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JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. — The bell rings. Science Hill High School students crowd the hallways. Among them, five international students head to English as a Second Language class, where they learn American culture, improve their reading and writing skills and get support for other courses. Wilber, a ninth-grader with a big smile and an even bigger personality, is one of five students in the second-period class.
Traducido por Haley Wainwright
Read this story in English
JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. — Es la hora de aprender español para esta familia de habla inglesa. Ejercicios tales como libros y juegos de cartas mejoran sus conocimientos del español. Dos niños de la familia Childress asisten a la escuela primaria de “Northside” en Johnson City. Susana está en el kinder, y Elliott está en el cuarto grado.
JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. — Every morning as Mayne Beceria gets ready for school, so does her young daughter Melanie. Too young for kindergarten, the dark-haired, giggly girl goes to a special school — Johnson City Even Start. “Oh, Mommy. Let’s go to my school, Melanie’s school!” Melanie tells her mother.
EL PASO — Downtown El Paso could soon lose one of its most beloved landmarks, created by one of the city’s most famous artists if a plan to renovate San Jacinto Plaza is approved and funded by the city council. Luis Jimenez’s fiberglass sculpture, “Los Lagartos” has stood at the center of the plaza since 1995, would be replaced by shrubbery trimmed in the shape of alligators in the renovation plans donated by Mills Plaza Properties, owned by prominent El Paso businessman Paul Foster. El Paso art historian Miguel Juarez is spearheading the movement to keep the statue in the city’s plans. “The alligators are the soul of El Paso,” Juarez said. “Historically the plaza was a meeting place.
JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. — Karen Childress plays UNO with her two youngest children at the kitchen table, while her eldest son reads a book. The little ones shout out the colors and numbers, drowning out the sound of their brother slowly but correctly pronouncing each syllable on the page. It is Spanish time for this English-speaking family. Exercises like card games and books sharpen their knowledge of the Spanish language.
JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. — Although free health care is available to all children, Hispanics are the least likely of all children in the United States to receive it. One reason may be that they tend to be healthier. But another could be that language barriers and lack of transportation lead parents who don’t speak English to avoid waiting rooms.
Juanita Luevanos’ two children, who were born in the United States, qualified for TENNderCare, a state-funded health care plan for children 21 and younger that provides physicals, immunizations, hospital visits, specialty care and more. The program offers a free checkup each year for children ages 3 to 20.
JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. — Under the wooden rafters of Notre Dame Catholic Church in Greeneville, Tenn., a young girl walks slowly up the aisle on the way to her womanhood. She is flanked by her mother and stepfather, and she follows a procession of young ladies in slim red dresses and gentlemen in white Navy officer’s uniforms. Her dress is bright red and voluminous. A silver tiara sits atop her head. Her name is Leslie, and today is her day; today is her quinceañera.
Teaching and Learning and Caring Blog
EL PASO — If curiosity killed the cat, then I am a monkey’s uncle. This sentence implies that I would be surprised and somewhat foolish (monkey’s uncle) to believe that curiosity kills cats … or people. There are some dark sorts of curiosity that could conceivably get a person killed, but as a society, we consider both garden variety curiosity and foolishness as weeds and do our best to eradicate them in children. At least one of my course syllabi listed as a learning objective “to reclaim the curiosity of a five-year-old.” Five- year-olds have mastered the language enough to want to master the mysteries of the universe, but no one wants to help them. “Why is the sky blue?” “Because I said.” Why do some people have brown eyes and some have blue eyes?” “Why do dogs bark and cats meow?” “Do storks bring babies?” “Shh.
EL PASO — The music festival was a living, breathing organism of 11,000 blurry faces, bright lights and loud sounds. Walking through the darkness and seeing the excitement of people dancing frantically to their favorite artists made me understand that we all shared the same mutual amazement for the present. And I had helped to make it happen. Two months earlier, I had received one of these so called “suggested student opportunities” messages via email. I needed an internship I could care about and Splendid Sun Productions wanted interns to help put on a music and arts festival entitled Neon Desert Music Festival on April 30th, 2011.
EL PASO — I have found amazing valuables while thrift shopping that will probably remain with me forever. Some of those have been a vintage monogram Louis Vuitton tote from The Label Exchange, another time I found a classic empire waist dress from Vintage Mode, and I found an awesome flower print clutch when I stumbled into a garage sale in Tokyo once. These are the items I treasure the most. The ones I find while traveling because they also bring fun memories along. I think I started thrift shopping when I was 12 or 13.
EL PASO — Hace unos días platicaba con un amigo sobre mis sentimientos de incertidumbre hacia el futuro fuera de la universidad. Le comentaba como, de cierta forma, me arrepentía de haber tomado cinco clases por semestre, clases de verano, cursos extras, y demás por lo cual me comentó, “Es carrera, no carreritas.” Me quedé boquiabierta y comprendí que tenía razón. Como quisiera haber escuchado tal refrán hace cuatro años. Entusiasmada por la vida universitaria, estudié más que nunca. Desde el primer día me dediqué a mis clases al cien por ciento, sentía que me podía comer el mundo entero.
SAN ANTONIO — After seeing a video online of struggling refugees in need of assistance to assimilate into the San Antonio area where that they have been relocated, Emmanuel Roldan decided to jump in and do something. Roldan, 22 and a full-time student, decided to start an organization, ServeSA, to aid refugees and immigrants of limited means who need help adapting to life in this Southwest U.S. city. “Our main focus is to really empower individuals and different organizations to serve the community they are located in,” Roldan said. When the organization launched in January of 2010, mainly worked with homeless individuals. But after it opened a center, Haven for Hope, in May of last year, its primary focus shifted from the homeless to refugees.
EL PASO – Juárez journalists, Rocío Idalia Gallegos Rodríguez and Sandra Rodríguez Nieto, were awarded the 2011 Knight International Journalism Award last week for their investigative work on El Diario De Juárez, in the world’s most violent city. The award symbolizes a “valuable recognition” of the work of journalists in Ciudad Juárez, Rodríguez said. She hopes that it also will change the commonly believed notion that Mexican reporters on the border have been silenced by the lawlessness in the embattled city. Joyce Barnathan, president of the International Center for Journalism said, “These extraordinary journalists dare to tell stories that few have the courage to address. Because of them, we have an essential understanding of the tragedies faced by citizens in México.”
Rodríguez’ and Gallegos’ investigative reporting has done much to expose corrupt government officials and the ruthless drug cartels battling for control in Juárez and other parts of México.
El Paso cyclists respond to city bike ordinance
TRANSCRIPT
(Soundbite of chains whirring)
BEATRIZ CASTAÑEDA (Reporter): It’s not often that you see cyclists in the car-centric city of El Paso. That’s not to say that El Pasoans haven’t tried to nurture different cycling groups. Groups like the Cycling Club of El Paso and the Miner Cycling Club. But that’s about to change. The city of El Paso recently passed an ordinance allowing the addition of bike lanes.
EL PASO — The spring 2011 semester at the University of Texas at El Paso is one that should live on in the hearts and minds of the people who experienced it, for their entire lives. It began with a simple exclamation by the president of the Student Government. César Chávez Day would no longer be celebrated on this campus in order to better facilitate the Campus’ schedule. This led to a series of student protests that culminated with Pete Duarte, CEO of Thomason Hospital and former director of Centro de Salud Familiar La Fe, returning his Golden Nugget alumni award to protest the holiday’s loss. As this semester rolled along, I had many opportunities to explore the significance of César Chávez Day.
EL PASO — Not too many years ago, students eagerly awaited the bell that signals lunchtime, anticipating french fries, a can of Pepsi, and a chocolate chip cookie. Now, however, those same students have been challenged to abandon some of the junk foods they crave. In 2007, revisions were made to the Texas Public School Nutrition Policy to create a weapon to battle obesity in children. Texas public high schools have had to start abiding by laws that mandate healthier lunch foods, as well as changing vending machine products on their campuses. “Our snack bars are all run by the district cafeterias and have to abide by the changes in the law,” says Dr. Carla Gonzales, Chapin High School Principal.
EL PASO — The June 20 shooting deaths of a journalist, his wife, and their 21-year-old son in their home in Veracruz, México, underscore the assessment by a Washington human rights organization that México no longer has a free press. Freedom House dropped México’s ranking to a “partly free” country citing the innumerable threats to the country’s media independence in the current climate of drug-war violence. México was listed as “partly free” in large part because of the self-censorship, violent and deadly attacks on journalists, and a feeling of fear that has taken over the nation. The murders of Miguel Ángel López Velasco, 55, a columnist for the daily newspaper Notiver and his son Misael López, a photographer for Notiver are more atrocities in an unrelenting series of criminal actions against Mexican journalists. Mexico’s National Commission on Human Rights estimates that in the past 10 years 83 Mexican journalists have been killed or have disappeared.
EL PASO — With more than 20 liquor stores, over 100 convenience stores and the many supermarkets and restaurants that sell alcoholic beverages, it is little wonder that El Pasoans are facing an obesity epidemic. Manuel Colorado, a local exercise specialist and nutritionist, works with overweight clients. “It is easy for people in El Paso to gain weight because of their alcohol consumption,” says Colorado. “With nothing else to do in our city; alcohol seems to fill the void of boredom and too much time on the hands.”
While Colorado’s clients are reducing their prospect of obesity by limiting their alcohol intake and exercising, some El Pasoans are doing nothing to better their chances of dodging obesity. “We see obese people walking around El Paso everyday and not doing anything about it,” says Colorado.
EL PASO — At nine years of age and 100 pounds, Jorge can’t wait for the lunch bell to ring. He walks straight to the vending machine, like he does every day, to buy a large bag of chips and a soda. For Jorge, his school’s cafeteria food is not tasty enough and the lunch his mother packed for him is long gone. He is starving, despite having eaten breakfast and lunch a few hours ago. Jorge’s eating behavior is similar to other children in El Paso and across the U.S., and is becoming more prevalent as childhood obesity rates continue to rise.
Teaching and Learning and Caring Blog
EL PASO — I can’t thread a needle or put material in the sewing machine without thinking about Mrs. Lane. She was my home economics teacher at Cloudcroft High School fifty years ago and I was one of her problem students. I resented the whole purpose of the class, making good little wives of us. It was my job as class clown to ask whether a tablespoon of water needed to be heaping or level. Just yesterday I came across a recipe for a soufflé and scrunched up my face in the vivid memory of that sunken mess.
EL CENTRO, Calif.– Después de la huelga estudiantil de Mayo 4 del 2010, que forzó el sistema universitario de Puerto Rico a cerrar por tres meses, muchos estudiantes dejamos nuestras casas y familias para continuar nuestros sueños de hacernos profesionales algún día. Siendo una de esos estudiantes que emigramos de Puerto Rico buscando un mejor futuro en los Estados Unidos, me mudé para California para poder continuar mis estudios y no me arrepiento de mi decisión. Me mudé para Imperial Valley porque mis hermanos han estado viviendo aquí desde hace tres años y porque mi hermano mayor vivía en Mexicali, Mex. con su esposa mexicana mientras el terminaba su internado en medicina y ella terminaba su bachillerato en artes plásticas. En su momento decidieron que lo más cercano a nuestro hermano mayor, mejor.
OCOTILLO, Calif. – The Imperial Valley Desert Museum will finally open here on June 17 more than three years after the $700,000 building was completed. But, it will still only be open for very limited use through the summer. The opening of the museum was made possible by a $2,000 grant through the Imperial Valley Community Foundation, and another $3,000 in donations and fundraising monies, according to museum director Neal Hitch. Hands-on coiled pottery classes for kids will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays at the museum throughout the summer, free of charge.
EL PASO — The beat of drums and shakers echoed off the buildings of downtown El Paso’s San Jacinto Plaza Saturday as matachines danced and a few hundred persons chanted “¡Juárez, Juárez, no es cuartel! Fuera ejército de él.”
The Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity, led by poet and activist Javier Sicilia settled in at the plaza as the poet told a crowd of several hundred about his son’s killing and stressed once again that the drug-war murders in Mexico are non-discriminatory. If something isn’t done to stop the killings, anyone could be a victim, he said. “It’s a war that no longer distinguishes. Any Mexican can be assassinated, can be a victim of crime or repression,” Sicilia said.
Recently, I shocked a fellow worker and a few others by outing myself as a Latino community activist. An “Activist” he said accusatorially. “You cannot be a Latino community activist and an advocate for other causes.” Some people, he added may object to a person who has a strong commitment to a particular group. His response both surprised and offended me. While there is a good point in the sense that there is a negative side to being obsessive about commitment, we cannot forget that both he and I are committed to making sure the Civil Rights legislation of 1964 benefits all Americans –regardless of what the word preceding the hyphen appended before the word American and that is used so often and divisively in our diverse society. I am reminded that while some may color the word activist with a subjective shade, activism is at the core of the evolutionary rather than revolutionary change in our society.
EL CENTRO, Calif. – Vagabonds, vagrants, transients, nomads, hobos, or even the more polite term we use for them, the less fortunate. There are plenty of names for them, but they all refer to the homeless – a subculture of our society that some people often feel uncomfortable with. We often encounter them on a daily basis. At the end of freeway off-ramps, in city parks, fast food restaurants, or sitting outside our own homes under a shady tree.
IMPERIAL VALLEY, Calif.–A plate heaped with rice, sloppy beans, and chunks of questionable meat was lovingly set before Shelby Drye one evening in March 2010 in Barbancourt, Haiti. His poverty-stricken, disaster-weary dinner hosts shared just one paltry plate of the same food among themselves. It’s a meal Drye will never forget. “They wanted to make sure we ate before they did,” he said, remembering that he did not want to eat what was offered to him that evening two months after the 7.0-magnitude earthquake ripped through the Caribbean nation on January 12, 2010. But, because of the sincere depth of their gift, he ate anyway.
EL PASO — If you are ever passing by Rim Road near Scenic Drive in West El Paso in the summer on an early Friday evening, you might hear a throbbing sound of tribal drums pulling you in closer to the infectious pulse that is Echos in the Park. What started out as a series of relaxing outdoor musical improv sessions by heads of the local jam band, Stanton Street Collective, has evolved into a weekly fluid gathering at Tom Lea Park of musicians and percussionists from all walks of life. “There is something special about having an impromptu jam session with a bunch of people that have never practiced and sharing that feeling of camaraderie,” said Roberto Santos, organizer for the Barbed Wire Open Mic Series. Since getting its start nearly four years ago, Echos in the Park has been gradually growing its circle of amateur percussionists up on top of one of the most beautiful and accessible scenic points overlooking the Downtown El Paso and Juarez area. Though the event’s lack of centralized ownership, formal structure, legitimate promotion and fixed schedule, it has some how managed to continue to thrive efficiently and effectively with word-of-mouth throughout intimate circles of music lovers across the city.
EL PASO — Watercolor paintings of wild horses, wild flowers and cacti in vibrant colors hang on artist Kenge Kobayashi’s walls, but the bucolic scenes tell little of a life that was interrupted by interment in a Japanese-American prison camp during World War II. Kobayashi, who had his first solo art exhibition in March, at the International Museum of Art on Montana. He said the scenes he brings to life are from places he has visited. “It was good, a lot of people came.” He said. He is now seeing what to do next.
EL PASO — A good friend is better than a bad marriage. I have had two bad marriages, but I have friendships that lasted longer than both. I have almost 50 friends, friends I have had for almost 50 years and friends whose ages span almost 50 years. I feel really blessed. It was the drum circle guys who got me thinking about this. Almost every week a group of guys get together and drum.
MEXICALI, Mexico–When the sun rises Edgar Mayoral’s hammer strikes the iron on the anvil, creating an ear-piercing clanging sound that resonates throughout the neighborhood in this border city. The 23-year-old El Centro, Calif. resident has a talent to shape cold, lifeless sheets of iron into fantastical and vibrant wearable armor that would make you believe Mayoral has been transformed into a live-action Japanese anime character. A skill that cosplayers—short for “costume play”—and non-cosplayers alike marvel at. “This character has a higher fan base in Mexico than in the U.S.,” says Jerry Travis, 21, an anime scholar from Brawley, Calif.