local support for another Trail of Tears: Big Mountain. Bela-ish-cla-ee (Indigenous Peoples support for Sovereign Dineh Nation) 714.539.2266   Black Mesa Indigenous Support   contra 1996 Navajo-Hopi Settlement Act & Relocation law 93-531 Ask "native" candidate Sen. McCain's cheerleaders if he agrees Relocation is Genocide

Çultural   I S S U E S links & new indigenous chicano african american asian contras White Metropolis blood in the face color chic Shepton Mallet UN WCAR red-lining GA SICA Fed. Violence Initiative linguistics crack babies art censuslessness iscariot

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First Nations incl more links Amazon Watch Rainforest Action Network Project Underground Pacifica radio pgm WSJ article at Ratville NYC black flags contact contra-indicative eco-tourism indigenous Australia IMM trust Black Mesa coal mine gambling card check organizing San Manuel decision Lori Piestewa Olmec Earth Island Inst. Abya Yala IPO AIO NCIDC Topica forum challenge to tribal sovereignty ¹ NW L.Peltier Support Network est. 1993. Recent history incl 6.98 statement of Resistance to elimination of tribal sovereignty.   Minnesota & national   WA GOP tax authority	PBCP assists Rongelapese plan repatriation ¹   Spring/Summer 2001   newsletter   Pacific Business Ctr News Univ. of Hawaii, Manoa Rep. of Marshall Isl.   The PBC Pgm recently signed an agreement with Mayor Jas. Matayoshi of Rongelap Atoll Govt in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, to provide by 1.31.02 planning documents for the atoll's resettlement. The center's proposal includes participation by other UH colleges & faculty to study & prepare the atoll for the returning islanders. The atoll has been uninhabited for the past 16 years. The atoll was initially resettled in 1957 after its residents were evacuated in 1954 because of radioactive fallout from nuclear testing in nearby Bikini. However, because of a high inicidence of medical disorders from residual radioactivity, the island was again evacuated in 1985. …
1998 S.1691 Introduced by Sen. Slade Gorton (R- WA), this bill seeks to waive tribal immunity across a wide range of government functions, including immunity from lawsuits in federal and state courts. At stake is the principle of sovereign immunity, a privilege enjoyed by many governing bodies (including the U.S. govt) that protects them from potentially bankrupting lawsuits. In spite of Supreme Court rulings that affirm tribes as governing nations within the U.S., Gorton's bill effectively treats tribal govts as if they are corporations, subject to lawsuits outside of tribal court procedures. Reverse apartheid claims 2.23.00 Rice V. Cayetano 528 U.S. 495 statute permitting only "Hawaiians", descendants of aboriginal peoples inhabiting Hawaiian Islands in 1778, to vote for trustees of state agency held to violate Federal Constitution's 15th Amendment A national treasure 7.20.02   Antiques Roadshow PBS Ted from Tucson brought an item to the Roadshow that, by appraiser Don Ellis' own admission, caused him to temporarily lose his breath. It was an old but more or less plain-looking Navajo blanket that Ted said he had typically just kept folded over the back of a chair. But Mr. Ellis was absolutely flabbergasted. He recognized the textile as an extremely rare piece known as a Ute First-Phase chief's wearing blanket. Dating from around 1840 to 1860, Mr. Ellis said the blanket represents one of the very first types of chief's blankets ever made. "This is Navajo weaving in its purest form," he said, calling its current condition "unbelievable." Crafted from hand-woven wool and colored with indigo dye for a Ute chief, the blanket bears a simple linear design and, Mr. Ellis explained, is so finely made it resembles silk and would repel water. Even in their own day, the blankets would have been highly valuable, he said. The owner was shocked to hear of his blanket's significance and Mr. Ellis was at pains to emphasize just how important & extraordinary a work of art it actually is. "Sir, you have a national treasure," he told Ted. Possibly adding to the blanket's current value is the fact that Ted says the blanket originally came into his family as a gift to his grandmother's foster father from a legendary figure of the American West, Kit Carson. Leaving aside that bit of possible provenance, Mr. Ellis appraised the blanket at between $350,000 & $500,000, largest appraisal ever to date on Antiques Roadshow.	CWIS Ctr for World Indigenous Studies identity homogenization Historical background & Info-age future First Americans linked to ancient Japanese 7.31.00   Reuters Wash.DC   People closely resembling the prehistoric Jomon of Japan crossed a land bridge from Asia into the Americas as the last Ice Age waned 15,000 years ago to become the first human inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere, according to a study published on Tuesday. An intl team of researchers led by Univ. of Michigan's Museum of Anthropology C. Loring Brace said those people gave rise to the native inhabitants south of what is now the border between Canada & U.S. The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, represent the latest theory advanced by anthropologists as they seek to understand human origins in the New World. Other researchers argue that people arrived much earlier, perhaps more than 10,000 years earlier. Analyzing 21 craniofacial measurements of prehistoric & recent samples of human skulls, the researchers said the earliest immigrants into the Americas showed no close association with any known mainland Asian population. Instead, they showed close ties to the modern-day Ainu of Hokkaido and their Jomon predecessors in prehistoric Japan, and to the Polynesians of Oceania, according to the study. Their route of entry in the New World was the Arctic land bridge connecting northern Asia to North America. The New World that they entered was a vastly different place from what it is now, with many large mammal species, incl elephant cousins such as mammoths & mastodons and saber-toothed cats. Those animals are now extinct, with other researchers blaming overkill by those early human hunters. In contrast, Eskimos, Aleuts, and Na-Dene-speaking people who appeared in the American Southwest as recently as 1,000 years ago possess more craniofacial traits characteristic of Mongolian, Chinese and SE Asian populations, the researchers said. For the analysis, Brace and colleagues compared a battery of measurements made on each skull to generate a "dendrogram," a tree-like figure in which the distance between the twigs reflects the closeness or distance between any given group of people and the others. The researchers came from the Univ.Michigan, Univ. of Wyoming, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, Chengdu College of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Sichuan province, and Mongolian Academy of Sciences in Ulaanbaatar.
Science trumps ritual in mystery skeleton row 2.4.04   Reuters San Francisco   Denying a request by American Indian tribes who sought an immediate burial, a U.S. appeals court ruled Wednesday that scientists should be allowed to continue testing on a 9,000-year-old skeleton. "It's terrific," said Texas A&M Univ. Ctr for Study of First Americans dir. Robson Bonnichsen, plaintiff in the case. "The court has upheld the principle for scientific study of very early human remains." The legal battle pitting Bonnichsen & 7 other scientists against U.S. govt & Indian tribes dates back to 1996, after 2 teenagers discovered a skeleton near the shore of the Columbia River near Kennewick WA. Indian tribes demanded the burial of the remains, which they believe belong to a distant relative, but the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied that request, backing a lower court ruling. "From the perspective of the scientists-plaintiffs, this skeleton is an irreplaceable source of information about early New World populations that warrants careful scientific inquiry to advance knowledge of distant times," Judge Ronald Gould wrote for the 3 judge panel. "From the perspective of the intervenor-Indian tribes the skeleton is that of an ancestor who, according to the tribes' religious and social traditions, should be buried immediately without further testing." The battle was especially emotional because of the mystery the "Kennewick Man" represented. Aged 45 or 50 when he died, he had a projectile point unlike those seen in the region in his hip dating back to when he was 15 or 20 years old. A spokesman for U.S. Justice Dept, which had fought to bury the remains, said it was reviewing the decision but did not say whether it would appeal to the Supreme Court. Scientists dated the "Kennewick Man" remains as 8,340 to 9,200 years old, yet it was a puzzling find because its features differed from those of American Indians. Scientists hoped further study would shed light on early North Americans. Until recently, most scientists thought North America was first populated after the end of the Ice Age 12,000 years ago when Asian mammoth hunters walked from Siberia. Yet recent evidence has hinted at late Ice Age human settlements on California's channel islands and in Chile, suggesting earlier settlers may have arrived by boat from different regions. The core of the legal arguments centered on whether the remains were Native American, as the law on reburial requires a link between the remains and an extant tribe. "The age of Kennewick Man's remains, given the limited studies to date, makes it almost impossible to establish any relationship between the remains and presently existing American Indians," the ruling found.	First Americans all from Siberia, study confirms 11.27.07   Dave Mosher LiveScience Humans somehow made their way into the Americas from distant lands, but knowing precisely when and from where they made the journey are matters of heated scientific debate. New genetic evidence, however, backs up a chilly northwestern arrival to North America from Siberia about 12,000 years ago, via a temporary land bridge spanning the Bering Strait. The findings further challenge an alternative idea that humans sprinkled in to both North and South America on open sea voyages 30,000 years in the past. "We have reasonably clear genetic evidence that the most likely candidate for the source of Native American populations is somewhere in east Asia," said Noah Rosenberg, a genetic researcher at the University of Michigan Medical School. Rosenberg explained that the evidence stems from two genetic trends between Siberian and Native American people: One, that genetic similarity between the peoples thins out the further south a native is sampled, and two, that a unique genetic mutation can be found only in Native American and Siberian ancestors. "If there were a large number of migrations, and most of the source groups didn’t have the variant, then we would not see the widespread presence of the mutation in the Americas," he said. Because the harmless genetic fluke is reliably found in the two populations, Rosenberg added that the first humans of the New World likely made a single migration, not in several waves as some alternative theories posit. Rosenberg and his team sampled DNA from 50 populations from around the world and looked specifically at 678 unique genetic markers to investigate human arrival to North America. The technique allows them to glean information about long-dead ancestors of those tested. The scientists said genetic oddities in those genes are very fresh, which they take as a strong sign that humans migrated in a recent and single wave instead of arriving in several waves all across North and South America. How they ventured south once traversing an icy northwestern passage, however, is another question. In Rosenberg and his colleagues' study, detailed in a recent edition of the journal PLoS Genetics, the scientists support the idea that humans migrated south along the coasts by boat rather than toughing it out on land. "A migration route along the coast provides a slightly better fit with the pattern we see in genetic diversity," Rosenberg said.

Finding paths into the past in Mexico
More Mexican Americans using Internet to explore their roots across border
12.26.01   Jennifer Mena L.A.Times

links & superior Mexica birthrate Cancún imperial tourist Bustamante re 2003 Calif. gub. recall GA SICA Olmec NAHHA real images Yugoslav mariachi SB 984 Cesar Chavez state holiday Solevar Community Development Organization LULAC oldest latino civil rights organization. B. Diaz, Jr dist. dir. (714) 636-7576 article MEXICA Movement   ~   banner contretemps CentroWatch La Voz de Aztlan ~ an online news service re L.A. P.O. Box 4282 Whittier, California 90607 Aztlan, Mexico & World news digests + Letters to the Editor updated daily; Cuacuahtzin Column & other sections updated bi-weekly. Free weekly La Raza news digest every Monday to subscribers.ed: Hector Carreon staff M Flores, E Cienfuegos Impacto2000 - AZTLAN-L Mailing List edge issues   www.aztlan.net   Chanfles SanJose State Chicano Library Rs.Ctr special collections Corona High federal civil rights filing on behalf of student racial discrimination UC LMRI Latin American Information Ctr - Univ. of Texas Escuelas para Chiapas Latin American Solidarity - L. Bayard de Volo, Univ. Kansas Making Face, Making Soul Chicana Feminist homepage NewCritica - Chicano/Latino issues & global concerns. El Andar StaCruz mag outed TJ Hank familia, now national CLNet "builds Chicana/o & Latina/o communities through networking" From Our Amigos   weekly e-pub VozAlta Ruben Blades noticias de vendidos Office Of the Americas: "L.A. non-profit founded 1983 for justice & peace in W.Hemisphere incl documentation & analysis of War on Drugs, human rights & US foreign policy. Often called for expert testimony in Fed. Immigration Court litigation" ( Blase Bonpane & son ) more immigration links ¹ transborder

Thousands of Mexican Americans such as Maldonado Parker are searching for their personal histories, crossing an emotional border that once separated them from Mexico. With the Internet & local genealogical groups making research easier than ever, they are trying to reclaim a past shelved for decades.
In the process, they are learning as much as they can about roots their families long tried to distance themselves from in the name of assimilation.

Maldonado Parker's father, Agustin, rarely talked about Romita. He told his daughter the family should focus on their lives in the U.S., not dwell on the past. She didn't question her father's silence on the subject of his family. But in recent years, the 54-year-old became fascinated with Mexican culture & customs, and took part in a Mexican heritage event in her hometown of Santa Ana.
She began to wonder about her own family tree although her father had never even told her the name of her grandparents.

"I wanted to walk where my parents walked. I wanted to know the place where they came from," she said. "This is like uncovering stones, the stones of your life. You have to know where you came from to know where you are going. And all this time, I have not known."
On her holiday trip, she is discovering much she never knew. At the Christmas dinner of tamales & sweet bread, she raised a glass of sidra, the traditional sparkling holiday wine, and told 2 dozen distant cousins: "Now, you are not just names, you are people I know. You are family." Many Latinos say genealogical research changes their perspective and, in some cases, redirects their lives.

American-born Maldonado Parker is considering applying for dual nationality and retiring in Mexico.
Touring her family's farmland where her father lived until he moved to the U.S. at 6, she imagined him a small boy romping through the blankets of crops, playing with chickens & cows, and picking a ripe papaya off a tree. "A lot of Mexican parents didn't want to talk about Mexico, to tell their children where they come from," said Maldonado Parker, who works as an asst at Orange Cty district atty's office. "They wanted to forget, to run away from the negative stereotypes. I did too."
She began her investigation by reaching distant cousins in California, who provided the first clues about Romita. Both of her parents came from the town of 8,000 in central Guanajuato state, home of Mexican President Vicente Fox.

The major turning point came when she met Mimi Lozano, creator of a S.California Latino genealogical organization. Somos Primos (We Are Cousins) is a nonprofit group that helps people create family trees. The group hit the Internet two years ago and now attracts 3,000 followers from as far away as the Philippines. "There is an increasing interest in genealogy among Latinos," Lozano said. "The Internet has made it easier for everyone to find their ancestors. Too many people have shrugged it aside for too long. If you are in a country that is against what you are, you do that. You assimilate to get along."

When Mexican Americans do get into genealogy, many focus on Spanish rather than Mexican roots, experts said. "Our oldest members do not like to think of themselves as from Mexico," said Los Californianos president Maurice Bandy, one of the oldest genealogical groups that admits only those who can trace their families to California before the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe. "They think their people came from Spain to California. . . . It can't be, but that's what they say."
Older Mexican Americans may have historical reasons for thinking that way, said Oregon City, OR Clackamas Community College U.S. history instructor Howard Shore. "There was a lot of marginalization," said Shore, who used to teach genealogy classes at Boyle Heights' Roosevelt High School in L.A. . "Some people just wanted to turn their back on where they come from, often because of the poverty."

For younger generations, getting in touch with the difficult lives of family in Mexico can bring its own satisfaction. Witness Peter Cole Soberanes. Among the many relatives he found in Mexico was a toothless cousin in Culiacan who lives on a dirt floor. Although he speaks no Spanish, Cole Soberanes now makes donations to relatives in need. "You start to look around, and I think about those relatives and then I see my friends here buying second homes & boats," said Oakland financial planner Cole Soberanes. "It makes you wonder how the world got to be the way it is." After Maldonado Parker found her grandparents' names on a computer screen, she wanted to find more names, more history. Like thousands of Mexican Americans before her, she began trolling for more records online. The Web site she used, http://www.familysearch.org, is run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City. Officials said the Web site has grown exponentially since its creation in 1999. In summer 2000, the site was used by an average of 100,000 people a day; last summer, the number of daily users jumped to 160,000 people. After searching the Internet, she connected with some cousins who provided more information but had yet to make the trip down south. One distant cousin in Perris, Calif., is eagerly awaiting photos of the trip. Now a retired credit investigator, 67-year-old Connie Juarez wonders whether she will ever go because finances are tight. "I've always wanted to go but somehow I just didn't. Sometimes now, as I'm in my later years, I wonder what it was like, the place where my grandparents came from," she said. For Maldonado Parker, discovering the names of her grandparents & great-grandparents was an emotional experience. She planned for months to meet Lupe Fernandez, her first cousin once removed, but she died just months before Maldonado Parker came to Romita. Fernandez's daughter, Karina Munoz, said the presence of their newfound relative was helping them to get past their most difficult Christmas. Fernandez's sisters said they might even visit Orange County because they know she would have wanted them to forge a relationship with family north of the border. In turn, Maldonado Parker hopes her son can grow close to his newfound family. Besides visiting relatives in Romita, Maldonado Parker busied herself collecting church records, including her parents' baptismal documents. They would be sufficient proof for her to gain dual national status in Mexico. If she becomes a dual national under the law that took effect in 1998, she could own her own home in Mexico, receive better treatment under investment & inheritance laws, and access other Mexican govt services & jobs. "People have always said I'm from Mexico, and yet I grew up in the U.S.," she said. "It's always been confusing. Now I feel like I understand how I am from both. I know my place in history."	Powell seeks Hispanic recruits for U.S. diplomacy 6.11.01   Reuters Wash.D.C.   Sec.State Powell on Monday underlined the Bush administration's increased focus on Hispanic issues by launching a drive for more Hispanic American diplomats. He signed a deal with a student association to attract new recruits and pledged to improve the State Department's record on employing members of America's fastest-growing minority. "We haven't been doing too well," he told the audience at a signing ceremony of a Principles of Cooperation with the Hispanic Assoc. of Colleges & Universities (HACU). Only 4% of State Dept employees are Hispanic, compared to 6.6% among federal employees overall and 12.5% of the population overall, the first African American secretary of state said. Black voters overwhelmingly rejected President Bush in favor of Democrat Al Gore in an election in November. Republicans are targeting Hispanics, who like blacks make up about 10% of the voting population but are expected to overtake them as the largest U.S. minority by 2005. "We've taken action to make sure that Hispanic Americans are properly represented in the work of the U.S.," just as Americans in the past protested for the equal rights promised in the Declaration of Independence, Powell said. The deal forged new links with HACU, which groups 245 institutions with two-thirds of all Hispanics in U.S. higher education, aiming to increase their awareness about the State Department as an employer. Powell & HACU President Antonio Flores noted before signing the deal that the president's first foreign port of call after taking office in January had been Mexico, and that President Vicente Fox had been the first foreign leader to visit him. Bush & Powell were also due to depart later on Monday for the president's first European tour, where their first stop would be the Spanish capital Madrid, Powell noted. "All of this seems to signal the fact that Secretary Powell and President Bush have wisely concluded that it is in America's best interests, and it is in fact necessary for the future prosperity of our nation, that the Western Hemisphere takes a top priority in our foreign policy," Flores said. Powell introduced 3 young Hispanics sworn in that day as State Dept interns as an example of the deal's goal. Maybe in 25 years or so one of them would be sworn in as Secretary of State, he said, welcoming them to their posts. "Don't restrict yourselves to Hispanic issues. The world is yours," he said. C4 delays film on US army hangings 3.29.03   Paul Lashmar Guardian UK Channel 4 is being accused of suppressing a documentary about the wartime hanging of GIs in Britain which claims that a disproportionate number of black soldiers were executed. The Real Band of Brothers is an hour-long investigation into GIs sentenced by US military courts for murder & rape, which was not a capital offence in Britain, and executed by British hangmen. The program was first scheduled to be shown Dec. 2001 but was withdrawn in the wake of 9.11.01. Pgm consultant J Robert Lilly of Northern Kentucky Univ. said: "I was told it was pulled because the program was too critical of America post 9/11. The program was scheduled 2 more times, and pulled both times. I was told the same story ... too political for the moment." Prof. Lilly said the delay had been painful for relatives & survivors who helped to make the film. "We found a daughter who did not know her father had been executed. She helped us at great emotional cost." Ch. 4 denies transmission has been delayed for political reasons. "The Real Band of Brothers has a much longer shelf life than most programs as it isn't tied to any particular date or event. It is not unusual to schedule such films but then have to replace them with more prescient programs," a spokeswoman said yesterday. The program was made by 20/20 TV and commissioned by Yasmin Anwar of Ch. 4's diversity dept, since closed in a reshuffle. Between 1942 & 1944 about 1.5 million American servicemen were based in Britain. Shepton Mallet prison in Somerset was handed over to the US authorities. British govt also lent them the services of the prison hangmen, Albert Pierrepoint & his uncle Thomas. Although the American army was 90% white, 10 of the 18 men hanged there were black Americans and 3 were Mexican-Americans. 8 people were hanged for murder, 6 for rape and 4 for murder & rape. Of the 6 executed for rape alone, 5 were black Americans and one a Mexican-American. Black GI private Lee Davis was convicted in a one-day court martial, despite inconsistencies in the evidence, of murdering one woman, and raping another. He was hanged 12.14.43 at Shepton Mallet. Adam Clayton Powell Jr   1908-1972, In 1956, he broke with the party to support Eisenhower re-election. Died 2 years after electoral defeat by Rep. Chas. Rangel D-NY. Upon Powell Jr.'s death, his journals incl material he may have used in a tell-all book about the indiscretions of his colleagues in Congress were stolen in a burglary.   Dallas DA Watkins search results autobio Cong. bio documentary bibliography MLK letter re Father Divine A.C. Powell, Sr memorial Bayard Rustin historical icons Barbara Howar "Progress is a bloody guerrilla war. You have to keep pushing, plotting, scratching, fighting. Never let them rest. Keep 'em squirming. Be a burr in their saddle. Otherwise, they control & define your progress; you crawl after scraps." actor Harry Lennix as Powell Jr, leading reluctant Cong. staffer to challenge Jim Crow rules barring black Cong. members from House of Rep. dining area.
Black Colombians Seek Peace & Freedom   Afro Cubans & Pakistanis 2.27.01   Playthell Benjamin Black World Today Other Side of the Colombian Anti-Drug Policy 2.24.01 Colombia Media Project & Patrice Lumumba Coalition hosted 3 black Colombian exiles, Oscar Gamboa, Carlos Rosero and Luis Gilberto Murillo, ex-governor of del Choco state, spoke to group of Colombians residing in U.S. along with American supporters at The House of The Lord on Atlantic Ave, Brooklyn, pastorate of activist/preacher Herbert Daughtry. … Afro-Colombians criticism of U.S. policy as misguided & driven by military imperatives to prop up present corrupt & racist regime. Existence of black people is barely acknowledged in their country. A point underscored in remarks by Afro- Americans during the question and answer period, who pointed out that they didn't even know Colombia had a black population. The Afro-Colombians were not surprised by American ignorance of their existence, although, according to Oscar Gamboa, they are 40% of 40 million population, visible everywhere on the streets & throughout countryside. Bordered by Pacific Ocean & Caribbean Sea and rich in oil, natural gas, coal, nickel, emeralds, many species of flowers, and coffee with abundant forests & rivers, speakers constantly pointed out, there is much more to Colombia than cocaine. Present crisis of Afro-Colombians is in context of generalized crisis in that country, which includes a civil war, mass fumigation of crops, and the worst economic depression since the 1930s. Unemployment rates from 20% official rate to 50% many observers say is actual, a majority of Colombians live below poverty line. With widespread poverty is flourishing cocaine trade. Oscar Gamboa, arguing against U.S. inspired Colombian govt crop fumigation policy, "Coca plant is not the problem. The peasants have long used it for medicine. The problem is sale & consumption of cocaine. And there are millions of dollars surrounding the cocaine business!" Gamboa also pointed out most people arrested for drug dealing in Colombia are the same type of small dealers generally prosecuted in U.S.; big money laundering traffickers go untouched. Furthermore, "Spraying coca crops hurts other crops more, contaminating rivers & lakes and destroying food crops peasants need to survive; they will starve." He said Afro-Colombians are heavily concentrated fighting & fumigation areas were taking place and portends a major disaster. He warned "If you destroy the countryside, blacks will be forced to go to the cities; they will not find work because of racial discrimination. Then in order to survive they will either turn to crime or make their way to the US by whatever means." Not only fumigation crop damage is forcing many black Colombians to leave countryside. Colombian army & right-wing paramilitary groups also wreak havoc on black & Indian peasantry. "In Colombia, killing people is almost an exercise. And we who attempt to organize to better our condition are risking our lives because we are labeled as guerrillas," says Gamboa. He argues, "as blacks in Colombia, we can't just sit with our arms folded and do nothing because we have children and we must leave them a country that they can live in.
What we need in Colombia is peace so that our children can play and adults can work in peace knowing their children will not be killed in the war." Gamboa described killings, kidnappings and bombings in his country and pleaded with Americans to "Help us create a new reality because we don't want drugs or war." Murders in far away Colombia became all too real when a black Colombian expatriate dramatically arose from the audience and told of the murder of her brother. "That's why we are here," said Gamboa, "I heard about your brother's murder in Colombia. The media reported it but one death quickly follows another. That is why the people who are still in Colombia, still doing the work are the real heroes." Carlos Rosero, very dark complexioned with long dreadlocks, followed with powerful statement on the plight of Afro-Columbians. "We are located all across Colombia, on the Caribbean & Pacific coasts," Summed Afro-Colombian contribution to the national economy as "Everything that leaves Colombia, including products of the mines, has been largely produced by black hands." But he quickly pointed out, "still we have nothing. Slavery has been over for 150 years, but they compensated the slaveholders. We have yet to receive reparations." Along with the war against 2 major guerilla forces, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-peoples Army FARC, & National Liberation Army, or ELN and crop fumigations, Rosero offered an additional reason why the black population is forced to move from their land. "It is only recently, after 500 years, that we have land rights. Yet we, along with the indigenous people, are being displaced at a rate of 36%. At first, our lands were considered worthless, but now that they have been found to be valuable we are being dispossessed. Every time they build a bridge it seems as if it is to remove black people. That's because our lands are rich with biodiversity and other products, including oil!" [ Same strategy in Sudan & U.S. Bantustans: dislocate population to facilitate resource extraction. Where are U.S. conservatives lamenting the assault on property rights when it's on behalf of their stock portfolios? ] "We must develop a strategy to halt dispossessions," argues Rosero. "Without territory, we cannot build a community power base. A great part of the problem of Afro-Colombians in recent years is the absence of autonomy for our community. Colombia is ethnically diverse, but there is no official recognition that blacks have a right to develop as a people, as a community. That is the central problem of development." Rosero said. He then pointed out the similarity in the situation of Africans and Indians in Colombia. "The problems of the UWA Indians and the big US oil companies is based on this lack of recognition of their right to autonomous development by the Colombian govt. The blacks and Indians should be consulted on any plans for national development." After presenting statistics on thousands of animals killed and vast acreage of farmlands destroyed, Rosero pleaded with audience for active support in changing US policy. "We must deescalate the war because it is being fought in our regions and we are most of the dead and displaced," he said, "so we want all parties to negotiate a peaceful solution to this conflict."   [ Same as DRoCongo; pastoral population of huge rich nation stuck between outsiders with imported munitions ] Rosero's statement echoed Gamboa's earlier observation that, "We cannot continue the strategy of trying to seek peace through violence. We must seek peace through peace." Guerrilla armies controlling almost half of the national territory and U.S. sending new arms to the Conservative Party's Pres. Andres Pastrana incl 42 Huey helicopters, 18 Black Hawk copters and funding to train more special forces to combat insurgents. Luis Gilberto Murillo, driven from office into U.S. exile by white Colombian paramilitary death squads, said situation in Colombia is so dangerous he wondered after arriving in the US whether he should "speak out or remain silent." He told the astonished gathering that: "Some of my friends advised me to keep quiet because blacks have enough problems in Colombia." By doing so, he "discovered that most African Americans were surprised that there were blacks in Colombia, and esp. so many!" Murillo said "I want to show how a misguided US policy is affecting blacks and others in Colombia. So we decided to use Afro-American history month to begin a dialogue with our Afro-American brothers. We want to open a dialogue with other races in Colombia, but that attempt will only exacerbate other problems." This statement brings to mind Afro-Brazilians who risk being indicted for "disturbing the racial tranquility of Brazil" for accusing a white Brazilian of racism. Many blacks Latin America have a long & complex struggle ahead in countries where simply speaking out for basic human rights can result in imprisonment or death. For the moment, says Murillo, "We want to change American policy so that it is not so warlike. We would like to see a peaceful US policy, and in that respect we could use a lot of help from American citizens!" Congressional Black Caucus meeting, a body that has no counterpart in their native Colombia. There is no black person as powerful as Colin Powell. … Progressive white left often overlooks Afro-Colombian problem. Mario, light skinned native Colombian U.S. resident in U.S. for many years, referred to flyer by white leftists distributed at meeting yet failed to even mention black Colombians.	Kathleen Cleaver   return to Emory after Skull & Bones Univ. & Sarah Lawrence re Mumia. Paris 1995 1969   WGHP born Tuskegee AL raised abroad (father in State Dept) Oberlin 1963 Barnard1966 NY/Atlanta SNCC Black Panther Party central committee 1967 With spouse Eldridge Algeria 1969 -1975 Yale B.A. History summa cum laude 1984; law degree 1988 Interview Africana.com 4.20.01 Zachariah Mampilly … empowerment, self-determination. … revolutionary movement. We weren't trying to get the right to vote. We weren't trying to get citizenship. We saw ourselves essentially as putting an end to domestic colonialism … told about, haven't actually seen, document in possession of State Dept released somehow. It stated what govt needed most to prevent, what they were most concerned about, was formation of close alliances to work together between African American or black revolutionaries, Arab revolutionaries and people fighting in Asia & Latin America, which is exactly what we were doing. We were working with people in Cuba, people in Mexico. We went to conferences with Vietnamese. When Eldridge left to Algeria, we organized the Intl Section of the BPP, which put us right in the same town with representatives of the MPLA from Angola, ZAPU and ZANU from Zimbabwe, ANC from South Africa, with people fighting in Ethiopia, in Canada, the FLQ, in Brazil. We made that link - completely. We were very clear about the way that the struggle we were part of was similar to struggles by people of color all fighting the same imperialist. It was anti-imperialist from the beginning, and recognized that we were up against the same enemy. … We could draw parallel between what the US Army was doing in Vietnam, and what Oakland police were doing in Oakland. It was not esoteric at all. … I had a son born in Algeria and a daughter born in North Korea, in Pyongyang. … The point is not the Party. The point is the political struggle and the movement. … This was an inspiring model. That's what is important about it. People took it and used it. That's why the govt had to destroy it. They did not destroy the model … In 1981, I had no opportunity to join any active revolutionary movement. There wasn't one. I moved and did something else. That is what many revolutionaries do. With revolutions, either you win or you die. We did not win. Our movement was dead. But the people, we aren't dead. … co-director, Human Rights Research Fund to look at gross human rights violations conducted by intelligence agencies & police agencies against those movements during the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s that were in opposition to govt policies. Document violations [committed by the US govt] … year by year, organization by organization. Violations incl murder, assassination, severe bodily harm and torture, use of the courts to falsely imprison … Compile a series of research centers with project directors in different regions of the country to accumulate this information, and locate people able to give testimony. Use this document to call for congressional investigations. … arrest of Jamil El-Amin [formerly H. Rap Brown] in Atlanta, and a few recent arrests of people who were formerly in the BPP on charges over 30 years old. … film festival. When we have proceeds, it goes to prisoners who were former members of the BPP serving extraordinarily long time. People like Eddie Conway, in for 30 years & still trying to get a hearing. … films that show active form of resistance. This is not something that happened in 1968 & finished. "The Murder of Fred Hampton"   88 min./b&w/1971   Michael Gray, prod.   documentary started during 1968 following charismatic young Chicago's Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton killed 12.4.69 … Film relentlessly pursues official spokesmen in their own lies & cover-up of govt assassination. INTERVIEWER: 1997. Largest black middle class in history. Largest black underclass. Black middle class has roughly tripled since the day King died, but 45% of all black children live at or below poverty line. How did we get here? CLEAVER: Well, one of the ways we got here was through the takeover by corporate interests of the legal & political structures that govern our lives. … "commercial democracy" needs a middle class to function smoothly. It doesn't need equality. What it needs is inequality. It needs a certain number of people at the elite level, a certain number of people in the middle level, and the rest of the people scrambling and hoping they could get there, all following the same zealous commitment to making money. Now, when you have people who are revolutionaries, they repudiate the commitment to making money, and say, "We want justice. We want change. We want truth. We want freedom." Well, that's not going to work if the structure is based on financial rewards and financial incentives. So we were at odds with the way the system worked. We had a different idea. We said, "Power to the people." … you have class conflict, or you have political conflict generated within dependent communities. And therefore, the leadership is either aligning itself with the status quo or annihilated, and essentially have a leadership vacuum. … why should we be worried about the middle class? That's what I'm trying to say. What we should be able to expect is a democratic opportunity to use the resources of this country, and a use of the resources to value humans over property. … With the collapse of essentially segregation and residential segregation on the basis of color, residential segregation now is on the basis of wealth. So in the past, black communities had integrated middle class, lower class working people all in the same area. Now, middle class don't live in the same area where poor people live. So the models and the leadership that is available on a community local level is no longer available. And therefore, the leadership that has developed out of the civil rights struggle, which is essentially reflecting middle class values and middle class concerns, does not deal with the problems of the underclass. And the isolation and the lack of resources of the underclass makes it very difficult to generate leadership that will be listened to by the larger society. … consequence of a collapse of the community. All this dysfunctional behavior is for people who have no families, who have no parents, who have no one who cares about them. That's where that comes from. So the question is: How do you reconstitute communities that have no resources, that have no jobs, that have no future? We can't do it without the use of the resources that have been taken out of those communities. You have to have (I agree with Jesse Jackson) a Marshall Plan for America. When Europe at the end of the war was devastated, did they say, "Oh, well, Europeans, you just pick yourself up by your bootstrap, be responsible"? No. They said, "We have wealth. We're going to rebuild this community." … we don't have the political power to make this happen, and the corporations have no interest in making it happen. And the govt is in the pocket of the corporations. So what we need is very fundamental change of political direction, in order to restructure the communities. Meanwhile, you do a lot of private small-scale things that people are doing, because the situation is so desperate. Afrocentrism ¹ ²   sports essential ebonics & contraKwanzaa   cf §10 ¹ Father Divine W.E.B.DuBois Virtual University prof. Halford Fairchild, ed. Psych Discourse,   monthly news journal Assoc. of Black Psychologists Irvin Landrum Jr. Justice Organizing Committee The Slaughter: An American Atrocity ¹ NFIMH   breeding out color NAACP Saturday Academy   cultural school at UCIrvine for high school, intermediate, and elementary level children & youth to empower students to make a successful transition from high school to work & higher education through cultural education, tutoring in academics, and exposure to technology. Donovan Jackson ¹ ² CORE & Cointelpro 2000 post modern elections: Calif. decline in black officeholders Black Electorate   • Black Radical Congress agenda   archive   Yahoo   post
A new color in Brazil tv   Blacks make up nearly half the population, but they were a rarity on screen. Now there's a channel for them, one critics decry as racist. 1.12.06   Henry Chu L.A. Times Sao Paulo, Brazil &nbp; The phone call from the budding station that launched Adyel Silva's television career seemed like a joke. Sure, as a singer, Silva was used to the spotlight. But who would offer her a shot at fronting her own daytime show? "I laughed when I received the invitation because I never dreamed of hosting a television program. You never see a black woman hosting a TV show" in Brazil, Silva said. "We were never thought capable. Maybe I'm the first." It turned out that the channel extending the offer, TV da Gente, wasn't just taking a chance on Silva. The channel itself, which debuted in late November, is something of a gamble, Brazil's first black-owned TV station featuring programming directed primarily at black viewers. That it has the potential to be a lucrative venture seems obvious in a country with the largest black population outside Africa, nearly half of Brazil's 180 million people. But the fact that it took so long to emerge, 25 years after African Americans first established their own cable TV network in the U.S., attests to attitudes about race that are pervasive in Brazilian society. Surf the channels on Brazilian TV and a clutch of beautiful people quickly crowds the screen: bikinied models, stubble-cheeked soap opera leads, natty news anchors. All are svelte and good-looking. Virtually all are white. When darker-skinned characters crop up in TV dramas, almost invariably they appear as maids and other domestic workers, or worse. "The soap operas here, the black people are always miserable, and they have an important role only when you're talking about crime," said Silva, 50. "You grow up with the idea that if you're not blond and you don't have blue eyes, you're not beautiful," she said. "You switch on the television and you see Xuxa," the kittenish, blond former soft-porn actress who is now one of the most popular stars of children's TV in Brazil. The mission of TV da Gente, or Our TV, is to try to bring a little balance to the scene. Executives at the station speak passionately of the need for the small screen to better reflect the reality lived by the 47% of Brazilians who claim some African heritage. Yet what might seem a laudable or at least unobjectionable goal, at least by U.S. standards, has whipped up hostility in some quarters here. Critics and commentators swiftly came out of the woodwork to lambaste the new channel as racist in its own way. By singling out blacks as its target audience and insisting on putting nonwhite faces before the camera as presenters and protagonists, TV da Gente contributes to racial division in Brazil, detractors contend. "If I put a 'TV for whites' on air, I'd have a thousand lawsuits on my back," read a typical posting on one of several blogs and cyber-forums debating the merits of TV da Gente, which airs on a UHF channel. "I'm white; I'm not racist in any way. But I will not watch a single program on this channel because it's practicing explicit racism." The channel's founder and principal backer, Jose de Paula Neto, is disturbed by such reactions. "I never thought that organizing and joining together so many blacks would cause such indignation," said Neto, who hosts a variety show on mainstream TV and is one of the few black men to break into the business. "People say that I'm a Hitler, that I'm segregating the country. This has caused me a lot of pain."

The backlash exposed the extent to which race remains a raw nerve in this country. The debate takes direct aim at one of the most cherished notions of Brazilians' sense of themselves: the idea of Brazil as a "racial democracy" where skin color doesn't matter.
The concept was articulated more than 70 years ago by anthropologist Gilberto Freyre, who postulated that relatively peaceful coexistence and widespread miscegenation among white masters and their black slaves gave rise to Brazil's more relaxed attitude toward race.

Freyre's theory is an article of faith among many here. Visitors are often struck by the variety of faces on the streets and beaches, where complexions range from milk to mocha to coal. In one famous survey in Brazil in 1976, respondents gave 134 different terms to describe their skin color, including "cashew-like," "burnt yellow" and "dark tan." (There was also "roseate" and "bluish.") Mixed-race couples are so common they go unnoticed.
But below the placid surface lie uncomfortable truths. Brazil was the last country in the Western Hemisphere to ban slavery, in 1888. The enduring legacy of that is evident in the fact that blacks lag behind whites according to almost every social measure, including literacy and education.

Brazil's vast slums are populated mostly by people of color. Young black males are far more likely than any other segment of the population to die violently. Discrimination, though usually not overt, works subtly and powerfully to help keep blacks in lower-paying jobs.
"In whatever indicator you use, whether it's the job market or access to public services such as water or public sewage or the murder and homicide rate, the inequality is there," said Federal University of Rio de Janeiro economist Marcelo Paixao.

Only in the last two decades, after a 20-year dictatorship that ended in 1985, has black consciousness and activism bubbled up and become a greater social force, Paixao said. But the movement is still far from the powerful civic and political player it is in the U.S., he said.
TV da Gente is a product of this relatively new vein of activism. Neto, who grew up in a poor neighborhood of Sao Paulo, South America's largest city, made his name as a singer before making the jump to television as host of a Sunday variety show. The program's signature segment is "Princess Day," which plucks a deserving woman from the slums and awards her a makeover, shopping spree and other prizes.

Neto remained bothered, however, by the singular lack of nonwhite faces on TV. "It wasn't open discrimination. It was tacit," he said, perpetuated by white producers and executives who had no experience or contact with the poor, mostly black residents on society's margins.
To start up TV da Gente, Neto dug into his own pockets for most of the $5.2 million needed to keep the station going for the first 6 months. The remaining 30% came from investors in Angola, another former Portuguese colony.

Because Brazil doesn't have a formalized Nielsen-type ratings system, the channel's popularity isn't yet known. At the moment, it's available only in Sao Paulo and the northeastern city of Fortaleza, but deals with cable and satellite providers in major cities throughout Brazil are under discussion, executives said.
When the channel debuted in November, it offered 6 hours of programming a day: news, Silva's daytime show geared to women, sports segments, musical outtakes. By Christmas, the number of hours had doubled. In three to four months, Neto hopes, TV da Gente will broadcast round-the-clock.

To meet the demand for content, translators are working feverishly to dub European and U.S. shows, including programming from the Black Family Channel, the Atlanta-based network co-founded by boxer Evander Holyfield, baseball player Cecil Fielder and singer Marlon Jackson, among others.
"There were definitely parallels between their group and ours, and we started talking. And it just worked out," said Samara Cummins, a vice president with the Black Family Channel. "We're in a global environment now, and what's good for one is good for another."

But Neto, 35, has been disappointed by the fitful response from other networks and potential U.S. investors. He hasn't been able to seal a deal with Black Entertainment Television, the oldest black network in the U.S., which began broadcasting in 1980. TV da Gente doesn't have the resources to buy rights to hit programs, and some U.S. studios and black networks are interested only in the bottom line, not in showing solidarity with TV da Gente's vision and making their programming more affordable, he said.
"It makes me feel like I'm asking for a handout," Neto said. "They're looking at Brazil as a [market] of 90 million blacks to grab hold of. My dream is that they look at us as a place of 90 million brothers."

If there's an echo of Martin Luther King Jr. in some of Neto's pronouncements, it's because the slain civil rights leader is a source of inspiration for him and also for Silva.
In Brazil, no one is expecting to replicate the huge marches or protests that won greater equality for blacks in America, but Silva sees TV da Gente as a major advance in the fight for increased rights and visibility.
"I know that in the '60s in the USA, black people stood up. We're standing up almost 50 years later," she said. "Our revolution is to tell people in a peaceful way, 'We can live together; we can melt.' But please don't pretend we're not here. Don't pretend we're not talented. Because we are."

One of the T-shirts reads "Wong Brothers Laundry Service, Two Wongs Can Make It White," while another features a smiling Buddha figure with the slogan "Abercrombie & Fitch Buddha Bash - Get Your Buddha on the Floor." "Wok-N-Bowl - Let the Good Times Roll - Chinese Food & Bowling," is printed on another one. Mr Carney said the company received about 60 phone calls Wed. about the shirts.

The San Francisco protesters read out a list of demands, including a public apology in 4 major newspapers, increased financial & philanthropic investment in the Asian community, and the employment of consultants to ensure the company handles Asian issues more sensitively. "It's unacceptable for them to smear and continue to perpetuate racist stereotypes of Asian-Americans," said Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach lawyer Ivy Lee, 30. "They wouldn't do the same for any other ethnic groups." Bao Phi, 27, in Minneapolis, said she was calling on people to boycott Abercrombie until it promises not to repeat such designs. "We're very, very, very sorry," said Mr Carney. "It's never been our intention to offend anyone. The thought was that everyone would love them, especially the Asian community. We thought they were cheeky, irreverent and funny and everyone would love them. But that has not been the case." He added that the company has made fun of other groups before, including foreign waitresses, taxi drivers and Britons. But the company has also been the focus of protests before. Last year, women's groups & conservative politicians protested against a series of adverts by the company featuring young, nearly-naked models in sexually provocative poses. And in 1998 Mothers against Drunk Driving complained about an advertising spread entitled "Drinking 101," which contained recipes for potent alcoholic drinks. Foreigner used in ad to promote Japanese culture 12.14.02 Yuri Kageyama AP   ¹   ² Tokyo   The American in a kimono bows deeply with a polite smile, daintily shapes flowers into an artful arrangement and kneels to put her traditional Japanese slippers in their proper place. The message of this TV public service announcement starring Jeanie Fuji is clear: Japanese are out of touch with their culture and need reminding from an American who's doing it better. "Many younger Japanese don't know about Japan and aren't interested. And I think Japan has such a fantastic, rich culture," said Fuji, a demure-looking blonde who is clearly quite foreign despite her kimono. The ad, first aired Oct. 2002, highlights a growing trend here to value cultural heritage when the nation's self-confidence is lagging from an economic slowdown. This one is in tandem with a government effort to promote cultural identity. Authorities mandated the study of Japanese music & other traditions in schools starting this year, and are considering a bill supporting a curriculum to instill patriotism, an idea some pacifists oppose. "Here's an American who is more Japanese than a Japanese," said Japan Ad Council Eiji Ga, which created the commercial featuring Fuji, innkeeper at a hot-springs resort. "It's calling on Japanese to re-examine our identity." The ad council is a group of businesses that periodically makes public service announcements with social messages, such as staying away from drugs or keeping city streets clean. San Francisco-born Fuji, 36, entered one of Japan's strictest worlds when she married the heir of Fujiya, 350-year- old inn at the Ginzan hot springs in northern Japan's Yamagata prefecture. Wearing a kimono every day, Fuji runs the inn, all the while following the strict rules of etiquette that dictate the proper way to serve tea, pass a tray or enter a room, "completely choreographed," she says. 41-year-old Tokyo dollmaker Mari Kobayashi spends New Year's Eve every year at 12-room Fujiya with her husband. "She looks gaijin, a pretty gaijin. Her face, the color of her hair, they're all gaijin," Kobayashi said, using the Japanese for foreigner. "But she isn't pushy or loud like a lot of gaijin." Fuji taught English in Japan after college, and met her husband Atsushi, 43, during a ski trip. They married 11 years ago. Training at the inn was hard, she said. She had to start out by learning basic jobs like dishwashing. "I made a lot of mistakes. It's a habit now," Fuji said, switching midway through the telephone interview into Japanese. The couple have a 5-year-old daughter and a 2-year-old son. The complaint that foreigners seem to appreciate Japanese culture more than the Japanese themselves isn't new. Over the decades of modernization, Japanese have turned to Hollywood, Disneyland and hip-hop for inspiration at the cost of their own traditions: Kabuki theater, taiko drumming, the tea ceremony and haiku poetry. Performers of traditional arts often go unnoticed at home, perhaps taken for granted or considered unfashionable, only to reach stardom after receiving rave reviews on overseas tours. "In the past, school programs were devoted to Western music," said Education Ministry official Katsunori Ouchi. "But unless Japanese study their own culture, they can't explain anything when they get asked questions abroad." Noriko Kitano, a hairstylist in her 50s who loves kabuki theater, believes in tradition. "It's the spirit of Japan," she said. "Young people shouldn't forget the beauty of the kimono." Fuji believes it's up to the Japanese to decide how much tradition they want to keep. She said all traditions, like Christmas in U.S., are sometimes restraining but can be a bonding force. "To become truly international, you must first understand your own culture," Fuji said.	A lesson in culture shock for lawyers 12.13.02   K. Connie Kang L.A.Times More than anything, what surprised Tokyo lawyer Michi Yamagami about American education was the informality of the classroom and the interaction between teachers & students. In Japan, professors lecture & students listen, said USC Law School master of laws candidate Yamagami. Here they exchange ideas as if they're equals, he observed, and professors have a knack for calling on students. "The first time I was called, I was very, very nervous," said prestigious Univ. of Tokyo grad Yamagami, who passed the demanding Japanese bar exam on his first try, a mark of great distinction. Japan has fewer than 19,000 attorneys, compared to more than 1 million in U.S. Fortunately, Yamagami said, he was prepared for the professor's first question. But he became flustered when the professor continued with follow-ups, with each query becoming more specific. After all, he said, culturally, that's an uncomfortable thing for an East Asian. Yamagami & 11 other lawyers are participating in USC's inaugural LLM program for attorneys with foreign law degrees. Up & coming associate Yamagami at Tokyo firm Anderson Mori, and the others are getting a workout. The lawyers, whom USC Law School Dean Matthew L. Spitzer describes as "the best & the brightest," are receiving intensive training in American jurisprudence & the its legal system. The dozen lawyers take an Introduction to U.S. Law class together and are otherwise free to take courses with students in the regular USC law degree program. In addition to four from Japan, class members hail from India, South Korea, Taiwan, Pakistan, France, Germany and Great Britain. Many focus on courses in entertainment law & intellectual property. Navigating the intl zone is a two-way street. Prof. David Slawson, who teaches contract & insurance law, experienced it the first time he called on a student. Although he already had a law degree, the student was "practically paralyzed with fear," Slawson recalled. Since then, the professor has gone out of his way to be "extra gentle" with them, but he does not excuse them from impromptu questioning because he considers that an essential part of the training. "If you're going to be a lawyer, you're going to have to withstand a lot worse pressure," he said. "So, this is a way to break them into the real world." Like Yamagami, Hiromi Shiraishi, who hopes to work as a intl transactions specialist, had her baptism by fire when one of her professors asked her a question. Shiraishi had prepared for class, but did not expect to be called on. When she was, her mind went blank, she said. "To answer in English or explain myself in front of a native speaker is so embarrassing," said third-year associate Shiraishi at Asahi Law Offices, fifth-largest law firm in Japan. New Delhi law firm of Bhasin & Bhasin atty Piyush Sharma, who earned his law degree at Univ. of Wales, his concern was that American professors might have trouble understanding his accent. So, he made his rounds and asked them, "Is my accent OK by you?" "I didn't want to take a class without the professor being comfortable with me in the accent," he said. But it's more than language or accent that challenges the foreign students. English is London-born Manbir S. Chowdhary's first language. Still, the Univ. of Buckingham grad has experienced a pleasant cultural surprise in the way professors & students interact here. "I wouldn't say that British professors weren't approachable; they were, but students feared them anyway," said British citizen Chowdhary whose ancestors came from India. "But here in U.S., professors are extremely accessible and really go out of their way to help the students out. It's very welcome." Foreign lawyers contribute to the life of the law school & the university overall. "Our law students learn to understand that their view of the legal education is not the only view that there is, but there are many other systems that approach the world in very different ways," said Introduction to U.S. Law instructor Edwin M. Smith. Nationwide, more than 30 law schools offer similar master's programs, USC officials said. USC's is unusual in its small size ∓ disproportionate enrollment of Asian students, which partly stems from the university's long- standing connection to that part of the world. Last year, Spitzer flew to Hong Kong, Japan & S.Korea and visited large law firms to recruit students. His pitch: with world's economies becoming more integrated and interaction among countries increasing in areas such as intellectual property, commercial transactions and human rights, lawyers can gain competitive advantage by understanding the American legal system. Motoi Fujii, & Chikako Morimoto, married to each other, represent a new breed of Japanese lawyers who hope to move with ease in both legal worlds. Their employer TMI Associates considers their U.S. training important enough to subsidize all their expenses while they complete their studies. Through practical training they hope to do for a year after earning their American law degrees. Tuition for the USC program is $32,500 a year. With just one lawyer for every 6,737 people in Japan, compared with one for every 274 in U.S., there is a big demand for lawyers of all types, esp. those with specialized skills, lawyer groups say. What's driving it is the growing internationalization of the Japanese economy & complex transactions based on U.S. laws, lawyers from Japan said. "Our law firm has foreign clients, so we have to be proficient in English," said Fujii. After nearly a semester, he understands about half of what's going on in the classroom, he said. "In my tax class, sometimes students are laughing but I am not," he said. Fujii says he jots down words & phrases he doesn't understand and looks them up after class. He says he still isn't used to the freedom American students exercise to ask questions in the classroom. He rarely asks questions because of his cultural inhibition. "Asking questions means you are taking up other people's time," he said. "So, if I am going to ask a question, I must make sure it is a good question and that I won't impose on other students' time without a good reason." Students from abroad not only work hard, but they also are very courteous, said Slawson. "Until 2 weeks ago, I had one of them who would thank me after every class. It kind of threw me."
Jap. american group opens bank in Little Tokyo Investors hope Pacific Commerce, with its focus on personal service, will help revitalize community. 11.11.02   Evelyn Iritani L.A.Times Hoping to fill a void created by the pullback of Japanese banks from the California market, a group of Japanese American investors have set up their own bank in Los Angeles. Tucked away in a mini-mall at the edge of Little Tokyo, Pacific Commerce Bank is believed to be the only Japanese American-owned bank operating outside of Hawaii. Backed by 160 investors & $7.6 million in capital, the small bank is hoping to build its base around the Japanese American & Japanese expatriate communities. The lack of a Japanese American bank is striking, given the success of ethnic banks in other Asian communities. San Marino-based East West Bank, one of several dozen banks serving Southern California's Chinese community, is the third-largest commercial bank based in Los Angeles, with $3.2 billion in assets. Hanmi Bank, which has $1.4 billion in assets and is headquartered in Los Angeles' Koreatown, is the largest of 10 community banks serving the region's Korean community.
"We need to have a bank for our community that provided the services we are used to," said Ken Kasamatsu, 56, president and chief executive of Pacific Commerce Bank, which opened its doors last month. Though they are launching in difficult times, Pacific Commerce executives believe they can succeed by providing the personal service they say is disappearing as Japanese banks such as Sumitomo Bank, Sanwa Bank and Asahi Bank pull out of California or are swallowed up by U.S. financial institutions. They said their bank would offer bilingual staff with a knowledge of the Southland Japanese community and expertise in Japanese culture & business practices. At Pacific Commerce Bank, Kasamatsu and his staff of nine pride themselves on knowing customers' names and hand out business cards with a direct telephone line. The bank, which offers retail and commercial services, has 130 customers. Martin Ogino, a 52-year-old insurance agent from Arcadia, is an investor in the bank and also has opened a checking account. He said he felt he would get better service from a smaller bank. "I kind of like the idea of not being just a number," said Ogino, who has known Kasamatsu's family for 30 years. Kasamatsu was with Sumitomo Bank's California subsidiary for 31 years until it was sold to Zions Bancorporation in 1998 and became the backbone of Zions' California Bank & Trust unit. In Sept., United California Bank, the result of a merger between the California subsidiaries of Japan's Sanwa Bank & Tokai Bank, was sold to San Francisco-based Bank of the West for $2.4 billion. He said those banks have not only cut back on their bilingual staff and other services but also have reduced their involvement in community activities such as Nisei Week, which is held each August in Little Tokyo and is the nation's longest-running Japanese American festival. competition remains But Pacific Commerce's bigger & better-financed competitors aren't about to give up without a fight. Little Tokyo's businesses have been struggling with the decline in Japanese tourism after last year's terrorist attacks. But since the Office Depot retailing complex on 2nd St & Alameda Ave opened more than a year ago, traffic in the neighborhood has increased and there are new projects in the works, incl a 127-unit condominium project. Japanese American community is known for its good savers and reliable borrowers, according to bankers. California Bank & Trust spokesman Steven Borg said his bank has maintained a bilingual staff at its Little Tokyo branch and offers a variety of services aimed at that community, including automated teller machine services in Japanese. "Our focus hasn't changed and we remain committed to that market," he said. Ronald Kendrick, exec. vp at Union Bank of California, which is majority-owned by Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi Ltd., said his bank also offers similar services for the Japanese community. But he said even a small player in today's competitive banking environment needs to look beyond a narrow ethnic base to survive. "All of the communities that at one time were very dominated by Japanese American people and immigrants have now very much diversified," he said. "There's a strong Hispanic influence moving into the Little Tokyo area. You no longer have the purity of that micro-market that you did 30 to 40 years ago." The backers of Pacific Commerce Bank hope the bank can help revitalize a Japanese American community struggling to maintain its relevancy in an increasingly multiethnic world. The bank's investors include Japanese American community leaders such as George Aratani, founder of tableware maker Mikasa Inc. and stereo company Kenwood Corp.; Frances Hashimoto, president of the Mikawaya bakery in Little Tokyo; Dale Okuno, founder of E-Z Data Inc., a Pasadena technology firm; and Tom Iino, a partner at Deloitte & Touche. "I'm very big on cultural preservation, particularly with the generations going forward, the sansei [third generation] and yonsei [fourth generation]," said Iino, whose father, Sho Iino, was the first Japanese American accountant certified in California. "If this bank is successful, it will be an entity the community feels good about and perhaps will stimulate some thinking about the future of Little Tokyo." The Japanese American community's challenge can be seen in the numbers. Though Asian Americans are the fastest-growing minority group in this country, there are few newcomers coming to U.S. from Japan. Many of the first- & second-generation Japanese American immigrants have passed away, and their children & grandchildren have assimilated into mainstream society. Nationwide, Japanese dropped from the third-most-represented Asian ethnicity in 1990 to the sixth in the 2000 census. About 250,000 Japanese Americans & 54,500 Japanese citizens live in S.California, according to the Japanese Consulate in Los Angeles. "The Japanese American community is dispersed and shrinking," said Henry Ota, a prominent Los Angeles atty who helped Kasamatsu launch the bank. "The challenge for the Japanese American National Museum, the Japanese American Cultural & Community Ctr and the bank is to build a strong enough foundation today to allow us to be successful in the broader community tomorrow." wartime loss The Japanese American community lost much of its wealth during WWII, when 120,000 men, women and children, most U.S. citizens, were uprooted from the West Coast and sent to internment camps. When the internees returned to California after the war, there were no Japanese American businesses to serve them, so they banked at the Japanese-owned banks that had branches in major U.S. cities. Over the years, several small financial institutions were started by Japanese Americans. The best-known was Merit Savings Bank, which was launched in 1962 and nearly sank under bad real estate loans before it was acquired by now-defunct Charter Savings Bank in 1988. In 1995, state regulators closed Torrance-based Pacific Heritage Bank, a 15-year-old institution serving primarily Japanese American customers, after it ran into debt problems. Bank mergers or acquisitions often create specialized niches that small community banks can capitalize on, according to James Jones, exec. vp Carpenter & Co., Irvine investment bank specializing in financial services. Jones, who served as an advisor to Pacific Commerce, said the bank's biggest challenges will be reaching Japanese American customers scattered across S.California and expanding to other communities downtown. "The issue for the bank will be to generate the loan demand that will allow them to grow and develop the deposit relationships to balance that loan growth," Jones said. The bank's goal is to have $40 million in assets and $35 million in deposits in its first year of operation. Pacific Bank's top priority is Little Tokyo, which was a thriving commercial center for the nation's largest Japanese community in the 1920s. As the community began to disperse, the neighborhood became a retail center aimed at Japanese tourists and a home for the major Japanese American cultural establishments. Spillover from the Toy District and Chinatown has brought more ethnic diversity to the area, which is why Kasamatsu hopes to add a Spanish-speaking staffer. To give Little Tokyo's small-business owners a better shot at financing, Kasamatsu said, he will evaluate credit applications individually rather than using the credit scoring system commonly used by large banks. "There is $800 million in deposits in this area," he said, referring to Little Tokyo. "If we can get 10% of that, we will be successful." The lessons of history Japanese American woman's experience during war resonates in post-attack America, where a new generation will soon see the movie depicting her story.   11.6.01   Ajay Singh L.A.Times It's been nearly 30 years since the book was published, and 25 since the film about it was made. But the story of how the Wakatsuki family was treated in World War II America has grown more resonant, not less, in the years since. "Farewell to Manzanar," the story Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston co-wrote with her husband, James D. Houston, has sold more than a million copies since it was first published in 1973. It is read in schools and colleges nationwide, where it is the standard text on the Japanese internment. Like the book, the TV film of the same title, made in 1976, is finding new audiences. In coming months, 10,000 video copies of the film will be made and sent to California schools & libraries. The Wakatsuki family's story found its audience long before 9.11.01. But those events have created a climate of suspicion toward another group of Americans, those of Arab ancestry this time, rather than Japanese, and made the message of the book & film all the more timely, the authors say. The story illustrates what can go wrong in a time of national stress, "when people seem prone to jump to conclusions along ethnic lines," says Houston. And, says Wakatsuki Houston, for those who may not quite have realized how diverse a nation this has become, there was striking evidence in the victims of the attacks. "I think it was very shocking for many people to see that many of those killed in the towers were people from all over the world, of different color." In her own life, she experienced racism at the hands of the American government, which later apologized for its actions, and had to come to terms with the issues of cultural acceptance in her marriage--she defied Japanese tradition in marrying Houston, a San Francisco-born novelist. Jeanne Wakatsuki, born in Inglewood, was 7 years old, the youngest of 10 siblings, when her family was uprooted from their comfortable Ocean Park home in Santa Monica. They were packed off to a barbed-wired compound of tin barracks and crude back-to-back toilets without walls--one of the first families to be shipped to the internment camps and one of the last to be released. Of the scores of books on the Japanese internment, "Farewell to Manzanar" was the first by an internee to be widely read in the United States. It is an accessible and unsentimental work. Unlike most of the other books on the Japanese internment, Houston says "Farewell" is "not a sermon on political injustice nor an essay on the Constitution. It allows readers to enter the experience on the level of empathy." The film portraying the Wakatsuki family's experiences was directed by John Korty. After years out of circulation, it was restored and featured last spring at the Asian Pacific Film and Video Festival in Los Angeles. At the same time, plans were announced to relaunch it in video form to help educate California students and the general public about the internment. Backers of the project include Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, Universal Studios, the Civil Liberties Public Education Project of the California State Library and members of the Japanese American community. Universal Studios is underwriting the video project--producing the copies and distributing them to every public school and library in the state; publisher McDougal-Littell is providing 8,500 copies of the book and the teaching guide to be included with the school videos. The Manzanar project is an offshoot of the Commission for One California, a forum established and led by Bustamante to promote cultural understanding. Among its 30-plus members is Carole Hayashino of San Francisco State University. It was Hayashino who, along with the film's director and others, worked with Universal to have the film restored and made available to schools. "This is still a very significant film," says Hayashino. It was the first widely seen movie by, about and starring Japanese Americans. "Its message is still very relevant. 'Farewell to Manzanar' is a reminder of how precious our civil liberties and rights are." Manzanar was one of 10 internment camps to which the U.S. government sent citizens of Japanese ancestry following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. It is in the high desert at the base of the Sierra Nevada mountains, northeast of Los Angeles, not far from the community of Lone Pine. In the 1940s, it housed 10,000 internees. The interred were not suspects in any crimes, not guilty of any wrongdoing. Many were children. Living conditions were cramped, communal and emotionally dehumanizing--and they tore families apart. Writes Wakatsuki Houston: "Before Manzanar, mealtime had always been the center of our family scene. … "Now, in the mess halls, after a few weeks had passed, we stopped eating as a family. Mama tried to hold us together for a while, but it was hopeless. Granny was too feeble to walk across the block three times a day, especially during heavy weather, so May brought her food in the barracks. My older brothers and sisters, meanwhile, began eating with their friends, or eating somewhere blocks away. … Not only did we stop eating at home, there was no longer a home to eat in." Manzanar officially closed 11.21.45. It was designated a National Historic Site in 1972 after a vigorous, yearlong campaign by Japanese Americans. The National Park Service maintains the site, which is open to visitors year- round. When the book, published by Houghton Mifflin, came out in 1973, it shed light on a subject that had been largely ignored in popular histories. Fifteen years later, in 1988, the U.S. government formally apologized for the internment of some 120,000 Japanese Americans and offered reparations to survivors under the Civil Liberties Act. In the years since the book was first published, Wakatsuki Houston, 67, has made numerous public appearances and continues to write. She recently finished her first novel--a fictional, multigenerational story that draws on the camp experience. She is often invited to schools and colleges, mostly on the West Coast and in the Midwest, to talk about Manzanar and its lessons for the country. She says she knows in coming appearances she "will be speaking a lot about diversity and what it means to be American" in the aftermath of the September attacks. And while she describes America as a tapestry, as a land of immigrants, she says the nation's strength comes from the things that bind Americans together rather than distinguish them from one another--the concepts of freedom, of equality, of the opportunity to grow. "It is why being an American is an exciting lot. We have an open field we can run with. Sometimes we forget the others around us, but we are in this together." Wakatsuki Houston and her husband live in Santa Cruz in an old craftsman bungalow a short walk from the Pacific Ocean. The couple have three children, all of whom make their homes in Santa Cruz. When the couple married in 1957, Wakatsuki Houston says her husband was her "blond samurai", a man as handsome as a Coca-Cola model and as rugged as a Japanese warrior. "Wanting to marry a blond samurai reveals a lot of my conflicts," she says. Despite her traditional Japanese upbringing, she found herself attracted to the idealized white men she saw in a steady diet of Hollywood films. Her husband, it turned out, was equally attracted to Asians. She attributes in part the longevity of their marriage to the desire on both their parts to continue to grow and change, to not stay locked in their initial roles. Her husband, 67, is an authority on the history and cultures of the western U.S. The latest of his seven novels, "Snow Mountain Passage" (Alfred Knopf), was published last spring and is the story of the Donner Party's tragic fate. At the time they met, Wakatsuki never imagined that her union with Houston would one day produce a book about race relations in America. As a young adult, Wakatsuki strove to cast away her Japanese identity and embrace everything "American." "When I was a child, it wasn't just bad to be Japanese, it was almost criminal," she says. "My self-image suffered--I felt as though I had bombed Pearl Harbor." Her parents treated her as inferior to her brothers in keeping with the prevalent Asian bias against females; segregation on ethnic grounds "added a second layer" to her distress. Because it was taboo in her family to talk about their humiliating camp experience, Wakatsuki Houston's most painful memories remained suppressed for more than 25 years. In 1971, one of her 5 nephews who had been born in Manzanar asked her what it was like to live there. "I started crying hysterically," she recalls. "It was the first time anybody had asked me about the camp, it was as if a thunderbolt had hit me." Houston, too, was in for a shock. Although he knew about his wife's internment as a child, they had never really talked about it. As an author, Houston knew that writing about the internment experience would be cathartic for her. But that wasn't the only reason he offered to help his wife with the book; he convinced her it was a story America should hear. Since 9.11.01, "we have cases all over the country where individuals are getting challenged or threatened because of their ethnic background," Houston says. "That's exactly what happened during World War II--the assumption was that anyone of Japanese ancestry was somehow connected to the bombing and could not be trusted." In Japan, Wakatsuki Houston says, the word "I" is rarely used, Japanese conversation usually takes place in the third person. That, for her, sums up the essential difference between American and Japanese cultures: the first stresses individualism, the other revolves around communal cooperation. But, in America in these trying times, these values hold a lesson. "There's a sense that we need each other, that we don't live in a vacuum," she says. "The 'me, me, me' comes back to 'we.'"	Stories in the dust Manzanar is a place of long ago many remember today. But preserving memories is no easy task 7.31.02   Duane Noriyuki L.A.Times Manzanar, Calif.   Frank Hays, superintendent of Manzanar National Historic Site, walks carefully among sage and fallen leaves, near an area where Japanese American orphans were confined during World War II. He stops and reaches for something on the ground. "A marble," he says. He hands it to Alisa Lynch, his colleague with the National Park Service, who holds it in her palm. It is dull and chipped, warm from the sun. She studies it briefly then returns it to the ground, where stories live, and covers it with sand. The orphans, some as young as 6 months old, were among 11,000 people held at the Manzanar Relocation Center, located in the high desert 212 miles northeast of Los Angeles. In all, there were 10 such camps, confining about 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast. Little remains of Manzanar. Like the concrete foundations, ceramic chips and rusted nails scattered throughout, the marble is a small part of a story that is not simply told. "There's some controversy within the Japanese American community over what the camp really was all about," says Lynch, chief of interpretation at the site. "For some people, it was the most devastating experience of their lives. A hundred and forty-three people died here. In some camps, there were suicides. Then there were people who learned their professions here, who met their mates here. There were 541 babies born here." Much of the controversy addresses terminology. Was Manzanar an "internment camp," "relocation center," "concentration camp?" Were those who were forced to live there "internees" or "prisoners"? For a year and a half, the National Park Service has been gathering information, creating focus groups and conducting meetings around the state to determine how the story should be presented in exhibits at the camp's new interpretation center. (The center, along with administrative offices, will be housed in the old high school auditorium, which is being restored. The $5-million project is scheduled for completion next year.) On Saturday, Lynch will travel to Los Angeles to gather the opinions and impressions of the project from area Japanese Americans with ties to Manzanar. Planners want to take into account the tremendous social, religious and political diversity among those interned. They were Buddhist, Catholic and Protestants; issei, nisei and sansei (first, second and third generations in America) of varying political beliefs and alliances. They were as diverse as Manzanar itself. Located in the Owens Valley, the site is part of Inyo County, which includes most of Death Valley National Park as well as 14,495-foot Mt. Whitney in the Sierra Nevada range. The seasonal range of temperatures can be more than 110 degrees. In other ways, too, Manzanar is a place of contrast. National Park Service exhibits will describe how the area was inhabited by members of the Owens Valley Paiute dates back centuries. In the 1800s, ranches were homesteaded, and on July 11, 1863, about 1,000 Paiute were herded almost 200 miles to Sebastian Indian Reservation near Fort Tejon in response to confrontations with white settlers. In the early 1900s, the area was subdivided and the town of Manzanar was founded. An orchard community developed until the city of Los Angeles bought the land for water rights. The federal government leased the property from the city during the war to build the camp. In contrast to the govt guns pointed at the Paiute, marching them away, govt guns of World War II were pointed at those of Japanese descent, forcing them to stay. In a matter of months after the camps were mandated by executive order on Feb. 19, 1942, Manzanar became the most populated community between Los Angeles and Reno. There were eight guard towers surrounding 36 residential blocks, each with 14 barracks as well as communal facilities. The camps were intended to be as self-sufficient as possible, so, in time, there were churches and schools, a 250-bed hospital, bank, catalog store and a newspaper known as the Manzanar Free Press. Internees built parks and gardens, an outdoor theater and recreational facilities including a nine-hole golf course. There were chicken and hog operations, a garment factory, and a food-processing unit that produced shoyu (soy sauce), bean sprouts and tofu. In its first year of operation 700 tons of vegetables were harvested from the farming operation. Manzanar evolved quickly during its 3 years. Wallboard and linoleum were installed in barracks. Security became less stringent. What remained constant was the fact that most of the internees were American-born citizens, and those who weren't were subject to laws prohibiting naturalization. Eventually, survivors were issued redress checks for $20,000 and received an apology signed by President George Bush. The country's response to injustice, reparations, says Lynch, are at the heart of her work at the site. "Part of it was paying redress. Part of it was the apology, and now part of it is to say that on top of those things, we're going to preserve this place and we're going to make sure we tell the story of what happened here." But it may not be one story at all, she says. Perhaps Manzanar is a place of many stories. In addition to a documentary, photographs, a chronology of events and glossary, the exhibits are expected to reflect personal accounts of some of those interned and, perhaps, at least one who refused to go: Hideo Murata of Pismo Beach. Murata was a United States World War I veteran who, rather than be interned, committed suicide. The book "Years of Infamy," by Michi Weglyn (Morrow Quill Paperbacks, 1976) describes how he was found dead clutching an honorary citizenship certificate in one hand. Then there is the story of the late Ralph Lazo, of Mexican and Irish descent. When he discovered, at age 16, that buddies from his Bunker Hill neighborhood were being sent to Manzanar, he went with them. Lazo later served in the Army and received a Bronze Star. Blue-star banners were displayed on barracks of those with family members in the military. Gold-star banners were given to the families of those who died. The Munemoris had one of each. Sadao Munemori of the famed 442nd Combat Team was awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroic acts in Italy. Munemori sacrificed his life by throwing himself on an enemy grenade, saving the lives of two comrades; and, as he fought, his family was confined at Manzanar. 48 hour notice Each person who entered Manzanar has a story to tell, and many of those stories will be written on name tags given to visitors to describe how individual lives were affected during the war. Wilbur Sato's story begins a couple months after Pearl Harbor was bombed, when at age 12 he was escorted from the principal's office to his locker to gather his possessions and then out of the school he was attending on Terminal Island. Those of Japanese ancestry were given 48 hours to leave the island, he says, so his family rented a house owned by friends in Boyle Heights, and he began attending a different school. It seemed as if they were going to stay, he says. They hung pictures on the wall, but then Executive Order 9066, establishing the camps, was signed into law by President Roosevelt. The period before their departure for Manzanar seems a blur, he says. They were packing their possessions for storage and preparing to leave. His parents were "enthusiastic" about going, he says, as it enabled them to demonstrate their loyalty to the United States. His mother was a volunteer in the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps. Sato arrived at Manzanar in early April wearing his Sunday best. On April 26, his 13th birthday, his mother surprised him. Despite all that weighed on her before leaving home, he says, she had remembered to buy him a gift. Sato collected stamps, and his mother had taken time to buy new ones to add to his collection. From that moment, the collection he once loved has served only as a reminder of Manzanar. "I could never stand to look at the stamps after that," he says. "I still have them somewhere, but I can't look at them." His memories of being rounded up and imprisoned fill him with a sense of loss, he says. "You lose your sense of identity. You're made to feel that you're not American anymore." "There are so many stories," says William Michael, director of library and museum services for Inyo County and also a member of the advisory commission charged with helping decide what the exhibits should reflect. "The history of prejudice against Asians in this country has to be a part of this story, the laws that did not allow Japanese to naturalize and become citizens or own land. That has to be told to give the context of how easy it was to take 120,000 people and put them into camps." A sense of sadness Sue Kunitomi Embrey was 19 years old in 1942, when her family traveled by train then bus from Los Angeles to Manzanar, arriving in darkness. Her brother had volunteered to help set up the camp and was there to greet them. He had prepared their bedding, so they did not have to stand in line and stuff their canvas mattresses with hay that first night. "We were lucky," she says. Embrey chaired the Manzanar Historical Site Advisory Commission and is co- founder/chairperson of the Manzanar Committee, which sponsors an annual pilgrimage to the camp. Whenever she returns, she says, it is with a sense of sadness. Sometimes it's as if she has traveled back through time, and voices are just beyond her reach. She can almost hear music and shouting, confusion, and, from the shade of an apple tree bearing sweet fruit, the hushed sobs of her mother. Although it is a place of long ago, Manzanar still lives inside of her. She remembers how she and her friend each night after dinner would walk around the inside of the five-strand barbed-wired fence surrounding the camp, talking about freedom and dreams and all the things teenagers talk about. And she remembers her mother telling her years later how, for weeks after they arrived at Manzanar, she would go to the apple orchard, where she could be alone, and cry. A record, a responsibility The exhibit likely will include photographs taken by the late Toyo Miyatake, who had a studio in Little Tokyo before the war. When he and his family were held, he sneaked a camera lens and film holder into Manzanar. Archie Miyatake, his oldest son, was 17 at the time. He remembers awakening after his first night in the camp, looking down at his bed and seeing the outline of his head in a layer of sand that blew in during the night through cracks in the floor. He was outside one day when his father, a friend of master photographer Edward Weston, called him inside. "He told me to sit down, and I was wondering what I had done wrong," Archie Miyatake says. "He said, 'As a photographer, I have a responsibility. I have to record what's going on in camp so this type of thing will never happen again.' " A carpenter built a wooden box for the camera, a friend in auto maintenance connected the lens to a piece of pipe, and soon Miyatake's father was documenting life inside the camp. He eventually received permission to take pictures, as long as a Caucasian person was there to release the shutter. Over time, he was allowed to push the button himself, as long as he was accompanied by a Caucasian person. Then, finally, camp officials allowed him to work alone. After the war, the Miyatakes returned to Los Angeles and opened their doors to many former internees who had nowhere to stay. Eventually Archie Miyatake took over his father's studio and moved it to San Gabriel. His two sons also are photographers. When he thinks back to his time spent at Manzanar, Archie Miyatake thinks about the injustice, the feelings of longing as he stood inside the fence watching cars drive to and from a small, nearby town called Independence. But it was also at Manzanar, at a dance, that he met his future wife. Life did not stop, he says, and most people tried to make the most of it. He was drawn to the mountains that cast long shadows late in the day, and when darkness came, he sometimes escaped to them and waited for daylight to search for trout in deep pools and for lost feelings of peace and freedom. Memories of children All but a few of the approximately 800 structures at Manzanar were removed after the war. Remaining, in addition to the auditorium, are two sentry posts in front and in back, a cemetery monument where visitors leave everything from flowers and paper cranes to articles of clothing and, on one occasion, a tape of the Grateful Dead. A mess hall moved to the Bishop airport after the war will be returned as part of a demonstration block. Plans call for recreating a guard tower and refurbishing some gardens so visitors will have an understanding of what it was like. But beyond the exhibits and what remains, some stories will remain buried in the ground. Tamotsu Isozaki, 76, of Monterrey Park lived in the Manzanar orphanage known as Children's Village, home to about 100 children. They came from Alaska, Washington Oregon and California, most of them from orphanages or foster homes; and although they attended school with the other children at Manzanar, they lived in their own barracks, one for girls and one for boys, and had their own mess hall. He remembers how a volunteer, Sohei Hohri, who had just graduated from Manzanar High School, would tell them stories from memory that would continue for weeks, among them Homer's "The Odyssey" and Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables." They would listen carefully, says Isozaki, and just when the story reached an exciting crescendo, Hohri, now 77 and retired after 31 years as curator at a private maritime museum in New York, would end the episode, causing them to wait another day for the story to resume. In such manner, time, and war, passed. Perhaps it was because of their youth, or maybe it had to do with being orphans. Uncertainty was not new to them, he says, and they were blessed with an ability to be easily distracted in a way that most adults were not. Isozaki remembers that they played basketball and baseball, and a game called Prisoner of War, where if you left your home base, you were subject to imprisonment by the opposing team. And sometimes he could forget what was happening in his life and in the world by simply sitting upon the ground, drawing a circle in the sand and grasping a shiny marble in his hand. Preliminary plans for the Manzanar interpretation center exhibits will be available for review and comment 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Japanese American National Museum, 369 E. 1st St., Little Tokyo in downtown L.A. They also will be displayed 6-8 p.m. Tuesday at the American Legion Hall in Independence, near Manzanar. Arts & crafts from America's concentration camps 12.31.02   Scarlet Cheng L.A.Times A 5 ft tall obutsudan, or Buddhist altar, faces you upon entering the exhibition "Crafting History: Arts and Crafts from America's Concentration Camps," now at Japanese American National Museum 369 E.1st St. L.A. Meticulously carved out of honey-colored wood, it's a small-scale rendition of the facade of a Buddhist temple, with its elaborate bracketed roof, lotus emblems and decorated columns. Inside, 3 sections contain miniature scrolls, a calligraphy in the center and portraits of monks on either side. The craftsmanship is splendid enough, but the fact that it was made while brothers Shinzaburo and Gentaro Nishiura were incarcerated in Heart Mountain WY during WWII is more surprising still. Under the direction of the War Relocation Authority, they were among the 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent removed from the West Coast to 10 internment camps in isolated areas of U.S. to prevent possible "collaboration" with America's declared enemy, Japan. While the other 400 objects in the show are more modest in scale & purpose, they also reflect an important part of this unfortunate history. Living communally and crowded into basic barracks, the Japanese Americans had to make do with limited food & supplies. Still, they proved resourceful in "making things to create a home environment," says museum curator Kristine Kim. In addition to producing items for everyday use they also found ways to express artistic inclinations. The objects were selected from the museum's own collection, begun in 1988, and donations from the camp era are still pouring in as people realize the importance of preserving these artifacts. The obutsudan was received just 2 years ago. "As far as we can tell, it's been in use almost continuously since World War II," says Kim. The Nishiuras were professional woodworkers, having worked on the Japanese Pavilion for the 1915 Panama Pacific Intl Exhibition in San Francisco. After the war, they gave the altar to the San Jose Buddhist Church, which later transferred it to the Gilroy Buddhist Community Hall, which in turn donated it to the museum. Not all the objects come with such a detailed history. "Unfortunately, part of the story is lost," says Kim. "This is about preserving the story we can." Incl a number of drawings & paintings; art classes were offered at all the camps by those who had had academic or professional training before the war. Artist Chiura Obata, for example, had taught at UC Berkeley, and during internment he set up art schools at Tanforan & Topaz. In the exhibition, his ink painting shows two adults and a child standing rather forlornly in the bleak terrain of their camp. Like other adults, he depicted the world he saw around him.

There are also dozens of carvings, canes, wall plaques, and pieces of furniture made out of found and scrap wood. In the same gallery is a strikingly chic olive-green woman's suit made by Hatsumi Shohara; the two-piece is entirely crocheted, down to the three "bows" decorating the front.
In a world in which there were no flowers, the internees made their own. To continue such traditions as bonsai & flower arrangement, they fashioned plants out of paper & shells. Visitor Alyson Iwamoto, an art teacher, was especially touched by the flowers. "They couldn't find a single flower around them, so they crafted them," she says. "It's so admirable. They didn't allow their spirits to be broken, whatever the circumstances."

Representative wants colleague censured for internment remarks
2.16.03   AP

L.A.   Japanese-American representative from California has called for GOP leaders to condemn comments of a GOP colleague from North Carolina that Japanese-Americans were interned in World War II for their protection. Rep. Michael M. Honda D-CA compared the remarks of colleague Rep. Howard Coble to recent comments by Senator Trent Lott R-MS. In December, Lott was pressured into resigning as majority leader after praising Strom Thurmond's 1948 presidential campaign, which promoted racial segregation. Mr. Honda said he was "outraged" that GOP leaders had made no move, despite requests from Japanese- Americans, to persuade Mr. Coble to step down as House subcommittee chair overseeing domestic security.

Mr. Coble said on North Carolina radio show 2.4.03 that Japanese-Americans had been interned for their safety, but disagreed with a caller who said Arab-Americans should be confined. "We were at war; they were an endangered species," Mr. Coble said. "For many of these Japanese-Americans, it wasn't safe for them to be on the street." Mr. Coble later released a statement saying the internment was "the wrong decision and an action that should never be repeated." He has refused to give up the subcommittee post.
Speaking at a news conference Saturday in L.A., Mr. Honda said calls by the Asian-American Congressional caucus and Japanese-American groups for Mr. Coble to resign his chairmanship had been ignored by GOP leaders. "They're notably silent on this," said Mr. Honda, who was interned with his family in WWII. Govt study after the war called the internment "a grave personal injustice" that was the result of "race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership." In 1990, govt began paying survivors $20,000.

Tanning salons give color to Chinese yuppies 9.11.06   Reuters Shanghai   Chinese office manager Ye Lu likes working up a sweat -- not in the gym, but in a tanning salon. "Tanned skin looks great on me and I like to hear my friends saying how fresh and healthy I look," said Ye, a young Chinese white collar worker, as he walked out of a tanning room in downtown Shanghai, perspiration glistening on his forehead. Ye hits the tanning beds twice a week, despite the objections of his wife, who still favors a traditional pale complexion. Next door to Ye's salon, Zhang Xinyu sits at the reception desk of a skin-whitening beauty salon, looking quietly and uncomprehendingly at the dark-hued Chinese customers coming and going from the neighboring tanning parlor. "Aesthetically and culturally, I think light skin is more appealing for Asian people because it looks pure and noble," Zhang said, justifying the appeal of the services her spa offers. "But I suppose it's up to people to make their own choices," she sighed. For centuries, Chinese people have looked down on those with dark complexions, viewing their skin color as that of peasants laboring in fields under the hot sun or manual workers. Men with darker-colored skin were assumed to be socially inferior, working as farmers and builders from dawn-to-dusk in the open air, as opposed to scholars and government officials cosseted in their offices. Those with lighter skin, by contrast, were seen as better educated and wealthier. But that is now changing in China, especially in its richest and most sophisticated city of Shanghai, where having a nice tan is increasingly seen not as a sign of peasantry but rather as a status symbol. The recent boom in tanning salons in China is starting to shake deep-rooted traditions about skin tone, though it still seems a long way from denting the multi-million dollar market in skin whitening creams. Bronze Bodies, a newly opened tanning salon in fashionable central Shanghai, has expanded its VIP membership to about 900 people and is planning to deliver value-added services like how to coordinate hair and clothes with newly tanned skin. "I am making a fashion statement," owner Li Rui told Reuters. "It's not merely about tanned skin, but creating a fresh lifestyle choice for Chinese." The service is not for everyone, though, being unaffordable for most ordinary Chinese. A one-month course of tanning sessions costs between 700 yuan ($88) and 2,000 yuan, almost the average monthly wage in Shanghai. "People can immediately tell how wealthy you are by looking at your golden tanned skin," said a tanning branch manager who identified herself as Jin. "It looks shiny and healthy, quite different from the dim and coarse skin of day laborers." The appearance of tanned models on billboards around China and of bronzed actors, such as Hong Kong heart throb Louis Koom, on television and at the movies is also having an impact. Lulu, an aspiring Shanghai singer does not want to look like the pasty skinned stars of her youth. Hispanic U.S. actress-singer Jennifer Lopez is more her style. To look more like JLo, Lulu goes to a tanning salon. "It looks sunny and outgoing, not pale and fragile," she said. She is in the minority for Chinese women as tanning salon owners say 70 percent of their customers are men. Women generally opt for the traditionally defined concepts of beauty in China which call for pale skin, untouched by the sun. The young and trendy have been the first to pick up on the tanning fashion in China as well as people who have lived abroad and want to show off their new sophistication. Student He Ziqing tops up his tan at a salon in Shanghai after picking up the sun bathing bug on a trip to Germany. "Germans enjoy sun bathing on the beach. I go with my German friends when I'm there on holiday," he said, adding he did not visit the artificial beaches that sprout in Shanghai's suburbs during the punishing hot summers. "It's too course to do that here," he sniffed.

Beauty and the bleach   Some Asian American women spend thousands pursuing the traditional ideal of whiter skin. Others see a dark shadow of prejudice. 7.26.05   Jia-Rui Chong L.A. Times Margaret Qiu and thousands of other Asian American women are going to great lengths to avoid the sun, — fighting to preserve or enhance their pale complexions with expensive creams, masks, gloves, professional face scrubs and medical procedures. For these women, a porcelain-like white face is the feminine ideal, reflecting a long-held belief that pale skin represents a comfortable life. They also believe it can hide physical imperfections. "There's a saying, 'If you have white skin, you can cover 1,000 uglinesses,' " said Qiu, a 36-year-old Chinese immigrant who lives in Alhambra. Qiu goes through a regimen of skin-whitening products twice a day. She is one of many customers who have turned Asian whitening creams and lotions into a multimillion-dollar industry in U.S. In a daylight drive through Asian immigrant enclaves like Monterey Park and Irvine, and you'll see women trying to shield themselves with umbrellas, even for the short dash from a parking lot into a supermarket. While driving, many wear special "UV gloves", which look like the long gloves worn with ball gowns, to protect their forearms, and don wraparound visors that resemble welder's masks. At beauty salons, women huddle around cosmetics counters asking about the latest cleansers and lotions that claim to control melanin production in skin cells, often dropping more than $100 for a set. Beauticians do a brisk business with $65 whitening therapies. Women dab faces with fruit acid, which is supposed to remove the old skin cells that dull the skin, and glop on masks with pearl powder or other ingredients that they believe lighten the skin. There are doctors who, for about $1,000, will use an electrical field to deliver vitamins, moisturizers and bleaching agents to a woman's face in a procedure known as a "mesofacial." Whitening products have been a mainstay in Asia for decades, but cosmetics industry officials said they have emerged as a hot seller in U.S. only in the last 4 years. Whitening products now rack up $10 million in sales a year, according to the market research firm Euromonitor. But their popularity has sparked a debate in the Asian American community about the politics of whitening. Qui and others say the quest for white skin is an Asian tradition. But others, younger, American-born Asians, question whether the obsession with an ivory complexion has more to do with blending into white American culture, or even a subtle prejudice against those with darker skin. The market research firm says cosmetics companies have taken note of the sensitivity, saying their Asian skin products in America are intended not for "whitening" but for "brightening." "It's not a politically correct term because it seems to imply that looking Caucasian via a white complexion is the desired beauty goal," said Virginia Lee, a Euromonitor analyst. Qiu, a 36-year-old native of Xi'an, China, thinks there is nothing politically incorrect about using products that whiten the skin, which are known in Mandarin as mei bai, or "beauty white." Qiu, who sells herbal supplements, has used whitening creams for 5 years and went to Vitativ, a cosmetics store in Monterey Park, one recent morning for a refill. As she paid for a set of Shiseido "UV White" lotions, Qiu said she was surprised when she first arrived in the U.S. and saw so many young women flaunting their tans. She came to realize that Eastern and Western ideas of beauty were different. Here, she said, "When you see darker, you think they are very rich. They have a boat. They have enough time to go to the beach." It's OK for American women to be darker, said her husband Lei Sun, a 36-year-old sushi chef. "It's part of the sports thing." But Lei Sun prefers lighter-skinned Asian women, saying that they embody the traditional ideal known as si si wen wen. He looked to his wife to explain the concept. "That means when a lady stands there with white skin and is very polite, and when she laughs, she doesn't make a big noise," Qiu said. Women with pale skin are more delicate, more feminine and show that they don't have to toil outdoors, Qiu explained. "Whiter skin also means high class," she said.

Every morning and every night, Qiu spends a few minutes applying whitening lotions.
"I never buy the very cheap one," she said one morning as she dabbed her face with whitening moisturizer in the white bathroom of her Alhambra house. "Sometimes with those, your neck and your face are different colors, and people can see that it's not your real color."
Some of the cheaper products can be dangerous, she said. In 2002, newspapers reported that women in Hong Kong were hospitalized for mercury poisoning caused by 3 brands of whitening cream.
In California, officials at the state's Dept of Health Services and the Dept of Consumer Affairs said they have received no complaints and have not issued any warnings about whitening cosmetics or treatments. The products sold in the United States and Asia include ingredients such as licorice extract and green tea, which purportedly control the skin's production of melanin.

For Qiu and others, it's important to find just the right shade of white. Most of the products don't claim to turn a woman's skin the color of white bond paper, but something just a shade paler and more delicate, say, the inside of a woman's upper arm. Any whiter, Qiu said, and you look sickly.
"Then they look like Michael Jackson," she said. "He looks terrible."
Irvine resident Sarah Mar doesn't use whitening cosmetics, but she has devised a host of other strategies to keep her face pale, such as wearing a large visor when driving. Last Christmas season, she asked her family to forget the scarves and get her a present she would use every day: prescription-strength sunscreen.
"The kids are doing that, burning themselves, but I don't do that," Mar said, saying that her aversion to direct sunlight keeps her face pale and protects her against skin cancer.
Mar, who grew up in Taiwan and oversaw the Chinese-American Debutante Guild in Irvine for a few years, said she tries her best to stay indoors between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. So do her friends, with whom she often goes on morning walks.

At outdoor activities like picnics, Mar said, it's never hard to find her girlfriends: They are huddled under a tree or have pitched a big umbrella. Mar's daughter Catherine never shared her mother's quest for white skin and spent most of her teenage years with a golden tan. But she made her mother and other relatives smile a few years ago when she returned for Christmas break from Boston University. Separated for a full semester from the Southern California sun, she had a perfect white complexion.
"Her cousin was going to Stanford and was very dark," Mar said. "At Christmastime, the grandparents said, 'Look, look! The one from the East looks better because her face is whiter.' "

For Theresa Lin-Cheng, 50, avoiding the sun and applying creams at night weren't enough. Lin-Cheng, who hosts a cooking show on Chinese-language radio and cable television, moved to Chino Hills 9 years ago from Taiwan and soon noticed that the Southern California sun was making her skin darker and drier.
Her friends told her about Dr. George Sun of Arcadia, who offers a procedure called a "fotofacial RF," which uses intense pulses of light and radio frequency to interfere with melanin production in the skin.
When Dr. Sun, who chuckles about the irony of his last name but says it mean s "descendant" in Chinese, introduced the mesofacial about 8 months ago, she started getting that treatment too. Lin-Cheng says she spends a few hundred dollars a month on skin procedures at Sun's office.

Lin-Cheng, whose skin now resembles a pink-white peony, said she gets compliments from her friends on her appearance.
"I know I cannot get there, but always, Nicole Kidman is my idol," she said.
Lin-Cheng religiously reapplies baby sunblock every hour and takes the tinted visor that she calls her "welder's helmet" everywhere. She purchased the helmet on a recent trip to Taiwan and brought extras for "friends who want to be beautiful." She outfitted her daughter Jessica with one of the helmets, and the 22-year-old wore it daily on her walk from her apartment in Westwood to UCLA.
Sun, a plastic surgeon, started treating women for "pigmentation issues" in 1996 after clients asked him how they could lighten their skin and get rid of sun spots and dark patches. Sun said he now treats about 30 women a week.
"It's like botox," he said. "Do you think people in the past were interested in wrinkle improvement? Yes. Could they do something about it, though? [Women's] concerns and their wish for improvement can finally be met in the hands of specialists."

But the idea of Asian women obsessing over white skin troubles 37 year old UC Irvine Asian American studies asst prof Glen Mimura.
"It seems tied primarily to colonial history, a fascination with whiteness," he said. "Dark skin gets associated with manual labor, agrarian communities, being less cosmopolitan."
The pursuit of white skin is all the more troubling because it appears to reinforce long-held prejudices in East Asia against fellow Asians with darker skin, Mimura said. Given the cost of whitening regimens, he added, maintaining that perfect milky glow seems reserved for women who can afford it.
"I think these women see skin-whitening very much along the lines of buying a Louis Vuitton bag," he said.

Gardena based Asian American women's lifestyle and beauty magazine Audrey assoc. editor Anna Park isn't so sure the whitening boom is about embracing European ideals of beauty.
"If you look at old pictures, old paintings of what is considered to be beautiful in Korea or Japan, all their faces are really pale," said Park, 35.
To understand how much of a phenomenon whitening has become in Asian American communities, step inside Rick Armstrong's tanning salon, Casa del Sol, in Irvine. Armstrong has installed a sleek apparatus featuring a horseshoe-shaped mask that fits over a person's face. Instead of using light to brown skin, as other machines in his salon do, it uses light to smooth out wrinkles and lighten age spots.
"Over in Japan, they have salons with facial units in them and you put whitening gel on," Armstrong said. "You sit there and have a session."
He's betting the device will become popular with Asians as well as other customers who want to keep their faces smooth. "Nobody's face is perfect."

contras Niggermania Hate Directory Ancient Eugenics L.R.Andrews Stormfront.org Wm Pierce VDARE Whitewire FYM Chris Brand aryan Israelis proliferation Alfred Rosenberg Revilo P. Oliver Kevin Strom Madison Grant Kipling Black Legion Thug report underreporting   7 " … 'Texas-Style politics' and the dominance of the 'White Metropolis' style of management that has prevailed in Dallas, and spread throughout Texas and now the nation. …" JoAnn McGuckin MT militia MT HR Network Public Eye Militia Watch County Action fed. land grab commitatus Race trial pricks Nordic conscience 1.6.02   Andrew Osborn The Observer Prosperous Norway, which fancied itself to be free of the xenophobia which infects other Nordic societies, has been forced to confront a less palatable reality. The verdict is expected this week in a trial of 3 neo-Nazis accused of stabbing a black teenager to death simply because they did not like the color of his skin. It is a case that bears an uncanny resemblance to the murder of Stephen Lawrence in Britain. Prosecutors demanded the maximum sentence of 21 years for one man, 19 years & 4 months for another and a lesser sentence of 2½ years for a third defendant. It is Norway's first recorded racially motivated murder. The killing, which in the words of the country's former PM Jens Stoltenberg, marked 'a watershed' in Norway's history, happened last January. Benjamin Hermansen, a 15-year-old boy of mixed Norwegian & Ghanaian extraction, was attacked only 500 yards from his home in the southern Oslo suburb of Holmlia. He died of multiple stabbing wounds and had received a severe kicking. Joe Erling Jahr, 20, one of the defendants, has admitted stabbing 'Benny', but said he had 'just wanted to give him a scratch' and that his death was an accident. But another of the defendants, Veronica Andreassen, 18, cast a far more sinister light on the killing. Andreassen told the court that she, Jahr, and a third accused, Ole Nicolai Kvisler, 22, went looking for 'foreigners' in their car that night and she picked out Benny Hermansen as a perfect target. Back at the flat they shared, she said, Jahr went quiet when he read on TV teletext that Hermansen was really dead, but then 'began to laugh and said he could start to wear red laces in his boots. That's supposed to be a (neo-Nazi) symbol that you have killed someone. He said that he had liked what he had done and that he wanted to do it again.' Police found neo-Nazi & 'white power' material at the flat and discovered that all 3 had links to Oslo's shadowy neo-Nazi underworld, incl the notorious 'Boot Boys'. Jahr has admitted writing slogans such as 'Hitler is my god, my father' and 'Norway for the Norwegians' in internet chatrooms, and in custody he scrawled Nazi symbols on his mattress. Norway has only 150 'hardcore' extremists in a population of 4.4 million, but the trial has badly rattled the nation. Although it accepts some 16,000 immigrants every year, it remains overwhelmingly white. The vast majority of the newcomers choose to settle in east Oslo, and around a quarter of the capital's 500,000 population are now immigrants from the developing world. Across the nation, there are only about 200,000 immigrants. Signs that Norwegians are becoming increasingly uneasy concerning immigration emerged in elections in Sept. when the ruling Labour Party was ousted by a centre-right coalition supported from outside its ranks by the fiercely anti- immigrant Progress Party. White supremacist gang gaining clout Public Enemy No. 1 working with Aryan Brotherhood, police say 3.9.07   AP Buena Park, Calif.   The white supremacist gang Public Enemy No. 1 began two decades ago as a group of teenage punk-rock fans from upper-middle class bedroom communities in Southern California. Now, the violent gang that deals in drugs, guns and identity theft is gaining clout across the West after forging an alliance with the notorious Aryan Brotherhood, authorities say. Police say the gang has compiled a “hit list” targeting five officers and a gang prosecutor, a sign of just how brazen Public Enemy has become. “They make police officers very, very nervous,” said Buena Park Police Dept gang detective Cpl. Nate Booth in Orange County. Law enforcement officials trace the gang’s rise to shifts in the power structure inside prisons. The Aryan Brotherhood has long been the dominant white supremacist gang behind bars, with the Nazi Low Riders acting as its foot soldiers on the outside for drug dealing and identity theft. In 2000, officials reclassified the Low Riders as a prison-based gang and began sending its members to solitary confinement as soon as they were imprisoned. The crackdown hurt the gang’s ability to interact with the Aryan Brotherhood, which turned to Public Enemy, authorities say. The alliance was cemented in 2005 when Donald Reed “Popeye” Mazza, an alleged leader of Public Enemy, was inducted into the Aryan Brotherhood. The pact has increased Public Enemy’s wealth and recruiting power, said Steve Slaten, a special agent for the California Dept of Corrections. In the past 3 years, its ranks have doubled to at least 400, but authorities suspect there could be hundreds of other members operating under the radar. They said heavy recruiting is taking place throughout California and Arizona, and members have been picked up by police in Nevada and Idaho. “They move around. We find them everywhere,” said Lowell Smith of the Orange County Probation Dept. The gang traces its roots to the punk rock subculture in Long Beach in the 1980s. It soon shifted its base to nearby Orange County and in the 1990s began recruiting what police call “bored latchkey kids”, white teenagers from upper-middle class neighborhoods. Public Enemy is now involved in identity theft. Booth said the gang has gone from swiping personal information from mailboxes and trash to stealing entire credit profiles with the help of girlfriends and wives who take jobs at banks, mortgage companies and even state motor vehicle depts. Money from those operations is used to fuel its methamphetamine business, he said. Two months ago, police agencies in Orange County arrested 67 suspected members after learning about the hit list against officers in Anaheim, Buena Park and Costa Mesa. Those arrested in the raid were charged with conspiracy to commit murder, possession of illegal weapons and identity theft, among other things. Police have not released their names or further details because the investigation is continuing. Booth recalled another case in which a member of the gang fired dozens of rounds at police from a car driven by his girlfriend during a high-speed freeway pursuit. After being arrested, the man was taken to an emergency room, where he grabbed a scalpel and tried to slash a deputy before cutting himself, Booth said. Authorities worry that Public Enemy is using stolen credit information to learn the home addresses of police and their families. Some officers have gone to court to have addresses removed from those records, Booth said.

Cross-Cultural Center UCIrvine affil. organizations   more Nazi Line People Against Racist Terror Turning the Tide "journal of anti-racist activism, research & education" 310.288.5003 Culver City   part of Oct22 Coalition re police brutality ColorLines nation's leading magazine on race, culture & organizing 510.653.3415 vaccination profiling ¹   /   sentiments & policy ¹ ² ³   ~   endosymbiosis Eukaryota are NOT the only form of life on the planet, after all, nor the first.   Ä The common language of mice & men ¹ ² ³ 12.26.01   Roger Highfield News Telegraph Humans & mice use the same basic mechanisms to communicate, according to a study of the sound that mouse pups make while suckling. Evidence that mice & humans share a communication mechanism that developed in a common ancestor many millions of years ago has come from research at the Univ. of Ulm & the University of Konstanz in Germany. Prof Gunter Ehret & Dr Sabine Riecke described yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science how they recorded natural & artificial mouse calls and played them to the mother to find out which ones got a response. The mother responded best to low-frequency sounds, and in human speech, low-frequency sound components called formants are the most important for our understanding of vowels. Sounds produced by mouse pups have an acoustic structure very similar to sounds made by humans. Prof Ehret said: "We found that rules for the perception of speech vowels apply to the perception of pup calls by their mothers. The only difference is that the frequencies are shifted about 4 octaves higher than in humans." The vocal repertoire of house mice only consists of 7 calls, but, said Prof Ehret, they can perceive a large number of sounds. He said: "It appears that our analysis of speech sounds uses mechanisms present already in early mammalian history." Primate ancestor lived with dinos   4.17.02   BBC The common ancestor of humans, monkeys, apes and other primates may have arisen much earlier than previously thought. New research suggests the animals from which humans emerged were living in the tree tops 85 million years ago, when the dinosaurs still ruled the Earth. Until now, the widely accepted date was 65 million years ago, about the time when the dinosaurs died out. But a team of scientists in Britain & U.S. has analysed gaps in the fossil record and come up with a new figure, some 20 million years earlier. It means the whole story of primate evolution may have to be rewritten. The new theory challenges the idea that primates were unable to make their mark on the planet until after the demise of the dinosaurs. It also suggests that continental drift played a role in how primates evolved in different parts of the world. It even has implications for our own descent; the first humans may have appeared about 8 rather than 5 million years ago. The research, which was revealed in the scientific journal Nature, is based on statistical analysis of evidence from the fossil record. According to a computer model, no more than 7% of all primate species that ever existed have been dug up. Co-author Robert Martin of the Field Museum in Chicago said current interpretations of primate and human evolution are flawed because palaeontologists have relied too heavily on direct interpretation of the known fossil record. He said: "Our calculations indicate that we have fossil evidence for only about 5% of all extinct primates so it's as if palaeontologists have been trying to reconstruct a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle using just 50 pieces." According to the new work, the earliest common ancestor of all primates was probably a nocturnal, tree-living creature with grasping hands & feet. It weighed just a few pounds and dined on fruit & insects. The females gave birth to a single offspring, which clung to their fur. Co-author Dr Christophe Soligo of the Natural History Museum in London said the new work put specific events within primate evolution into a very different context. "The world 85 million years ago was very different to the world 65 million years ago," he told the BBC. "What we demonstrate is that modern orders of mammals appeared well before dinosaurs disappeared so the initial divergence of modern orders of mammals cannot be the results of the extinction of the dinosaurs." Neanderthal genome project launches   ë   ¹º 7.21.06   Geir Moulson AP Berlin   U.S. & German scientists Thursday launched a 2 year project to decipher the genetic code of the Neanderthal, a feat they hope will help deepen understanding of how modern humans' brains evolved. Neanderthals were a species that lived in Europe and western Asia from more than 200,000 years ago to about 30,000 years ago. Scientists from Germany's Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology are teaming up a company in Connecticut to map the genome, or DNA code. "The Neanderthal is the closest relative to the modern human, and we believe that by sequencing the Neanderthal we can learn a lot," said 454 Life Sciences Corp. vp Michael Egholm in Branford CT; its high-speed sequencing technology is to be used in the project. There are no firm answers yet about how humans picked up key traits such as walking upright and developing complex language. Neanderthals are believed to have been relatively sophisticated, but lacking in humans' higher reasoning functions. The Neanderthal project follows scientists' achievement last year in deciphering the DNA of the chimpanzee, our closest living relative. That genome map produced a long list of DNA differences between humans and chimps and some hints about which differences might be crucial. The chimp genome "led to literally too many questions, there were 35 million differences between us and chimpanzees; that's too much to figure out," 454 chair Jonathan Rothberg said in a telephone interview. "By having Neanderthal, we'll really be able to home in on the small percentage of differences that gave us higher cognitive abilities," he said. "Neanderthal is going to open the box. It's not going to answer the question, but it's going to tell where to look to understand all of those higher cognitive functions." Over two years, the scientists aim to reconstruct a draft of the 3 billion building blocks of the Neanderthal genome, working with fossil samples from several individuals. They face the complication of working with 40,000-year-old samples, and of filtering out microbial DNA that contaminated them after death. Only about 5 percent of the DNA in the samples is actually Neanderthal DNA, Egholm estimated, but he and Rothberg said pilot experiments had convinced them that the decoding was feasible. At the Max Planck Institute, the project also involves Svante Paabo, who 9 years ago participated in a pioneering, though smaller-scale, DNA test on a Neanderthal sample. That study suggested that Neanderthals and humans split from a common ancestor a half-million years ago and backed the theory that Neanderthals were an evolutionary dead end. The new project will help in understanding how characteristics unique to humans evolved and "will also identify those genetic changes that enabled modern humans to leave Africa and rapidly spread around the world", Paabo said in a statement Thursday. Researchers may remake Neanderthal DNA 6.25.07   Randolph E. Schmid AP Wash.D.C.   Researchers studying Neanderthal DNA say it should be possible to construct a complete genome of the ancient hominid despite the degradation of the DNA over time. There is also hope for reconstructing the genome of the mammoth and cave bear, according to a research team led by Svante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Their findings are published in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Debate has raged for years about whether there is any relationship between Neanderthals and modern humans. Some researchers believe that Neanderthals were simply replaced by early modern humans, while others argue the two groups may have interbred. Sequencing the genome of Neanderthals, who lived in Europe until about 30,000 years ago, could shed some light on that question. In studies of Neanderthals, cave bear and mammoth, a majority of the DNA recovered was that of microorganisms that colonized the tissues after death, the researchers said. But they were able to identify some DNA from the original animal, and Paabo and his colleagues were able to determine how it broke down over time. They also developed procedures to prevent contamination by the DNA of humans working with the material. "We are confident that it will be technically feasible to achieve a reliable Neanderthal genome sequence," Paabo and his researchers reported. They said problem of damaged areas in some DNA could be overcome by using a sufficient amount of Neanderthal DNA from different individuals, so the whole genome can be determined. "The contamination and degradation of DNA has been a serious issue for the last 10 years", observed Washington Univ. prof. Erik Trinkaus in St. Louis. "This is a serious attempt to deal with that issue and that's welcome". "I'm not sure they have completely solved the problem, but they've made a big step in that direction," said Trinkaus, who was not involved in the research. Anthropologist Richard Potts of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, called the work "a very significant technical study of DNA decay". The researchers "have tried to answer important questions about the potential to sequence ancient DNA", said Potts, who was not part of the research. Milford Wolpoff, a University of Michigan Anthropologist, said creating a complete Neanderthal genome is a great goal. But it is "sample intensive," he said, and he isn't sure enough DNA is available to complete the work. Curators don't like to see their specimens ground up, he said. The research was funded by the Max Planck Society and the National Institutes of Health. blood in the face Surgeons cut out the blushes   3.15.02   Reuters London   A London clinic is charging stressed professionals $5,680 to drill a hole in their armpits, snip away their nerve endings and eliminate their blushes for good. Its patients include tv presenters & financiers, fearful that any sign of weakness could damage their careers. "We're talking about professional people whose lives have been blighted by blushing," surgical dir. Anthony Mitra at exclusive Highgate Private Hospital in north London told Reuters. In the 40-minute operation, surgeons drill a hole near the patient's armpit and insert a telescope to view the delicate procedure which involves clipping the nerve endings at the base of the neck that trigger blushing. Mitra said business was brisk. Recent visitors included a TV presenter & bankers who said they had opted out of front-line jobs on trading floors and chosen a lower profile due to their excessive blushing. "If you're negotiating a deal or a contract and you blush, then you give your position away. When you're in business, the only emotions you want to convey are the ones you're in charge of," Mitra said. Patients are kept overnight, but Mitra said the effects of the treatment were immediate. The surgery does not leave any visible scars. Side-effects can include increased sweating. Mitra said patients were an even mix of men & women and that celebrities sometimes visited the clinic, though he declined to name names. "Whoever thought blushing was a serious problem?" he said. Lott's comments called hurtful to race relations 12.14.02   Leonel Sanchez SD Union Tribune The president of the National Urban League speaking in San Diego yesterday condemned Sen. Trent Lott's R-MS pro-segregation remarks of last week and called for the Mississippi lawmaker to resign as as GOP leader in the Senate. Hugh B. Price said the remarks Lott made at Sen. Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party were "utterly inappropriate." At that party, Lott praised Mississippi's support for Thurmond's 1948 presidential bid on a pro-segregationist ticket. " … If the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years either," Lott said. Price addressed the Lott controversy at a meeting of the Catfish Club, an African-American organization in San Diego. He likened it to someone praising a politician with a Nazi past in front of a Jewish audience. "I can't see how he could effectively lead his party," Price said after his speech. "This issue is going to dog him & his party." Members of the Catfish Club agreed that Lott's comments have hurt race relations and damaged his party's efforts to reach out to African-Americans and other minorities. "For this man to say what he said at a time when the GOP is trying to woo us is pathetic," said the Rev. George Walker Smith, who is GOP. "It's going to make it hard for someone like me to ask young African-Americans to come join the party." Others said they were shocked when they heard about Lott's comments. "This was not a slip of the tongue," Robert McNeely said. "This was prepared in his remarks." "It might not have seemed excessive more than 40 years ago, but he said this in 2002. We're talking 2002," Mary Hubbard said. Murder suspect in court linked to MLK plot 2.24.03   AP Jackson, MS   When Ernest Avants was acquitted of murdering a black sharecropper, in what allegedly was a failed plot to lure & assassinate Martin Luther King Jr., convictions for white-on-black crimes were rare in Mississippi. On Monday, about 36 years after Avants was found innocent of state charges, the 72-year-old stroke survivor was to step into a federal court that may have trouble finding jurors who don't already think he's guilty of the highly publicized crime. "It's very hard to defend a case when it gets this old, particularly when there is sort of an evolving consensus that the defendant is guilty," said Univ. of Mississippi School of Law assoc. dean Ronald Rychlak. Prosecutors say, Avants, James Jones and Claude Fuller lured 67-year-old Ben Chester White into the Homochitto National Forest near Natchez, in southwestern Mississippi, in 1966. They allege the 3 repeatedly shot White and dumped his body in a nearby creek, solely because he was black. According to a statement by Jones to a sheriff, Fuller had said the killing was intended to "get old Martin Luther King" by luring the civil rights leader to Natchez. King, assassinated 2 years later in Memphis, TN did not visit Natchez after White's murder. A biracial jury acquitted Avants in 1967. Fuller, now dead, never went to trial, and the state's case against Jones, also deceased, ended in a mistrial. Avants was indicted on federal charges of aiding and abetting the murder in 2000, after prosecutors realized federal charges could be filed because the killing took place in a national forest. Jury selection alone could take 2 days of a trial that legal observers expect to last no longer than a week. Prosecutors & defense attys have declined comment, but Rychlak said a challenge for both sides will be seating 12 jurors who either aren't familiar with the case or who won't prejudge in an effort to right the state's troubled civil rights past. "I think we're sensitive to issues that maybe got skirted over a little too quickly," Rychlak said. "If racism tainted the early trials, I don't think it will taint this one." Prosecutors are expected to use statements Avants made in 1967 to FBI investigators looking into a separate case. He allegedly said he shot White only after Fuller "had already shot him with a carbine, had emptied the full magazine of 15 rounds into him … I blew his head off with a shotgun." Avants, who lives about 60 miles south of Jackson in Bogue Chitto, suffered a stroke last year. His lawyer has argued that the stroke made his client made him unable to stand trial, but a federal judge ruled Avants competent last month.

FBI Linked McVeigh to group after bombing 2.12.03   John Solomon Wash.D.C.   FBI investigators in the OKC bombing gathered evidence linking Timothy McVeigh to white supremacists who govt had been told before the bombing were threatening to attack govt buildings, investigative memos show. Several of the documents were not provided to the bomber's defense before he was convicted. The FBI agent in charge of the investigation says he never received one teletype from his own headquarters that raised the possibility McVeigh was aided by other accomplices. "They short-circuited the search for the truth," McVeigh's original atty Stephen Jones, said in an interview. "I don't doubt Tim's role in the conspiracy. But I think he clearly aggrandized his role, enlarged it, to cover for others who were involved." McVeigh was executed June 2001. Evidence gathered by Associated Press incl hotel receipts, a speeding ticket, prisoner interviews, informant reports and phone records that suggest McVeigh had contact with a white supremacist compound in Oklahoma known as Elohim City and that members there were familiar with his plan. "It is suspected that members of Elohim City are involved either directly or indirectly through conspiracy," federal agents wrote in one memo just days after McVeigh detonated a truck bomb 4.19.95 outside the Alfred P. Murrah federal bldg in Oklahoma City and killed more than 160 people. The documents also include a Aug. 1996 teletype from FBI HQ that reported McVeigh called Elohim City 2 weeks before his bombing, a call to a home where members of a violent Aryan Nation bank robbery gang were present. McVeigh made the call 4.5.95, moments after calling the Ryder truck co. where he rented the truck that carried his deadly bomb. Govt had known from an informant weeks before McVeigh's call that members of Elohim City were threatening an attack, the documents show. The FBI teletype revealed that the gang members who were present when McVeigh called were familiar with explosives and had made a videotape 3 months before McVeigh struck vowing a war against the federal govt and promising a "courthouse massacre." The Murrah Building was across the street from the federal courthouse in Oklahoma City. The teletype also noted that 2 of the robbers left Elohim City 4.16.95 for a location in Kansas a few hours from where McVeigh was doing the final assembly of his bomb. "I did not see that teletype," retired agent Dan Defenbaugh, who supervised the Oklahoma City investigation, told AP. Defenbaugh said that while he didn't consider the teletype a "smoking gun" that would have changed the outcome of the probe, his investigative team "shouldn't have been cut out. We should have been kept in on all the items of the robbery investigation until it was resolved as connected or not connected to Oklahoma City." Defenbaugh said he also was surprised to learn, from AP interviews and documents, that prosecutors in 1996 made then withdrew a plea bargain offer to one of the imprisoned bank robbers, Kevin Peter Langan, who claimed he had information about the Oklahoma City bombing. "The Justice Dept came to us through the asst U.S. atty and said, 'We believe your client knows about Oklahoma City and we want to talk to him. We want to work out a deal,'" Langan's lawyer Kevin Durkin told AP. Langan made several demands the govt wasn't willing to meet, and prosecutors dropped the request, Durkin said. Durkin said his client has information about the Oklahoma City bombing, and had planned to tell prosecutors that he could disprove the 4.19.95 alibis for two of the bank robbers mentioned in the FBI teletype. Langan recently asked a court to stop the govt from destroying evidence he claims may be relevant to the Oklahoma City case. FBI officials acknowledged some of the documents were not provided to McVeigh's defense team before his trial. For instance, they said FBI teletypes were not covered by the agreement governing documents to be given to McVeigh's defense. They also acknowledged that agents suspected at one point that the bomber was linked to Elohim City & the Aryan Nation bank robbers. But they said that after more than 1 million investigative hours that generated more than 1 billion documents and checked 43,000 tips, FBI agents found no concrete evidence of McVeigh conspirators beyond Terry Nichols, who is in federal prison. "Every lead, regardless of its credibility, was thoroughly investigated to its conclusions," spokesman Mike Kortan said Wednesday. "While conspiracy stories continue to circulate, no evidence that other individuals were involved in the bombing was corroborated by the investigation." Defenbaugh said one of the challenges for the investigation was that there were a large number of white supremacists who shared McVeigh's hatred for the govt and talked of similar plans. "Even though we had our conspiracy theories, we still had to deal with facts and the fact is we couldn't find anyone else who was involved," he said. The documents show the FBI suspected McVeigh participated in a Dec. 1994 Ohio bank robbery with the Aryan Nation robbers, but lab analyses that attempted to match him to a videotape from the bank's security camera were inconclusive. FBI officials had several reasons to suspect a connection:   McVeigh's sister told them her brother gave her money from a bank robbery and asked her to launder it in Dec. 1994. Also, they had evidence McVeigh was in Ohio at the time, FBI officials said.   Robbery gang leader Mark Thomas initially told agents after his arrest that he suspected some of his members were involved in McVeigh's plot. He later recanted.   A girlfriend of one of the bank robbers told the FBI her boyfriend had told her beforehand of a plan to bomb a federal bldg, and that he left days before the bombing for a trip to Elohim City. "We are going to get them. We are going to hit one of their buildings during the middle of the day. It is going to be a federal building," an FBI report quoted the bank robber as telling the girlfriend. FBI agents stopped pursuing possible connections between McVeigh & the robbers when the suspects all denied assisting the Oklahoma bomber. Most weren't given lie detector tests, officials said. The robbers, however, weren't the only evidence that led the FBI to suspect a link between McVeigh & Elohim City. Agents collected a 9.13.94 receipt showing McVeigh stayed at a hotel near the compound the day that, a federal grand jury concluded, he hatched his plot to blow up the Murrah Bldg. The hotel was about 20 miles away in Vian, OK, one of the closest cities with a hotel near the compound. The FBI also obtained a speeding ticket McVeigh received just 12 miles from the compound. They also interviewed a witness who had aided govt prosecutors in other white supremacist cases. John Shults told agents in 1997 he was "sure beyond a shadow of a doubt" he saw McVeigh at Elohim City in 1994 at a meeting about a mysterious delivery and the use of a Ryder truck. Shults "felt strongly the delivery may have been a reference to the bombing," according to one federal agent's interview report. AP reported Tuesday that the govt had informant information well before the bombing indicating members of Elohim City were discussing bombing a federal building in Oklahoma and that the FBI specifically had worries such an attack could occur April 19 after interviewing a reformed white supremacist familiar with an earlier plot to blow up the Murrah building. Within a few days of the bombing, FBI officials received intelligence suggesting members of Elohim City had information relevant to the investigation. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms informant Carol Howe who provided information that Elohim City members were discussing an attack was sent back to the compound in late April 1995. Howe talked with one member of the compound who "discussed alibis for 4.19.95, and the components of" McVeigh's bomb, investigative memos show. The same member had claimed, before McVeigh's bombing, that he had detonated a 500 lb fertilizer bomb, similar to the one McVeigh later used. That compound member also discussed the name of a munitions dealer that McVeigh's phone records showed the bomber called more than two dozen times in the weeks before the attack. McVeigh had the dealer's phone number in his wallet when he was captured. Jones, McVeigh's original atty, said some of the documents withheld from McVeigh's defense could have affected the death penalty phase of his trial by pointing to other, unpunished conspirators. As for Elohim City, Jones added, "I think Tim was there. I think he knew those people and I think some helped, if not in a specific way, in a general way." The FBI's scene commander for the Oklahoma City investigation, now retired, said he, too, believes his agency may not have thoroughly investigated possible ties between McVeigh and Elohim City. "I think you have too many coincidences here that raise questions about whether other people are involved," retired agent Danny Coulson said. "The close associations with Elohim City and the earlier plan to do the same Murrah building all suggest the complicity of other people."

Rubén Blades   interview

bios ^{1 2}   Born Panama City, Panama 1948;
Cuban mother Anoland pianist & singer, police detective father Ruben bongo player;
credits his paternal grandmother for instilling life-long passion for truth & justice by introducing him to Hollywood film & U.S. culture. Focused on political & social issues in 1964 when US refused to raise Panamanian flag at canal zone, sparking bloody confrontation. Always had musical aspirations. grad. Univ. of Panama. Soon after arriving in Miami, left for NYC & burgeoning salsa scene.
postgrad Intl Law, Harvard Univ. Divorced.

recent news   films ^{1 2 3}   lyrics   music reviews & discography
Yahoo ^{1 2}   active forum   subscribe R.Blades fan mailing list   rec.music.afro-latin

trustee, Nosotros founded 1970 by Ricardo Montalbán to improve image of Latinos/Hispanics as portrayed in entertainment industry, both in front & behind the camera.

It was public enthusiasm for Blades' recording of "Plantacion Adentro" by Tite Curet Alonso, legendary 72-year-old Puerto Rican composer, musicologist, & journalist, about captive Indian populations being worked to death, that convinced Blades the U.S. salsa audience was ready for more incendiary social commentary. Tite was also way ahead of Rubén in musical expression to militant feminism. In 1968, his surprising bolero "La Tiraña" (The Tyrant) offered Cuban songstress La Lupe rare opportunity to aggressively deride male chauvinism & cupidity.
2.17.99   Carol Cooper "Beyond Salsa" Village Voice

1982 independent of Fania after suing for royalties.
1983 founds new group, Seis de Solar (Six of the Lot)
1985 Grammy for 'Escenas' w/ Linda Ronstadt & Joe Jackson
1987 'Agua de Luna', based on Gabriel García Márquez
1988 Grammy "Antecedente"; first English lang. album "Nothing But the Truth" w/ Sting, Lou Reed & Elvis Costello
1990 provoked controversy in Panama & his mother's wrath when he criticized 1990 US invasion of Panama
1992 Amor Y Control incl merengue "El Apagón" filled with clever lines re underdevelopment, compares Fidel Castro to Anastasio Somoza. "El Cilindro" & "Naturaleza Muerta" are wry comments on impact of modern technology on everyday life. Response to Quincentennial, "Conmemorando" tries so hard to avoid offending anyone that ends up not saying much.

In political restlessness, created his own party as 1994 Panama presidential election based on fight against existent social inequalities to wake up in its countrymen the illusion for a better future
1995 'Tras la tormenta' (After the torment) with Willie Colon
1996 3rd Grammy ''La rosa de los vientos' (Rose of the Winds) w/ Panamanian group Saravá mixes Afro-Cuban rhythms with "rock accent" with trumpets, violins & Osvaldo Ayala accordion, leading Panama interpreter of national dance cumbia. Fusion of Blades' salsa & Ayala's tipico (generic for cumbia and Panamá's other traditional folk music).

11.18.97   After 6yr hiatus, Paul Simon released Songs From the Capeman album, a mix of salsa, Caribbean music, doo-wop, gospel, & rock songs from forthcoming Broadway musical Simon began writing in 1990. Based on true story of Puerto Rican gang member Salvador Agron sentenced to death in 1959 after murdering 2 teenagers. Agron eventually had sentence commuted to life in prison where became published writer & poet. Paroled 20yrs years later a changed man and died of pneumonia in 1986. Simon wrote music himself, co-wrote book & lyrics w/ Nobel Prize author Derek Walcott. Songs feature Simon himself; other cuts by show's actual cast offer variety but bland. Exception is salsa-inflected centerpiece, "Time Is an Ocean" duet between Marc Anthony as young prisoner & Ruben Blades as older wiser Agron. Brief Broadway run. Opening delayed; 3 different directors hired. Went through complete revamping just before launch. Finally opened Jan. 29; victims' rights groups protests claimed show glorified Agron. Critics: like watching a "mortally wounded animal." Closed March 28 after 68 regular performances & $11 million. Simon issued brief statement about show's demise, tried to remain upbeat: "What I enjoyed most, apart from the creative process, was the intensity with which the audience, in particular the Latino audience, responded to the play."

Back to music for Panama native Ruben Blades   Rubén Blades returns to music after a trying mission in Panama.   3.4.07   Agustin Gurza L.A. Times Panama City   A nosy reporter can't avoid being drawn to the bulletin board hanging in the sparsely decorated office of Rubén Blades, the salsa star-turned-tourism czar for his native Panama. It's a humbling "wall of shame," with critical cartoons and newspaper clips blasting Blades for his performance in public office after being appointed to the Cabinet-level post in 2004. Blades waves off an aide who considers diverting the reporter's attention. "No, let him look at it," says the acclaimed singer and actor. "Let him see what this thing is all about." One 2005 headline reads: "Successful artist; unpopular minister." Another blares: "Blades is vulgar   and rude, asserts his ex-press director." In a biting cartoon, Blades is skewered with his own lyrics for being out of the office too often, a common critique early in his term. It shows the tourism minister's empty chair and quotes from one of his most impassioned, political songs, "Desapariciones," about people who disappeared under Argentina's military rule. The caption quotes the chorus, asking: "¿Y dónde están los desaparecidos?" (And where are the disappeared ones?). Politics aside, Blades' fans may be asking the same question. One of the 10 most important songwriters of the last half century in Latin pop music, Blades virtually vanished from the entertainment scene after joining the Cabinet of Panamanian President Martín Torrijos. Worried that critics would accuse a musician of not taking the job seriously, Blades put away his maracas and donned the business suits he hates wearing. But that self-imposed artistic hiatus may be coming to a close. El Ministro, as he is addressed here, performed in public last month for the first time since his appointment, taking the stage for Panama's reenergized carnival celebration, which featured an international summit of salsa groups he helped organize. Flexing his international influence, Blades convened the top bands in the business, Los Van Van from Cuba, Grupo Niche from Colombia, El Gran Combo from Puerto Rico, for the weeklong street festival. It was a tropical Woodstock that eclipsed even the mega-concerts of salsa's heyday in the 1970s. The salsa summit coincides with Blades' goal of boosting the cultural profile of this booming Central American nation. But his recent performance, with his regular backup group Editus from Costa Rica, sends a clear message to music fans. Blades is back. Unlike many of his salsa peers who have been stuck on the oldies circuit, Blades has remained relevant by pushing the boundaries of his Afro-Caribbean craft. His last studio album, 2003's "Mundo," was so eclectic that it won a Grammy not in a Latin category, but for world music. Still, even Blades may find it tricky to adapt to a market that's radically different from when he started in the mid-'70s. Does he worry about attempting a comeback at a time when salsa is suffering a severe commercial slump? "The era of salsa in New York and Puerto Rico came at a very special time and it cannot be reproduced," he says. "But the music hasn't died. The money right now may be in reggaeton, but salsa will always have a future. It's still there, underground, waiting for the right moment to reemerge." Last summer at his office in Panama City, Blades had been steeped in the business of steering his country's $1.2-billion tourism industry, negotiations, contracts, new legislation and his long-term plan to 2020. But when he stopped in Los Angeles last month on the eve of Panama's carnival, he was bubbling with creative juices and artistic plans, several new albums, film offers and book ideas. Much had changed in his life in the intervening months. He got married, quit smoking, lost some weight and some more hair. He wasn't prepared to say when he might leave his govt job. But Blades talked like an artist who was running out of time, not ideas. More than once, he brought up his age without being asked, he turns 59 in July. He talked about settling his will and leaving his papers for posterity. But when he played a sample of his new music in his home office, he sang along and danced like he couldn't wait to get back onstage. Titled "Cantares del Subdesarrollo" (Ballads of Underdevelopment), the new work is all Blades, literally. He recorded it in his garage studio and played every instrument but bass. The sound is traditional Cuban son, earthy, acoustic and melodic. The lyrics are smart, touching and urgent, with titles like "País Portátil" (Portable Country) and "Segunda Mitad del Noveno" (Bottom of the Ninth). Blades, who has no current recording contract, hopes to land a distribution deal for future albums. One of them is already in the can, a collaboration with Puerto Rican singer Cheo Feliciano, whom Blades admired and even imitated when he was starting out. In another project, Blades plans to collaborate for the first time with his brother, Roberto, a successful singer and producer based in Miami. Aside from making music, Blades also wants to write his memoirs, documenting a career that has included some 32 films, 20 albums, 7 Grammys, a master's degree in international law from Harvard University and a failed run for president of Panama. He also envisions a book of his lyrics, commenting on the creation of some 200 songs in his repertoire. Blades explains his reactivated artistic energy by evoking his 1978 song "Buscando Guayaba" (Looking for the Guava), about life as an endless search. "We're never satisfied," he says, "but to feel dissatisfied you have to have a notion of what you want and what you can attain. As long as you feel restless, you're never going to reach it. That's the problem of the creative spirit. So I hope to always feel restless, because the day I stop will be the day my creativity runs out." While Blades may have been lying low for the last 2 1/2 years, his songs have maintained a high profile. In December, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez used the Blades song "Tiburón" (The Shark) in his reelection campaign. The song, from 1981's "Canciones del Solar de los Aburridos" (Songs from the Barrio of the Bored), uses the shark as a metaphor for imperialist superpower intervention in the wars in Central America. Chavez expropriated the lyric, Blades says without his permission or knowledge, as part of his strident anti-U.S. rhetoric. Closer to home, another Blades tune, "El Cantante" (The Singer), has lent its title to the upcoming movie about the late, tormented salsa singer Hector Lavoe, starring Nuyorican power couple Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony. Blades says he originally intended to record the song himself, but offered it to Lavoe at the request of producer Willie Colón. It became Lavoe's signature hit, a melancholy lyric that revealed how the glamour of public acclaim masked the tragedy of his private life. It's a theme that seems far removed from Blades today. He was married in August to Luba Mason, a native New Yorker of Slovakian descent and star of Broadway musicals. They met on the set of 1998's "The Capeman," the ill-fated Paul Simon musical that also starred Marc Anthony. The couple share a handsome, two-story home in L.A.'s tony Hancock Park, which Blades bought before taking the job in Panama. While in L.A., Blades exchanges his formal minister's duds for parachute pants in camouflage green. He seems surprised, and delighted, to learn from his agent that he still gets calls for acting roles. The BBC, in fact, is courting him to consider a role in a film about Iraq as Saddam Hussein. "He's a dictator, so I keep my mouth shut," jokes his wife with a big smile. "I wish you would," cracks Blades. The kidding is good-natured. But Blades is the first to confess he doesn't have the most easygoing personality. Once at a concert, when a fan yelled, "I love you Rubén!" the singer shot back: "That's because you don't know me, dear." Blades can be funny, generous and charming, an engaging storyteller who enlivens anecdotes with hilarious impersonations. But he can also be stubborn, impatient and irritable, swearing a blue streak at things that bother him. "I have no patience with idiocy or mediocrity," Blades says. "But I have a lot of patience for long-term projects. I am intensely tenacious. Once I set my sights on something, I am going to get there. Not stepping over women and children, but I will get there. That I can guarantee you." Guarantees, however, are harder to back up in politics. As a govt official, Blades says, he is no longer his own boss. Success isn't only up to him. He must make the wheels of govt turn in the direction he wants them to go. But it isn't always easy steering the bureaucracy or the burro-cracia, as he calls it. One of his biggest frustrations on the job involves his effort to expand tourism in a remote region known as Kuna Yala, including the San Blas Archipelago, a string of unspoiled islands with pristine beaches and a large coral reef along Panama's northern coast. Blades spent a lot of time visiting the region early in his tenure, prompting those editorial barbs about his absence from the capital. The area is populated by a semiautonomous tribe known as the Kuna, who are historically wary of outsiders. Blades opened negotiations with tribal leaders to urge them to accept limited outside investment, which is barred by their laws. As of last summer, he felt he was making progress. But negotiations faltered, an impasse Blades now blames on vested interests resisting competition for existing tourist business in the area. "This process has helped me very much to understand that there are things you can't control and that you can't please everyone," Blades said. Other initiatives have been more satisfying. One close to his heart has been a program to train young gang members as tour guides. He recruited them from the streets of the neighborhood where he grew up and where he now owns a home, in the historic center of Panama's walled city that is being gentrified with chic clubs and restaurants. Of the initial group of 20 trainees, one was killed and a few dropped out. But for the rest, Blades says, there is hope. From the start, critics questioned his decision to take the tourism post, a far cry from the presidency he once sought. Some, he says mockingly, pictured him as Panama's official greeter, singing for tourists arriving at the airport. In the Third World, however, tourism is no joke. It can be the lifeblood of an economy and an engine of development. "I've looked at this as a creative job," he says. "And I'm a better person because this constantly puts you to the test." Others wondered why he'd give up a seven-figure salary in the U.S. for govt work at $65,000 per year, less than what he could make in one concert. Blades says simply that he owed it to his country. As an artist, he sang about the problems of the poor in songs such as "Pablo Pueblo" and "Adan Garcia," portraits of working-class despair. As a govt official, he could do more. "It's easy to talk," he says. "It's another thing to take the risk and give up your comforts and try to do something. The point of 'Pablo Pueblo' was to say, 'Look how this man lives.' The point of President Torrijos and this govt is to say, 'Let's change the lives of this man and his family.' We've moved from protest to proposal."

1999 4th Grammy (Latin Pop Performance) 'Tiempos' (Sony 9.20.99) w/ Costa Rican Editus, classical conservatory trained collaborator group met at 1997 environmental conference. "Not commercial work", Rubén Blades writes. "I wanted to make good music, period". Incorporates work like Astor Piazzola. Best Latin music album of year (1999) Rolling Stone. Songs "Puente del Mundo" decry exclusionary immigration policies and "20 de Diciembre" commemorate 1989 U.S. Panama invasion 7.19.00 Berklee Performance Center Boston 6.1.00 Lehman College commencement.   UN Goodwill Ambassador to generate public awareness prior to March 2001 World Conference on racism. 4.1.00   perform at Orpheum Theatre & speak to students at UWMadison. Lecture "Future of Panama Canal," 2:30 pm Musical workshop 4:15 pm 2000 prod. film "Buscando guayabas" R. Blades in Cradle Will Rock 12.17.99   Elizabeth Hunter La Prensa … "It's an intelligent film that speaks about a period not presented often," explains Blades. "It's an interestingly written piece of Americana and I loved every second of playing Diego Rivera. He was a larger-than-life figure who was full of contradictions, and I had a lot of fun playing him that way. At the beginning I was a little intimidated by the part because I didn't feel that I knew enough about Rivera to portray him. It was somewhat difficult to find information about him. I don't think many people have depicted him in film. 'Cradle Will Rock' might even be the first time we've seen him in an English language movie. Right before I started shooting, I figured out how to physically portray Rivera," says Blades. "It was something I did that had to do with the position of my head and something I did with my face. It was important to find the (psychological) balance of the character. There are some of scenes where Rivera is very funny, and others where his seriousness comes through and he's very upset at what's being done." "[Director] Tim Robbins told me I needed to gain weight to portray Rivera accurately, so I ate a lot of ice cream," jokes Blades. "He had a very clear ideas of what he wanted to do. Tim was demanding, but for a reason. He wrote a good script and managed difficult task of making an ensemble film while managing to create a nice working environment on the set. … The strongest similarity with Rivera is that we were both artists and politically involved. We both believed in the necessity to work without any censorship and defended the idea of giving opportunities to the disenfranchised" Ruben Blades at the Palladium 9.18.99   Achy Obejas Chicago Tribune … Ruben, chico, look yourself in the mirror and admit what's so obvious to everyone else: You're Cuban, compay. It's not just that your mother was from the Cuban town of Regla (a fact that you neatly obfuscate as you underscore your own birth in Panama and your right to run for president there). It's, well, your attitude. Look closely at what happened Friday night. It's true, the sound was atrocious. But did you really have to come out and snottily tell the audience, the people who'd paid $40 each and waited hours to see you, that this was going to be one of your last club gigs ever precisely because of these kinds of problems? And, after the first couple of instrumentals by Editus, when the crowd started chanting "Ruben! Ruben!," was it necessary to tell people that the band was going to play and that was that? That this was music that required some seriousness? That they needed to listen? Man, that kind of lecture was so Fidel. And let's not forget that other classic cubiche moment when, unable to resist, you defended yourself against accusations of being a communist. Bro', that was vintage Cuban B.S.! (FYI: No one cares about communists anymore, viejo, except Cubans.) But the biggest evidence against you, Ruben, is right there in the music. Tell the truth: You play son, you play montuno, you play rumba. When you take "Ligia Elena" and extend the middle, improvising up a storm and telling new stories on top of the old one, you may as well be playing at the plaza in Regla. If I had any doubts at all, they were washed away when you dedicated that son to the Buena Vista Social Club; I was affirmed again when you finished the show with Los Van Van's rousing "Muevete" (which you recorded way back in 1985, before Cuban music was fashionable, proving you had to be listening to it at home). I know you got heat when you ran for prez in Panama, people said you'd never played with Panamanians, never played Panamanian music. I know you tried to prove them wrong by playing with your "countrymen" and now with Editus, who are, I know, Costa Rican (but at least one of them studied in Cuba, so who are you kidding?). But the violin breaks now underscore the Cubanness even more. That sound is right off records by Aragon, More, Fajardo. "What you have to understand is that Cuba's geographic placement in the Caribbean means that you can pick up all kinds of radio signals. Any band in Cuba is competing for the public's attention against all of that; you have no choice but to be familiar with everything, to incorporate it and make it your own just to sustain relationship with your fans. … for dance music, I listen to Cubans like Paulito F.G. & Charanga Habanera."   Juan Formell, Los Van Van founder (1969), principal composer & bassist for special swing that sent most NY salsa artists into a harder drive. LVV songo & street talk inspired much of 1980s work by Blades, whose hit "Muevete" was one of Formell's most popular compositions. Pop Life   3 Faces of Ruben Blades 8.26.99   Neil Strauss NTYimes Los Angeles   Gabriel Garcia Marquez once said that the Panamanian musician Ruben Blades was the most popular unknown he had ever met. What he meant was probably not that Blades was an obscure figure, but that all the work that Blades had done was not necessarily synthesized in his image or reputation. … "I don't knock it," he said of popular contemporary Latin music. "These approaches have brought into the fold of Latin music a generation that had been lost." Instead of capitalizing on the trend himself, Blades, in a manner that has become his trademark, looks in the exact opposite direction on his new album, "Tiempos" (Sony Tropical), first recording in 3yrs. While the music crossing over in America tries to fill Top 40 pop with a molten Latin core, Blades collaborates with the Costa Rican group Editus on pan-Latin music with a core that has been hollowed out and filled with European classical music. … liner notes, was not so much written as it was born like a child. "When I was writing it I was at one point going through my divorce, which was very difficult emotionally, especially because there was real love and affection involved," Blades said. "And then, politically, in Panama the internal fighting led to the loss of the image was very difficult to deal with. Begins with a song of birth, reflecting on lack of choice over conditions & environment, and ends with song of death, reflecting on powerlessness when we go and what we take with us.>br> "You take what you know at the end," Blades said. "You don't take your BMW and they don't bury you in your house. If your knowledge is one that makes you feel sorry that you wasted your life, then that's hell. You want to be sure that in those three seconds of lucidity before you go that you can crack a smile and say, 'I did the best I could."' Is Blades sure he could say that? "Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah," he replied, repeating the words more quietly and convincingly each time. One of most innovative, poetic & intelligent artists ever to grace Latin music landscape. But Rubén Blades' latest sounds like an Al DiMeola record, and that's not necessarily a good thing. … defends his position in the liner notes: "I think it suicidal to condemn my creative potential by repeating schemes that would sink me in the depths of mediocrity & irrelevance," he writes. What is he talking about? Simply put, he is scolding us all for our unrepentant desire to see him do a salsa album again. Nobody is able to combine Afro-Cuban spice with socially conscious, emotional lyrics like Rubén Blades. 9.2.99   Ernesto Lechner LA Weekly … lyric poems set to Latin symphonies played by classically trained ensemble from Costa Rica. Bitter sugar throughout … he refers to as our "ambidextrous world". … Blades often been called the Latin Bruce Springsteen, "Tiempos", with its moody self-examination, is the Panamanian performer's "Tom Joad". … Blades recorded Siembra with Willie Colon 1978, most successful Latin album of time, selling more than a million copies. That figure multiplied five times over by Ricky Martin. But Blades, who says he does not care about commercial music and cannot bear to listen to radio these days, is unimpressed with the fuss over so-called Latin pop, which, he suggests, has little to do with authentic Latin culture. "I look at America like a house, with an upstairs and a downstairs, but everyone has to keep it functioning together," Blades says. "Latin America seems foreign and exotic, but in reality it's just another part of the house. But ours is like a house where you don't know who your neighbors are. I want to know my neighbors and that's what I'm trying to do now. Let people know these are Panamanians or these are Costa Ricans, this is their music, this is what they do. We really don't get that much information on a consistent basis here that would make people aware of the richness and variety of Latin America." He pauses and then adds sharply: "Instead we get stereotyped versions of Latino culture. We don't have much presence on film or television and that has contributed to a lack of interest." Numerous films & tv movies playing, for the most part, believable characters who just happen to be Hispanic. Less success last year with the role of grown-up version of 16yr old convicted killer Salvador Agron in Paul Simon's painfully self-conscious Broadway fiasco "The Capeman".

Leon Ichaso's 1985 film Crossover Dreams, he performed most true-to-life role as Rudy Veloz, a salsa singer who dreams of breaking into the intl scene, of basically becoming Blades. 1st world tour in 9yrs ; Sunday appears at Jas.L. Knight Ctr w/ Oscar D'Leon, also venerable salsa vet. Both performers previously canceled planned concerts in Miami after conservative Cuban exile activists questioned their political views on Cuba. "Politically speaking Miami has always been dicey," says Blades, who has not given a concert here in 17yrs, though did make brief appearance at MIDEM 1998 showcase.
"On a couple of occasions a segment of the local radio took exception to my political position and a couple of concerts had to be canceled because of threatening calls that some people made." Blades adds that he was also blackballed in Cuba after publicly suggesting that Castro should hold free elections. "I've been consistent," he notes. "I believe in free speech in Cuba, and in Miami, too."

Blades isn't anticipating any problems this time, though. Appearing with EDITUS, he will perform music from the new album, but he is not adverse to serving up some salsa for his long-time fans. "We take a couple of trombones on tour so we can play some oldies out of respect for the public," Blades says. "But I don't feel I've had to grow on just that salsa side. I think throughout the years, my audiences have learned to expect the unexpected."

Ruben Blades Salsa Singer & Social Activist "Hispanic Biographies" Barbara Cruz
thoughtful bio of 3 Grammy winning singer, actor & activist. Conflicts over Canal led Blades to view music as sociopolitical expression. As young adult, moved to NYC, quickly rising to prominence in salsa music scene as first singer to use blend of African, Spanish, jazz, rock & blues music as sociopolitical commentary. Generally well written, book slows in middle chapters describing song lyrics & movie plots in excessive detail. Personal life largely ignored, with only passing references to his wife. Appearance in 1997 movie The Devil's Own & starring role in Broadway musical
Similar to Betty Marton's Ruben Blades (Chelsea 1992)   Illustr. b/w photos & maps

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