Elenamary

I went to see Barack Obama speak in Dublin, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus, and a suburb where one of my favorite bloggers, El Oso, spent part of his childhood.

Speakers included some of my favorite Ohio Democrats including:

• Richard Cordray, I totally love Richard Cordray and he is a big supporter of Latinos in Ohio),
• Mary Jo Kilroy, another big supporter of Latinos and has worked with Migrant Farm working unions including FLOC for decades.  She is an amazing grassroots organizer.
• Sherrod Brown and Ted Strickland both of whom give you the feeling of old school AFL-CIO Clintonite democrats.  Here is an entry on my first thoughts on Ted Strickland.
• And the last Ohio Democrat to speak, was John Glenn.

When John Glenn was introduced the crowd around me began to boo.  I was appalled.  They weren’t booing at John Glenn they were booing at the fact that he was going to speak.  The people around me had come to see Barack Obama speak and were loudly complaing “Who is John Glenn?”  “When is Obama going to speak?”  They seemed honestly surprised that there were other speakers.  And I kept hearing the question “Who is she?”  “Who is he?”  I could not understand how people at a political rally didn’t know who their own governor was!

I thought how uninformed are these people that came to see Obama?  But I don’t know if uninformed is the word or idea I want.  When Obama began to speak the same people who had booed when John Glenn was introduced and asked who Senator Brown was, began to quote Obama’s speech.  They quoted his speech while he spoke the way gay boys sing along to Madonna.  It was crazy.

Rumor is that tonight, Barack Obama’s speech will include an initiative  to start registering new voters, especially Latinos.

“Voting Latinos”, one could whisper this into my ear only to watch the passion start seeping out of my pores.

I’ve written before about what the Democratic Party, particularly the Ohio Democratic Party, needs to do in order to court Latino Voters.  I hope someone will take note  (below is a shorter version of the original post and includes six ways to reach potential voters.

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I was driving down Fourth Avenue today.  Fourth is a speedy one way, five lane street.  Many of the streets that deposit into and exit out of Fourth Avenue are also one way.  I was on the phone talking to a friend, as I started to make a left turn and was getting ready to make joke with my friend that on the corner of the street was an Asian police officer…something I’d never seen before in Columbus.  It was then I realized that I couldn’t continue with my turn because the street was one way in the wrong direction.

The officer saw me and told me not to back up and continue with traffic (I was not blocking traffic) but to go ahead and continue down and then turn around…so I did.  I drove a few hundred feet and turned into an abandoned lot in order to turn around.  During all of this there was porch with about seven or eight black men on it, and they kept screaming something at me which I couldn’t make out.  I figured they were telling me I was going the wrong way and decided to ignore it at first but then realized they were saying things like “Ohh they are gonna get you”.  Almost at the same time I saw a police car pull up behind me blocking my exit.  In the car were two white officers.  I turned my car off and then heard the people on the porch loudly arguing that nothing was going to happen to me because I was white.

One of the officers got out of the car and came up to my window.  “Do you know this is a one-way street?” Trying not to sound nervous I said “Yes, but  the officer standing on the corner told me to go ahead and come down this street to turn around, rather than back up into traffic.” He smiled and answered “Well next time try to pay more attention.  Have a nice day.”  I said thank you and turned my car back on as the men on the porch began to holler that they were right that the police weren’t going to do anything.  As I drove past the men a few yelled that I was only being let off because I was white.

Odds are really good that I wasn’t hassled because I was a woman, and because in the eyes of everyone involved, I was white.   But what was I going to say?

I read an article and was subtly offended by it but I didn’t have a way to articulate why. I’ve been thinking about the article since I read it on Thursday. Then today while driving to pick-up a friend of mine who hangs out with a lot of hipsters, it hit me. What would it be like if I picked up a Spanish language newspaper written by some Latinos who wrote of hipsters moving into their neighborhood and what they were like, and how they viewed their new neighbors and asked them what they thought of racism?

The article is about a photographer Alexandra Copley (her Taqueria blog), who currently has a photography exhibit of taco trailers around Columbus, Ohio. I want to make it clear, I am not offended by Alexandra Copley’s work. It is more that I have a sense of my people being displayed as other worldly as entertainment like zoo animals.

It reminds me of a night when I was hanging out with a bunch of international students from Latin America who were attending OSU, when some sorority girls stopped and seemed entertained at watching us play dominoes, share food, and speak in Spanish. One of the girls said excitedly “I feel like it’s Culture awareness night!” She didn’t mean it as offensive and she was a sweet enough person but it made me uncomfortable. This article gives me a similar feeling, as does the idea of the exhibit. What are the true thoughts of hipsters and yuppies who go that gallery? How do they actually view people of color? What do they gain from the exhibit?

Mount Carmel year-round school in Cleveland reopens
The Plain Dealer - cleveland.com - Cleveland,OH,USA

Tired of Irish-Catholic churches, the Italian immigrants began Mount Carmel by holding Mass in the basement of a W. 69th St. saloon. By the 1980s, a new wave of immigrants, mostly from Puerto Rico, began moving into the neighborhood. Today, Asian, African and Mexican immigrants are turning the area into one of the most diverse sections of Cleveland.

It all adds up to a rich educational experience, said Sister Rosario — an experience that she thinks is enhanced by the year-round schedule.

The swing states: Ohio The big, bellwether battlefield
Economist - UK

Ohio is also a bellwether. It has voted for the winning candidate in all 11 presidential elections since 1960. In doing so, it has deviated from the national vote shares by only a couple of points. In 2004 it matched the national average exactly.

Above all, Ohio reeks of “normality”. Not exactly in the statistical sense. Ohio’s median household income is 8% below the national average. Only 2% of the population is Hispanic. Median house prices are 23% below the national average. But it is average in a deeper psychological sense. Jason Mauk, the executive director of the Ohio Republican Party, says that “this is where national politicians go to get a gut check on middle America.”

Yeah, Ohio is defiantly not reprsentative of the country as a whole especially in ethnic make-up…but we are getting there and democrats need not assume that the new minority populations will be going Democratic…here are some tips on how to win us over.

Asians help fuel county’s growth
Columbus Dispatch - Columbus,OH,USA

“If there are jobs here, they are here,” Mas said, “but if they are not, they will go somewhere else.”

The mid-1990s influx of Latinos here was prompted by service-industry jobs. Then, around 2000, construction was a magnet for Latinos who came after relatives and friends told them of opportunities, Mas said.

Now, “Things are tight,” he said. Still, advocates said the official census number of 42,125 Latinos in Franklin County is about 20,000 too low.

In September the Columbus Dispatch will run a week long series on “Hispanics in Central Ohio” part of me looks forward to the series with anticipation although I know I will most likely be both offended and disappointed. I expect this reaction because I have had this reaction in previous years with their series, and because I have meet two of the journalists and one of the photojournalists while working in the community. They gave me the impression that they view my people as if they were zoo animals…I’ll deal with this another day and in another post…oh and if I show-up in any of the photographs in the series with a pissed off face, now you know why.

Area organizations receive $20K toward Hispanic assistance
Bizjournals.com - Charlotte,NC,USA

The Ohio Latino Affairs Commission has awarded eight grants across the state to help community organizations assist the Hispanic population in various ways. The commission awarded $80,000 in total grants with nearly $20,000 going to organizations in the Dayton area.

Area farm workers’ recognition Saturday
Fremont News Messenger - Fremont,OH,USA

Former Ohio Gov. Richard Celeste — who served from 1982 to 1990 — proclaimed the first Saturday in August as a day to recognize migrant farmworkers.

Ohio has had a long history of migrant farm working and has the first organizing committee of farmworkers in the US (no it is not the UFW) FLOC, an organization where I, a very long time ago, worked as a union organizer. If you ever meet any Xicanos from Ohio, they are most likely from Northern Ohio where migrant farm working takes place.

I worked at the welfare office today and both workers and clients were complaining about getting “Cryptosporidium” (and yes they used that term) from their kids. I’d never heard of it… I have heard of amoebas…in fact I get amoebas every time I go to Mexico.

This most recent time I went I got them twice and some thing else. I’ve just learned not to care, and accept that if I am going to eat as much of everything that I can while I am there, I am going to get amoebas. I eat uncooked food, I eat street food, I eat food where a woman wipes her nose and grabs some money all while sprinkling cheese on my elote but I don’t care it tastes good.

Anyway seems Columbus has got their own amoebas or better known Cryptosporidium .

Pools Close Due To Parasites
By Jason Mays
COLUIMBUS, Ohio — Several Columbus City Pools were closed Friday after Columbus Public Health said it saw an increase of cryptosporidium in the water, NBC 4 reported.

…Crypto is a diarrheal disease caused by a microscopic parasite that is transmitted in the feces of people or animals. It is predominantly spread by accidentally swallowing water that has been contaminated with human stool or animal waste…

My family celebrated my birthday today, a day early,  with a very special Vegan Chocolate Cake made by Chef Del.  I like my family…or as my mama teased, we are all a bunch of hippies (me being the least hippi and the only non-vegan).  We had a scrumptious decadent chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, dumpstered organic coffee, and I got to eat quesadillas (since I am the only one that will eat cheese).

Since I am celebrating today, there will be no real blog post until tomorrow…peace out!

Reading, Writing and Referendums
Setting Columbus City Schools’ Agenda for 2012 and Beyond: Columbus City Schools own Gene T. Harris, Ph.D., sets the agenda for “2012 and Beyond, Building a System of Excellent Schools”.
Columbus Metropolitan Club
Date: Wednesday, August 6, 2008
12:00pm - 1:15pm
Athletic Club of Columbus
136 East Broad St.

Protest McCain In Columbus
While McCain is holding a $10,000 per couple photo op here in Columbus, we’ll provide the press outside with some photo ops of our own.
WHAT: Picket of McCain Columbus visit
WHEN: Wednesday, Aug. 6, 4 – 6 PM
WHERE: Meet at 4 PM at SEIU 1199 (1395 Dublin Rd), carpool to the event.

In elementary School and middle school my siblings and I would spend our days at the library and the pool both of which closed at 9pm. Once the pool and library would close we would ride our bikes home through the park, past the elementary school, past the high school and through two stop lights. We felt independent on our bikes with our backpacks full of books, snacks and beach towels. We’d get home exhausted climb into bed and fall asleep with our books. I loved summers.

In High School I still rode my bike to the pool but usually early before 5am to do laps and train for the end of the summer swim meet. In the evenings when I was old enough to drive, my younger sister and I would drive to another suburb, Bexley, to meet up with high schools kids in our own chapter of Amnesty International. We would write letters requesting fair treatment of imprisoned people around the world, we would have vegan potlucks, and we would share new found punk rock music with each other (this where I first learned about Los Crudos). We would occasionally go to political protests and I recall once in particular a candlelight vigil outside of the Governors house at midnight the night, mental retarded, Wilfred Berry, was executed by the State of Ohio.

There were also many nights of late night fun at punk houses and punk shows, where music, politics and silliness flowed and lubricated our minds and spirits. I learned a lot those nights. Never were drugs used, never was alcohol consumed, never was sex had, never was school missed, never were crimes committed…except for one; In all of the occasions above I violated my suburb’s curfew laws.

Curfew
The City’s curfew restricts persons under 12 years of age from being out unsupervised by an adult between the hours of 9 p.m. and 5:30 a.m., and persons under 18 years of age from being out unsupervised between the hours of midnight and 5:30 a.m. (Upper Arlington Resource Guide)

The city of Columbus has also now started enforcing a curfew based on age as well. That is, as the ACLU put it so eloquently “Curfews, at their core, essentially place all persons of a particular demographic under ‘house arrest’ for the actions of a minority.” (Columbus Dispatch June 7, 2008)

The city of Columbus has slightly different Curfew laws then the suburb I grew up in:

13- to 17-year-olds must be in by midnight. Children younger than 13 must be indoors by an hour after sundown…
First-time violators and their parents will have to attend a three-hour workshop by the Safe and Drug Free Schools Consortium. Repeat offenders will face community service. A third offense could land children and their parent in court on misdemeanor charges of parental neglect and curfew violation. (Columbus Dispatch 03/13/08 & 06/01/08)

Charges will be brought against both parents and children?!! In Ohio at the end of November the sun sets as early as 5:08pm you would have to be home no later than 6pm. That isn’t even the best argument on the stupidity of a curfew law. Of course the ACLU is right it violates the rights of a group for the actions of a minority. Yes the curfew law, enforcement, and punishment makes assumptions about the child and family.

However, I think there is a better argument against MY Mayor, Mike Coleman, (who is a proponent of enforcement of this curfew law and of the advertising for residents to report those out “too late”). Coleman contended that “Nothing good can come when a child is out at 2 o’clock in the morning,” (Columbus Dispatch 03/13/08); maybe the mayor is right because when I was teenager out late at night I was probably working on either his campaign or for someone else’s campaign in the Democratic Party, and nothing good has come of that.

Zero (El-Amin Asadi) has created new art work, as he describes it, “Pencil powered mayhem”. It is to me some of his best work. My favorite piece of his is not available for viewing online but, I believe, will be up at the C-Note Art Show.

His pieces are raw and sometimes, painful for me to look at. They are frequently self reflections and the anguish is clearly evident. I find myself with a familiar pain and compassion that is too much to bear and am forced to look away.

C-Note is having both an online on art show, where you can vote for your favorite artists.

PS Remember, Columbus is the Indie Art Capital of the World. Support local artists!

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