Update: April 2008 border issue coming soon

Guess what folks… Our special border issue is coming along nicely. The Brownsville trip was a success. All the stories are looking good, and the page design and pictures look fantastic.

The paper version of Adelante goes to print on Thursday and will be distributed starting Friday. Expect this site to be updated soon with compelling and well-written stories (en ingles y en español), tons of pictures, and a few video surprises. And all of it will be about the border and immigration.

March 2008 issue

Border fence/wall/levee? by Jazmine Ulloa

The building of an actual physical barrier along the country’s southern border for national security may hinge on who wins the next presidential election.

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Law school faces diversity challenges by Eduardo Gonzalez

Although the School of Law at the University of Texas at Austin takes pride as one of the most diverse programs in the nation, challenges to its efforts remain.

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Farm workers continue to organize against low wages by Jessica A. Camarillo

Chavez may have been the leading voice of farm workers in the 60s, but the struggle he and the United Farm Workers Union brought to national attention isn’t over.

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Local galleries showcase minority artwork by Jessa Lauren Hollett

Each of these mini masterpieces is part of a fundraiser called “Toma Mi Corazón XVI” (Take My Heart 16), which every year raises money for La Peña Art Gallery on South Congress. The only thing that all the artists have in common is that they are all Hispanic.

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Immigrant students hope for the DREAM by Eva Romero

Almost 3 million students will graduate from high school in the United States this year. Some of them will continue their education in college, join the military or enter the workforce. Approximately 60,000 will have no such opportunity because these students have inherited the title of “illegal immigrant.”

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Carnaval Brasileiro by Gaby Chabolla

Clad in everything from glitter and fancy fabric to body paint on their bare skin, more than 5,000 partygoers from around the country streamed into the Palmer Conventions Center Feb. 2 for a night of celebration Brazilian style.

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Latino movies on the rise by Gaby Chabolla

Latino movies worth a watch. Among them: Kilometro 31, Morirse en Domingo, Charm School, and Duck Season.

BORDER FENCE/WALL/LEVEE?

Jazmine Ulloa / Adelante
Volume II, Issue 2 (March 2008)

The building of an actual physical barrier along the country’s southern border for national security may hinge on who wins the next presidential election.

Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both spoke against plans for a physical fence at a debate held at the University of Texas at Austin in February, vying instead for virtual fencing and immigration reform.

With the most critical primary Texas has seen in two decades underway, their position on the issue has been especially important as they have aggressively campaigned to capture what both believe to hold the key to a win in the state—the Latino vote.

Leading republican candidate John McCain has also gone under fire in recent weeks for sidestepping his position on the fence and said he believes border security to be the top priority.

But despite change in the political climate and candidates’ insight that “people are clamoring to have secure borders not fences,” Homeland Security Defense Secretary Michael Chertoff still has until Dec. 31, 2008, to decide where 375 miles of fencing will be built, which is when his authority to decide mileage will expire.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if at least some of it is done [in Texas],” said Denise Gilman, clinical professor for the UT School of Law’s Immigration Clinic. “They moved pretty quickly in Arizona.”

Congress passed the Secure Fence Act in 2006, which originally mandated that 700 miles of fencing be built from Texas to California along the U.S.-Mexico border. Chertoff announced on Aug. 10, 2007 that his agency would scale back this number to 375 miles of fencing to build in segments across the border.

Some fencing has already been built in areas of California and Arizona, which proponents for a physical fence say have lowered the rate of apprehension of illegal immigrants. But Border Patrol officials said increased staffing, stadium lighting and motion sensors were critical to this improvement.
In Texas, the building of the fence is muddled by controversy and complexity, activists and legal experts said.

Chertoff has already filed suit against private property owners in Hidalgo and Cameron counties, the University of Texas at Brownsville and even the city of Eagle Pass because they have denied federal surveyors access to the land.

While the suits filed are not to take the property but to survey it, Gilman said, “They are definitely precursors to actual condemnation suits to take the property.”

Chertoff and the Department of Homeland Security have different projects for areas in Texas. In Hidalgo County, for example, original plans had the fence running through towns as far as two miles inland from the river, such as Granejo, Penitas and Hidalgo. This could have cut off private property between the fence and the river and water access to farmers and ranchers, county officials said.

But Hidalgo and federal officials reached an agreement Feb. 8 to instead build up levees along the Rio Grande to 18 feet high. While some city leaders and property owners called the agreement a compromise, Del Rio activist Jay Johnson-Castro said it was only a “micro-fix.”

“Let’s fix the levees, that needed to be done,” he said. “But let’s not use that as the pretext to build an 18-foot wall.”

Plans by Chertoff and the department for the University of Texas at Brownsville have the fence running through university property, cutting off nearly all of the school’s 18-hole golf course and leaving 166 acres of university land between the fence and the river, said Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster, a member of the Texas Border Coalition.

Although levee plans similar to those in Hidalgo have been proposed for the university, the city of Eagle Pass has yet to reach an agreement with the federal department, Foster said. Federal officials are discussing a stadium light project with the city. Current plans have the fence running in segments, cutting off Fort Duncan, a historical public park, from the city, for example, but not River Bend Resort.

“This fence is an ill conceived idea and gives a false sense of security to America,” Foster said.

But some still believe a physical barrier is necessary for national security. Although political support for a virtual fence has grown, in a press conference, Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter said a virtual fence is “virtually useless.”

Joe Kasper, spokesman for Hunter, said opposition to build a physical border fence has come from the department itself. Since it has the authority to build the border fence in the way that it chooses, the department has decided to build a combination of virtual and physical fences, he said.

“The department has taken on an ambiguous interpretation of the mandate in the Secure fence Act, when Hunter said it was straightforward,” Kasper said. “There is a serious threat to the physical fence if a candidate not committed to border control takes office.”

At the primary debate on campus, Democratic candidates stressed the importance of border security, and agreed that while some fencing may be appropriate, consultation with those living along the border would be essential.

“There is smart way to protect our borders and there is a dumb way to protect our borders,” Clinton said.

Failed leadership by the Bush administration on border security will be pushed unto the next administration to clean up, Democratic candidates said. But legal experts are searching to delay the building of the fence before then.

In Arizona, cases filed because of damage the fence could do to the environment were limited by a provision in the Real I.D. Act of 2005, which allows Chertoff to waive environmental standards in order to build the fence, Gilman said.

A physical fence along the border also raises private property and equal protection issues, said Gilman. She asks, “Why is the fence only going through certain areas?” It also raises human rights and environmental issues because the fence would affect indigenous communities and wildlife, she said. Legal experts are now looking to challenge the federal department for lack of consultation with the community, Gilman said.

“These are complex issues raised,” she said. “But the difficulty is trying to find the proper legal tool to get all these issues before the court.”

LAW SCHOOL FACES DIVERSITY CHALLENGES

Eduardo Gonzalez / Adelante
Volume II, Issue 2 (March 2008)

Although the School of Law at the University of Texas at Austin takes pride as one of the most diverse programs in the nation, challenges to its efforts remain.

Often in the public eye because of its minority participation, the law school has made national headlines for its excellence in promoting diversity among it staff, faculty and student body, but also for debatable incidents of racial insensitivity by some students. This raises questions about whether that environment and culture are diverse enough intellectually, which requires development beyond numbers and intermingling, some students and faculty said.

In the last ten years the number of minority faculty at the School of Law has remained relatively constant, according to an online report from the UT Office of Information Management and Analysis. The latest figures available from Fall 2006 showed the school as having nine Hispanic professors, two are tenured, seven black professors and two Asian professors, making up 12 percent of the 149-member faculty. The remaining 131 professors, 87.9 percent, were white.

Carla L. Sanchez, a second-year law student, said having minority law professors allows minority law students to have someone to whom to relate.

“Professors bring their own experiences to the table and there is a point of view to express,” she said. “If you have a diverse faculty, you’ll have different points of view because as lawyers, we’ll have clients from different backgrounds and these points of view will help us understand the needs of our clients.”

Minority law professors can also serve as role models , said Daniel B. Rodriguez, one of two tenured Hispanic professors at the law school.

“There is something in common across the spectrum of minority law teachers that provides a real perspective on what it is like to be in the out group in American society,” he said. “I think it is important to have minority law professors for that experience.”

But numbers alone cannot give an accurate picture of efforts to enhance the minority experience.
“The administration has made an effort to sponsor a lot of activities,” said Yuridia Caire, a second-year law student and Internal Vice President of Chicano-Hispanic Law Students Association. “They have helped minorities with money, time, support and workshops.”

Diversity efforts do, however, meet another challenge, students said.

“I don’t think this is intentional, but people tend to hang around with people of their own race,” Sanchez said.

Rodriguez refers to it as “unintentional segregation.”

“Minority students only hang out with minority students and that tendency can reinforce the image of them being off in their own corner doing other things,” he said. “One of the challenges I see is getting out of that box and being in a more generally diverse community without sacrificing the camaraderie that comes from minority students.”

Although not forgetting one’s heritage is important, Rodriguez said he encourages minority students to join different types of organizations, not simply those that are culture-specific.

Some students and faculty also question whether resources to encourage students to become culturally literate and to `intermingle are provided.

“As the world becomes more globalized,” Rodriguez said. “American law schools need a diverse work force for legal practice with more ambitious efforts to really diversify the interest of our students to prepare them.”

Click to enlarge.

FARM WORKERS CONTINUE TO ORGANIZE AGAINST LOW WAGES

Chavez may have been the leading voice of farm workers in the ’60s, but the struggle he and the United Farm Workers Union brought to national attention isn’t over.

Jessica A. Camarillo / Adelante
Volume II, Issue 2 (March 2008)

March 31 is approaching. Get ready for Tejano music, colorful Puebla dresses and the occasional grito.

But amid the celebrations in honor of the birth of Cesar Chavez, the man widely known for organizing the United Farm Workers Union during the Chicano Movement, activists and farm workers today are still living his struggle. Chavez’s union may have seen many victories during his lifetime and after his death, but the plight of farm workers is far from over.

Many organizers and activists went unnoticed before, during and after the Chicano Movement. But not Chavez. He knew how to organize the masses and how to make the media work to his advantage. Chavez became one of the most celebrated figures of the 20th century after leading a five-year strike, which begun in 1965, against Delano grape growers for equal wages for foreign workers.

At the forefront of farm labor issues today, even after more than 30 years since Chavez’s movement, is still annual wages. Farm workers received an average of $900 per year in 1960, according to Edward R. Murrow’s documentary “Harvest of Shame.” That was barely enough to make ends meet then, but even now farm workers are living at or just above the poverty line. Through the evolution of wage rights and increases, workers can now expect to earn anywhere from $10,000 to $12,000 annually, said Sean Sellers, a graduate from the University of Texas at Austin and member of the Student Farm Worker’s Alliance.

New groups to protect farm workers from low wages formed throughout the country after Chavez successfully unionized Californian farm workers. One of the most vocal groups to emerge in recent years comes from the opposite coast. Created in Florida, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) formed in 1993 as an organization of workers, many of which are Latino, Haitian and Mayan Indian. Florida does not protect the bargaining rights of farm workers so a union is not possible.

According to the Department of Labor a living wage for an individual in Immokalee is about $18,500. But in today’s globalized world, the coalition is up against corporations and not the area growers of Chavez’s times. Growers have lost the upper hand since the 1960s, and in recent years, corporations pay growers for their crops and therefore control the wages of many, if not all, workers.

After six years of hunger strikes and marches to get the attention of the growers, the CIW saw no results. Realizing they had been targeting the wrong group, the coalition began campaigns to attract the attention of corporations, such as Taco Bell, Burger King and now Whole Foods Market, which is headquartered in Austin.

The coalition first visited the campus in 2004 to gain support in their attempt to break a contract between Taco Bell and the Texas Union. The contract stayed in place, but the “Boot the Bell” campaign forced Taco Bell’s supplier, YUM Brand to enforce a code of conduct which includes a zero tolerance policy for slave labor, and a penny increase in the price of each barrel of tomatoes.

Sellers said that penny significantly affected farm workers’ wages with an 80 percent raise. While those negotiations only affected Florida workers, the coalition formed a deal April 6, 2004 with McDonald’s, just one week before they planned to boycott, Sellers said. In contrast to the YUM Brand agreement, McDonald’s must enforce this contract nation-wide.

After four years, the Coalition marched back on campus this Febraury to protest against Burger King. Their hopes for the campaign are to create a stronger contract, following the pattern of McDonald’s deliberations.

Though their battle with the King is not over, the coalition is also targeting Whole Foods, which is one of the few corporations to sell Santa Sweet Tomatoes. Ag-mart, the grower who provides the tomatoes, purportedly uses pesticides harmful to the workers and pays sub-poverty wages among a list of other allegations by the coalition.

Workers in Immokalee sued Ag-mart for $250,000 to $2 million in unpaid wages, according to the CIW website, (www.ciw-online.org). Not only are wages low, but some workers also claim they are not receiving any wages or only partially of what growers promise for their day’s work.

Alfredo Santos, editor of “La Voz de Austin,” a local newspaper, knows what it’s like to be paid less than promised. Dropping out of high school at age 16, Santos picked crops throughout Texas, Missouri and California during the 1960s and participated in Chavez’s farm worker movement.

Once, he said, a foreman misjudged the amount of crop a field would yield. He and fellow farm workers filled more cucumber baskets than expected, but instead of being paid the wages they were originally promised, the foreman lowered the wage per basket because he didn’t want to lose money.

“You know, even though we were poor, we weren’t stupid,” Santos said. “We had a basic sense of justice and fairness.”

Santos returned to school at age 18, and after graduating in 1974 from the University of California, Berkeley, he went back to the fields—this time as a union organizer for the United Farm Workers Union.
Chavez lived out many of the injustices that can still be seen today, Santos said. He grew up in terrible living conditions, with no electricity, no running water and no restrooms. Like Chavez, the goal of CIW is to unionize and educate farm workers.

CIW delivered a letter to Whole Foods via certified mail in March 2007 and re-delivered it by hand in this February. Since the Coalition cannot set a meeting with John Mackey, Whole Foods CEO, they plan to protest the shareholders’ meeting March 10 at 8 a.m.

But the challenge of unionization is that it promises a future reality, Santos said. “Your having to compete with two different realities—hoy vs. manana,” he said. “What you are doing in essence is trying to sell people on the idea of a better tomorrow, but it becomes very difficult when you are dealing with the hunger of today, the needs of right now.”

Photos by Andy Lin

LOCAL GALLERIES SHOWCASE MINORITY ARTWORK

Jessa Lauren Hollett / Adelante
Volume II, Issue 2 (March 2008)

Everywhere you look in this white-walled art gallery, there are hearts. They are mostly made of wood and close to the same size, painted, deconstructed, decoupaged. One depicts a rooster made of construction paper, another the skewed artistic crayon scribbles of a very young artist.

Another depicts a marker-drawn cartoon of a Spanish proverb: “Panza llena… Corazón contento.” The heart next to it provides a rough translation: “The way to a person’s heart… Is through the stomach.” Some are painted, covered in photos of menacing medieval gargoyles, torn fishnet tights, or a tiny brick wall breaking to show the heart inside. They are all different, made by different artists from school age to established local artists. And they are all for sale.

Each of these mini masterpieces is part of a fundraiser called “Toma Mi Corazón XVI” (Take My Heart 16), which every year raises money for La Peña Art Gallery on South Congress. The only thing that all the artists have in common is that they are all Hispanic.

“La Peña isn’t just an art gallery, it’s a meeting place,” Artistic Director David Gutierrez said. “We try to provide a space for art in all its forms: music, poetry, visual arts. It’s more about preserving and celebrating our culture than it is about selling art.”

La Peña is one of many art galleries in Austin whose mission is to provide a place for artists and subjects that might sometimes get overlooked in major galleries. La Peña’s focus is on the work of Latino artists and musicians from the Austin area and works based on Latino themes, such as Our Lady of Guadalupe or Chichen Itza.

Two blocks north of La Peña is the MexicArte museum, where the art is not for sale but still a celebration of Hispanic culture. The museum provides a space for local artists and traveling exhibitions to show their work to visitors. They also specialize in the work of Hispanic artists and art that reflects themes of the Hispanic experience.

“It’s an opportunity for people and works that normally wouldn’t be in the mainstream to have their day,” Production Manager Angel Quesada said. “They need a place where they can bloom.”

MexicArte is currently featuring a traveling exhibit from Mexico called La Caja, showcasing the work of some of the biggest names in Mexican art. The exhibit contains several full-sized pieces, as well as a mini-museum with tiny artistic works by the same artists on display in a dollhouse-sized mini museum. As a response to this show, miniature works by several local artists are also on display in a back gallery of MexicArte.

Women and Their Work Art Space, though it focuses on the work of women and not specifically Latinas, was also founded to give non-mainstream art a home.

“Nowadays, all of these galleries that used to be known as ‘alternative art spaces’ have become institutionalized themselves,” Executive Director Chris Cowden said. “But they are still necessary, because there still is such a disparity in mainstream galleries. It’s better than it used to be, but these galleries are still necessary to keep it fair.”

To this day, with a few exceptions, work by white male artists sells for more money than work by minorities.

“The sad truth is that the art world has historically been dominated by white males,” Cowden said. “Places like this gallery were created out of necessity. Without them, so much talent was going tragically unheeded. That’s why they’re still necessary today.”

Some of the most recent statistics show that though there are more women than men graduating from art school, the majority of full-time artists are male, Cowden said.

“It’s just a sad truth of our society,” she said. “Everyone, including us, has said that it’s gotten so much better since the days when art history books as a rule only included the work of white males. But it’s still such a problem. And if we didn’t know, who would know?”

IMMIGRANT STUDENTS HOPE FOR THE DREAM

Eva Romero / Adelante
Volume II, Issue 2 (March 2008)

Almost 3 million students will graduate from high school in the United States this year. Some of them will continue their education in college, join the military or enter the workforce.

Of this number, however, approximately 60,000 high school graduates will have no such opportunity – not for lack of intelligence or motivation, but because these students have inherited the title of “illegal immigrant.”

Proposed by Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Illinois, in November 2005, the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, also known as the DREAM Act, will authorize the children of illegal immigrants to attend college or serve in the armed forces with eligibility for legal status. If adopted, the act will amend the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, which drastically heightened consequences for illegal immigrants.

Currently, children who immigrate to the U.S. can only obtain legal status from their parents. If a child is brought into the country illegally, there is no method of becoming a legal resident.

Under the DREAM Act, an immigrant would be granted “conditional” status during the first six years and required to either complete two years of college or serve two years in the military. After this period, an immigrant would be eligible to apply for legal permanent resident status.

“This state has invested thousands of dollars in my education, but after I graduate I won’t be able to contribute to its economy,” Viridiana Tule said. Tule is a radio-television-film and Spanish literature junior at UT. Her parents moved from Guanajuato, Mexico because her father needed a better job to put Tule through school.

Students like Tule can attend college in the U.S., but are ineligible for work authorization and Social Security numbers that would allow them to participate in the regular workforce, according to the National Immigration Law Center.

Both Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, as well as Republican candidate Mike Huckabee, support the DREAM Act. Republican candidate John McCain denounces it.

“The DREAM Act ensures that the promise of the American Dream becomes a reality for all our children, and I am disappointed that the Senate failed to pass it,” Clinton said in a recent speech. “The enactment of this legislation is long overdue, and I will continue to fight for its passage.”

Sen. McCain said the act legitimizes illegal alien students and “rewards” illegal behavior. Supporters say it provides educational opportunities for children who did not choose to enter the U.S. illegally.

“Even though I am in college now, it has been ridiculously difficult,” said Sobeyda Gomez, a pre-med biomedical engineering junior. “It’s as if the system aims to keep us away from school.”

Both Tule and Gomez are involved in the University Leadership Initiative, a group dedicated to promoting higher education in Latino, African-American, Asian and immigrant communities. ULI members are working to plan the Texas DREAM Summit on March 22, an event to unite all Texas DREAM Act supporters.

“I refuse to think that everything would go to waste,” Tule said. “I need the DREAM Act to pass so that I can become a fruitful member of society.”

CARNAVAL BRASILEIRO

Gaby Chabolla / Adelante
Volume II, Issue 2 (March 2008)

Clad in everything from glitter and fancy fabric to body paint on their bare skin, more than 5,000 partygoers from around the country streamed into the Palmer Conventions Center Feb. 2 for a night of celebration Brazilian style.

Begun in Austin in 1975 by homesick Brazilian students on an abroad program, Carnaval Braseleiro was first celebrated in a small room of the Austin Unitarian Church with only 200 attendees.

Years later, the carnival hasn’t lost its frenzied flavor, and 9 p.m. swung in with the deep thud of drums, the clank of wood and the clatter of metal. It was the band of the Acadêmicos da Opera Samba School, along with its hip-moving, shoulder-shaking, white-tennis-shoed dancers. This year’s theme: Madame Butterfly.

Their musical performance moved to an assortment of sounds, tulle butterfly wings flapping bright blue and beats timed by the dancers’ white sneakers. Having warmed things up, the group cleared the dance floor, giving way to the band, Beleza Brazil. You could almost feel the Brazilian breeze.

Costumes colored the night—pantless grandpas, pink-headed women with tambourines, television appliances on legs and dozens of electric masks. Crowd grew denser throughout the night, and the music Austin’s biggest party is known for—never stopped.

LATINO MOVIES ON THE RISE

Latino movies worth a watch.

Gaby Chabolla / Adelante
Volume II, Issue 2 (March 2008)

Kilómetro 31

Released in early 2007, Kilómetro 31, or Km 31, is a zombie effort in film horror – “zombie” because the genre was dead for so long in Mexican cinema. Forget the overly-acted screams of yore; special effects, myth and more soap opera-ness come together in this well-budgeted horror film.

Mysterious occurrences seem to take place at the 31st kilometer section of a highway. The story begins when Catalina, through a special connection to her twin sister, Agata, realizes something is wrong. Her premonition proves true. Catalina, along with a friend named Omar, hurry to the site and find Agata unconscious.

From here on, Catalina tries to shed light upon the strange circumstances under which her sister had the accident. What is this about a little boy in the middle of the night on a lonely highway? What is the bad cop doing trying to frustrate our protagonist’s attempts to get to the core of it all? And most bedazzling of all, what has this mythical ghost from the gutters of the city to do with the two sisters?

Mexico is rich in mythology, which is reflected in this specific genre. Decades-old movies such as Hasta el Viento Tiene Miedo (1968) and El Libro de Piedra (1969) are cult examples of quality horror movies, laced in some form or other with popular legends. But then again, what makes Mexico’s films any different from other horror movies? The budget, perhaps?

Morirse en Domingo

A dark comedy, Morirse en Domingo contains among its visuals some seriously dark greens and yellows. The plot revolves around Carlos, on whose young shoulders the responsibility of overseeing the funerary details of his uncle has fallen. Among the grief, his ineptitude and the fact that it’s a Sunday, the dead uncle loses his way and ends up in a body trafficking network.

Incredulously aware of the mistake he made when taking the body’s end for granted, Carlos finds himself in the middle of a game of pulling levers and nightly trickery. Under his father’s strict expectations, he tries to confront the fraudulent cremations man, Joaquin, with whom he’s become tangled up with. Along the way, Carlos falls in love with Ana, Joaquin’s brooding daughter.

After some reflections on death, the plot burns down to Ana’s tricky relationships with her father and with Carlos. The body winds up well traveled: it visits a university, a hotel room, a refrigerator, a trash can and the consequential dumpster.

This movie is an especially rich fountain of Mexican folk wisdom. The dark elements of the movie – the unearthly ability of the dead to vote and to receive a pension after life’s limit, are offset by the insight into the ridiculous disorder that rules in the streets under Mexican formality murky transactions in Aztec land.

Charm School (Niñas Mal)

An update on Mexican comedy, Charm School takes on the contrasting game: rebel adolescent girls vs. proper morals and appearances. A group of daughters from distraught mothers (and the aggravating antagonist), led by statue-throwing Adela, is enrolled into an academy for proper ladylike behavior. The problem here is that Adela’s prancing, setting things on fire and wearing improper garments, threatens the funding for her father’s candidacy. There comes a turning point in every daddy’s life when he has to say “Enough” to his little girl and then you call la doña.

It’s the disinteresting cast that’s interesting in this case: a sexy Wilma, a dreamy ipod girl, a sparse headed do-gooder and pretty wife Heidi. “I… want… to be the best wife ever for Kike,” is her bubbly leitmotiv.

Pearls of wisdom are dropped periodically by our most proper hostess, “Life is like an old disc, and the wheel runs the same road until it reaches a scratch in the way,” “There is nothing harder than changing the way you think when you’ve convinced yourself for years of a particular way of seeing things,” She gives an informative five-second discourse in monochromatics), and later on reveals a tattoo to our rebelette, adding, “It was the sixties, girl.” Naughty, naughty.

The comedy consists of the attempts of our hostess to domesticate this group of hopeless girls, all of who gang up on the evil insistence of Heidi to conquer appearances.

Like all good Mexican meetings, all the conflicts end with a party. Like all comedies, everyone gets their cake and eats it: the grouchy entrepreneur, the frustrated father, the unhappy daughter, the love deprived nerd and even Monsignor join in a dance to forget all ills.

A wacky detail is the resemblance of the closing credits to a soap opera.

Duck Season (Temporada de patos)

A quirky little find. Shot entirely in black -and -white, it narrates a home-alone afternoon of massive coke glasses, pizza, Halo, and brownies gone amiss.

Flama and Moko (“With a K”) set themselves in front of the screen along with a bowl of chips and soda, ready to indulge in a gaming afternoon in an empty apartment. The shooting goes along quite nicely, but things start bubbling when their next-door neighbor, an apron-clad girl, pops in to use the oven “for 15 minutes”. The youngster’s plan collapses when the electricity goes off; they stare at the ceiling, and she spits water.

With electricity coming back sometime later, they decide to call the pizza guy. Moko sets his chronometer after calling the guy. “Why do you set it? They always get here on time.” Ooh, foreshadowing.

To this follows an interesting scene. Ever tried to get into an eleventh floor apartment without using the elevator?

Dispute over the timing of the delivery adds another character to the story: the thirty-something pizza deliverer who, like the other three kids, is also fed up with how his life is going.

The pizza’s fate is to be decided through a gaming match, it is accorded. But alas! More electrical failures and non-sounding alarm clocks muddle things up yet again.

The movie has some funny moments, might be slow at times, but with level-headed expectations, results are quite enjoyable.

Related links: Km 31 (IMDb), Morirse en Domingo (IMDb), Charm School (IMDb), Duck Season (IMDb)

THE EVOLUTION OF REVOLUTION

Jazmine Ulloa / Adelante
Volume II, Issue 1 (Fall 2007)

For many, revolution has become a rhetorical slogan or a “dirty word.” But for director Roberto Maestas and his students, the word still encompasses the love for humanity that motivated them to spark their own revolution 35 years ago. Americans’ activism may have faded with the social movements of the 60s and 70s, Maestas says, but the parallels between then and now can still be drawn. He and others share their perspectives behind revolution and today’s moments of social change.

October 1972 saw the country steeped in intense political activity. Racial tensions were fuming in the aftermath of the Civil Rights movement and more than 7,000 miles away, the war in Vietnam raged, while millions of students across the States were joining anti-war protests erupting on college campuses.

In the city of Seattle, times weren’t any better. The city was undergoing its worst recession since the 1930s, and President Richard Nixon’s funding cuts from the War on Poverty budget had done away with many the city’s anti-poverty programs, including the English and Adult Basic Education program at South Seattle Community College.

With their insides shaking, director Roberto Maestas and a small group of college students met a month after the funding cuts outside of Beacon Hill Elementary School, a run-down building in south Seattle. They were determined to protest not only the loss of their program but the state of their country.
“Things were going to hell in a hand basket, and we were not going to go down without a fight,” Maestas said.

A few minutes past 8:30 a.m., the school’s custodian appeared and unlocked the doors. Maestas took the lock from his hands and put it in his pocket. As Maestas and some of the students quickly went inside, one of them stayed behind and gave the signal.

From their cars and nearby streets, some even hiding behind bushes, the dozens who had been waiting for the signal filled the school grounds. Within minutes, more than 30 black, Native American, white, Asian-Pacific Islander and Latino people from all backgrounds and ages were inside.

The numbers were varied from day to day, but more than 80 people occupied the crumbling building for three months during one of Seattle’s coldest winters, hoping to create “a community center addressing the needs of the most left out.” By New Year’s Day, the building was jammed with 500 people from all over the city.

“Era un tiempo revolucionario,” Maestas said. It was a revolutionary time.

It was.

But 35 years since, the energy that drove the protestors at Beacon Hill, the kind that at a grander scale drove massive waves of social movement across the country, during the Civil Rights and Vietnam war eras, has dissipated or been forgotten. Without a recent history of successful struggles, revolution itself has become a “dirty word.”

“People decry revolution, they bash revolution. But if there hadn’t been an American Revolution we’d still be an English colony,” said Dana Cloud, associate professor of communication studies at The University of Texas at Austin. “If there hadn’t been a French Revolution, there would be no democracy in France.”

Today, living through the War in Iraq reminds Maestas of when he and other community leaders were organizing the Beacon Hill occupation during the Vietnam War, he said.

“This country needs a revolution of values,” Maestas said. “A revolution doesn’t have to mean violence. It can mean change.”

Many are drawing parallels between the Vietnam War and the War in Iraq, but social movement, such as the anti-war movement, is still in its stages of infancy, said Kelly Booker, a member of the Campus Anti-war Movement to End the Occupation. The country is in a “re-building stage,” she said, where Americans have to “re-learn” how the movements of the 1960s brought about social change.

Some students on campus said they see revolutions as bloody and undesirable and not social change. Others said Americans have long been labeled bored, apathetic and, as sophomore Tania Mejia said, “too indifferent to see the need for a revolution.”

“Social change is a strange process,” said Alfredo Santos, editor of La Voz, a local Latino newspaper, and an activist for Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers of America during the 1970s. “Most of the time social change takes place when people get mad about something. If there is no anger or outrage, nothing usually happens.”

While sophomore Beeba Matthews said the political attitude of Americans does tend to be indifferent, her hands slightly tremble with anger when she speaks about certain issues facing the United States. She especially resents the unjust handling of immigration reform.

Students, professors, activists and community leaders said “children not receiving healthcare,” “scholarship money drying up,” and “billions of dollars poured into the war” are some of the issues facing America that also worried or angered them. Others included the “stagnating quality of life,” people having to work two jobs to “simply pay the bills” and “racism becoming subtle and more dangerous.”

“People are angry,” Cloud said. But there’s a gap between people’s anger and unrest and their experience and knowledge of “what to do when I am this angry.”

Joshua Levy, writer, editor, filmmaker and blogger, said, “there is plenty of political activity going on, but it’s happening in the places where people aren’t looking.”

Collaboration is now happening online, and it’s a lot cheaper than the activism of the ‘60s, said Levy, the associate editor of the Personal Democracy Forum Web site, which tracks how technology is providing the tools for a new kind of civic conversation.

One case of such collaboration was by supporters of presidential hopeful Republican Ron Paul. Supporters organized online fundraising and raised a record-breaking $4 million in one day. The results sent shockwaves, but the costs to organize were essentially nothing, he said.

People should stop “fantasizing” about the marches that occurred on Washington, and realize the online tools that can make anyone an organizer or an activist, Levy said.

“It’s not good or bad, it’s just the world we live in,” he said. “It’s totally different than the way that we’ve operated.”

However, online activism will not replace the old way of political activity or physical activism, Levy said. Instead, people will use both. Physical protests can show unity, but they may be organized online. “There’s a bigger political ecology now that the web is in the mix,” he said.

Although people are physically protesting, their efforts aren’t in a sustained and steady progression, Cloud said. Efforts tend to be short-lived, such as the recent movement against the death penalty, people protesting the Jena 6 issue this year and the historic immigrant rights demonstrations the country saw a year ago.

All of these movements may have been inspiring but fall short of revolutionary, activists agreed. They’re examples of what Raul Salinas, a retired professor, renowned poet and owner of Resistencia Bookstore in Austin, called “jumping to crisis.” “It’s not about going out there and shouting ‘Revolution!’” Salinas said, letting out a soft yell and waving a frail arm mockingly. “That’s not revolution.”

For him, revolution is more than just a one-time stance on an issue, yelling out rhetoric and an easy-to-pick-up slogan.

“You have to act beyond the slogan,” he said. “Revolution is about principles. People have to read literature, share ideas and organize.”

The elder poet is now struggling with debilitating health issues that keep him from running his bookstore, which also serves as a forum for political conversation. But he’s involved in social movement for life, and students should read and share ideas, “not as saviors or because of the vanguard—but to learn,” he said.

In and out of state and federal prisons from 1957-1972 on drug convictions, his own prison days spent reading, writing and studying political thought prepared him in the struggle for prisoners’ rights he and others organized at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas. Transferred to Marion Federal Penitentiary in Illinois because of the heightening prison rebellions across the country, Salinas won his release in ‘72 with the help of faculty and graduate students at the University of Washington at Seattle.

He said he arrived in Seattle after his release to attend the university, and by that time, Beacon Hill was in its second month of occupation. His political self-education and organizing of the prison rights’ struggle prepared him for the struggle he found in Seattle.

Had it not been for his experience at Beacon Hill, he would have probably ended back in prison, he said.

“People think revolutions happen over night, that revolution is encoded in the DNA,” said journalism professor Mercedes de Uriarte. “The ideas bring the people together not the DNA.”

Although the multi-racial occupation at Beacon Hill took only one month of cautious, clandestine planning by Maestas and the Latino students of the program, they were sharing revolutionary ideas and supporting other minority groups in Seattle years before then, Maestas said.

“We’d go out and support all these other groups in their struggle with the reason that we were ‘practicing our English,’” Maestas said. “We’d attend their events, help with their protests, hoping they’d support us as well. When the time came, they did.”

Recent protests have lacked such a strong sense of community building, unity and learning that occurred before the occupation in Seattle and other major movements of the ‘60s and ‘70s, activists said.

One example is the massive movement in 2006 for immigration rights.

Luis Figueroa, legislative staff attorney for the Mexican Legal Defense Fund, said the protests helped kill the bill in Congress that had sparked them, the Border Protection, Anti-terrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act, which included the building of a 700-mile long fence along the U.S.-Mexican border.

But since there was no major force unifying all Latinos and other minorities during the immigration rights movement, the marches isolated immigration rights as solely a Latino issue and created strong backlash from the media, de Uriarte said. And all Latinos, U.S. born or not, are affected by anti-immigrant sentiments, Figueroa said.

An intellectual stage was also missing before the enormous immigrants’ rights demonstrations to prevent their energy from dissolving, de Uriarte said. There wasn’t a body of intellectual people building the movement through literature, art and music as strongly as there had been before the Civil Rights Movement, she said.

Emerging from the conservative ‘50s, students in the mid-1960s had such a period of intensive discussion, debate and education before the enormous anti-war protests the decade is remembered for, said Mike Corwin, a member of the International Socialist Organization. In the original “teach-in” events of the ‘60s, hundreds of people would stay in a room all night reading and discussing. Such political discussion put the movement on firmer ground and set the stage for the large protests, he said.

Santos attempted to provide some grounding shortly after the immigration rights walkouts. He and others organized the Social Justice Summer School in Austin for those who had participated in the demonstrations. “While the summer school was successful, it is clear to many of us that what we saw in 2006 was not a sustained effort,” he said.

That’s because today’s country is too busy to sustain any kind of movement, de Uriarte said.
“Revolution requires altruism and the willingness to sacrifice, and we aren’t doing that,” she said. “We’re too busy sending text messages on our cell phones and punching messages into our Blackberrys, when are we going to sit down and talk about what’s wrong with the world?”

The nation’s values also hinder social change, de Uriarte said. Success is defined by individual not community achievement, Americans have become more narcissistic and competitive and much of the country’s youth that could be devoted to social change is tied up in a war, she said.

Then there’s the fear factor the country has been operating under ever more tightly since 9/11, activists said. Revolutions are more radical than they are violent, Salinas said. Social revolutions, although often nonviolent, are often associated with violence, activists said.

“When the question of violence arises, we have to remember that those people who are holding on to power don’t let go of it easily,” religious studies professor Syed Akbar said. “The burden of the violence should also fall on the shoulders of the status quo.”

Some of the greatest revolutions during his lifetime have in many ways been nonviolent, Akbar said. “One of the central principles of the Civil Rights revolution was the idea of nonviolence, such as of Dr. King and many others,” he said.

Maestas and others organized the protests in Seattle based on the teachings of Martin Luther King and the nonviolent tactics of the Civil Rights Movement, Maestas said.

They urged city officials to renovate the dilapidated, three-story school building into a community center, but when the city would not listen, they pretended to be interested property developers, setting up their morning meeting at the building in 1972 to only “take a look inside.”

He and others were arrested and held for a time, but after countless of negotiations with the Seattle City Council and Seattle Public Schools the mayor approved for them a five-year lease of the building for $1 a month, allowing them to transform it.

Now, what used to be a building with a leaky roof and stripped of any value is a thriving community center called El Centro de la Raza. Its name may be in Spanish, but it translates to “The Center of the People,” and home to all people wanting to make a difference for humanity, said Maestas, its executive director.

The center rents office space to a diverse range of non-profit groups representing different ethnicities and houses a food bank, bilingual child-care and social services for families among many other programs.

And the system that fought so hard to keep the radical Maestas out, now welcomes him in.

“Revolutions are radical, and the radical is a moving target,” de Uriarte said. “Once it becomes absorbed by the system, the radical becomes redefined, and everything that was radical before becomes commonplace. One must not be ‘co-opted’ by the system, while still using it and learning from it in order to change and redefine it.”

Maestas still remembers taking the lock from the puzzled custodian’s hands.

“He pulled me aside and said, “Just be sure to lock it when you’re done,’” Maestas said with a chuckle. “It’s been 35 years, and we’re still not done.”

AUTHOR EXPOSES MURDER, CORRUPTION, ORGANIZED CRIME IN LATIN AMERICA

Caprice Padilla / Adelante
Volume II, Issue 1 (Fall 2007)

A horrifying trend has emerged in the border town of Juarez, Mexico–the slayings, tortures and abductions of hundreds of women. After seven years of investigating the situation, journalist Diana Washington Valdez brings attention to the very complex and often corrupt relationship between politics, socio-economics, drug trafficking and organized crime in her book, “The Killing Fields.”

I was first drawn to this book because I was raised in El Paso, Texas, which shares its border with Juarez. Although one can literally look out their car window from the interstate in El Paso and see Juarez – the dirt roads, the poorly assembled houses, the Rio Grande River which separates the two cities – it always felt like the violence was millions of miles away. How is it possible that such savage and tragic crimes were occurring next door and being treated with such apathy?

Valdez’s eye opening book is based on thorough research with international sources, including politicians, law enforcement agents, families of the victims and anonymous sources. Valdez visited sites where bodies had been found, read through case files, information that had been leaked and various other documents to piece together the investigation.

Anecdotes from the victim’s families are included, as well as photos of victims and an appendix organized by year with every victim’s name, age and cause of death, when known. Valdez makes each case relatable and more realistic; each victim was someone’s mother, daughter, sister, wife, or loved one. This makes it much more difficult to turn away from what Valdez terms femicide, or the murder of women. The victims become people, not merely statistics.

Even more heart wrenching is the manner in which the women were tortured and killed. Almost sickening to read, Valdez includes descriptive accounts of the conditions in which bodies were found and details the common traits among the various cases.

Valdez also sheds light on the pervasive corruption within Mexico and reveals shocking information about the relationship between drug cartels and the government.

It is almost impossible for justice to be served. Police falsely prosecuted many individuals and employed tactics such as planting or losing evidence and intimidating witnesses and sources. Lawyers representing the accused were often forced to withdraw from cases due to threats or physical harm. Many who did not step down were murdered.

Women’s bodies were often misidentified and not allowed to be viewed. Because the majority of victims come from a low socio-economic status, families cannot afford to pay outrageous DNA test costs, and therefore never have proof. Valdez explains that she smuggled a collar bone across the border for DNA testing so that a woman could have answers about her missing daughter.

Journalists were also greatly fearful for their own safety, and often did not pursue cases. Valdez’s ability to overcome such fears in order to seek the truth is admirable. Her selflessness and desire to provide a voice to those who are voiceless is inspiring, not only as a journalist, but as a human being.

The portrayal of drug cartels and their immunity from any type of prosecution or accusation surrounding the cases and the apathy throughout all ranks of the government towards the cases are equally shocking. The Killing Fields seems more like an intense, complex movie script than reality.

Valdez explains that femicides have spread to other areas of Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador. A chapter is also dedicated to what she perceives must now be done to address the situation and what can be done to improve Juarez women’s future.

The Killing Fields, one of the most compelling and provocative books I have ever read, allowed me to grasp the emotion and understand the injustice in Juarez. Relating to the book brought the femicides into my reality; I could no longer brush it off as another news story. I’ve walked on the streets from which women were abducted; I’ve seen the Juarez police patrolling; I’ve seen both the extremely wealthy and very poor Mexicans. Valdez comments on the irony that El Paso is one of the safest cities in the United States, while minutes away Juarez is literally a killing field.

I feel incredibly lucky, but also greatly saddened by the fact that merely because I was born north of the Rio Grande, I am safer, more fortunate and have more opportunities than those who, by fate, were born to the south.

FIVE MINUTES WITH REPORTER SONIA NAZARIO

Adelante Q & A
Volume II, Issue 1 (Fall 2007)

Reporter and author Sonia Nazario traveled from Honduras to the United States clinging to the tops of freight trains to relive the harrowing journey of Enrique, a migrant teenager in search of his mother. Thousands of Central American children take the same perilous journey each year, many searching for mothers who have had to leave them behind in search of work. She began tracing Enrique’s story in a series for the Los Angeles Times that won the Pulitzer Prize among many other awards and has expanded the series into a book, “Enrique’s Journey.” Nazario gave an emotional speech about her experiences on Friday of the weekend conference held Oct. 19-20 on campus.

If you could redo the experience, is there anything you would do differently?
I wish I could have ridden on the train more times then I did. When I went back to expand the series to a book I went alongside the rails but I didn’t actually ride again. I didn’t want to risk that. I picked up these amazing details about this whole world and life on the trains, but I had to consider the fact that I didn’t want to be divorced. Staying married is a good thing.

Do you feel that you’ve accomplished what you set out to do when you first decided why you wanted to be a journalist?
There are plenty of big social issues and problems to write about, and so I don’t think any journalist can be satisfied with what they’ve done. There’s always going to be huge issues to write about, but for me the goal is to try to write about them in the most compelling way possible.

What sort of actions did you hope your book would inspire?
It was mostly aimed at informing people and humanizing immigrants and getting people to start a conversation with immigrants that they know that might clean their offices or homes or take care of their kids and create a better understanding of how these immigrants are. I’m thrilled to hear that as a result of the book there’s better treatment for immigrants.

Knowing the outcomes, do you think that it’s right for a mother to leave her children to ensure them a better life?
It’s hard to know what you would do even knowing the negatives of how this turns out until you’re in that mothers shoes and you’re hearing your kid cry with hunger and you know you have nothing to give your kid and you really know that it’s not gonna turn out well. Although most of these women don’t they really think they’re going to leave and stay gone. They think it’s going to be a short period of time.

DIA DE LOS MUERTOS

Caprice Padilla / Adelante
Volume II, Issue 1 (Fall 2007)

The Mexic-Arte Museum paid special tribute to the 100th anniversary of artist Frida Kahlo. A procession of Aztec dancers, mariachis and people dressed as skeletons paraded downtown, and the event culminated outside the museum with traditional food and music, altars for deceased loved ones and ballet folklorico dancers. To commemorate Kahlo’s life, 100 participants dressed as Frida Kahlo for a look-alike contest. The Aztecs believed that a Chihuahua dog led people into the after life, therefore Chihuahuas led the parade and competed for best dressed.

Photos by Andrew Rogers.

SKA, RAI, POLITICS MELODICALLY BLEND IN LA RADIOLINA

Gaby Chabolla / Adelante
Volume II, Issue 1 (Fall 2007)

Constant rhythms, mantra-like lyrics and characteristic political undertones mark Manu Chao’s recent album, La Radiolina, Italian for small radio.

The album opens with a rallying track. The clamoring voices of ska enfold 13 Días, whose tone is eventually repeated with the addition of police sirens and trumpets later on in Rainin in Paradize, El Hoyo and Panik Panik.

It softens down into a melancholic mood with Tristeza Maleza and crystallizes afterward with A Cosa’s mellow sweetness, “Che cosa vuoi dame? (What do you want from me?) / Che cosa vuoi ancora? (What do you want now?) / Che cosa vuoi di più? (What do you want more of?).”

Amalucada Vida’s Portuguese reggae, and Otro Mundo’s faintly morbid lyrics “Calavera no llora / Serenata de amor (Bones don’t cry / Love serenade)” keep the album eclectic.

A radio announcer’s voice materializes every now and then, discreetly placed at the end of a song or disguised behind lyrics, evoking Chao’s 2001 album, Próxima Estación: Esperanza.

Noteworthy songs include the Spanish guitar-like Me Llaman Calle, and the sudden consciousness of Y Ahora Que?

Siberia’s fast pace enhances its hopeful message, “I believe in you, I believe in love, I believe in hope.” The renowned Serbian filmmaker, Emir Kusturica, directed the video.

La Radiolina oscillates between charged protest and acoustic melancholy. Political themes recur throughout, some subtle, others not as much, such as by Politik Kills’ blatant reference to blood, force, violence and drugs.

It might take a couple of listens, and perhaps even languages, to understand the album’s meaning; it is heavier than former albums. Even with the absence of multilingualism, this assortment of naturally melodic romances is sure to charm the ear. “Che cosa inventare?”

Related links: Manu Chao (MySpace), La Radiolina (Wikipedia)

DIG INTO A TASTE SOUTH OF THE BORDER

Caprice Padilla / Adelante
Volume II, Issue 1 (Fall 2007)

Surrounded by the bustle of the UT campus, Janitzio is nestled along a major street that never seems to slow. Within its bright orange and yellow walls, decorated with colorful broken glass columns and traditional Mexican art, one can escape to the sights and tastes of another country.

The Mexican food served at Janitzio is made in the Michoacan style and is one of the best in Austin. From its spicy and savory green enchiladas to its crispy and flavorful chicken flautas, Janitzio consistently serves quality food at affordable prices.

Lunch specials offered Monday through Friday, 11:00 a.m. until 2:30 p.m., include a wide variety of dishes priced only at $5.99. It is quite convenient for those coming from the campus or downtown area. The restaurant opens at 7:00 a.m. on weekdays, perfect for a quick breakfast taco to start off the day.

Service is fast, the restaurant is clean but even better, the staff is helpful and friendly.

Janitzio also offers a wide variety of beverage choices. Other than typical drinks such as Coca-Cola brand sodas and tea, there’s also Mexican bottled sodas and horchata. I highly recommend horchata, a rice based sweet drink. On ice, horchata is deliciously refreshing and thirst quenching. It is a great treat to find horchata served in Austin, much less as impeccably made as it is at Janitzio.

The restaurant itself does not serve alcohol but encourages patrons to bring their own. Dine inside the cozy restaurant or enjoy the fall weather on the patio. Take out is also available, as well as delivery service.

Located at 600 W. Martin Luther King, Janitzio’s hours of operation are 7:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, and 8:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. on Saturdays. It is closed on Sundays.

Related links: Janitzio (Yelp)

FRATERNITY MENTORS PRETEENS

Emmanuel Kelley / Adelante
Volume II, Issue 1 (Fall 2007)

Standing in front of a group of fidgeting middle school boys, Domingo Martinez asks the tough crowd what they think they’re going to learn today.

“You’re going to teach us how to be a man,” one of the younger boys replies.

A smile spreads across Martinez’s face. That’s not exactly what he had in mind when he formed Young Knights, a mentor program for middle school boys, through his fraternity Omega Delta Phi. But now that he gives it a second thought, it’s not too far from the lessons he hopes the students will learn.

Originally started in 1999 by the fraternity’s chapter at Michigan State University, Young Knights had a brief stint with The University of Texas chapter back in 2004 before it dwindled away in participation and leadership.

Martinez, service coordinator for the fraternity, revived the program last spring semester, gathering fraternity brothers to mentor students at Pearce Middle School, a school statistically below the poverty line, where gang violence and racial tensions were all too familiar.

Since then, the program has done well enough to branch out to two other low-income schools, Martin Middle School and Webb Middle School and has received additional funding.

So what does it take to be a man? Mentors try to instill five core values in the students: self-identity, education, diversity, community and leadership. But their main goal is to show the students that they are not as different from them as they seem.

“We were sitting in your seats once,” Martinez said he often tells students. Most mentors came from similar backgrounds as the students. One fraternity brother even attended Webb Middle School when he was younger, he said.

“A lot of them don’t have males that are positive in their lives and they’re really blooming from having a guy that’s sitting in there that is a little bit older than them but still approachable,” said Molly Foerster, program manager for communities and schools at Webb Middle School.

A few fraternity members and up to 25 students perform activities relating to the core values and often play sports. Although mentors visit with the students every week, it’s hard to tell what kind of effect they have on a short-term scale.

They are planting the seeds of core values in them, he said, such as value for education and leadership, “hoping they grow as they [students] grow.”

“A lot of the kids need to see someone who’s living out a goal that we talk about so much with them,” said Alicia Rainwater, an after school coordinator for Pearce Middle School. “We talk about higher education, we talk about graduating high school, but when they can actually interact with someone who’s living that out that really affects them.”