tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49397015345265955382024-03-13T10:22:45.713-05:00Fourteen months, four countries, and three kids - Tales from the FieldMy husband, three kids and I spent May 28, 2009 to August 13, 2010 traveling to Jamaica, Brazil, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic. During this time, I interviewed people who had been deported from the US for a book I am writing. On this blog, I reported on my travels, trials, tribulations, travails, and random thoughts.Tanya Golash-Bozahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14299920277816825958noreply@blogger.comBlogger259125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939701534526595538.post-59887387520511128292011-12-24T12:19:00.000-06:002011-12-24T12:19:26.718-06:00Crater Climbing, a Seven Mile Walk, and a Sunset: Diamond Head with Five Kids<h4>**We are traveling and writing again, and blogging about it at "<a href="http://globetrottingmamita.blogspot.com/">Are We There Yet</a>"**</h4>On Thursday, we ventured out after lunch to climb Diamond Head Crater. Several websites and guidebooks warned that the climb would be strenuous, so we wore our tennis shoes, comfortable gear, and packed water and snacks. It is great we went prepared, as we walked a lot throughout the day.<br />
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We hopped on the Number 23 Bus, which let us off right at the foot of the Crater. We had to walk about 15 minutes to get to the entrance. I asked my brother, Ian, to turn on his Runkeeper App to see how many miles we would clock during the day. <br />
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We paid the admission fee of $1 each and began our trek up the crater. The trail is 0.8 miles up and another 0.8 down. The kids (aged 8 to 10) had no trouble going up, although we did stop at least once to catch our breath. The 99 stairs at the top was the most strenuous part, but overall, I’d say the warnings about this being a very difficult trail were overblown.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The view to Waikiki from Diamond Head Crater</td></tr>
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The views from the top were amazing. You can see all of Waikiki Beach, most of the city of Honolulu, and way out to the Koko Crater that borders Hanauma Bay. The top also had a lovely, refreshing breeze.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A bit breezy at the top!</td></tr>
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The trek up and down, with plenty of rest, took us about two hours. I really wanted to go to the beach afterwards, but the kids wanted to go home. I decided to play a little trick on them and tell them that we had to walk to the bus stop. My nephew, Dante, who is quite clever, pointed to the bus stop, and said “The 23 stops here,” as he knew the 23 goes to Kahala. I told him we were going to take a different bus. The kids complained, but kept walking.<br />
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One of my tricks for when the kids begin to complain about walking is to tell them stories. I told Dante and Raymi funny stories about stuff I had seen riding buses, and Dante had a few stories of his own. The walk to Kapiolani Beach Park was a bit farther than I had anticipated. It turned out to be two miles from Diamond Head. However, the kids made it. We just kept telling them at each turn that it was “just down the road.”<br />
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When we finally made it to Kapiolani Beach Park, and the bus stop I had been talking about all along, the kids spotted a few ducks waddling around a small lake, and asked if they could play with the ducks. We let them, and then coaxed the kids across the street to a huge banyan tree. Once they saw the beach, they asked if they could go for a swim. Of course, I knew that once they saw the ocean they would want to get in. Mission accomplished: I got the kids to walk to the beach, and could watch the amazing Pacific sunset.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Waikiki Sunset</td></tr>
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Watching the sun drop like a flaming ball into the Pacific Ocean is one of my favorite sights.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sunset swimming</td></tr>
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Once the sun set, I looked up a restaurant on Yelp! and found this place: <a href="http://www.yelp.com/biz/gyoza-no-ohsho-honolulu">Gyoza No Ohsho</a>, which was just five blocks away. The food there was awesome! The kids loved the gyozas and the ramen, and it was a great deal. The ramen soups are about $9.00 and the gyozas are $4.50 for six.<br />
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Once we finished eating, we walked another five blocks back to the Number 14 bus stop, and took it all the way to Kahala Mall. Before getting on the bus, I asked my brother how long we had walked. He told me 7 miles. The kids were excited to hear they had broken their previous record of 5 miles. I was happy to have convinced them to walk that much.<br />
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On Friday morning, I asked Tatiana, Soraya, and Raymi to each write 100 words about their day. Here are their reports:<br />
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<b>Raymi</b><br />
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<i>I walked 70 blocks yesterday up on the mountains. I whined some of the time. It was so not worth it when I got to the top. We ate crackers and cuties (mandarin oranges) at the top. Going down was way shorter. At the bottom, we ate shaved ice. It was good. My cousin Assata and I got lemon-lime and strawberry. Soraya and Tatiana shared watermelon and strawberry. Ian and Dante shared lemon-lime and watermelon. After eating, we walked to the bus stop. Man, that bus stop took long. We got on bus number 14. We got off the bus and saw a dog and I did cartwheels.<br />
</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<b>Soraya</b><br />
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<i>Yesterday we went to the mountains. Before we went up, I drank some water, used the bathroom, and drank some more water to get ready. Then we started walking up the mountain. On the way up, Raymi started to hang onto my dad’s arm. So Raymi and dad got way far behind. The rest of us kept on going. We saw some stairs. Then we found benches and rested for a while. Next to the benches were other stairs. We thought that those stairs went the wrong way. So when we were done resting, we went up the long stairs. After those stairs, there were some other stairs that went around in circles that led to the top. At the top, we were able to see the big crater – Diamond Head Crater. When I saw the crater, I saw a big circle that kind of looked like a sting ray with a tail. It was cool.<br />
</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<b>Tatiana</b><br />
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<i>Yesterday we went to the mountain. We walked. I don’t like walking sometimes. We walked to the top of the mountain. And ran down. Dante got ahead of us but we caught up with him. After that we walked to the bus stop. It was like 70 blocks overall. We stopped for a while because we saw some ducks. There was a baby duckling. It was so cute! After that we went to the beach that was across the street. We stayed there until the sun went down. Then we went to a Japanese restaurant. I ate soup. It was delicious. Then we went home on the bus.<br />
</i>Tanya Golash-Bozahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14299920277816825958noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939701534526595538.post-84108629428579567742010-08-30T16:31:00.002-05:002010-08-30T16:31:16.670-05:00Tatiana's letter to Grandma about Our 14 Months AbroadAs the last assignment in their home schooling for the year, I asked my three daughters to write a letter to Grandma telling her about their fourteen months abroad. I wanted to see what they found most interesting about the year. I asked Tatiana if I could post hers online. She agreed. This is the letter from Tatiana, one of my nine-year old twins, to Grandma.<br />
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Saturday, July 24, 2010<br />
<br />
Dear Grandma,<br />
<br />
We are on a vacation. We traveled in 5 countries. First Jamaica then Guatemala then Dominican republic then brazil then the last is Jamaica. The name of this place is called Chucky’s island. In this place there is a man named Lasco. He has seven goats. Two of the goats had babies. One of the goats named Isabelle had 1 baby. Another goat named Sara had 2 babies. Chuck had 2 dogs and they each had 4 babies. In a few days we are going back to Kansas. I can’t wait! <br />
<br />
When we were at Guatemala we had 14 pets. We had 3 bunnies, 8 puppies, 1 dog and 2 turtles. One of the puppies knew how to shake hands. One of the bunnies that was white was named Violet. One of the puppies was named Mr. stomach. We named him that name because he was a fat little puppy. <br />
<br />
In the Dominican republic we had two friends. One was a girl and the other was a boy. The boy had a PSP. it’s a type of DS. We loved it when they came to are house to play. They were really good friends. <br />
<br />
In Brazil we borrowed a house to stay in. in school I didn’t have any real friends. But there is one boy that is in artist and he is nice to me. His name is Andrew. He never did anything mean to me. When we had our birthday it was really fun. The cake was really delicious, and now I am nine. But I still miss Kansas a lot like really a lot.<br />
<br />
Last summer in Kingston, Jamaica I didn’t have a school. I was in summer camp. In summer camp I got to beat up boys. The boys were also scared of me. Almost every boy in summer camp was scared of me. Can you believe that a bunch of boys would be afraid of one girl? I liked it a lot when a bunch of boys are afraid of me. <br />
<br />
Right now I am in Negril, Jamaica. There is this boy named Jayim and he is 5 years old. He has a sister who is three years old and her name is Nikaya. Here in Negril, there is a place called Xtabi. It is fun and once my sister Raymi said they saw an octopus coming up on the side of the wall from the water. Xtabi is really beautiful and you can take a really good look at the sunset. Xtabi has a cliff that I can jump off. I am not scared to jump off. Raymi is scared, and Soraya only jumps from like one inch lower than me. There is this guy here. His name is Deano and he taught us how to fish. He said that when you feel the fish biting, you don’t pull. You have to wait until the fish pulls. Then, you have to pull. One day we caught three fish. We mostly catch squirrel fish. The rest of the family eats them except for me, because I don’t like fish.<br />
<br />
Here in Negril, we have a friend named Mia. Mia was our bestest friend we ever met in Negril. She has a DSI that takes pictures. Mia is not mean to us. She liked Raymi for a little while, then she noticed Raymi was annoying, then she didn’t like her any more. Mia is like two days older than us. Mia is like Soraya and me. She likes to beat up boys like us. And, also she bit a boy and he was bleeding. She loves insects. We also do too. That’s why we like Mia so much. One day Mia got hurt on the leg and we thought we would never see her again. Then, one day, her father came and said that Mia was going to come and visit us. We were really happy we got to play with her. She forgot to bring her Nintendo DSI but we still had fun.<br />
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This letter is closed just for you.<br />
<br />
Love,<br />
Tatiana<br />
</i>Tanya Golash-Bozahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14299920277816825958noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939701534526595538.post-85457580622113161192010-08-30T16:30:00.005-05:002010-08-30T16:30:54.756-05:00Fourteen months in four countries - from a nine-year-old's perspectiveThis is a letter from Soraya, my nine-year-old twin daughter to her grandmother, telling all about our fourteen months in four countries. She told me I could post it online.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivM53YQuamG-TP80WCbv3HeWntB8WaKlKHqIEMrLrkOqH11wnMzXu4tNFxPwGlfLAZMNIN8KG01Chnd4rj5WRmGXrXFdn8L0ypwLuR34ecKhYkbo1rBJBFhv_uHRZMDppfvy0-wDRNrDqE/s1600/1.sol.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivM53YQuamG-TP80WCbv3HeWntB8WaKlKHqIEMrLrkOqH11wnMzXu4tNFxPwGlfLAZMNIN8KG01Chnd4rj5WRmGXrXFdn8L0ypwLuR34ecKhYkbo1rBJBFhv_uHRZMDppfvy0-wDRNrDqE/s320/1.sol.JPG" /></a></div><br />
<i>Saturday, July 24, 2010</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>Dear Grandma,</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>We went to lots of countries. First we went to Jamaica. Then, to Guatemala, then, Dominican Republic then we went to Brazil. We rode on the horse all the time in Brazil. After Brazil, we went back to Jamaica. I had lots of fun. my favorite one was Jamaica. I met the owner of Chucky’s Island, he had 4 dogs, then there were these goats. There were 7 goats. Lasco is the owner of the goats. Every day I help Lasco feed the goat. 2 goats had babies. 2 dogs had puppies. We live in a cottage . We have a secret door. We have 3 fans. We have lots of friends. Mia was are favorite friend. We borrowed lots of her games for the computer. The mouse of our computer got broken, but we bought a new one. We have a black mouse now. </i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>In Guatemala, we lived in the city. In the city we lived in an apartment. In the apartment lived an old lady. The old lady had a dog named Cuchi. I liked Cuchi and Cuchi liked me. Cuchi is still a kid. Did you know that in Guatemala they let dogs in the bus? We took Cuchi to school! But then we moved to another part of Guatemala. We stayed at our friend’s house. In the house they had 6 pets. They had 2 turtles, 3 bunnies and 1 dog. The dog had 8 puppies. And then they had 14 pets. We made friends. We made a collection. It was fun. </i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>Next we went to the Dominican Republic. It was fun. We went to Jumbo. Jumbo is a very fun place. There was bumper cars. I went on a merry go round. We went on a thing that goes up and down. It was fun. Remember that you came to the Dominican Republic? I had fun with you. Thank you for all the presents. I always wanted a DS. Are you going to come to Jamaica or Kansas to visit us? I hope you do.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>Next we went to Brazil. In Brazil, we had so much fun. We had a school and I made a lot of fake friends. Once when I cried, they started being my friend. Sometimes they are my fake friends. Sometimes they are my real friends.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>Once we took our dog to school. And, did I forget to tell you about our pets? We had three ducks, three chicks, and one dog. But, then things started to change. First, one of the chicks got robbed by the cat. Then, another chick died because our dog ate the chick. It was chasing it. Then, the ducklings. First of all, one of the dogs was tortured by our friends. Well, they weren’t fake friends. Then, we met a kitten. It was annoying our neighbors. They said, “please get that kitten off of your roof.” We kept it; its name was Michi. Then, we found a dog on the street. We found his owner. He said we could keep him and his name was Nick. We called him Nick. We had to tie him on a leash because he did not behave so well. Then, there was a man that let us ride the horse. But, we had to pay. When we left Brazil, we gave our pets to our friend, Peruca. In Brazil, they speak Portuguese. It is like Spanish a little bit, but some words are confusing. “Oi” means “Ola” or “Hi.”</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>Next, we moved to Negril, Jamaica. It was so much fun in Negril. It took very long for the car to get there. Finally, we got there. Then, we met Chuck, the guy I told you about. He is a very nice old man. He owns Chucky’s Island. He also had two puppies. One was named Gateway. The other was named Pinky. But, one day, one of the puppies, Gateway, died because he didn’t give him shots. Then, Pinky got lost. I felt sad and I almost cried when Gateway died. But, things started to get luckier - baby goats! First, the goat called Isabelle had one baby goat. Then, the goat named Sara had two babies. They are so cute. We only got to pet the baby Isabelle made. That baby goat is called Brownie, because it is brown. There is a rule with the baby goats: You cannot touch its tail because the mother will not feed it and you will have to feed it. Then, the dog named Blondie and the dog named Sally had puppies at the same time. They are so cute, but we can’t touch them.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>In Negril, we play with our bestest friends - Nikaya and Jayim. They are little. Nikaya is four, and Jayim is five, I think. Then, we had our other friend named Mia. She is so awesome, I tell you! She even lent us her games for the computer. Then, she let us play her DS game. Once, my little sister lost her DS game, but Mia found it thrown outside on the floor. In Negril, we went to the beach and a really cool place called Xtabi. There is also a really cool place called Rick’s Café, but my mom likes Xtabi better because there are not so many people. At Rick’s Café, there are lots of Rasta men that do flips off of the cliffs. They do lots of cool stuff. One of them did a flip over another person. There is also a place called Margaritaville where they have big nachos - like six inches high.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>My favorite parts of Negril are when we rode the horses, when we had nachos and when we met two twin girls that look like me and Tatiana from behind. Thank you for listening to my story. I love you Grandma. Say to Grandpa that I love him too. </i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>Love, </i><br />
<i>Soraya</i><br />
<div><br />
</div>Tanya Golash-Bozahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14299920277816825958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939701534526595538.post-15674786208542878422010-08-30T16:30:00.002-05:002010-08-30T16:30:11.394-05:00Letter from Raymi to Grandma about our 14-month trip<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglgQA7JkDRj-K-hJD3R62BOYmdlqeaHFyPDx3gYoR2C6uZSZ-n8uVtIgCEq9f9R3Z7ZadQUIV1P6TdmIT0yEj3tGR262_fARk5GjHaQn0HF-arV6RdYo1Z1MfV1zG2kVo-xbs7Wds8W1VC/s1600/DSCF2382.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglgQA7JkDRj-K-hJD3R62BOYmdlqeaHFyPDx3gYoR2C6uZSZ-n8uVtIgCEq9f9R3Z7ZadQUIV1P6TdmIT0yEj3tGR262_fARk5GjHaQn0HF-arV6RdYo1Z1MfV1zG2kVo-xbs7Wds8W1VC/s320/DSCF2382.JPG" /></a></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">Monday, July 26, 2010</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">Dear </span><span class="il" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">Grandma</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">,</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">I am in Jamaica. Here in Jamaica, we met Chucky. He is a nice guy. Chucky has a dog that is named Blondie. She had four puppies. Sally, the other dog, had four puppies. We only get to pet Blondie and Sally. The puppies are too little to pet. Whitey, the other dog, had four puppies before we got here. Chuck gave two away. One of the other two died, and the other disappeared. We don’t know what happened to her. It is a mystery.</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">First we went to Jamaica, then we went to Guatemala, then we went to the Dominican Republic, then we went to Brazil, then we went back to Jamaica. We had a cool vacation.. Soon we are going back to Kansas. When we go back to Kansas, my birthday is almost coming. Today, we are going to the water park.</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">In the Dominican Republic, I went to school. At school, you could buy stuff in this place called the coffee shop. There wasn’t any coffee there. There was one thing that all of the class liked - pica piedras - (Fred Flintstone) it has candy inside. My favorite thing from the coffee shop was Fred Flintstone candy.</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">I am so happy we are in Jamaica. I have two friends here named Nikaya and Jayim. But, I don’t really play with Nikaya; sometimes she is a little mean. She likes my sister Soraya but she likes me too. Jayim, yeah, he plays with me. Sometimes I go to his house. Sometimes he comes to my house. He has a friend named Kayim. We really play a lot inside my house.</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="il" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">Grandma</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">, are you going to visit us in Kansas? </span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">In Guatemala, I had lots of friends. I had eight puppies, one dog, two turtles, and two rabbits. At first, we couldn’t pet the puppies. Then, the other day, she let me pet them. Then, we could take them outside. When we were first in Guatemala, I had school. Then, we moved and I didn’t have school anymore.</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">Our other cousins who live in Miami have a playground at their house. We visited them on the way back from Guatemala.</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">In Brazil, we had school and I talked Portuguese there. Now, I know how to Portuguese and I never forget: “eu pode falar portugues.” My teacher is named Renata. She was my best teacher. I had my best friend there, her name was Isabelle, well Isadora in Portuguese. In Brazil, I only had one friend. In Brazil, I had six pets - two dogs, one cat, one chick and one duckling. One duckling died because our friend dropped it when we first got it. It wasn’t running from me anymore because it was sick. We put a blanket on it and buried it. One chick died because the cat got it. The other chick died because Manchas, Spots, the dog, he ate it. We thought they were going to grow, and the chick and duckling that didn’t die did grow. The chicken grew bigger than the duck. The chicken was very fat. The chicken was Soraya’s and the duck was Tatiana’s.</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="il" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">Grandma</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">, are you going to send me a message?</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">I love you </span><span class="il" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">Grandma</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">, bye.</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="il" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">Raymi</span></span></div>Tanya Golash-Bozahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14299920277816825958noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939701534526595538.post-41444831164694486032010-07-14T14:21:00.000-05:002010-07-14T14:21:12.667-05:00How I ended up at Margaritaville, NegrilThe ideal beach for me has clear sea water, white sands, plenty of greenery in view, and is isolated. I like to relax on the beach and contemplate its beauty, so I prefer empty beaches.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig-t8HOuXQmYbfWzjT9jhnEgxwXzqt3gCdB9nfG0Gq9Q0q8KUOW2TiwRUf_qizAAXzubaBEXZkbIcsMQaW14mh2kEpgYymEZQ7mlf58IhyphenhyphenXpz09cKGxcmqKhsmO5u48HluEdkfP2RDyAQl/s1600/negril.july.2010+001.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig-t8HOuXQmYbfWzjT9jhnEgxwXzqt3gCdB9nfG0Gq9Q0q8KUOW2TiwRUf_qizAAXzubaBEXZkbIcsMQaW14mh2kEpgYymEZQ7mlf58IhyphenhyphenXpz09cKGxcmqKhsmO5u48HluEdkfP2RDyAQl/s320/negril.july.2010+001.JPG" /></a></div>Unfortunately, my three daughters do not share this preference. In Negril, they shun the secluded, empty beaches, and prefer places such as Margaritaville and Rick’s Café - tourist traps full of people and loud music. They like the fact that there are a lot of people because it ensures that they will find a playmate. At Rick’s café the other day, they met a few teenage girls who chased them around the pool. At Margaritaville, they met three young men who helped the girls arrange a chicken wrestling match. Each girl got on the shoulders of a boy and tried to knock one another off. Fun was had by all.<br />
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Thus, although I prefer the secluded spots, I often have to entice the children with the offer of Margaritaville or Rick’s Café to get them out of the house. This is how I found myself at Margaritaville last Saturday afternoon, eating nachos and sipping on margaritas. The beach itself at Margaritaville is stunning - with a turquoise sea and white, powdery sand. But, so is the rest of Seven Mile Beach.<br />
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One advantage to Margaritaville is that it has plenty of shelter. So, when the thunderstorms came pounding down, as they often do, we could wait out the storm under shelter. Well, I sought shelter while the girls danced in the rain. There is also a little playground at the Negril Margaritaville, which, it seems, is more fun in the rain.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWGIMFAmIEWN1Z5vdmqtPUvVLCr2zg-lL0kST7cOBWlLf03-fSakgrkgCKGoKx8gm8m93GaIrLjtekm32EKvKC1FmSjnrpPvPSCLVpuIrUkjHe_YfmqVCVkYBRKDo2DKRpfWAnXpKZhOKr/s1600/negril.july.2010+002.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWGIMFAmIEWN1Z5vdmqtPUvVLCr2zg-lL0kST7cOBWlLf03-fSakgrkgCKGoKx8gm8m93GaIrLjtekm32EKvKC1FmSjnrpPvPSCLVpuIrUkjHe_YfmqVCVkYBRKDo2DKRpfWAnXpKZhOKr/s320/negril.july.2010+002.JPG" /></a></div>Once the rain passed, at least I had a table, chairs, and a good view of the beach. I addition, I could observe with fascination the groups of tourists who happened upon Margaritaville that afternoon. I soon tired of that, however. Fortunately, my husband arrived not too long afterwards and I could leave them at Margaritaville and take a long walk along Seven Mile Beach and linger in the more isolated parts.<br />
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</div>Tanya Golash-Bozahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14299920277816825958noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939701534526595538.post-21863693340445484592010-07-08T21:22:00.003-05:002010-07-08T21:26:04.658-05:00A Hook, a Fish Line and an Air Mattress: Improvised fishing with the kids in NegrilI am very happy with my daily routine in Negril this summer. For me, this routine involves happy writing each weekday morning, then having lunch with the family, and going to the beach in the afternoons. Being able to swim in transparent waters every afternoon is blissful for me. I have not missed a day at the beach in the six weeks we have been in Negril. Even when it rains, I will at least go for a long walk by the sea when the rain clears.<br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">My three kids, however, have decided that they need more entertainment than simply going to the beach. Their morning routine starts with home schooling for two hours with their tutor, then playing in the yard with their friends until lunch is ready. There are two small children who live in front of us and they often catch butterflies or other small creatures together. My daughters also love to help our neighbor herd his goats and take them out for grass each morning. After lunch, they play video games, read, or play outside or inside. When I ask if they are ready to go to the beach, they often claim they do not want to go. Without exception, they have fun when we get to the beach; so, often the trick lies in getting them there.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div>Our latest “trick” is the promise of going fishing. The first time the girls went fishing, it was with some friends who invited them to go on a boat early in the morning. That boat trip costs US$50, so that was the only time they did that. Instead, now we rely on my husband, Fernando’s ingenuity, and the kids can go fishing whenever they want, practically for free. This is how it works.<br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9dYLhIowfCpyApooi61RPC2vfrbHAHqbD12ugLCRr9cL9-1ZZAoiFTq0-CbM0hrh1m89YlvOH9j9wSx86PGtaJ65gfgY4Z_t8Jkzkek70bBYNiQSJKg9tIGqKO6Npr9bHuEnVi2OCw-93/s1600/1.nando.tanya.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9dYLhIowfCpyApooi61RPC2vfrbHAHqbD12ugLCRr9cL9-1ZZAoiFTq0-CbM0hrh1m89YlvOH9j9wSx86PGtaJ65gfgY4Z_t8Jkzkek70bBYNiQSJKg9tIGqKO6Npr9bHuEnVi2OCw-93/s320/1.nando.tanya.JPG" /></a>Fernando buys some hooks and fish line for a few cents at the hardware store. They go to the nearby beach and look for sand crabs and snails for bait. Nando sets up the rudimentary hook, line and sinker. Then, he paddles the girls out on our air mattress to where the fish are. We have one of those inflatable air mattresses, and it works great as a raft! (You can see our fishing equipment in the photo behind us!)</div><br />
The girls put on their face masks which allow them to see the fish underwater. Tatiana and Soraya – my nine year old twin daughters – love fishing like this. You can see when the fish begin to nibble at the bait. When you see them nibbling, you just pull a bit, and there you have a fish. When the girls catch a fish, they yell out in excitement. Nando pulls in the line and puts the fish into a plastic bag that he keeps on the raft. Then, the girls go back in for another fish.<br />
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The other day, they caught sixteen little fish, giving us plenty of fresh fish for dinner. The fish are small – so it is quite a bit of work to clean and de-scale all of them. But, it is definitely worth it to have the tasty, fresh fish. Plus, it is our best way to get the kids out of the house - for now, at least. I am sure that soon they will become bored with this and we will have to find a new way to entertain them soon.Tanya Golash-Bozahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14299920277816825958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939701534526595538.post-82910404571762074082010-07-02T18:54:00.000-05:002010-07-02T18:54:20.918-05:00Do the crime, pay the time, … and, then you get deported?On the beach the other day in Negril, I met a young man, Horatio. My husband, who was chatting with him, introduced us and told me that Horatio had been deported from the United States. Horatio, a tall man in his early twenties with a deep scar on his forehead, explained to me that he moved to the United States when he was eleven years old. When he was 18, he was caught with drugs and deported. <br />
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Deported for an aggravated felony – possession of crack cocaine – Horatio will never be able to return to the United States. Horatio has no immediate family in Jamaica. His grandparents, his parents, his brothers and sisters and his three children all live in the United States. I know there are many people who have no sympathy for Horatio. As an immigrant, he is a guest of the United States. He broke the law, and there are plenty of other, law-abiding people who would like the opportunity to live in the United States.<br />
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As I listened to his story, however, I became increasingly convinced that Horatio’s deportation was unjust. Many of the circumstances that led to his deportation were beyond his control. His decision to sell drugs was only one of many other factors that got him deported.<br />
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Horatio was born in Jamaica. When he was born, his grandparents lived in the United States. When he was one year old, his mother traveled to the United States as a legal permanent resident to join her parents, leaving him behind. Had Horatio’s mother gotten her green card one year earlier, Horatio likely would have been born in the United States, and would have been a U.S. citizen like his younger brothers and sisters.<br />
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When she arrived in the United States, Horatio’s mother intended to bring her Horatio and his brother to the United States as soon as possible. However, she began to have trouble with her husband. He verbally and physically abused her and made it difficult for her to file the paperwork for Horatio and his brother to travel to the United States. For these reasons, Horatio was not able to travel until he was eleven years old.<br />
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Horatio’s mother qualified for citizenship in the United States when Horatio was five years old. She did not, however, ever go and apply for citizenship. Had she done so, Horatio and his siblings would have become citizens automatically and Horatio would not have been deported. <br />
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Horatio qualified for citizenship on his own account when he was 16 years old. He never went to apply. Horatio had no idea that he could be deported for a drug conviction. He thought he was a legal permanent resident, and did not know that deportation was possible.<br />
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Horatio was caught with crack cocaine when he was 18 years old – his first criminal charge. Had this happened a few months before, when he was 17, he may have been able to avoid deportation because of his juvenile status.<br />
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When faced with drug charges, Horatio’s lawyer advised him that he plead guilty. The judge offered him less than a year in jail, and it seemed like a good deal. No one told Horatio that a guilty plea would not only get him a few months in jail, but also deportation. He was not fully aware of the consequences of this plea. His lawyer, a public defender, did not inform him of the immigration consequences of his plea.<br />
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When Horatio was arrested, he was 18 years old. He grew up in public housing on the South Side of Chicago. In these circumstances, the likelihood of Horatio not ever getting a criminal conviction was very low. Had his mother known how likely it was that he would end up in trouble and that any conviction could lead to his deportation, perhaps she would have applied for citizenship.<br />
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For me, Horatio’s deportation is an undeserved punishment for making bad decisions as a teenager. I will be the first to admit that I succumbed to peer pressure and did stupid things as a teenager. Lucky for me, I am no longer paying for those youthful indiscretions. In addition, I know personally many people who sold drugs as teenagers, yet who have moved on and are now valuable members of their communities. You see, I don’t think you should have to pay for the rest of your life for a crime you committed when you were 18. I also don’t think that children should have to suffer because of the decisions of their parents. For whatever reason, Horatio’s mother decided not to become a citizen. Now, Horatio has to pay for that decision.<br />
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Not only does Horatio have to pay, but, so does his family. His mother lost a son who could have helped her to move out of poverty. His three children will grow up without a father present. His younger siblings will lose the benefit of his guidance as they struggle to grow up in the inner city of Chicago. The losers are clear. The winners, much less so.<br />
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crossposted at: <a href="http://stopdeportationsnow.blogspot.com/2010/07/do-crime-pay-time-and-then-you-get.html">Stop Deportations Now!</a>Tanya Golash-Bozahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14299920277816825958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939701534526595538.post-66157946519416687122010-07-01T21:01:00.002-05:002010-07-02T06:36:30.594-05:00Sundays at the public beach in Negril<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAzhS76ZabPjQac5REV7cwy-jKY9s1AVKER81y62MrMNdWdMg1SzZODaIdepR0H_zHknLqkjPW_MitHo1zBrEL2pw7THSTGAum7Bj0FGwyi-9sA3ZD5MqQ_IARUk3f9mF_ks6qLc2eabsN/s1600/1.negrils2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAzhS76ZabPjQac5REV7cwy-jKY9s1AVKER81y62MrMNdWdMg1SzZODaIdepR0H_zHknLqkjPW_MitHo1zBrEL2pw7THSTGAum7Bj0FGwyi-9sA3ZD5MqQ_IARUk3f9mF_ks6qLc2eabsN/s320/1.negrils2.JPG" /></a></div>If you are looking for the “real Jamaica,” you will have a hard time finding it in Negril – a touristy town on the westernmost end of Jamaica. That said, there is one beach in Negril where you will find more Jamaicans than foreign tourists – the public beach at the south-westernmost tip of Seven-Mile Beach.<br />
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It is quite remarkable that most tourists in Negril tend to stay within a 100-meter radius of their hotels. There are the adventurous few who take it upon themselves to walk up and down Seven-Mile Beach. Some of these tourists make it to the end where the public beach is, but almost none of them swim in this part of the beach. Because of this self-segregation, the public beach almost always has only Jamaicans. People who are not Jamaican at the public beach are almost always expatriates who are living in Negril – usually North American and English women with Jamaican boyfriends.<br />
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The public beach is about 200 meters from the closest hotel, thus making it beyond the normal radius of most tourists. It is the closest beach to the Negril River, which, at times, can make the water quite unpleasant. However, most days the water at the public beach is crystal clear, just like the water in the rest of Seven-Mile Beach. Unlike much of the rest of Seven-Mile Beach, the public beach has several trees which offer ample shade.<br />
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On Sundays, the public beach is a lively place where local DJs set up enormous speakers that blast out dancehall tunes for the listening pleasure of beachgoers and anyone close enough to hear. Families sit beneath one of the many trees and picnic. Kids jump and play in the water and teenagers show off their gymnastic abilities on the sand.<br />
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There is a restaurant/bar on the beach, currently operated by Sanchez, who is from Sav-la-Mar. Sanchez’s place serves up delicious food and ice-cold beverages at a fraction of the price of most places on the beach. You also can try the conch soup which is served by a local man right off of his bicycle. He has a gas tank on the back of the bicycle and a burner on the front, which ensures that the tasty soup is steaming hot all afternoon long.<br />
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Last Sunday, we spent a couple of hours at the beach with my kids. They had a great time running around with all of the other children there. This was a nice change, as we often go to the beach in Negril and there are few if any children around.Tanya Golash-Bozahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14299920277816825958noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939701534526595538.post-66944352070290949252010-06-24T10:24:00.000-05:002010-06-24T10:24:49.402-05:00Should Untenured Professors Facebook?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY1kwh0ZkOIgDC08CLnWIQSfCHyriqEsFIDOM2kwFSndlhlfbdnfDTDmnYZssBZZCblD2I3N3_gugz08tvmS8k1MTFU-MFDNQcB3hlaUjoTDAuodvAp_EHgPUeMJBuxhn3q19l1Kesp4KR/s1600-h/logo_facebook.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 120px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY1kwh0ZkOIgDC08CLnWIQSfCHyriqEsFIDOM2kwFSndlhlfbdnfDTDmnYZssBZZCblD2I3N3_gugz08tvmS8k1MTFU-MFDNQcB3hlaUjoTDAuodvAp_EHgPUeMJBuxhn3q19l1Kesp4KR/s320/logo_facebook.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5361256647832880130" /></a><br />
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Why would an untenured professor open up and actively use a Facebook account? There seems to be a lot of buzz going around about the pitfalls of Facebook for junior faculty. So, I will dedicate this blog entry to why I have chosen to join the ranks of the Facebook users.<br />
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<b><i>Staying Connected</i></b><br />
One of my main reasons for using Facebook is that, like many college professors, I live in the middle of nowhere, far from most people who are important to me. Lawrence, Kansas does have its charm as a college town. Nevertheless, I am a city girl at heart. And, if I can’t be in my hometown, Washington, DC, at least I can vicariously experience urban life through the status updates of my friends and family who still live there. Through this virtual portal, I feel a sense of connection to the city I am from. For me, feeling rooted in DC is important, even though I haven’t lived in DC in nearly a decade.<br />
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<b><i>Writing Accountability</i></b><br />
I also can use Facebook to get through the somewhat isolating work of academics. One way I do this is through online writing challenges. I post as my status update: “I am about to shoot for three hours of writing today… Anyone care to join me?” Within minutes, I might have a colleague from Texas, another from Kansas, and yet another from Chicago or DC join me. Later in the day, we can compare our accomplishments. Accountability is one of the best ways to get writing done, so this is a great strategy for me.<br />
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<b><i>Sharing Pictures with Family and Friends</i></b><br />
Although Facebook has its merits as a procrastination tool, I also can use it to save time. For example, when I wish to share a picture of my family, I don’t have to go through my email contact list and make a decision about who wants to see yet another picture of me and the kids. Instead, I post the pics on Facebook and whoever wishes to see them is free to do so, or not. I also don’t feel the need to email my Facebook “friends” to tell them I am still alive, as they are quite aware of that via my status updates.<br />
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Access to Expertise</i></b><br />
Facebook also gives me constant access to a world of expertise. If I want to know which technological device can save me time, I post a request to Facebook. Within hours, I will have a slew of suggestions. If I am looking for a movie to show to my class on hip-hop and sexuality, I can post a request for advice, and, shortly, I will have a laundry list of suggestions. If I want to know if I need an iphone or a Blackberry, I post the question to my status and soon will have a variety of suggestions.<br />
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<b><i>News Filter</i></b><br />
Facebook also works as a news filter. Why sift through the news about the uprising in Honduras, when my Facebook friends who are area experts post links to news articles with the heading: “A must-read about the Honduran coup.” Others might post links with the heading: “Best article I have read on the Sotomayor hearing.” There’s the article to read on that one! And, I can return the favor when I come across articles in my areas of expertise.<br />
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<b><i>Networking</i></b><br />
Facebook is also a networking tool, and any academic should know the importance of strong and weak ties. Facebook works great for discovering “weak ties.” Recently, I wanted to meet the author of a successful book to ask her some questions about publishing. I looked her up on Facebook and discovered that we had two friends in common. I emailed one of them and asked for an introduction. Two days later, we were in direct email contact. If I have an article published in a scholarly journal or a political blog, I can post a link to it, and the 200-plus academics who I count among my “friends” have access to my latest work. I also advertise this blog on Facebook. More than half of the people who access this website access it through Facebook.<br />
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Of course, if you, like me, use Facebook for professional as well as personal purposes, it is wise to be judicious about what you post. So, I have a few <b>rules </b>I abide by. <br />
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1) No disparaging students on Facebook. <br />
2) No allusions to illegal or unethical activity, even as a joke. <br />
3) No direct attacks on my place of employment or those people who employ me. <br />
4) No personal attacks. <br />
5) No posting anything I wouldn’t be comfortable with the whole world seeing. <br />
6) Delete comments from “friends” that I find distasteful.<br />
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Overall, I find Facebook to be a useful tool to keep me connected to my friends and family, whether I am in Lawrence, Kansas, Kingston, Jamaica, or Washington, DC.Tanya Golash-Bozahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14299920277816825958noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939701534526595538.post-18459724371611521492010-06-18T12:14:00.000-05:002010-06-18T12:14:03.937-05:00Supreme Court Decision Points Toward the Need for Immigration ReformOn Monday, the Supreme Court <a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/09-60.pdf">ruled </a>in a unanimous decision that immigrants who are legally in the United States do not face automatic deportation for a minor drug offense. They still can be deported, but also can apply for cancellation of removal which would allow them to plead their case and argue that they merit staying in the United States. <br />
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This decision is an improvement over a punitive system where long-term residents of the United States have been deported for possession of small amounts of marijuana and prescription drugs. Nevertheless, the fact that Supreme Court justices have to determine that someone like Jose Angel Carachuri-Rosendo deserves a fair trial points to the need for a serious overhaul of the deportation regime. <br />
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Mr. Carachuri-Rosendo was brought to the United States from Mexico by his parents as a legal permanent resident when he was five years old. In 2004, he was sentenced to 20 days in jail for possession of less than two ounces of marijuana. The next year, he was sentenced to ten days in jail for having a single tablet of Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug, without a prescription. Because this amounts to two drug offenses, Mr. Carachuri-Rosendo was deemed an aggravated felon and faced mandatory detention and deportation. This means that he would not be allowed to argue that his crimes were fairly minor, that he has lived in the United States since he was five, that his mother, his common-law wife and four children are US citizens, and that he has few ties to Mexico. It still is not clear whether or not he will be deported, but at least now he has the chance to apply for cancellation of removal.<br />
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If Mr. Carachuri-Rosendo is granted relief from deportation, he will be allowed to remain in the United States with his family. If his request is denied, he will be one of the over 1,000 people that are deported each day. About one-third of deportees are deported for criminal offenses. Many are deported for relatively minor crimes, especially for drug violations.<br />
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According to ICE’s <a href="http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/enforcement_ar_08.pdf">2009 Immigration Enforcement Actions Report</a>, 35.9 percent of people deported on criminal grounds in FY 2008 were deported for drug offenses. This amounts for 34,882 people deported for possession, selling, or smuggling drugs. A <a href="http://www.hrw.org/en/node/82159/section/9">2009 Human Rights Watch Report </a>provides more detail and indicates that between 1997 and 2007, over 50,000 people were deported for simple drug or paraphernalia possession - 28,885 people were deported for the possession of cocaine, 11,063 for possession of marijuana, 6,492 for possessing amphetamines, 3,476 for possessing heroin, and 1,889 for possessing narcotic equipment.<br />
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Hopefully Mr. Carachuri-Rosendo’s case will set a precedent and families will not be torn apart because of minor drug convictions. More importantly, however, this case points to the need to overhaul current deportation policy to allow all deportees to have a fair trial.<br />
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Cross-posted at <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/boza06182010.html">Counterpunch</a>Tanya Golash-Bozahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14299920277816825958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939701534526595538.post-61704963505000649942010-06-17T10:29:00.002-05:002010-06-17T10:29:48.723-05:00I don’t want to go to the beach today!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwDxW1xpkJ-PLdms_tQGrKVc5JlW5r6cVdTqFjqeB7kkgImmnCal6y3TmHoIlYRg8-OIZYWbgsR9zAcNqsTGtPvfYolpFGKo4aWjF51q9ec3pwtG3hVYRyLIir1MGn0-LnvnZgdJ2RhyphenhyphenxX/s1600/1.negril.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" qu="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwDxW1xpkJ-PLdms_tQGrKVc5JlW5r6cVdTqFjqeB7kkgImmnCal6y3TmHoIlYRg8-OIZYWbgsR9zAcNqsTGtPvfYolpFGKo4aWjF51q9ec3pwtG3hVYRyLIir1MGn0-LnvnZgdJ2RhyphenhyphenxX/s320/1.negril.JPG" /></a></div><br />
I always want to go to the beach. Although we have been in Negril, Jamaica for 22 days, I still must go to the beach at least once every day. Even if it’s just for an hour, I have to see and feel the sea. For me, it is a great privilege to be so close to such an amazing sea and I can’t bear not to go daily.<br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">How, then, is it that my daughters (Tatiana – 9; Soraya – 9 and Raymi – 6) often claim they do not want to go to the beach? Granted, they do have to walk 15 minutes to get there. But, they always have a great time there.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Since they insist daily that they do not want to go to the beach, sometimes we let them stay home. Here in Negril, they usually get up around 6am when the sun rises. Their teacher comes at 8am, and they have two hours of lessons. Actually, that aspect of our life – home schooling – is going the best it has all year. I finally figured out the keys – 1) It has to be early in the morning; 2) It should be for a short, intensive period of time and 3) It is best if the teacher is not me. So, we have hired a college student to give the girls lessons and that is going quite well.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNC_VGPTXSkyJE1LGhTCx8AY28SWKaYynPt_MDZ6jpkmN7NPwr_iDuvdNSWNEz5NNWkCMcrgHpwUoTlXBwTd63YXmhPUhVz7K7plBpIjhJ4pmvMSKaAfeajFrucwatF-1N7XB09YTY4T4u/s1600/1.yard.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" qu="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNC_VGPTXSkyJE1LGhTCx8AY28SWKaYynPt_MDZ6jpkmN7NPwr_iDuvdNSWNEz5NNWkCMcrgHpwUoTlXBwTd63YXmhPUhVz7K7plBpIjhJ4pmvMSKaAfeajFrucwatF-1N7XB09YTY4T4u/s320/1.yard.JPG" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">After home schooling, the girls are allowed to play until lunchtime. Sometimes they play in the yard with the children who live across from us. Sometimes they play inside with their Legos or other toys. Other times, I let them watch a movie, play the Internet, or play with their Nintendo DS. Then, we have lunch together. By the time lunch is over, it is 2pm. </div><br />
At 2pm, it is too hot for me to work anymore, and I usually am mentally drained and ready to go to the beach. Most days, we find a way to convince the kids to come to the beach. Other times we let them stay home and I will just go for a long walk on the beach alone.<br />
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On Tuesday, I was able to convince Tatiana to go with me to the beach. We walked the 15 minutes from our cottage to the beach. When we got to the beach, we saw that the close beach was polluted with river water, so we decided to walk farther down to the clean part. Tatiana and I had a nice walk. Along the way, I explained to her the history of slavery, as, for some reason, she was asking about it. Once I got to the end of the story, she wanted to hear stories of times that I had embarrassed myself. I thought of a few.<br />
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When we got to the nice part where the water is transparent, Tatiana and I went for a swim. Unfortunately, after about five minutes in the water, Tatiana began to fuss that something had bitten her leg. I rushed her out of the water and found that she had two wounds on her leg. They were about 1 cm. across and one was deeper than the other. The deeper one was bleeding quite a bit. A boatman came over and went back for his First Aid kit. He put a bandage on her leg and the bleeding stopped. No one seemed to have any idea what could have happened to her. We were in fairly deep water, so it is unlikely that a piece of glass cut her. I suppose it could have been a fish bite, but the marks were so far apart. Needless to say, we went home. The next day, Tatiana did not want to go to the beach.<br />
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Fortunately, Soraya and Raymi did want to go. Raymi even agreed to walk. This was remarkable, because Raymi almost never wants to walk. So, Soraya, Raymi, and I set off on our one-mile hike to the cliffs at Xtabi. To entertain the kids on the way, I told them a variation of the story of the Loch Ness Monster. I told the story such that the existence (or not) of the Loch Ness Monster remained doubtful. However, Soraya wanted a happy ending so made me change the story such that the two main characters finally got to take a picture of the Loch Ness Monster and everyone believed them that it really existed.<br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihb7QK1o9D-EQk_DvPv-7owgWpEdMHsiOil4t-ejDcUZVQJUSr3X3YXUTa0bpTchhvYy97oFRCZRnpHbPVO3VGw-IpXuwUDIha_3fdT74WNp2RXSJd_mmUHrDx-agEG1r5Uz_dTHdQRFt_/s1600/1.cueva.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" qu="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihb7QK1o9D-EQk_DvPv-7owgWpEdMHsiOil4t-ejDcUZVQJUSr3X3YXUTa0bpTchhvYy97oFRCZRnpHbPVO3VGw-IpXuwUDIha_3fdT74WNp2RXSJd_mmUHrDx-agEG1r5Uz_dTHdQRFt_/s320/1.cueva.JPG" /></a>When we got to Xtabi cliffs, the sun was behind the clouds and it was cooler than usual. We swam for a bit, but, it began to drizzle. Determined to stay seaside a bit longer, I decided that we would order some food at Xtabi. I ordered a hamburger and a conch burger – which was quite tasty. The food took a long time to come out, and Raymi and Soraya played darts while we were waiting. I used the time to sit atop one of the cliffs and contemplate the beauty of the sea.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">After we ate, the sun peeked from behind the clouds and we got back into the sea. Other guests arrived and Soraya and Raymi quickly made friends. The highlight of the afternoon, however, was that Raymi spotted an octopus! There was an octopus by one of the cliffs, trying to scale the side of the cliff using its suction cups. It was quite a sight! Eventually, however, it fell back into the sea.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">The girls and I snorkeled and spent some time in the caves before deciding to head back home. We walked back and talked about all sorts of things on the way back. They wanted me to tell them a story, but I was having trouble being creative. One story a day is enough for me!</div><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">When we got home, Tatiana was quite upset that she had missed out on the excitement. So, perhaps today we will have an easier time getting the girls to go to the beach!</div>Tanya Golash-Bozahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14299920277816825958noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939701534526595538.post-56709952659643623892010-06-12T11:57:00.000-05:002010-06-12T11:57:04.821-05:00Two of my favorite ways to relax in NegrilWe have now been in Negril for two full weeks, and I have two favorite ways to relax in this laid-back town.<br />
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The first is at Xtabi - which I raved about in my last <a href="http://globetrottingmamita.blogspot.com/2010/06/seven-reasons-cliffs-are-better-than.html">post</a>. If you go to the left side of Xtabi, and swim across the clear blue sea, you will find a small cave - about 20 meters long and 10 meters wide. You can swim right in and hoist yourself up onto a rock that has been smoothed out by centuries of waves crashing on to it. <br />
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I love to sit on that rock, inside of the cool cave and listen to the waves crashing into the cave. The waves crash onto the rock and the warm water tickles my toes. The waves crash behind me, making reverberating, echoing sounds throughout the cave. I can sit on the rock for a good while, thinking about life and the beauty of mother nature.<br />
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For a while, I might reflect on mother nature, on the centuries-old coral imprints hanging above me, on the life of the stingrays and tropical fish below me, on what might be beyond the horizon that fades away into a blue mist. Then, I will get to thinking about my own life, my own hopes and dreams. Even something as mundane as my plans for the next day is good food for thought inside this cave. Finally, I will tire of being alone in the cave, and will swim my way back out into the sunshine, temporarily blinded by the glaring sun.<br />
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My other favorite way to reflect on life is to walk down seven-mile beach just before dusk on an overcast afternoon. This is the rainy season, so it rainshowers for a bit many an afternoon. This leaves the beach nearly empty. All of the tourists flee and the vendors also disappear. For me, however, this is the perfect time to walk and walk and walk down seven mile beach without having to worry about getting a sunburn or heat stroke and without the constant offers for a boat ride or jet ski tour.<br />
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When the sky is overcast in Negril, it almost is never fully covered with clouds. So, you have bits of blue sky to look at. And, the horizon constantly changes with the moving cloud formations. As dusk nears, the horizon begins to show its wide array of sunset colors.<br />
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I walk along the beach barefoot, allowing the warm sea to caress my toes. I think about all I have done for the day, the week, and the year. I ponder a theoretical question I have. I make plans for what I will do if and when a friend comes to visit me in this little piece of heaven.<br />
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These are two of my favorite ways to think, reflect, meditate, and relax in Negril.<br />
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crossposted at: <a href="http://globetrottingmamita.blogspot.com/2010/06/two-of-my-favorite-ways-to-relax-in.html">http://globetrottingmamita.blogspot.com/2010/06/two-of-my-favorite-ways-to-relax-in.html</a>Tanya Golash-Bozahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14299920277816825958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939701534526595538.post-4714191423363642992010-06-11T08:47:00.000-05:002010-06-11T08:47:45.966-05:00Forced to Choose Between Family and CountryIn the United States of America, the spouses of US citizens can be deported, no matter how long they have lived in the United States, no matter how many US citizen children they have, and no matter how much they love their family.<br />
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In Chicago in 2008, I interviewed nine couples that consisted of a US citizen married to an undocumented migrant. Each couple discussed the implications of US immigration law to their families. I discuss this project in this video: <br />
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This is one of the stories from this project:<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVjxdB1-rNzUAHyT7XICb_w0lx0WODRbipTFLci5maNBoGbtWjaX2bE7HrPhiVF85Di5yix5aKgDoE2j4XzAnv6L3Q1Km93dBQB3zRWpOvTK4lLnOLkJqfiYZ3VARSiZovJd2sXD37/s1600/hands.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" qu="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVjxdB1-rNzUAHyT7XICb_w0lx0WODRbipTFLci5maNBoGbtWjaX2bE7HrPhiVF85Di5yix5aKgDoE2j4XzAnv6L3Q1Km93dBQB3zRWpOvTK4lLnOLkJqfiYZ3VARSiZovJd2sXD37/s320/hands.bmp" /></a>Fatima is 30 years old, graduated from Loyola University, and works as a family therapist, counseling families whose children are in juvenile detention. She likes being able to help people, to give them hope, and to figure out ways to make their life better. Her husband, Antonio, paints houses for a living. He would like to go back to school, to learn a trade such as an electrician, or maybe open a business. But, life hasn’t presented him with that opportunity yet. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Fatima, along with her two sisters, was born in Mexico City. When she was four years old, her father passed away, and her mother decided that it would be easier for her to raise her three children in the U.S. She was able to obtain visas, and they came to the US on an airplane. Eventually, the whole family obtained U.S. citizenship. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Antonio was born in Michoacan, Mexico, in a small town. His father was attacked by a bull when Antonio was thirteen. This accident left him invalid, and Antonio and his brother left school to go to Mexico City to work. They found work in a car wash, and stayed there for six years, until a woman from their hometown asked Antonio to accompany her to cross over to the U.S. Antonio arrived in Dallas, and eight months later, decided to come to Chicago. In Chicago, he spent several months working as a day laborer, until he finally found a more stable job as a painter. He has been in that job now for four years, and works seven days a week most weeks. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Not too long after Antonio found his current job, he met Fatima. When I spoke with them, in May 2008, they had a two and a half years old son and had been married for three years. </div><br />
Fatima and Antonio came to the community-based organization, Latinos Progresando, to see if there was anything they could do to legalize Antonio’s status. Antonio had been living here illegally since he crossed the border in 2003. Fatima said she is constantly stressed out. When he goes to work, she has to worry about whether or not there will be a raid, or if he will be stopped by the police. This stress is clearly wearing on her, as her voice broke and her eyes welled up with tears as she talked to me. <br />
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Tears began to fall profusely as Fatima told me that it hurts her deeply that Antonio wants to see his parents, and his parents want to see him, and he can’t go back to Mexico. Fatima even feels as if it is partly her fault that Antonio can’t see his parents. “A veces, yo siento que es un poco de mi culpa. Maybe, si no me hubieses conocido, no te detuviera nada aquí.” Sometimes, I feel like it is my fault. Maybe, if you never met me, nothing would keep you here. <br />
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When their son was born, Fatima became ill. She continues to suffer from an immune disorder, and admits that she worries that she may not survive her next hospitalization. Her voice breaks as she tells me that she wishes she could be sure that her son would be okay were the unthinkable to happen, were she to pass away. This is one of their most pressing reasons to obtain legalization for Antonio. <br />
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Fatima says that knowing that her husband can be arrested, detained, and deported any time is very hard to deal with. In some ways, Fatima wouldn’t mind moving to Mexico, but she feels like she has given so much to the United States. She also has her student loans to pay off. And, they have to think about their son’s future. Even more poignant, she is worried that she would not be able to find or afford appropriate medical care in Mexico. <br />
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I ask Fatima what would happen if Antionio were to be deported. She says that, apart from breaking apart her family, she would suffer financially. They recently purchased a home, and, without Antonio’s income, she would have to sell the house. Also, Fatima has plans to return to school to get her Master’s in counseling, and she would not be able to do that. But, most of all, she would be emotionally devastated. Having a loving partner has enabled her to withstand life’s challenges – her own illness, her aging mother’s ailments, and her son’s all-too frequent visits to the doctor. <br />
<br />
Fatima points out that the laws do not just affect Antonio, who is here illegally, but they also deeply affect her and her son, both of whom are U.S. citizens. As a family therapist, Fatima is well aware of the pernicious effects of family separation on children. She asks why the government would want to separate families. Fatima works with children who have turned to juvenile delinquency, in part because their parents are divorced. She does not want her child to grow up in a single parent family. <br />
<br />
Tears well up again in Fatima’s eyes when she asks if they, too, are not humans. The importance of this family remaining together brings tears to my eyes as well. It is clear that the stress of Antonio potentially being deported is taking its toll on Fatima. It is hard for her to come to terms with why her own government would not want for a loving family such as theirs to stay together. <br />
<br />
Fatima faces a situation where the laws of the United States do not permit herto live in this country with her family intact. Is it fair to say that she should not have chosen an undocumented immigrants for her life partner? Should she have researched immigration laws before falling in love? Was she simply foolish to imagine that her country would allow her to live in peace with her husband? Can you imagine yourself going to an immigration lawyer to find out if your chosen life partner is eligible for legalization? And, if you are told they are not, what are you supposed to do? These are hard questions, and the agony that this family faces is a clear indication that there is something fundamentally wrong with having to choose between your country and your family.<br />
<br />
Read other stories from this project on my <a href="http://people.ku.edu/~tgb/ation.html">website</a>.<br />
<br />
These stories will also be featured in my forthcoming book - <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594518378?ie=UTF8&tag=arewetheworld-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1594518378">Immigration Nation: Raids, Detentions, and Deportations in Post-9/11 America</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=arewetheworld-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1594518378" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px;" width="1" />.<br />
<br />
Pedro Guzman, husband and father of US citizens, is currently in detention - awaiting deportation. You can read his story <a href="http://www.logansdad.org/">here</a>.<br />
<br />
Previously posted at: <a href="http://www.racismreview.com/blog/2010/06/11/forced-to-choose-family-country/">http://www.racismreview.com/blog/2010/06/11/forced-to-choose-family-country/</a>Tanya Golash-Bozahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14299920277816825958noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939701534526595538.post-71184612333898078552010-06-09T10:03:00.000-05:002010-06-09T10:03:03.755-05:00The Keys to Productivity: Discipline and Self-ConfidenceColleagues often ask me how I am able to publish consistently, to be an effective teacher, and to have a family. I am not sure what the exact answer is to this question, but I think it has a lot to do with two things – discipline and self-esteem. I am a pretty disciplined person when I want to be. And, I have a reasonably high level of self-esteem – at least I do not consistently doubt my own abilities and potential.<br />
<br />
To me, it is funny to think of myself as a disciplined person. I was often a troublemaker in school and had to be “disciplined” by authority figures. On the other hand, when I want something, I have always worked for it and gotten it. In high school, I wanted all sorts of things my parents would never buy for me. So, I worked part-time to buy my own Coach bag, designer jeans, brand-name tennis shoes, and to get my hair and nails done. I never did very well in school. But, my last year in high school I decided I would give school a shot and finally earned decent grades. In college, I did miserably my first semester. But, once I decided I wanted to do better in college, I did.<br />
<br />
It is also funny to think of myself as disciplined because I am also quite rebellious. I have always done what I want to do. I think, for me, the trick to being disciplined is convincing myself that I am the one who wants to succeed. If I really want something, I do not see it as a sacrifice to work to achieve it. This is important, because I do not like to sacrifice anything.<br />
<br />
At this point in my career, being disciplined means that I sit my butt in front of the computer first thing every morning and write for at least one hour. Most mornings, I write for more than an hour. As I write consistently, I have a lot of material to work with, and am constantly sending things out for review. That is how I publish so much.<br />
<br />
However, I think that the other element – self-esteem – is equally important. I am not sure why I have high self-esteem. However, I have come to notice that I do not doubt the quality of my work as much as many of my colleagues seem to. Or, at least, I am not that worried about what others might think about my work.<br />
<br />
I think that my relative lack of concern over what others think is due to the fact that I have been through a lot in life. I have not had a hard life, but I have had a very full life and have seen a lot – both as a youth in Washington, DC and traveling around the world as a young adult. I spent most of my adolescent years hanging out on the streets in DC – going to clubs where shootings were common, attending friends’ funerals on a consistent basis, seeing the effects of crack cocaine on my neighborhood and on my friends’ parents, and watching many of my friends go to prison. When I was fully immersed in the life of the streets, self-confidence was a tool for survival. If I let my guard down or appeared weak, I was at risk of being jumped or at least being the butt of jokes. <br />
<br />
I only spent about five years hanging out on the corner, going to go-go’s, and cruising around DC looking for fun. But, those were formative years – from about 14 to 19 – and many of the lessons I learned there have stayed with me.<br />
<br />
Once I decided to focus on college and to leave that life behind, I found myself embarking on a whole different voyage. I began to travel all over the world. I spent a total of four months in Nigeria, a year in England, a year in Paris, and eight months in Lisbon. I also spent seven months traveling around Latin America just before beginning graduate school. By the time I got to graduate school, I felt as though I had lived and learned a lot. I was 25 years old, yet I spoke four languages and had lived on three continents. I saw myself as a person with a lot to contribute to sociological debates, and was not easily convinced otherwise.<br />
<br />
The first year in graduate school was hard. It was not the haven of social justice I had imagined and my life experiences were not valued in the way I had expected. But, I made it through the first year and slowly found my allies. The few professors in the department who supported me did so fully and I took their encouragement to heart. <br />
<br />
I was not particularly prolific as a graduate student. But, I was reasonably fast – I finished in six years even though I had three kids and did a year of fieldwork in Peru. With one publication on my CV and a half-written dissertation, I was lucky to get a job when and where I did. <br />
<br />
Before getting my job, I had already begun to submit articles for consideration at journals. My first year on the tenure track, I began to apply for grants and fellowships. Many people wait until their article is “perfect” or their grant application is “impeccable” before they begin to submit. Not me. I send articles out when I finish them. I send grant and fellowship applications out when the deadline comes around. I am not careless about this; but, I have never let self-doubt get in the way of me submitting something. If I am not sure about the quality of something, I send it to a colleague and ask for honest feedback. <br />
<br />
I get rejections – all of the time. But, I have learned that this is part of the process. You write an article; you submit it; it gets rejected; you submit it again; and you repeat this process until it is accepted. The same with grant applications. One of my colleagues just got a very prestigious grant – she told me it was the seventh time she had applied with the very same project. Her fantastic project was rejected six times. Confident it would win one day, she kept applying.<br />
<br />
Self-esteem also helps a lot with teaching. I almost never over-prepare for class. I am very fortunate that I teach classes in my field. This means that I am teaching material I know very well. I know this and I know that I do not have to read and re-read tons of background material to prepare for class. Two hours before class begins, I sit down and review and/or revise my lesson plans. Then, I go to class and teach. It works every time.<br />
<br />
Being productive, you see, is not necessarily about being brilliant. It has a lot to do with being disciplined enough to sit down and work and self-confident enough to submit your work for publication and/or funding.Tanya Golash-Bozahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14299920277816825958noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939701534526595538.post-33780573851285842312010-06-07T10:20:00.002-05:002010-06-07T10:20:32.728-05:00Ethnopoetics – A Jamaican deportee tells his story.<a href="http://stopdeportationsnow.blogspot.com/2009/07/life-wasted-in-prison-deportee-profile.html">Samuel </a>arrived in the United States when he was 15 years old. When he was 19, he was arrested and charged with attempted murder of a police officer. He believes he was wrongfully convicted. He spent 26 years in prison and was deported to Jamaica. <br />
<br />
I was charged for attempted murder. <br />
This is some of the things I hate to talk about. …<br />
It’s just an unfortunate situation, you nuh. <br />
I’m to be blamed of some of it because <br />
the company or whatever. … <br />
I might have caused certain things. …<br />
I spent 26 years …<br />
half of my life was gone. …<br />
<br />
When everyone is locked up they always say “oh I didn’t do it”. <br />
You nuh, it’s a common joke. <br />
But … for a person who actually is there <br />
and haven’t done anything <br />
it’s not no joking matter. ….<br />
Probably I don’t explain myself properly <br />
just to let someone really understand. …<br />
it’s just painful for me. …<br />
<br />
Well I’ll talk about it. <br />
But you nuh ….<br />
I just say it’s like, here we go again. ….<br />
I was charged with attempted murder. ….<br />
The people that I was hanging out with is friends, you nuh.... <br />
the night when I got arrested <br />
I was in a stolen car <br />
which I didn’t know. …<br />
<br />
And we got we got stopped. <br />
And that’s where when I got arrested. <br />
And after, then, that’s how I know I was charged with attempted murder. …<br />
<br />
They found a weapon. …<br />
No prints were found. <br />
They say that we don’t take fingerprints from a weapon.<br />
<i><br />
Samuel, Kingston, Jamaica</i>Tanya Golash-Bozahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14299920277816825958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939701534526595538.post-28106463042632272232010-06-05T12:20:00.000-05:002010-06-05T12:20:07.293-05:00Seven Reasons the Cliffs are Better than Seven Mile Beach in NegrilNegril is divided into two areas – the Seven Mile Beach and the Cliffs. Our cottage – Silver Star – is right between the two areas, giving us great access to both. From my front step, it is a twenty minute walk to either Seven Mile Beach or Xtabi – my favorite place to hang out at the cliffs.<br />
<br />
The Seven Mile Beach is great because it's, well, seven miles of sandy beaches. However, after our first few days of sea, sun, and more sun, we decided to try out the cliffs area. We haven't been back to the beach since. This past week, it was all cliffs, every day. Why do we like the cliffs? Let me count the ways.<br />
<br />
1) At Xtabi, where we have been going, there are far fewer people. Many an afternoon, we have the whole area to ourselves. (Note: Rick's cafe – another cliff spot – does NOT have this benefit.) If you like to swim in the sea alone, Xtabi is the place.<br />
<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_TtjBK7K4ykbxTpTjcPOkHro-bXz9NBtreV8xH7Cp-T-ghCdkJ8BAqRIMHDjFpM3WTL4K_3vcP8Az_-sXkkZJvJPg_moe21noL2SIUNF7bJoPvhX0YXi3XIsxK1EyB6JhIc4jIlWXcqmQ/s1600/1.xt.kidz.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" gu="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_TtjBK7K4ykbxTpTjcPOkHro-bXz9NBtreV8xH7Cp-T-ghCdkJ8BAqRIMHDjFpM3WTL4K_3vcP8Az_-sXkkZJvJPg_moe21noL2SIUNF7bJoPvhX0YXi3XIsxK1EyB6JhIc4jIlWXcqmQ/s320/1.xt.kidz.JPG" /></a>2) Walking to and from the cliffs, there are far fewer people trying to sell you something. On the beach, you can barely take two steps without someone trying to get you to jet ski, go for a boat ride, or buy some crafts. At the cliffs, there are far fewer sellers.</div><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">3) The sea is clearer at the cliffs. When it does not rain for a few days, Seven Mile Beach boasts clear waters. At the cliffs, the water is clear every day, even when the water is relatively rough and it has been raining.</div><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">4) There is more shade at the cliffs. We have found a couple of spots with a bit of shade on the beach. But, it does not come close to the tranquility and coolness you feel when you sit in a cave at the cliffs and feel the sea tickling your toes.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">5) Cliff jumping is fun. Or, at least it looks fun, as I have only jumped off of the smaller cliffs. But, those people jumping off of the big ones look as though they are having a good time doing so.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">6) The snorkeling is better. You can snorkel on Seven Mile Beach on a good day. But, at the cliffs, you will see much, much more marine life. All you have to do is get in the water, put your mask down, and look around you. The snorkeling is amazing.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">7) It's cooler at the cliffs. Because of the ocean breeze blowing on you at the top of the cliffs, it is quite a bit cooler out of the water, especially if you can find a bit of shade.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">We will be in Negril for another two months, and I am sure we will go back many times to Seven Mile Beach. But, there are many reasons to stay close to the cliffs.</div><img height="72" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_TtjBK7K4ykbxTpTjcPOkHro-bXz9NBtreV8xH7Cp-T-ghCdkJ8BAqRIMHDjFpM3WTL4K_3vcP8Az_-sXkkZJvJPg_moe21noL2SIUNF7bJoPvhX0YXi3XIsxK1EyB6JhIc4jIlWXcqmQ/s320/1.xt.kidz.JPG" style="filter: alpha(opacity=30); left: 155px; mozopacity: 0.3; opacity: 0.3; position: absolute; top: 644px; visibility: hidden;" width="96" />Tanya Golash-Bozahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14299920277816825958noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939701534526595538.post-38091780755151977152010-06-03T12:38:00.000-05:002010-06-03T12:38:06.310-05:00Three types of Jamaican DeporteesSince the passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), over a million non-citizens have been deported from the United States after being convicted of criminal charges. <br />
<br />
Jamaica is a top receiving country for criminal deportees. In my research with Jamaican deportees, I found that nearly all Jamaicans who are deported are deported because of encounters with the criminal justice system. Unlike, for example, Guatemalans, who are usually deported after an encounter with immigration agents, Jamaicans seem to nearly always be first picked up by police officers, and then passed over to immigration agents. This alone is indicative of the criminalization of Jamaicans in the United States.<br />
<br />
My research with deportees in Jamaica indicates that there are three primary ways that Jamaicans get involved in the criminal justice system. One of the most common ways involves Jamaican boys who grow up in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, or Harlem and find themselves lured to the streets as youngsters. Many are raised by single mothers who keep long working hours and have little time to supervise their sons. Jamaicans who get into trouble as youth are nearly always males and seem to live almost exclusively in New York City.<br />
<br />
Another common way for Jamaicans to get into trouble in the United States is as adults. These Jamaican men live for decades in the United States without ever getting into trouble. However, one mistake or one case of bad judgment leads to their arrest, conviction, sentencing, and deportation. Unlike the youth, these men rarely lead a life of crime in general. Instead, they are law-abiding people whose lives suddenly change after an encounter with the criminal justice system.<br />
<br />
The third way that Jamaicans end up getting into trouble is one that includes both men and women. These men and women tend to be law-abiding citizens in Jamaica. However, they decide, usually for financial reasons, to get involved in the drug trade in the United States. For the women, this usually involves carrying drugs. For men, this often involves street-level selling. Once caught and convicted, they are deported.<br />
<br />
These three kinds of deportees are very different. The first set has a lot in common with African-American youth who grow up in the inner city. The second set often face harsh sentences because of an unforgiving justice system combined with stereotypes about black men in the United States. The third set involves opportunists who see a way to make money off of the illegal drug trade, yet whose plans are foiled once they are caught.<br />
<br />
The legal system in the United States, however, makes few distinctions between these three sorts of cases. Once convicted of certain charges, a non-citizen is deported. If the charges are classified as an “aggravated felony,” non-citizens have no opportunity to explain that they have been law-abiding citizens for the past thirty years, or that they came to the United States as infants, or that they have few or no ties to their country of birth. It makes little sense for the law to fail to distinguish between non-citizens who come to the United States to participate in criminal activities, non-citizens who come to the US as infants, and non-citizens who lead law-abiding lives for decades and have one unfortunate encounter with the law.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, the deterministic nature of IIRAIRA often prevents judges from taking individual factors into accounts and Jamaicans are often summarily deported from the United States after living there for decades.<br />
<br />
crossposted at: <a href="http://stopdeportationsnow.blogspot.com/2010/06/three-types-of-jamaican-deportees.html">STOP DEPORTATIONS NOW</a>Tanya Golash-Bozahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14299920277816825958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939701534526595538.post-80621629172471483742010-06-02T11:27:00.002-05:002010-06-02T11:27:29.693-05:00Three children and a PhD in six yearsI had three kids while I was in graduate school, yet managed to finish my M.A. thesis and Ph.D. in six years. I think that many of the lessons I learned by being a graduate student with a family continue to be crucial to my success today even though I didn’t exactly plan to have three children before getting my degree.<br />
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I spent the summer after my second year of graduate school with my fiancé in Brazil – learning Portuguese and doing preliminary research on the construction of race in Brazil. <br />
<br />
While in Brazil, I found out I was pregnant. Soon after returning to North Carolina to begin my second year of graduate school, I learned that I was pregnant with twins. <br />
<br />
My twins were due in March, so I asked my advisor if she could give me a flexible job assignment during the Spring semester. She gently suggested to me that I take the semester off – having twins would be a significant interruption in my life. I had not considered the option of taking a semester off, but decided to ask my mother if I could move in with her for the semester. Taking the semester off meant I would have no income, so I would not be able to afford to pay rent. You see, my fiancé – Nando - was still in South America, waiting to get a visa to come to the United States.<br />
<br />
So, I packed up and moved back to my parents’ house in December and got ready for the birth of my twin babies. I took plenty of reading material to prepare for my comprehensive exams (which I never touched). Caring for twin infants turned out to be a lot more work than I expected!<br />
<br />
As I was unemployed and uninsured, I was eligible for the state health insurance, so I did not have to worry about the costs associated with the birth of my twins. As a person who strongly believes in universal health care, I was all too happy to have state-financed health care, even if it was just for a few short months. Plus, technically, I paid for it, with all the taxes I have paid over the course of my life.<br />
<br />
Nando’s visa finally came through and he arrived in time to witness the birth. Luckily, he also was able to get a job so that we would have money to buy diapers and other essential items for the babies. With generous friends and family, however, we did not have to buy much. When the twins were five months old, in August, we made our way back down to North Carolina, and I began my third year of graduate school.<br />
<br />
Nando and I agreed that I would go to school and work each day from 10am to 3pm and that he would stay home with the children. At $1,000 per child for month for daycare, we figured it was better for Nando to stay home and take care of the babies. Plus, we thought it would be a wonderful opportunity for our twin daughters to bond with their father.<br />
<br />
As I had limited time at school each day, I was very focused and was able to complete nearly all of my work between 10am and 3pm. I often had to catch up on reading in the evenings, but I could do that after the babies went to sleep or on the weekends. I defended my M.A. thesis in the Spring and then began to prepare for my comprehensive exams, which I passed the following year.<br />
<br />
For me, having my kids in graduate school had several benefits. Firstly, it meant that I was less likely to fall into an existential crisis. As I clearly divided my time between home and school, I had plenty of time when I barely thought about school and did not allow myself to be consumed with the minor crises and daily drama in graduate school. For me, this continues to be a benefit – I rarely talk about work with my husband or children. This gives me an emotional and mental break from work when I am with them. I think that is a good thing.<br />
<br />
Secondly, having children meant that when I was at work, I focused on work and did not allow myself to spend hours chatting in the hallway about random topics or gossiping in the computer lab. Of course, it is crucial to engage in dialogue with your colleagues, but my limited time mean that I was judicious with regard to how much I allowed myself to participate in the hallway conversations. Learning to focus and get my work done in a limited amount of time is a skill that has been useful throughout my career.<br />
<br />
If you are an academic woman and are considering having children, I think my story points to a few things you should consider. <br />
<br />
1) Do you have a supportive partner and/or community? I have the great fortune of having an extremely supportive partner, family and community. A supportive partner is crucial. However, I also think that single mothers and women with partners with demanding jobs can find ways to make sure they have the time they need to get their work done by building support networks.<br />
<br />
2) When you have limited time, are you able to focus and get things done? If you have trouble with this, there is no reason you can’t start practicing now. Make a conscious decision to complete your most important tasks for the day between 8am and noon and then reward yourself with an afternoon off. Being able to focus and get things done in a narrow time frame is crucial for being a successful academic parent.<br />
<br />
3) Are you comfortable with seeking out help when and where you need it? Delegating tasks can make life as an academic parent much, much easier. Instead of spending hours verifying your bibliography, are you willing to pay a student to do it? If you really need Saturday mornings to catch up on reading, will you be willing to hire a sitter? Instead of poring over Strunk & White yourself, are you willing to hire a professional editor to get your manuscripts ready for submission?<br />
<br />
4) Do you have the option of taking some time off or greatly reducing your workload when your baby is born? Having a baby is a tremendous task. Your body needs time to recuperate after the baby is born and it will be months before you get enough sleep. The good news is that all of this is temporary. Nevertheless, the whole process will be much easier if you can take at least three months off after the baby is born. As academics, many of us have the luxury of taking eight months off – if you take off a semester, you also have the summer before or after it. If that is a possibility for you, I highly recommend it.<br />
<br />
After my twins were born, I went on to have my third child while I was conducting dissertation fieldwork. But, that is another story!Tanya Golash-Bozahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14299920277816825958noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939701534526595538.post-22686524985733612552010-05-31T14:05:00.000-05:002010-05-31T14:05:11.673-05:00Negril, Jamaica: Sea, Sand and FunWe have been in Negril, Jamaica for nearly a week now. <br />
<br />
We are staying in an inexpensive cottage called Silver Star. It is located a fifteen minute walk from the famous Seven Mile Beach and a five-minute walk from a smaller beach that is great for snorkeling. As someone who loves to be able to walk to the beach and on the beach, this is fantastic. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnsDr_c3V0h6rguI1r1SgVka5OgsGEUPsQ-d-_oTOY_5sP7jxmIxvnpKtsTwouXHwu_6JcY3_vl-BZoRFottusT0RKar04Yd0-zfIZgFatmTvKN5PaIhjuYZ94sf4WajR5O3IlrJLIdoWn/s1600/1.nando.girs.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" gu="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnsDr_c3V0h6rguI1r1SgVka5OgsGEUPsQ-d-_oTOY_5sP7jxmIxvnpKtsTwouXHwu_6JcY3_vl-BZoRFottusT0RKar04Yd0-zfIZgFatmTvKN5PaIhjuYZ94sf4WajR5O3IlrJLIdoWn/s320/1.nando.girs.JPG" /></a></div><br />
The accommodations are quite modest, but they are clean and comfortable, so we are happy. The small size of the cottage just means that we have to make sure and keep it tidy and keep everything in its place.<br />
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It is very hot here in Negril so we take advantage of the relatively cool mornings to do work and do household tasks. I spend my mornings writing in my office (whish is just a separate hotel room) and the children are doing their schoolwork in the mornings. We have hired a tutor to give the girls lessons, and that is working out great so far! After lunch, we are all free to spend the afternoons as we like.<br />
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Of course, most days we go to the beach. If you can believe it, some days the kids complain about going to the beach. Mostly, they are not keen on the 15 minute walk in the hot sun. However, once we arrive at the sea, they have a blast.<br />
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The first day we got to Negril, the sea was amazing. It was absolutely transparent, even up to about 30 feet deep. Snorkeling in that water was fantastic. However, the next day it rained and the water has not been the same since. There are two reasons for this. One reason is that when it rains the sea gets more turbulent and brings the sand up into the water, making it less transparent. The other, less pleasant, reason, is that the rain means that the muddy, dirty river water gets into the sea, turning it a brownish color.<br />
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We have found thus far that we can walk or take a taxi about another mile down the beach - away from the river - and get to the clean part when the river comes into the sea. Hopefully it will not rain much and we can enjoy the transparent water once again. Honestly, this year, after seeing so many amazing beaches, we are getting harder to please!<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkGTeIqomQrFD-ODqxvYkREE-ZzLRpooECsHIlS7JfJL5dOVtIv9mI6hqE3F1Hpt7iNKO2fvnZIovhRyq7qyMh-102b5JeP8EoLEEvSUaEEaago7ZSuJRmok0JKJzjr2N7ysnpr7OZOSmv/s1600/1.negril.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" gu="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkGTeIqomQrFD-ODqxvYkREE-ZzLRpooECsHIlS7JfJL5dOVtIv9mI6hqE3F1Hpt7iNKO2fvnZIovhRyq7qyMh-102b5JeP8EoLEEvSUaEEaago7ZSuJRmok0JKJzjr2N7ysnpr7OZOSmv/s320/1.negril.JPG" /></a></div><br />
None of the beaches we have seen so far in Negril have any waves to speak of. The girls complain that this makes it boring. However, it also makes it easier for us as we do not have to worry about the girls being pulled out to sea. Yesterday, I went snorkeling with Tatiana and Soraya - my nine-year old twin daughters - and we were able to get pretty far out without me being worried. However, as it was our first time, I did not stay too long. I was worried they (or I) might get tired.<br />
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I am looking forward to spending the next two months in Negril, and, slowly but surely, getting to know the rest of the Seven Mile Beach.Tanya Golash-Bozahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14299920277816825958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939701534526595538.post-49688514513462819562010-05-28T10:23:00.002-05:002010-05-28T10:23:48.752-05:00Deportation is PunishmentUndocumented migrants are not criminals. Detention is not prison. Deportation is not punishment. These are truths in the legal system of the United States. However, undocumented migrants are treated like criminals; detainees feel as if they are in prison; and deportees experience their exclusion as punishment. <br />
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<i><b>Undocumented migrants are not criminals</b></i><br />
A person is undocumented if they have violated provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) by overstaying their visa, entering the United States without inspection, ignoring a deportation order, or something similar. None of these are crimes – and there is no punishment for them. Instead, if a person is found to be in violation of the INA, they face detention and then deportation.<br />
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An undocumented migrant who has lived in the United States for thirty years, who has U.S. citizen children and grandchildren can be ordered deported without due process. He has fewer rights at his trial than does a murder suspect. Unlike murder suspects, he can be arrested without a warrant. He can appeal his case by applying for cancellation of removal, but may be detained while doing so, has no right to appointed counsel, and may have no right to judicial review. Most of the evidence he may wish to present – such as his ties to the US and his lack of ties to his home country – will be inadmissible. As deportation is not punishment, immigration trials are not under the purview of the judicial system and people facing deportation have few procedural protections.<br />
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<i><b>Deportation is not punishment<br />
</b></i>Deportation is not punishment – it is the civil penalty for violating the INA. People who face deportation are not given the same constitutional protections given to suspected criminals. They have no right to appointed counsel, no right to a jury trial, and, often, no right to judicial review. Deportation is an administrative procedure applied to people who do not have the legal right to remain in the United States. For example, a non-citizen who commits a crime in the United States first completes any jail or prison time that is mandated as punishment for their crime. If that criminal conviction renders them deportable, they are ordered deported upon completing their sentence. As deportation is not punishment, the United States government is not violating the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) that both indicates that a person should not be punished twice for the same crime and that people should not be discriminated against because of their national origin. <br />
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Article 14 of the ICCPR (which the U.S. has ratified) reads “No one shall be liable to be tried or punished for an offence for which he has already been finally convicted.” Legal permanent residents who are convicted of certain crimes in the U.S. face deportation after serving their sentences. The decision as to whether or not they are to be deported is made by an immigration judge. However, it is not technically correct to say that they are punished twice for a crime – as deportation is not punishment. For example, if a citizen and a non-citizen both shoplift $900 worth of clothes and both are sentenced to 18 months in prison, the citizen goes free after serving her time, yet the non-citizen is detained and faces deportation after serving her time. Although the non-citizen is treated differently for the same crime, this is not in violation of Article 26 of the ICCPR which states that “All persons are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to the equal protection of the law. In this respect, the law shall prohibit any discrimination … on any ground such as … national or social origin, … birth or other status” because detention and deportation are not punishment.<br />
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<b><i>Deportation feels like punishment</i></b><br />
Nearly all of the 156 deportees that I have interviewed over the last year in four countries felt as though their deportation was punishment, either for being in the US illegally or for committing a crime.<br />
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O’Ryan, a Jamaican citizen, moved to the United States as a legal permanent resident when he was six years old. When he was 25 years old, O’Ryan was deported to Jamaica because of a drug-related conviction. When I spoke to O’Ryan, he had been in Jamaica for seven years and continued to have trouble getting adjusted to life in his birth country. He told me he understands he made mistakes, but did not see it as fair that he should pay the rest of his life for those mistakes. He doesn’t see a future for himself in Jamaica, where he feels like a foreigner. He told me “I shouldn’t be deported because I’m really not a bad person.” For O’Ryan, deportation feels like a cruel punishment that he never had the chance to contest. His deportation was an automatic consequence of his drug conviction. He had no opportunity to explain to a judge that he grew up in the United States, that he was a college student, and that he had no ties to Jamaica.<br />
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Nearly all of the deportees with whom I have spoken have told me that they experience their deportation as punishment. However, since deportation is technically a regulatory procedure and not a punitive procedure, non-citizens do not have the right to contest their deportation in the same way they would had they been accused of a crime.<br />
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My research makes it clear that non-citizens in the United States often feel as if they are treated like criminals – even if the laws indicate that they are not criminals but immigration violators. In terms of human rights treaties, which matters more? Should we believe the legal documents that allow one to argue that no human rights treaties are being violated or should we listen to the experiences of people who feel that they are treated as criminals?<br />
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As a sociologist, the answer to this rhetorical question is clear. If deportees experience their deportation as punishment, then it is. Insofar as deportation is often experienced as a severe punishment, often worse than the punishment for any criminal conviction, it should be treated more carefully in U.S. courts. There is a tremendous difference between an undocumented migrant who comes to the U.S. with the goal of working for two years and returning to his home country and a legal permanent resident who was brought to the U.S. as an infant. Deportation has vastly different meanings for those two individuals. For the former, it might be experienced as an administrative procedure – especially if he has already met his savings goal in the U.S. and was preparing to leave anyway. For the latter, deportation after serving a year in prison for a drug charge could be the most cruel punishment conceivable. This is especially the case if, for example, this latter young man is deported to Haiti and does not speak Creole or to El Salvador and has gang-related tattoos. Insofar as deportation is often experienced as punishment, courts must take the matter more seriously and allow non-citizens to present more evidence against their deportation than has been the case, especially since the implementation of the 1996 laws.<br />
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Originally posted at: <a href="http://counterpunch.org/golash05282010.html">Counterpunch</a>Tanya Golash-Bozahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14299920277816825958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939701534526595538.post-40219010273624687692010-05-27T09:14:00.000-05:002010-05-27T09:14:22.432-05:00The Key to Publishing Journal Articles – Submit, submit, submitOne of my wise mentors once told me that one of the best attributes a new academic can have is a thick skin. The reason is that rejection is a major part of the academic experience and if you let rejections get under your skin, you will have trouble moving forward. When you get a rejection from a journal, the best thing to do is to accept that rejections are normal, use the comments to revise the article, and send it out again.<br />
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I have received at least a dozen rejection letters from academic journals, and even more from fellowship opportunities. Rejection letters are unpleasant to receive – but they usually are also just another step on the way to getting published. <br />
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One way I have found to deal with rejection is always to have a manuscript under review. That way, when I receive a rejection, at least I know that I have another chance for success out there. Of course, the more manuscripts you send out, the more rejections you will get. However, it is also true that if you don’t send anything out, you will never get anything accepted. My strategy has been to submit, submit, and submit.<br />
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<b><i>Submit, submit, and submit some more</i></b><br />
I began my position as an Assistant Professor at the University of Kansas in 2005. Just before starting at Kansas, I sent a paper out for review. For the next five years, I always had at least one paper under review. This means that I have never received a rejection letter without another possibility for acceptance out there.<br />
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I began my tenure-track position with an article from my dissertation under review by spending the summer before I started my position preparing an article for submission. At the time, I didn’t have the benefit of Wendy Belcher’s book – How To Write a Journal Article in Twelve Weeks – but, that would have been the perfect time to use it. I worked over the summer revising my dissertation, and, just before moving to Kansas, I submitted an article based on my dissertation.<br />
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Once I arrived in Kansas, I found a whole new world of responsibilities I had not had before – faculty meetings, committee meetings, students, and formal and informal gatherings with colleagues. <br />
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I knew that, to achieve tenure I would not only have to meet my daily responsibilities – attend meetings and teach my classes – but I also would need to publish articles. I also expected my article that was under review to be rejected. To prepare for that inevitable rejection letter, I began to work on another article to submit. I also had articles circulating from my time in graduate school, and got to work on those.<br />
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<i><b>Always have at least one article under review</b></i><br />
By the time the rejection letter came in December, I had a different article accepted, and another chapter of the dissertation under review. And, so I continued, always making sure to have at least one article under review.<br />
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You might wonder what happened to that article I sent off in August 2005. Well, it was just recently published – in February 2010. Yes, it took nearly five years. In fact, it took the longest, as all of the other papers I have submitted over the years have been accepted, usually after two or three rejections.<br />
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As I write this, at the end of my fifth year on the tenure track, every single paper that I have sent out is either in print or in press. Had I given up at the first rejection, sure, I would have fewer rejections. But, more importantly, I would have fewer acceptances.<br />
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Want to get published? Then, you have to submit, submit, and submit again.Tanya Golash-Bozahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14299920277816825958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939701534526595538.post-67624414794194582972010-05-24T13:51:00.000-05:002010-05-24T13:51:06.087-05:00Goias, Goiania, Brasilia, and back to Goiania: Our last few days in BrazilMonday, May 24, is our last day in Brazil. So far, despite having to get all five of us and our many bags to the airport, everything is going remarkably smoothly. These past few days have been very hectic, so this is a very welcome change. <br />
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We left Cidade Goias at 4:30am last Thursday so that we could spend the day in Goiania on the way to Brasilia. I spent Thursday morning at Universidade Federal de Goias with my research assistant, Anna Laura. She had a film featured in an ethnographic film festival, and we watched her film about transvestite prostitutes in Goiania and participated in the debates afterwards. On Thursday evening, I had two interviews on the other side of Goiania, so Anna Laura and I made our way over to Campinas, a commercial district on the edge of Goiania. The interviews went well, but we did not get home until 11:00pm. And, we had to wake up at 6:00am the next day to go to Brasilia.<br />
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We arrived in Brasilia at noon, at the Hotel Nacional. After a very brief rest, I met Cristina and Joaze – two professors at the University of Brasila – for lunch. It was great to meet them and to talk about sociology and anthropology in Brasil and to learn about the University of Brasilia. After lunch, we went across town to the University of Brasilia, where I was scheduled to give a talk. I began my talk around 4:30pm. I was very tired and was amazed at my ability to speak coherent Portuguese for most of my presentation. The talk went fairly well, and the audience members had interesting questions about the US and immigration laws.<br />
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After my talk, we met up with my husband and kids and went out with Cristina and Joaze and their kids to a pizza restaurant. The restaurant – Pizza a Bessa – has a rodizio de pizza, which means that waiters pass by the table every few minutes with a different selecion of pizzas. They have everything from pepperoni to pizza with dried beef to pizza with ice cream (for dessert). My three kids fell asleep in their chairs by the time we left the pizzeria. I managed to stay awake, but was very tired when we got home at 10pm.<br />
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The next morning, fortunately, we did not have anything planned. Nevertheless, we all got up before 7am. In a hotel room, when one person gets up, it is hard for anyone else to remain asleep. We packed our bags and checked out of the hotel by 9:30. We were planning on going out for breakfast when we found out that the Hotel Nacional has a fabulous spread that is included in the nightly rate. The breakfast buffet was great – they had fresh fruit, yogurt, a variety of breads, omelets crepes, waffles, and several fresh fruit juices. We ate as much as we could and then set out for our day sightseeing in Brasilia.<br />
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We heard that there was a free bus that would take you to the Centro Cultural de Banco do Brasil (CCBB), so we went to wait for it by the Hotel Manhattan. We waited a long time for the bus, but it finally came and we went to the CCBB. The CCBB had four different expositions, and the kids' favorite was definitely OSGEMEOS – installation art by twin brothers that is very creative and colorful. After a couple of hours at the CCBB, we went back downtown. <br />
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Nando thought it would be a good idea to have lunch in the Rodoviaria (the bus station). The food did not look appetizing to me, so I just had a mango smoothie. We decided to go back to Goiania after that, as the kids were very tired, and Raymi seemed to be coming down with a fever. I am glad that we saw Brasilia, but there was no good reason to stay for another day.<br />
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When we got back to Goiania, we went to our friend Gabriel's house. He had a few guests over, and they were enjoying churrasco and red wine. We readily joined them. After a few glasses, at 11:00pm, I was ready to go to sleep. The kids were already sleeping on Gabriel's couch, so we decided to spend the night there. I got a reasonable amount of sleep, but had to get up at 6am when the kids woke up to make sure they did not cause too much trouble in Gabriel's house. We had breakfast there and took the bus to Anna Laura's house.<br />
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When we got to Anna Laura's house on Sunday morning around 10am, the only thing I wanted to do was to relax. Fortunately, Anna Laura lives in a rural area of Goiania, so it feels like you are in the countryside. I spent the better part of the morning in Anna Laura's hammock enjoying the bucolic atmosphere while the kids played in her huge yard. Nando and I also did some last minute laundry and got our bags ready for the next day. Our friend Izabel came over in the afternoon, and we spent the afternoon chatting with her, her husband, and Anna Laura. Not too long after they left, Soraya fell asleep on the couch. It was only 7pm, but I decided to let her sleep.<br />
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By 8pm, the whole family was asleep. I could not believe it. Even better, I did not have any nightmares about missing the plane. We were completely packed, and our plane did not leave until 11:00am the next day. We woke up at 6:00am, with plenty of time to do our last-minute packing of our pajamas and toothbrushes and make it to the airport. This allowed me to remain very calm and to not get stressed at all. Amazing. We called our taxi at 6:25 – knowing that it would take a while to get all the way to Anna Laura's house. The taxi showed up at 7:40, and we got to the airport at 8:15 am for our flight. <br />
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Some people might find it a bit extreme to be completely packed and to go to sleep at 8:00pm in preparation for a flight that leaves at 11:00am the next day. But, the difference a few hours makes is remarkable. Right now, it is 10:00am, and, so far, everyone is in a good mood, well-rested and ready to face a very long trip.<br />
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We will be in Negril, Jamaica in a little more than 24 hours from now. We shall see how well-rested and calm we are by then! Either way, at least we are starting out on the right foot.Tanya Golash-Bozahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14299920277816825958noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939701534526595538.post-26577953798608257512010-05-18T07:51:00.001-05:002010-05-18T07:51:02.535-05:00The DREAM Act is commendable. Advocating only for "good" immigrants is not.The DREAM Act needs to be passed – now. The DREAM Act is one that allows undocumented youth who finish high school in the United States to apply for legalization. Students who qualify for the DREAM act are often the poster children for immigration campaigns – students with 4.0 GPAs and high aspirations. It is clear that it is in the best interest of the United States to grant these youth a path to legalization.<br />
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That said, there is one issue with the DREAM Act – it is one of many legislative proposals that pits “good” immigrants against “bad” immigrants. Good immigrants are ones that never violate any laws, that go to school, that work hard, that learn English, that behave, and that become “American.” Bad immigrants are ones that have a criminal record, that drop out of school, that protest their working conditions, that don’t learn English, and that aren’t American enough.<br />
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Politicians and advocates often offer legalization as a prize for good immigrants. But, should legalization be a prize? Perhaps it should be, if you think that the United States is a fair country where good behavior is always rewarded and bad behavior is always punished.<br />
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However, the reality is that nearly ALL people in the United States have committed an infraction that would render them ineligible for legalization. Anyone who has shoplifted, smoked marijuana, driven while under the influence, used a false ID to get into a club, had a switchblade, been in a vehicle with illegal drugs, used prescription drugs without a prescription, or gotten into a fight would be ineligible for legalization …. if they were caught and convicted of these crimes. Most people in the US have done one or more of these illegal actions over the course of their lives. Most people, however, are not caught, convicted, or sentenced for these relatively minor crimes.<br />
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And, it turns out that blacks and Latinos who engage in these illegal activities are much more likely to be caught. Two white people driving across the country with a stash of marijuana under the back seat are much less likely to be caught than two black or Latino people. If caught, the whites are less likely to be convicted. If convicted, the whites are much less likely to get a harsh sentence.<br />
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To advocate only for the “good” immigrants is to condone racial inequality in America. My criminal record is sparkling clean. My conscience, however, is not, as I have committed illegal actions in my life. Who hasn’t?<br />
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Immigration reform needs to happen soon. And, when it does, politicians need to have the courage to stand up for all immigrants – not just the good ones.Tanya Golash-Bozahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14299920277816825958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939701534526595538.post-89486102170215265482010-05-14T05:00:00.001-05:002010-05-14T05:00:00.608-05:00How to have a productive summer by working 4 hours a dayIt’s summertime and the living is pretty…. Or, at least it should be!<br />
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How can you have a remarkably productive summer <i>and </i>return to the school year feeling refreshed and like you had a break? To do this, you need to plan to be productive <i>and </i>to plan to leave time to enjoy life. The thing is, if you plan to work all the time, you are likely to feel guilty every moment you aren’t working. And, who wants to feel guilty all of the time?<br />
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<b><i>Plan to be productive</i><br />
</b>To plan to be productive, first you have to decide what you will accomplish over the summer. Make a list of all of the things you would like to accomplish this summer. Include everything – from revising book chapters to analyzing data to submitting articles to finalizing your syllabi.<br />
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Once you have your list, decide when you are going to complete these things. Start with the most important items first. How long do you think it will take you to turn that dissertation chapter into an article? How long will it take for you to come up with a draft for your next book project or grant proposal? Now, map those tasks onto your summer weeks. What will you do between May 15 and May 31? Between June 1 and June 15?<br />
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<i><b>Prioritize your Tasks<br />
</b></i>Once you map your tasks onto your calendar, you likely will realize that you have more tasks than time. But, believe me, it is better to realize this now than at the end of the summer. At this point, you still have time to prioritize. What is most important? What items have deadlines? What can wait until the Fall or until next summer? What can’t wait? What can you drop or delegate?<br />
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<i><b>Make a Schedule – and stick to it.</b></i><br />
The next step is to come up with a work schedule. When will you work and when will you play? Many people work best in the mornings; others are best late at night. How many hours will you work each day? How much time will you spend writing each day? When and where will you do your writing?<br />
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If you wish to return to the semester relaxed and refreshed, I recommend trying to work every day for just four hours. That’s right – just four hours! You see, academic work is trying and if you try to work all day, every day, you most likely will get burned out. Instead, if you try to work for just four hours every day, you will have the rest of the day to re-energize and are less likely to burn out.<br />
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<b><i>Limit your working hours</i></b><br />
Believe me - you can have a very productive summer if you work for four focused hours each morning. The thing is – you do have to focus during that time. And, it works best if your time really is limited. In my case, I will be working while my children are at summer camp. This means that I will have from 8am to noon each day to work. My husband and I have agreed that, during that time, I will be allowed to concentrate and focus on my work. I will not clean, cook, do laundry, watch television, or surf the Internet during that time. I have all the rest of the day to complete household tasks and to relax.<br />
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<i><b>Make time for yourself each day</b></i><br />
As academics, we all need time to process our ideas, thoughts, plans, emotions, and experiences. It is crucial that you carve at least an hour out of each day for yourself when you can process all of your thoughts. This time allows you to make plans, to come up to solutions to theoretical puzzles, and to relax your mind.<br />
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If you have children, finding alone time can be tricky. But, there usually is a way. When my children were small, I took them to the gym each day – where they had a daycare where I could leave the children while I exercised. Now that they are older, I take them to the park where I can walk around the track while they play. Other ideas would be to put a DVD on for the children while you meditate or run on your treadmill. In my mind, me-time each day involves exercise, but others may prefer to garden, sew, crochet, knit, paint, or work on model airplanes. So long as it is an activity that allows you to think and reflect, it should work.<br />
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If you doubt my suggestion that you can be productive working just four hours a day, I encourage you to try it and see what happens. And, let me know how it goes….Tanya Golash-Bozahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14299920277816825958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939701534526595538.post-84137499057647770642010-05-11T06:10:00.002-05:002010-05-11T06:10:45.851-05:00Can you learn (or re-learn) Portuguese in three months?I hoped our three kids - aged 9, 9, and 6 - would pick up some Portuguese during our three-month stay in Brazil. As we are preparing to leave Brazil, the kids are able to communicate wth their playmates. But, they are far from fluent.<br />
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Raymi, my six-year old daughter, has learned the most. This is interesting because she was the most resistant at first. When I spoke to her in Portuguese when we first arrived, she once replied "Don't talk to me in THAT language!" That said, when Raymi wanted an ice cream a few days later, she mustered up the Portuguese words to order one. Now, when Raymi is with her teachers and friends, she puts together full sentences in Portuguese and gets her needs and wants across.<br />
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Tatiana and Soraya - my nine-year-old twins - were more keen on learning Portuguese, or so it seemed. Tatiana would ask me to talk to her in Portuguese before we came to Brazil. Now, however, when the twins talk to their friends, it is almost always in "Portunhol." They do manage to communicate and will laugh at television shows in Portuguese, but still use a lot of Spanish in their conversations. Nevertheless, every so often, they will play translation games with me.<br />
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We are getting ready to leave Brazil (in less than two weeks!!), so I don't know how much longer it would take for them to become fluent. I am sure, however, that they have learned some of the language and that next time we are in a Lusophone country, they will have a head start.<br />
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As for me, my Portuguese is still not at the level of fluency it once was. But, it has improved quite a bit. I can even understand people on the phone now. The main reason my Portuguese is not up to par is that I do not speak Portuguese every day. I only engage in extended conversations in Portuguese when I travel out of town to visit friends. When I stay in Cidade Goias, I spend most of my day alone writing or with my family.<br />
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It is much quicker to learn (or re-learn) a language when you have full immersion. The kids are only getting full immersion four hours a day at <a href="http://www.vilaesperanca.org/">school</a>. (If you look closely at this <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lckmyTXYuKY&feature=player_embedded">video</a>, you can see Raymi at her school.) And, I am only getting it when I leave the house.Tanya Golash-Bozahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14299920277816825958noreply@blogger.com0