"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.