Week 7 Discussion CJYO 2013 / Student Quotes

Quote by Cristie Horvath / CJYO 2013 Student

Responding to Hearts & Hands notes**

The paragraph and note I selected from Luis Rodriguez’s Hearts and Hands is from Chapter 10 located on pages 123-124.  The paragraph is:

“Private industries also gain immensely from prisons when a captive workforce becomes the most profitable game in town.  According to Eric Bates, in The Nation, January 5, 1998, “The stock of the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange.  Its performance is in the top twenty percent of stock market returns over the past ten years.”  There are powerful hands directing the construction of more prisons in the United States, and at the expense of the poor people – black, brown, and white – who are the ones who end up in them.”

The note is number 18 located on pages 346-347 and discusses how privately owned correctional facilities can be poorly kept and very hazardous since the bottom line for the corporations that own them is to save money in order to maximize their profits.  It also discusses Louisiana’s Tallulah Correctional Center for Youth, which was privately owned, and due to the ways costs were cut legal experts considered it one of the worst facilities in the nation.  The president of the National Juvenile Detention Association, Earl Dunlap, is quoted as stating the following: “The issues of violence against offenders, lack of adequate education and mental health, of crowding and of poorly paid and poorly trained staff are the norm rather than the exception.”  (Rodriguez, 2003, p. 347)  The issues that Tallulah Correctional Center for Youth are plagued with don’t just affect privately owned correctional facilities and Luis Rodriguez goes on to briefly discuss that hundreds of juvenile facility investigations have occurred all over the nation.

I selected this paragraph and corresponding note because I thought it was very interesting when I first read it in the text.  While I did know that there was some privatization of our correctional institutions occurring throughout the nation, I did not realize that there was Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) stock being publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange nor did I realize the full scope of the issue.  It is very alarming, especially after reading the notes section, to discover some of the negative effects of institutional privatization.  Most corporations in America are generally known to cut corners to save money because profit is their bottom line and our corrections system is already far from perfect, so combining the two does not seem like a good idea to me.  Rodriguez even discusses that the Tallulah Correctional Center for Youth provided unsuitable meals, improper medical treatment, and poorly paid staff beat the children at the facility.

There are many more ethical issues that arise regarding the privatization of correctional facilities.  Those that make the laws can end up profiting greatly from privatization because they can invest in the CCA stock and create and pass laws to support privatization, thus causing their stock and individual profits to rise while producing a substandard and borderline inhumane corrections system.  Our tax dollars end up going into private pockets instead of going into the actual corrections system to provide prisoners with the things they need such as adequate food and proper medical services.  I personally don’t want my tax dollars to be spent on some rich man’s yacht and European family vacation; I want them put into programs in our facilities to help combat recidivism.  Privatization in my opinion hurts more than it helps and the dangers and issues it can cause are far reaching.  Chente states a sad reality in Always Running, “’I don’t know, but I can tell you this,’ Chente said.  ‘The law isn’t always about truth.’” (Rodriguez, 2005, p. 192).

This is the website for the CCA if anyone is interested:

www.cca.com

These interesting statistics are taken from the corrections project website:

www.correctionsproject.com

1-in-4 Black men are in prison, on parole or probation, 10% stripped of their right to vote;
Unprecedented numbers of children are locked up, many sentenced into their adult lives;
Native Americans have the highest percentage of their population in prison;
Latinos and women are the fastest growing populations in the prison system;
New prisons are being forced upon rural communities to “revive” their economies;
70% of prisoners are locked up for crimes that did not involve violence;
Immigrants are now subject to separate laws, many disappeared and detained indefinitely;
The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the entire world at a cost of over $55 billion per year.

Week 7 Discussion CJYO 2013 / Student Quotes

Quote by Rosa Baquera / CJYO 2013 Student

Responding to Hearts & Hands notes**

The note that mostly stood out to me was note 5 on Chapter 13 page 161.  “If you think of the primary function of art as a spiritual-emotional expression, and you take away the capacity for people to express what they really have to express, you start to force the violence into action,” said Michael Meade.  “What do people think is coming through rap music?  The otherwise unexpressed rages of a culture, the disappointments, the deep angers.  I mean, people have it all mixed up.  They think that when you hear it, you’re hearing a problem.  It’s a way of the culture saying the artistic imagination, the musical songs of these children, don’t count-that’s a musical mistake.”

This note stood out to me from the rest because of the type of music and the art environment I grew up with.  During my teenage years I remember listening to rap music and being scolded because I was listening to “marijuano’s” music or in art class my friends would draw sketches of murals and they wouldn’t be acknowledged as true art.  Many people still see rap music as problematic music when it actually is very lyrical and poetic.  Once I had an assignment where I had to find a poem and talk about the meaning behind it.  I chose a song by Lauryn Hill. Songs and art were and still are a great form of expression.  I can recall many friends who just like Luis used art as a way of bettering their lives.  Music and dance kept me and most of my friends out of so much trouble.  I believe that those who think that rap music is bad do not understand the concept behind the lyrics.

Week 5 Discussion CJYO 2013 / Student Quotes

Quote by Cristie Horvath / CJYO 2013 Student

Responding to connections between Part I of Hearts & Hands, Violence of Youth, the Absence of Elders, and the closing chapters of Always Running*

Always Running is an excellent memoir and a very descriptive work detailing Luis Rodriguez’s survival of the ordeals he faced while growing up in an East Los Angeles barrio.  I feel that it complements our Hearts and Hands text in that it shows a first hand account of the issues many of our nation’s young are facing today as well as demonstrates the kind of situations the kids Luis Rodriguez discusses in Hearts and Hands were going through.  In the later chapters of Always Running we see Luis growing and changing as a person and many of the programs and solutions he advocates in Hearts and Hands were the same ones that helped him turn his own life around and through that the two works are interconnected.  “There was something about the way Chente and the others made sense; the way they made dead things come alive – how they took what seemed obvious and proved the direct opposite.  The words were a fascinating revelation for me.  Another culture.  I had never experienced anything like it.  Here all perceptions were challenged.  Here knowledge, this elusive dove which had never before found a landing near my grasp, could be gently held – where it would not fly away” (Rodriguez, 2005, p. 156).

Photograph by chodra "education"

Week 4 Discussion CJYO 2013 / Student Quotes

Quote by Michael Marrufo / CJYO 2013 Student

Responding to environment as character, youth, & social change discussion.

Although I can’t truly remember my first years of life, I could always rely on certain things that have always been constants in my life even from my earliest days. Nothing necessarily poetic or life changing, just things that I knew I could always count on that would always be there; grandma always had cookies in her pantry, dad’s days off are always spent outdoors and our small town was our playground. Only with the latter did we feel as though we had complete control over, and we acted as heirs to a kingdom that was ours. Although Anthony is divided into two parts by two separate states, our side was in the Land of Enchantment, New Mexico, with the other side known as Texas side.

It may not have been much to look at considering it was a small town stuck right in the middle two much more appealing cities, but our claim to fame was that Anthony is the Leap Year Capital of the world (which it remains even to this day). Only the Texas side of the town was incorporated marked by posts showing the divide between the two states while the division between the people remained invisible. It’s not that we didn’t like each other so much as we just didn’t interact much with the other side. We were two separate small towns that shared only an invisible line that said we were different. I always just thought it made Anthony all the more unique. Whenever I got the chance, I would tell people how our school bus had to cross two states to get us to school. Although it sounded dramatic the truth was that the main street crossed out of New Mexico and into Texas only to cross back in to New Mexico five hundred feet later.

The New Mexico side I lived on remained unincorporated until January 5, 2010 when a few friends of mine decided that we should fight to once and for all incorporate and govern ourselves instead of having the Dona Ana County continue doing it. So we organized the residents and ourselves and voted in favor of incorporation. I admit that my part was small, but I’m always glad that I was involved in some way. My friend Victor Ray Montoya asked me to run and be the first Mayor of Anthony. It sounded like a good idea, but after some serious consideration I decided I didn’t have the experience or time to give to the community what it needed. He still remains an active community advocate for the youth and people of Anthony and spends much of his time doing great things for the community.

Anthony, New Mexico was and is used for so much agriculture including corn, cotton, onions, chile, apples, pistachios and lettuce not to forget dairy farms. My family lived far too close to the dairy and you could smell the waste that the cows produced from time to time. During summer it seemed worse with the smoldering heat mixed with the unpleasant smell of the cow manure that had been sitting in the sun all day. When tios and tias came to visit with our cousins it was always embarrassing when they would step out of their cars only to immediately cover their noses and try their best not to cry out in disgust.  To a certain degree everyone who lived nearby had become accustomed to the smell somewhat and it didn’t stop us in our tracks as it did others.

We lived outside on the streets with our neighborhood friends playing touch football, basketball, kickball, having firework wars during the Fourth of July and attending many a house party when one of our peers had a birthday. Our very favorite thing to do was riding our bicycles and go exploring. We became masters of taking older broken bikes apart and piecing the parts together to make one working bike whenever we needed. We became so good that we didn’t mind going on long trips that were miles away on just our bicycles with only a canteen of water, a patch kit in case of flats and a small hand pump.

One of our favorite destinations was to ride all the way out to the Rio Grande, which was a little more than three miles from our house. It wasn’t so much the distance that made it seem far but rather the lack of houses or adult supervision that made it seem so far and an adventure. We would ride out early on a Saturday morning and pass the Country Store knowing that just over the railroad tracks we’d only have the company of each other and the fields of agriculture carefully laid out by local farmers. We’d pass the onion fields first, the aroma of what smelled just like a bag of Lay’s Sour Cream and Onion flavored chips met us as we rode parallel to the burlap sacks of onions ready for pick up. We would continue to the end of O’Hara road that led us to an apple orchard and factory whose name I never took the time to remember. Sometimes my brothers and I were lucky enough to see a ripe apple on a branch hanging over the small fence and we would stop for a snack under the shade of apple trees.

 From there we would continue on around the corner where we were met in times of season by fields of jalapenos or cotton depending on the year. A bit further down we would pass Three Sisters road and the Rio Grande wasn’t much further ahead. Once at the Rio we would play in the water if the tide wasn’t too high, since we didn’t know how to swim, or if it wasn’t too close to evening. As young children our parents would recount the story of La Llorona (the Crying Lady) to my siblings and I on many a fishing trip or picnic outing at the Rio. La Llorona was a scorned woman who would come out of the river who, having drowned her own children in the Rio Grande, now came to life just before dusk in search of other small children to replace the ones she had killed. The legend said that she would take you back under the water with her and you were never seen again. We attributed many a drowning death in the river to La Llorona that had taken kids in the strong current with her. Needless to say, whether with my brothers or friends at the Rio, we’d always make certain that we were well on our way to the safety of our street well before La Llorona could get her cold, wet hands on us. Or we would abandon the last one of us out of the water and tell them La Llorona was behind them and we’d all run off screaming toward our bikes to sell the prank to our terrified friend who also knew the story well. We didn’t have Disney shows to movies to tell us about children having adventures, we went out and had our own adventures that would be the center of laughter at our family or social get together as adults.

Thoughts on the the Fire Next Door documentary

This video was so truly sad to see what exactly was happening to these people. While watching it all I could think was how surreal the entire situation was and how I couldn’t believe that it was happening in the United States. It seems that environment again was a factor for so many young people turning to violence as was expressed by the elderly white lady who worked at the Ritz Carlton. She mentions that her life had been threatened by a couple of teens no more than 15 to 16 years old. They say to her that if they had a knife they’d cut her throat because they knew she has money. Then later (I believe for talking to the reporter) someone ransacks her home destroying everything while she is downstairs.

Although I don’t condone their behavior, I believe these people steal from all the abandoned buildings (much like the one that had had the sink stolen out of it just days after the fire) to get money in order to help their families or even to feed their possible addictions to drugs or alcohol. I was saddened to hear a certain police officer say that if it wasn’t for alcohol pacifying the people, there would be no hope for any of them. I believe this police officer was right. How could you survive 30,000 fires in 10 years without going crazy?

I believe that the “cultural phenomenon” that may have been birthed in such terrible adversity was break dancing. It seems to me that there were so many people with no hope and no outlet for frustration or even a way to forget (even if only for a moment) about their problems without turning to vices. Some people must have come together and decided they wanted to do something different that wasn’t completely negative. I’m sure they didn’t have the resources to pick up painting or musical instruments to write symphonies in; so they did what they could with what they had. They created new music and a new way to physically express themselves. Or, I could be completely wrong.

Youth & Social Change, To See Again, Hearts & Hands (Discussion)

 I know that there exists a belief that troubled youth have given up on society or their culture and turned to violence and drugs or prisons or gangs because they don’t care. I think what Rodriguez is trying to say on page 28 of Hearts & Hands is that it is not troubled youth that have turned their backs of society or help, but rather that those who help have turned their backs on troubled youth. The system is “fractured” as he calls it and can be repaired but for our want or the want of those with the resources to not have to deal with trouble or deal with issues. This is impossible. We must open our eyes that to ‘fix’ the fracture we must roll up our sleeves and expect struggle and face trouble to fix the system. A favorite quote of mine by Richard Douglas is, “without struggle, there can be no progress”. I memorized this phrase to always remind myself that to overcome a situation I do not like or want to be in, I must fight. I must struggle to survive. Progress brings change and change brings opportunity and life when none may have existed before.

 "How can youths contribute to social change, to bettering their homes and community, and know that their contributions are essential?"

I believe that youth know and understand more than we give them credit for. One way we can help youth to contribute to social change is by giving them a voice and an opinion and showing them that it matters. Like I’ve always said, ‘they’re young, not dumb’. They may need an adult to oversee the group itself but not necessarily interfere with the opinion and/or decision of this group making decisions or making their voices heard. I believe that young people would surprise us with what they think. They, just like the rest of us, want to live in the best community possible. I don’t necessarily believe that they want to bring anarchy and chaos to their lives or the lives of those they love. Sometimes young people just want an outlet to express themselves and maybe something to do with their free time.

Once we give them the chance to be heard, step two would be to have their opinions heard and put into action whenever possible. This way they know that they are contributing to change and that their efforts are contributing to positive change. I believe that they want to be proud of their community and their home life just as much as the next person. If they can see their opinions help a current situation in their community, they will feel empowered and redeemed. I don’t think that they can always do things alone, and the helpful hand of a few elders or community leaders can go a long way.

 
Thoughts on the Marc Steiner Show, 'Dialogue Between Ciudad Juarez and Baltimore: What It's Like to Grow Up in a Violent Community'

It’s tragic that these types of dialogues even have to exist between such young people that should be worried about simpler things. Unfortunately, simpler times are a thing of the past that belonged to other generations. All four youth involved in this discussion have some horrible stories about what they have seen and lived. Being as close as we are to Juarez we are ourselves familiar with the terror that exists not so far from our own homes. What I did find of interest about this discussion is that these young people say that they don’t follow the talks of adults but rather what they do or how they act in life. For example, the young lady from Juarez says that having an adult come into a class a talk to them about what they need to do, it “goes in one ear, out the other”. They feel that youth to youth communication and involvement will have a much larger affect on the outcome and have more positive results.

As I listened to this, I thought that it makes sense. Young people are strongly opinionated and usually they listen more or follow more the actions of their peers than they do anyone else. I refer back to what I wrote in the last section about giving youth a forum to have a voice that has impact in the decisions made in their community and their world. Other activities that they mentioned include giving young people more activities to involve themselves in to turn away from drugs and violence such as sports and youth workshops. I think we need to not only allow young people to find their voices, but also give them a platform where everyone, including other youth, parents and their communities can hear them and take them into consideration. This could be the best answer to the many of the problems young people face today.

Week 4 Discussion CJYO 2013 / Student Quotes

Quote by Christina Montes / CJYO 2013 Student

Responding to environment as character discussion.

"I believe that environment is crucial to a person’s upbringing. It plays a huge role in their development. The first thing that I think of when I think of environment is Family. Growing up, no matter where I was I was always surrounded by family and that is what I remember most. I grew up In Chaparral, NM which is a very small rural area on the outskirts of El Paso, TX. City-data.com reported the area of chaparral as 38.8 sq. mi and the population of approximately 14,631. There were not a lot of trees or green areas on the contrary we were surrounded by desert and dirt. We could see the mountains and our nearest neighbors were always like a block away. We lived on an acre of land where we had a basketball court and volleyball net.  I remember being 14 years old and planting a tree in our front yard which my dad said someday would provide shade to my children... he was right. I love taking my children back to where I grew up and showing them how different my environment was from their own. Where I grew up, we were always running around outside with all of our friends and having get together and cookouts. Nowadays all of our kids are too scared to go outside they spend the majority of their time playing video games and being on the computers. I moved to El Paso because I thought it would be better to raise my children but now I wish they had been able to enjoy all the wonderful things I got to enjoy growing up... if I could write a chapter about growing up in my environment, it would be called “My Home” because no matter where I go or how I far I travel, that little city in New Mexico will always give me the feeling of “Home”."

Week 4 Discussion CJYO 2013 / Student Quotes

Quotes by Rosa Baquera / CJYO 2013 Student

Discussing the unauthorized soundtrack of Always Running, and the soundtrack of our lives.

"While reading Always Running pages 103 and 104, Luis describes his high as a vacation away from his life as if he finally belonged there, he could see birds flying then everything changed and turned into a black hole. Luis had stopped breathing and the feeling of death is what he had been wanting and wanted to go back into his daze. I chose Led Zeppelin “Stairway to Heaven” because of his dream in this chapter of him wanting to get to that peaceful place somehow."

"Ever since I was little my father used to sing a song to my sisters and me. The song is called “De Niña a Mujer” by Julio Iglesias. I remember we would all laugh because he never really knew the lyrics. He would always sing the last vowel of each word like "aaa... oooo...." It was very sweet and I actually requested that specific song to dance with him for my father/daughter dance at my Quinceañera. My father and I had some issues, but on that day I was so happy that my father was there with me and that we were finally able to dance the song he had been singing to me since I was a little girl. That day was a turning point in our relationship as father and daughter and little by little we have been strengthening it."

Hearts & Hands, Chapter 7 'Hungers and Angers'

"It appears that the various segments of the adult community are not only failing to work together, they are often completely at odds.  In fact, when these conflicting interests are at play, they are literally at war with one another.  Young people see this and may ask, quite legitimately, how can anyone expect them to come together when adults can't seem to stop fighting for one minute?"

-Luis Rodriguez

Artwork by Tim Campbell

Week 4 Discussion CJYO 2013 / Student Quotes

'Unauthorized Soundtrack of Always Running'
((So What))

Quote by Christina Frausto / CJYO 2013 Student

"In researching the different artists Rodriguez mentions throughout the text I found that I was really drawn to the jazz of Miles Davis which he mentions on page 84 of our textbook Always Running. I personally do not listen to this type of music often but I found it to be extremely relaxing and very passionate. I especially loved "Blue in Green" and "So What" with John Coltrane I felt myself indulging in his music all day at work. I think that his music expressed the passion that many felt during this period and also like the fusion of genres in his music because I feel it is very symbolic of the fusion that was inevitably happening throughout the country at the time. I also chose to give the link to The Drifters classic "Stand by Me". This song brings so many memories to me and I thought many of you would enjoy it too! As far as a song that I would put on the soundtrack of my life I have chosen to share with you Mana’s "Cuando los Angeles Lloran". I am a big fan of Mana and chose this song specifically because it talks about loss, whether it is the loss of a loved one or the loss of activists dying for a cause important to them, which is what the song is talking about I believe. I feel that loss is a huge part of anyones life, we either grow or learn from it or it deeply wounds us and changes us forever. Hope you guys enjoy it."

-Christina Frausto