Polo Catalani provides a 'bigger voice' for immigrants

Ronault "Polo" Catalani provides a 'bigger voice' for immigrants
http://www.oregonlive.com/living/index.ssf/2009/02/ronault_polo_catalani_provides.html
by Gosia Wozniacka, The Oregonian
Photos by Rob Finch, The Oregonian
Saturday, February 28, 2009



After an alarm went off at Roosevelt High School, Portland police arrested two Hmong teens, members of an ethnic group from Southeast Asia. The youths later were released and found innocent. The police apologized, but many of Portland's Hmong refugees from war-torn Laos remained frightened and confused.

Ronault L.S. Catalani, a Portland-area lawyer and community activist who also hails from Asia, advised an odd repayment.

"I explained to the policemen that, for us, saying sorry is not enough. We have a proverb: 'Respect is not in words, respect is in deeds.' You have to give something to heal the break."

So, one morning Catalani ushered the officers into a Hmong leader's home. The policemen wielded two live chickens. Hmong elders and their families crowded in.

The chickens were sacrificed in a special ceremony, their lives given in an effort to repair the relationships that had been breached. The sacrifice is part of a long-standing shamanic cultural tradition that attempts to heal with offerings to the spirits.

"Then," Catalani said, "we ate like there was no tomorrow."

For more than three decades, lawyer-activist Catalani has mediated
between the Old World of immigrants and refugees and the "new world" they encounter in Oregon, easing cultural tensions, solving conflicts and connecting newcomers to resources.

Known to friends and colleagues as "Polo," Catalani -- also a columnist for the Asian Reporter -- is a humble, quiet man. His speech is deliberate, accented, sometimes almost poetic. He will call you "Sister" ("Saya") or "Auntie," or "Elder brother." "Terima kasih," he likes to say, or, "I offer my love and thanks."

But behind this mild-spoken manner is a tenacious philosophy of how best to welcome and protect Oregon's immigrants and refugees, whose numbers have climbed during the past three decades. Foreign-born residents now make up 10 percent of the state's population, 13 percent of Portland's, 18 percent of Gresham's and more than 22 percent of Beaverton's, according to census figures.

"Polo is always fighting for us," said Mardine Mao, president of the Cambodian American Community of Oregon. "We're a small voice, but with Polo, because he's connected to many different communities, we feel like he's our bigger voice. He represents us."

As Oregon becomes increasingly diverse, it is more and more clear that one method cannot be used to work with all communities. That is why Portland hired Catalani as the immigrant and refugee program coordinator with the new Office of Human Relations. His task: to invite newcomers into city hall and to teach them how to share their cultural capital with the mainstream, in addition to mediating conflicts.

But his methods have been unconventional. Some may find his depictions and vocabulary too ethnic or stereotypical, his work counterproductive to acculturation. His approach, he writes in his book, "Counter Culture: Immigrant Stories From Portland Cafe Counters," is not bent on integration and assimilation.

"My work is not to force access into the mainstream but to defend from the mainstream," Catalani said. "With time, all immigrants will integrate. The effort now is to preserve our integrity as a community."

In problem-solving, Catalani relies on Old World tactics that immigrants are familiar with. He has urged government officials and activists to strive for a community-based reconciliatory approach rather than legalistic methods. It's a system in which individuals are part of a greater whole and take responsibility for each other.

Catalani aims to keep families together and to prevent divorce, custody battles and foster care. Sometimes, he says, it's better to wall off social workers and police and to solve problems "around the kitchen table" instead of in the courtroom. Or counsel victims to call on community elders rather than police, and to accept repayments rather than pursue legal battles.

"The state should not monopolize problem-solving," he said.

His sensibility was shaped by the dislocation and chaos of his childhood in post-colonial Indonesia.
One morning, neighbors barged into Catalani's family home and carried out all of their belongings. The neighbors were Manado, full-blooded Indonesians, while the Catalanis were Indos, a mix of white Catalan and Manado. Rage and riots erupted.

The family ran. All Catalani remembers is his father throwing him and his brother onto a roaring propeller airplane. The family flew to Singapore, then boarded a ship for the Netherlands, where they would be considered stateless. Four years later, the Catalanis gained refugee status from the United States and came to live in Salem.

Catalani's mother went to work at a cannery, while his father toiled as a janitor. In school, some white students used racial slurs against Catalani, and spit on and made fun of him, he said.

He earned an athletic scholarship to the University of Oregon. Within a year, he had declared a triple major in psychology, philosophy and political science. He went on fellowships to Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya and Iran to research political revolutions and community development.

When he graduated, Catalani became a social worker with the Department of Human Services in Coos County. But he saw cruel or neglectful parents from a different angle than most other social workers at the time.

"More often than not, the woman was beating her baby because she's angry and frustrated at her man," he said. "Or the father is humiliated, has a bad job and comes home with anger, then drinks or beats his wife and child."

Removing an individual from a home or jailing him didn't seem efficient to Catalani, he said, because "if there's trouble with a person, the family is in trouble and that family should be addressing that issue together."

Catalani's father -- a hakim, or community justice/mediator in Indonesia -- taught him that the family and community should be responsible for healing.

"It's a very Asian position, this tendency to find a viable way of getting along," said Robert Textor, a retired Stanford University anthropology professor and Southeast Asia scholar. "The notion of justice and fairness is present, but it is not as emphasized as in the U.S. Extended kin is taken very seriously in Indonesia."

A year later, Catalani quit social work to study law.

At the time, Oregon schools, hospitals and courts became overwhelmed with a new wave of Southeast Asian refugees, and Catalani saw his calling. He noticed many Asian refugee children were being taken away from their homes because of alleged abuse and neglect by their parents, and placed in mainstream American families, causing cultural and linguistic disorientation.

Catalani worked with refugee organizations and state legislators to draft the Oregon Refugee Child Act. The bill, passed in 1985, provided special protection for refugee children and created the Refugee Child Advisory Committee, which individually reviews child welfare cases of refugee families. When possible, it places refugee children with extended family or another family of the same ethnic background and language.

After a rise in Southeast Asian gangs in the 1990s, Catalani drew up the contract for a Hmong American Community Policing agreement in North Portland. Day-to-day policing of the Hmong community was turned over to its community leaders, family heads and elders. Hmong leaders also trained Portland police in their community's customs.



As an attorney, Catalani represented refugees in courts, for everything from criminal matters to child welfare cases. In one case, involving Andy Cha, a young Hmong man with developmental disabilities who committed an assault with a firearm on a Portland-area couple, Catalani negotiated for the community to take responsibility for Cha, instead of sending him to jail. Hmong elders took on the task of supervising and helping Cha, who was able to stay with his wife and children.

"Polo donates his time and his equities for the community, and he doesn't ask for anything in return," said Thach Nguyen, program manager of the Juvenile Counseling and Court Services for Multnomah County. Nguyen worked with Catalani and school officials to help close the achievement gap for refugee children.

Catalani says his work has empowered community members: "It has given the confidence to our elders and clan leaders to solve problems," he said.

At Portland's Office of Human Rights, Catalani leads training in civic engagement, works on broadening access and inclusion for immigrants and mediates conflicts. He hopes his work can continue, although his position was funded by the city council for only one year, until the end of June. It's not certain whether it will be renewed.

Other Oregonians might also benefit from Catalani's methods.

"He has a worldview that says, 'We're in this together,'" Stanford's Textor said, "'so we should respect each other and we should find solutions together.'"

Read an interview with Catalani.

Gosia Wozniacka: 503-294-5960; gosiawozniacka@news.oregonian.com

Ronault L.S. Catalani

About those initials: L.S. stands for: Latang (the sound the heart makes) and Sayang (song); together it means "compassion."

Nickname: Polo, short for Apollo

Born: Dec. 15, 1953, in Kota Ambon, Ambon, Republic of Indonesia

Family: Wife Chompunut Xuto Catalani ("Nim"), painter, art educator and immigrant arts organizer; 29-year-old daughter Caricia C.C. Veneziale, completing doctorate in public health at University of California, Berkeley, and co-founder of nonprofit community organizing group Video Voice; 26-year-old son Aden S.O. Catalani, painter and graphic artist. Father Leopoldo Catalani and mother Vilma Eleanora Catalani, both of Kaneohe, Hawaii

Favorite books: Haruki Murakami's "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" and Duong Thu Huong's "Memories of a Pure Spring"

Quote: "Always leave a place better than when you arrived. This is your duty. This all our responsibility, to each other." -- Leopoldo Catalani

Online: http://www.asianreporter.com/columns.htm
http://www.coloredpencilsbooks.com/

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behind the murder of a Polish engineer in Pakistan

For Wprost, Poland
Feb 12, 2009
Stanczak's murder: The tragic human cost of a larger war
By Beena Sarwar in Karachi, Pakistan

The horrific cold-blooded murder of a kidnapped Polish engineer in
Pakistan has saddened and shocked people. It is the first such murder
of a foreigner in Pakistan since the beheading of the American
journalist Daniel Pearl in February 2002 by his captors who are
believed to have links with Al-Qaeda.

"It was very cruel. These people (the murderers) are animals," said a
young housewife, Saima, coming out of a yoga class in Karachi in
sweatpants and t-shirt. Her colleague Seema agreed. "They are
barbarians. They never spared the great prophets, how can we expect
them to spare us ordinary people?" she added, adjusting a printed
headscarf over her long black coat.

The 42-year-old geologist, Piotr Stanczak who worked for Geofizyka
Krakow, an oil and natural gas exploration company was kidnapped on
Sept. 28, 2008 by militants who ambushed his vehicle, killing three
Pakistanis traveling with him, in Attock district in Pakistan near the
Afghan border, 85 km from the capital Islamabad.

His captors, the
banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (`Taliban Movement of Pakistan',
TTP) which has links to Al-Qaeda, were holding him in Darra Adamkhel,
Orakzai, one of the seven tribal agencies that form Pakistan's
FederallyAdministered Tribal Areas (FATA). They demanded that the
Pakistan government halt military operations in the area and release
61 Taliban prisoners in exchange for Stanczak's life.

Such groups continue to hold other foreign hostages, including an
American U.N. worker and a Chinese national for similar demands. Not
operating under a central chain of command makes negotiations with
them difficult.

The TTP group holding Stanczak hostage beheaded him on Feb 7,
releasing a video of what Pakistan's Prime Minister Yusuf Reza Gillani
has condemned as an "absolutely barbaric act". Pending confirmation of
the report, he said he "would want to condole with the Polish people,
the Polish government and his family." Stanczak, he said, was working
to help Pakistan's development, making his death even more tragic.
"The government of Pakistan condemns it in the strongest possible terms."

Poland has blamed Pakistan for not doing enough to tackle the
terrorism that led to the killing. Polish Justice Minister Andrzej
Czuma told reporters, "The structure of the Pakistani government is
behind this apathy. Pakistani authorities encourage these bandits."
The situation is more complicated than that. Pakistan does have a
historical link to these forces, `jihadis' or holy warriors. But for
the first time, an elected government is genuinely working against
them, recognizing that Pakistan's very survival lies in eradicating
them. As President Asif Ali Zardari has stated, the target of these
`jihadi' forces is not just to control some areas, but to overrun the
entire country.

This is a marked departure from the previous policy, particularly
since the Afghan war against the Soviet occupation of the 1980s during
which Pakistan armed and trained `jihadi' forces, backed by the
Americans, Saudis and others, turning a nationalist struggle for
liberation into a global `religious' war. In 1996, in the power
vacuum of post-war Afghanistan, the `Taliban', a plural word that
literally means `students', who came from religious seminaries in
Pakistan that had been set up by Pakistan, America and Saudi Arabia to
indoctrinate cadres for the Afghan `jihad', swept into power. They
have since then been a threat to women, pluralism, and democracy in
the region.

The Afghans initially welcomed the Taliban for their `speedy justice'
but were alienated by Taliban's oppressive measures like closing
girls' schools and pushing women out of the public sphere. Forced to
give up their jobs, thousands of women, the sole bread-earners for
their families, had three choices: beg, starve, or prostitution. Yet
the Pakistani establishment supported the Taliban in an attempt to
provide Pakistan with the `strategic depth' apparently needed to
counter the perceived threat from long-standing rival India, projected
by the Pakistani establishment as `the enemy' on the eastern border.

Many in Pakistan, like the independent Human Rights Commission of
Pakistan, urged the authorities to severe links with the `jihadis' for
the country's own survival. But it was only after being pushed by
Washington following the attacks in New York of September 11, 2001,
that Pakistan's President and also Chief of Army Staff Pervez
Musharraf officially renounced Pakistan's ties to the Taliban, turning
against the very forces Islamabad had been cultivating to counter
India and bleed it in the disputed valley of Kashmir.
Pakistan now allowed its territory to be used by US military forces
and committed military forces to combating `terrorist' elements.

Given the absence of democratic rule in Pakistan, the `war on terror'
also gave the government a pretext for crushing political dissent as
in the western province of Balochistan bordering Iran, where a
nationalist insurgency has been festering for years.

After the bombing of Afghanistan in 2001, the Taliban began
re-grouping in Pakistan's tribal belt. As they gained ground, they
have been `banning' girls' education, shutting down or demolishing
over a hundred girls' schools in the area. Over 100,000 girls have
been forced to discontinue their education. Schoolteachers have been
killed for going to work, even if covered in the all-enveloping
`burqa'. These measures are alienating many locals who have a basic
education and want their children, including girls, to be educated for
a better future.

The Taliban's murder of women and mutilation of bodies are also
eroding sympathies for the their ostensibly Islamic agenda. They have
violated the time-honoured code that allows people to `punish' women
of their own family for transgressions, but not those of others. They
have been kidnapping and killing women they accuse of `immoral
activities'. Over the past five years, the mutilated bodies of more
than 150 pro-government maliks (tribal elders) have been dumped at
various hamlets.

Locals in some areas have begun refusing to harbour Taliban and even
aggressively chasing them away. Without local support, the Taliban
cannot operate here. In one incident on September 25, 2008, a militia
comprising hundreds of armed volunteers, Mullagori tribesmen in Khyber
Agency set Taliban hideouts on fire and chased out some eighty TTP
militants. During the fighting, the tribesmen suffered huge financial
losses, but pledged to support the government against the militants.
Many Jirgas (tribal councils) have warned locals against sheltering
Taliban or being punished with fine, expulsion and demolition of the
violator's home. Such incidents have taken place in Waziristan,
Bajaur, and Khyber tribal agencies and in Swat, a settled area in the
North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

The Pakistan government – the first popularly elected government in
over a decade – believes that the problem's resolution lies in
political rather than military means, although it needs the full
support of the Pakistan Army. However, many in Pakistan, including in
the agencies that were earlier charged with cultivating links with the
`jihadi' elements, still see the Taliban as an anti-imperialist force,
forgetting that the Taliban pre-date the American invasion of Iraq,
bombing of Afghanistan, and drone attacks in Pakistan. These `jihadis'
have the ideological upper hand because they play the religion card.
They release videos of captured Pakistani soldiers – including their
executions -- in which they are asked whether their first loyalty is
to the country or to their religion. This is a difficult proposition
for any Muslim, particularly soldiers who have since the years of the
Afghan war been ideologically conditioned to see themselves as an
`Islamic army'. Sometimes they release captured soldiers making them
promise to quit their jobs.

Meanwhile, the mighty Pakistan Army is unable to even neutralise the
FM radio station from which daily announcements are made of the
Taliban's next targets. Although the Army chief recently stated his
resolve to support the civilian government more completely, there
still seems to be a lack of will to do so.

It is a tough bind for the Pakistan government. Locals oppose its
military offensive in FATA because of the high rate of civilian
casualties and `collateral damage'. Many have ethnic and tribal
affiliations with the Pakistani Taliban who tend to be ethnically
Pashtun like themselves. The tribal code of honour (`Pakhtunwali')
forbids abandoning someone who has approached you for refuge. Injured
Taliban seek the help of locals, who provide them with medicines and
bandages out of fear or compassion. Many feel caught between the devil
and the deep blue sea, their homes, families and lands destroyed by
American drones and the Pakistani military action on the one hand, and
by Taliban elements on the other. An estimated 3-400,000 have fled
the area over the past few months. The American done attacks in FATA
since July 2008 have generated great resentment in Pakistan, making
things more difficult for the civilian government and benefitting the
`jihadi' elements.

(ends)
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Latinos march in St. Helens

Latinos march in St. Helens to unite with community
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/02/latinos_march_in_st_helens_to.html
by Gosia Wozniacka, The Oregonian
Photos by Olivia Bucks
Thursday February 19, 2009



ST. HELENS -- Several hundred Latinos and supporters marched through St. Helens on Wednesday afternoon to protest Columbia County's anti-immigrant ordinance and the racial tensions they contend it has caused in the community.
The Procession for Respect and Dignity put a face on Latinos who march organizers said have been under attack since voters approved a ballot measure for the ordinance in November. It would punish employers who hire illegal immigrants.

Two weeks ago, Columbia County Circuit Judge Ted Grove delayed implementation of the ordinance after a challenge by a coalition of social justice groups and business owners represented by the American Civil Liberties Union. It's under legal review.
Yesenia Sanchez, president of a new group, Latinos United for a Better Future, helped organize Wednesday's march. The group's goals are to promote a positive image of Latinos, offer support and build bridges to the community.

"We want to break the stereotypes people have of Latinos," said Sanchez, 20, a University of Oregon junior. "We're decent and hardworking. We're people you know, students and neighbors.



"We want to be able to work together with the rest of the community so we can make it better and united."

Sanchez said racial tensions in the county have soared since a St. Helens contractor, Wayne Mayo, started gathering signatures for two ballot measures.

One measure to penalize employers of illegal immigrants passed, 57 percent to 42 percent. One failed that would have required billboard-sized signs on county job sites claiming "Legal Workers Only."

The employment measure has led to insults, intimidation and open discrimination, said Latinos who participated in the march. Some marchers wiped away tears.

"People look at me strange now, like if I was a bad person," said Esmeralda Tapia Garcia. She has lived in the St. Helens area for four years with her husband and 2-year-old daughter and works at a local fast-food chain. "I hope that when my child goes to school, this racism will end."

Other Latinos said when they speak Spanish in public, some have been told to "speak English," Sanchez said.

Local blogs teem with negative comments about Latinos, including threats to call federal immigration agents and take down license plate numbers. Classroom discussions about the measure have led to ethnic slurs.

A handful of counter-protesters mostly remained quiet during the march, which went from the First Christian Church to the county courthouse.

"Illegals, go home! This is America!" Dennis Gump of St. Helens shouted to the crowd.

A few homes along the route posted signs reading, "We welcome legal immigrants" and "My country, my jobs."

Rick Demings, a bus driver from Yankton, carried a sign reading, "Which laws can actual Americans break?"

Mayo, who spearheaded the employment measure, did not attend the march. He said earlier Wednesday that his measure did not target Latinos.

"The measure is about employers that employ illegal aliens, and they are feeling the pressure," he said. "I have no ax to grind with the Hispanics at all."

Linda Madden, a registered nurse from Scappoose, said she came as "a member of the human race." Other participants included members of Columbia County Citizens for Human Dignity and the Rural Organizing Project.

"What's happening in this country is blatant racism," Madden said. "My fear is that people who are targeted by this measure will be scapegoated for social problems."

March organizers offered a symbolic basket of flowers to city officials.

"We're all children of immigrants," said Martha Olmstead, vice president of the new Latino group, "and we have to figure out how to get along and how to live together."

-- Gosia Wozniacka; gosiawozniacka@news.oregonian
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the Israeli-Palestinian "peace process"

Here is a brilliant analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the impossibilities it holds, written by my friend and former teacher Sandy Tolan. Sandy is the author of The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East. It's a wonderful book that everyone should read.

Mitchell's Challenge
After Gaza, Five Questions about Palestinian and Israeli Realities
By Sandy Tolan
The deep irony of the Israeli-Palestinian "peace process" first struck me in 1996 as I was driving through the West Bank from Hebron to Jerusalem. I had turned off the potholed main road that passed through Palestinian villages and refugee camps and headed west into Kiryat Arba. In that Israeli settlement, admirers had erected a graveside monument to Baruch Goldstein, the settler from Brooklyn who, in 1994, gunned down 29 Palestinians in Hebron's Cave of the Patriarchs. From the settlement's creepy candlelit shrine I cut north, and soon found myself on a quiet, smooth-as-glass "bypass" road. The road, I would learn, was one of many under construction by Israel, alongside new and expanding settlements, that would allow settlers to travel easily from their West Bank islands to the "mainland" of the Jewish state.

How strange, I thought naively, as I traveled that lonely road toward Jerusalem on a gray winter afternoon: Isn't this part of the land that Palestinians would need for their state? Why, then, in the middle of the Oslo peace process -- barely three years after the famous Rabin-Arafat handshake on the White House lawn -- would Israeli officials authorize construction that was visibly cementing the settlers' presence into Palestinian land?

To read the rest, click here and scroll down to the text.



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Economy down the drain

I consider myself lucky, I'm pretty insulated from the bad economy at the moment. I have my usual struggles with paying exorbitant school loans, but it's nothing compared to what some other people/families have to go through. I know my own family has seen leaner times than this. But the economic crisis really "drove home" to me when my brother lost his job a little more than a week ago. He was an excellent manager, with a clean record and outperforming results. And yet, from one day to the other, he is unemployed. Since then, I've followed the crisis with even more familiar urgency. Here are two articles from the world: Dubai and Europe, drawn into the same economic spiral.

Europe slump deeper than expected
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/14/business/14euro.html?_r=1&hp

Laid-off foreigners flee as Dubai spirals down
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/world/middleeast/12dubai.html?scp=2&sq=dubai&st=cse

Read more!

Now for more sober newspaper news

If you read the previous post, you might have felt good about the future of journalism. Here's a couple stories with a more realistic look at the business and the possibilities for saving it. (do not click "Read more" below, just click on the links below the titles)

WHEN NO NEWS IS BAD NEWS
The Atlantic magazine
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200901u/fate-of-newspaper-journalism/1
by James Warren

HOW TO SAVE YOUR NEWSPAPER
Time magazine
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1877191-1,00.html
by Walter Isaacson

A NEWSROOM FLOURISHES
The Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-onthemedia15-2009feb15,0,5233843.column
by James Rainey

And here is the rest of it. Read more!

Fact-Checked, Hand-Delivered, No Pop-up Ads. What's Not to Love?

For those of you who tell me that newspapers are dying, here is something to consider.
In his last moments as editor of USA Today, Ken Paulson offered these insights:

I do think there's room for some perspective. Yes, it's true that there have been significant layoffs at America's newspapers, but there have also been huge layoffs at Home Depot, and no one is predicting the demise of hammers.

You have to separate the troubled economy from the special challenges facing the news industry, and it's important that we not undervalue the power of print.

I can certainly understand why newspapers are not viewed as trendy. After all, they were really the iPods of 1690. But humor me, and consider this alternate history: Imagine if Gutenberg had invented a digital modem rather than a printing press, and that for centuries all of our information had come to us online.

Further, imagine if we held a press conference announcing the invention of an intriguing new product called the “newspaper.” That press conference might go something like this:

“We're pleased to announce a new product that will revolutionize the way you access information. It will save you time and money and keep you better informed than ever before.

“Just consider the hours you've spent on the internet looking for information of interest to you. We've hired specialists who live and work in your hometown to cull information sources and provide a daily report tailored to your community, your friends and your neighbors.

“We also know that you sometimes wonder whether you can trust the information you see online. We plan to introduce a painstaking new process called 'fact-checking' in which we actually verify the information before we pass it along to you.

“In addition to saving time online, you'll also save money. You won't need those expensive color ink cartridges or reams of paper because information will be printed out for you in full color every day.

“You’ll also save money on access charges and those unpleasant fights over who gets time on the computer because this product will be physically delivered to your home at the same time each day, for less than what you would tip the guy from Pizza Hut.

“You worry about your kids stumbling across porn on the internet, but this product is pre-screened and guaranteed suitable for the whole family.

“And in a security breakthrough, we guarantee newspapers to be absolutely virus-free, and promise the elimination of those annoying pop-up ads.

“It's also the most portable product in the world, and doesn’t require batteries or electricity. And when the flight attendant tells you to turn off your electronic devices, you can actually turn this on, opening page after page without worrying about interfering with the plane's radar.

“To top it all off, you don't need a long-term warranty or service protection program. If you're not happy with this product on any day, we'll redesign it and bring you a new one the next day.”

I can see the headlines now: "Cutting-edge newspapers threaten Google’s survival.”
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Finding Nouf, or the mysteries of Saudi deserts

If you like detective stories, whodunit thrillers, then I recommend this intriguing book, a random pick at the library. I was sucked in and read it quickly - duszkiem, or in one sip, as we say in Poland.

Set in contemporary Saudi Arabia, "Finding Nouf" by Zoe Ferraris starts with Nouf ash-Shrawi, a 16-year-old rich Saudi girl who disappears into the desert three days before her marriage and has been found dead, several weeks pregnant.

What ensues is a detective tale, Saudi-style. A friend of the family is asked to investigate Nouf's death discreetly. He seeks the help of one of the Shrawi brothers' fiancee, who is employed in the women's section of the state medical examiner's office. As the two investigate, it becomes clear the dead girl's family has something to do with her disappearance. What's most fascinating, though, is the backdrop of this tale: the Saudi society, which we glimpse as the mysteries unfold. It's a strictly conservative society, where men and women live separate lives, where class is an important sign of status, where secrets are born of taboos, where men think thoughts such as “Allah forgive me for imagining her ankles.” This is not to make fun of Islam. Few of us westerners know much about Saudi society, and that's why this book was so good to read. You could actually get into the heads of characters, behind the women's burqas and the men's averted gaze, feel the emotions boiling over, understand why they have faith in God and in tradition and why they may doubt it.

The best part of the book...

... is the part about tracking footprints in the desert. There are Bedouins, the nomads of the desert, who can read footprints in the sand like fingerprints... there are groups renowned for tracking skills, and they are used by police and counterterrorist units like detectives. The trackers can tell the footprint of different people apart, whether they are men's or women's feet, what kind of person it was based on the weight of the foot. The desert sand - it seems so fragile to us - actually preserves signs of life.

In case you doubt any of it, the author has credibility: she spent years in Saudi Arabia with her-then husband and his Saudi-Palestinian-Bedouin family.

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History of Immigration

The latest of my articles, to run tomorrow in the O! section of The Oregonian. It's about how the debate over immigration runs in circles. If you think there's anger and anti-immigrant sentiment today, look back to the 19th century.
Click on the link, scroll down to "Coming to Oregon" box and you can download a graphic of Oregon's foreign-born from 1850 to 2007.

Oregon's immigration debate: More subtle, but no less heated

http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon/index.ssf/2009/02/oregons_immigration_debate_mor.html
by Gosia Wozniacka, The Oregonian
Saturday February 07, 2009



On a Sunday in July, 50 men entered the houses of immigrant workers in Toledo, ordered them and their families to pack their belongings, and escorted them to cars and trucks waiting to drive them away.

They claimed the immigrants worked for substandard wages and took jobs from native Oregonians.

Sound familiar? The scene actually unfolded in 1925. The millworkers included 27 Japanese, four Filipinos and one Korean, most of whom were Oregon residents. Townspeople shouted as they left: "String them up!"

In a nation of immigrants, Oregonians' relationship with newcomers always has been ambivalent -- just like across America. Many immigrants have thrived, but at times, laws and prejudice limited rights or banned certain ethnicities altogether.

The history of Oregon -- one of the few states to completely bar African Americans -- shows an especially hard struggle with immigrants' race, which played out in widespread discrimination and fear as their numbers rose.

"Arm's length and open arms, those have been the two approaches to immigrants that reflected our state and national sentiments," says Bob Bussel, historian and director of the Labor and Education Research Center at the University of Oregon, who researched immigration history. "Oregon has really grappled with how to welcome some cultures."

The state extended the welcome mat to white immigrants, with policies and attitudes that favored northern and central Europeans. Oregon's treatment of blacks laid the foundations, says David Peterson del Mar, historian and author of "Oregon's Promise."

While Oregon was admitted to the Union as a non-slave state, Oregonians decided the way to avoid racial problems was to bar black residents altogether. Their argument was that by doing so they would abolish the inequalities between the rich and the working class. "I'm going to Oregon, where there'll be no slaves, and we'll all start even," said Capt. R.W. Morrison, a pioneer from Missouri, in 1844, according to historical accounts.

The same argument was later used to bar immigrants of other races: They would bring down wages and establish inequities.

"White Oregonians have associated people of color with hierarchy and disparities," Peterson del Mar says. "Owning slaves gave you an unfair advantage. Some thought wealthy people would use blacks and immigrants to get wealthier at the expense of regular white men."

Oregon was the only state admitted to the Union with a black exclusion law in its constitution (Illinois and Indiana had had similar laws, while other states made it difficult for blacks to live there). The state ratified the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guaranteed citizenship for all U.S.-born people regardless of race, then rescinded its ratification. Oregon did not ratify the 15th Amendment, which gave African Americans the right to vote, until 1959.

Likewise, citizenship and voting were denied to arrivals from China, Japan and other Asian countries. The waves of Asian immigrants, unique to the West Coast, helped define its racial context, says William Toll, historian, author and adjunct professor at the University of Oregon. Far fewer Asians emigrated to the East and South.

"These people bring nothing with them to our shores, they add nothing to the permanent wealth of this country," claimed an editorial in Jacksonville's Oregon Sentinel, referring to Chinese arrivals.

Into the early 20th century, segregation ruled in practice and in law. Filipinos, Japanese, Chinese and African Americans sat in the balcony at Portland's Broadway Theater; only whites were allowed on the first floor. Mobs raided and burned Chinese homes in Northwest Portland. Oregon storefronts posted signs such as "Filipinos and dogs not allowed" or "No Japs wanted." Young Jewish and Italian men were accused of heightened criminal activity.



But all immigrants who were poor, unskilled and nonwhite felt the brunt, Toll says. As occurred elsewhere in the U.S., Eastern and Southern Europeans were viewed as a distinct and lower racial group -- too culturally different, inferior and taking away jobs.

Some Oregonians bucked the trend. Sherman Burgoyne, a Methodist minister, defended Japanese Americans in the Hood River Valley in the wake of World War II.

And Walter Gresham, a U.S. judge for the 7th Circuit, wrote to Gov. Sylvester Pennoyer in 1893 asking him to protect Chinese immigrants from violence after the Chinese Exclusion Act was extended. The city of Gresham was named after him.

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Clearly, there's progress -- but the immigration debate today hasn't changed much, except for a modern twist. What's new, says Bussel, the University of Oregon historian, is the preoccupation with legal status, in Oregon as elsewhere. "Illegal aliens" are blamed for taking Americans' jobs and using government resources -- with most Latinos, especially Mexicans, lumped into the category.



Race, class and cultural strain still bubble near the surface -- though today people seldom acknowledge racism. While Oregonians are more sensitive about race and not as critical of immigrants, he says, racial issues come to the forefront when tensions arise.

There seems to be a real sense of threat associated with immigrants from Mexico, Bussel adds, because of their large numbers, and history seems to repeat itself.

"When you look at the history of Japanese and Chinese in our state, there are undertones that are similar in the discussion today. The Chinese and Japanese were 'aliens' and it was said that they couldn't assimilate," he says.

The sense of Oregon's "special status" as a pioneer state, he says, is used to argue for restrictions on immigration population.

"So there's the argument that our infrastructure and environment cannot be sustained if there are so many new people coming here," Bussel says.

But Oregon's history of immigration holds lessons. For one thing, there's a double standard when it comes to self-righteousness about undocumented immigrants breaking the law, says Peterson del Mar.

"Bear in mind that the Oregon pioneers who we celebrate were people who came here, took land and were also operating outside the law," he says.

And if we harness the energy of our newest immigrants by easing their integration, Bussel says, their contributions can be as great as the generations of immigrants who came before.

"Where there have been clear public and private efforts to help immigrants come and integrate," says Bussel, "we've done better than when we were repressive and discriminating."

Most of us are immigrants, after all, even if several generations removed.

-- Gosia Wozniacka, a Polish-born immigrant, covers immigration and Latino issues for The Oregonian
gosiawozniacka@news.oregonian.com

Photos by: Thomas Boyd, The Oregonian (Latinos carrying Virgin of Guadalupe flag at last May's immigration rally); courtesy of the BYROM-DAUFEL FAMILY (Chinese family at the turn of the century), courtesy of the Oregon Historical Society (Ku Klux Klan march in Austoria, OR in the 1920's)

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