Ok so you are officially a reporter!
Is still somewhat hard to believe when at the beggining of the semester I just signed up for a class expecting to be given the tipical assignments and having to study for the same exams and midterms.
Now I just read the first issue of the South Florida Times with one of our own on its pages. Unbelievable! More so when the prof is gushing over how proud he is of us. This is not an easy thing to do.
Well now that we have the tittle... no preassure to deliver. This is something that I thought was going to progressively get here maybe as a final, having all our stories compiled into blogs or one massive issue. NOT! It's honestly overwhelming specially when you have to double, triple check your information and having in mind that the info was a hassle to get in the first place.
I am proud of all that we are doing but I don't think I'm as ready and I know this is jitters and unexperience talking but the last thing I want is to dissapoint.
I have my first story due in a week, it still has holes in it and that's because I'm dealing with government officials who are being very skeptical about giving up general information. I hope that it goes well and that if anything it shows that I tried.
Wish me luck... I'll let you know how it goes.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
Leave a note, We'll call you back
"Participating in the census is one of the most powerful ways of having a voice in the United States." -- The official 2010 census website.
I, like many people who are just learning about the census, want to know more about it. It makes sense that a community's local census office would be the best place go to, I would think twice about that now.
Two weeks ago I started researching about local census offices in Liberty City and neighboring communities. It was somewhat puzzling to find out that Liberty City does not have an actual office. The city's zip codes are managed by the Miami East office located in Biscayne and 47 st. This office also deals with Miami Shore and Miami Beach. Besides the fact that the office is nowhere near the city and that in itself is an obstacle for the people of Liberty City to have an active part in the census, they also take more than a week and a half to answer a phone call.
No wait, I'm still waiting for the call back.
I called at least four times wanting "general questions about the census" answered. First, I called explaining how I am a student from FIU, that got me on a post-it with a promise of a call back from the recruiting manager. This was after speaking with two different people who were happy to transfer me along and along.
I finally called today and used the "reporter" card, and that got me on another post-it with the same promise of a call back but now it got more concise. I will be called after the office manager forwards my information and the recruiting manager gets a response via email. With not that much patience left I asked why the hassle and all the office clerk could say was, "I don't know you know this is government stuff."
"Government stuff?" Isn't this for the people and an organization that has to be as easy and accessible as possible? Tomorrow, I want to personally go. I'm honestly more interested in finding out how I will get treated than the actual information they'll say.
I know this is not a representation of all of the census offices, at the beginning of this research the office manager at the Hialeah location was more than extremely helpful. This is why it's more than frustrating the run-around I'm getting.
I, like many people who are just learning about the census, want to know more about it. It makes sense that a community's local census office would be the best place go to, I would think twice about that now.
Two weeks ago I started researching about local census offices in Liberty City and neighboring communities. It was somewhat puzzling to find out that Liberty City does not have an actual office. The city's zip codes are managed by the Miami East office located in Biscayne and 47 st. This office also deals with Miami Shore and Miami Beach. Besides the fact that the office is nowhere near the city and that in itself is an obstacle for the people of Liberty City to have an active part in the census, they also take more than a week and a half to answer a phone call.
No wait, I'm still waiting for the call back.
I called at least four times wanting "general questions about the census" answered. First, I called explaining how I am a student from FIU, that got me on a post-it with a promise of a call back from the recruiting manager. This was after speaking with two different people who were happy to transfer me along and along.
I finally called today and used the "reporter" card, and that got me on another post-it with the same promise of a call back but now it got more concise. I will be called after the office manager forwards my information and the recruiting manager gets a response via email. With not that much patience left I asked why the hassle and all the office clerk could say was, "I don't know you know this is government stuff."
"Government stuff?" Isn't this for the people and an organization that has to be as easy and accessible as possible? Tomorrow, I want to personally go. I'm honestly more interested in finding out how I will get treated than the actual information they'll say.
I know this is not a representation of all of the census offices, at the beginning of this research the office manager at the Hialeah location was more than extremely helpful. This is why it's more than frustrating the run-around I'm getting.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Why the Seclution?
Since the Census is coming up, there are various groups in the class doing stories on it. My take on it is what the Census is doing in order to get Liberty City to have a greater turnout since the last count. During research some of the things I found have been somewhat confusing.
According to Brad Brown, a volunteer for the NAACP for various years now, Liberty City only had a 10 percent turnout since the last census. He said that many people were illegal immigrants and that one of their efforts was to educate on the confidentiality of the census and the benefits of having yourself count. Liberty City had the lowest turnout from all it's neighboring communities.
Reasearch led to finding out that all the communities around Liberty City had at least one official census office where different services were offered. The offices work by covering zip codes not particular boundaries. I called different offices with scattered zip codes from the general areas of the city. I tried looking for a zip code at the heart of the city as well as the outskirts.
These were the zip codes:
33168
33127
33142
33147
33150
With the exception of the first one, which is in the borderline of two offices the rest of the codes are covered by the "Miami East" office which is located at Biscayne and 47th St. That's not even on the border line of the city! Now I ask again why the isolation?
The census talks about making it easy and accesable for people to fill out the form, why then would there only be one office to cover one whole city and on top of that it's on the edge? What about the people that don't have cars or the older generations who can't be taking two or three different buses to get there?
Confusing. An organization whose whole purpose is to count and go out and gather those whom don't want to make the effort. Why then not implement more offices or a stronger tactic or plan to get the word out?
The NAACP is doing some outreach programs through churches and groups to get in touch with the community about the importance of the census. By law the census has to be in by April 1st, that's about a month and a half away, and at this stage of the game I trully think it will have to take a whole lot more than that.
Below is a better map of the Miami East office:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=++Miami+East+NW+72nd+Street+Miami,+FL+33150&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=31.839416,56.513672&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=NW+72nd+St,+Miami,+Miami-Dade,+Florida+33150&ll=25.84028,-80.20659&spn=0.008826,0.013797&z=16
According to Brad Brown, a volunteer for the NAACP for various years now, Liberty City only had a 10 percent turnout since the last census. He said that many people were illegal immigrants and that one of their efforts was to educate on the confidentiality of the census and the benefits of having yourself count. Liberty City had the lowest turnout from all it's neighboring communities.
Reasearch led to finding out that all the communities around Liberty City had at least one official census office where different services were offered. The offices work by covering zip codes not particular boundaries. I called different offices with scattered zip codes from the general areas of the city. I tried looking for a zip code at the heart of the city as well as the outskirts.
These were the zip codes:
33168
33127
33142
33147
33150
With the exception of the first one, which is in the borderline of two offices the rest of the codes are covered by the "Miami East" office which is located at Biscayne and 47th St. That's not even on the border line of the city! Now I ask again why the isolation?
The census talks about making it easy and accesable for people to fill out the form, why then would there only be one office to cover one whole city and on top of that it's on the edge? What about the people that don't have cars or the older generations who can't be taking two or three different buses to get there?
Confusing. An organization whose whole purpose is to count and go out and gather those whom don't want to make the effort. Why then not implement more offices or a stronger tactic or plan to get the word out?
The NAACP is doing some outreach programs through churches and groups to get in touch with the community about the importance of the census. By law the census has to be in by April 1st, that's about a month and a half away, and at this stage of the game I trully think it will have to take a whole lot more than that.
Below is a better map of the Miami East office:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=++Miami+East+NW+72nd+Street+Miami,+FL+33150&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=31.839416,56.513672&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=NW+72nd+St,+Miami,+Miami-Dade,+Florida+33150&ll=25.84028,-80.20659&spn=0.008826,0.013797&z=16
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Welcome to the City Nobody Wants to Visit
When I first heard that we were doing this whole project on Liberty City the first thought that came to my head was "oh no I'm not driving to Homestead to do all this." That's because I could not even locate Liberty City in a map.
I honestly was excited for the project for the kind of exposure it would bring to the city and the hands on experience it would give us. Yet the way we needed to infiltrate in the community looked very unlikely. I kept thinking that being passionate about something would not really make it happen specially in one semester. All of these assumptions and doubts were based completely on Liberty City's reputation. I was scared to think I would be going there much less have to talk to the people and mingle in the crowd. I think at one point I was thankful to own a beat-up 1998 Honda, like that it would not draw attention. As a result I would not likely get mugged or robbed at gun-point.
So with these jolly thoughts I headed down for the Liberty City's Martin Luther King Parade. I went with two other classmates and it was noon. "Plenty of sunshine and backup," I thought.
Going back now through my original thoughts to write this blog it seems almost embarrassing to admit some of the paranoia I felt. These were just people having a holiday much like Calle 8 for us Hispanics. So was the jiterrs because they were black or because of the reputation? My honest answer would be both. These people are amazing, they love to laugh, they care for their city and welcome everyone with open arms. After the parade was over I do remeber thinking in the car of all the fun I had and not thinking about the color of their skin or the statistics for crime. Eventhough that does influence the reputation the city has and the opinion that people have about it. It's almost like that saying of the one bad pea that ruins the rest.
The people and their culture is very flamboyant and colorful yet they are surrounded in a way by a gloom of a city that everyone perceives almost as discarded. It's a shame because those that do care and take an active role in the community do really sparkle.
As a class we went to Jumbo's which is a historic restaurant and one of the neat things about it is that the owner is white. He was the only white business owner who staid at the city. At that meeting we got to meet with icons of the city and Florida I would say: one of the first black teachers in South FLorida, the director of their cultural center and even someone who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. These people have seen the community for decades and want to see change and progression. We learned so much from them, like programs that they are having to get people active in helping the community.
Why then with all their work are they not getting any recognition or any results? The answer, as general as it sounds, is because not enough people care. Honestly why should they if they don't even know where the city is on a map?
That's why now I'm convinced that whoever came up with this idea deserves kuddos. Not only are we as students getting the "hussle" of working in a newspaper but we are learning so much more and doing. The city gets covered for what it is good or bad and we get to practice being journalists. But honestly this whole experiment, as young as it is, has given a lot of us a new perspective on how to approach assumptions and our insecurities...try to teach that with a book.
I honestly was excited for the project for the kind of exposure it would bring to the city and the hands on experience it would give us. Yet the way we needed to infiltrate in the community looked very unlikely. I kept thinking that being passionate about something would not really make it happen specially in one semester. All of these assumptions and doubts were based completely on Liberty City's reputation. I was scared to think I would be going there much less have to talk to the people and mingle in the crowd. I think at one point I was thankful to own a beat-up 1998 Honda, like that it would not draw attention. As a result I would not likely get mugged or robbed at gun-point.
So with these jolly thoughts I headed down for the Liberty City's Martin Luther King Parade. I went with two other classmates and it was noon. "Plenty of sunshine and backup," I thought.
Going back now through my original thoughts to write this blog it seems almost embarrassing to admit some of the paranoia I felt. These were just people having a holiday much like Calle 8 for us Hispanics. So was the jiterrs because they were black or because of the reputation? My honest answer would be both. These people are amazing, they love to laugh, they care for their city and welcome everyone with open arms. After the parade was over I do remeber thinking in the car of all the fun I had and not thinking about the color of their skin or the statistics for crime. Eventhough that does influence the reputation the city has and the opinion that people have about it. It's almost like that saying of the one bad pea that ruins the rest.
The people and their culture is very flamboyant and colorful yet they are surrounded in a way by a gloom of a city that everyone perceives almost as discarded. It's a shame because those that do care and take an active role in the community do really sparkle.
As a class we went to Jumbo's which is a historic restaurant and one of the neat things about it is that the owner is white. He was the only white business owner who staid at the city. At that meeting we got to meet with icons of the city and Florida I would say: one of the first black teachers in South FLorida, the director of their cultural center and even someone who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. These people have seen the community for decades and want to see change and progression. We learned so much from them, like programs that they are having to get people active in helping the community.
Why then with all their work are they not getting any recognition or any results? The answer, as general as it sounds, is because not enough people care. Honestly why should they if they don't even know where the city is on a map?
That's why now I'm convinced that whoever came up with this idea deserves kuddos. Not only are we as students getting the "hussle" of working in a newspaper but we are learning so much more and doing. The city gets covered for what it is good or bad and we get to practice being journalists. But honestly this whole experiment, as young as it is, has given a lot of us a new perspective on how to approach assumptions and our insecurities...try to teach that with a book.
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