Homeless kids have their work cut out for them

Posted on April 5, 2011 by comm5775

Story by PARKER LEE

Kids at the Palmer Court Head Start preschool in Salt Lake City spend their weekdays learning from teachers in their classrooms and playing on the playground. At the end of the day their parents pick them up and take them home- to a room down the hall.

What is unusual about these families is that they are homeless. Palmer Court is a transitional housing facility for homeless families in Salt Lake.

This building, formally a Holiday Inn, has about 200 apartments. These converted hotel rooms provide long-term housing for homeless people who have been staying at the Road Home or other homeless shelters in downtown Salt Lake.

When the children leave the on-site preschool, they are essentially going home to a hotel room shared by their whole family. They have a roof over their heads, but they are still technically homeless.

Kids who are four years old and younger have the Headstart program available to them. Palmer Court has its own Headstart site, so the parents don’t even have to leave the grounds to take their kids to preschool.

This Headstart site currently has 37 children, 15 in the preschool-age class and 22 in the early Headstart classes (6 weeks to 3 years old).

Headstart is funded entirely by the federal government. They have been funding the program for one year and have committed to continue funding Headstart.

But the early Headstart classes could be in jeopardy. The government will decide in the next two weeks whether or not to cut that funding.

“It would be devastating to the tiny ones and their families. It is such a good resource for them,” Pett said. “It just doesn’t make sense for the government to fund it and then change their minds the next year.”

Families at Palmer Court have to meet certain criteria to stay. They have to be chronically homeless, which means they have been in-and-out of homeless shelters multiple times. There is also an application that must be completed. The families then must wait for a spot to open up. There is currently a one-year waiting list, according to Tammy Pett, family partnership coordinator at Palmer Court. That makes it a challenge for new homeless families who have lost their homes as a product of the down economy.

But once they are in, families can stay as long as they want. They have housing supplement money available to them; so coming up with rent money isn’t an issue. They just have to follow the rules. This includes no drug use or distribution, according to Pett.

Fighting is also not allowed- a rule gets broken more often than others.

“There are sometimes lots of brawls,” Pett said. “But they don’t get kicked out if they get in one fight. It is kind of a three strikes and you’re out situation.”

Assuming the Palmer Court residents stay out of trouble, they can be there for an extended period of time. Some of the children at Palmer Court don’t know anything different. Some probably never will.

“Not only are these families chronically homeless, but some are generationally homeless,” said Tess Otero, family advocate at Palmer Court. “For some of these people, their parents have taught them how to get by being homeless, like teaching them how to get welfare money.”

Pett said a lack of competence makes it difficult to get out of that rut. “Some of them have extremely low life skills.”

Getting a job and renting an apartment is the only real alternative for these families. Otero said just 15 to 20 percent of adults at Palmer Court are actively looking for jobs. It could be less.

There are a portion of residents with disabilities like mental illness who might be challenged to find jobs. There are others who could be looking but are not.

For the residents who do want to be working, they have resources available to them. Otero said she personally helps people write resumes.

Residents have other resources at their disposal as well. Palmer Court has its own set of caseworkers to help families get what they need. Each family has a caseworker assigned to them, Pett said. These workers help the families to apply for food stamps and Medicaid.

As for the Headstart program, whether it sticks around for these children or not remains to be seen. But regardless of that decision by the feds, these kids will still be at Palmer Court. Homeless shelters and Palmer Court are the only homes that some of them have ever known.

Otero said it is so normal to them that they do not even think about it.

“I ran into one of our preschool kids from last year at one of the shelters,” Otero said. “He ran up to me and gave me a hug and said, ‘I didn’t know you lived here.’ To them living in a shelter is normal and is somewhere that anybody could live.”

Filed under: Education, Organizations, Politics, Utah's Economy | Leave a comment »

Latino community split over economic boycott

Posted on April 5, 2011 by comm5775

Watch a video on the boycott here.

Story by ROBERT CALLISTER

A call for a business boycott this week has divided the Latino community and its leaders. Some Latinos believe that it will not have the desired effect of showing the community their economic power.

Utah Latinos began a two-week business boycott on Monday with the intent to show the community the impact they have on the economy. There were numerous debates and protests on Capitol Hill regarding several controversial immigration bills during this year’s 45-day legislative session.

The boycott’s chief organizer, Jose “Pepe” Gutierrez, believes the boycott will show there is a human element to the issue of immigration. Various immigration enforcements and verification of employment status bills left immigrants confused and even angry.

“We are not going to buy anything for 15 days,” Gutierrez, president of the Utah Hispanic Latino Coalition, said Thursday. Boycott organizers have also urged Latinos to withdraw money out of their respective banks.

The Latino community was left divided as result of the call to boycott.

Michael Clara, state chairman of the Utah Republican Hispanic Assembly, said he felt many positive things resulted from the 2011 legislative session. He went on to say that there is not much support for the boycott even within the Latino community.

“I’m not understanding what the purpose of the boycott is,” Clara said. “I guess it would be to express some anger. But I think we should be celebrating the success.”

House Bill 466 will create a pilot program with the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon to allow migrant workers to come to Utah with nonimmigrant U.S. visas. This would seem like a pretty substantial win for the Latino community.

But not all are satisfied with this legislative session’s results.

“We feel we need to do something to attract attention to the fact that we’re unhappy and an integral part of this state,” said Utah La Raza Chairman Archie Archuleta.

Supporters of the boycott oppose House Bill 497, which requires police to check the immigration status of people they arrest for felonies and serious misdemeanors. Officers may also check the status of those suspected of less serious misdemeanors.

Jonathon Rothwell is a senior economic analyst for the Brookings Institute and co-writes the Mountain Monitor, which tracks metropolitan areas in the intermountain region. His research shows Salt Lake City lost roughly 18,000 jobs in construction related industries from 2007 to 2010.

Rothwell said that the roughly 21,000 Latino construction workers were hit especially hard during the recession.

“So, at a time when Latinos have already been hit disproportionately hard by the recession. Utah legislatures are trying to make life even more difficult for them. The remarkable thing is how calm and reasonable their demands are under the circumstances.”

However, not all of the Latino community is convinced the boycott will work in their advantage.

Tony Yapias, director of Proyecto Latino de Utah, said the boycott is misguided. He believes it will not have the desired effect.

“The business community and the Chamber of Commerce stepped up to the plate this year,” Yapias said. “They signed the Utah Compact and the Salt Lake Chamber did an excellent job of stepping up and to now call for a boycott is like slapping them in the face after all they did to help us. Those pushing the boycott aren’t seeing the big picture.”

The vast majority of illegal immigrants in the state come from Mexico. Estimates are at nearly 110,000 people.

Citizens that have nationalized and emigrated from Mexico own 1,834 businesses in Utah. These establishments account for $227 million in sales yearly, according to a recent letter several Utah economists distributed through the Salt Lake Chamber.

Mexican immigrants own $984 million worth of property in the state and have over $1 billion in purchasing power.

Sam Greener works at the Whole Foods Market in Sugar House, Utah. He has not seen a big impact as result of the boycotts.

“To be honest, I did not even know that there was a boycott going on,” he said. “I can see it affecting other businesses a little more, but there really has not been a huge impact here.”

Pam Perlich, professor of economics at the University of Utah, said full participation in the boycott could be very destructive to Utah’s economy. However, she said the boycott would have to have widespread and even national support for this magnitude of impact to occur.

The boycott has hundreds of supporters and will continue for the next 10 days.

Filed under: Hispanics & Latinos(as), Immigrants & Refugees, Politics, Utah's Economy | Leave a comment »

Legislature to quicken death penalty process

Posted on March 17, 2011 by comm5775

Story and photo by ROBERT CALLISTER

A bill aimed at quickening the death penalty appeals process in an effort to save money is one step closer to passing Utah’s Legislature.

House Bill 202’s sponsor, Rep. Kay McIff, R-Richfield, says the bill is designed to reduce the delays and excessive nature of post-conviction proceedings in death penalty cases. HB202 focuses mainly on two things: court appointed counsel and automatic stays after execution dates have been set.  The draft of the enrolled bill has now been prepared having passed both the House and Senate. It is the final chapter of an effort spanning the previous three legislative sessions.

Legislators work on the House floor.

The Utah legislature is cutting approximately 15 percent from its budget this year. Following through with a death penalty conviction is an expensive process, but McIff believes the legal costs can be drastically reduced by carefully modified legislation. Millions of Utah tax payers’ dollars are spent yearly to fund these costly legal fees.

Central to HB 202 says all known claims of mistrial or error during the original trial must be raised at the first post-conviction review and not saved for a later date or petition. Rep. McIff believes this will prevent wasted time and money.

“This knowledge cannot be kept in the back-pocket of the defense for later use in a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th petition,” he said.

The bill was inspired by a Supreme Court ruling that denied Ronnie Lee Gardner’s last request for a stay of execution on June 17, 2010.  Gardner was convicted of fatally shooting attorney Michael Burdell in 1985 and murdering a bartender in 1984. The then 49-year-old Gardner was shot by a firing squad 26 years later.

McIff said this case highlighted the possibility that the appeals process can be drawn out so exhaustively that, in the end, the convicted might not receive the just sentence given to him by the jury. It took four petitions for Gardner to finally receive the death penalty. This is precisely what HB 202 is designed to prevent, said McIff.

“HB 202 is designed to recognize that 26 years is too long,” said McIff, a retired judge. “There were four post-conviction appeals filed in the Gardner case, each one determined not to have merit, but each one adding additional years and hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions, of dollars in additional expense.”

He added that it is impossible to put a price tag of someone’s life, but there has to be regulation to such an exhaustive and often wasteful process.

In the justice system there are three entities being acted upon. The trial is designed to bring justice to both the victim and accused. The state is to act as a mediator between the two. Generally, citizens of the state agree to render justice in the best, most efficient method possible. McIff believes that a system that allows petition after petition only invites manipulation and corruption.

Some opposed to the bill, such as Rep. Brian King, D-Salt Lake City, say it will lead to the execution of more innocent people. King has said he does not agree with the death penalty and the bill needs to be considered carefully.

“I don’t think that we should consider this bill without recognizing exactly what we’re doing,” he said. “What we’re doing is accelerating the process of killing people who have killed people, and we’re doing it in the name of the state.”

To date, 245 people nationwide have been exonerated through DNA testing and reforming in the criminal justice system. Supporters of HB 202 believe it will still offer convicts the option to petition in order to minimize harm and maximize justice.

It provides for one post-conviction petition to make certain no error has been overlooked. New counsel is appointed at public expense to rule out any question about incompetency of trial. The defendant is afforded the benefit of a fresh set of legal eyes to review the entire proceeding to make sure nothing favorable to the defendant was overlooked.

Rep. McIff said he negotiated the bill over several months. The Judicial Conference and the Constitutional Revision Commission unanimously endorsed it.

Filed under: Politics, Utah's Economy | Leave a comment »

Community-based art education used as tool by artists to build communities, change lives

Posted on March 1, 2011 by comm5775

Story and photo by MICHAEL OMAN

On a bad day she challenges you to a shouting match. Sometimes she resorts to hitting but not always. Generally she sits in silence, hunched over in her chair, ignoring the world around her. If you’re lucky enough to get a response it comes in the form of inaudible murmurings or a quick nod.

A mural by V. Kim Martinez's University of Utah students on the HB Boys building located at 2280 S. Main St. in Salt Lake City.

This is the scene Dr. Beth Krensky, associate professor of art at the University of Utah, sets in chapter four of the book she co-authored with colleague Seana Steffen. Engaging Classrooms and Communities through Art is a guide on reaching out to people through community-based art education (CBAE) programs.

The girl’s name is Amber. She was 12 years old then. The project: to build a tile entrance for Multimedia Park in Colorado. Some might describe her as a recluse but CBAE changed Amber’s life for the better.

“I have found it remarkable how profound the impact of participating in CBAE has been for so many of the youth and adults I have worked with over the years,” Krensky said. “In my experience, there have always been one or multiple ‘Amber[s].’”

It’s one reason Krensky stands behind CBAE, even in the face of a possible budget cut.

Continued support and patience from a contributing artist, identified as Rae in the book, changed Amber’s attitude. Art became a tool Amber used to express herself. As time progressed she began speaking to others without screaming. She became a leader by encouraging other youth to come and participate in the project. The once shy, tempered Amber even spoke to the media and gave a presentation once the project was completed.

Typically, CBAE works by non-profit organizations encouraging a community to work with a professional artist to produce a work of art.

“[The] facilitator of the project is making sure that people are building community, they’re coming to understand themselves and others,” Krensky said. “Artistic skills are being learned.”

The skills CBAE participants gain benefit those seeking productive careers later in life.

Independent studies confirm the importance of art education. A study published by the Teachers College Press, Studio Thinking, says art education creates “Eight Studio Habits of Mind.” Students learn to “envision, express, observe, reflect, and stretch and explore.” According to the study, the arts often lead to better SAT scores, too.

What makes CBAE unique, Krensky says, is that these projects change the landscape of communities and cross “ethnic barriers, racial barriers, socio-economic barriers, age barriers.” It brings communities together. “It is a place where a message from the community is put forth,” she said.

V. Kim Martinez, associate professor of painting and drawing at the University of Utah, echoes this sentiment.

Martinez teaches a class on murals. Towards the end of each semester the class ventures out into the community to paint a mural they designed in class — sometimes two. She says residents tend to develop a sense of pride for each piece. “They’re more willing to keep the area looking nice,” and, she says, even “businesses tend to remove unsightly drainage pipes.”

The presence of these murals can decrease the presence of graffiti, too. Martinez often hears communities warn, “If you tag this I’ll call the police.”

Her class is only one example of service-oriented classes offered by the university. For the last seven years, Krensky’s class, “Art in the Community,” worked with youth in the Salt Lake area using the CBAE model. Her class currently works with youth through South Salt Lake’s Pioneer Craft House.

Both classes face a major hurdle. The state needs to cut 7 percent from its budget for this upcoming fiscal year. Earlier this month legislation passed that proposes cuts to public education and higher education. Legislators stress the cuts could be temporary. Yet, if put into effect, some funding generally allocated to the University of Utah may vanish.

“We do not have the same funding opportunities that many other colleges have on campus,” Martinez said.

An online Deseret News article published January 31 explains, “The reason for the cuts is what’s being called a structural imbalance totaling some $313 million.” It’s a side effect of no longer receiving federal stimulus money or other sources of revenue the state received during the economic downturn, according to the article.

During the February 2 legislative session Representative Michael Morley R-Spanish Fork, chair member of the Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee, supported the education cuts. “We think that it is responsible and will help us in solving our structural imbalance,” he said.

The proposed cuts could prove disastrous for some universities, which worries Martinez. “The mural class will not continue if I cannot find funding,” she says. “I often spend well over $700 on supplies a semester.”

Krensky remains hopeful for her class. “I don’t think the cuts will affect the class,” she says. By the earnest look on her face, it’s clear how seriously she takes her commitment to the youth of South Salt Lake. “We’d find a way to make it work regardless.”

Filed under: Arts, Entertainment, Culture, Education, Politics, Utah's Economy | Leave a comment »

Fraud: The silent budget killer

Posted on March 1, 2011 by comm5775

Story and photo by ROBERT CALLISTER

Utah legislators have been making the number one budget consumer, Medicaid, their number one priority in 2011. Last year, lawmakers had to fund the state’s $540 million in Medicaid contributions and are now looking for ways to reduce health care costs by addressing fraud, waste and abuse in the system.

Lawmakers debate on the House floor during the 2011 legislative session.

Severe budget cuts are sweeping the state and Utah does not have a dime to waste in any sector. There is mandatory spending for every state, but it can always be adjusted and modified. Medicaid consumes over 25 percent of state funding. It is growing at three times the rate of Utah’s budget.

Lawmakers convene daily in subcommittee meetings to address the unsustainable future of Utah’s health care system. And with the federal government socializing healthcare, it seems as if there will probably be further spikes in Medicaid, says Utah House Minority Leader Michael Litvack.

He estimates there will be an additional 100,000 people on Medicaid in Utah by the year 2014. There are currently 213,000 Utahns who are on the low-income health plan.

Rep. Litvack is on the state’s Social Service Subcommittee that deals with budget cuts. He feels one way to cut superfluous spending for the program is to address fraud in the system.

“I think that Utah is very prone to fraud,” Litvack said. “Perception of the state and instinct would almost have you think otherwise.”

But perception aside, the state faces the reality of a population that does not mind manipulating its government. A recent study conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation ranked Utah in the top five states for Medicaid fraud, costing millions of dollars every year.

Reports show the majority of fraud comes from people reporting procedures that don’t occur, falsely claiming disability, misrepresenting identification and medical centers billing for imaginary patients.

Sen. Allen M. Christensen, R-North Ogden, is the chairman of the Social Services Subcommittee. He worries that many people seem detached from their government and are indifferent to manipulating it.

“Generally, human nature makes people feel bad about taking advantage of one another,” Christensen said. “Unfortunately, this same guilt does not apply in taking advantage of the government.”

Rep. Litvack recognizes that aspects unique to Utah’s culture make it particularly prone to fraud.

“For whatever reason, whether it is the trusting culture that we have or whatever, it does seem that we have a big problem with affinity fraud,” he said.

Affinity fraud is known to be rampant in societies with high-levels of trust and admiration. Fraudsters will prey upon members of identifiable groups, such as religious communities. In Utah, research shows that 71 percent of the state’s population belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

The combination between lack of respect for the government and willingness to take advantage of trust has turned Utah into a boiling pot of fraud. However, this year’s 45-day legislative session is addressing the situation from various angles.

Lawmakers are currently considering numerous bills regarding Medicaid reform. House bill 174 would require the Department of Health to issue reports to the Legislature before awarding Medicaid contracts. This would serve as an oversight program to monitor credibility of potential health care clients.

Rep. Litvack said the last legislative session appropriated millions of dollars to the Department of Health to create a program to prevent fraud, waste and abuse. The department will select a vendor to look at Medicaid claims on “the front end.”

“The purpose is to tease out as claims come in for payment, which ones represent fraud, abuse and mistakes,” he said. “So we are focusing on cost avoidance rather than cutting budgets.”

Rep. Ronda Menlove, R-Garland, is sponsoring a bill that would direct the Utah Health Department to pilot a program requiring some Medicaid recipients to do community service in exchange for health benefits. She recognized the need to push legislation to “combat a growing entitlement culture in this state.”

Last year there were legislative audits conducted against the Department of Health and Medicaid with strict focus on fraud.

Rep. Litvack sees fraud in a more broad sense and as something that needs to receive constant attention.

“We need to look at this issue in terms of Medicaid broadly,” he said. “Often times we need to think of fraud in terms of the intent of manipulating by billing for procedures that don’t happen or to even bill for patients that we haven’t seen.”

Legislators vary in opinion on certain amendments and bills, but they all recognize the importance of tracking money that goes in and out of the health care system.

Audits will continue to monitor the Department of Health and state Medicaid, said Litvack. Bills will be passed in attempt to reduce manipulation of the system. But legislators such as Sen. Christenson would exhort people to recognize that when they steal from the government, they are really stealing from their neighbor.

Filed under: Health & Fitness, Politics, Utah's Economy | Leave a comment »

Being Muslim in Utah

Posted on December 2, 2010 by comm5775

Story and multimedia by DANA IGO

Take a tour of the Khadeeja Islamic Center

The terrorists who brought the World Trade Center down on Sept. 11, 2001, had been Muslim extremists. Because of this, Muslims were thrust to the forefront of American society and found themselves at the receiving end of hatred and intolerance. As a minority group in the United States, Muslims weren’t well understood, nor would they be for the next nine years.

In her book, “Mecca and Main Street: Muslim life in America after 9/11,” Geneive Abdo wrote about campaigning door-to-door in 2003 with Maad Abu Ghazalah, who was then running for U.S. Congress in San Francisco. Though he was politically liberal, the reactions he received were lukewarm at best. Without considering his political stance, one man said to Ghazalah, “With this name, I would say this guy doesn’t have a chance.”

If people in one of the most liberal cities in the United States can’t see past religion and ethnicity, what hope would there be for Muslim-Americans in a conservative area like the Salt Lake valley?

Roni Choudhury, a doctoral student in computer science at the University of Utah, said he hasn’t faced discrimination for his beliefs. Choudhury, 29, was born in Boston, the son of Bangladeshi immigrants who had come to the U.S. to pursue the American dream.

Roni Choudhury on campus at the University of Utah

According to Choudhury, his parents have assimilated into American culture, especially as their children have grown. They are involved in his 13-year-old brother’s schooling through the PTA and although they were apprehensive to let Choudhury attend sleepovers as a child, they’ve relaxed and let his brother stay with friends.

When the Sept. 11 attacks occurred, Choudhury’s family reacted as any other American family did. “After 30 years in the country they feel like this is their home,” he said. “My mom was devastated seeing the images of the towers coming down.”

Yet, public opinion of Muslims has only gotten worse since the attacks. A poll conducted in August 2010 by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that favorable opinion of Muslims has fallen from 41 to 30 percent since 2005.

Choudhury’s parents have worked to defend their faith against the negative perceptions that have come from Muslim terrorist attacks. His mother had a co-worker from Bosnia, a country that experienced a lot of Muslim infighting in the mid-1990s. His mother explained that while there are some violent Muslims in the world, most aren’t.

Choudhury says his religion was never a point of contention with people he knew in Boston, nor in Chicago where he went to college for a bachelor’s degree. He said Salt Lake City is no different. “I’ve been impressed by how nice and polite people are here,” he said. “I haven’t been harassed. I’ve had a good time in Utah.”

Choudhury thinks it’s harder to be a Muslim in the Middle East than to be one in the United States. Muslims in the U.S. don’t have to worry about being Sunni or Shiite. In Iraq and many other parts of the world it’s a different story. “I think you’re in far more danger in certain parts of the Middle East being the wrong kind of Muslim, than you are being any kind of Muslim in America,” he said.

His ethnicity, rather than his religion, has been more of a problem. People tend to assume things about him based on the way he looks. “When you see someone who looks like me you don’t assume they’re from Bangladesh, you assume they’re from India,” he said. He’s had people greet him with “Namaste,” a Hindi greeting used mainly in India and Nepal.

People also assume he’s foreign based on his looks. “Why not just listen to my voice and assume that I’m from around here?” he said. At the grocery store a woman told him how nice it was that he could immigrate to study in the United States.

Salman Masud, an anesthesiologist at Shriner’s Hospital in Salt Lake City, has experienced a more extreme kind of racial and religious profiling.

Salman Masud (photo courtesy of the Masud family)

Two years ago Masud, 55, was put on the Transport Security Administration’s (TSA) “No Fly List,” which was created to prevent terrorists from boarding airplanes. Though the TSA has not publicly announced the figure, the ACLU claims tens of thousands of names are currently on the list, which prompts Masud to wonder how effective it is. “It just upsets people. It’s against their constitutional rights,” he said.

“I’m a U.S. citizen but my place of birth is written and immediately I’m singled out for an extra pat-down,” Masud said. Once a TSA agent spotted Masud’s birthplace on his passport and drew his supervisor’s attention by shouting, “Born in Pakistan, born in Pakistan.”

He can’t do an electronic check-in because he has to get special clearance to fly. He hasn’t missed a flight yet, but he’s come close. He said this happens every time he goes to the airport.

He’s spoken with both the TSA and the FBI about his inclusion on the list, but has not received any word on whether flying will become easier for him in the future.

Although Masud has had trouble flying, he hasn’t faced discrimination in his home or work life. He’s very open about being a Muslim. “People generally are inquisitive because they have not come across a Muslim,” he said. “They ask a lot of questions, which I enjoy answering. Diversity strengthens a society.”

The people whom Masud works with are accepting of who he is. One of Masud’s co-workers even attended a prayer service at the Khadeeja Islamic Center to learn more about Masud’s religion.

He wants to tell them about the positive aspects of his culture and religion, because he says people often have negative perceptions.

In France, a new law has gone into effect banning religious clothing in public — including the headscarf, or hijab, worn by some Muslim women, because of fears that it made them subservient. Masud’s daughters only wear the hijab during prayer, but he says the hijab is a symbol of modesty and respect, not one of oppression. “Modesty is in the person, the clothes are an outer expression of that,” he said.

Both Masud and Choudhury are happy to live in Utah and haven’t experienced any contention between neighbors or friends. Being Muslim doesn’t make them less American; in fact, it embodies what this country is about. In a nation of immigrants and varied faiths, Masud and Choudhury fit right in.

“You can be from anywhere in the world — all you have to do is adopt the American way of life,” Choudhury said, “which includes a lot of freedoms to do things your own way.”

Filed under: Asian American, Politics, Religion | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a comment »

The bridge between authority and leadership

Posted on October 28, 2010 by comm5775

by SHAANTAI LEARY

Linda Oda, director of  Asian Affairs, is a petite Japanese-American woman who feels strongly about authority. As a sign of respect she has a sense to bow every time she meets someone older than she. (Oda did not want to disclose her age, but said she is “29 and holding.”) Bowing has been instilled within her as part of her culture. Custom also dictates that one’s elders should be respected; the phrase “children should be seen and not heard,” is a sign of this.

In addition to her role in the Utah State Office of Ethnic Affairs, she served as a moderator for the “Day of Remembrance,” which was held on Ogden’s 25th Street, also known as Japantown, Feb. 16-18, 2007.

She was raised on Ogden’s 25th Street. Oda’s first job was at the age of 3. Her family lived above the grocery store they owned and operated; her job in the store was to watch for “dorobo,” or shoplifters. She recalled a man asking her if she thought he was going to steal. As she described this confrontation, she put her hands on her hips just as she did when she was a child, and looked up. In a very stern voice she said, “yes.”

When Oda was about 10, her job in the small store was to trim the lettuce and pull off outer leaves so the greens displayed well. One day, a man walked into the store, pressed a knife to her stomach and said, “I could kill you.” Oda did not flinch. She took the knife she had been using on the heads of lettuce, placed it against the man’s stomach, and said, “I could kill you, too.”

She was raised to fight for her life; every day was a battle for her and her family. In fact, her father was murdered on 25th Street for less than $100.

Despite her difficult childhood, Oda went on to become a principal at Taylor Elementary School in Ogden. There, she worked to break the cycle of bullying by attempting to instill respect within her students.

Chase Dunn, 21, is majoring in Middle Eastern studies at the University of Utah. He is well-versed in his studies of culture and religions ranging from Islam to Catholicism. “Bowing is a sign of cultural respect,” he said in a text message. “Bow back. When it comes to authority I tend to think everyone should be met with skepticism. Sure they are older, but they are humans and humans make mistakes and have their own interests [in mind].”

Dunn, who is white, is currently working in Washington, D.C., as an intern for Frances D. Cook, the former ambassador to the Sultanate of Oman. Dunn also has completed study-abroad classes in Cairo and Beirut over the past few years.

”Power and authority should be challenged and unless they can justify themselves, then they should be dismantled,” Dunn wrote. “Remember authority figures and institutions are humans and human built and therefore can be changed.”

For Oda, authority is a compicated issue. She said that one’s “authority, stature and expertise can be diminished” simply because one is “an ethnic minority.” So, people feel as if they have to prove themselves. Oda said she is assertive, not aggressive. “I win and you win, both of us win. To me, that’s an Asian way.”

Filed under: Asian American, Education, Politics, Religion | Tagged: , | Leave a comment »

Truthfulness, compassion, tolerance: How Falun Gong saved a life

Posted on April 20, 2010 by comm5775

by KEITH R. ARANEO-YOWELL

Lang-hao Lin shifted uncomfortably in her seat when she flipped to the page in a Falun Gong history book with an image of a young girl bound to a chair with rope, and surgical tubing going into her bloody nostril.

“This is similar to what happened to me,” Lin said. “They put some kind of medicine into the thing they force-feed you. After feeding, you’re in semi-consciousness, dreaming all day, you’re not clear-minded anymore.”

Lin, who asked that her real name not be used, was referring to the treatment she received while serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence in a forced labor camp in Shanghai, China. Her crime was practicing Falun Gong or Falun Dafa, a philosophy that holds tolerance, compassion and honesty as its three pillars of spirituality.

“It’s not a religion,” Lin said. “It’s culture generated from the 5,000-year-old Chinese history.”

Started in 1992 by Li Hongzhi, Falun Gong draws from Buddhist and Taoist principles of self-improvement without the worship of a deity. It emphasizes qigong, a meditative practice that uses slow movements and controlled breathing as a way of spiritual enrichment.

Hongzhi’s book, “Falun Gong,” teaches the physical and spiritual aspects as well as how to meditate. Practitioners begin by assuming four standing meditation positions and one final sitting position. The legs and torso remain static while the hands move slowly around the body in ways that “mix and merge the universe’s energy with the energy inside the body.”

In this way, many practitioners believe that the ritual has powerful supernatural healing capabilities.

Because of the changes she perceived in those around her, Lin, 37 started attending Falun Gong meditation in Shanghai in 1997.

“I witnessed with my own eyes so many people getting healthy bodies by just doing [Falun Gong] exercises,” Lin said. “Before, they even had cancer. It was like a miracle happening around me.”

Lin said the practice grew rapidly because of its simplicity and effectiveness and, while there is no official entity monitoring the number of practitioners, the Congressional Research Service’s report titled “China and Falun Gong” estimates the number of practitioners during the mid-1990s to be anywhere from 3 million to 70 million.

Despite its wide adoption in Chinese society, however, the Chinese government made the practice of Falun Gong illegal in July 1999.

Roger Tsai is an attorney for Parsons, Behle & Latimer who would later help Lin attain status as a political asylee. He said the Chinese government felt threatened by Falun Gong’s popularity.

“[The Chinese Communist Party] was worried about how popular Falun Gong was,” Tsai said. “At one point the size of this group was larger than the size of the communist party, so it was a potential challenge.”

A government official was later quoted in print and broadcast for the Xinhua News Agency (a Chinese news outlet) as saying, “Those who jeopardize social stability under the pretext of practicing any qigong will be dealt with according to the law.”

Even though there is no official record of the number of arrests for practicing Falun Gong, the Wall Street Journal reported in 2000 that more than 30,000 practitioners had been arrested in the first year of the Chinese government’s ban of the practice.

Lin was pregnant with her daughter and working in Shanghai when Falun Gong was made illegal. She continued to openly attend Falun Gong meditation even though she had heard stories of the Chinese government sending practitioners to prisons and labor camps. “I was scared,” Lin said. “I did not want to be persecuted, but I did not stop.”

In 2001, Chinese authorities found Lin at her work. “At first, I was not [arrested] because I had a baby, and they gave me a one-year nursing period,” Lin said. “They told me, if after one year [I did] not denounce Falun Gong, they would send me to a labor camp.”

After receiving threats from the government and hearing accounts of life in labor camps, she decided she had no choice.

Lin went into hiding for a year in Nanjing, a city roughly 200 miles northwest of Shanghai. “My husband and my daughter didn’t know where I was. I dared not go out. After one year,” Lin said, “I missed home so much, I made one phone call to my husband. I told him where we could meet, but when I went, there were police waiting already. I didn’t even get to see [him].” Lin believes her husband’s phone was tapped.

Lin would spend the next two-and-a-half years in a forced labor camp assembling American products, a task she said was assigned to her because she could read English. She slept on a plank of wood. She was not allowed to talk. She shared a single toilet and a cell the size of two standard parking spaces with up to 10 other women.

For 10 days, Lin did not eat or drink water as a way of protest. “If you refuse to eat or drink, they use a tube to force-feed you,” Lin said stoically. “It’s not to save your life, it’s for punishment.”

Had Lin simply signed a document renouncing Falun Gong, authorities would have allowed her to go free. She said she couldn’t do it because it goes against the truthfulness that Falun Gong holds paramount over suffering. “It isn’t true, so I couldn’t do it,” Lin said.

After her release from the labor camp in 2005, Lin was only able to continue her Falun Gong practice in secret because the Chinese government continued to monitor her activity. Lin was unable to attend public meetings, protests, rallies or Falun Gong meditation.

Reprieve came only in 2008, when Lin’s husband accepted The University of Utah’s offer to study for one year as a visiting scholar. Her husband left China while Lin and her daughter acquired passports and visas to stay in the United States for the rest of his time at the University of Utah.

After a few months of talking with her husband about staying in the U.S., Lin approached Roger Tsai to obtain status as a political asylee, which would grant her one year of legal residence in the U.S. With Tsai’s help, she submitted her case for political asylum to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s office of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in 2009. Two months later, she and her family were allowed an extra year in the United States after her husband’s visiting scholarship ended in August 2009.

Lin still studies Falun Gong year round. Once a week, she and a group of other practitioners meet in Salt Lake City’s Liberty Park during the spring and summer, and with one of the elderly practitioners at a nursing home on 700 East during the rest of the year. Robin, who asked that his full name not be used, practices Falun Gong with the group of other adherents at the park. He said Falun Gong does not advertise and is open to anyone who wishes to participate.

When Lin and her family became political asylees, they became eligible to apply for permanent residency in the U.S. Tsai assisted in this process and Lin and her family submitted the paperwork in March 2010. They are still waiting to find out if they’ll be able to stay in Utah indefinitely.

Filed under: Asian American, Immigrants & Refugees, Organizations, Politics, Religion | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

Affirmative action is debated at Utah 2010 general session

Posted on April 6, 2010 by comm5775

Story and photo by ANDREAS RIVERA

In 1969, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law an executive order that stipulated employers must “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, color, religion, sex or national origin.” Other laws, policies and initiatives like this were meant to give minority populations equal opportunities in employment and education. These polices are known as affirmative action.

Some lawmakers in Utah say that these policies have served their purpose and need to go.

H.J.R. 24, which was introduced in the 2010 General Session, states that it shall “prohibit the State, public institutions of higher education, and political subdivisions from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin with respect to public employment, public education, or public contracting; and provide exceptions.”

The 2010 Legislature debated the need for affirmative action.

The bill’s aim is to remove past affirmative action laws concerning public-sector establishments such as government and education. Proponents of the bill want candidates for employment or education given opportunities based on merit and not race, gender, or national origin. Republican Rep. Curtis Oda of Davis County is the chief sponsor of the bill.

“There is a difference between a hand-up and a handout,” Oda said. “If an employer is hiring and they have three or four candidates, shouldn’t they hire the most qualified candidate?”

To his surprise, Oda, who is of Asian descent, has been criticized by the Japanese community.

“If anyone should be embracing this bill, I would think it would be the Japanese,” Oda said.

The Japanese have a work ethic that drives them, he said. “After the internment of Japanese during World War II, the Japanese did not openly call themselves victims, they overcame the stigma.”

He added later, “You can not fight discrimination with more discrimination, that’s hypocritical.”

The bill would still protect people against discrimination, something that is human nature, he said. The bill’s goal is to put people’s value in their merit, not their minority group.

If someone suspects they were turned down because of their ethnicity even though they were the best qualified person, they could report it, but only because they believe it was racism that prevented them from getting the job, Oda said.

He said religion was not included in the bill because religion is a choice.

However, many oppose the bill and think there will be negative repercussions.

Roger Tsai, an attorney for Parsons, Behle & Latimer who sits on the board of directors of the Utah Asian Chamber of Commerce, said he is concerned about diversity of the public sector.

He said the chamber has stated it is against the bill.

“It is important to recognize diversity, but it does not mean you have to have a rainbow,” Tsai said.

Tsai said The University of Utah’s goal is to diversify, but how can it when it cannot give any advantages to minority groups for attending?

Tsai is worried about what the bill will mean for minority groups at the U. He said he is not sure what it means for funding for these groups. “Is it discrimination to give these groups money?”

It is important to have diverse outlooks on campus because it actually benefits the white majority, Tsai said. Students will be competing in the global economy.

Brittney Vuong, a freshman who is first-generation Vietnamese, said she agrees with the bill. “Different skin color should not deserve special treatment,” Vuong said.

Michael McFall, the news editor for the Daily Utah Chronicle who is first-generation Chinese, said when affirmative action was proposed, it worked well, but it may not be necessary now.

Both Oda and Tsai asked the question: When will we know when we are all equal?

Oda said, “If you go looking for prejudice, you will find it.”

Tsai said, “What’s changed? Are we all on an equal playing field? We have come so far, women are attending college at a higher rate than men.”

The bill made it past the committee stages of legislation, but failed to gain support and did not get the required two-thirds majority to become a law.

Despite this, Oda said this will not be the end of the debate.

Filed under: Asian American, Education, Organizations, Politics | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Media influenced Native American voters

Posted on December 9, 2008 by comm5775

by JESSICA DUNN

The Black Eagle family of the Crow Tribe adopted president-elect Barack Obama, whose new name is “One Who Helps People Throughout the Land,” during his visit to the Crow Nation in Montana on May 19, 2008.

Obama was the first presidential candidate to visit the reservations of the Crow Nation. He was adopted in a private ceremony, and then he gave a speech ensuring Native Americans that their well-being is a priority to him.

He promised to honor the government-to-government relationships and treaties, to appoint an American Indian policy advisor and to host an annual summit with tribal leaders. Obama also vowed to improve trust funds, education and health care for reservations all over the country.

“I want you to know that I will never forget you,” Obama said in his speech to the Crow Nation. “You will be on my mind every day that I am in the White House.”

Obama’s visit and speech had an impact on the early support from Native Americans.

“I think people were impressed with his commitment he showed by just going to the reservation,” said Harlan McKosato, the host for Native America Calling, in a phone interview.

Native Americans overwhelmingly supported Obama by more than 80 percent, according to a poll conducted by Native Vote Washington, a voter advocacy group based in the state of Washington. And like most demographics this election, voter turnout for Native Americans also saw an increase.

“Before a lot of people didn’t vote because they said it didn’t matter who was in the administration because things didn’t change for Native peoples. They were treated the same and ignored the same,” said Donna Maldonado, general manager of KRCL. “The tribes saw promise in Obama. … I think he is our hope for the future.”

Native American support can be attributed to many factors, including Obama’s promise of change and better voter education overall.

Change

Obama has promised change to the Native American community. And while most are skeptical about promises made by a politician, a lot of people think he can change things, McKosato said.

Native Americans see Obama as someone they can identify with because of his diverse heritage, said Ella Dayzie, executive director of the Indian Walk-In Center in Salt Lake City, in an e-mail interview.

A follow-through on those promises will first be seen through Obama’s appointments within his cabinet and other positions. He has promised to create an American Indian advisor position to better meet the needs of the Native communities. Obama has also proposed an annual summit with Native American tribal leaders.

“With a Native American cabinet chair, the hope is that the U.S. government can now be well informed about the special set of challenges American Indians face, from issues of sovereignty to access to affordable health/behavioral health care,” Dayzie said. “One cannot ignore what is in front of him/her daily.”

Obama has already named six Native Americans to various transition teams. Mary Smith, Mary McNeil and Yvette Roubideaux have been assigned to work on justice, agriculture and health issues respectively, and John Echohawk, Keith Harper and Robert Anderson will advise Obama on changes within the Interior Department, according to Change.gov.

Obama has also promised money towards improvements for Native American health care and education. His economic and infrastructure development plan includes an increase in the federal minimum wage and adequate funding for the Indian Housing Block grant, according to the First Americans Fact Sheet at Obama’s Web site.

Obama’s promises to Native Americans created greater interest in the election within the Native communities. Voter education on the issues and candidates also influenced voter turnout.

Voter Education

Voters had a vast amount of information at hand about the election, from the newspaper and television to the Internet and YouTube. Most of the sources contained general information on candidates and issues. However, some programs focused on Native American issues and voting.

KRCL-FM is a public radio station in Salt Lake City, Utah, founded in 1979 as a community radio station where all issues could be discussed. KRCL has always been committed to having diverse voices on the air, said Maldonado general manager of KRCL.

Various ethnic groups, including Native Americans, have had airtime since the beginning. Today, the Native American slot is on Sunday mornings. Native America Calling, a live call-in program based in Albuquerque, N.M., that discusses issues specific to the Native American community, is rebroadcast on KRCL at 6 a.m. And, at 7 a.m., Living the Circle of Life plays traditional powwow music and contemporary American Indian music from local and national artists.

Native America Calling is an hour-long program that airs every weekday at 1 p.m. Eastern time on select stations. The program’s topics range from financial issues to a book of the month. During the presidential campaign, the program evaluated the topics and candidates from a Native American point of view.

“Native [America] Calling on KRCL helped in bringing news/reports about the issues that matter to Native American voters,” Ella Dayzie said.

Some of the election topics included discussions about political parties, Native veterans, women’s vote, young voters and planning for Election Day. The program also talked about the reaction to Obama’s win and discussed the promises Obama made to Native Americans.

Native America Calling has had full phone lines each time the election was discussed, said McKosato, the show host.

“People were more interested in this campaign than ever before,” he said.

Native America Calling helped get the issues out to Native Americans. The show used politics related to the community to spark an interest in the election and get people motivated to vote. 

AIROS Native Radio Network also used the radio and Internet to give Native American voters a voice. AIROS is an all-Indian Internet radio that is broadcast 24 hours a day through web streaming. It had audio, video, news articles and podcasts covering the election from a Native perspective. AIROS reporters used their stories to link Native communities to the election. They covered the 2008 Native Vote Initiative campaigns, presidential candidate rallies and Native American support.

The National Congress of American Indians expanded its Native Vote Initiative this year in an aggressive campaign to get more Native Americans to vote. The 2008 initiative had four core plans: provide training to educate, engage and mobilize voters; ensure fairness of voting laws and protect Native voters; educate candidates on issues important to Indian Country; and get the Native Vote message to media and the general public. Volunteers from tribal communities visited with people, even going door to door, to educate individuals about issues and help them register to vote.

“The NCAI’s Native Vote team has done a great job on getting the ‘vote’ out and educating the American Indians about both parties so that [they] can make an informed decision,” Dayzie said.

The End Result

Obama’s goals and promises to better Indian Country have brought a new hope to Native Americans. And due to a focus on the Native American voters and issues, Obama now has the opportunity to keep his promises to them and people all over the United States.

Filed under: American Indian, Media, Organizations, Politics | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

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