Archive for the ‘ Stories ’ Category
Haitians Moving to the Countryside
Almost eight months after the earthquake that leveled of most of Port-a-Prince, hundreds of thousands of Haitians are still homeless.
They’re living in tent cities or other makeshift housing in the slums of the city.
Most of them are under 30 years old. They can’t get jobs or education or better places to live. So economists are saying they should start looking for a future outside the city. This radio feature aired on American Public Media’s Marketplace.
Punishing Crimes Against Women in Bolivia
Violent crimes against young women have risen dramatically in Bolivia.
Between 2008 and 2009, cases of violence by boyfriends, husbands, and fathers, went up by 10% in the capital, La Paz, alone.
But almost none of these cases have — or are likely — to face justice. A new law that is expected to pass by the end of this year, is proposing a sentence of up to 30 years’ prison for the murder of women.
Listen to the feature as it aired this week on NPR’s Latino USA, alongside an interview about a Guatemalan woman who is requesting U.S. asylum for fear of becoming a victim of violence in her own country.
Who Won’t Be Running in Haiti’s Elections
After much speculation and criticism, Haiti’s electoral commission decided today that hip hop star and Yelé Haiti founder, Wyclef Jean, won’t be able to run for president.
Out of the initial thirty-four candidates on the list, 19 of them will be allowed to run in what is expected to become one of the most challenging — and followed — presidential elections in Haiti’s modern history.
Among others, the Fanmi Lavalas party won’t be given permission to participate in the elections — though it continues to be the country’s most popular political movement, and ideological home of ousted president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Wondering About Wyclef
All around us is evidence of the January katastrof–destroyed homes, donated tents pitched amongst the ruins, people getting by on crutches.
But the desperation in the eyes of people says it all: the physical state of Carrefour Feuilles and the rest of Port-au-Prince isn’t their biggest concern.
Young people throughout Haiti have larger, broader battles they want the world to hear about. And now hip hop star Wyclef Jean is trying to capitalize on this sentiment, saying he’s got what it takes to “fix” Haiti. Our first piece from this summer’s Haiti reporting trip is out on ColorLines Magazine.
The State of Statelessness Around the World
The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting has started funding a great new project on statelessness around the world, focusing on what measures are necessary to give citizenship rights to over 12 million people who are currently in a legal limbo.
“Locked Out” starts out with a piece by journalist Stephanie Hanes for The Christian Science Monitor, following the case of Sonia Camilise, a young Dominican girl of Haitian descent who is denied entry to college upon finding out that being born on the right side of Hispaniola does not, however, make her a citizen. There are tens of thousands of Haitian-Dominicans who are in a similar situation, and their predicament is shared by many other persecuted minorities in Central Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
Statelessness takes many shapes and forms, leaving people in a precarious predicament that’s worse even than being without papers or awaiting asylum. But denying a person his or her home country is increasingly driven by economic agendas and by patriotism. As Hanes says in her piece:
“No country wants to give up the power to decide who should be a citizen, those working with statelessness acknowledge; in many ways, the ability to exclude people, to draw lines between “us” and “them,” is at the heart of the concept of the nation-state.”
“Never Again” Turned on its Head
Sandy Tolan, author of “The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East” was first known for his beautiful and poetic public radio documentary by the same name, which featured the same characters’ lives and feelings as the book does.
On the eve of the Israeli attack of the flotilla headed to Gaza late last month, Tolan has written an insightful essay for Salon.
This most recent showdown — and many other attacks and wars that came before it — aren’t in Israel’s long-term interests. So why does Israel persist in such behavior?, Tolan asks.
“One answer: The country is stuck in the political psychology of “never again.” The Jewish state appears so trapped by the wounds of its own terrible history that it keeps repeating its past mistakes of excessive force, even though it knows these will only isolate it and therefore weaken it further. In this way, the politics of trauma drive the nation ever further from the safe harbor that ordinary Israelis have so long craved and never enjoyed.”
Read the rest of Tolan’s Salon essay here, and listen to “The Lemon Tree” in its entirety by following this link.
The Naso and Their Coveted Territory
The Naso indigenous community of Panama is lucky to be able to call Bocas del Toro home. Theirs is an idyllic tropical paradise which begins in mountainous forests near the border with Costa Rica and ends up in the Caribbean Sea; a fertile land where they get to grow plantain, corn, coffee, pineapple, and grapefruit, and make some extra money by serving the growing numbers of eco-tourists who sail into Bocas del Toro.
By the same token, however, they are cursed to live in such a beautiful and coveted place. In this regard, the Naso aren’t all that different from many other indigenous groups in Latin America who inhabit forests rich in natural resources: They have something that many others want.
Earlier this month, a small delegation of Naso leaders traveled to Washington to submit a petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) demanding that the Panamanian government and special business interests in the country allow them to stay in their territories and respect their cultural, territorial and human rights. Getting American law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP to represent the 3,500 Naso in the case was a challenge in and of itself.
New Story: On the Islands of the Kuna
Our latest story has hit the shelves: Americas Quarterly has published our feature and photos about the effects of climate change on an autonomous indigenous community alongside the Caribbean; Panama’s Kuna Yala.
“Early one morning last October, my husband and I boarded a small 20-seater plane in Panama City and headed to Usdup, a village in the Kuna Yala archipelago. The fog was receding through mountain valleys as the sun peeked over the horizon. Only 45 minutes northeast of the capital, this island was a world away. To our north was a seemingly never-ending row of thatched roof huts, and beyond, the Caribbean Sea; to our south, the mainland, densely forested, covered by mangroves, banana trees and coconut palms. But this tropical paradise is also being overtaken by the effects of climate change.”
Read the piece and view the photos here. Or better yet, find it at your local newsstand or bookstore.
Haitians Rescued and Detained by the U.S.
Yesterday, a donor conference at the U.N. headquarters in New York raised $15 billion for Haiti, which is expected to be disbursed over the next few years and managed by the World Bank. Much has been said since the January earthquake about the need to step up donations to Haiti, while at the same time, reforming the foreign aid system there. But making the Haitian state less dependent on U.S. and U.N. aid will be no easy feat.
While the world powers met in New York, more than 30 Haitian survivors who came to the U.S. since the earthquake (many of them rescued by Americans in order to be given medical treatment) were stuck in detention centers; their fates caught up in this country’s dysfunctional immigration pipeline.
An investigative piece by The New York Times tells their stories, including that of Eventz Jean-Baptiste, an orphaned 18 year-old who was desperately trying to get food and shelter for his younger siblings after the earthquake hit. “I thought if I stayed in Haiti any longer I would not survive, and my family would not survive, so I decided to try to board a plane,” he told The New York Times. No one asked him for papers until he reached Orlando, he said.
A Kathak and Tap Dance Collaboration
Six years ago, a classical Indian dance guru based in San Francisco met a talented tap dancer from New York.
Seemingly from opposite worlds of dance, they realized that their collaboration could take them in an interesting new direction. Soon after, a touring sensation was born.
The show is called India Jazz Suites, and this Saturday, Pandit Chitresh Das and Jason Samuels Smith will meet on stage again, for the fifth year anniversary of their project.
This radio story aired on KALW’s CrossCurrents daily news show.
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