Several thousand visitors sampled traditional foods from an array of cultures, tried new dance steps and listened to musical performances. Families were in abundance at the kid-friendly event which included performances and demonstrations from Filipino, Argentinian, Turkish, Indian, Japanese, Vietnamese, Mexican, and American singers, dancers, and martial artists.

Turkish, Mexican and Indian music and dance videos are below the foldA balladeer from Columbus Junction, Iowa, by way of Chiautla, Mexico, Valentin Ruiz dedicated this song, “Una Cartita,” to his two daughters:

Ruiz is an organizer of the Hispanic Cultural Festival held annually in Columbus Junction.

Another musician, Bahri Karacay, played Turkish songs on the festival’s World Stage.

A pediatric neurologist at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, Karacay played an eight-stringed lute-like instrument called a saz with his band Turkana.

He translated his song’s lyrics, which he said was about the end of a relationship:

Although I miss your beautiful smile and the way you used to tell me you love me, I am very happy now. I cannot be with you anymore because I learned how to laugh. I can’t cry anymore.

The Noopur Dance Troupe entertained with Indian dances on the festival main stage. Here is one of their dance performances:

Here is another Ruiz song, with scenes from the event, which was held in the University of Iowa Field House.

Find out more at the festival website: http://www.uiowa.edu…

]]> http://iowaindependent.com/1992/videos-international-festival-celebrates-cultural-diversity/feed 0 http://iowaindependent.com/1861/ui-launches-diversity-dialogue-circles http://iowaindependent.com/1861/ui-launches-diversity-dialogue-circles#comments Thu, 24 Jan 2008 17:00:00 +0000 John Deeth http://iowaindependent.com/1861/ui-launches-diversity-dialogue-circles The University of Iowa Women’s Resource and Action Center (WRAC) is starting a series of Diversity Dialogue Circles beginning next week.  As part of the University’s Human Rights Week events, WRAC sponsored a one-night preview of the process Wednesday.

“Iowa is becoming more diverse,” noted program coordinator Leslie Leathers.  “This will help build relationships and stronger communities.”

“I was struck by how involved you were in each other’s lives and you just met each other,” said co-facilitator Tina Hoffman, walking around the room and listening while participants paired off and discusses a cultural check in worksheet that included the ultimate open-ended question, “Who Are You?”  The question is meant to get at cultural identity, as one participant discussed her choice of “black” as opposed to “African American.”  “‘Woman’ comes out a lot” on that question, said Hoffman.The project’s confidentiality guideline keeps the names out of the story, but most of the 18 or so attendees were young members of various racial and ethnic minorities, with a roughly even gender split.

In the circles, facilitators guide participants in an exploration of privilege, oppression and cultural competency “Instead of looking to get over racism, we need to tol

Speaking during a council-staff retreat session at the Carrollton Centre on Saturday, Eifler said Carroll must work aggressively to diversify the workforce by attracting younger people and minorities.

“Let’s face it,” Eifler, who is in his 50s, said. “We’re a white town. We’re getting older. We need more people and they can’t all be white. We’re all guilty, for lack of a better word, of being racist.”

He added, “We need to get some diversity here as far as races, religion.”

According to the Census, Carroll County’s population in 2006 was 98.8 percent white. Nearly 20 percent of the county is 65 years or older – higher than the state average of 15 percent.

The discussion emerged as council members eye possible remedies to Carroll’s workforce shortage – and whether government has a role at all with the process.

For his part, Councilman Bob Eich said he hoped to see at least two members of the council in the next decade come from minority groups.

“I envision having two minorities on the council,” Eich said.

After hearing that Councilman Tom Tait joked, “So we need a black woman.”

Mayor Jim Pedelty, whose daughter-in-law is African-American, said that for most of Carroll’s history there has been little diversity.

Said Councilman Jeff Scharfenkamp, “Carroll is kind of a Mayberry RFD community.”

Pedelty said he is concerned that Carroll’s population has been flat-lining over the last two decades.

“We’ve got the same population of 10,000 people,” Pedelty said.

Rather than looking at the issue through the lens of race, Pedelty suggested that property taxes in the city are too high for some people.

The mayor also said he’s worried that Carroll’s current leadership isn’t cultivating strong “lieutenants” to replace them when the time comes.

Councilwoman Carolyn Siemann said city leaders need to start thinking like young people to keep and attract a workforce. Developing wireless Internet access, something vital for younger people, is on the city’s action plan for 2008.

Eifler said Carroll can diversify without following the lead of other western Iowa cities.

“I’m not talking about meatpacking plants,” Eifler said.

City Manager Gerald Clausen said tolerance in Carroll needed to move beyond just race and religion.

“You can’t say homosexuals are bad people, because they are part of the future,” Clausen said.

Red Hawk was the keynote speaker Monday at Iowa’s Mosaic Diversity Conference in Des Moines at the Polk County Convention Complex.

For Red Hawk, differences and similarities help to define what diversity means.  He said that any time two people are standing next to each other, there is diversity because no two people are exactly alike. 

His inclusive framing of the politically correct buzzword helped many in attendance understand that diverse relationships can mean more than simple differences in skin color or gender.

Red Hawk is a North Carolina Cherokee, related to the Oklahoma Cherokee.  He noted with a smile that the two geographically separated Cherokee groups generally dislike each other, but because they are the same tribe with different histories, they illustrate his point about similarities and differences being two sides of the same coin. 

Video available below the fold.In this video, Red Hawk explains his understanding of diversity and consciousness-raising.

Red Hawk followed his keynote speech with a workshop titled “A Motivational Approach to Understanding Diversity.”

Iowa’s Mosaic Diversity Conference continues on Tuesday.  More information available at: http://www.iowamosai…

Pulling from his latest book, “Diversity: Leaders not Labels,” as well as other recent works, Graham primarily spoke about the individual responsibility involved in one’s attitude and responses to diversity.

“When we talk about diversity, we are talking about how to self-actualize yourself as a human being,” Graham told roughly 500 conference participants Wednesday at the Crowne Plaza Five Seasons. “That means you get past the small stuff. You have to get past race; get past gender. You get past all the historical garbage that keeps you in a box.”

Picking up on the name of the organization hosting the conference, Graham said, “Diversity Focus is an investment in yourself.” Graham is pictured above with Alfred Ramirez, executive director of Diversity Focus.

“It is an investment in education,” he said. “It’s about talent development, skills, performance, results and excellence. In essence, what we are talking about is how to become the best you can be.”

Despite what your life’s work becomes, he says, excellence must always be a priority. People should never get so caught up in day-to-day living, he said, that they forget to think and grow.

“The world will say to you, ‘You don’t control your life. You don’t control your own mind. So, I have to define you,’” he said. “The world puts you in a box and labels you so that when someone looks, you can be identified by the label you’ve been given.”

Labels, according to Graham, can be about gender, race, socio-economic level, personal possessions, family, friends and much more. Personal experience, he says, has taught him that the world will always try to label and define individuals.

“I know this is true,” he said. “People have been trying to put me in a box and define me by my relationship [with Winfrey]. But I don’t let the world define me. I define myself. Whenever you turn your power over to someone else to define you, they will always define you as less than them. Never turn your power over to someone else to determine your potential and your destiny.”

The first step to realizing your own potential, according to Graham, is to recognize your own loves and passions in life.

“You can organize your whole life around love,” he said. “No matter what your history was like — no matter what you’ve went through — none of that is about your passion. Write down everything you love. Look at yourself as a whole person and you diversify your whole life — everything that possible for you as a human being.”

While doing this exercise, thoughts should not be focused on a job.

“Anybody can get a job,” he said. “I’m talking about getting a life.”

Creating a vision for life, developing a plan and listening to guiding principles are also stops along the road to defining yourself, according to Graham.

“Whatever you focus on — whatever you put your energy in — it expands,” he said. “If you look at the glass as half-empty, that’s exactly what you’ll get.”

Graham is chairman and chief executive officer of S. Graham & Associates, a management and marketing consulting company. His clients include Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo, Georgia Pacific, Hyatt Hotels, CNN, the U.S. Olympic Committee and the U.S. Department of Education. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago where he teaches a leadership course based on his nine-step process. And he is a visiting professor at several colleges and universities throughout the country.

Diversity Focus is a nonprofit organization devoted to enhancing the diversity of the Cedar Rapids-Iowa City corridor. It was founded in 2005 to integrate and coordinate existing community efforts and create new ones.

Two-thirds of Iowa’s population growth between 1990 and 2005 was fueled by immigration. Latinos are the state’s fastest growing population segment, their numbers increasing by 234 percent in 15 years. It is estimated that 125,000 Latinos now live in the state, which makes them Iowa’s largest minority population, outnumbering African-Americans by more than 40,000.

Annie Vander Werff, director of Global Health Corps and instructor at the University of Northern Iowa’s School of Health, Physical Education and Leisure Services, came to Cedar Rapids on Tuesday afternoon to present a program on health disparities among minority populations in Iowa as a part of the monthly Brown Bag Lunch series through Diversity Focus.

“Health is about balance,” said Vander Werff. “Health is important as a lifestyle and it is a balancing act in your own personal lifestyle as well as the larger community.”

As a way of showing how communities play a part in health, she read a poem written in 1895 by Joseph Malins titled, “A Fence or an Ambulance.” In the poem a beautifully tempting, but very dangerous cliff is described. The people who lived around the cliff knew of both the temptation and danger and decided something should be done. Two ideas — one to place an ambulance in the valley below to aid the fallen and another to fence the cliff’s edge to prevent the falling — were discussed. Call it a play on the adage: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

There are, unfortunately, barriers for people who seek to attain a healthy balance through preventive medicine or urgent care. This is true for average Americans and especially true for immigrants who may face additional stresses of cultural differences, language issues and a general lack of understanding the system.

“Our landscape is changing in Iowa and also in the United States,” she said. “We are becoming a more diverse population. White population continues to grow at a steady rate — roughly 12 percent. In the United States as whole, however, we see Asian/Pacific Islander populations growing at 200 percent and beyond. We see Hispanic populations growing at over 100 percent. The nation’s black population grew by roughly 30 percent. We are definitely changing.”

This change has come about for many different reasons, she says, but by and large people are moving to the midwest and Iowa for the same reasons existing residents did: good jobs, low cost of living, affordable housing, quality education and safe communities.

“The disparity or the difference between the health of minority populations and the majority population as a whole is very different and, in many cases, the health of the minority population is much worse,” she said.

Barriers such as cost, transportation, values and beliefs, child care, availability and geographic location can prevent immigrants, as well as people who’ve been in the community longer, from attaining health care.

“If you have four children, no car and you don’t feel well, chances are you are not going to go your health appointment if the trip includes taking all your children and locating transportation,” she said. “You may feel as if putting forth that type of effort when you are already weakened may be too much or leave you feeling even worse.”

Free clinics are wonderful, she says, but when all variables are considered treatment may not be without a price tag if the costs of transportation, child care and time from work and family are considered.

Finally, health care professionals have an added weight on their shoulders as they bridge communication and values gaps. Vander Werff presented the following Chinese fable to illustrate:

Once upon a time a monkey and a fish were caught up in a great flood. The monkey, agile and experienced, had the good fortune to scramble up a tree to safety.

As he looked down into the raging waters, he saw a fish struggling against the swift current. Filled with a humanitarian desire to help his less fortunate fellow, he reached down and scooped the fish from the water.

To the monkey’s surprise, the fish was not very grateful for this aid.

“That poor monkey was only trying to help,” she said. “Many times this is what happens when health care providers and members of communities or organizations try to help immigrants. They have the best of intentions, but they move forward with a plan that does not consider the needs, values and beliefs of the immigrant population.”

Readers interested in more information should visit the Iowa Center of Health Disparities.

“It just feels so good to have candidates come here,” said resident Dave Bradley, who made phone calls to drum up attendance for the Bill Richardson event roughly 200 attended. “It is great when you don’t have to drive 30 miles down the road.”

The New Mexico governor’s visit on Thursday evening marked the second time this year the town has been visited by a Democratic presidential hopeful. The other candidate to visit was Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut. It is no coincidence that the two visiting candidates are both fluent in Spanish.

While Latinos and Hispanics constitute roughly 4 percent of Iowa’s population overall, they comprise more than 40 percent of West Liberty’s residents. The local newspaper, the West Liberty Index, prints in both Spanish and English, and there is a small radio station that broadcasts primarily in Spanish. Roughly one-half of grade-school students are Hispanic. The only city in Iowa that has Latinos as a larger percentage of the population is Conesville, a town less than 20 miles away.

It came as little surprise then, when a middle-aged Hispanic man stood and said he could ask his question more easily in Spanish.

“You say it any way you want to,” Richardson said. “I’ll translate it if you want to say it in Spanish.”

Once the question was asked, Richardson told the audience the man wanted to know “what Latinos gain” and what “assurances” the Hispanic community had if he became president.

“I never have run and said, ‘Hey, I’m Bill Richardson and I’m a Hispanic candidate.’ I’m an American and very proud to be so,” he said.

Richardson then shared a humorous story about his 93-year-old Mexican mother. During a weekly Sunday phone call, she asked if he was still governor. He reassured her that he was and reminded her that four months earlier he had announced he’d was running for president. She then asked, “President of what?”

“I tell that story because I feel I have a very similar background as many of the Hispanics here,” he said. “I will not just be a Hispanic president. I will be a president for everybody. We are who we are, and I’m not going to try and pretend to be something I’m not. I am going to find ways to deal with the fact that one out of two black and Hispanic kids don’t graduate from high school.”

Richardson reminded the audience of his earlier remarks on immigration and his belief that neither deporting 12 million undocumented workers nor providing them immediate amnesty was the answer.

“I believe we are all members of the same world community,” he said. “I believe the American dream should be open to all, but that there should be fairness. I promise you that I will with pride talk about my heritage. I am American — I always have been.”

Local residents Dave and Carol Bradley are pictured with Richardson in the above photo.

It’s probably the only Supreme Court decision to have culminated in its own series of national celebrations which cross many economic, social and political lines. In addition to the events scheduled with the help of founder Ken Tanabe, the Association of MultiEthnic Americans has stepped up to the plate to organize the Loving Decision Conference 2007 in Chicago. As some within our nation celebrate the decision — and millions more benefit from it without awareness — it is important to look back at the national sentiment at the time the historic decision was handed down. Unfortunately, much remains familiar.

Before the Loving decision, interracial marriage was considered a felony punishable by up to five years in a state penitentiary. In addition, those who crossed racial lines without taking the final step of marriage were vilified and persecuted.

In the Loving case, a Virginia judge called for the imprisonment of Mildred Jeter, a black woman, and Loving, a white man, after they legally married in the District of Columbia and moved to Virginia, where their union was a felony. They were convicted of violating Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law which stated that “if any white person and colored person shall go out of this State, for the purpose of being married, and with the intention of returning… they shall be punished” by “not less than one nor more than five years” in prison. The couple was given the option of leaving state state in lieu of serving jail time. They left and it took nearly 10 years before the ruling was shot down.

The judge’s ruling was rife with religious overtones. For instance, the judge opined God intended separation of the races because when he created them, they were placed in separate places. While hard to believe now, the vast majority of Americans at that time sided with this Virginia judge. They viewed marriage between “whites” and “coloreds” as “unnatural,” “evil,” based on illicit sex in lieu of true respect and commitment and, most importantly, “contrary to God’s will.”

The Supreme Court found marriage to be one of the “vital personal rights” protected under the 14th Amendment. Regardless of that ruling, there are still some Americans who cannot partake in all their “vital personal rights.” The rhetoric used previously to justify withholding marriage rights is hard at work once again.

In the late 1800’s, miscegenation laws were reinstated and expanded after Reconstruction. The justifications used at that time are now being replayed by those who oppose same-sex marriage.

Marriage of racial couples was described as a convenience of “illicit sex” instead of a relationship built on respect and love. Today, same-sex couples are described as having relationships of “mere subjective preferences” with no “moral reason.” Just as interracial marriage was described as contrary to God’s will, same-sex couples now face charges of being “contrary to God’s plan, morally objectionable, and unacceptable.”

Perhaps the phrased used most often to describe interracial and same-sex unions is that they are “unnatural.” Prior to the Loving decision, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled “That connections and alliance so unnatural that God and nature seem to forbid them, should be prohibited by postive law, and be subject to no evasion.” The Georgia courts agreed that such marriages were “not only unnatural, but… always productive of deplorable results. They are productive of evil, and evil only, with any corresponding good.”

Forty years have passed. In that time, nearly all American families have welcomed people of diverse ethnic backgrounds in their circles. We should stop to not only celebrate what has happened in the past, but to consider as individuals what would be missing from our lives without the Loving decision. It is also important for us all to learn from past mistakes and to remember the loudest voice isn’t always saying the right thing.

It’s been 40 years, and yet, it could have only been yesterday.