Una extranjera hablando de Estados Unidos

“No hay nada más divertido que alguien de fuera de Estados Unidos diciendo a los americanos lo que son”.
Prof. Chuang, 23 de Enero de 2008.

El semestre pasado asisití a una clase sobre Comunicación Internacional. Más de un tercio de los estudiantes éramos extranjeros y la profesora nos pidió en varias ocasiones que describiéramos la visión que nuestro país tiene de la postura de Estados Unidos en distintos asuntos. Los estudiantes de ese programa estaban aprendiendo a resolver conflictos de diferentes países y la profesora les aconsejó que aprendieran a comprender su propio país antes de intentar comprender cualquier otro. Y esto significaba escuchar las opiniones de otros países sobre Estados Unidos.

En mi caso, hice el mismo proceso, pero al revés, he aprendido cosas sobre Estados Unidos desde la perspectiva de mi propio país. Ahora lo vuelvo aprender, pero desde aquí dentro. Y siento que vuelvo a empezar porque hay tantas cosas que no conocemos en el extranjero que ahora comprendo las razones por las que algunos problemas siguen sin reslover o por qué la palabra Libertad está por todas partes o por qué las viticmas del Huracán Katrina, por ejemplo, no fueron ayudadas.

Photo by CFPereda
Washington National Monument.

Y después de leer sobre el movimiento por los derechos civiles y pensar en aquello por lo que pasó este país, me pregunto si este es el momento en el que algunos de esos logros se están perdiendo: la disparidad entre clases sociales, la brecha económica, los porcentajes de población en la pobreza o sin seguro médico en el primer país del mundo… estamos realmente hablando de datos del primer país mundial?

Una de las cosas que más escuchas en el extranjero es por qué Estados Unidos no mira más veces hacia dentro de sus fronteras y menos hacia fuera.

La cobertura de las consecuencias del Huracán Katrina fue muy amplia entre los medios de comunicación españoles. El hecho de que el primer país del mundo no lograra ayudar a su propia población en el desastre era uno de los factores que más enfatizaban los periodistas. Fue sólo unos días después de la catástrofe que los periodistas introdujeron el factor de la raza y la probreza en la zona como una de las razones para la falta de ayuda. Lo mismo hicieron los medios españoles.

En el caso de los medios españoles, comentaron que esto era inaceptable tratándose de Estados Unidos. Las manifestaciones son muy comunes en España y es relativamente fácil encontrar a cientos de miles de personas protestando por una causa. Recuerdo preguntarme cada vez que ví algo relativo al Katrina por qué los Americanos en otras partes del país no salieron a la calle a pedir al gobierno que ayudara a las vítimas.

Puede que sea una razón cultural o histórica que se me escape, pero es muy difícil para mí admitir que la raza, la pobreza de la población o la falta de recursos por la guerra de Irak se puedan aceptar sin más como excusas para dejar a miles de personas atrás. No puedo. Y me gustaría saber también qué detuvo a la gente para no salir a la calle a protestar.

No había visto imágenes del desastre desde el aniversario en Septiembre y me impresionaron tanto como la primera vez. Más que el desastre natural en sí, los miles de personas que se quedaron atrás. Me enfadé otra vez. Pensé que todavía queda algo por arreglar.

El 26 de Agosto de 2005 no pude ir a Nueva Orleans, pero me hubiera gustado ir y ayudar contando la historia. Todavía hoy me encantaría escribir sobre ello. El periodismo nos permite mejorar las cosas donde vivimos, podemos contribuir de tantas formas como contar historias que encontramos. Esta idea se lleva mi enfado y me hace querer empezar una nueva historia. A lo mejor voy a Nueva Orleans.

A non-American talking about America

“There’s nothing funnier than a non-American telling Americans what they are.”
Prof. Chuang. Jan. 23, 2008.

I took a class last semester on International Communication. More than a third of the students were from abroad and the professor asked quite often for any of us to describe how our country saw the United State’s position on different topics. Students were learning how to solve problems involving different countries and the professor asked them to better understand their own country before learning about any other. And this implied listening to other countries’ opinions on the United States.

In my case, I did the same process but backwards: I have learned about the United States from my own country’s perspective. Now I’m re-learning this, but from inside this country. And I feel like starting over because there are so many things that we don’t know abroad that now I understand the reasons why some problems remain unsolved, why the word Freedom is everywhere, why the victims of Hurricane Katrina didn’t get help.

And after reading about the Civil Rights movement and thinking about what the country went through I ask myself if this is a time when some of the movement’s achievements are being lost: the disparities between classes, the economic divide, the poverty rates in the world’s first country, the rates of uninsured… are we really talking about the characteristics of the first country?

One thing you can hear a lot abroad is why the United States doesn’t look more often to the inside and less beyond its borders.

The coverage of Hurricane Katrina’s consequences was very extensive by Spanish news media. The fact that the first world country didn’t manage to help its own people from the disaster was what most reporters emphasized. It was just a few days after the hurricane that media introduced the race and poverty factors as reasons why this happened. So did the international reporters.

In the case of Spanish media, this was reported as unacceptable when talking about the United States. Demonstrations are very common in Spain and it’s quite easy to see one movement gather hundreds of thousands of people to protest. I remember wondering, every time I saw something related to Hurricane Katrina, why the American people in other areas of the country didn’t come out and protest asking the government to help the victims.

It might be a cultural or historical reason that goes beyond my knowledge, but it’s hard for me to admit that race, poverty or the lack of resources due to the war in Iraq can be simply accepted as excuses to leave some people behind. I just can’t. And I would love to know what kept people from protesting in the streets.

I hadn’t seen images from the disaster since the anniversary last September and I was still as shocked as the first time. More than the natural disaster itself, it was the thought of thousands of people left behind. I felt angry again. I thought there’s something that needs to be fixed.

On Aug. 26, 2005, I wasn’t able to go to New Orleans, but I would’ve loved to come and help telling a story. I would still love to write about it today. Journalism allows us to improve life where we live; we can contribute in so many different ways, telling the stories that we find. This idea takes my anger away and makes me want to start a new story. I might go to New Orleans.

Café Babel: Innovative Web site bridges language, builds European culture

By Cristina Fernández Pereda 

Ask anyone in the streets of Paris what they are first: French or European? It is more likely that they consider themselves French. But if the person you run into happens to be an Erasmus student, it is more likely he or she will tell you they are first European, then French.

The European Union is now expanding but the evolution of a European identity has just started. Cafebabel.com has become a forum where Europeans can share, reflect and analyze current affairs across borders, with different views, in different languages. The site encourages readers to think as Europeans, and use Café Babel as a means to build European identity and public opinion.

The online magazine Cafe Babel.
Photo provided by Cafebabel.com

Italian Adriano Farano spent one year in Strasbourg as an Erasmus student. Erasmus, the European university exchange program, took him to study political science in the city where the European Parliament congregates. The Erasmus experience is believed to be building the first eurogeneration: the first group of young people from the old continent who consider themselves European.

Friends from different European countries, their views on current affairs, conversations in different languages and a common interest in journalism inspired Farano to found Café Babel. He is now editor-in-chief and executive manager of this online magazine that has become the first pan-European media.

“A café is where people meet. Babel is what separated them,” said Farano. With his friends from the Erasmus experience, he decided to take the conversations from cafes across Europe to a forum online.

The Cafe Babel community across Europe,
with local offices from Lisbon, Portugal;
to Istanbul, Turkey; to Stockholm, Sweden.
Photo provided by Cafebabel.com

In contrast to the Bible version of Babel, where languages divide people, Café Babel is “a cafe where you can speak, read and write in the language you want, but you are understood. We are, at Café Babel, all together in a cozy cafe, speaking all our different languages, but we can understand each other, we communicate and we debate,” said Monika Oelz, project manager and communication chief at Café Babel.

The project, now seven years old, involves more than 1,000 citizen journalists and translators from different countries, 22 local offices in 14 European countries, and 400,000 people visiting the site every month.

“We play the card of originality by addressing a specific audience (the eurogeneration) with a specific content that is general (society, culture, politics), but analyzed with a European perspective. We try to gather stories from all around Europe and also find transnational tendencies in the fields of art, immigration, education, etc.,” Farano said.

Last week, Café Babel’s creator joined American University’s International Communication students during his visit to the school. He was invited to the United States by the International Visitor Exchange Program, which brings youth from all over the world to the U.S. During a three-week trip, he is meeting with leaders from Google, Facebook and Wikipedia.

Image from the interview with
Café Babel’s creator, Adriano Farano.
Photo provided by Adriano Farano.

“What I learned from International Communication Prof. Shalini Venturelli in her speech is that national mass media were needed by the U.S. in order to build a sense of community,” Farano said. “The problem is that we don’t have, as was the Anglo-Saxon for the U.S., a dominant culture. That is why a pan-European media needs to respect the different cultures and languages of the Old Continent.”

One of the magazine’s goals is to break down the barriers created by national media to create that sense of European identity. Café Babel is published in six different languages (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Catalan), and makes it possible for journalists and bloggers in the community to have their posts translated, so the readers can chose the language. No other online community includes this feature.

Café Babel is another example of participatory media, as writers and journalists contribute to the site. Translators then edit the articles in different languages for each of the different editions of the online magazine. Editors encourage contributors to share different opinions to show current affairs from a transnational perspective. The only requirement is quality.

When you go to Café Babel, you find articles about the immigration to Europe; how Muslim women “cover their hair, but not their mouth“;” the Eurodyssey: scholarships to work in Europe for Erasmus students; and the European Reform Treaty to be signed next December in Lisbon. The readers’ favorite: Tower of Babel where Europeans laugh comparing idioms and expressions in different languages.

This story was published on the American Observer Nov. 6, 2007.

Living is an ‘Art’—Youth Programs help shape their future

By Cristina Fernández Pereda

The Art of Living Foundation is the largest volunteer-based non-governmental organization in the United States. Just a short walk from U-Street station in Washington, the organization works closely with the United Nations. The foundation’s volunteers have assisted victims worldwide after events like Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the Beslan tragedy in Russia while helping develop rural villages in India.

They have programs focusing on personal development, human-values education and community service to create a stress and violence-free society. With a special interest in helping youths, the foundation has created two different programs for students in more than 140 countries: YES! focuses on kids from ages eight to 13, while YES!+ works with college students. Both have the same goal: making them feel better.

As part of the programs, the organization’s instructors practice yoga, breathing exercises, group techniques and meditation with teenagers, implementing special exercises for those with special needs.

“They learn how to manage their emotions and stress, and how to be more successful,” Gayatri Mani, a Youth Programs Coordinator, said.

According to the instructors, the exercises help them improve their potential and realize what is best in them. They are focused in class and they can help their community once they feel they have their own life under control.

Gopika Prabhu is one of the instructors who works with students in Washington.

“You can’t just tell teenagers to do the right thing; you have to give them an alternative. We work on their insecurities and their doubts. They’re scared of what other people think, and when they learn the skills of feeling good, they can decide and help implement that in their community.”

After participating in any of the Youth programs, high school students sometimes do an internship through The Art of Living.

“They work in their field of interest; they can become a youth representative at their school or work at any other organization and give back to their community what they learned,” Prabhu explained.

After a few days in the course, students admit they have more energy, are more focused in class, interact better with other people and don’t get angry frequently.

“After doing the exercises, they feel good and know that they don’t need anything else. They say the experience is awesome,” Prabhu said.

Some of the kids Prabhu has worked with not only attend classes at school, but also work and take care of their families: “We work to give them the tools to balance all that. The goal is to get young people to get up in the morning and think ‘I can take the world,’ to feel they can live their lives the way they want to, without letting the world thrust them down,” Prabhu said.

In Washington, The Art of Living is working now with inner-city centers such as Bell Multicultural and McKinley Technology High Schools.

“We go where kids really need us,” Mani said. “The benefits are seen immediately after a six-day program, learning how to relieve stress, reduce violence and be more successful” she added.

The organization has reached 70,000 students in 50 Universities all over the nation. In George Washington University and Georgetown University, the organization teaches more than 1,000 students during six-day long courses. The students take a total of 21 hours of yoga, meditation and learning of the Sudarshan Kriya breathing technique.

“We ask ‘how can I live my life better?’ and teach how to make your life less stressful and how to reduce the amount of stress that comes from being a student,” Prabhu said.

This story was published on the American Observer on Oct. 23, 2007.

Obesity Society

By Cristina Fernández Pereda 

Nearly half of Americans will be obese by 2015, the Obesity Society predicted at a panel session Wednesday. Public Health experts and congressional lawyers discussed at George Washington University what the next president should do to reduce obesity rates.

“It is an extraordinary difficulty that we face and will continue to face on this issue,” Dora Hughes, Health Policy Advisor to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., said. Even though it is a problem affecting most countries, obesity has spread in the last two decades in the United States more than anywhere else.

Peter Orszag, director of the congressional budget office explained that researchers justify this increase with the lack of balance between the calories one person takes in and the calories he or she burns. “It appears that you can track the increase of caloric in-take to snacking and not to meals,” Orszag said.

He mentioned that obesity is also related to the reduction of exercise among Americans but that “it would be foolish to look only to one side of the problem,” and not consider all the social, economic and environmental factors.

Obesity rates are higher among low-income people with lower education degrees. Laurie Rubiner, legislative director for Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., introduced the access to health insurance coverage as one of the problems that obese people are facing in the United States, where 47 million people are uninsured. “Coverage does matter,” Rubiner said.

Clinton’s universal health care program released on Tuesday includes coverage for those currently uninsured and emphasizes on the relationship between patients and their doctors. This is a shared concern with Sen. Chris Dodd. “The United States has one of the lowest rates of people keeping the same doctor for more than five years,” Barbara M. Smith, lawyer for the Democrat from Connecticut’s campaign, said.

Along with access to health insurance, panelists agreed that education is a very important factor on the fight to reduce obesity. Orszag explained that vending machines in school might not be helping when trying to educate children about healthy food. “Some studies have shown that consumption is influenced by availability of food rather than taste of hunger,” he said.

“This is really a young person’s problem, we need to hit it at the beginning,” said David Bonior, John Edwards for President Campaign Manager. Like other panelists, Bonior mentioned walking to school, community education on healthy food and physical activity as habits to that should be taught to children to avoid obesity.

Director of STOP Obesity Alliance Christine Ferguson said that thinking about a solution to reduce obesity must consider “how easy do we want to make it for people to eat healthy and lose weight,” referring to different legislation proposals to tax fast-food products or reduce the cost of health insurance for those who lose weight.

Health experts and Democratic presidential advisors agreed that the access to health care will be a very important factor to reduce obesity rates in the United States, along with making coverage mandatory and lowering the prices by insurance companies.

On the other side, Health Policy Advisor for Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Mass., Lanhee Chen argued that “what makes the market work is choice.” He alleged that there are 50 separate legislations on health care in this country and unifying them by making coverage mandatory wouldn’t fit with the current way market works.

“We are going to deal with this for a long time and we need to do a concentrated effort. It is important to understand what actually works, what made some progress and remember that we still have a long way to go,” Don Moran, Health Care Advisor for the Republican candidate Rudolph Giuliani, said.

“There is no other issue Americans care more at the domestic level than obesity,” Douglas Holtz-Eakin. “We should attack this problem with the same power that we attack other problems in America,” he said.

Health: A right for all, a privilege for the few

By Cristina Fernández Pereda

If we want to address the challenges to global health, it is necessary to strength health systems. Without this requisite, we will not be able to give equal health conditions to everyone.

The lessons learned in the past, including aptitudes and strategies developed in the fight against polio and SARS can be used in the treatment of HIV/AIDS and to obtain the Millennium Objectives.

The objectives consist good health conditions for everyone a priority, and making equality in health a part of the development of social justice and making the participation of communities in their health programs.

The progress of these goals will not last if the patterns established for health are not followed. This is especially true of the “3 million goal” which consists to reach up to 3 million people with antiretroviral polio therapy against HIV/AIDS in developing countries by the end of 2005. These objectives should reinforce an extensive network of health programs.

Due to the health reforms of the last decades, health systems need to make more improvements. However, new opportunities emerge. Healthcare is a priority in the international development and the impoverished countries to count on funds for health activities.

The health system includes all the organizations, institutions and the resources that come from all initiatives to improve health. A healthcare system is made up of the institutions, the people, the necessary resources to provide attention to the individual. The link between the functions of public health and the attention to patients is one of the most important features of primary care.

The values and practices of primary healthcare adapted to the current situation can become the basis for healthcare systems. The global personal healthcare crisis, the lack of scientific proofs, financial resources and the difficulties to apply politics to healthcare inequalities are the greatest challenges to healthcare systems today.

In the 90s, the OMS evaluated the health care systems and their development. The OMS made equally accessible primary care and the supply of analytical instruments that become such an undertaking in adequate scientific proofs for developing countries. In rich countries the waste of resources in healthcare systems is noteworthy.

Initiatives like the European Observatory of the OMS on healthcare systems bring important facts about the workings and errors.

However, there are still issues to solve. The Observatory broadcast the changes in European systems, the reforms, and analyze its results and why they function in specific contexts. Moreover, the Observatory keep vigil because the experiences within the European system may extend beyond its borders.

The OMS can only offer investigation lines and help the countries find the best optionc to make their healthcare system adequate to the demands of the population, especially in the countries of the South.

The right to healthcare has become a privilege en some parts of the world. The healtcare systems based on primary care could be the first step to bring equal health benefits to every person.

(En Español)