Profile on my Listening Post Guide.

Standing in the catering hall of the synagogue a man, who wears a yarmulke and tzitzis (bound tassels) outside of his pants, patiently waits for the next service.
Ofir, 37, was not always a religious man. In fact, he wears his bound tassels outside of his pants to have a constant reminder of his religious commitment and faith.
No one would guess this man worked as a paramedic directly for Pope John Paul II when the Pope took his historic pilgrimage to Israel in spring 2000. He spent three days with him and thought the Pope was “pleasant”.
Ofir was agnostic back then. It was ten years ago and he had a lot of inner angst. His work as a paramedic in Israel caused him to see immoral things on a daily basis.
As the son of a faithful, practicing Orthodox Jew, Ofir grew up in a religious household. However, the rest of his family has never been religious. Ofir was born Tiberias, Israel in a house that “had views of the beautiful bay,” as he described it.
Yet he is currently residing in Miami, FL. He recalled the time that he saw “a 13-year old girl smoking cigarettes” as the moment he realized he needed to leave Israel.
According to Ofir, there is a difference between the old world (what he describes as Europe) and the new world (United States). To him, the new world represents better education and a society with better morals. Ofir wants to send his future children to “religious school. To learn the Torah, gain values, and have a structured way of life,” he said.
That is what religion is to him: A way of life. Yet Ofir was Agnostic until four years ago. He went on a religious retreat in Israel. During a service, the men around him were praying so feverishly that he started to feel the presence of God and he cried in spiritual acceptance.
“I felt so embarrassed to cry. It was like an arrow hit me in the heart. This is what I was looking for all my life,” he said while staring up at the arched ceiling of the synagogue.
He attends an Orthodox Jewish Synagogue whose rabbi speaks primarily Spanish and Arabic. Rabbi Netivezra Avichai entered, wearing a fedora with a round brim, and shook Ofir’s hand in a familiar way. It was clear that Ofir’s commitment to his religion has been unwavering.
His synagogue is in North Miami, FL. Quite a long way from Isreal. Ofir has brought himself to the “new world” as he described it.
Having spent a year in Los Angeles and a month in Miami, Ofir is confident that the east coast is better for him.
His extended family spreads across the United States from LA to MIA and Ofir knew he wanted to settle in this country from an early age.
“I’ve come to Miami almost every year. I always stay for a few weeks. The weather and the people are why I love it here,” Ofir said.

Cross-Cultural Thanksgiving

My family is Cuban and my boyfriend's family is Peruvian, yet both families did their best to conform to the American meal plan for Thanksgiving dinner. It was interesting to see how well different cultures can adapt to the traditions of another culture.

Today I've had two turkeys, natural mashed potatoes, and the best stuffing ever from the Cuban side. From the Peruvian side I had sweet ham and several other options including sour pear wrapped in bacon and topped with goat cheese.

Thoughts on Class pt. 4

I wish we had gotten to see more interesting examples of media going deep into reporting on an ethnic community. I felt being showed the snippets of 'Barbershop' was effective and should have taken more importance than talking about it. We spent the whole class talking about seeing it, then saw it, then adjourned. There was a mismanagement of class time that day for sure.

In general, I feel the class has progressed too slowly. I am not complaining because having this easy class has been the one saving grace for my hectic 18 credit semester. I am not wishing we had more assignments, but I am wishing the class had more involvement. To be effective and have a lasting effect on our future careers, we should have gone on class trips to difficult places and then held reflections afterward.

The actual class meetings have simply reflections for our individual listening post experiences and I feel it had to go further. We had to get a chance to watch each other in a different setting to help each other grow. I know for a fact that there are people in this course who never broke through the fears of their listening post and it's because they didn't have enough hands on training to do it.

Belated Thought on a Cross-Cultural Halloween

The internet-phenomenon Antoine Dodson got his start by being interviewed by NBC affiliate WAFF-48 News in a news clip about the local police searching for a man who tried to rape his sister in Huntsville, AL.

Mr. Dodson's gifted speech delivery skills and sassy inflection got him noted by a group who "auto tunes the news." The group used his interview to create a song that was actually incredibly catchy.

His success and uniqueness made him a popular Halloween costume. The official costume was sold on Mr. Dodson's site. It was based on the outfit that he wore in the news package that made him famous. The pieces included a raggedy afro wig with a red bandana around it, a black tank top, and red cargo shorts.

I was surprised that one of my anglo acquaintances chose to dress up as Mr. Dodson. My acquaintance is snow white, but decided to dress like Mr. Dodson and the costume actually worked. I saw a photo of him and I instantly knew what it was. I was dismayed to see he had added fairy wings as a response to Dodson's sexual orientation, but in general the costume left a positive impression on me. It was nice to see that a cross-cultural success Mr. Dodson has become through the coverage he was given by a reporter.

Who would have thought...

Today I interviewed for an internship with Scripps network. My first choice of which channel to work for was Travel channel. The interviewer asked me if I had an understanding of other cultures and if I had developed any sensitivity to them. I was actually able to use this class as an example!

I told her I have been in a lecture/discussion class about multi-ethnic reporting. I explained to her how this class has taught me to be more sensitive to how the media portrays minority groups in a socio-politic-economical view point. She was really impressed by how well I was able to articulate the ideas of cross-cultural journalism.

It made me realize that I am actually learning from this class!

And even if I had known all of this before, at least now I have a credible background in it =)

Hmmm...

An article can be tinged with bias just by using a single word with a noted connotation.
It kinda makes me think about all the times I read an article and understood the bias, but never did anything about it.

A blatant example that comes to mind is the "terror mosque". these days the talk of the nation is the "terror mosque" supposedly being built on Ground Zero. Fox 'news' network started calling the religious community center by this nickname, showing their fear fostering bias. Their facts were also cherry-picked because the community center is actually being built a block to a few blocks away.

Isn't it insane that the most watched news network is basically flinging dung at the Muslim populous? What people would do for ratings!

So like I said before, it makes me sad to think about the amount of people who watch this network and do not think twice about the bias.

What it's all about pt. 2

“Some people say stories about minority communities often sound like visits to the zoo: "Oh, look at all the animals and the funny things they do!" Do you agree? If so, how can we prevent that?”

All genres of articles can be accused of not going deep enough. I think ethnic or cultural reporting is a genre that should not be slighted.
Ethnic reporting is a genre that is more affected by slight than any other because the groundwork for human success is to be able to work together. Articles on minority communities have opportunities to break down barriers than a lecture or a PSA announcement. Articles tell stories of real people. I believe there is still a majority if the U.S. population that believes in newspapers enough to trust that what they report is true.

If an article on immigration simply quotes that AZ congressman who said illegal immigrants “multiply like rats” to produce “anchor babies”, using him as an “expert”, the article does a huge injustice to that population because media is their only voice.

The best way to prevent this from happening is to adhere to a strict standard for news stories. The article must quote as many (or even more) regular people or people who are affected by the situation as it does experts. That is something we really don’t see enough because journalists struggle to maintain credibility and they assume the public will trust a seemingly educated and reputable source more than a real person who might not give an intellectual sounding quote.

"What it's all about" part 1

“Do you have to be one to cover one? Should editors assign reporters of the same ethnicity or background as their subjects? Is it better, worse or does it even matter?”

I think editors should know their reporters well enough to know what communities they could handle covering.

Based on the story I heard about Professor Reisner’s mistaking “the gifts” for presents in an article about the nativity story, I believe the editor should have made a better judgment call. If an editor knowingly sends a Jewish reporter to cover something as religious as the nativity story, it’s their job to ensure the reporter doesn’t make a mistake because he simply didn’t know better.

I know that there are Jewish people who have a lot of knowledge of other religions. Thus, I definitely believe you can send a person of any culture to cover another culture as long as that person knows about the other culture that the editor is sending them to cover.

Thoughts on class pt. 3

Everyone is finally settled in with their listening posts and the discussions are moving along more smoothly.
Soraya is still my saving grace because as long as she entertains us with personal accounts of inter-racial/inter-cultural dating then the rest of us can sit calmly and enjoy the class period without having to share anything about our own listening posts.

Let me explain the whole "inter-racial/inter-cultural" thing. Soraya is a black girl who doesn't have a hang up about being "genuinely black" nor does she have a hang up about being "too black". She doesn't see her color as something that limits her to any role. The reason color plays a non-existant role for this particular intelligent young woman is because she is culturally mixed. She has lived amidst Hispanics and upper-class white people for different parts of her life which gives her perspective on their cultures and that perspective is what defines her to any "role". That perspective allows her to date a down-to-earth white guy just as easily as a down-to-earth black guy and it is also what makes it impossible for her to date a black guy or a white guy who have cultural hang ups. One description she gave was that she must have a big ass and dance well. I really was amused hearing the story of her date that ended when the boy expected such another woman to come out of this girl!

First Visit to Synagogue

I went to the Netivezra Synagogue off Ives Dairy Road.

It was a small, very new looking building with yellow walls and a beige marble dome over the entrance. The parking lot was empty except for a shiny red Cadillac and a beat up '97 Nissan Sentra.

I took a deep breath before opening the 8-foot tall black door.

I entered the empty building. The entrance hall was 7x7-foot square with black double doors on either side. A small hall led to restrooms on the right. I made a right into the hall and was greeted by some migrant construction workers. They were installing lighting in an empty room.

Finally, a man wearing a yarmulke greeted me. We stood in the hall and spoke for an hour.
His name is Ofir. He is 37.
I discovered he was from Tiberius which is in northern Israel. He told me his father is a traditional Jew, however most of his family is not practicing.

Ofir wasn't a religious man until he attended a retreat four years ago. He burst into tears the moment he first felt God in his heart.
Ofir told me, "I felt so embarrassed to cry.. it felt like an arrow hit me in the heart. This is what I was looking for all my life."

Thoughts on class pt.2

Every class starts with updates from my peers about their most recent experiences with their listening posts. Poor Soraya is always up first, but for this I am grateful. She usually takes about half an hour to detail her most recent experience, which are all very interesting, and it only allows for two or three other students to share.

I have noticed that in a single day we never get past the Muslim-American blonde (don't know her name). Logically speaking we should begin the next class by sharing experiences from where we left off, in this case Victor would start us up, but Soraya is always so willing to share the same four people get to report their experiences while the rest of us zone out or chime in.

I find myself in the group of people who chime in. The blonde girl has been having trouble with her listening post and we have all exhausted our wisdom and advice resources to help her out. Hope to hear nothing but good news from her next week!

Thoughts on class

Every Monday and Wednesday from 5:00pm to 6:15pm my classmates and I get to discuss our biases and fears amongst ourselves. It's not evolved significantly since the first day of class.

We still have our biases. The same girls in the corner still give me the impression they come to class drunk. I still can't envision my listening post, and the speech Professor Reisner gave us on the first day gets reworked ever so slightly at every class meeting (let's hope it's on its last leg).

Our Prof wasn't kidding when he said this wasn't your conventional type of class. I can think of no other class that would devote an entire class meeting to help someone not think of a drug-user as an immoral and "disgusting" person.

It's like anti-bias counseling. Or therapy for the young black woman who has to venture into a biker bar to overcome her fears.

On a personal level, I'm afraid to go to a synagogue. Just the fact that I have to buy clothes because I don't own a long skirt makes the task daunting. Let's see how I can pull this off.

Surprising Find

I hope the title of this blog doesn't come off in the wrong way, but I was surprised to get a test result of preferring African-Americans to Europeans.

My whole life the adults in my family were very pro-European (and very anti all others except Cubans). In 6th grade, when my Grandma was still alive, I had a friend of Middle-Eastern heritage come over to play. We were playing in my room for 15 minutes tops until my Grandma came in. She started screaming, "Pakistani! Pakistani!" and chased him out of my room. She sat by the door holding a butter knife in her hand while I translated to him that she wanted him to leave.

From a very young age I was exposed to the N-word in its harshest context along with any other derogative, discriminatory word you can think of.
My family taught hate for blacks, lower class white Americans, almost every South American nationality, every religious people besides Catholic (even Christian), Middle-East, Asians... seriously, you name it.

Yet on this test I scored as having a preference for African-Americans to Europeans.

I guess the apple can roll as far from the tree as it wants. =)

First day of blogging in Multi-Ethnic reporting class!

the term Multi-Ethnic IS Miami.

With bus signs in three languages and radio stations with lots of international music, Miami has a reputation for causing many a gringo to go into culture shock.

As a person who was born and raised in Miami by a Cuban family, I should fit the bill for a stereotypical Miami-girl with full-fledged Miami accent who shops at U.S. Tops, but I often get confused for white.

Miami is so Hispanic that even second generation Hispanic children grow up surrounded by the culture and beliefs of their family's original country.

I'm different from this type of Hispanic in a few ways:
-I learned Spanish primarily from school. My grandmother was the only one I spoke Spanish with, but sadly she passed away in 2003. The rest of my family speaks English more than Spanish.
-I have little to no Latin flair. This isn't a good thing =(
-My family has always made turkey for all major holidays, not pork as is traditional.

I am similar to the stereotypical Miami Hispanic in a few ways:
-My aunt is a huge racist. She is pretty much the only person who fulfills the role of abuela, abuelito or papi who would definitely all be racist if they were still around.
-I bought a peach-colored pair of pants from U.S. Tops once. My aunt's ex-husband encouraged the style choice =/... I wore them about two times.
-My family can't wait til Fidel is dead.