Writing Portfolio Emily Goulding: August 2009

1. Writing Portfolio
for
Emily Goulding
Communications Solutions for the
Social Justice Movement
Contact:
(626) 825-5238
emily.goulding@gmail.com
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2. Table of Contents
I. Organizational Communications
1. Acceso Hispano 30th Anniversary Annual Report (June 2009)
2. Press Release, “Expanding Informal Science for Latinos” conference (March 2009)
II. Reporting
1. Select coverage of the ABC Reconciliation Forum held at the Inter-American
Development Bank (March 2009)
2. Coverage of salsa legend Eddie Santiago event (March 2009)
III. Feature Writing
1. The Kingdom of Heaven is Bulletless (Spring 2008)
IV. Cultural Criticism and Media Criticism
1. Reggaeton on Broadway: No Pare, Sigue, Sigue! (July 2008)
2. Will the Real Joe the Plumber Please Stand Up? (October 2008)
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3. I. Organizational Communications
1. Acceso Hispano 30th Anniversary Annual Report (June 2009)
This comprehensive Annual Report details the programmatic achievements of Acceso Hispano over
the last 30 years. I wrote it, and with the help of a graphic designer, published it.
Please access the report by clicking here: http://selfreliancefoundation.org/wp-
content/uploads/2009/05/30th%20Anniversary%20Annual%20Report.pdf
2. Press Release, “Expanding Informal Science for Latinos” conference (March 2009)
National Science Conference Heads to Albuquerque, NM
For Immediate Release March 17, 2009
WASHINGTON, D.C. – From March 26 to 29, 2009, the Self Reliance Foundation will host the
first-ever national conference to address Latinos in science education. Titled Expanding Informal
Science for Latinos, the conference will take place at the Hotel Albuquerque at Old Town.
According to the National Science Board’s Science and Engineering Indicators report, less than 2%
of the scientific “stem workforce” is Hispanic. However, a full twenty percent of the country’s
youth population will be Hispanic by 2020. The Expanding Informal Science for Latinos conference
will address this issue by designing solutions to increase Latino enrollment in STEM (science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics) careers.
“This problem needs to be addressed now more than ever,” says Roberto Salazar, President of the
Self Reliance Foundation. “Many of our domestic growth sectors - such as the emerging green
economy, or information technology – require scientific preparation. If we don’t do something now,
millions of Hispanic children will be unable to meaningfully participate in our country’s economic
future.”
This is nowhere more apparent than in the state of New Mexico, which proportionally has the
largest population of Latinos per capita in the U.S.
The Self Reliance Foundation aims to establish the Expanding Informal Science for Latinos
conference as one of the premier conferences in the field. The conference will bring over 100
representatives from informal science institutions, science research organizations, Hispanic
organizations, and the media to jointly develop new strategies to enrich the informal science
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4. learning environment for Latinos.
“We know from research that informal science education – science outside the classroom – provides
powerful formative experiences that have inspired many to become scientists,” says Self Reliance
Foundation Science Advisor Bob Russell, Ph.D. “Our task at this meeting is to harness science
resources more effectively, and work together to create new opportunities for Latinos to get
involved in science.”
Speakers include Fred Mondragón, New Mexico’s Cabinet Secretary of Economic Development;
Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chávez; Marisol Gamboa, Senior Software Engineer for Harris IT
Consulting, Inc; Dr. Inés Cifuentes, a volcanologist and science educator, and other Latino leaders.
Organizations attending include the New Mexico Museum of Natural History, the National
Children's Museum, the Institute for Learning Innovation, the Space Science Institute, the
Exploratory Science Museum - UNICAMP, the Boys and Girls Club, the Society for the
Advancement of Native Americans and Chicanos in Science, the ASPIRA, and the Society of
Hispanic Professional Engineers, and others.
The Expanding Informal Science for Latinos conference builds upon the Self Reliance Foundation’s
long track record in the field of Latino educational outreach. Founded in New Mexico in 1979, the
mission of the Self Reliance Foundation (SRF) is to link marginalized communities to educational
and informational resources to improve their quality of life. In January 2009, SRF celebrated its
30th anniversary of informing, connecting and empowering marginalized communities nationwide.
The Expanding Informal Science for Latinos conference is made possible by a grant from the
National Science Foundation. For more information about the conference, please visit
www.srfdc.org, or call (202) 496-6044.
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II. Reporting
1. Coverage of the ABC Reconciliation Forum held at the Inter-American
Development Bank (March 2009)
Blog Posts for 2009 Reconciliation Forum
Clips taken from: http://reconciliationforum.tumblr.com/
___________________________________________________
BUSINESS AND PEACE
EMILY GOULDING
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5. Steve Killelea of Integrated Research Ltd started off the “Leveraging Profits Through
Business, Peace, and Reconciliation” panel with the following statement: “We really don’t know
that much about the relationship between business and peace.” In the day-to-day operations of how
to run a business vs. how to run a government, more is known about fairness in government than it
is about fairness in business. The panel - which consisted of Farooq Kathwari, CEO of Ethan Allen
Interiors Inc., Frederick Barton, Senior Advisor Adviser in the CSIS International Security
Program, and Georg Kell, head of the United Nations Global Compact - drove home one concept:
war is a business.
The transfer of arms, resources, people, and outcomes drive dollars as much as peacetime
consumption does. Likewise, consumption-based businesses are active during conflict as they are
during peacetime. “A good test is to look at the beer factories…if the beer-factory is not working,
you are in one serious conflict.” There is no easy solution – they mentioned that for developing
countries with limited resources, the fiscal turnicut that is divestment can make the life of low-
income citizens even harder.
However, the panel emphasized that conflict has a high transaction price. (Death and sorrow
are guaranteed returns on investment.) Kathwari offered a couple of ending points of reflection: 1)
that businesses, as the growth generators in a society, should set the right precedents in terms of
labor standards and transparent governance, and 2) that “the voice of businesses on the ground as a
force of peace has not been taken advantage of completely as of yet.”
MIDDLE EAST
EMILY GOULDING
The vibrant exchange in the “Closing the chapter in the Middle East” panel exposed the
troubled root of the Israel/Palestine reconciliation process: differing perceptions of what the actual
problem is. Dani Eilemberg, U.S. Editor of PODER Magazine, moderated a panel between James
Zogby, founder of the Arab-American Institute, Martin Indyk, Director of the Saban Center for
Middle East Policy at Brookings, and Itamar Rabinovich, former Israeli Ambassador to the United
Nations, during which panelists advanced strikingly different narratives of causality. Zogby saw
low standard of living – such as Gaza’s checkpoints, barricades, and crippled economy – as the root
of Palestinian frustration, while Indyk saw its motivates as religious. As a formal government
official, Rabinovich had a very complex opinion of negotiation options, which the other panelists
expanded upon. Lost in a slew of policy suggestions, the raw, indivisible human loss is often looked
over in the Israel-Palestine conflict.
There was not one mention of the recent loss of life in the region that happened less than 2
months ago. From December 27th, 2008 through January 19th, 2009, a renewed uproar of the conflict
claimed 1,200 Palestinian lives; 13 Jewish lives; left 4,000 Palestinian homes destroyed, and left
400,000 Palestinians without water. Eilemberg did a fine job of periodically getting all of the
panelists on the same page about acute, ground-level issues. Indyk agreed that “President Obama
has an urgent obligation to rally behind the two-state solution,” and Zogby advanced that “Obama
must “Both sides have to say Yes without ‘but.’” In defense of the peace process, however, Zogby
reminded that, “Both sides have felt that even if they did pick the right [non-violent] doors, they
didn’t open.“ Both sides have their own truths, and these truths are equally valid.
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6. However, experts must take into consideration the banal, trying truths of daily life, and hope
and intend to change those. Zogby cited the recent condemnation, as opposed to celebration, of
violence between Northern Ireland and Ireland as an example of a way forward: “The discourse
changes because people see a different future.” Activists, academics, and politicians all need to
jointly develop the spiritual capital needed to be able to believe that reconciliation is indeed
possible, right now.
Moises Naim and Mikhail Gorbachev
EMILY GOULDING
Moises Naim, editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy Magazine, posed the following question to
former President of Russia Mikhail Gorbachev: Are we in the post-Gorbachev era? After a minute
of pause, Gorbachev replied, “I never thought the Gorbachev era as such, but if you want to call it
that, then the Gorbachev era has just begun.” The post-communist Russian experience was the
subject of the “When the Walls Come Down” panel. “Russia, say what you want, has played a great
role as a civilizing factor in that area of the world…I’m not trying to lullaby you into thinking that
this is the only way it could have gone…But a State is not something you build every night; it takes
patience, and effort.” He did, however, admit that the leaders of the Communist Party made “several
grave mistakes.”
Gorbachev asserted that unchecked systems – be they communist or capitalist- are dangerous.
During Russia’s capitalist administrations, Gorbachev claimed, “Very little care was shown for the
development of the country at-large. These boom and bust cycles, they rotate, and…we end up in
difficult times.” Perhaps the most poignant and hopeful issue the elder statesman from the Cold War
era raised was the importance of bi-lateralism and international cooperation. And part of this
cooperation will require reconciliation on the part of the United States. With a straight face,
Gorbachev said, “The responsibility for many of the world’s problems falls on the U.S.’s shoulders.
I have to say this: [Washington, D.C.] isn’t exactly a sunny city.” To close, Gorbachev stressed the
need to reform the United Nations to act as a gatekeeper for globalization itself. “We’ve come to the
point where we have a globalized world, but we are using old methods,” he lamented. “That’s not
going to fly.”
The Power of Repentance: Frank Meeink
EMILY GOULDING
Frank Meeick’s story of transformation in old Philadelphia rings like the old song of early
Americana: “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound/That saved a wretch like me/I once was lost but
now am found/Was blind, but now, I see.” Philadelphia is a city whose cheesesteak houses have
“We speak only American here” flyers posted next to the “Order Here” sign. This thinly veiled
threat is directed towards the new neighbors on the block from Puebla, Mexico. Ethnic hatred split
Meeick’s home in two when he was just a teenager - his Irish-American mother left his Italian-
American father just so Meeick wouldn’t have an Italian last name. In the community his mother
brought him into, “the movement,” as Meeick referred to it (the white supremacist movement) was
everywhere, even in his church. Meeick’s pastors taught him to hate, and by the time he was in his
early 20’s, the lanky, blue-eyed boy was in jail for battery.
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7. While in jail, Meeick clung to the hand-written letters his girlfriend sent him. “I wanted to
read them to somebody…I needed someone else to know that she really loved me,” he remembers.
His first inclination was to read them to the white cell mates, but due to the demographics of
Philadelphia’s prison population, all of the white men were older. They were imprisoned for life,
and too embittered to listen to the sweet-nothings of young lovers. The only other men there to talk
to were young black men. Meeick was covered in swastika tattoos, but was desperate to share. His
black cell mates listened to him, and over time, they became friends. Coincidence became
consequence: after he got out of jail, his athleticism led him to football, and his team was heavily
black. “Along the way, some higher power always showed me that the way I was thinking was
wrong,” Meeick says. “Religion,” he says, “says ‘I want to do good things so I don’t go to hell.’
Spirituality, on the other hand, says, ‘I don’t want to go back to the hell I came from.’”
Reconciliation, the video
EMILY GOULDING
The video documentary Jesse Dylan made for the 2009 Reconciliation Forum is as
emotionally stirring as his Yes We Can video, but is perhaps even more meaningful due to the
gravity and the globality of this subject matter. The film starts with the phrase “It’s time”
illuminated in bright red letters. From there, it cuts directly to a series of stark interviews with
perpetrators of genocide and violence as well family members of victims. Some footage is original,
and some is taken from archives. A grainy film reel reveals a Hindu nationalist dismissing the
Gujarat genocide of 2002 with the wave of a hand; former a skinhead explains, punch by punch,
exactly how he felt while beating someone almost to death. “We were suckled on this idea,” an
Arab woman states frankly in a television interview, of inter-generational Muslim-Jewish conflict.
“Ah,” an Israeli woman laughs, “you see that house? It’s Muslim now. But slowly, slowly, this will
all be Jewish.” Dylan, with his minimalist, understated directorial style, lets the testimonials speak
for themselves – and what they speak to is the absolutely terrifying human capacity for evil.
The second half of the film deals with recognition of wrongdoing and restorative justice. In
it, a woman who lost 95 members of her family in the Rwandan genocide frankly states, “When I
met the man who killed my mother and my sister, I started crying. I first thought I wanted to hurt
these people that were killing us,” she reflects. “But then I realized, I forgive them.” The film was
interlaced with commentary from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who reminded us that “Restorative
justice is saying, ‘I do not give up on you as a perpetrator, as a criminal.’” Recently freed Ingrid
Betancourt of Colombia expressed the same idea. “At the end of the day, we are Colombians,” she
said. “There is family there.” The ending frames of the film convey the transformative, equalizing
power of truth itself. Milosevic, while on trial, squirmed in his seat to go on the record as guilty. In
Rwanda, a former soldier returned to his village to ask to be brought back in. He killed hundreds of
innocent people, but wanted to be accepted again. In the scene, the whole village stares at him, arms
crossed. A woman dressed in pink looks up at him, nervously; she is unsure about whether or not to
forgive him. The last voice we hear is that of Archbishop Desmond Tutu telling us, “You don’t give
up on anyone.”
Opening Dinner
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8. By EMILY GOULDING
“Let us break bread,” we were told. 250 gleaming loaves of bread lined one long, seemingly
endless, and luminous table spanning the entire width of the Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard of
the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. “A person is a person through
another person,” Archbishop Desmond Tutu told us. And today, on March 18, 2009, 250
Argentines, Mexicans, Americans, Spaniards, Jews, and Christians broke bread together. “The
bread is for sharing,” they jokingly reminded.
The evening opened with remarks from Emilio Azcarraga, the Chairman and Founder of the
Americas Business Council, which followed with an address from Rabbi Lau, the Former Chief
Rabbi of Israel. In it, Rabbi Lau spoke about truth telling as an intentional act. Archbishop
Desmond Tutu built upon the Rabbi’s themes by talking about our responsibility to make the power
of truth and reconciliation known. “I hope that the initiative that brought us here will go from
strength to strength,” Tutu said. “You know, God has no one else than you to do what you can
do…don’t be shy. You are a child of God.” Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Luis
Moreno Ocampo closed the evening with remarks about the need for just action in Darfur. “This
chapter in history can be a chapter of missed opportunities and regrets, or it can be a new chapter of
global leaders responding to stop crimes,” he warned. 250 hands raised their glasses into early
spring air for that - this was bread and wine, made holy.
2. Coverage of salsa legend Eddie Santiago event (March 2009)
Taken from: http://thescenemagdc.com/blog
Eddie Santiago Live at The Salsa Room
by Emily Goulding
It’s 11:54 p.m. on February 7 and The Salsa Room
crowd has been waiting for hours. Girls endlessly
rearrange their skirts and men pop their collars. A
few pockets of couples dance listlessly on an
empty floor as they wait for the headliner of the
evening. All of a sudden, the room goes black.
High-pitched shrieks emerge from the darkness as
the announcer says, “Ladies and gentlemen, please
welcome Eddie Santiagooooohhhhh!”
Photo by Enrique Bravo
Santiago claps one-two-three-four, and the room transforms.
Santiago’s appearance marked the eighth time he’s played in D.C., and his second at The Salsa
Room. The stage was lined with starry-eyed women, both young and old, singing along to the
timeless “salsa romantica.” It was the weekend before Valentine’s Day, and Santiago definitely set
the mood.
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9. “I sing about love,” Santiago said to the crowd. “And throughout the evening, I promise to sing all
the songs that you all helped make famous.” Santiago sang favorites like Lluvia and Que Locura
Fue Enamorarme De Ti. With the first few notes of the song Mia, women who during the day don
business suits became giddy with glee, as if Santiago was singing only to them.
Santiago solicited audience participation for most of the songs; when he sang Devorame Otra Vez,
he had the entire audience screaming back to him, “Devorame otra vez!” When he reached a high
pitch, both his and the index fingers of audience members went towards the ceiling in a
synchronized throw. About two thirds into the evening, Santiago did call-outs to different Latin
American countries. “El Salvador!” he shouted, and a number of hands went up. Next came,
“República Dominicana,” and the response was minimal. When he said, “Perú,” however, nearly
half the room lit up with a scream.
Santiago’s band, in contrast, was all Nuyorican. Santiago has a Puerto Rican band while in Puerto
Rico, and travels with his New York-based band while on the East Coast. On stage, wide-
shouldered narcotics officers by day and part-time back-up singers by night crooned their parents’
music in pitch-perfect Spanish.
After playing for an hour and a half, Santiago wrapped up with a collage of Puerto Rican songs
including Che Che Colé, Arroz con Habichuelas, and of course, the music of “el cantante de los
cantantes,” as Santiago referred to him, Héctor Lavoe.
The songs of Héctor Lavoe re-animated the dance floor. Towards the back of the room, dancers
swirled in and out of circles of red, blue, and green lights in a joyful frenzy of rhythm and motion.
As the evening ended, “que cante mi gente,” could be heard on the streets ringing out from The
Salsa Room as the audience sang along with Santiago.
Of his Salsa Room performance, Santiago said, “I’m thrilled to be here; the public received me very
well, they sang all the songs.”
“An artist feels honored to see that,” he added.
Hard economic times meant that the room was not filled to capacity, but his fans remain loyal,
nevertheless.
“After 22 years, people are still supporting me, and that makes me very happy,” Santiago said. “I
hadn’t been [in the D.C. Metro area] in two or three years, but you all haven’t forgotten me,” he
said and smiled.
By the looks of the couples who stayed slow dancing together even after the music faded,
Santiago’s music is never forgotten.
III. Feature Writing
1. The Kingdom of Heaven is Bulletless (Spring 2008)
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10. The kingdom of heaven is bullet-less
An Easter journey at Medhane Alem Eritrean Orthodox Church
“Meet Me There,” a mother’s t-shirt says. On this balmy springtime evening in Washington, D.C., she
and her two-year old son are just two of hundreds at a seven-hour mass at Medhane Alem Eritrean
Orthodox Church hoping to get there to be with God by Easter Sunday.
Easter at Medhane Alem is a tri-partide process of doubt, faith, and eventual renewal. Over a three day
period, parishioners stand together for a total of 16
hours to pray peace into existence, and somehow,
someway, will the world back together. It is a powerful
process of affirmation for an immigrant community in
mired in displacement, and proof that things other than
daffodils come back to life in the spring.
I. Good Friday
56 days of fasting have passed. Breakfast has been a
bane, with butter-less bread and milk-less coffee. The
sunny spring days have been dominated by too much
pollen and too many lentils. Today, at the end of Holy
Week, people have come to the corner of 2nd and S in
the Howard-Shaw District to pay penance and see hope
come alive this late April weekend in pre-election
Washington.
At twelve noon, Good Friday officially begins. On the
bottom floor of the two-story church, men sit on the left
side of the church, and women sit on the right. The left
hand side is a sea of slacks and dress shirts, and the
right side a sea of white head scarves.
The Eastern Orthodox Church is a theater of the sacred. Looking through a large pewter cross made in
the form of an ornate metal doily, Father Weldetrisae recites the Psalms with the rapid-fire cadence of a
car salesman in the near-dead language of Ge’ez. Above him, hand-painted renditions of a North
African Christ are cradled by the Eritrean flag to the right, and the U.S. flag to the left. The old, worn
plaster of the two-story, converted, formerly Protestant church has been covered by framed pictures of
the saints, and lush red carpets have been laid down to line the space for the presence of God.
At three o’clock, Christ officially dies, and the church goes black.
Parishioners of both sexes weep, and a gruesome silence invades the
place. Uninterrupted by the chirp of the birds outside or the small ray
of sunlight peeping in through the cracks of what was once a stained
glass window, the congregation sits in solemn observance of this
metaphorical murder.
The silence is broken by the gentle voice of Father Tsemon, who walks
forward in a tweed collar shirt, and with a calm smile on his face.
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11. Speaking in colloquial Tigryna instead of the liturgical Ge’ez, Father Tsemon tells his congregation that
it is the social responsibility of Christians to make God’s reign a reality here on earth. “Some things are
wrong in our church, some things are wrong in our world,” he says, “but just like the two thieves
hanging next to Jesus said that it was wrong to crucify him,. I have to say it if something is wrong. It
could be the government, could be a brother, but at a certain time, someone has to say enough is enough.
Our allegiance to God means that we have to condemn what is wrong, right there, right now.”
There are not enough beads on a rosary to count the wrongdoings the Eritrean Diaspora has faced.
Eritrea emerged from a bloody, 30-year war with Ethiopia just 15 years ago, and many are banned from
returning to their home county. Those who weren’t banned left because of poverty; Eritrea is one of the
poorest countries in the world. Eritreans in Washington joke about how many countries they passed
through looking for asylum before they landed in the U.S., and how many Eritrean taxi drivers actually
hold Ph.Ds. Eritreans in the Diaspora are a people who are defined by their land but who ironically find
themselves landless, floating in the service sectors of the Global North with only a crucifix as a
compass.
Believing strongly in the power of prayer to affect actions and outcomes, participation in the mass – and
the church at large – is a deeply political act. Father Tseomon announces, “God is responsible for the
hearts of people in power. In our country, we blame the leaders, but we should actually blame ourselves
for not asking God, for not asking the source directly.”
“In this country, if we don’t pray about the election, we don’t know who is going to come to power. It’s
our choice to decide, through prayer,” he poses.
In unison, the church announces, “We pray that God make [our leaders] considerate, very kind,
generous, and smart, so they can always think good for other people/ We also pray for those in prison,
farmers, businessmen, crops, those who are sick - for the whole world to be in peace/ Let none of keep
in his heart malice or revenge or envy or hatred towards his neighbor/ God Bless our Bishop, and may
he watch over Eritrea alem was alem – and the whole world over. Amen.”
With the endless “Our Fathers” and dozens of hours spent praying, one can only hope that God is
listening.
While praying, the whole congregation turns and bows towards the four directions in choreographic
obedience to God. After six hours of standing and siting, it is almost impossible to tell where the white
of the walls starts and the white of the women’s headscarves ends.
Two large, goat-skin drums are then brought out from behind the Hoover vacuum cleaner in the storage
room, and a deep boom-KAK-KAK slaps the air with sound. Four people total play – three middle-aged
men, and one thin 18-year old girl with lime green trim around her white headwrap. Floating out into the
middle of the group, Father Tsemon sings and then begins to dance, his arms creating gentle waves as if
he’s swimming in a sea of melody. The whole church swells in claps, and presents a syncopated display
of sympathy with Christ’s death.
This is the story of Christ made personal, but also made musical.
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12. At the end of the mass, the priests bring out two short bunches of dried palm fronds. Although the mass
is now officially over, a pious few remain to
complete the final penance. As Father
Tsemon or Father Weldetrisae approach each
parishioner, he or she admits their sins
committed during the previous year, and the
priest assigns the recital of one zegbet, or
kneeling prayer, per sin. The assignments are
given with the tap of the palm fronds on the
top of the back - one tap per sin. The room
resounds with the soft flurry of flapping palm
fronds. Tap-tap-tap-tap!
Some parishioners are finished after two or
three zegbets, some are assigned to dozens.
The posture and movements of zegbets are all
but identical to Muslim prayer. One starts
standing, and brings the arms crossed at the
shoulders down to the waist, then to the
knees, then bends down to the ground, where
one kisses the floor out of a sign of humility and obedience to God’s creation.
The strain of kneeling up and down some 40, 50 or even 60 times makes some adults’ feet go numb, and
their joints so sore that they are unable to walk the next day.
Some flexible teenagers, however, are eager to show their devotion to their parents and friends, and bow
quickly, and sometimes more than necessary.
The 18 year-old musician, now high up on the second level, appears to have a particularly gymnastic
relationship with God. As some stop to give their knees a rest, she keeps going in her rotational prayer
of arms-shoulders-knees-floor-bow. She ceaselessly continues her ministerial callisthenic all by herself,
until God comes back tomorrow.
II. Holy Saturday
The pews are full today. There is no room to move about, and there are no fans or air conditioning in the
92 degree room. This is the most formal service of the year though, and no one would miss it.
Downstairs is mostly for the elderly, who have arrived at six o’clock sharp to get front row seats. On the
lower level, some women have crosses permanently tattooed on their foreheads, a ritual which is
generally not practiced anymore.
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13. Upstairs is where the
young people are, and
where all the action is.
Striking young
couples with gelled
hair sit down right
next to each other,
with the men in suits
and women in long
white and pastel-
colored dresses. Pastel
oranges and greens
dot the pews.
The existence of the
second level is due to
a simple architectural
accident: trad-itional
Orthodox churches
only have one level,
and no pews.
Standing or kneeling is seen as the only suitable way of worshipping, and sitting is considered
disrespectful. Tradition is bendable here though, as the church happens to be converted, and also
happens to be in Washington, the city of bendable rules.
The vessel of the word of God is a large iMac Powerbook, which projects a tri-lingual Ge’ez, Tigryna,
and English-language liturgy onto a huge screen at the front of the church. Immanently visible from all
angles of the church, the machine seems fed by the heavy incense augmenting its electronic glow. At a
certain point in the service, the battery of the iMac dies, and the entire congregation sits and waits while
the PowerPoint is brought back up again. Only the head priest can administer the almighty right click to
bring the electronic liturgy to life.
Hour 13 of 16 passes. To make it through the mass, some people text message loved ones, and some
accidentally doze off.
While the adults are busy dealing with the overwhelming (and long) realization of Christ’s death, the
children prefer to play in the aisles of the church, and talk loudly in
English.
Posing, one asks the other, “Hanna, do I look like Mommy? Ha, ha!!
Do I??” Some particularly hammy two-year olds do a mock zegbets,
with their diapered bottoms in the air and coy little smiles on their
faces.
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14. At the end of the evening, a Passion Play of eight-year olds fills the front of the church.
The Mary Magdalene character weeps a high-pitched, elementary-style sob into the microphone, and
then is asked, “Woman, why are you crying?” The sobs suddenly stop, and the congregation breathes a
laughing sigh of relief.
The Lord is Risen Indeed; Alleluia, Alleluia.
III. Easter
It’s 1:13am in the morning on Sunday, and the PowerPoint slide
reads “Happy Resurrection.” The mock-crucified teenager looks
up from under his sparkly silver crown; Easter is finally here for
the Medhane Alem church.
People on the bottom floor have lit candles to represent renewed
faith, and huge droplets of boiling hot wax fall on the floor. Older
women yell “Ye-le-le-le-le-le-le!!” in celebration.
Tri-partide kiss greetings fill the air like a flock of overly
affectionate butterflies. Teenagers greet their aunts,
fathers greet their sons. The large, wooden church is
filled with sounds of connection: people are shaking
hands, patting each other on the back, and smiling.
The congregation ever so slowly makes its way out the
door, grabs the shoes they removed before entering the
church, and waits in line for the public nuzzling
ceremony of kissing the cross. After that, people head
downstairs to the church social hall. That’s where the
kitchen is, and where the center of the church community
is.
Medhane Alem church is a place of refuge in the most
literal sense. Around 60% of Eritreans in Washington,
D.C. emigrated as refugees. Hanna, the Sunday school
teacher, explained that many Eritreans “came through
Sudan, some through Somalia and Kenya.”
Simret, the teenage drum player pictured to the right,
learned to play while in the choir at her Eritrean
Orthdox Church in Kenya, where she grew up as a
refugee.
Even Father Tsemon came as a refugee. His migration
was sponsored by a Japanese-American scientist, who
when visiting Asmara found the political situation to be
eerily similar to the Manzanar internment camps in
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15. Central California, where he was detained during World War II.
Healing from the war with Ethiopia has been “very difficult”, Hanna explains. For that reason, she
thinks
“Easter is important as a holiday of peace, where we can think and pray together.”
Most Eritreans come to the U.S. as asylum seekers, but only a percentage are actually granted asylum
status. Without a sponsor or a visa, many migrate to the U.S. the way most undocumented migrants do –
by paying a coyote to cross them through the Mexican border. Many families unite in Northern Mexico
first in order to cross together as a group. Standing in the candle-light dim of the Medhane Alem church,
it’s difficult to imagine that these white-robed, jewel-adorned older women used to hear corridos on
their way to the supermarket, and use their calling cards to call their families in Asmara - or Chihuahua.
In turn, the Eritrean Orthodox church community has experienced its own evolutions. Woldy, a lay
minister at the church who works a lot with the youth programs, says that their Eritrean Orthodox
church community here in the Shaw District is similar to how it was back home, except that “we’re
more religious here than over there. We have younger, more energetic priests… our church is better
here,” he concludes.
Woldy sees the increased religiosity as directly proportional to the decreased exposure to war and
conflict. “During peacetime, you want to go to church,” he says. “But during wartime, religion is not
really a priority.”
Elsa Berhane, a parishioner of Eritrean descent who grew up in Sudan, echoed a similar sentiment,
saying “Eritreans were so focused on [national] liberation, growing up we didn’t see church as that big
of a deal. Everyone was always away – away on the battlefield, away from home. Now, we’re together.
It’s nice.”
Given the varied backgrounds of the parishioners, the arrival of Easter means different things for
different people. For some parishioners, Easter carries only a religious tone. For Seleb, a Youngman in
his twenties, “Easter means being cleaned from sins. It’s same thing every year, a nice tradition.”
For others, it is an omnipotent precursor towards a new era in the District of Politics.
For Ruth, a cheery-eyed matriarch, Easter is a chance for her to reflect on how to do God’s will on earth.
For her, that means praying for Barack Obama.
“Ooh, every day I pray, pray, pray for him”, she said, shaking her head and wringing her hands “They
say that Obama is about race or whatever, but this is what it really comes down to - Obama is about
everybody having a chance. I want him to have a chance. I want to see what he can do as president, what
he can be!”
“We don’t really talk about politics here, though,” she laughs. “We just go to church together.”
15

16. Downstairs, parishioners officially break their Lenten fast, and eat meat and dairy products for the first
time in months. Not a lot is eaten at that hour, given that it is the wee hours of the morning. The real
feast is left instead for Easter Sunday.
On Easter Sunday, families will spend hours
cooking lamb and multiple courses to accompany
it. Back home in Eritrea, mothers would wake up at
5 a.m. on Sunday to slaughter a lamb to roast for
the Easter meal, and bleed it facing east to keep
away ghosts for the rest of the year.
“We emphasize red meat,” Hanna, the Sunday
school teacher said, “because all during Lent we
haven’t been able to eat red meat. We eat
everything we haven’t been able to eat for weeks,
like special desserts and lots of rich foods.” she
added.
“I love the process of Easter,” she says in a
reflective tone of voice. “I love the prayer, I love
the fasting. It’s a whole process in the way that
Christmas is not. It makes you appreciate the holiday more.”
“It’s just a really special thing.”
*************************
IV. Cultural Criticism and Media Criticism
1. Reggaeton on Broadway: No Pare, Sigue, Sigue! (July 2008)
Taken from: http://hispaniclink.blogspot.com/
The theater is dark, and the only sound to be heard throughout the Richard Rogers Theatre on 46th
St. is the lush, languorous skip of a traditional Caribbean bolero. The audience is transported back
in time, but not for long –the record soon begins to skip and repetitiously trip over itself until the
song’s choppy new rhythm turns into hip-hop. Para siempre, para siempre, para siempre, we hear –
forever, and ever, and ever.
The Tony Award-winning musical In
the Heights about the Dominican
neighborhood of Washington Heights in
upper New York City is a musical about
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17. making home. It is about permanence, and about meaning. In the Heights is about sticking around,
and in the process, finding oneself. And while it has received critical praise for its original scoring,
sharp acting, and expert storytelling techniques, it mainly deserves praise for marking a new phase
in American musical theater by portraying – and celebrating – the modern Latino community as it
is, on stage and in triple-time.
Photo: New York Times
In the Heights contests the overly simplistic visions of Latinos as quick-footed and temporal
members of U.S. society that have abounded in politics, media, and entertainment amidst the recent
“immigration debates”, and it does so in a real and very powerful way. It is more than just a piece of
political theater, though – the Tony award committee deemed In the Heights the best overall
theatrical production of 2008 in a whopping four categories: Best Musical, Best Original
Choreography, Best Original Score, and Best Orchestrations.
On stage here is an aspirational community that celebrates and communicates in reggaeton; that
loves living in a majority-Latino barrio but also dreams of leaving someday; that dreams, jokes,
and curses in Spanish, English and yes, Yiddish; that sends some people off to Stanford University
and tends to others who will live within the same five-block radius their entire lives. In the Heights
lights up a Latino neighborhood that sings altogether in tune, that always knows everyone else’s
business, but is always – always - complex.
In the Heights tells the story of ordinary life lived in an unordinary way. The very normal,
ubiquitous processes of worrying about how to talk with parents, how to pay bills, how to be fully
understood by one’s peers, and wearing cargo pants and little ballet flats is made distinct by the
constant mental toggle between 2 modalities: the cultural lexicon of Latin America and the cultural
lexicon of the United States. In the play, the concerns and realities of 1st and 2nd generation
immigrants weave cycles through each other, and act in a seamless tandem.
This preoccupation to find a true sense of home does not have to do specifically with immigration
though, but rather simple migration. In the Heights humanizes the psychology of inter-national and
intra-national movement by showing that sometimes, moving down the street can be just as
emotionally significant as moving out of the country.
The plot is built around two sets of young couples trying to find themselves but getting up, getting
out, or getting over. Usnavi, the main character who was born in the Dominican Republic and came
to the States as an infant named after the onomatopoeia of a U.S. Navy ship, dreams of going back
to an island he admits is mostly a fiction for him. The woman he has a crush on, Vanessa, was born
in Washington Heights, and dreams of moving to Downtown Manhattan.
The other couple, Benny and Mina, are two New York-born kids whose only barriers between them
are differences in professional aspirations – Benny and Mina are in love, but Mina got accepted into
Stanford University, and Benny works at her father’s taxi dispatch company, where he has worked
since he was in high school. Mina, the native-born, book-smart heroine who aspires for white-collar
life, is many ways the “star” character of the show, acting as the functional double of the street-
smart Usnavi who aspires to once again live on the island. Mina articulates her neighborhood’s
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18. broader struggle with reconciling conflicting intellectual legacies with songs like “Everything I
Know,” where she values the teachings of the rural Cuban-born abuela grandmother character.
In “Breathe,” she ruminates about her perpetual feeling of displacement and discomfort with re-
acculturating to Washington Heights after going away to California for college. Mina’s touching
lyrics that she “…used to think we lived at the top of the world/When the world was just a subway
map/And the 1-9 crossed a dotted line to my place” prove that places are not important because of
power, but rather because of emotional significance. As opposed to the staid dorm rooms of an Ivy
League institution, Mina felt she lived “at the top of the world” on the iron fire escapes of her
childhood apartment building.
More moves the plot than a concern for place and movement, though. (After all, that would be
overly simplistic!) In the Heights shows the various day-to-day realities that compose Latino life,
including the good, the boring, and the ugly. Tight-knit relationships with a deep sense of family
commitment lance the plot forward, but issues such as lack of financial literacy and ethnocentrism
undermine those advancements. For instance, Vanessa has problems moving Downtown because
her credit is poor. The reason her credit it poor is due to the fact that she is unbanked; as she says in
the opening song, she keeps her security deposit in a box in her closet, so it doesn’t show up on her
bank statement, and she subsequently can’t “…make a down payment/And pay rent.” Benny has
romantic problems with Mina’s family because he is African-American; even though he culturally
associates with Latinos and knows Spanish from growing up around Caribbean folks his whole life,
he is firmly, constantly told he will never fully “understand” the community he has lived his whole
life in.
In the Heights does its work in an aesthetic vocabulary built in equal parts by West Side Story, Spike
Lee’s Do the Right Thing, the social realist works of Chicano playwright Luis Valdez, rapper Mos
Def, and the salsa and reggaeton music of Hector LaVoe and Wisin y Yandel from Puerto Rico.
The choreography is also a unique mélange. It is more physical theater than it is pure “dance.” Salsa
- whose actual popularity in the Caribbean has steadily declined since its heyday in the late 80’s– is
only danced once; in its stead, the main physical vocabulary of the show is hip-hop.
This mix of melodic romanticism and dystopic, hip-hop twined rhymes gives In the Heights is
unique, informed, and empowered 21st century flavor. In the Heights shows that the evolution of
culture – and the politics of culture – is a march that goes on and on, - no pare, sigue, sigue.
Somewhere in between prose and street slang, in between four-year universities and day jobs, is
Latino-American reality – a reality that’s here to stay, para siempre, para siempre.
Indeed, issues of “staying” are what brings the plot to a close. At the end of the play, the abuela
character wins the lotto, parceling the money evenly between Usnavi and other neighborhood
leaders. Instead of deciding to continue to dream about finding himself elsewhere, Usnavi decides
to stay and invest in the neighborhood. Usnavi (and by extension, the actor and show author Lin
Manuel-Mirandes, who is from the Washington Heights area) decides to claim his Home – onstage,
for all to see, in the artistic capital of the country.
With this (albeit theatrical) announcement, an area that was formerly viewed by many to be just a
pass-through portion of Manhattan 80 blocks above of what is important has now been put on the
city’s psychological map as a place that matters, and above all a place that is special.
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19. In his spoken word soliloquy finale, Usnavi confesses,
“Yeah, I’m a streetlight, chillin’ in the heat/
I illuminate the stories of the people in the street/
Some have happy endings, some are bittersweet/
But I love them all and that’s what makes my life complete/
If not me, then who keeps our legacies?/…
This corner is my destiny.”
While the entire finale is incredibly moving, one of the last sentences of the play is delivered with
particular passion:
“I found my island I’ve been wanting this whole time/
I’m Home.”
Instead of the island of the Dominican Republic, Usnavi is now home on the island of Manhattan.
This is the stuff that politicians like Congressman Sensenbrenner (who in 2006 single-handedly
authored what was arguably the Republican party’s biggest public affairs disaster vis à vis Latinos
in the past decade, H.R. 4772) and ex-California Governor Pete Wilson (who authored the
draconian Proposition 187 of the mid-1990’s) don’t want to hear. For what it’s worth, this is also
the stuff that many entertainment industry executives – who, often overwhelmed by the sheer
complexity of the Latino community opt to finance more simplistic offerings– also haven’t wanted
to or simply haven’t heard before.
Latinos are the largest ethnic minority group in the country, and finally a musical has been made
that chronicles the lives, dreams, and hopes of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th generation Latinos in a realistic –
and even fantastic- format. This new theatrical language that In the Heights has brought forth –
perhaps the most important of which is the very fact that high art can and should be made about
Latino life– is truly revolutionary. It has to do with power – the power of song, and the power of
presentation. On stage is a world beautiful enough to sing songs about, with songs good enough to
become part of our national cultural lexicon. And seated is an audience that has, at one level or
another, made a new emotional home in a community that maybe they weren’t familiar with.
With In the Heights, instead of the melodic but tired tunes of Carousel or Chicago, the New York
theater-going public can now sing along to a reggaeton version of a taxi-cab dispatch, or the
heartfelt musical memoir of a Cuban grandmother as she reflects on her immigration experience,
her loneliness, her poverty, and the bittersweet passing of time. (The cast album is already a
bestseller on Amazon.com) In the Heights is, at the end of the day, just a great musical, as it does
what musical theater does best – it uses story to enchant us, to educate us, and to enrapture us. This
production does what very few others do, though - it enraptures us with reality, even if that reality
isn’t our own.
This is the kind of cross-identification process that can make us collectively fall in love with our
cities again. Beyond patriotism, we have joint pride in our shared places – pride in our shared
spaces – and pride in our shared urban lives together.
This is good for Broadway … no pare, sigue, sigue!
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20. ****************
2. Will the Real Joe the Plumber Please Stand Up? (October 2008)
Will the Real Joe the Plumber Please Stand Up?
By Emily Goulding
If any phase of American history was amenable to finger pointing, it is not this one. Our economy,
and indeed the entire American dream, is collapsing before our eyes in a big domino-style cluster
fuck. The official line seems to be that the main victim in this mess has only one name. He has one
profession, and carries a plunger.
His name is Joe the Plumber.
Joe the Plumber got an inordinate amount of attention in Wednesday’s presidential debates. He was
mentioned twenty six times. Joe Wurzelbacher, whose last name has been disrespectfully dropped
in the media world, was made into a bull’s eye this week for political sport.
Up until last week, I thought Joe the Plumber’s name was Joe Six Pack. Policy wonks love to spend
their evenings sneering at Joe Six Pack, laughing about how stupid he is and how funny it is that he
just continually makes all the wrong choices against his own best interests. He just trips on his own
shoelaces, this guy. He’s a riot!
But who, exactly, are they talking about?
In their eyes, Joe Six Pack is the voter in the “fly-over” states in between the film industry and the
banking industry. He is prone to wheat farming and wandering, and votes according to his
pocketbook. He is threatened financially, and is worried about the ability of the government and the
powers that be to provide opportunities for his present and future well-being. He pays close
attention to sharp-shooting political messaging, because he can’t necessarily make that stuff up on
his own. He votes the way his parents did. He responds emotionally to candidates, and likes to be
made to feel safe. Joe the Plumber is vulnerable, and he knows it.
The last I checked though, liberal Washington Democrats share just a thing or two in common with
Joe the Plumber. They feel increasingly powerless and insecure in a world in which they were once
powerful – their retirement funds are shrinking, and often in heart-stopping jolts. Their healthcare
premiums have skyrocketed and are now a luxury. They’ve heard all about global warming, but
they don’t really know how to stop it; they live in the suburbs, and have to drive into work. They
vote the way their parents did. They respond emotionally to their political icons like JFK and MLK.
They pay close attention to sharp-shooting political messaging, because they can’t really make that
stuff up on their own. As a result, their party messaging has been about as formless as soft tofu for
the last 20 years. White-collar liberals carry less clout than they say they do, and they know it.
To top things off, at last glance, there are quite a few men living outside of the Bible Belt named
Joe. In fact, they live in the posh modular apartments of West Hollywood, and co-mingle over lattés
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21. in lower Manhattan. Here’s a funny little secret: they even live and work on Capitol Hill. And some
of them drink six packs.
The question then is, why is it so difficult for these power brokers (who, while they might have the
power to put on fancy fundraisers, simply aren’t numerous enough to cause the type of social
tectonics they think they can. Or do.) to identify with people unlike themselves?
It might have something to do with Senator John Kerry’s loss to George W. Bush in 2004. Back
then, “Joe the Plumber” – equipped with a six-pack –voted Dubyya into office against the polls’
better judgment. Metaphorical ‘Policy Analyst X’, who will be referred to here as Joseph Stein,
worked on the Kerry campaign. This Joe – or Joseph, as he is known among his Blackberry-
carrying friends – was hurt when his hard work went to naught. So, Joseph started to sublimate.
He blamed it on the Joes with plungers, not on his own party’s lack of ideological cohesion. There
was community found in silent self-pity; the Democrats were just misunderstood, that’s all.
The scary part is that these sneers about Joe Six Pack sound frighteningly similar to the egocentric
mantras of yesteryear: if McCain wins again, we can keep feeling sorry for ourselves. If McCain
wins again, it won’t change the fact that we’re smarter, and that we knew better. We fought the
good fight. Either way, we’re alright. Right?
Wrong. That was then, and this is now. No one can afford to lose anything this time. (Literally.) The
failure of Wall Street to do business in standard and honest ways (things like, you know, telling
people that the stock you’re selling them is toxic and carries no commercial value) is fiscally
crucifying the middle class, and it’s not right.
The Joes of America – men who have last names like Smith, Velazquez, White, and Johnson - are
all good men. And work hard. And don’t deserve to be collectively belittled on national television
as “the average moron” as some sort of backwards compliment. They doesn’t deserve to be known
as people lacking in privilege by people who fund their lives off of student loans and make high-
level political decisions that are often, frankly, moronic.
Joe the Plumber, like Joe the Stock Broker or even Joe the Analyst, wants real information. He
wants a government built on honesty, with a commitment to high standards of living. No one wants
cronyism, or to be talked down to, or to be made to feel small. People want a society that works,
and that is built on respect.
If the country were not gripped in a directional and a communicative crisis severe enough to
paralyze our legislative deliberations and now to freeze our stocks, this publicized playground fight
would be amusing.
But it’s not. And it’s exactly this kind of pigeon-holing, “it wasn’t me” finger pointing that got us
here in the first place. It’s lack of communication that got us here in the first place. This type of
mutual repugnance and refusal to co-identify as compatriots and as human beings has belittled our
civic life, and what’s worse, has sent us all up shit creek without a paddle.
For all those “it wasn’t me” liberals who think whining is the ultimate patriotism, here’s a
newsflash: it was you. It is you.
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22. You, like Joe the Plumber, need affordable methods of transportation and need a well-paying job.
You need quality healthcare. By the time the talking heads finish talking about what’s best for Joe
the Plumber, their stock accounts will be drained. Panic will then ensue in the newsroom – after all,
who will be left to tell the nouveau-pauvre newscasters what’s best for them?
Maybe if we pointed at ourselves first we’d find out that we have more in common than not. Let’s
move past these telegenic pronunciations of “whodunit.” I don’t care who did it; let’s just fix it.
With that, all the millions of Joes in America - be they Republicans, Democrats, bankers, plumbers,
teachers, activists, musicians, or lawyers – will be able to stand for a government that keeps
swearing that it stands for them.
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