My student reporters

It's the final night of journalism camp and I am so proud of my student reporters, Nora Sanchez and Danelly Muniz. I could see how happy they were holding copies of The Pride that arrived this evening right off the press. They worked really hard on one of the most complex stories, and did not bow under pressure. They took their work seriously. And they made me a better editor. Here is the story they wrote:

Community garden helps fight obesity epidemic among Latinos
By By Nora Sanchez and Danelly Muniz June 27, 2009
Photos by Nora Sanchez
http://blog.oregonlive.com/teen/2009/06/community_garden_helps_fight_o.html



Magdaleno Nunez takes a long stick and drags it through the soil, making a long, narrow groove. He bends over and places two pea seeds every three inches. His wife, Hirlanda Nunez, waters tomatoes on the other side of their small garden plot at Westside Community Church in Corvallis.

"We are thankful that the church allows us to use their property to grow our vegetables and fruits," said Magdaleno Nunez. "The community offered us (a way) to grow healthy food. We can save money during the winter."

Obesity and diabetes among Latinos in Benton and Linn counties are increasing rapidly, and organizations are responding to help with what some call an "obesity epidemic among Latinos."

The garden is one part of the solution. It brings Latinos together to grow organic produce, so their families can eat healthy foods, watch their diets and not become overweight.

Obesity is a problem that affects all communities across the United States. But Latinos, including Latino children, have the highest rates. Nearly 70 percent of Latinos in Benton County are overweight or obese, compared to 54 percent of all residents, according to a recent study by the Oregon Department of Human Services.

Because more Latinos are obese, they are also more likely to develop diabetes, a condition in which the body is unable to control the level of sugar in the blood, according to Rocio Munoz, a chronic disease outreach specialist at the Benton County
Health Department.

"Latinos are healthier when they first arrive from their native countries," said Munoz.

Lack of affordable food and resources lead to "epidemic"



There are many reasons for the obesity problem among U.S. Latinos, said Marcela Arredondo, a coordinator of the Congregational Wellness Project in Corvallis. Latinos have jobs that are low paying, so they cannot afford to buy healthy food, she said. "Healthy is expensive."

Many of the Latinos are undocumented, Munoz said, and they isolate themselves because they are afraid of being deported. They also feel like they don't belong in this country, because they are discriminated against. They are overprotective with their children for the same reason and they don't allow them to go outside to play and interact with other kids.

"People are living with fear, and it's not healthy," Munoz said. "They become emotionally unstable, because they are unable to feel free."
When they become depressed, she said, they lose interest in their surroundings, isolate themselves and eat more.

Another problem is a lack of grocery stores near Latinos' homes. In the south part of Corvallis, Arredondo said, there are few places where Latinos can purchase vegetables at affordable prices. Sometimes their only option is to go to the nearest 7-Eleven and buy junk food, which makes them more at risk of becoming obese, she said.

Many Latinos are low-income and don't have health insurance, meaning they don't have regular access to health care, Munoz said. They also may not know organizations and other resources that are available to them.

"Men in the Latino community think that everything is OK with them, because they don't look sick," she said. "They don't get medical care until they start feeling sick, instead of coming for regular checkups."

And because some Latinos work multiple jobs, Munoz said, they don't have the time to cook healthy meals, sit down and eat with their families, or see a doctor regularly.

Garden promotes health



Faith community leaders began seeing the epidemic of obesity in the Latino community within the past 10 years, as the Latino population increased in Benton and Linn counties. They are creating projects that prevent obesity and promote physical activities and nutrition.

The community garden is one of those projects. It is run by the Westside Community Church, which had land that wasn't being used. The church got money to set up the garden from Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon. Nineteen Latino families and two churches grow tomatoes, lettuce, radishes, beans, tomatillos and peppers.

All the families are low-income Latinos. The church asks for a small donation of $5 to $35 to cover water and seeds, but if the families cannot pay, they do not have to.

The garden helps Latino families come together in a place where they can feel safe, grow their own vegetables so that they don't have to buy them, and learn with and teach one another, said Sue Domingues, the garden coordinator and a member of Westside Community Church.

Domingues worked at the Bruce Starker Arts Park community garden last year and she noticed that only two Latino families participated. So she decided that her church's garden would focus on Latinos and recruited Magdaleno Nunez to help.

Nunez, who came to Corvallis from Oaxaca, Mexico, with his wife in the early '90s, learned to garden in Mexico from his father, who grew sugar cane. Now he is a garden mentor to the other gardening families, and brings his four children to work in the garden.

"It is very beautiful, because they get to grow their food and we teach them," Magdaleno Nunez said. He added that if one day the family is in need, or has to go back to Mexico, the children will be able to survive.

Magdaleno and Hirlanda Nunez say the garden allows them to save money, because they don't need to buy expensive vegetables at a grocery store. Hirlanda Nunez freezes and stores organic tomatoes, tomatillos and peas to use during the winter.

"We use the vegetables to make healthy foods like salads and salsas," Hirlanda Nunez said. "We prefer to grow them ourselves, because we know what's in them." The couple plans to give any leftover produce to other needy families.

The garden also builds community. Westside Community Church hosted a community gathering this year and invited the Latino gardeners and Anglo church members. The Latina women made salsa and the two groups interacted with each other, said Domingues.

Finally, the garden encourages Latino families to re-introduce the tradition of eating dinner together as a family, which many immigrants lose when they come to the United States, Arredondo said. The garden program helps inform the families that if you prevent bad eating habits now, in the long run you will save money on doctor visits, she said.

In addition to the community garden, Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon administers three other pilot projects to help Latinos become a healthier community. Cooking classes at a church kitchen allow Latinos to learn how to cook healthy, the Farmers Market links families with local farmers, and the Buying Club allows low-income Latinos to use food stamps to purchase vegetables.

Overall, the projects are about "food justice," said Liv Gifford, a project manager with Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon. Like many Americans, Latinos may not be aware of how, when and where their food is being produced, she said. Their food could be traveling 1,500 miles from the farm to their home.

"Food became industrial, and we're trying to make it natural again," Gifford said. To make the food healthier, Latinos need to "put a face on their food," she said, just like the Latino gardeners are doing.

"It shouldn't be just people with a lot of money who have access to fresh foods," Gifford said.


As population grows, a community unites

The Latino population in Benton and Linn counties has increased steadily in the past two decades. U.S. Census figures show that during the 1990s, Benton County had only 1,735 Latinos and Linn County had 2,177.

But over the next 17 years, in both counties, the number of Latinos has nearly tripled. According to the 2007 American Community Survey, Benton County has a Latino population of 4,800, and Linn County of 6,700 -- in both counties, Latinos make up 6 percent of the total population.

Latinos come to Corvallis, Albany and other towns in the area to find work in nurseries or in the fields, in janitorial and housekeeping services, and in restaurants, said Erlinda Gonzalez-Berry, the founder and director of Casa Latinos Unidos of Benton County.

Gonzalez-Berry started Casa Latinos Unidos because she wanted to create "a place that's run by Latinos for Latinos," so that the bridges between whites and Latinos can be connected, she said.

The organization, which opened in February at the Corvallis Multicultural Literacy Center, offers interpreters, an immigration lawyer and English classes. Gonzalez-Berry also advocates for Latinos and helps them learn about their rights.

"I just see it as a great resource for our community," she said.

While some Latinos in the area are native born, some are not, she said. Many are undocumented, but some of their children are U.S. citizens. One in every six students in Oregon schools is Latino. In the future, Gonzalez-Berry said, that number will increase to one in four. The number of Latinos in Linn and Benton county continues to grow.

While many Latinos work in low-income jobs now, that will change with time, Gonzales-Berry said.

"There is a greater awareness among Latinos," she said, "that having an education will lead to more job opportunities and a successful future."

Read more!

Journalism camp

I'm teaching at a journalism camp this week, in Corvallis, OR. It is a camp for minority high school students. I'm working with two great students and we're reporting a story about Latinos and health issues. Here is the camp's blog. By the end of the week, the students will publish a 44-page newspaper.
http://blog.oregonlive.com/teen/journalism_camp_2009/

And here is the rest of it. Read more!

A tide of anger on immigration

This is a controversial project of mine, which ran this Sunday in the Opinion section of the Oregonian. The comments have passed 250. My mailbox is, as usual, flooded. It's fascinating, because everyone saw in this article something completely different.

A tide of anger on immigration
by Gosia Wozniacka, The Oregonian
Saturday, June 20, 2009
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/06/a_tide_of_anger_on_immigration.html

They are angry. Angry at their government. Angry with the news media. Mostly, angry at illegal immigrants and the problems they believe are caused by people who live in Oregon without proper documentation. Some are even angry at what they perceive to be too-high levels of legal immigration.

Their e-mails, calls and online comments seem to skyrocket every time The Oregonian publishes a story that mentions "Hispanic," "Latino," "Mexican" or "immigrant," regardless of whether the subject's citizenship, legal status or national origin is mentioned or relevant.

These people say the news media ignore, misrepresent or equate their views with being racist. And, they say, news and feature stories are routinely framed to elicit sympathy for people living illegally in the United States.

Comments range from the seething ("What don't you get? ... We cannot let the entire world move to America.") to the extremist ("The Mexicans are all illegal, they're dirty, they're criminals, they're popping babies out as fast as they can make them and we just want them gone.") to the ridiculous ("You did not mention that the Spanish regard dogs as a source of food.")

One recent story about a legislative proposal to offer in-state tuition rates to undocumented Oregon high school seniors triggered 142 online comments and dozens of e-mails, phone calls and letters to the editor.

A feature story about so-called "food deserts" that tracked a Portland woman's efforts to buy groceries for her family, in the face of limited transportation and supermarket options, unleashed 88 comments and several letters. The woman happened to be Latina.

And just last month, a news story that cited U.S. Census figures in reporting a surge in Oregon's Latino population drew 158 online comments within a few hours of the story appearing on OregonLive.com, in addition to numerous e-mails and phone calls. Most news stories on other topics draw only a smattering of comments; some none at all.

Who are these commenters? And why are they so irate?

Few recent Oregon polls or other studies exist on the topic. An April 2008 survey, conducted by Portland-based polling firm Moore Information, found that 70 percent of Oregon voters surveyed were "very concerned" (39 percent) or "fairly concerned" (31 percent) about illegal immigration, while 28 percent were "not concerned" and 2 percent "didn't know."

Those who said they were "very concerned," the survey found, tended to be Republican, over the age of 45 and reside outside of Multnomah County. The survey of 1,000 people was commissioned by the Coalition for Working Oregon, a group of Oregon employers that favors immigration reform.

Vulnerability feeds fear
Fear of change and competition fuels negative views about immigration and illegal immigration, said Rita Simon, professor of public affairs at American University in Washington, D.C. National polls show, Simon said, that people with lower levels of education and a lower socioeconomic status, as well as older people, are more likely to feel threatened by illegal immigrants.

"They're anti-immigrant because they are vulnerable," she said. "They're concerned that immigrants come in, take their jobs and replace them."

Jim Ludwick, president of Oregonians for Immigration Reform, disagrees. He said OFIR, which opposes illegal immigration and wants legal immigration severely reduced, includes 1,500 members and attracts "people of every walk of life and from all ethnic backgrounds."

Ludwick, 68, a retired pharmaceutical salesman who lives in McMinnville, said he believes most Oregonians support OFIR's message.

"Americans have the sense of the rule of law and they are outraged when people put themselves above the law, like illegal aliens do," Ludwick said. Oregonians "value the livability and the environment of Oregon, and don't want to turn it into an overcrowded state."

But other analysts, such as Daniel HoSang, a political science professor at the University of Oregon, say those concerns don't necessarily transform into action. Last fall, Oregonians rejected Measure 58, which would have mandated English immersion and restricted bilingual education.

And in April, a judge declared a Columbia County measure that would punish businesses employing illegal workers unenforceable and moot because of conflicts with federal law and various state authorities.

"There's not much interest in scapegoat politics," HoSang said. "There isn't the audience, and the parties realize there's costs to this kind of strategy."

In Oregon, restrictionist organizations like OFIR or the Minutemen "are close to becoming fringe organizations," HoSang said, and they don't represent large numbers of people.

"You see their presence in debates like driving licenses or tuition equity," he said, "but we should not overestimate their ability to get people elected."

The anger, though, is bound to stay, Simon said, because it's part of an old pattern. What characterizes the American public's attitude toward immigrants, she said, is the belief that immigrants who came earlier were better; those who are coming now are either not as good or downright dangerous.

"When the Irish immigrants first came, there were riots. When the Chinese came, they were banned," Simon said. "Now the Irish and the Chinese are looked upon as a positive experience. Because many recent immigrants come from Mexico and are illegal, they now tend to get the ire."

Listening sessions to understand anger
As the newspaper's immigration reporter, I've come to expect emotional, angry responses to my stories and others. I've tracked and saved these responses for nearly a year, and they add up to hundreds critical of Latino immigration.

Some people identify themselves. Many do not. Either way, they far outnumber those supportive of immigrants, including immigrants who may be here illegally.

As President Barack Obama renewed his promise to tackle immigration reform and the nation geared up for another round of the debate, I set out to understand the reasoning and complexity behind their anger. I contacted about 40 people who had responded in the past, as well as OFIR. My goal: to see for myself what drives people's negative emotions and their interest in immigration.

While Simon suggests it's fear of change, and Ludwick argues Oregonians fear an erosion of their quality of life, the answers proved less simple.

Eleven people accepted my invitation for a face-to face interview: one-on-one at The Oregonian office, lasting an hour. Interviewees agreed to share some personal information and could bring materials to support their arguments.

The interviews were not meant to confirm facts, dispute opinions or legitimize views. Rather, they were listening sessions.

The interviewees, while polite and often friendly, spoke passionately. They did range in age, gender, education and ethnic background, and all live outside Multnomah County. While some didn't understand how the U.S. immigration system works, most were genuinely concerned about their families, their state and their country.

Behind their anger, I discovered personal stories, diverse views and solutions, even traces of tolerance and empathy. And yes, some fear and misconceptions, too.

Gosia Wozniacka covers immigration and Latino affairs for The Oregonian. Reach her at 503-294-5960 or gosiawozniacka@news.oregonian.com

To read interviews with these folks and listen to some audio clips, click here:
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/06/illegal_immigration_whats_to_b.html

Read more!

Does Omelas exist?

Tonight I attended an interesting event, where writer Ursula Le Guin and philosophy professor Lani Roberts discussed morality and self-deception, among people and among writers. The discussion was based on the thought-provoking story by Le Guin called "THE ONES WHO WALK AWAY FROM OMELAS". You can read the story below, it is well-worth the few minutes. Omelas is a city where everyone is happy... but that happiness depends on a very difficult condition. Does Omelas exist? What is this story about? In a discussion after the event, we went beyond the Third World country comparison, to think about what Omelas means for each of us, and of course for our society at large (our Western society, as differentiated from others).
What I just wrote will make more sense of you read this great story. Click on the title for an easier copy in PDF.

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas

With a clamor of bells that set the swallows soaring, the Festival of Summer came to the
city Omelas, bright-towered by the sea.
The rigging of the boats in harbor sparkled with flags. In
the streets between houses with red roofs and painted walls, between old moss-grown gardens
and under avenues of trees, past great parks and public buildings, processions moved. Some were
decorous: old people in long stiff robes of mauve and grey, grave master workmen, quiet, merry
women carrying their babies and chatting as they walked. In other streets the music beat faster, a
shimmering of gong and tambourine, and the people went dancing, the procession was a dance.
Children dodged in and out, their high calls rising like the swallows' crossing flights, over the
music and the singing. All the processions wound towards the north side of the city, where on the
great water-meadow called the Green' Fields boys and girls, naked in the bright air, with mudstained
feet and ankles and long, lithe arms, exercised their restive horses before the race. The
horses wore no gear at all but a halter without bit. Their manes were braided with streamers of
silver, gold, and green. They flared their nostrils and pranced and boasted to one another; they
were vastly excited, the horse being the only animal who has adopted our ceremonies as his own.
Far off to the north and west the mountains stood up half encircling Omelas on her bay. The air
of morning was so clear that the snow still crowning the Eighteen Peaks burned with white-gold
fire across the miles of sunlit air, under the dark blue of the sky. There was just enough wind to
make the banners that marked the racecourse snap and flutter now and then. In the silence of the
broad green meadows one could hear the music winding through the city streets, farther and
nearer and ever approaching, a cheerful faint sweetness of the air that from time to time trembled
and gathered together and broke out into the great joyous clanging of the bells.
Joyous! How is one to tell about joy? How describe the citizens of Omelas?
They were not simple folk, you see, though they were happy. But we do not say the
words of cheer much any more. All smiles have become archaic. Given a description such as this
one tends to make certain assumptions. Given a description such as this one tends to look next
for the King, mounted on a splendid stallion and surrounded by his noble knights, or perhaps in a
golden litter borne by great-muscled slaves. But there was no king. They did not use swords, or
keep slaves. They were not barbarians. I do not know the rules and laws of their society, but I
suspect that they were singularly few. As they did without monarchy and slavery, so they also
got on without the stock exchange, the advertisement, the secret police, and the bomb. Yet I
repeat that these were not simple folk, not dulcet shepherds, noble savages, bland utopians. They
were not less complex than us. The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants
and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual,
only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and
the terrible boredom of pain. If you can't lick 'em, join 'em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise
despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have
almost lost hold; we can no longer describe a happy man, nor make any celebration of joy. How
can I tell you about the people of Omelas? They were not naive and happy children – though
their children were, in fact, happy. They were mature, intelligent, passionate adults whose lives
were not wretched. O miracle! but I wish I could describe it better. I wish I could convince you.
Omelas sounds in my words like a city in a fairy tale, long ago and far away, once upon a time.
Perhaps it would be best if you imagined it as your own fancy bids, assuming it will rise to the
occasion, for certainly I cannot suit you all. For instance, how about technology? I think that
there would be no cars or helicopters in and above the streets; this follows from the fact that the
people of Omelas are happy people. Happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is
necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive. In the middle
category, however – that of the unnecessary but undestructive, that of comfort, luxury,
exuberance, etc. -- they could perfectly well have central heating, subway trains,. washing
machines, and all kinds of marvelous devices not yet invented here, floating light-sources,
fuelless power, a cure for the common cold. Or they could have none of that: it doesn't matter.
As you like it. I incline to think that people from towns up and down the coast have been coming
in to Omelas during the last days before the Festival on very fast little trains and double-decked
trams, and that the train station of Omelas is actually the handsomest building in town, though
plainer than the magnificent Farmers' Market. But even granted trains, I fear that Omelas so far
strikes some of you as goody-goody. Smiles, bells, parades, horses, bleh. If so, please add an
orgy. If an orgy would help, don't hesitate. Let us not, however, have temples from which issue
beautiful nude priests and priestesses already half in ecstasy and ready to copulate with any man
or woman, lover or stranger who desires union with the deep godhead of the blood, although that
was my first idea. But really it would be better not to have any temples in Omelas – at least, not
manned temples. Religion yes, clergy no. Surely the beautiful nudes can just wander about,
offering themselves like divine souffles to the hunger of the needy and the rapture of the flesh.
Let them join the processions. Let tambourines be struck above the copulations, and the glory of
desire be proclaimed upon the gongs, and (a not unimportant point) let the offspring of these
delightful rituals be beloved and looked after by all. One thing I know there is none of in Omelas
is guilt. But what else should there be? I thought at first there were no drugs, but that is
puritanical. For those who like it, the faint insistent sweetness of drooz may perfume the ways of
the city, drooz which first brings a great lightness and brilliance to the mind and limbs, and then
after some hours a dreamy languor, and wonderful visions at last of the very arcana and inmost
secrets of the Universe, as well as exciting the pleasure of sex beyond all belief; and it is not
habit-forming. For more modest tastes I think there ought to be beer. What else, what else
belongs in the joyous city? The sense of victory, surely, the celebration of courage. But as we did
without clergy, let us do without soldiers. The joy built upon successful slaughter is not the right
kind of joy; it will not do; it is fearful and it is trivial. A boundless and generous contentment, a
magnanimous triumph felt not against some outer enemy but in communion with the finest and
fairest in the souls of all men everywhere and the splendor of the world's summer; this is what
swells the hearts of the people of Omelas, and the victory they celebrate is that of life. I really
don't think many of them need to take drooz.
Most of the processions have reached the Green Fields by now. A marvelous smell of
cooking goes forth from the red and blue tents of the provisioners. The faces of small children
are amiably sticky; in the benign grey beard of a man a couple of crumbs of rich pastry are
entangled. The youths and girls have mounted their horses and are beginning to group around the
starting line of the course. An old woman, small, fat, and laughing, is passing out flowers from a
basket, and tall young men, wear her flowers in their shining hair. A child of nine or ten sits at
the edge of the crowd, alone, playing on a wooden flute. People pause to listen, and they smile,
but they do not speak to him, for he never ceases playing and never sees them, his dark eyes
wholly rapt in the sweet, thin magic of the tune.
He finishes, and slowly lowers his hands holding the wooden flute.
As if that little private silence were the signal, all at once a trumpet sounds from the
pavilion near the starting line: imperious, melancholy, piercing. The horses rear on their slender
legs, and some of them neigh in answer. Sober-faced, the young riders stroke the horses' necks
and soothe them, whispering, "Quiet, quiet, there my beauty, my hope. . . ." They begin to form
in rank along the starting line. The crowds along the racecourse are like a field of grass and
flowers in the wind. The Festival of Summer has begun.
Do you believe? Do you accept the festival, the city, the joy? No? Then let me describe
one more thing.
In a basement under one of the beautiful public buildings of Omelas, or perhaps in the
cellar of one of its spacious private homes, there is a room. It has one locked door, and no
window. A little light seeps in dustily between cracks in the boards, secondhand from a
cobwebbed window somewhere across the cellar. In one corner of the little room a couple of
mops, with stiff, clotted, foul-smelling heads, stand near a rusty bucket. The floor is dirt, a little
damp to the touch, as cellar dirt usually is. The room is about three paces long and two wide: a
mere broom closet or disused tool room. In the room a child is sitting. It could be a boy or a girl.
It looks about six, but actually is nearly ten. It is feeble-minded. Perhaps it was born defective or
perhaps it has become imbecile through fear, malnutrition, and neglect. It picks its nose and
occasionally fumbles vaguely with its toes or genitals, as it sits haunched in the corner farthest
from the bucket and the two mops. It is afraid of the mops. It finds them horrible. It shuts its
eyes, but it knows the mops are still standing there; and the door is locked; and nobody will
come. The door is always locked; and nobody ever comes, except that sometimes-the child has
no understanding of time or interval – sometimes the door rattles terribly and opens, and a
person, or several people, are there. One of them may come and kick the child to make it stand
up. The others never come close, but peer in at it with frightened, disgusted eyes. The food bowl
and the water jug are hastily filled, the door is locked, the eyes disappear. The people at the door
never say anything, but the child, who has not always lived in the tool room, and can remember
sunlight and its mother's voice, sometimes speaks. "I will be good," it says. "Please let me out. I
will be good!" They never answer. The child used to scream for help at night, and cry a good
deal, but now it only makes a kind of whining, "eh-haa, eh-haa," and it speaks less and less often.
It is so thin there are no calves to its legs; its belly protrudes; it lives on a half-bowl of corn meal
and grease a day. It is naked. Its buttocks and thighs are a mass of festered sores, as it sits in its
own excrement continually.
They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas. Some of them have come to see it,
others are content merely to know it is there. They all know that it has to be there. Some of them
understand why, and some do not, but they all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their
city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars,
the skill of their makers, even the abundance of their harvest and the kindly weathers of their
skies, depend wholly on this child's abominable misery.
This is usually explained to children when they are between eight and twelve, whenever
they seem capable of understanding; and most of those who come to see the child are young
people, though often enough an adult comes, or comes back, to see the child. No matter how well
the matter has been explained to them, these young spectators are always shocked and sickened
at the sight. They feel disgust, which they had thought themselves superior to. They feel anger,
outrage, impotence, despite all the explanations. They would like to do something for the child.
But there is nothing they can do. If the child were brought up into the sunlight out of that vile
place, if it were cleaned and fed and comforted, that would be a good thing, indeed; but if it were
done, in that day and hour all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and
be destroyed. Those are the terms. To exchange all the goodness and grace of every life in
Omelas for that single, small improvement: to throw away the happiness of thousands for the
chance of the happiness of one: that would be to let guilt within the walls indeed.
The terms are strict and absolute; there may not even be a kind word spoken to the child.
Often the young people go home in tears, or in a tearless rage, when they have seen the
child and faced this terrible paradox. They may brood over it for weeks or years. But as time
goes on they begin to realize that even if the child could be released, it would not get much good
of its freedom: a little vague pleasure of warmth and food, no doubt, but little more. It is too
degraded and imbecile to know any real joy. It has been afraid too long ever to be free of fear. Its
habits are too uncouth for it to respond to humane treatment. Indeed, after so long it would
probably be wretched without walls about it to protect it, and darkness for its eyes, and its own
excrement to sit in. Their tears at the bitter injustice dry when they begin to perceive the terrible
justice of reality, and to accept it. Yet it is their tears and anger, the trying of their generosity and
the acceptance of their helplessness, which are perhaps the true source of the splendor of their
lives. Theirs is no vapid, irresponsible happiness. They know that they, like the child, are not
free. They know compassion. It is the existence of the child, and their knowledge of its existence,
that makes possible the nobility of their architecture, the poignancy of their music, the profundity
of their science. It is because of the child that they are so gentle with children. They know that if
the wretched one were not there snivelling in the dark, the other one, the flute-player, could
make no joyful music as the young riders line up in their beauty for the race in the sunlight of the
first morning of summer.
Now do you believe in them? Are they not more credible? But there is one more thing to
tell, and this is quite incredible.
At times one of the adolescent girls or boys who go to see the child does not go home to
weep or rage, does not, in fact, go home at all. Sometimes also a man or woman much older falls
silent for a day or two, and then leaves home. These people go out into the street, and walk down
the street alone. They keep walking, and walk straight out of the city of Omelas, through the
beautiful gates. They keep walking across the farmlands of Omelas. Each one goes alone, youth
or girl man or woman. Night falls; the traveler must pass down village streets, between the
houses with yellow-lit windows, and on out into the darkness of the fields. Each alone, they go
west or north, towards the mountains. They go on. They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the
darkness, and they do not come back. The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable
to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible that it does not
exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Copyright 1973 by Ursula K. Le Guin;
First appeared in New Dimensions 3; from The Wind's Twelve Quarters (1975)
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