#I once worked with Syrian youth who had come to Canada with their families

[nc-vb]

if it’s gotten to the fucking point that the Ministry of Education has to announce that “the school year is cancelled” for part of Gaza because all its students have been murdered, humanity has failed, failed at everything— flat out, point blank, and unequivocally failed.

[theculturedmarxist]

@expatiating​

>Literally anyone who lived in a communist or socialist regime: it was terrible..... 16 year old white girl on tumblr: yeah but that wasn’t real communism :///

You mean anyone like this, you stupid fucking asshole?

Oppressive and grey? No, growing up under communism was the happiest time of my life

When people ask me what it was like growing up behind the Iron Curtain in Hungary in the Seventies and Eighties, most expect to hear tales of secret police, bread queues and other nasty manifestations of life in a one-party state.

They are invariably disappointed when I explain that the reality was quite different, and communist Hungary, far from being hell on earth, was in fact, rather a fun place to live.

The communists provided everyone with guaranteed employment, good education and free healthcare. Violent crime was virtually non-existent.

But perhaps the best thing of all was the overriding sense of camaraderie, a spirit lacking in my adopted Britain and, indeed, whenever I go back to Hungary today. People trusted one another, and what we had we shared.

Learn from Cuba, Says World Bank

The island's economy, which suffered devastating losses in production after the Soviet Union withdrew its aid, especially its oil supplies, a decade ago, has yet to fully recover. Annual economic growth, fuelled in part by a growing tourism industry and limited foreign investment, has been halting and, for the most part, anaemic.

Moreover, its economic policies are generally anathema to the Bank. The government controls virtually the entire economy, permitting private entrepreneurs the tiniest of spaces. It heavily subsidises virtually all staples and commodities; its currency is not convertible to anything.  It retains tight control over all foreign investment, and often changes the rules abruptly and for political reasons.

At the same time, however, its record of social achievement has not only been sustained; it's been enhanced, according to the WDI.

It has reduced its infant mortality rate from 11 per 1,000 births in 1990 to seven in 1999, which places it firmly in the ranks of the western industrialised nations. It now stands at six, according to Jo Ritzen, the Bank's Vice President for Development Policy who visited Cuba privately several months ago to see for himself.

By comparison, the infant mortality rate for Argentina stood at 18 in 1999; Chile's was down to ten; and Costa Rica, 12. For the entire Latin American and Caribbean region as a whole, the average was 30 in 1999.

Similarly, the mortality rate for children under five in Cuba has fallen from 13 to eight per thousand over the decade. That figure is 50 percent lower than the rate in Chile, the Latin American country closest to Cuba's achievement. For the region as a whole, the average was 38 in 1999.

"Six for every 1,000 in infant mortality - the same level as Spain - is just unbelievable," according to Ritzen, a former education minister in the Netherlands. "You observe it, and so you see that Cuba has done exceedingly well in the human development area."

Indeed, in Ritzen's own field the figures tell much the same story. Net primary enrolment for both girls and boys reached 100 percent in 1997, up from 92 percent in 1990. That was as high as most developed nations, higher even than the US rate and well above 80-90 percent rates achieved by the most advanced Latin American countries.

"Even in education performance, Cuba's is very much in tune with the developed world, and much higher than schools in, say, Argentina, Brazil, or Chile."

It is no wonder, in some ways. Public spending on education in Cuba amounts to about 6.7 percent of gross national income, twice the proportion in other Latin America and Caribbean countries and even Singapore.

There were 12 primary pupils for every Cuban teacher in 1997, a ratio that ranked with Sweden, rather than any other developing country. The Latin American and East Asian average was twice as high at 25 to one.

The average youth (ages 15-24) illiteracy rate in Latin America and the Caribbean stands at seven percent. In Cuba, the rate is zero. In Latin America, where the average is seven percent, only Uruguay approaches that achievement, with one percent youth illiteracy.

"Cuba managed to reduce illiteracy from 40 percent to zero within ten years," said Ritzen. "If Cuba shows that it is possible, it shifts the burden of proof to those who say it's not possible."

Similarly, Cuba devoted 9.1 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) during the 1990s to health care, roughly equivalent to Canada's rate.  Its ratio of 5.3 doctors per 1,000 people was the highest in the world.

The question that these statistics pose, of course, is whether the Cuban experience can be replicated. The answer given here is probably not.

"What does it is the incredible dedication," according to Wayne Smith, who was head of the US Interests Section in Havana in the late 1970s and early 1980s and has travelled to the island many times since.  "Doctors in Cuba can make more driving cabs and working in hotels, but they don't.  They're just very dedicated," he said.

This amazing video and documentary, produced by Neighbor Democracy, details the evolving communal organs within the Rojava Revolution, from security to health care.

This 40 minute video is an in-depth look into the inner workings of the commune system of Rojava and how they work in practice. Rojava is the colloquial name for the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (DFNS), a multi-ethnic, pluralist, women’s liberationist, and radically democratic autonomous zone that has grown out of the context of the Syrian Civil War. While there is frequent and thorough reporting on the military aspects of the Revolution in Rojava, especially their fight against Daesh (ISIS) and the Turkish State, the social revolution as it relates to the everyday lives of the people living there is rarely given anything more than a cursory overview, even in radical circles.

This video is one attempt to make up for that gap in easily digestible information about the way the day-to-day autonomous organizing affects daily life in Rojava. It also closes with a call for people in the US and elsewhere to build communes along similar lines, while discussing some possible contextual considerations specific to North America.

The communes in the DFNS are birthed out of tireless organizing by everyday people, predominately Kurdish women, in an effort that started clandestinely in the days of the Regime, but has since led to structures that could fill the power vacuum left in the war. The people of the DFNS are working out in practice through trial-and-error the culmination of 40 years of theoretical and practical knowledge built through the Kurdish struggle, and most thoroughly laid out by the imprisoned PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan.

The communes have many similarities to the neighborhood assemblies that were the focus of the late American communalist Murray Bookchin, who was an inspiration for Ocalan. There are an estimated 4,000 communes in Rojava today, run through direct democracy of all the residents (50-150 families). The work of the commune is divided up into committees which anyone can join. The most common committees are explored in-depth in this video, and their timestamps can be found below. Each committee covered in the video can be found in its own short clip on the Neighbor Democracy channel so that these short, easy-to-digest videos can me shared in discussions about specific topics relating to communal approaches to various aspects of life.

Marinaleda: Will 'free homes' solve Spain's evictions crisis? 

In the wake of Spain's property crash, hundreds of thousands of homes have been repossessed. While one regional government says it will seize repossessed properties from the banks, a little town is doing away with mortgages altogether.

In Marinaleda, residents like 42-year-old father-of-three, David Gonzalez Molina, are building their own homes.

While he burrows with a pneumatic drill into the earth, David nonchalantly says it "should take a couple of years".

However, when his new house is finished he will have paid "absolutely nothing".

Free bricks and mortar

The town hall in this small, aesthetically unremarkable town an hour-and-a-bit east of Seville, has given David 190 sq m (2,000 sq ft) of land.

He and others are only eligible after they have been registered residents of Marinaleda for at least two years.

The bricks and mortar are also a gift, this time from the regional government of Andalusia.

Only once his home is finished will he start paying 15 euros (£13) a month, to the regional government, to refund the cost of other building materials.

Of course, most people do not know how to build a house, so the town hall in Marinaleda throws in some expertise.

It employs several professional builders and plumbers, a couple of whom work alongside David, to help him construct his house.

HOMAGE TO CATALONIA 

This was in late December 1936, less than seven months ago as I write, and yet it is a period that has already receded into enormous distance. Later events have obliterated it much more completely than they have obliterated 1935, or 1905, for that matter. I had come to Spain with some notion of writing newspaper articles, but I had joined the militia almost immediately, because at that time and in that atmosphere it seemed the only conceivable thing to do. The Anarchists were still in virtual control of Catalonia and the revolution was still in full swing. To anyone who had been there since the beginning it probably seemed even in December or January that the revolutionary period was ending; but when one came straight from England the aspect of Barcelona was something startling and overwhelming. It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle. Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags or with the red and black flag of the Anarchists; every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle and with the initials of the revolutionary parties; almost every church had been gutted and its images burnt. Churches here and there were being systematically demolished by gangs of workmen. Every shop and café had an inscription saying that it had been collectivized; even the bootblacks had been collectivized and their boxes painted red and black. Waiters and shop-walkers looked you in the face and treated you as an equal. Servile and even ceremonial forms of speech had temporarily disappeared. Nobody said ‘Señior’ or ‘Don’ or even ‘Usted’; everyone called everyone else ‘Comrade’ and ‘Thou’, and said ‘Salud!’ instead of ‘Buenos dias’. Tipping was forbidden by law; almost my first experience was receiving a lecture from a hotel manager for trying to tip a lift-boy. There were no private motor-cars, they had all been commandeered, and all the trams and taxis and much of the other transport were painted red and black. The revolutionary posters were everywhere, flaming from the walls in clean reds and blues that made the few remaining advertisements look like daubs of mud. Down the Ramblas, the wide central artery of the town where crowds of people streamed constantly to and fro, the loudspeakers were bellowing revolutionary songs all day and far into the night. And it was the aspect of the crowds that was the queerest thing of all. In outward appearance it was a town in which the wealthy classes had practically ceased to exist. Except for a small number of women and foreigners there were no ‘well-dressed’ people at all. Practically everyone wore rough working-class clothes, or blue overalls, or some variant of the militia uniform. All this was queer and moving. There was much in it that I did not understand, in some ways I did not even like it, but I recognized it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for. Also I believed that things were as they appeared, that this was really a workers' State and that the entire bourgeoisie had either fled, been killed, or voluntarily come over to the workers' side; I did not realize that great numbers of well-to-do bourgeois were simply lying low and disguising themselves as proletarians for the time being.

Together with all this there was something of the evil atmosphere of war. The town had a gaunt untidy look, roads and buildings were in poor repair, the streets at night were dimly lit for fear of air-raids, the shops were mostly shabby and half-empty. Meat was scarce and milk practically unobtainable, there was a shortage of coal, sugar, and petrol, and a really serious shortage of bread. Even at this period the bread-queues were often hundreds of yards long. Yet so far as one could judge the people were contented and hopeful. There was no unemployment, and the price of living was still extremely low; you saw very few conspicuously destitute people, and no beggars except the gipsies. Above all, there was a belief in the revolution and the future, a feeling of having suddenly emerged into an era of equality and freedom. Human beings were trying to behave as human beings and not as cogs in the capitalist machine. In the barbers' shops were Anarchist notices (the barbers were mostly Anarchists) solemnly explaining that barbers were no longer slaves. In the streets were coloured posters appealing to prostitutes to stop being prostitutes. To anyone from the hard-boiled, sneering civilization of the English-speaking races there was something rather pathetic in the literalness with which these idealistic Spaniards took the hackneyed phrases of revolution. At that time revolutionary ballads of the naivest kind, all about proletarian brotherhood and the wickedness of Mussolini, were being sold on the streets for a few centimes each. I have often seen an illiterate militiaman buy one of these ballads, laboriously spell out the words, and then, when he had got the hang of it, begin singing it to an appropriate tune.

Feel free to unfuck yourself you class cuck.

[batblogcff12-blog]

Racism in Canadian Schools

Christian Saad

Dr. Ethel Tungohan

POLS 4103

Racism in Canadian Schools

         (Photo Obtained from CTV News Shows 6-year-old girl handcuffed by Peel Regional Police at her school in Mississauga

 Racism in Canadian schools. I know I cannot believe I am saying it myself, but it is a very serious problem. On September 30th, 2016, the mother of a grade one student received several calls on her phone from her young daughter’s school in Mississauga. When she returned the calls, a school official “passed the phone over to a police officer” (Maynard, 2017, pp. 1). The officer informed the young girl’s mom that her daughter had “been placed in handcuffs” (Maynard, 2017, pp. 1). When the young girl’s mom arrived at her daughter’s school, she was informed by school staff that her daughter “had been reportedly acting in a violent manner” (Maynard, 2017, pp. 1).

Okay, did I hear that right? It is not a joke. You have got to be kidding me, right? What kind of world do we live in, what kind of city justifies a young little girl in the first grade, “weighing a total of forty-eight pounds”, being handcuffed for “acting in a violent manner” (Maynard, 2017, pp. 1). Worse yet, many articles rushed to declare that the girl was “unarmed” (Maynard, 2017, pp. 1). Well of course she was unarmed, why else would she be armed? She was only 6 years old! Oh, I get it…

Well, unfortunately like the case of this young six-year-old, for many Black Canadian students, schools are places where they experience “degradation, harm, and physical violence” (Maynard, 2017, pp. 4). Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating things a little, perhaps I am just overthinking the situation. Or does racism explain why the York Region School Trustee Nancy Elgin called a black mother a “n****r” to a TDSB Principal who “reprimanded a Black child for wearing her hair in natural style” (Keleta-Mae, 2017, pp. 5). Okay, still don’t believe me, or maybe you do? This type of racism is only lodged at Blacks students in Canadian schools, right?

Think again. Young refugees and newcomers to Canada, “face racism on a daily basis” (Young, 2018, pp. 1). Worst part yet, is the “racism they face on a daily basis” is “usually from adults in school” (Young, 2018, pp. 1). This was the conclusion of a study and report released by the Office of the Child and Youth Advocate (Young, 2018, pp. 2). Within the report, in which not a single person wanted to be named, it concluded that “Refugees, and newcomers, and exchange students, came forward with instances in which they experienced some form of compromised rights in their schools," directly quoted in the report (Young, 2018, pp. 7).

Alright let’s through it out there, I know is extremely difficult, but we have to be aware of what is happening in our Canadian schools, so we can protect our children, and ensure the next generation who will shape our country’s future matures in a safe and healthy learning environment.

This is what happened in one Canadian school, in which a location or name was not provided. The report mentions a young refugee, 17-years old who reports that someone at their school “called them monkeys”, and a person at their school “told them not to go to dinner with a Syrian family” (Young, 2018, pp. 10). Why? You may ask. Because if the student went to school with a Syrian family, they were told, “they would be in danger” (Young, 2018, pp. 11).

Okay, so why is this serious? If you can’t figure out by now, why I don’t wake you up. This is abuse. This abuse is happening in our Canadian schools. This type of abusive language towards refugees carries extremely dangerous implications for not only refugee and immigrant children, but even for “Canadian-born youth alike” (Young, 2018, pp. 7). This fact means all Canadian children are placed in a dangerous situation in Canadian schools, and we need to do everything in our power to call it out, search for it, and stop it.

Why did I decide to write about this? I must be straightforward here. I was at my computer this week completing an assignment, when I stumbled across news of one of the cutest, newest, little Canadians.

(Pictured: is Amal Al-shteiwi)

Amal Al-shteiwi was a bright, young, smart, and beautiful Canadian. Amal’s family came to Canada three years ago as “government sponsored refugees” fleeing the violence in Syria. Amal had come to Canada with her family seeking a brighter and better life. Amal would often come home from school “distraught” and would often tell her parents she was “being bullied” (Doll, 2019, pp. 5). The young girl who wore a Hijab, and attended a Calgary school, was often told that “she was ugly”, and “not beautiful” (Doll, 2019, pp. 5).

I need to be honest here, I am a grown man, and every time I see her picture, I cry. On the 6th of March 2019, Amal’s father came home and found the body of his young daughter, Amal, in her bedroom lifeless (Doll, 2019, pp. 2). Amal’s family even moved schools to avoid bullies who told Amal “even if you move to another school they are not going to like you”, “wherever you go, you better just go and kill yourself” (Doll, 2019, pp. 6). The most disturbing part is Nasra Abdulrahman, Amal’s mother, told a translator that these were remarks Amal would often hear, from “the kids or the teacher” (Doll, 2019, pp. 6).

How do we know that this is a problem produced in Canadian schools? Amal’s parents notified the Amal’s Calgary school about the bullying Amal was facing, and Amal never got any help (Doll, 2019, pp. 8). Furthermore, in a statement by Amal’s Calgary school, emailed to Global News, is stated that the school “found there was no indication of bullying nor was any concern raised to the school” (Doll, 2019, pp. 9).

Okay, now I have given a report that details how refugees and newcomers face discrimination in Canadian schools, from both teachers and students, and I have shown what the outcome can produce. You can clearly see that from these examples that racism and bullying in schools, this is not a New Brunswick problem, it is not a Mississauga problem, and it is not a Calgary problem, it’s a Canadian problem.

Let’s spread Amal’s name, that can be simply telling our friends and families about her, let’s tell the story of the young girl in the first grade, who was handcuffed at school, and the 40-pounds of minority danger she possessed, let’s tell our friends, families, and colleagues about how children in Canadian schools are warned about the ‘dangers’ of eating dinner with a Syrian refugee family. Let’s spread the word, let’s raise awareness because school is not a place to be harassed, school is not a place to be attacked, school is not a place to be abused, schools are a place to learn.

(Photo: Featuring Kids Help Phone Hotline Number)

How can we do it? When we think we see bullying, say something! If school administrators don’t respond, make the public and our kids aware of kids help phone, call your local news station, write a post, let the public know, so we can intervene and help. Why? Let’s do it to honour Amal, and all the other young children who have experienced racist bullying, from teachers and students alike, that was 100% completely preventable. Let’s do it for all of our children, because the next generation will inevitably shape and decide the direction of Canada.

If we come together to tackle racist bullying, and all forms of bullying, we can stop it. At this particular moment, I am reminded of a film I once saw called “Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance”, directed by Alanis Obomsawin. The film features Indigenous protesters who resisted the Canadian Government’s military assault on their land. One of the protesters who resisted the assault, spoke in the end of the film, and said, “if you have one arrow, you can break it, but if you have a bunch of arrows, you cannot break it” (Obomsawin, 1993). What the protester was saying is that is when people come together, nothing can stop the power of unity, and that is exactly the type of Canada we want to build, to honour our Indigenous past, to make our present schools safer and a learning conducive environment, together we can make a better, brighter future Canada.

     Works Cited

1.      Doll, J. (2019). Syrian family in Calgary mourning loss of 9-year-old daughter who died by suicide. CTV News. Retrieved from https://globalnews.ca/news/5163138/calgary-syrian-family-daughter-suicide/

2.      Keleta-Mae, N. (2017). Why anti-Black racism persists in Canadian schools. Retrieved from https://www.todaysparent.com/family/family-life/why-anti-black-racism-persists-in-canadian-schools/

3.      Maynard, R. (2017). Canadian Education is Steeped in Anti-Black Racism. Retrieved from https://thewalrus.ca/canadian-education-is-steeped-in-anti-black-racism/

4.      N.a. (2018). Young refugees face racism in schools, mostly from teachers. CBC News. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/refugees-face-school-racism-1.4863418

5.      N.a. (2019). Syria refugee, 9, commits suicide after being bullied in Canada. Retrieved from https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190415-syria-refugee-9-commits-suicide-after-being-bullied-in-canada/

Obomsawin, A. (1993).

Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance.

Retrieved from

https://www.nfb.ca/film/kanehsatake_270_years_of_resistance/

[newstfionline]

An up-and-coming pianist shares his love of music with children

Matthew Lesso, CS Monitor, March 31, 2017

Jan Lisiecki has fit a lot into his young life. At 22, he’s a world-renowned classical pianist--and he’s made it a priority to blend his artistry with humanitarian work, especially involving children.

Hailing from Calgary, Alberta, Mr. Lisiecki has worked with UNICEF for almost a decade and has been a UNICEF Canada ambassador since 2012. He raises funds through charity recitals, holding several a year, most of which aren’t listed on his website. He’s also visited with and performed for children in impoverished communities in Guatemala and Lebanon, as well as his native Canada.

“Children are all the same: They all have the same basic needs,” he says. “You can only do so much. You cannot change their circumstances. But I hope to give them some feeling of still being kids.”

Lisiecki, the son of Polish immigrants, started performing professionally at age 9. He has been featured in several short documentaries, including “The Reluctant Prodigy” from the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. Among other top venues, he has performed at Carnegie Hall in New York, and he’s recorded albums featuring works by Chopin, Mozart, and Schumann.

Audiences tend to be captivated by his performances. When onstage and in concert attire, he seems far more grown up than his age would suggest. But in street clothes, he looks like any other 20-something. And he’s strikingly modest and down to earth.

Indeed, Lisiecki is modest when asked about his motivations for getting involved with humanitarian work, saying he was simply led in that direction. But he also emphasizes that such work has always played an important role in his life.

As a child, he was a popular guest at local charity events in his hometown of Calgary, where he was frequently asked to perform. Eventually this led him to UNICEF, for which he became a national youth representative in 2008, before his designation as an ambassador four years later.

Lisiecki has partnered with other humanitarian groups as well, including the David Foster Foundation and Make-A-Wish Foundation.

In 2011, Lisiecki was scheduled to perform three solo recitals in Japan. His visit, however, coincided with the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Fukushima prefecture. So he turned his recitals into benefit concerts, donating the proceeds to UNICEF’s relief efforts.

Lisiecki says he particularly enjoys performing in lesser-known locations, bringing his music to people who don’t usually have access to it. In terms of special trips, perhaps his most noteworthy one was to a Syrian refugee camp in Lebanon in 2014. He was already scheduled to perform in Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, and the nearby refugee crisis moved him to do a second performance afterward, organized by UNICEF.

So Lisiecki visited a refugee camp near the city of Zahlé, which was about a two-hour drive away in the Bekaa Valley. The trip involved passing through numerous security checkpoints. “We could feel we were getting very close to Syria,” he notes.

Once there, he says, he was given a tour of the community and could see UNICEF’s relief work up close. He visited with families and performed for schoolchildren. And the students shared and performed songs they had written.

“It teaches you to appreciate everything you have. It gives you perspective and brings you back to the core of who you are,” says Lisiecki, reflecting on his humanitarian work.

[foryourinsight]

Draft Zine

Introduction

 In the present day today there are many instances where immigration is talked about. In the last few years and still continuing today the Syrian Civil War has taken the lives of many civilians and the number of refugees has increased. Many of these civilians were killed just because they were in the way or simply living in their own home. They are people just proceeding through their day whether that is going to work, going to school, having a bad day and finally coming home anticipating that tomorrow will be better. Then, suddenly not existing in the world and no one would know that they ever existed as an individual because days, weeks, or maybe months later their acquaintances are also gone from this world. There are also people who barely survive and get to another country to live the tale and try to help people from where they left.  

 With war, there are always refugees or people who seek a new place to live because of their status in their own country. Like any other war there are people who die, and people who don’t really care about it because it doesn’t affect them in their everyday life since it is normal to them; however, what if suddenly there was a war where you live that there is danger lurking around and you don't know when it will come to get you. That one day you will just be gone like anyone else and suddenly you wouldn’t be able to see who’s important to you.With these questions in mind, I want to proceed with a personal story. A story of a lucky young lady that left her country after the war and now have two beautiful children in college.

The picture above represents the journey of how Vietnamese refugees got to their refugee camps before they got accepted to migrate into the country.

 The stick figures in the sea represent one of the hardships of leaving their home country to go to a new, unknown country. Those people represent the people who died while on their journey to a safe place.

 Câu Chuyện Gia  Đình Của Tôi

( My Family’s Story )

 My mother at the age of eighteen left her home country. It was about three years after the war when the Việt Cộng took over South Vietnam’s capital Saigon. During that time, everyone in the South was looking for a new place to live because of the land that was destroyed by the war. Lots of youth were told to work for the government and worked on clearing trees in the jungle to get new land for farming. There was also hope that another country would accept them. The U.S. started to help people in South Vietnam even before the war ended with some people taking the U.S. navy routes that lend them all the way to Camp Pendleton. Unfortunately, after the U.S. pulled out of the Vietnam war the Camp closed down. There are other refugee camps that were at the islands that were close by. One of the islands was Bidong Island which belonged to Malaysia. My mother at the time was living with her aunt and her cousins. Before my mother, my great aunt had sent some of her daughters to the United States already so she knew how to get on the boats. One way how people got on the boat was by offering gold to the people that live close by the bay to see if there was the boat there and to secure seats or space for them to travel. Once they got on the boat, there was an overload of people making it obvious that this boat would go to a refugee camp. The boat was at the bay for thirty days with no people going in and the only way going out was if they died. With an overload of people, there was not enough food for the people and they started to die of hunger. When they died of hunger they were tossed off the ship and a gong was hit to signal a moment of silence for the person who died; however, with no food, the bodies started to accumulate so whenever someone had died they just tossed them out of the boat. The boat eventually did not leave and let the people out.

Eventually, my mom got on a boat and arrived at Bidong Island around 1979. Pictures of how the refugee camp was are shown below.

After a while, with all the papers filled out for immigration, my mother got to immigrate to Canada. She arrived in Canada in May 1980 and eventually moved to California in 1987. Actually, before she went to Canada she met her brother at the Refugee Camp. Her brother was actually supposed to arrive a few days earlier than she because he left on the boat earlier than her but his boat got lost at sea.  She was happy to meet her brother stating that “Of course, I was happy to see him. I didn't know I would meet him at the refugee camp because he left a few days earlier and the path each boat takes are different. The truth is..I didn’t know if I would be able to see any of my family members again. Once they were out on the boat, it was like saying goodbye to them because we didn’t know if they would survive.”

 Of course, when there are some people who survive they are others that don’t make it alive.

 My grandfather was recruited to be in the military to help the Republic of Vietnam. Where he was dispatched there was a bomb mine. He stepped on one of them and according to a neighbor that also went into the military that he died because of the blast.

 My father who was also in Vietnam at the time with his mother and father. At the time they were living in a village in Da Nang which is in the Middle of Vietnam. According to my aunt, they were on the run because military personnel would rain through the village and take everything they had and kill everyone. They had to run away whenever they heard machines or guns that were shot. According to my aunt, my grandmother and grandfather did not make it to Macau where their relatives were at. They were killed on the way to Macau.  

 Why does this Matter?

 What is overlooked when a person moves to another country whether it is for a better life, a new job, war in a country, or for personal reasons is how a person had to start from scratch in the new place. My mother and any refugee would know that to leave your home country alone is the hardest. With no knowledge of how your family is if you would make it alive, or what you would do when you finally get to this country. The only thought they have in mind is “Will I survive today?”.

 Even to this day my mother really hates to get on boats because of what it reminds her of, her memory of how she spent days at sea not knowing if she will make it. When I was younger I was curious on how my mom recognized the smell of the ocean when we pass by a city by the ocean. I later realized that she knew this smell because it was the smell of fear for her. Now every time I pass by or go near the ocean the smell of salt always reminds me of my mother. The image of my eighteen to nineteen-year-old mother on her own in the corner of a ship rocking back and forth with the waves as the boat goes over them.

 Then my thoughts go to how did this happen? How did these people experience this? Whether blaming it on the Americans who backed out of the war during the middle which resulted in the end of the war or the fact that the war was actually going on because of land the refugees had to experience this. Was it their fault to experience it because they wanted a different life or was it just the reason behind their leaving the country?

 Just like in Toni Morrison’s Beloved with the theme of Rememory, I wanted to bring up the untold story of the Vietnamese refugee. I wanted to bring awareness to the people that this is one example of what happened during those times. That the Vietnamese people are more than the ladies that are doing your nails and you are thinking that they are talking bad about you.

 Rememory is simply about living the present in the past. To acknowledge the history that happened and to do something about the future. That what happened in the past influences what happens in the present. The civil war took a toll on the Vietnamese people and the people who lived through it are affected by it critically.

 Since we are all people in rememory, we should do something to change the future or at least try to figure out what we can do to change the outcome of things.

 To remember this event that happened to the Vietnamese people and make sure that this doesn’t happen to other people we can start helping the people in the Middle East who are experiencing some of the same things. That the United States got involved in a war with some of the countries there and that there was a civil war that was started there. That they are taking the lives of other countries for their own benefit and it’s like they don’t even care what happens to the people that are just trying to live. With war, there are refugees that are looking for a new place to live. We can all help by giving money to:

 International Rescue Committee

 UNHCR (The UN Refugee Agency)

 Save the Children

 Or going out on your own and looking for local organizations that help the people who are affected directly.

 I advise you to take action. Lives are at stake. Innocent lives are becoming numbers as death totals.

 And Remember This Can Happen To You At Any Time

 Maybe at that time…no one can help you…because they are now all gone…

 Resources:

 http://saigontimesusa.com/bai/thuyennhan/1338_divedau.shtml

 Images for the Refugee Camp :

http://refugeecamps.net/PBPhoto.html

 For More Information about Vietnamese Refugees or Body Counts Please look for Professor Yen Le Espiritu’s work here:

http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520277700

[thebuckblogimo]

The ever-changing face of America and what I make of it after all these years.

July 21, 2019

As a proud member of the gerontocracy, I’ve seen the world evolve in ways I never imagined as a child. Take, for example, the not-so-simple matter of race relations and attitudes toward skin color.

When I started school at St. Alphonsus in 1953, every kid was white. But not really white. My first big box of Crayolas included a color called “Flesh.” I remember staring at it, thinking that it did not look like the color of the skin of anyone I knew. And certainly not like that of the “colored people” (as African-Americans were known in the early ‘50s) in the Detroit neighborhood where my grandparents lived.

Crayola didn’t even try to make a crayon for them.

As I got a little older and started playing youth baseball, my team, the Bullets, occasionally played a team from the south end of Dearborn that everyone called “the Syrians.” They were a bunch of Arabic kids whose parents or grandparents actually came from Lebanon, and I recall thinking that they looked white but that most of them had better tans than the kids on my team.

By the time I was in high school during the early to mid ‘60s, the civil rights movement, led by Martin Luther King Jr., was ascending in national attention. I didn’t watch much nightly news in those days, but I was aware that Walter Cronkite of CBS, and “Huntley-Brinkley” of NBC, covered it every evening on TV.  At that point in my life I remember often hearing the words “prejudice,” “discrimination,” “segregation” and “integration,” but I don’t recall ever hearing the word “diversity.”

Actually, in my mostly blue collar neighborhood, there may have been more discussion about “nationality” than skin color during those years. The grandparents of most of my friends had all immigrated to America from somewhere else--Italy, Poland, Germany, Ireland, Scotland and Belgium. Canada, too, although we never thought of Canadians as immigrants. In any case, Dearborn was “all white.” Period. And mayor Orville Hubbard neither said nor did much to refute his separatist reputation.

When I went off to college, one of my biggest surprises was the racial--and geographic--composition of the Michigan State football team. The mid 1960s were the glory years of Spartan football and most of the best players were black and from the South. Such as All-American defensive end Bubba Smith (Beaumont, Texas); All-American wide receiver Gene Washington (LaPorte, Texas); All-American roverback George Webster (Anderson, South Carolina); and Jimmy Raye (Fayetteville, North Carolina) who became the first black quarterback from the South to win a national title. Those great ‘65 and ‘66 teams also included two Hawaiians, placekicker Dick Kenny and All-American fullback Bob Apisa who was born in American Samoa.

If you search for a photo of the 1965 Alabama football team, which shared the national championship with MSU that season, you will find that it does not include a single black face. And if you Google photos of the 1966 Notre Dame team, which shared the next year’s national title with the Spartans, it reveals just one black player--that of All-American defensive tackle Alan Page.

In my estimation, head coach Duffy Daugherty has never received sufficient credit for all the things he did to integrate college football.

By the end of my second year on campus, the civil rights movement, student protests against the war in Vietnam, worries over being drafted into the military, the emerging sexual revolution, drug use and all the cultural changes associated with the ‘60s--in music, literature, hair styles, clothing, etc.--made “crazy” feel routine.

And then on Sunday, July 23, 1967, things got even crazier.

I recall sitting with some pals at “the Canteen” at Camp Dearborn, eating a black cherry ice cream cone in the late afternoon sun, when a St. Al’s girl I had known since first grade walked up to our table and said, “Have you heard about the riot going on in Detroit?”

Riot? Detroit? What? Huh?

The next evening I drove down Warren Avenue into the city with my Dad, and I remember seeing independent business owners sitting on the steps of their stores, with rifles locked and loaded, prepared to defend their properties. The following day at the Detroit paint factory where I worked that summer, I took the staircase to the rooftop of Building 42, looked out toward the Detroit River and could see hundreds of fires dotting the cityscape. Detroit was put under curfew for four days; the National Guard, as well as two divisions of the U.S. Army, were called in to quell the disturbance; and in the end, 43 people died, over 7,000 arrests were made and 2,000 buildings were destroyed. The riot was triggered by an early-hours bust of a blind pig, but black frustration with racial inequities was at the root of it all.

Detroit has never been the same since.

I graduated from college in December of 1969, and about two months later drove across the country with my buddy Joe on an adventure to the West Coast. I was soon able to find a job as a janitor at the uber-exclusive Pacific Union (Men’s) Club at the top of Nob Hill in San Francisco. It was my first introduction to people with “yellow skin.”

I was part of a work crew that consisted of a Filipino, a Korean, a Chinese man and three white guys. The three Asians had all come to America in hopes of saving enough money to bring their families to the U.S. All three struggled with English, and I helped my Korean buddy learn the language by reading aloud the comics section of the Sunday paper, while pointing at the illustrations.

Because of the language barrier and my short time on the job, I gained few good insights into those guys and their respective cultures, other than to say I knew them as great workers.

After a couple of months, Joe and I moved on to Los Angeles, but I was feeling like a bit of loser, homesick and hungry. He found a gig as a carpenter; I soon caught a ride back home with some pals who were visiting the coast. In December of 1970 I finally landed my first big boy job as a copywriter for the Automobile Club of Michigan (AAA) at its headquarters in downtown Detroit.

It was the fulfillment of my boyhood dreams. I was writing every day about insurance, travel and auto financing services. I was being taken to lunch several times a week by art studios or the ad agency that created AAA’s radio and TV advertising. And I finally had a couple of bucks in my pocket.

But something was percolating below the surface at work. Word leaked out that the Auto Club would be moving its headquarters from downtown Detroit to Dearborn. And, suddenly, there was a concurrent realization that there was not a single black person or woman who was a department manager at the downtown headquarters or at any of the 56 Michigan AAA branch offices at that time.

Although it still felt like the ‘60s, instead of revolting, disgruntled black employees and a female employee filed separate discriminatory lawsuits against the Auto Club. The suits dragged on for years in the courts, but by the time I left the company in 1979 there were numerous blacks and many women in prominent positions at AAA throughout the state.

Meanwhile, during the early-to-mid ‘70s, the Motor City came to be known as the Murder City. Also, federally imposed school busing accelerated the flight of white people from Detroit. Nevertheless, in December of 1977, I bought my first home in an integrated Detroit neighborhood called North Rosedale Park. Thanks to an active civic association, involved block clubs, a community house for hosting neighborhood events, etc., North Rosedale worked.

However, to the south, the neighborhoods branching out from nearby Evergreen Road, and the ones north of West McNichols, had become virtually all black. I was inside a few homes in those neighborhoods only a handful of times, visiting or partying with black colleagues from work. However, I slow-cruised the streets of Northwest Detroit many times in my car, an admittedly imperfect way to try to understand what it was like to live there. I observed people who were obviously middle class, but I observed many more who appeared to be “underclass.”

For a time I was a member of a North Rosedale Park committee to help prevent neighborhood crime and was privy to a police department map with pinpoints that plotted major crimes in the 16th precinct. Car thefts. B&Es. Shootings. Murders. I could clearly see the extent of the problem throughout the precinct. Like everyone else I read about the crime throughout the city in the daily newspapers. I watched the coverage of it on TV. And I could “feel it” when I drove through the neighborhoods in my car.

I got married in 1979. And by the end of the ‘80s Debbie and I had four small children. It was time to make a big decision. Stay in Detroit and send our kids to Detroit schools, which had become dysfunctional? Drive our kids many miles to private schools in the suburbs? Or move?

In 1989, Ross Roy, the long-time downtown Detroit ad agency that I was then working for, relocated to Bloomfield Hills. And we moved even farther north to Clarkston where the public schools had an excellent reputation.

Once again I was living in a virtually all white community.

We lived in Clarkston for 20 years. As I attended local high school football and basketball games over that time, I began to notice an increasing number of black players on the mostly suburban teams in Clarkston’s league. And I recalled that when we moved out of Detroit, it wasn’t just white families that were leaving the city, many middle class black families left for the suburbs, too.

My children rarely met kids with black, brown or yellow skin in Clarkston. In fact, they rarely met kids with the kinds of last names--ending in “i” or “o” or “ski” or “wicz”--that I took for granted while growing up. But they met many such people in college and continue to do so in their respective careers. And I’m proud that they tend not to be judgmental of people with different skin colors.

After we lost our home due to an electrical fire in 2010, Debbie and I embarked on a new adventure that took us to Grand Haven in West Michigan. Heavy Dutch influence. Politically conservative. Predominantly white. During my first summer here, someone I met at a party referred to Detroit as “Detoilet.” Also, at estate sales and neighborhood functions, I was often asked whether I go to church--something I was not used to on the other side of the state. It’s a whole different vibe in West Michigan, to be sure.

We’re now into our eighth summer in Grand Haven, and even here you can see the changing face of America. There’s a family down the street whose daughter is marrying an African-American man this month. There’s a woman I know at the gym whose son married an African-American woman last month. And one day recently, a neighbor from the next street over stopped to talk while pushing a stroller and introduced me to his son’s twin boys. With their darkish skin color, dark hair and eyes, I assumed that they had an Indian or perhaps Pakistani   mother.

Such things were unheard of when I first visited Grand Haven in the early ‘70s.

I was inspired to write about what I’ve observed concerning the ever-changing face of America after shopping one evening at Westborn Market during a visit to Dearborn earlier this summer. When I walked into the store I felt as though I had entered into some sort of international marketplace. White people. Black people. Arabic people. Asian people. Indian people. The place was packed with people of color of all types. It was certainly not the “cake eaters’” market of my youth.

WHERE I COME OUT. I’ve been thinking about attitudes toward skin color since early childhood, when I first realized that there were black people who could speak Polish living on my grandparents’ block. As I look back on the past seven decades, here are five observations and my opinions about them:

Birds of a feather flock together. My grandparents lived in Polish enclaves. The Arab families I knew as a kid clustered in an area of Dearborn called “Salina.” In college, the black kids usually sat together in the grill and cafeteria. And rich people tend to reside in the same zip code. It’s a natural human tendency for people who share a common culture to congregate with their own kind. I get that. Yet I’ve always felt that if Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal desire to build their home next to Mr. and Mrs. Robin, they have every right to do so.

I was in perhaps the sixth grade when I first heard about school “busing” to achieve racial integration. Brilliant idea, thought my 12-year-old mind. But as a young man I reversed my position as I came to understand the vital importance of “neighborhood schools.” When moms and dads, no matter their color, give a serious damn about their kids’ education, they prefer to live close to their children’s schools, facilitating the parental involvement--school open houses; child progress meetings; attendance at plays, concerts and sporting events--that is so important to the successful education of their kids. Also, there were many times I ran into our children’s teachers at the bakery or Damman Hardware in Clarkston--everyday community encounters that enhanced a “connection” with their teachers. The chance of that happening with cross-district busing is far less likely. I would argue that whatever slim chance Detroit had to remain a viable major American city after the riots of ‘67 was killed by forced busing in the early-to-mid ‘70s. It caused the last of Detroit’s white middle class to say, “That’s it...we’re out of here.” Many black middle class families said the same. So, ultimately, the city was left to a population that was mostly poor and black. (Interestingly, Coleman Young, Detroit’s first black mayor, was an opponent of busing.)

No matter race, ethnicity, age or income level, most people make little effort to learn anything about the attitudes, interests or culture of the “other guy.” I’m far from being a hundred percent at it, but when I have done so the results have often been astounding. Such as the time I walked into a large Arabic market on Warren Avenue in East Dearborn a few years ago in search of the secret to making authentic Middle Eastern shawarma. When I showed sincere interest to doing so, I was escorted around the store and introduced to four or five different employees who filled my head with knowledge about Arabic spices and marinating techniques. I was the only “white person” in the store that day, but when I walked out the door I got high fives, slaps on the back, wishes of good luck--and big smiles--from every employee I encountered. I’ve had many similar experiences with black people when I’ve shown interest in their music, food, personal histories, etc. It’s amazing what you get back when you attempt to find out what the other guy is really all about. I would also add that being curious about or empathetic with “the other” should be a two-way street. If everyone--white, black, Hispanic, yellow, Arabic, native American, etc.--made small, incremental efforts to knock down the invisible barriers between us, it would be so much easier to coexist on this rapidly shrinking planet.

Diversity is infinitely more interesting than homogeneity. I could cite hundreds of personal experiences that cause me to feel this way. From listening to folk songs while sitting in a circle of Scotch people to eating kimchi with Korean folks in San Francisco. From drinking cherry-juice- infused spirytus with relatives in Poland to attempting to harmonize around the piano in a black family’s home in Toledo. From torching my tastebuds with sauteed jalapeno peppers in an authentic Mexican market in Pontiac to the youthful insights of the black North Carolina teenager who spends a part of every summer in the home across the street from us in Grand Haven. Diversity broadens horizons. Changes perspectives. Expands one’s view of the world. No matter where or with whom one ordinarily flocks, it’s highly beneficial, sez I, to get out and fly with birds of a different color.

We could really use a modern-day Henry Ford, someone with a not-yet-conceived, revolutionary new product--or process--that employs large numbers of ordinary workers and pays them a living wage to build it. That’s what Henry did when he introduced assembly line production to build the Model T and doubled the wage of his workers to $5 a day, putting them on the road to the middle class. Or maybe we need a modern-day Work Projects Administration (WPA) that employs unskilled people--and pays them enough to afford a dignified middle class life--to rebuild our roads, bridges, water lines, public transit systems, the entire U.S. infrastructure. Because I now think that racially segregated poverty persists more due to economic inequality than any other factor. There are available jobs galore in the fast food industry, tourism, hospitality, health care and more. But they’re jobs that don’t pay enough to secure a middle class life. And it is now generally accepted that the single greatest predictor of a student’s achievement and eventual economic success is household income. I used to think that education was the key to lifting up the poverty stricken-- whether black, brown, white, whatever--into the middle class. But while the American population is more educated than ever before, the canyon between rich and poor has only widened over the last 40 years.

Like everyone else, I have opinions. These have been mine about racial issues. I’ve never lived in a ghetto. I haven’t had much interplay with Hispanics. I’ve never been poor. And I claim no special expertise in matters regarding attitudes toward skin color. I’m just one guy who has been watching, thinking about these things for a very long time. I probably won’t be around to see America become a majority-minority country. I only hope that when it inevitably happens that all people of all skin colors will do a better job of negotiating those invisible barriers on that two-way street I spoke of earlier.