Tag: media

AudioStories

Ari Kagan on The Brian Lehrer Show

Ari Kagan, Feet in 2 Worlds contributor and senior editor of the Russian newspaper Vecherniy New York, was interviewed on The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC, New York Public Radio today as part of the show’s series with immigrant journalists covering the party conventions. Ari described the protests and police reaction at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. Click here to listen online.

Here are some of Ari Kagan’s photos of Monday’s demonstrations in St. Paul.

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Immobilized: Denver Police Use Pepper Spray Against Journalist

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At latest count the Denver Police say they have made 152 “DNC-related” arrests during the Democratic National Convention. They also report an incident where pepper spray was used on a limited basis, “when a protest crowd that had gathered Monday night near Civic Center Park refused to disperse and suddenly rushed a police safety line about 7:15 p.m,” according to a Denver Police Department press release. Additional incidents of pepper spray being used against protesters have been reported by Bob Hennelly on WNYC, New York Public Radio and in the Rocky Mountain News.

One person who was pepper sprayed was not a protester, but an Arab American journalist, and a member of the Feet in Two Worlds/New York Community Media Alliance group in Denver to cover the convention. Antoine Faisal, publisher of Aramica, was hit with pepper spray despite the fact that he was wearing press credentials, and repeatedly held them up to show police officers that he was a member of the press.

Throughout the confrontation with police Antoine took photographs, many of himself reacting to and recovering from the attack. He also made an audio recording of the incident on a mini digital recorder in his pocket. He had forgotten to turn the recorder off after an earlier interview, and inadvertently captured audio as the events unfolded.

He was helped to safety by a man whose name Antoine never learned.

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Listen to Antoine narrate his recording here.

[audio:http://www.xrew.com/joceimgs/FI2W/fi2w_dnc_082808_AntoineNarratesRecordingBounce.mp3]

The first account of this incident appeared early Tuesday morning on the Irish Echo blog, posted by another member the group, Peter McDermott.

The police presence on the streets of Denver has been massive during the Democratic National Convention. While most of the interaction between police officers and the public has been cordial there have been some notable exceptions. The Denver Post reports that a producer for ABC TV, Asa Eslocker, was arrested on Wednesday, “outside the Brown Palace Hotel as he attempted to chronicle attendees at a private breakfast held by a Democratic Party campaign committee.”

In a separate incident on Wednesday witnessed by this reporter, members of the media and other convention attendees were verbally harassed by police officers as they stood in line to go through a security check-point at the Pepsi Center, where the convention was being held. Officers yelled at people to, “move, move, move,” despite the fact that there was no apparent emergency. When one man casually stepped out of line, an officer made a menacing gesture toward him and barked, “sir, I’m watching you.” A TV cameraman was ordered to turn off his camera. Officers did not explain the reason for the order.

Listen to Antoine Faisal narrate a slide show of the confrontation. Selected images from his experience are posted below.

[audio:http://www.xrew.com/joceimgs/FI2W/fi2w_dnc_082808_AntoineInterview.mp3]

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Feet in 2 Worlds' Peter McDermott on WDET's 'Detroit Today'

Peter McDermott, Associate Editor of New York’s Irish Echo, is covering the Democratic National Convention along with a host of immigrant reporters.

In a post earlier this week, Peter examined vice presidential nominee Sen. Joe Biden’s political career and image.

Peter appeared as a guest on ‘Detroit Today’, WDET-FM’s morning talk show, where he talked about ’60s radical Tom Hayden, and his views on Democratic Party politics today.

Press play below or click here to listen to Peter’s appearance this morning on the show.

[audio:http://www.wdetfm.org/audio/detroittoday/467/Thurs_8-28.MP3]

Feet in 2 Worlds' Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska on WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show

Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska, Feet in 2 Worlds reporter and journalist with New York’s Nowy-Dziennik (Polish Daily News), appeared on The Brian Lehrer Show this morning as part of Brian’s daily series this week with immigrant journalists covering the Democratic National Convention.

Ewa discussed the role immigrant journalists play covering the Convention for their communities, as well as Polish-American voters’ attitudes toward the presidential candidates and the recent US-Poland missile deal.

Press play below or click here to listen to Brian’s interview with Ewa.

[audio:http://audio.wnyc.org/bl/bl082808bpod.mp3]
AudioStories

The DNC through the Eyes (and Voices) of the Immigrant Press

Feet in 2 Worlds reporters are providing unique immigrant perspectives on the presidential campaigns with daily appearances on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show this week from the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

Today, Feet in 2 World’s Pilar Marrero, political editor and columnist for Los Angeles’ La Opinión newspaper, analyzed the McCain and Obama campaigns’ efforts to court Latino voters.  Click here to hear Pilar’s take on the most recent Latino voter poll, the latest controversy over Latino elected officials’ candidate endorsements, and the impact of the largest-scale Spanish-language outreach effort in election history.

Tomorrow, Ewa-Kern-Jedrychowska, reporter for New York-based Polish-language newspaper Nowy-Dziennik and Feet in 2 Worlds contributor, will discuss Polish-American voters’ attitudes and policy priorities. Tune in to The Brian Lehrer Show on FM 93.9, AM 820 or www.WNYC.org at 10:40 am EST to hear Ewa. 

Yesterday, our reporter Aswini Anburajan dissected Indian-American political donors, their support for the proposed India-US nuclear deal, and the emerging political partnership between the American Jewish Committee and Indian-American campaign donors that was showcased at a Denver breakfast forum. Click here to listen to Aswini’s talk with Brian Lehrer.

Feet in 2 Worlds convention coverage is part of our collaboration with New York Community Media Alliance.

Editor’s note: WNYC’s website and streaming capabilities are set up slightly differently during the conventions.  In order to listen to Pilar and Aswini’s interviews you must first download the first hour of Brian’s show, then fast forward to around 40 minutes past the hour (or just listen to the entire hour of excellent reporting and conversation!).

Indians and Jews Partner on U.S – India Civil Nuclear Deal

In recognition that the real deal-making at the party conventions happens not in the spotlight of primetime but in the backrooms off the convention hall, a morning breakfast yesterday between Indian and Jewish Americans underscored the role both groups hope to play in helping finalize the U.S-India civil nuclear power deal in the coming months.

Arranged by the American Jewish Committee, the breakfast on “Advancing Indian-Jewish relations” focused heavily on the importance of passing the civil nuclear deal not just for the betterment of India’s future, but also for Israel’s.

Allowing India to have a nuclear program would ensure that, “Israel doesn’t stand alone with a bunch of bad guys without having a good guy in the mix,” said Congressman Gary Ackerman (D-NY). “Israel gets cover,” Ackerman said, acknowledging the widespread belief that Israel has a clandestine nuclear weapons program.

While the U.S.-India nuclear agreement is ostensibly meant to ease the import of material needed for generating power, India’s nuclear weapons program has caused the international community to lump the country in with Iran and North Korea for violating or sidestepping international non-proliferation agreements. But Ackerman and representatives from the Indian and Israeli consulate generals said the international community should make an exception for the world’s largest democracy.

Jewish support for the Indian nuclear energy deal has been critical in helping to get it passed by Congress, according to Indian fundraisers and political staffers at the breakfast.

Swadesh Chatterjee, a longtime Indian American fundraiser at the breakfast who has lobbied hard for the nuclear deal, said that the Indian community lacked the legislative clout to lobby for the deal and that support from the Jewish community and Israel supporters had been “critical.”

Ackerman pledged that Jewish politicians and the community as a whole would continue to push for the passage of the civil nuclear deal.

The tough talk on foreign policy was cushioned by stressing perceived cultural similarities between the two groups. Participants repeatedly referred to the notion that Indians and Jews in the United States form a natural alliance and share an emphasis on family, a strong work ethic and a commitment to education.

“We recognize we have two mothers,” Ackerman said of the allegiance that both groups felt for their respective homelands.

Ackerman said that it appeared unlikely the civil nuclear deal will pass before Congress adjourns on September 26th despite Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice’s statement that it is a policy priority. The deal has to be ratified by the 45-nation nuclear supplier group before it comes back to Congress for a final vote. Ackerman warned that they couldn’t allow the bill to get, “amended to death,” in Congress. He also said that despite the support that both presidential candidates have expressed for the deal, neither candidate would be likely to sign it without re-visiting the agreement.

Lingering Doubts: Some Ethnic Voters Still Unsure About Obama

A new sense of the challenges that lie ahead for Sen. Barack Obama seems to be settling in among ethnic media reporters covering the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado. On Monday, just as convention delegates were starting to buzz with excitement over Michelle Obama’s scheduled prime time TV speech, reporters and columnists who work for ethnic newspapers from across the country were discovering a shared hesitancy about Obama’s candidacy in the communities they cover.

“The Barack Obama campaign started late to try to reach out to Latinos,” said Pilar Marrero, a reporter and columnist for La Opinion in Los Angeles and a Feet in Two Worlds reporter “They basically gave up the Latino vote in the primaries to Hillary Clinton…and there’s a struggle now.”

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Raymond Dean Jones of the Denver Urban Spectrum and Pilar Marrero from La Opinion speak with Feet in 2 Worlds executive producer John Rudolph.

Speaking at a forum on Deconstructing the Ethnic Vote, organized by Feet in Two Worlds and the New York Community Media Alliance, Marrero said, “polls show that Latinos are thinking of voting for Obama, they’re obviously thinking about voting Democratic.” But she cautioned that enthusiasm about Obama’s candidacy is not necessarily the main motivator for many Latinos. “After a couple of electoral seasons when a specific number of Latinos went to the Republican Party – up to 40 per cent of Latinos voted for George Bush in 2004 – they are going back to the Democratic Party because they don’t like the way things are going in the country. They don’t like the immigration rhetoric, they don’t like the economy, they don’t like the war.”

Noting the overwhelming Latino support that gave Hillary Clinton a critical edge in her primary victories over Obama in Texas, California and other states, Marrero said Obama has yet to match Clinton’s popularity. “The level of support that Obama has among Latinos is still not high enough,” she said.

The challenges facing Obama among Chinese American voters are even more stark, according to Lotus Chau, Senior Reporter at Sing Tao Daily in New York. Chinese voters, “think Obama is too young, he doesn’t understand the US-Chinese relationship, and he really doesn’t understand China’s issues,” Chau said. After it became clear that Obama would be the Democratic nominee, many Chinese voters who had been enthusiastic supporters of Hillary Clinton, “switched their votes to McCain,” according to Chau.

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Lotus Chau of Sing Tao Daily speaking with John Rudolph. Jehangir Khattack, a freelance Pakistani journalist, looks on. Their conversation was broadcast on KGNU, independent community radio in Boulder and Denver, Colorado.

But Chau said Chinese American voters are curious about Obama. And she noted that the Obama campaign recently took steps to reach out to Asian voters including the launch of a bilingual Web site aimed at Asian Americans. “But it’s a little bit late,” Chau said, “because it just happened recently.”

Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid casts a shadow over Obama’s campaign in a number of immigrant and ethnic communities, even among African Americans. “There really is a reason why (during the primaries) the super delegates and many influential black people lined up behind Hillary,” said Raymond Dean Jones, a columnist for the Denver Urban Spectrum, a newspaper that serves people of color in the Denver area. “There was something so different about Obama that people needed to be convinced (that he was united) with the black community in America.”

Jones, who is a member of the Denver Mayor’s African American Advisory Commission, believes that black voters’ doubts about Obama during the primary season have faded as he moves into the fall campaign. Jones also points out that African Americans are very proud of Obama’s political achievements and his intelligence. Even so Jones argues Obama’s personal history – as the son of a white American mother and an African father – is an issue with some black voters. “The truth is, this is a different guy. And he’s different in many ways because he’s not like African Americans are, and people know that.”

Parts of Obama’s biography that give pause to some blacks may actually help him with Latinos, according to Pilar Marrero. “Some (Latinos) think that he’s an immigrant, but they confuse him with his father,” she observed. “And that’s good because that makes him understand the immigrant experience.” But when it comes to the question of which candidate best understands Latino voters’ concerns, Marrero believes Obama faces tough competition from Sen. John McCain . Even though, she acknowledged that, “the Republican brand is damaged among Latinos,” Marrero said “McCain’s been around, he’s pushed immigration reform. It’s really an advantage that he has.”

Feet in Two Worlds Covers the Conventions

Feet in Two Worlds kicks off its coverage of the Democratic and Republican National Conventions tomorrow, featuring reporting by immigrant journalists from around the country who are attending the conventions. We’ll be podcasting and blogging from Denver and St. Paul, and our reporters will be on public radio with reports and analysis. Listen to the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC, New York Public Radio each morning at 10:40 for segments with ethnic media journalists.

Journalists whose work we’ll be featuring include Pilar Marrero from La Opinion in Los Angeles, Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska from the Polish Daily News in New York, and freelance journalist Aswini Anburajan.

Monday we’ll present the first in a series of panel discussions on Deconstructing the Ethnic Vote, an in-depth look by ethnic media journalists at the conversations going on in immigrant and ethnic communities about the presidential candidates, the issues, and the parties. This event is co-sponsored by the New York Community Media Alliance. If you’re in Denver, please join us Monday at noon at the Big Tent. We’ll have more information soon about where you can hear and see this conversation on the Web, TV and radio.

Polish Americans Divided on US-Poland Missile Agreement

Polish Americans and Polish immigrants living in the US offered a variety of reactions to the missile shield agreement signed this week by the US and Poland. According to US officials the 10 interceptor missiles to be placed on Polish soil are intended to protect the US and its allies from an attack by a rogue state such as Iran.

As part of the deal the Bush administration also agreed to the placement in Poland of a Patriot missile battery – a short-range missile system that theoretically could be used in case of Russia’s attack. Moreover, as the New York Times reported, the deal came with a promise that, “at least temporarily American soldiers would staff air sites in Poland oriented towards Russia, and that the United States would be obliged to defend Poland in case of an attack with greater speed than required under NATO, of which Poland is a member.” The agreement came soon after Russia invaded Georgia, formerly part of the Soviet Union, and a close American ally.

The move infuriated Russia. Shortly after the deal was announced a top Russian general, Anatoly Nogovitsyn, said that Poland risks a military attack, possibly even nuclear, for agreeing to host a US missile defense system on its territory. “Such targets are destroyed as a first priority,” he warned.

It sounded all too familiar to Poles, who, still remembering the times when their country was a Soviet satellite, almost felt a gust of the Cold War era.

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Indian-Americans Using Facebook to Recruit New Voters

Continuing a trend by ethnic communities to increase voter participation in this election cycle, the Indian American Leadership Initiative has launched a Facebook application to get Desis (South Asians) to vote.

The EveryDesiVote Application on Facebook allows users to scan their friends to see who has a confirmed voter registration. Users are asked to invite friends who are not registered or who don’t have a confirmed to registration to use the tool to check their status or use an online national voter registration application built by Rock the Vote.

The program is one of several initiatives by IALI, a progressive PAC, to increase Indian American participation in this election as well as a sign of how important Facebook and other networking tools have become to political organizing.

The note to IALI members informs them that Indian Americans are one of the, “worst performing ethnicities to register to vote in the U.S.” Nationwide there are about 1.5 million Indian Americans who are U.S. citizens. About half that number are registered to vote, and actual voter participation among that group is low, per a spokesman for the group.

IALI’s goal is to put Indian Americans on the map as a voting bloc that matters, and they are looking for high turnout among the community in states like Virginia and Ohio where they could have a measurable electoral impact.

Last week in northern Virginia, Indian American progressive activists sponsored a South Asians for Obama event where the Indian American actor, Kal Penn spoke. Penn pointed to the “macaca’ incident of 2006 as an example of how the community could be the key to an electoral victory. In August 2006, then -Senator George Allen (R-VA) called a young Indian-American opposition researcher a “macaca” at a public event. The slur was caught on YouTube and galvanized the community in support of Allen’s challenger, Democrat Jim Webb.

“Thirty thousand Indian Americans live in Northern Virginia,” Penn told the crowd of young South Asians and reminded them that Webb beat Allen, the incumbent, by around six thousand votes.

The use of Facebook and Kal Penn as a campaign surrogate for the Obama campaign shows that much of the group’s efforts so far have been focused on second generation Indian Americans. However, the group is reported to also be conducting focus groups with older Indian Americans on their political views, in order to more effectively reach out to them.