out both what's relevant and what's interesting in my experience here; sometimes they don't align. Like, in my preceding paragraph, I said it's interesting, but that's not to say you actually found it interesting... haha, well... I hope to be more detailed/intriguing in my next post later this week.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Bobst....7/3/2007
So, just to update you all on how my internship is going, I recently received my assignment for the community health needs assessment to be written. I am working on needs assessments for the Vietnamese and Cambodian communities. These publications will go to community members, organizations, health care providers, and policy makers and will act as a portrait depicting the status of these two communities in New York City. I’m really excited to be putting out something that will be of tangible benefit to the community. For each of the needs assessments, I will be working on the background and health status sections. This will mostly involve reading scholarly articles and writing a review of the literature that is accessible to lay people.
The needs assessment also includes a section detailing the history of these communities in America as well as immigration trends that are pertinent to their settlement in New York and America. The other intern, who is working on a needs assessment for the Korean and Chinese communities, and I decided that journal articles did not give us enough information on immigration patterns so we decided to do a book search at the NYU libraries and acquire lending privileges.
Our first stop on the search for lending privileges was the NYU SoM libraries two blocks north from where we work. After explaining our situation and filling out a form, we were given bar codes for our IDs and directed to the main NYU library on the Washington Square campus. We hopped on one of the NYU buses which are free for those with NYU IDs and headed towards the Bobst library.
When we arrived, the only thing I could think was “Bobst is an architectural feast for the eyes.” Although from the outside, it appears to be just like any administrative building, red brick façade looming over Washington Square, the architecture inside is amazing. Once you step through the doors, your gaze immediately jumps to the modernist silver staircase that spans the 11 floors of the library (only those above ground, there are two more below ground.) After procuring the books I needed, I spent a little time just admiring the library. The architecture of Bobst reminds me how much I’ve missed the city but also reminds me of Stanford and how I miss my bike and sitting in the quad chatting.
The needs assessment also includes a section detailing the history of these communities in America as well as immigration trends that are pertinent to their settlement in New York and America. The other intern, who is working on a needs assessment for the Korean and Chinese communities, and I decided that journal articles did not give us enough information on immigration patterns so we decided to do a book search at the NYU libraries and acquire lending privileges.
Our first stop on the search for lending privileges was the NYU SoM libraries two blocks north from where we work. After explaining our situation and filling out a form, we were given bar codes for our IDs and directed to the main NYU library on the Washington Square campus. We hopped on one of the NYU buses which are free for those with NYU IDs and headed towards the Bobst library.
When we arrived, the only thing I could think was “Bobst is an architectural feast for the eyes.” Although from the outside, it appears to be just like any administrative building, red brick façade looming over Washington Square, the architecture inside is amazing. Once you step through the doors, your gaze immediately jumps to the modernist silver staircase that spans the 11 floors of the library (only those above ground, there are two more below ground.) After procuring the books I needed, I spent a little time just admiring the library. The architecture of Bobst reminds me how much I’ve missed the city but also reminds me of Stanford and how I miss my bike and sitting in the quad chatting.
collaborative efforts
This week has been super busy! So I've been working on the Prairie View, Texas case; however, this week I was given a new assignment. Working with some other interns over at the Brennan Center for Justice (at NYU Law School), I've been poring over hundreds of pages of Congressional testimony. I can't really give any specifics as to what I'm doing with the testimony, but the end result should be very exciting. The last joint project the Lawyers' Committee did with the Brennan Center resulted in a press conference at the National Press Club. It was very exhilarating to watch the last press conference. Hopefully, all this work will go towards another press conference or a Congressional briefing. I should be finishing up this work by the end of the week and should be back on track with the Prairie View case.
I've also been trying to get more involved in our Emerging Communities Initiative. This newly started program seeks to empower recent and generally overlooked immigrant communities, such as the Hmong or Somalis, by educating them about their legal and political rights. In particular, we are trying to stress the importance of political participation and the benefits that can be reaped through civic action. We'll see how this goes in the weeks to come.
I've also been trying to get more involved in our Emerging Communities Initiative. This newly started program seeks to empower recent and generally overlooked immigrant communities, such as the Hmong or Somalis, by educating them about their legal and political rights. In particular, we are trying to stress the importance of political participation and the benefits that can be reaped through civic action. We'll see how this goes in the weeks to come.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
A flavor of everything
"A flavor of everything," as I have decided to title this post, resembles what my experience in the California Capitol has been so far. Since the last time I posted on the blog, I have been doing a little bit of everything: I have conducted online research on some key provisions of the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act (focusing on parental involvement and teacher quality); I have visited a community in the Central Valley to witness some of inequalities prevalent in poor, rural communities; I have been present at a private meeting with a key Senator in California; and last but not least, I had the very interesting experience of seating at a Senate Education Committee hearing. Indeed, I have been fortunate enough to get a wide variety of experiences in my first week at work. Since I could go on and on talking about each of them, I will focus on the most rewarding ones.
On Wednesday both the Senate and Assembly Committees on Education had separate hearings on proposed bills by members of both Houses. Since my supervisors thought the Senate would be more interesting for me to attend, I sat through their meeting for nearly four hours. It was a really good experience as 40-45 different bills were briefly discussed during that time. I had never witnessed something like that in person (I had seen it on television, but always changed the channel as I usually lost my interest after a few minutes of watching). While the author of the bills were going up to the podium to testify on their proposed bill, mention recent amendments and clarify any questions for the Senate committee members, I was busy glancing through a +100 page printed catalog that had included detailed information about each bill. Each included background information, the pros and cons based on research the staff's committee had done, and which organizations (i.e CA Teacher Association, CA Board of Education, etc.) or which individuals (i.e. State Superintendent) were in support or against the bill. I was fascinated by the action that was going on because although all the issues were relevant to education, they all varied.
For example, there was one that stands out in my mind by the Senator (or maybe Assemblyman) of Oakland. His bill asked that the Oakland Unified School District receive full local control of its schools. According to some of the comments the legislator made, the State had taken over the district's sovereignty four or five years ago after having gone bankrupt. Since the district had improved both financially and academically, parents, educators, and administrators felt that it was time for the OUSD to have local control again. Many community organizations, teachers, parents, and students went up to testify (say their name and affiliation to the district) to show their support for the bill. It was great to see so many people come to the Capitol to express their concerns and show support for something that they are deeply in favor or. Of course, I won't know which of the 40-45 bills that were discussed while I was there have a chance of becoming laws. However, I do know that that experience opened my eyes and allowed me to realize there are many other issues in the education system that need to be resolved (more than the usual concerns with teacher quality, academic achievement, high school dropout rates... issues such as harassment, safe and clean facilities, etc.).
Finally, one of my other experiences from last week that stood out in my mind was a visit to a rural community in the Central Valley. I attended a meeting organized by parents who have expressed concerns with the water at the local elementary school. The water has been tested by a lab and it has been confirmed that it is contaminated and unsafe for the children to be drinking out of the drinking fountains. The school district has failed to make any improvements and keep ignoring the legitimate concerns brought up by the parents. Since most of these parents are working class (mainly farm workers), have less than a high school education and are Spanish monolinguals, the school district is disregarding their request to do something about the contaminated water. It was empowering for me to see a group of parents coming together to address this issue that is negatively affecting their children. As I mentioned in one of the last paragraphs, I often think (and many others do too) on the big issues: achievement gap, dropout rates, inner-city violence, English learners, etc. However, I (as well as many, many others) forget about the needs and struggles of poor, rural areas. I even forgot (didn't even think it was an issue) that contaminated water would be an issue in a public school in California, United States. I would imagine problems like those are present in third-world developing countries, but not in ours in the 21st century!!
In sum, my eyes are beginning to realize there are many, many, many other issues in our education system that need major help. It's really frustrating, disheartening, upsetting (fill in the blank) to know there is one problem after another, but how many solutions can we find for each of them? I'm trying to remain optimistic, but my mind immediately turns to other problems this great state of ours (and in fact, our nation too) is currently facing in the prison and healthcare systems, as probably in other areas too.
For anyone who might have read down to here, please forgive me if I seemed pessimistic or frustrated at times, but I'm faced with a reality that I'm not very satisfied with and hope many others who want to create change aren't satisfied either.
On Wednesday both the Senate and Assembly Committees on Education had separate hearings on proposed bills by members of both Houses. Since my supervisors thought the Senate would be more interesting for me to attend, I sat through their meeting for nearly four hours. It was a really good experience as 40-45 different bills were briefly discussed during that time. I had never witnessed something like that in person (I had seen it on television, but always changed the channel as I usually lost my interest after a few minutes of watching). While the author of the bills were going up to the podium to testify on their proposed bill, mention recent amendments and clarify any questions for the Senate committee members, I was busy glancing through a +100 page printed catalog that had included detailed information about each bill. Each included background information, the pros and cons based on research the staff's committee had done, and which organizations (i.e CA Teacher Association, CA Board of Education, etc.) or which individuals (i.e. State Superintendent) were in support or against the bill. I was fascinated by the action that was going on because although all the issues were relevant to education, they all varied.
For example, there was one that stands out in my mind by the Senator (or maybe Assemblyman) of Oakland. His bill asked that the Oakland Unified School District receive full local control of its schools. According to some of the comments the legislator made, the State had taken over the district's sovereignty four or five years ago after having gone bankrupt. Since the district had improved both financially and academically, parents, educators, and administrators felt that it was time for the OUSD to have local control again. Many community organizations, teachers, parents, and students went up to testify (say their name and affiliation to the district) to show their support for the bill. It was great to see so many people come to the Capitol to express their concerns and show support for something that they are deeply in favor or. Of course, I won't know which of the 40-45 bills that were discussed while I was there have a chance of becoming laws. However, I do know that that experience opened my eyes and allowed me to realize there are many other issues in the education system that need to be resolved (more than the usual concerns with teacher quality, academic achievement, high school dropout rates... issues such as harassment, safe and clean facilities, etc.).
Finally, one of my other experiences from last week that stood out in my mind was a visit to a rural community in the Central Valley. I attended a meeting organized by parents who have expressed concerns with the water at the local elementary school. The water has been tested by a lab and it has been confirmed that it is contaminated and unsafe for the children to be drinking out of the drinking fountains. The school district has failed to make any improvements and keep ignoring the legitimate concerns brought up by the parents. Since most of these parents are working class (mainly farm workers), have less than a high school education and are Spanish monolinguals, the school district is disregarding their request to do something about the contaminated water. It was empowering for me to see a group of parents coming together to address this issue that is negatively affecting their children. As I mentioned in one of the last paragraphs, I often think (and many others do too) on the big issues: achievement gap, dropout rates, inner-city violence, English learners, etc. However, I (as well as many, many others) forget about the needs and struggles of poor, rural areas. I even forgot (didn't even think it was an issue) that contaminated water would be an issue in a public school in California, United States. I would imagine problems like those are present in third-world developing countries, but not in ours in the 21st century!!
In sum, my eyes are beginning to realize there are many, many, many other issues in our education system that need major help. It's really frustrating, disheartening, upsetting (fill in the blank) to know there is one problem after another, but how many solutions can we find for each of them? I'm trying to remain optimistic, but my mind immediately turns to other problems this great state of ours (and in fact, our nation too) is currently facing in the prison and healthcare systems, as probably in other areas too.
For anyone who might have read down to here, please forgive me if I seemed pessimistic or frustrated at times, but I'm faced with a reality that I'm not very satisfied with and hope many others who want to create change aren't satisfied either.
Week 2 and 3
There hasn't been anything too exciting to report from the past two weeks. My days pretty much consist of a normal 9-5 workday in a cubicle. Granted, the work I'm doing is interesting, I still pretty much sit in front of my computer researching the content for the four lesson plans I have to complete before the 30th. My second week I revised an already existing lesson on record sealing. Considering I have no knowledge of the process or requirements for a youth to have their criminal record sealed this was quite a challenge. Thankfully there are experts in the office whose sole job is to help youths through the process. I still haven't completed this lesson because the requirements and process explanation are pretty complicated and I have to simplify them and include some sort of activity so that the youth can understand the basics and not get too bored. I moved on at the end of my second week to begin work on a lesson on immigration. The holiday in the middle of the week was a nice break but the immigration lesson has been a challenge since. Even though I 'm supposed to complete a lesson a week I am still working on immigration and have narrowed it down to two separate lessons, one on the process to get U.S. citizenship, its benefits and the types of crimes that can prevent one from gaining their citizenship and a second lesson on the recent issue of raids and how the youth can protect themselves from arrest and deportation. Hopefully this coming week I will have these two completed and can move on to the last two, banking and domestic violence. Hope everyone is doing well.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Tuesday 10th
Today was the All Star game. I’m not all the way through my lists yet, but I’m halfway through the National League, and completed the American League. I still need to confirm with all the clubs, but I think I’m sitting pretty strong right now. If you watched the game, it was really an exciting one, as the big tension every year is when the National League will break through and end the
It’s funny that I am reading Clemente at the moment, because Mays is certainly involved. Mays was a Giant, as was Monte Irvin, the Negro League slugger, and Clemente was recruited by the Giant. But because of the restrictions and by laws of the league, Clemente signed with the Dodgers instead. And the reason the Dodgers nabbed Clemente? To keep him away from that outfield, what would have been the most dangerous, and most black, in history.
This is also a great example of what baseball was like in the winter, when all the stars went south and played in
I’m learning a lot, and not reading fast enough. My books I ordered came in today, so I’m collecting quite a stack, on top of my actual project. But these will help me write pieces and respond to new developments once my site is off the ground.
Saturday 7th
Thursday, the 5th, was a very important day in Major League history. There were all kinds of articles on Larry Doby, which made him a lot more visible, I think than anyone really thought he’d be. No, all the teams didn’t decide to switch over and wear the number 14 to honor him, and it is my understanding that the Tigers still did very little to make it known. But the broadcast media, ESPN, and the announcers seemed to at least recognize him. And the flurry of articles about his life and legacy reached beyond the staple “he was the second (so does he really count?).”
I spent most of the day reading through articles, then switched back to trying to make progress with trips, my books, and my cataloguing. Friday was much of the same, and the work is slow because I seem to second guess myself, or rethink a lot of my ideas.
But today was the big day, because I got an email from Professor Lapchick pushing me in a direction. I had outlined my project and asked for his help, and though he said he’ll be traveling for a couple weeks, I’m looking forward to talking at more length with him about some of the work he’s done. I think I mentioned that I had read his book, but he seemed excited about my work and what it might do, especially this year, to get some more tangibles on the table for people to examine.
He also sent me a lot more reading material and offices to contact, some of which I’ve read, and used as inspiration or models for how I should handle the statistics that I’ve been given. Receiving a response from someone like him, in my opinion, would be like asking Jesse Jackson to look over your civil rights paper before turning it in.
I’m really excited.
Wednesday 4th
After the fourth of July, I determined to try and complete my team listings by the All Star Break. A major part of my work has to be done before I can post anything, so I have to continue with that. This question of where and how I should categorize multiracial players, or players that are perceived as black in the
Going to the root of this is the key to understanding the difficulties and pressures of how players are even marginalized in such ways in today’s game. This is also a roundabout way to respond to Gary Sheffield’s comments about the farming and exploitation of Latin players as an explanation for the dwindling numbers of blacks in the game.
Those are the two major things that I’ve been doing, I’m about halfway through my teams.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
the halfway point
So this past week has been very busy at the Lawyers' Committee. I've been working with the new Campaign Manager to refine our outreach strategies and to update our website. In addition to my usual web updating and press clips duties, I've also been working with another staff attorney on a new investigation. The Lawyers' Committee has been extensively involved in a small town called prairie view in Waller County, Texas. In the town, there is a predominantly African-American student body at the university whose population dwarfs that of the town's inhabitants. there have been many occasions in the past where local officials have obstructed the African-American students' right to vote, including intimidating students with threats of felony prosecutions (in fact, two students were indicted by a grand jury for trying to vote; the charges were later dropped), reducing the amount of time for early voting (from two days with 16 hours total to one day with only 8 hours), and moving the polling place far off campus. On each of those occasions, the Lawyers' Committee has intervened and successfully defended the rights of the African-American students (most recently during last year's midterm elections). For the upcoming 2008 elections, we are trying to move the polling place for the town onto the university campus' new student activities center. i am currently researching the long history of discrimination the students have endured and compiling a document that will help with our efforts of maintaining the students' access to the polls during elections.
Greetings from Sacramento!
Hello fellow CSRE interns, Jennifer, and anyone else who might be reading this. I arrived to Sacramento on Sunday night and I have a lot of adjusting to do! I'm from a smaller city (55,000 or so) and being in the state Capitol at the age of 21 and working on educational policy is something I didn't think I would be able to do until I graduated from Stanford. First of all, I'll have to get used to public transportation (I'll be taking the bus to the office, which is about 8 miles from the apartment), the heat (it's been around 90 degrees Fahrenheit and supposedly it will be in the high 90s by the end of the week), living in a big city, and many other things. Monday was my first day of work and it went really well, although I can sense I'll be working non-stop. I get in at 9am and get out at around 6pm. Last night we didn't get out until 7pm.
My summer internship is with a public interest Law Firm called Public Advocates. I'll be working on a couple of different projects, but mainly on the implementations of a 2005 Settlement called Williams v. California. It will provide $1 billion for underrepresented schools that are in need of textbooks and instructional materials, qualified teachers, and safe and clean facilities. I will talk more in details in my upcoming posts.
Even though it is my first few days at the office, I can already sense this will be a very rewarding experience for me in many levels. Being around policymakers and people who genuinely want to improve the decay of California public schools makes me more interested in searching a career in the public or non profit sector, although I'm not sure under what role.
Today I had to go into the public library to conduct some online research. As I was waiting outside for the library to open, a high school class arrived for what looked like a tour of their facilities. Once we went inside and they came around to where I was seating (which happened to be the Sociology, Race Relations, College Information, etc. Floor), I silently observed from where I was seating. It made me so sad to see how disengaged these students were while the librarian provided them with information of the many free resources that are available to them. She even went on to tell them there is a college counselor for consultations a few times a week, yet none of them seemed to realize how invaluable this resource is. Indeed, I was doing research on how to improve the educational opportunities of these underrepresented students. However, before any of us can truly make an impact, we have to get the students to care themselves.
My summer internship is with a public interest Law Firm called Public Advocates. I'll be working on a couple of different projects, but mainly on the implementations of a 2005 Settlement called Williams v. California. It will provide $1 billion for underrepresented schools that are in need of textbooks and instructional materials, qualified teachers, and safe and clean facilities. I will talk more in details in my upcoming posts.
Even though it is my first few days at the office, I can already sense this will be a very rewarding experience for me in many levels. Being around policymakers and people who genuinely want to improve the decay of California public schools makes me more interested in searching a career in the public or non profit sector, although I'm not sure under what role.
Today I had to go into the public library to conduct some online research. As I was waiting outside for the library to open, a high school class arrived for what looked like a tour of their facilities. Once we went inside and they came around to where I was seating (which happened to be the Sociology, Race Relations, College Information, etc. Floor), I silently observed from where I was seating. It made me so sad to see how disengaged these students were while the librarian provided them with information of the many free resources that are available to them. She even went on to tell them there is a college counselor for consultations a few times a week, yet none of them seemed to realize how invaluable this resource is. Indeed, I was doing research on how to improve the educational opportunities of these underrepresented students. However, before any of us can truly make an impact, we have to get the students to care themselves.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Lorenzo de Zavala Youth Legislative Session
I have never had a more rewarding experience in my life before working with the National Hispanic Institute's Lorenzo de Zavala Youth Legislative Session. There were over 230 amzingly brilliant high school kids from across the nation, and I was fortunate enough to work with them. The Lorenzo de Zavala Youth Legislative Session, or LDZ, is a program developed to spark intellectual creativity while showing these kids the infrastructure of their government by allowing them to elect their own members of congress and re-enact the law making process. Before all of this begins, there is an interesting dynamic created to break down the kids mentally. WIthin the first two days of the program, they are put in legislative sessions in front of an incredibly intimidating authority figure, the Secretary of State (SOS). The SOS begins the session according to Robert's Rules of Order and it is the kids' job to find out how to entertain motions and so on. No one could help the kids figure out the proper procedure for the rules so it took them a very long time to accept the roll call. From there, the SOS would ask questions and quickly turn down the kids' responses. The kids would immediately get frustrated because it would take them forever to answer his questions or how to properly entertain a motion. Since these kids are accostomed to being the best in their class, the smartest, and leaders, it was difficult for them to be put down and have their credibility questioned by this authority figure. The first day was very painful for the kids, but at night, it was the staff's duty to question their feelings about the SOS, being wrong, and question their acceptance of power and domination so quickly. The point was to get the kids thinking about how they are used to follow and not take matters into their own hands and lead.
From then on, the kids had to run for offices and they had to give speeches, vote, and innaugurate all of its new members. It was very realistic. Then, they had to create bills and pass them or kill them. This was a very time consuming process. Each night, we would then have meetings again with the kids and question their actions throughout the day. There were kids in the senate, house of representatives, supreme court, executive branch, and in the presidential cabinet. The kids were argue over bills, but they were essentially learning their government's processes.
After those ten days, it was time for departure and everyone was so sad. I would have never thought that someone can make an impact within a span of ten days, but I was wrong. My kids told me I was the reason they began to think about themselves and about how they see their future and they thanked me. It was so rewarding for me to see how these kids went from being clueless to being strong, articulate leaders.
From then on, the kids had to run for offices and they had to give speeches, vote, and innaugurate all of its new members. It was very realistic. Then, they had to create bills and pass them or kill them. This was a very time consuming process. Each night, we would then have meetings again with the kids and question their actions throughout the day. There were kids in the senate, house of representatives, supreme court, executive branch, and in the presidential cabinet. The kids were argue over bills, but they were essentially learning their government's processes.
After those ten days, it was time for departure and everyone was so sad. I would have never thought that someone can make an impact within a span of ten days, but I was wrong. My kids told me I was the reason they began to think about themselves and about how they see their future and they thanked me. It was so rewarding for me to see how these kids went from being clueless to being strong, articulate leaders.
Saturday, July 7, 2007
Week 2 in NYC (Takeo)
My second week, work-wise, is not enormously interesting to transcribe... it was mostly data entry, calling people to come to workshops, and researching ways to publish Urban Word's new book. Oh yeah, I performed a couple of times, but that's pretty self-explanatory. It's going well. But I think far more interesting is a more personal reflection on New York in general. The following is from my personal blog...
Carmen Alicia Rivera
Isais Rivera
Juan William Rivera
Linda Ivelisse Rivera
There were four Riveras who died in the World Trade Center. I do not know them. But seeing their names at the World Trade Center site this morning made me break down. There was everyone's names up there. White names, black names, Arab, Chinese, Latino, Japanese... It has been six years and I have made it to New York to find that when those planes hit, we all died in that explosion. I visited today, this hot summer day, and that gaping hole in the sky was the most mournful blue sky I had ever seen in my life.
Two months have passed since I last posted. A lot has happened; things I've decided not to mention on the blog because they've been mentioned in the New York Times. Suffice to say that I've found myself in New York City over the summer in between my two terms of being an RA, essentially living out on my own and taking in the sights, sounds, and smells of the greatest city of the world every day. It is quite the respite after the horrendous media debacle. Well, maybe not a respite-- but regenerative nonetheless. Being an RA-- and a nationally humiliated one at that-- comes with certain things that can wear down on you over an extended period: being anchored to one spot, lack of privacy, an omnipresent panopticism everywhere down the hall. Here, in New York City, it is impossible to stop exploring, and I can blend comfortably into the bustling anonymity.
I love this city. I love Brooklyn. I love the statues and the piss stains, the summer trees and urban sprawls, the simultaneous heat waves and thunderstorms, the kindly paraplegic panhandlers and the brutal NYPD cops, the homeless poets and millionaire Hampton-home-owning executives, the blonde-dyed-hair rich white girls with Forever 21 bags and the low-jeans-sagging puertoriqueño grimacing as he bobs his head to his iPod, Chinese taco shop owners and pizzeria guys who hate you the first time and love you the second, pastrami and pizza and the thousand places to get "New York's Best" of each, the train (not "subway") and talking like you know how to use it. On the F train I've seen Mayan flutists and evangelical preachers. Between the tracks today I saw rats, Red Bull cans, and an old man's cane. And I saw Manhattan shroud herself from full splendor during sunset adjacent to the Brooklyn Bridge. This city has the best, the worst. A utopian dystopia, New York contains the world.
New York's fourth of July fireworks are the greatest in the country. It was a symphony of light in four movements. I went, awestruck at the thousands of Brooklynites who made it through the rain to gather, gaze upward, and join everyone else in applause. I thought about the metaphor of fireworks. Gunfire. Bombs. The revolutionary primordial America. Gunfire. Bombs. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq. I began to wonder if I was awestruck by the symbolic destruction, or by the eight-year-old Haitian girl standing next to me who asked her mother: "Where do fireworks come from? Meteors?"
Which brings me back to this morning, sobbing at ground zero. The debris. The ash. The patriotic graffiti. There was patriotic graffiti. On the back of a sign there was: "R.I.P. World Trade Center," "God Bless America," "United We Stand, Divided We Fall!" and two twin rectangles. My God, I thought. This is where it all started. This was the moment my generation was born. This was the starting point that led to the daily mutual destruction of American soldiers and Iraqi soldiers. I thought back to all the old footage, the screaming, the people jumping from thousands of feet up, the ash, the smoke. We didn't learn. We just fought back. Continued to do what we were best at.
But as I walk the streets of New York I begin to understand America. The millions of faces, every combination of human being possible, individuals flashing by as if to some tense Philip Glass soundtrack, you see a big bang of sorts just walking down the street. The marvels of creation. This city is large enough to be the quintessence of imperfection, through the worst dehumanization one can find the most resilient humanity, and thus boundlessly authentic, boundlessly human. In comparison, the Bay Area struggles through an identity crisis of too many Starbuckses and the ubiquity of places that accept credit cards. You use cash in New York, and you can get mugged. But c'est la vie.
The tragedy of 9/11 is now more real to me than ever. Nationalism aside, when New York was struck, we were all struck. Maybe four of me died in there.
But in any case, I'll continue to roam the streets, catching glimpses of what it means to breathe.
Carmen Alicia Rivera
Isais Rivera
Juan William Rivera
Linda Ivelisse Rivera
There were four Riveras who died in the World Trade Center. I do not know them. But seeing their names at the World Trade Center site this morning made me break down. There was everyone's names up there. White names, black names, Arab, Chinese, Latino, Japanese... It has been six years and I have made it to New York to find that when those planes hit, we all died in that explosion. I visited today, this hot summer day, and that gaping hole in the sky was the most mournful blue sky I had ever seen in my life.
Two months have passed since I last posted. A lot has happened; things I've decided not to mention on the blog because they've been mentioned in the New York Times. Suffice to say that I've found myself in New York City over the summer in between my two terms of being an RA, essentially living out on my own and taking in the sights, sounds, and smells of the greatest city of the world every day. It is quite the respite after the horrendous media debacle. Well, maybe not a respite-- but regenerative nonetheless. Being an RA-- and a nationally humiliated one at that-- comes with certain things that can wear down on you over an extended period: being anchored to one spot, lack of privacy, an omnipresent panopticism everywhere down the hall. Here, in New York City, it is impossible to stop exploring, and I can blend comfortably into the bustling anonymity.
I love this city. I love Brooklyn. I love the statues and the piss stains, the summer trees and urban sprawls, the simultaneous heat waves and thunderstorms, the kindly paraplegic panhandlers and the brutal NYPD cops, the homeless poets and millionaire Hampton-home-owning executives, the blonde-dyed-hair rich white girls with Forever 21 bags and the low-jeans-sagging puertoriqueño grimacing as he bobs his head to his iPod, Chinese taco shop owners and pizzeria guys who hate you the first time and love you the second, pastrami and pizza and the thousand places to get "New York's Best" of each, the train (not "subway") and talking like you know how to use it. On the F train I've seen Mayan flutists and evangelical preachers. Between the tracks today I saw rats, Red Bull cans, and an old man's cane. And I saw Manhattan shroud herself from full splendor during sunset adjacent to the Brooklyn Bridge. This city has the best, the worst. A utopian dystopia, New York contains the world.
New York's fourth of July fireworks are the greatest in the country. It was a symphony of light in four movements. I went, awestruck at the thousands of Brooklynites who made it through the rain to gather, gaze upward, and join everyone else in applause. I thought about the metaphor of fireworks. Gunfire. Bombs. The revolutionary primordial America. Gunfire. Bombs. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq. I began to wonder if I was awestruck by the symbolic destruction, or by the eight-year-old Haitian girl standing next to me who asked her mother: "Where do fireworks come from? Meteors?"
Which brings me back to this morning, sobbing at ground zero. The debris. The ash. The patriotic graffiti. There was patriotic graffiti. On the back of a sign there was: "R.I.P. World Trade Center," "God Bless America," "United We Stand, Divided We Fall!" and two twin rectangles. My God, I thought. This is where it all started. This was the moment my generation was born. This was the starting point that led to the daily mutual destruction of American soldiers and Iraqi soldiers. I thought back to all the old footage, the screaming, the people jumping from thousands of feet up, the ash, the smoke. We didn't learn. We just fought back. Continued to do what we were best at.
But as I walk the streets of New York I begin to understand America. The millions of faces, every combination of human being possible, individuals flashing by as if to some tense Philip Glass soundtrack, you see a big bang of sorts just walking down the street. The marvels of creation. This city is large enough to be the quintessence of imperfection, through the worst dehumanization one can find the most resilient humanity, and thus boundlessly authentic, boundlessly human. In comparison, the Bay Area struggles through an identity crisis of too many Starbuckses and the ubiquity of places that accept credit cards. You use cash in New York, and you can get mugged. But c'est la vie.
The tragedy of 9/11 is now more real to me than ever. Nationalism aside, when New York was struck, we were all struck. Maybe four of me died in there.
But in any case, I'll continue to roam the streets, catching glimpses of what it means to breathe.
Monday, July 2, 2007
new faces, different challenges
So as I had mentioned earlier, the Lawyers' Committee had recently hired a new Campaign Manager for our National Campaign for Fair Elections about two weeks ago. At first, it was a little frustrating for me simply because the Campaign Manager needed to be caught up to speed. However, now that he's more adjusted, I've been working very closely with him to streamline our communications and outreach processes. For example, we've worked out systems to quickly reach all Congressional offices when needed for disseminating our publications and testimony. We recently used this system to show our support for the Deceptive Practices bill in the House I had mentioned previously (H.R. 1281). The bill was put on suspension calendar, and it was a relief that House voted in favor of it.
We've also sent out a couple of mass mailings regarding the nomination of Hans von Spakovsky to the FEC. Mr. von Spakovsky has a disturbing record of undermining voting rights (especially of minority voters) and of politicizing the Department of Justice (where he served for about two years). Although it is unlikely that the Senate will reject his nomination (there are three other nominees to the FEC, and they are all supposed to be voted on with an up-down vote), we're working very hard to make sure that his actions during his tenure at the Department are made widely known. Specifically, we want to emphasize his role in the larger scheme of the politicization of federal agencies under the Bush Administration.
I've also been working to collect press clips everyday of the Lawyers' Committee's activities across the country. In sum, I've been doing a lot of communications-related tasks. I'm going to try to get different tasks, but it's going to be tough given the upcoming Congressional recess.
I hope everybody else is enjoying their internships and summers too. (It's surprisingly not humid today!! Very rare for D.C. in July.)
We've also sent out a couple of mass mailings regarding the nomination of Hans von Spakovsky to the FEC. Mr. von Spakovsky has a disturbing record of undermining voting rights (especially of minority voters) and of politicizing the Department of Justice (where he served for about two years). Although it is unlikely that the Senate will reject his nomination (there are three other nominees to the FEC, and they are all supposed to be voted on with an up-down vote), we're working very hard to make sure that his actions during his tenure at the Department are made widely known. Specifically, we want to emphasize his role in the larger scheme of the politicization of federal agencies under the Bush Administration.
I've also been working to collect press clips everyday of the Lawyers' Committee's activities across the country. In sum, I've been doing a lot of communications-related tasks. I'm going to try to get different tasks, but it's going to be tough given the upcoming Congressional recess.
I hope everybody else is enjoying their internships and summers too. (It's surprisingly not humid today!! Very rare for D.C. in July.)
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Sunday's entry
Scheduling trips and how I want to approach my project is more difficult than I initially thought. I know that I’ll be in
What puts me on a tangent with this is that one of my original trips planned was to an away game for the Indians in
While the time that would have been spent traveling can be used to solidify my direction with the project, it feels kind of bad that my summer is starting without me. I am missing this game, which still offers no guarantee, only the possibility of recognition, and the All-Star game in
matt
Friday's entry
The major task of today was to start a catalogue of books dealing with Race and Baseball. This will prove helpful for me in creating a very extended reading list for myself this summer, to help me recognize titles which will surely come up when talking, interviewing and asking advice from the folks leading this field, and help outline a specific page on my website-to-be.
One of the big obligations I have is to read fanatically on some of these books, primarily to catch me up to speed on many events, scandals and policies that were in effect before I was born. My work last summer helped establish the era of segregation previous to Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Satchel Paige and other names you may have heard of for their ability to adapt and take the nation by the hand, leading them into the unknown land of desegregation. So I have a good foundation of what it was like before, but that means my exploration has to cover a 60 year span since the time when baseball began that crusade. My reading, as I have already found, is a great resource for name dropping, as I think of which players, former players, writers and administrators have made important contributions in this field.
It feels like I’m not getting anywhere, having to deal with all these little steps. And every time I look at the calendar, it feels like it’s just too short.
matt
First Week
Hello Everyone,
I just finished my first week working for the non-profit Fresh Lifelines for Youth (FLY) here in the Bay Area. I didn't really know the extent of my duties as an intern before starting but now have a pretty good grasp of what I'm expected to do in my time here. The organization serves at-risk youth and juvenile offenders in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties through leadership/mentoring programs as well as legal-related education courses. I'm working with the legal team which coordinates a 13-week course that is taught both in Juvenile Hall as well as in community programs through the probation dept. My job is to create a brand new 13-week curriculum which will be taught only in Juvenile Hall. There is a problem right now with teaching the same curriculum both in the Hall and as a part of probation requirements because some of the kids are having to take the same course twice and are not being challenged. Before this first week I thought I was only revamping/rearranging the existing curriculum to include different activities but using the same concepts. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the new curriculum is supposed to not include the content of the existing curriculum. So I am in charge of selecting topics of my choosing as well as constructing the lesson plans from scratch. It's been quite a challenge this first week, getting used to going in to an office from 9-5 and researching what I want to include in the lessons. Right now I have 4 weeks to finish 4 lessons: immigration laws, domestic violence, record sealing, and hate crimes/stereotyping. My biggest challenge is trying to contain all the information I want to include in an hour and half lesson. We'll see how this works out...
I just finished my first week working for the non-profit Fresh Lifelines for Youth (FLY) here in the Bay Area. I didn't really know the extent of my duties as an intern before starting but now have a pretty good grasp of what I'm expected to do in my time here. The organization serves at-risk youth and juvenile offenders in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties through leadership/mentoring programs as well as legal-related education courses. I'm working with the legal team which coordinates a 13-week course that is taught both in Juvenile Hall as well as in community programs through the probation dept. My job is to create a brand new 13-week curriculum which will be taught only in Juvenile Hall. There is a problem right now with teaching the same curriculum both in the Hall and as a part of probation requirements because some of the kids are having to take the same course twice and are not being challenged. Before this first week I thought I was only revamping/rearranging the existing curriculum to include different activities but using the same concepts. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the new curriculum is supposed to not include the content of the existing curriculum. So I am in charge of selecting topics of my choosing as well as constructing the lesson plans from scratch. It's been quite a challenge this first week, getting used to going in to an office from 9-5 and researching what I want to include in the lessons. Right now I have 4 weeks to finish 4 lessons: immigration laws, domestic violence, record sealing, and hate crimes/stereotyping. My biggest challenge is trying to contain all the information I want to include in an hour and half lesson. We'll see how this works out...
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