Simmering beneath the surface

In light of the recently revealed video footage of Republican Candidate Mitt Romney, I’d like to take the time to write my response to the implications of his opinions of the American public. I do not want to fall into the trap of slamming him as a person, although I am not a supporter, but rather take the opportunity to reflect on American society.

While it is easy and understandable for people to be utterly dumbfounded and angered at Mr. Romney, I caution against simply seeking revenge. His words are not solely a reflection on his own perspective and person, but that of what lies simmering beneath the surface in our society. While I believe we are all accountable for our actions and words, I also feel that our society fosters an incredible ignorance about recognizing the institutionalized and internalized discriminatory practices that lie at the heart of discrimination and prejudice.

I have heard arguments that affirmative action is a joke and that there are so many opportunities for people of color that we’ve turned into a society of reverse-racism. I see people writing about how black and Latinos are just asking for handouts and they refuse to work hard. I also continue to see staggering statistics about poverty, discrimination, and prejudice throughout the U.S. that indicate discrepancies amongst different racial and ethnic groups. Just because we have eliminated Jim Crow era policies does not mean we have taken all the necessary steps to change the societal views that made those policies possible in the first place. I know writing as a Chicana will make some people immediately dismiss my views. Been there done that. I hope, however, that my words will still resonate with some.

I see a fallacy in the logic behind using stereotypical images that we have recently been bombarded with to make policy decisions. We have a country supposedly filled with welfare queens and parasitic Latino immigrants that need to taught a lesson and removed from society. Apparently this will solve most of our problems. Policymakers seem to be echoing images from the Moynihan report from 1965. We still think that there are cultural inequities amongst poor and non-white households that make them inherently susceptible to “bad behavior” and staying in poverty. What we’re doing is mixing up causality with correlation, to use some statistical jargon. Just because more blacks and Latinos are living in poverty than whites does not mean that their identity caused their poverty. We need to dig deeper than just demographic data. There are many people in the U.S. who genuinely believe in Mr. Romney’s platform and who identify with his perspectives on “the rest of us”.

Peter Edelman recently came out with a piece in the New York Times that hits the nail on the head. He argues that there are four reasons why poverty continues to be a problem in the U.S.

“An astonishing number of people work at low-wage jobs. Plus, many more households are headed now by a single parent, making it difficult for them to earn a living income from the jobs that are typically available. The near disappearance of cash assistance for low-income mothers and children — i.e., welfare — in much of the country plays a contributing role, too. And persistent issues of race and gender mean higher poverty among minorities and families headed by single mothers.”

Obviously the issue of poverty is much more complex, but these four reasons are clear and articulate. People are not poor because they choose to be or because they are lazy. People are poor, generally, because they are born that way. While there are opportunities for growth in the U.S., there are equally as many, if not more, barriers. By promoting more accurate, clear, and powerful research I believe people’s knowledge of what poverty means will improve. I also believe that by better understanding poverty, we can begin to break down the discriminatory beliefs and practices that are common across the nation. Continuing to foster hate will only widen the fissures throughout our society.

Before we start blaming Romney for being the worst racist out there, I think we need to see why his words are understood and felt by many. If we do not take the time to see and comprehend other people’s perspectives, a practice I believe Mr. Romney suffers from, we will not be able to bridge the social and cultural rifts that are growing throughout our society.

Atravesando la ciudad- Traversing the city

Life in Mexico is busy! I am in full swing with my 2 classes, really enjoying both of them. I have been asked to write some online TOEFL and GRE writing lessons for which I will get paid (woo!). I’ll go from where I last left off and give a basic rundown of stuff going on here.

I organized an event through Couchsurfing to go explore a fantastic barrio (neighborhood) called Coyoacán. My primary interest was to go see Frida Kahlo’s infamous Blue House, but I also wanted to check out the neighborhood. The event was a great success, there were 6 of us that showed up to the first stop, which was, of course, coffee at El Jarocho (a popular café chain in the area). We went on a tour of the main plaza, snuck into a wine and cheese festival, and checked out the Blue House. A few folks left after that as it was getting late, but 2 more people joined us for food and drinks at a lovely Spanish-style restaurant. All in all, it was a lot of fun to meet new people and see a beautiful zone in Mexico City.

La Casa Azul

Spanish food and drinks after a long day

I have been working one-on-one with our lab teacher to learn Stata. I am finally understanding this mysterious yet magical program! I also moved recently. While I love my home, it was simply too far away from public transportation and I needed to relocate. I now live 3 blocks away from a metro stop, 1 block away from where the free CIDE school bus, and surrounded by everything else I could possibly need. My roomies are 2 guys who just graduated from CIDE with a bachelor’s degree in econ. Very friendly and chill environment. I highly recommend a Mexican dark comedy we watched called El Infierno…el Cochiloco (one of the main characters) is my favorite. You’ll see why.

CIDE was recently selected amongst 22 competing institutions across Latin America to be the headquarters for CLEAR’s regional office. CLEAR (Centers for Learning on Evaluation and Results) is a global initiative dedicated to strengthening monitoring and evaluation (M&E) to improve development outcomes. While the majority of their work is based in Africa, creating a regional center in Latin America is an important step in developing programs and trainings in the region. I attended their first conference which consisted of a variety of panels from leaders in policy M&E across the region discussing their experiences and approaches to program evaluation. I found it really helpful to put what I’m learning at CIDE in context with actual government programs, like the Dominican Republic’s innovative approaches to community involvement in M&E and Guatemala’s integrative model for improving public health across the country. I find this marriage between qualitative context and quantitative assessment a crucial step in creating, maintaining, and evaluating social programs that will have the best impact on alleviating poverty.

***First excursion: Las Margaritas***

So, as I mentioned before, I was invited to help with a research project about the digital divide in which we evaluate communities’ interaction with the internet. Our first site visit was to a community in the desert of San Luís Potosí near a popular tourist area called Real de Catorce. Since the project is ongoing, I shouldn’t give too many details on our trip, but I can write about some of the people I met and experiences I had. 

We left at 5am on Thursday the 6^th and returned at 5pm on Sunday the 9^th. I should probably explain who “we” are, no? Well, there were 4 of us from CIDE (Angie- qualitative social scientist, Giannina- assistant to the lead professor & graphic designer by trade, Lourdes- Peruvian visiting researcher/librarian <>, and myself). There was also a car with some representatives from TOA (English translation: Environmental Operations Workshop), an organization that is dedicated to designing and constructing environmentally friendly buildings. TOA is our connection to the community, since they are in the process of building a community center in Las Margaritas. This community center will provide both a library and computer/internet access.

We arrived around 3pm on Thursday. It is hot. We are in the desert, which is gorgeous, but certainly drainingly arid. Entering the community, we (when I say “we” from now on I am referring to the CIDE group) know very little about the community. Essentially, we know there are around 70 some-odd people and that there is no cell phone service or internet. Our goal was to collect demographic information through interviews and observations. Giannina and I were to focus on collecting observational data and Angie and Lou were to conduct interviews.

Las Margaritas

One thing we noticed right away is that nobody was out and about. We later learned that most women stay inside during the day and that the men go out in the morning to pick up work in fields near-by, if they can. The women will also go out with their machetes and harvest crops as they come in, as well (impressed and glad to know women in this community can hold their own damn machete!). Income-generating work is few and far between here. We saw virtually no one from ages 15-30 and later found out that the majority either go to secondary school in neighboring towns or work in the bigger cities of San Luís or Monterrey.

At the school.
Angie- far left, Gianni- next to Angie in back,
Kareli (teacher)- 3rd from the right in  the back,
Lou-  2nd from the right in the back,
me- far right

Gianni and I dedicated one day to creating a map of the community, both for our own endeavors and for the community themselves. There is something important, I feel, about being able to show somebody a picture of where you live and I wanted to be able to give that to the community. We made feeble attempts at drawing a map, so I suggested we use rocks and sticks and other found objects to help create the map. You would think that making a map of a small community would be easy to generate, but let me tell you, if there is no rhyme or reason to placement of houses, it ain’t easy! In the end, we were proud of our creation, and Gianni, being a graphic design guru, will take the photographed image of our map and construct a more aesthetically pleasing map using a fancy software program.

Okay, I know it doesn't look like much, but this is our ad-hoc map.
It will resemble a real map soon, I promise.
This took us all day.

There were quite a few houses hosting about half a dozen volunteers working on the construction of the community center. I will do my best to control my prejudice, but I felt the majority were disingenuous and were merely there to consume peyote (something I can’t comment too much on, but peyote consumption is an important and illicit practice throughout the region). It was clear that the folks living there (between 22-28 years old) came from wealthy families in D.F. and had travelled the world on their parent’s dime. They all had so many stories of picking up one day and leaving, but never clear on how they managed to afford living a year in Brazil, visit half a dozen U.S. cities, or even live in Las Margaritas on no pay. Normally, I would have no problem with this lifestyle, but their attitude/opinion was that they were living a “less materialistic” lifestyle and that they were doing something good for the community. Sorry honey, but flying out to Orlando looking like a dirty hippie doesn’t count as “less materialistic” in my book. Granted, we were only there for 4 days, but based on our actual conversations with people from the community, they had no interaction whatsoever with the community. It was a big frustration of mine, but, alas, not our main purpose there.

I know this post is getting long, so I’ll be more concise. Overall, I felt we learned a lot about the community and had a wonderful time bonding with each other. I always love being around inspiring women, and my CIDE associates are some awesomely badass women. I am grateful to have had this opportunity and to have met some really wonderful women and children in Las Margaritas (aside from the Comisario [Deputy], no men spoke to me). I look forward to our next site visit. Luckily it will be in a semi-urban environment where we will have access to showers because, ooh lordy, did we smell bad after 4 days!  Hope you enjoy the pictures I attached, but also please check out my Picasa album here.

Peace ya’ll