Focus, focus, focus – teaching reflection

I was in my Teaching and Training class about a week ago and briefly panicked.   After over an hour and a half of teaching, one of the students asked a series of theoretical questions to the professor and she followed through by answering, paraphrasing and addressing his concerns on the spot.  I zoomed out.  I felt like I was back in mass, when I have to keep reminding myself to focus on the service, the readings, and everything “massy” because – unlike my brother who sometimes falls asleep in church – I just start thinking about anything unrelated to mass, such as the assignments I still have due, what I’m going to eat after mass, who do I need to email… you name it.  It is a big challenge for me unless the priest is truly engaging and the homily frames the biblical texts in a contemporary context that I can carry back into my every day life and apply.

Same thing has happened in conferences I’ve attended.  The tone of voice, the content, the accent, the way something is said – any of those can cause me to zoom out of a presentation.  It dawn on me in class how difficult that would be if I were standing in front of the class, teaching it.  Unlike the aforementioned professor, I would have been unable to follow up on any of the questions the student asked.  Oh, oh.  I foresee it.  I will be the old crazy professor who gives answers to students’s questions completely unrelated to what they asked just for the sake of saying something because I was in “the zone” as they spoke to me.

There is a prospect!  Future students, behold!  You are going to need therapy… or a miracle to get my attention! 

What the @#%^!

So I recently presented in a panel discussion at a reknown private university in South Florida introducing the issue of modern day slavery and what students could do to fight it.  The two presenters after me were a member of an important local non-governmental organization (ngo) that works in their rehabilitation and reintegration and the last one was a lawyer/representative from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Here’s what happened:  the member of the ngo and myself emphasize to the students (from a law school) that there is need to educate members of law enforcement, the judiciary, and medical personnel to recognize possible victims of slavery and human trafficking because one of the reasons why so many of them were falling through the cracks is that they are often mistaken with other types of abuses or taken in as criminals or illegal immigrants.  Say for instance, a teenager who is forced into sexual exploitation and prostitution is arrested in a police raid.  She is mistaken for a prostitute and convicted on it, ends up in the juvenile system or re-released into the streets to continued to be exploited by the trafficker/pimp.  Therefore, there is a missed opportunity to rescue her and help her with her trauma, as well as catching the trafficker.

Furthermore, as suprising as it is, it has been documented according to ngos that the three main professions who are serviced by individuals held under some sort of slavery in the state of Florida are in fact policemen, paramedics/firefighters and lawyers.  These individuals are the gatekeepers of the system that is supposed to rescue and protect the victims, and to prosecute the traffickers/slave handler.  – Mind you, we did not address this particular point because we were not expecting what came afterwards, and that was the complete undermining of my arguments along with those of the ngo worker by the representative from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.  If we would have know the things he would say before hand, I would have personally thrown this information at the students so that he would have been forced to address it.

Basically what this individual did was: deny, deny, deny.  Anyone listening to his presentation would have thought that there is nothing wrong with the lack of education or awareness on issues of human trafficking amongst members of the judiciary and law enforcement.  According to him, everyone in the state is aware and has been trained on human trafficking.  Instead of detailing to students the differences between the federal (the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000) and the state laws, he didn’t even mention them.  He did not describe the challenges faced by prosecutors in trying to bring justice to the survivors, which is something that any detective that works on this issue always brings up.  In other words, in terms of what he was supposed to talk about which is the “the law” he did nothing that was of relevance.  One of his priorities was to assert that there are no internship opportunities for students willing to work pro-bono on anti-slavery issues in his office.  It was very frustrating.

The thing is, at the beginning of my presentation I asked the students “How many of you know anything about modern day slavery?”  and all I had was blank stares; they did not know anything about it.  Although this individual embodied exactly the kind of challenges the lack of education, and yes indifference, that still exists amongst lawyers and other professions as it relates to human trafficking, students in their early 20s are not likely to challenge the contradictions between his statements and those presented by myself and the social worker from the ngo because as a lawyer speaking to an audience not versed on the subject, his statements are taken at face-value.

He didn’t even address the fact that there is an increase in international cooperation to extradite individuals that knowingly violate U.S. laws in other countries, nor the challenges brought about by technologies such as the internet that test jurisdictional notions because is a global medium thus it is difficult to determine whether someone involved in child pornography online is committing an international or domestic crime.  I had to, during the answers and questions portion of the presentation at the end, to bring up two separate cases relating to these issues: one in Thailand (where extradition occurred) and the other one in Spain over the past year, where a pornography ring was dismantled in part thanks to international cooperation and where a lot of the people arrested turned out to be well-off members of the community such as bankers.  You know what this guy focused his attention on at some point?  In correcting me (which is an absolute lack of professional courtesy) because with my thick accent I was using the word “persecuting” instead of “prosecuting.”  I don’t mind the correcting but it was a superficial issue compared to what he should have been addressing.

At the end of the presentation, I approached the main organizer and I told him exactly how I felt.  I recommended next time, he brings in detectives rather than lawyers because they are stuck between the ngos, the victims, and the intricasies of laws that make it challenging for them to arrest known traffickers on lack of evidence, process, or legal stipulation.

I vented on this poor guy who was extremely sweet, continued to vent and discussing the presentation with the ngo member; when my mom asked me about it at home, it all came out again; and then at night when we all met for drinks, I briefly reinstated my feelings again; and now here I am, writing about it.  Hopefully, now it will finally be out of my system.  

So, what the @#%^!

TVPRA passed

The U.S. is one of the leading nations in the world fighting modern day slavery not only because of its legislation but also its committment and willingness to enforce it nationally (internationally it is more shaped through the blindfold of politics and interests but its effort is commendable in the face of that done by other nations).

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act (2000) passing preceded the U.N.’s Palermo Protocol (Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons) by a couple of months.  Among other things, the TVPA stipulates that the Department of State has to publish the Trafficking in Persons report each year assessing progress in the fight of modern day slavery worldwide; secures funding for non-governmental organizations involved in the rescue; rehabilitation and reintegration of survivors; acknowledges the need to train government officials and service providers about what modern day slavery is, how to identify possible victims and what to do about it; and establishes federal statues through which traffickers and slave handlers can be persecuted without revictimizing the survivors through strenous testimonies.

This wonderful legislation has now been reauthorized three times since its passing in 2000.  Reauthorization (2003, 2005) reasserts the commitment of the American government to ending slavery, and it enables amendments that enhance law enforcement’s, legislation’s, and social groups ‘s ability, resources, and capacity to fight it as more is learned through the prosecution and rescue of how traffickers and slave handler rings work.  The excellent news is that the efforts of the anti-slavery movement created enough awareness and momentum that the Act was Reauthorized this past December ( 2008 ) by Congress. 

Hurray!  Now the fight continues as more awareness and activism is needed.  In Florida, a member of a local NGO revealed to me that the state may be number one in human trafficking nation wide and that the main consumers of the slave labour were policemen, firefighters/paramedics, and lawyers.  Spooky given the fact that these people are the gatekeepers of the system that is set in place to liberate slaves in the U.S.  Therefore, civil society cannot lift its guard; too much work remains to be done.

El aliñao

“El aliñao” is a Southeastern Cuban tradition, which I doubt not exists in other regions.  In Havana is not usually the norm.  It is a liquor-like, sweet, alcoholic beverage made at home (not sold in stores).  It is a tradition because it is only made when women learn that they are pregnant or at any point throughout the pregnancy before the baby is born.  You basically take rum/vodka or something like it.  Pour it in a large container depending on the size of the family and relatives that will drink from it, and then add fruits (grapes, prunes, raisings, pineapple, papaya… you name it).  If the fruits need processing (e.g. the papaya or prunes) so that they are not damaged or go bad, you boil/heat them in a mixture of water and sugar until the sirup that emerges and the heat extract the flavour from the fruit and softens it.  In any case the sugar sirup is made with or without the fruits to add volume, texture and flavour to the beverage.  Then, when it is colder, you pour it into the container and mix everything up.  Mixing or condimenting is what “aliñar” means in Spanish.  When the beverage is finished you put it away until the baby is born.

Once the baby is born, you take out “el aliñao” and as visitors come to the house to meet the newborn, along with the family, you offer them aliñao to celebrate the occassion.  After the first week or so, when the people have already met the baby, then you once again seal the container with the beverage and put it away until his/her 15th birthday.  You read right; “el aliñao” is aged for fifteen years.  At that point, then you take it out again and drink the reminder of it with the family to celebrate the fifteen years of life of the not-so-baby any more.  It is good and very, very strong.

15 was probably the picked number for reopening el aliñao because it has traditionally been (especially in the colonial times) the coming-out-into-society age for marrying age girls.  The tradition is continued in other forms (though not necessarily associated with prospective marriage) nowadays such as the “quinceañera” parties among Hispanic families.

Why bring all of this up?  My niece was just born this week; she is a Thanksgiving present for the whole family.  For the first time, I’ve witnessed my mother preparing an aliñao (for the other births I’ve usually been overseas), though I’ve tasted many including mine (and it was out of this world!).  As we prepare for her coming home, the aliñao is finally ready to go.  If this blog is still active in fifteen years, perhaps I can tell you whether or not it aged well.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The fish died

Perhaps is a sign of the recession we are experiencing.  For many people having fish or a pond in the front of the house is a sign of prosperity.  Our house having one, was one of the reasons why we bought this house in the first place.  But the former owner made it himself and as a result of a non-professional (and our lack of experience) doing the pond we ran into too many problems for a whole year. 

For instance, after getting the ugliest catfish out of it owned by the former owner, we (read “me”) bought about two hundred dollars in fish and water plants to make it pretty; almost all of them died.  Allegdely, it was the frogs’ fault.  Their venom was killing them.  We bought pool salt to keep the frogs away, tested the water for any infections, and gave the fish ‘medicine’ along with the food.  Then, the water pump stopped working, flooding the pond with chlorined water; about eight fish survived out of twenty.  Then, the water to the house was cut off because the water pipe of the pond was connected to the main pipe to the house.  We spent a whole day without water while my brother managed to cut off the water to the pond and reinstate it to the house, meaning we had to fill the pond about two or three times a day manually along with the liquid to eliminate the chlorine; it was too expensive.  We had to take apart the pond and the plumber who did it told us it was on time because everything underneath it was rotten and in terrible decay. I managed to get the fish into a bucket and give it to my cousin’s wife who would buy an aquarium where they could live at their house.  Because they did not do it right away, in the limited space of the bucket several of the five rather large fish (around 1 foot long) died; the reminder were liberated into a nearby pond.  I felt so sorry for the surviving ones at my house that as they were almost drying in the sun, I took them out, put them in a bowl, bought an aquarium (for which my mother almost kicked me out), and managed to save them.

After a month the noise of the filter running was too much for me to handle as I watched T.V.  My uncle decided to accept the whole thing for his kid.  As we were putting the aquarium into the trunk of my mom’s car, the glass cracked.  A slushing of water began to overflow and as my mother reacted by throwing the whole thing out, I just stood there.  The angel fish I had tried so hard to keep alive laid flapping and jumping in front of me as my mother panicked and got to work on drying her car.  Then I moved the reminder of the aquarium and the other black stripped angel fish (like the one in Nemo, played by William Defoe, in the office of the dentist) also began jumping.  I couldn’t do anything for these fish.  The water we had had chlorine; there was nothing I could put them in for them to survive.  They were still alive when we threw the rocks, broken glass, filter (etc) into the garbage can.

For the past year, so much work went into saving these darn fish, something so trivial in the face of human suffering.  But these ridiculous lives I could try to save, they were within my reach and control.  Saving humans is so much more complex and difficult; they often have free will you cannot direct or dictate or factors in their interactions that cannot be shaped in any way, otherwise Darfur or the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo would not be concerns for the international community hindering peace in Africa and displacing hundreds of people, while killing, raping and pillage continue to ensue.

It doesn’t pain me that the fish died but there is a foolish sense of guilt that because I obsessed over giving them to my uncle, they died.  I couldn’t save them in spite of so much work.

Reflection: Ideological biases as a future teacher

This post is long overdue, and it is at risk of alienating the one reader that has followed this post (hope you don’t take it personally Richard) but it must be done. 

I have been writing so much for school lately that I’ve procrastinated working on the blog.

Recently, I had to do a presentation for my Teaching and Training class.  I realized that the overt opposition held by me as a student towards certain ideologies from a practical (and experiential) perspective would hinder the perception and the level of comfort potential students I might teach in the future will have.

Anyone in my program likely knows by now that I am not communist; an oddity, I’ve learned, in graduate study programs and amongst some NGO workers and student activists in issues relating to social justice.  Reasons include: I was born and raised in a communist system; though I see the practicality of using Marxist theories to analyze socio-economic and political factors in a society, there is no pragmatism in attempting to aim at such ideals in the real world because they underestimate the individual needs of the person for the sake of the community; dangers at the level of analysis include the ease with which a guilty party is looked at (e.g. the U.S.; capitalism; those in power; the elites; colonial powers…) while attributing a status of victims to others (e.g. the poor; women; the working class), and thus compromising a study by refusing to look at other factors that may be at the root of a problem for the sake of legitimizing the Marxist model.

In addition, I’m A CUBAN EXILE!!!!  It continues to puzzle me why despite the existence of two million of us in exile, and hundreds in jail in the island for expressing their opposition to the government (‘the dissidence’) people outside of Cuba continue to fantasize about all the good of that system.  It undermines, seriously, the experiences of the Cuban population in order to feed denial by people outside of the island dissatisfied with the societies and systems they live in while legitimizing the existence of that other system that does no good to its own people.  If you want a fairer and better society, build a new one; Cuba’s Revolution is neither of those two things despite all myths to the contrary.

Anyhow, with that out of my chest, presenting in that class made me realize that if I ever become half the professor I want to be based on those that most positively affected my life, I must strive to be open when standing in front of a class.  I noticed some of my classmates held back when the questions and answers portion of the presentation began.  One of the issues I presented on was the Res-Life communitarian approach taken at the University of Delaware.  Those I knew are communists or resent capitalism in one way or another barely participated; others did it at a very shy level.

Whenever I encounter a professor in class that is not open or that makes ridiculous statements that have no place in an academic environment (notoriously one in our program who in repeated occasions has told students and others in class and in presentations that their points of view are unacceptable, and that is it), I shy back in class or become very combative and argumentative to the point of jeopardizing my grade L  It is not a pleasant feeling and would hate to think that as a professor I would put my students in that same spot. 

Personal goal that came about as a result of the aforementioned presentation, I must strive to be open without compromising my own believes.  Some of the best professors I’ve had have stated or rather shared their perspectives, have patiently analyzed diverse perspectives in class, and have left it up to students to determine and decide which analytical frames to use as long as they are thorough.  That is where I want to be at as a professor.  Analytical ability will be a big thing for me when grading students in the future and even now as sometimes I read students’ entries as a Teaching Assistant. 

Note to self:  must try to be as objective as I possibly can as a professor or at least not as outspoken about my opposition to certain ideologies or leaders.

From ‘cryptic’ to ‘griot’

 

There are moments of my life in which only by seeing, tasting, or listening to something they are relived for a couple of seconds.  For instance, a specific song (e.g. ‘More than words’ sitting at a friend’s front porch with the rest of our friends hanging out on a domino night, in the early 1990s, back in Cuba); color (I used pink highlighter for everything during my undergraduate years); odor (the smell of seasoned red beans as they cook on the stove, ‘Cuban style,’ where cilantro is a main ingredient; it makes me think of my maternal grandmother’s cooking and parent free summer vacations in Oriente). 

 

But words are something you can identify consistently throughout all of your lifetime, especially in my case since most the things I’ve done in school have related to the reading or production of words in one or more formats. Words are like wonderful bookmarkers you can use as memory tabs:

 

 - ‘No’ is the first word I ever said (‘papi’ – aka ‘daddy’ – was the second)

 

 - My favorite books in elementary school were ‘The most beautiful horse’ (Russian), ‘Bulgaria, el país de las rosas’ by Excilia Saldaña, and a series of fiction books relating to pharaohs, Nubia and Egyptology which I’m almost certain are by the former author but cannot find it in her list of published books.

 

 - The first words my 9^th grade human biology teacher ever said in our first class were:  ‘The human body is divided into three parts: head, extremities and trunk.’  The hairs on the back of my neck stood as I heard her words and an adrenaline rush and excitement came over me.  I used to love human biology and have often wondered if I had stayed in Cuba whether I would have become a physician and followed in my dad’s and my aunt’s steps.

 

The word I most commonly used throughout high school was ‘cryptic.’  I was in 9^th grade when I learnt it, fresh off the island and in ESOL.  I tried to use words I was just learning on an everyday basis so that I would not forget them. But I loved ‘cryptic.’  I loved how the combination of the ‘c,’ the ‘r,’ the ‘ee’ and the ‘p’ felt when you pronounced it, especially if you played around with it and extended by a couple of seconds the pronunciation of the first syllable and its ‘r’ -  ‘crrrrrrrr –yptic.’  It is a word that its sound felt like it conveyed its meaning (something mysterious, which for me was also something exciting).  Throughout high school saying the word was like using an equivalent for ‘cool’ (which I use now along with ‘awesome’ a lot).  If you heard me say something was ‘cryptic’ at the time it meant I found it ‘interesting.’

 

The day before yesterday I was doing some research reading about The Gambia for one of the professors I work with and came across the following word: griot. That is the reason why all the previous memories came back.  I like how it feels to say it (or at least how I say it): grrrrreeeeot.  Griots are ‘custodians of our [i.e. Gambians’] oral tradition’.  It reminded me of troubadours, or people throughout history whose job or talent was to keep collective memory alive, before books were made available for mass consumption with the invention of the printing press. 

 

In Latin America and Spain troubadours sort of continue to exist but in more commercial forms at times.  For me there is a distinction between a troubadour and a singer/songwriter.  The former often offers some sort of criticism or insight (accompanied by his guitar) of the existing institutions or history; hard to explain but there is a specific sound that resonates with one’s essence as a human being and your experience as a member of your society.  A singer/songwriter may have started as the former but as the songs become more superficial and main stream s/he looses the edge that makes them reflective of society, and stops them from capturing a popular feeling or historical situation.  For instance, Ricardo Arjona used to be a troubadour (see his CD ‘Si el Norte fuera el Sur’ as an example) but unexplainably to me he now has commercial success but everything I’ve heard from his in the last few years is pretty much c-r-a-p; it all sounds the same and nothing is new or innovative; there is no edge to it.  Mercedes Sosa, on the other hand, – she is the ultimate troubadour, though I resent her blaming (in an interview with Jaime Bayly) the Cuban exile for part of the poverty and tribulations of our fellow islanders (on this one she could not be more wrong; she has been blinded by her sympathy to the Cuban regime, especially during its first 20ish years).

 

Griots, however, continue to exist in The Gambia because – among other reasons – literacy is not as widespread as in other countries.  There is something amazing and deserving of respect for a member of a community with such a talent/job that speaks and awakens the imagination.  It makes me think of when I read Robin Hood in Junior High or of writers such as Hans Christian Anderson or the Brothers Grimm because the way of writing and our reading of them felt like riding on an ocean wave, with your stomach full of butterflies and adrenaline gushing all over, looking forward to and curious about what happens next in the story.  ‘Griots’ are living history. 

 

Is it to anyone’s surprise that “The Count of Montecristo” is still one of my favorite books?  Love Alexander Dumas.

I’m writing from a cave

I wish I was writing from a cave!  I imagine that would be from some where in South America or Central America in a nature/trekking tour.  How cool would that be?!  Unfortunately, my technologically perfected cave is my home office where I often enjoy been.  The sky blue walls, with the mahogany furniture, and pictures of special things I’ve done, places I’ve been or people I’ve enjoyed them with – e.g. me parasailing with my mom in Key West, camel riding with my dad in Tenerife, skydiving, swimming with dolphins, at the Grand Canyon with my mom, at the Alhambra (Granada) with my dad or at the Renaissance Fair with my best friend in our senior year in high school (gulp!  yes, in high school; it has been that long).  But it is hurricane season and all of those sweet details are overshadowed by darkness.

 

 

My house has hurricane shutters on and it is affecting negatively both my mother’s and my own mood.  “The office” – as the room where all my books, desk and crafts items share a space and lie piled up around every where, including unfilled pictures and empty photo albums almost a year old- has a small window to the front of the house and the flowered path that leads to our main door entrance.  Given the myriad of hurricanes waltzing through across the Atlantic lately, my brother helped us put them on but has not taken them off.  The latter is not likely to happen for a while until things in the Atlantic calm down a bit. 

 

The resulting effect is that my office looks and feels like a cave – think “The English Patient” ‘s scenes towards the end of the film where Ralph Fiennes’ Hungarian prince keeps his lover safe in a desert cave while he goes off to get help, and how she writes in darkness on the book/diary until the light goes off (symbolically also meaning her life).  In my office, the window blinds are up but the only thing showing is the gray metallic look of the shutter that allows glimpses of light to signal the ‘outside world’ through the perfect straight line that separates its bottom half from the wall and the window space.  Three days ago the ceiling light broke, so the space is even darker because now I turn on three lamps but the environment reflects even more a lighted candle in the middle of a light out in a Third World apartment – (Note to self:  Must find energy to change light bulb otherwise I’ll continue to have India flashbacks) – but it won’t do much good; there is no substitute for natural light.

 

Shutters are also placed throughout the main windows and patio doors of the house.  So the general mood is one that drags your energy down and depression sneaks in  (along with the music from the Cymbalta commercial) and weighs on your shoulders like a ton of metal between your shoulder blades, trying to sink you down.  Fortunately, I have no real reason to be depressed; that keeps me afloat or at least it is a reminder to stay buoyant.

‘poor you. like most women you are not good with numbers’

That is what a Dominican-male-salesperson said to me while I was on the process of buying my new car.    I had forgotten my car insurance card (the most recent one) and had to figure out where I had placed it.  My mother had to jump in and warn him not to go down the ‘gender stereotype’ path.  But that is not the only line he threw at me.  Somewhere in the driving test of the car there was the whole thing of you drive safe like most girls, which is probably why upon his encouragement at one point I jammed the breaks really hard and enthusicastically; the salesperson ended up almost on the windshield of the passenger’s seat in the front, and my mom’s head next and over mine from the back as if she was whispering in my ear.

Amazing that when it rains it pours, and in Miami that is literal.  What I previously related was on Monday but the day before I had another brief machista encounter with one of my male cousins.  He is three years older (33), and Cuban from the Center-Southeastern portion of the island.  He had helped me take off a mirror from one of our walls and return it. It was too heavy for me to do it on my own and it was hanging over the piano (there was no way that I would take the risk of unhanging it on my own).  On our way back we went by Pollo Tropical (the equivalent of Cuban fast food, but without the typical burgers) because, among other things, I’m addicted to it and was hungry.  Love the grilled chicken!  Anyhow, as we are about to pay I take out money to pay for my meal and a pork wrap he had ordered - which given the fact that he had just helped me out with the mirror I was going to pay as a sign of gratitude – and he refuses to let me do it.  I asked why and he says that it was nonesense for me to pay, that we were family and that shouldn’t matter… and then it slipped… plus – he alledged – I’m a woman, he couldn’t let me pay!  Yes, you read it right.  My own cousin did not want me to pay for a $10.00 meal because that would insult his male ego.

Although, I am back in the United States and no longer face the overt type of gender discrmination I saw in India, double standards and machismo continues to exist here.  Arguments could be made that ‘oh, well’ the guys I dealt with were not Anglo-Saxon, they were Hispanics so they are expected to be machista.  Becky back in India would say that at least I could buy the car, compared to girls over there that need male sponsorship to do anything.

Either one of those statements does not represent a valid excuse for the existing stereotypes about females.  My cousin and that salesperson live in the U.S.not back in Cuba or the Dominican Republic. Besides who says that Anglo-Saxons and other groups don’t have stereotypes about women?!  The one about women being save or slow drivers is as widespread in this society as it is the one about old people driving slow. 

I want to be seen as an individual, regardless of my gender.  Isn’t that at the core of the spirit of human rights documents?  That I forgot my insurance car is only an indicator that I’m clueless or careless sometimes, though in my case it is true that I’m not good with numbers; but that hasn’t always been the case.  I got lazy about algebra and chemistry and began to enjoy geometry and physics more somewhere in the middle of my high school years.  I don’t drive fast or dangerously (most of the time) because I’m not interested in it.  Besides, there is a social and human responsibility with driving in the streets like a maniac knowing that your stupidity can harm other people who get into accidents because of your wrongdoings besides yourself.  And there are plenty of women that are good at math or science or are good with numbers out of sheer need.  For instance, my mother has been handling our finances for the past nine years, and she has done a better job that my father ever did. 

As a woman I have found it that when going to dealers and other businesses you have to impose what you want when dealing with a man, especially when you might be a bit ignorant about certain issues (that’s why I keep my brother as back-up; as soon as they see him their tones lower).  When purchasing the car I almost got into an argument with the salesperson.  He wanted me to try another car, and I wanted to try a different one.  Until he explained the reason behind his persistence I didn’t let it go.  I wasn’t going to take his word for granted.  He would have had to explain if my brother was the one making the purchase. 

Another dealership incident: About four years ago, I went to Ford with my brother and the manager absolutely dismissed me.  Though I was the one buying the car (which I didn’t) he only spoke to my brother.  I was the source of information but my brother was the one he addressed.  He even tried to undermine me by tricking me into giving him my social (which I didn’t) and finding a way of running my credit!  I pulled my brother (he loves American cars!) away and just left.

Being in a conversation with two other guys is rather difficult.  I don’t know if it happens amongst Anglo-Saxons; Miami is too diverse culturally and ‘gringos’ are the minority here.  Unfortunately, this has happened to me also overseas in the Canary Islands.  The two guys will only talk to one another, almost excluding you from the conversation.

As to my cousin, all of the previously mentioned situations also apply to him when among other guys.  At his house, BB&Qs mean guys playing dominoes in the patio area and drinking while the women are inside cooking or gossiping.

Besides equal pay for men and women, there is a lot that still remains to be done on this part of the world in terms of gender equality.

The National Student Coalition Against Slavery

 

On September 4-7, 2008 around twenty students from ten different states and organizations across the nation converged in Washington D.C. for an anti-trafficking leadership retreat.  The meeting was spearheaded by Americans for Informed Democracy, FAIR Fund and Polaris Project.  The result was the creation of the National Student Coalition Against Slavery, a group aimed at synchronizing the strategies of the student movement throughout the country that will enhance its capacity to have a legislative and social impact on anti-slavery issues, providing a web of support for activism in different regions, and serving as a well of information and the sharing of resources. 

 

Among other things, the students were trained on how to handle the media and approaching someone about human trafficking in less than a minute (the “elevator pitch”) as presented by Paula-Raye O’Sullivan from Campus Progress.  Michele Clark, Professor for the Elliot School of International Affairs at George Washington University spoke about the challenges of teaching about and fighting human trafficking.  Karen Stauss (Managing Attorney and Policy Council) and Elizabeth Rhodes (National Grassroots Coordinator) from the Polaris Project explained how to go about lobbying for the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), and the differences between the House and Senate bills, among other things.  Amelia Korangy, Development Officer for FAIR Fund, addressed activism, and advised and guided discussions in the break-out groups.  Aashika Damodar, Zimmerman Fellow at Free the Slaves, related to students her experiences organizing students in California and her work at Free the Slaves; she also actively participated in break-out groups.

 

After the lobbying training students along with AID staff members including Arya Zarrinkelk, Sarah Frazier, Kate Willard, and FAIR Fund representative Amelia Korangy visited Capitol Hill.  They split into groups of two to three students guided by a staff member and met with representatives of several senators from their respective states in order to advocate for the TVPRA.

 

The group “Yellow Rage” was unable to attend the retreat and perform live for students due to bad weather conditions.  However, they were present via video conferencing.  Their recorded performances about human trafficking and other poems were played and explained by the group members for the attendees, illustrating one of many creative mediums by which different oopulations can be educated about modern day slavery.

 

Fun/Painful/Strange Facts outside of the Retreat

Three of the students and one staff member went out dancing on the second day.  The latter was wearing a soccer-like T-shirt with ‘Iran’ written on it and with the flag colors of that nation.  It was expected that some one would make an anti-Iranian remark but in fact it financially benefited us.  The promoter of the club was Iranian and upon seeing the staff member and his T-shirt allowed him to go in for free and the rest of us for half prize as VIPs.  How about that?  The club was no big deal but we had fun.

 

The next day, a group of us dined at Fuddrucker (Yummy).  We ended up paying for the meal half price once the customer service attendant learnt what we were doing in DC (i.e. advocating for anti-trafficking legislation).  Once again, what are the odds?

 

High hills for women make your legs look beautiful but they are a form of cruel and unusual punishmet.  After lobbying and walking between buildings for over two hours one of us ended up taking off her shoes and walking back to the Hotel from Capitol Hill barefooted; I didn’t have the guts to do it, so I ended up with a very bad bleeding blister on my right foot – and it was worth it.