James Ansin / Peace Sullivan High School Workshop In Journalism and New Media

Reporter’s Notebook

admin — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 22:58:59 +0000

Young journalists share their experiences at the workshop, by Trevor Green

Inside the Pink Bedroom

admin — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 22:50:34 +0000

Behind the scenes with the Chongalicious girls, with Jessica Moulite, Anthony Cardona and Jeeyoon Kim.

Designing a Dream

admin — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:20:34 +0000

A young immigrant dreams of her future, by Amilynn Soto, Jesse Kirkpatrick, Andrea ONeal and Stephanie Lopez.

The Man Who Rescued Elian

admin — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:18:53 +0000

Ten years ago, he plucked a young boy out of the ocean. Then came a firestorm. By Rebecca Fortes and Emma Singer.

Havana Florida

admin — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:17:20 +0000

Cuban through and through, Ralph Duharte lives in two worlds. Story by Juan Arevalo, Bianca Cassouto and Daniela Lazo Cedré.

Soul Food

admin — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:15:52 +0000

Shabbat dinner with Miami Jewbans and Maia Piñeiro and Amanda Epstein.

Multimedia Workshop Lectures

admin — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:14:24 +0000

Know What I’m Sayin’, Broder?

admin — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:12:33 +0000

Los Primeros explain young Cuban slang, by Lauren Behar.

Gua Gua

admin — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:02:30 +0000

An enchanting journey through Cuban Miami with Lauren Behar, Alexa Volland and Kevin Bertrand.

Shopping for Faith

admin — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:00:30 +0000

A visit to a botanica in Hialeah, by Mina Radman, Zack Schwartz, Aimee Allen and Laura Herrera.

Facing Che

admin — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 16:58:09 +0000

Che Guevara T-shirts divide the generations, by Stephanie Lopez.

Tea Time with Los Primeros

admin — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 16:27:00 +0000

The Los Primeros band members goof off on their favorite slang terms, with Lauren Behar.

Remembering Elian

Rebecca Fortes, John A. Ferguson Senior High — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 06:39:10 +0000

Elian Gonzalez dominated headlines in South Florida and across the nation from November 1999 to April 2000.
Now, little is heard of the boy and who he has become.
Elian became the center of a heated custody feud between Cuba and the United States a decade ago. After having been found floating alone in an inner tube near Fort Lauderdale, the 5-year-old boy was sent to live with his cousin and uncle in Little Havana.
During the journey, he witnessed the death of his mother and 10 others in the Florida Straits after their homemade raft fell apart.
Six months later, he was forcibly taken from his American home at 5:15 a.m. and reunited with his father, who took him to Cuba.
He returned to the media spotlight in June 2008 when, at 14, he joined Cuba’s Young Communists with 18,000 others. This was perceived as evidence that Cuban officials successfully convinced the Cuban youth that a communist lifestyle is key to happiness and prosperity. But others argue that Elian might not have had an option.
Cuban youths “don’t have much of a choice in joining the Communist Party,” said Giancarlo Sopo, a campaign strategist and research analyst for Bendixen and Associates.
Jack Cashill, an investigative reporter on American government and politics who wrote that the Elian incident cost Al Gore the presidency in 2000, agrees.
“If your name is Elian Gonzalez, you don’t have much choice about anything,” Cashill said in a telephone interview.
Not everyone in the Communist Party is a loyal follower of the Castro brothers Fidel and Raul. Joining the party clearly has its benefits; by putting on a façade, Cubans may better their own situation in the totalitarian state and live a life that lacks restrictions.
Ana Laura Bermudez, 18, experienced this firsthand while growing up in Cuba.
“As seniority in the party mounts up, you can get a car, or a better house, and definitely way more money,” she said. “You can get (away with) doing things a regular person may have been arrested for.”
Joe Garcia, former executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation, pointed out that Cuban youths live under a great deal of government control. In many cases, party membership can be the difference between getting a college degree and remaining uneducated.
Still, pledging loyalty to the party doesn’t guarantee a good life. Cuba’s government has a complicated, tangled system of personal connections and “who-knows-who.”
Annabel Escandon, 17, who spent four of her childhood years in Cuba, said, “We had friends who were communists who lived just as badly as us.”
Junior Ramos, 18, who arrived from Cuba only seven months ago, believes it is unlikely that Elian joined Cuba’s Young Communists seeking luxuries.
“(Elian) is a king over there. He does whatever he wants. If he wanted to be president, he could be president,” Ramos said in a phone interview conducted in Spanish.
In the same way he was not seeking luxuries, Elian probably wasn’t seeking connections, either. Ramos said the Cuban government adores Elian, but “the public doesn’t care about those things.”
The Cuban government justified Elian’s pre-dawn capture and return to Cuba in April 2000 by saying it wanted to create a normal life for the boy.
Ironically, Elian is frequently seen sitting next to Fidel Castro at political events.
Escandon said Cuban kids may idolize Elian because he’s been made by the Cuban government into “the portrait of who they (all) should be.”
She went on to say, “He’s brainwashed…they’re not going to let him get out.”
Delfin Gonzalez, Elian’s great-uncle, hopes otherwise.
In October 2001, he bought Elian’s home in Little Havana and converted it into a museum with hope Elian could visit one day.
“We’ll see if, God willing, (the Cuban government) gives him the opportunity and the chance so he may come here because I know he wants to come.
“He wants to return. The thing is he’s under too much pressure,” he said.
Still, Delfin conceded Elian is not likely to return. He said the Castro brothers know that “if they let him return (to America), they may lose control.”
Sopo agrees.
“When you expose people to freedom and human rights…they have a change of heart,” he said.
Cashill supports that idea.
“When the first (cracks) in the wall appear,” he said, “the wall will crumble.”

Waking Up from the American Dream

Jesse Kirkpatrick, Miami Beach Senior High School — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 06:38:26 +0000

When Junior Ramos first started the paperwork for his immigration from Cuba to America, he was 11.

Seven years and a couple of plane rides brought Ramos to Hialeah late last year.

He knows that it’s not going to be easy; in fact, he doesn’t believe there’s an American Dream.

“Over here, you have to work long and hard,” Ramos said in an interview conducted in Spanish. “Here, nobody has the American Dream.”

However, Ramos’ belief contrasts with those of another man who came in 1961, two years into Castro’s rule.

Like the man, who didn’t want to be identified for this story, many Cubans were faced with the decision to either stay on the communist island or to leave.

The man said the desire “to look for freedom of speech and run away from communism” was what forced him off the island.

“I expected to find a new job and make a new life,” explained the 69-year-old Cuban-American. “The American Dream is very much alive.”

These conflicting Cuban-American perceptions revolve around the generational divide, according to Joe Garcia, a Cuban-American long involved in U.S.-Cuba relations and now the nominee for director of the Office of Economic Impact and Diversity at the U.S. Department of Energy.

“They lived a significant portion of their lives within the communist regime, so their perspective is a little bit different,” said Garcia of the political views of Cubans who came to Miami after 1980.

When Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, Cubans began to leave the island in waves in pursuit of another life.

But not all Cuban-Americans ended up leaving for the same reasons.

Earlier immigrants came to America for political reasons, while later immigrants came for economic reasons, according to Vanessa López, research associate at the University of Miami’s Institute of Cuban and Cuban-American Studies.

Today, with the United States in the midst of a recession, jobs are hard to come by. So teens like Ramos are disenchanted.

Statewide unemployment rates were more than 10 percent as of May 2009, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In Hialeah, where the population is predominantly Cuban-American, that number has been as high as 13.5 percent, according to Mayor Julio Robaina.

However, Cubans who came to South Florida during the earlier waves were fortunate enough to find themselves in an economic vacuum.

“The first wave of immigrants saw an enormous amount of success, just because there were so many opportunities and everything was still so raw, especially in the South Florida community,” Robaina said.

Therefore, these hard-line, first-generation Cuban-Americans have a much more optimistic view of the American Dream.

“The economic opportunities were greater for the ones that came earlier,” Garcia said.

Not only have they had more opportunities, but earlier generations have also had more time to adapt to the economy.

Therefore, the “grandmother” would be unlikely ever to return to the island to live, said Giancarlo Sopo, a democratic strategist at Bendixen and Associates, the Miami-based polling and consulting firm.

However, according to the mayor, younger Cuban-American immigrants may consider returning, even if their only intention is to enjoy a nearby vacation.

“I think that the more recent generations, the ones that don’t have strong roots in this community, are going to weigh their options,” Robaina said.

“Yes, I would go to visit,” Ramos said, “but not to stay and live.”

Even Cuban youths who were born in America have considered returning to Cuba.

This group meets the subject with similar ambivalence.

“If the communist system fell then yes, maybe,” said Barbara Rassi, 18, of moving to Cuba, where she has family.

A Hialeah-Miami Lakes Senior High graduate, she will be attending Harvard this fall.

But for now, many Cuban-Americans will have to rely on faith in the United States and faith in the expectations that brought them here.

“Even though we’re in a crisis,” Ramos said, “it is going to continue to be a great country.”

A Silver Plus One Montage

Mina Radman, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 06:34:43 +0000

When Daniella Cioffi stepped onto the University of Miami campus last July, she had no idea what to expect.
“I was wearing really casual clothing and we got to work right away,” said Cioffi, 18, a recent graduate of Miami Killian Senior High who will attend the University of Miami in the fall.
“I think that’s when I understood how serious and tedious this was going to be.”
Cioffi is a former participant of the James Ansin/Peace Sullivan Workshop in Journalism and New Media at the University of Miami, July 5-25.
The 2009 workshop offered 21 high school students from Broward, Palm Beach, and Miami-Dade counties the opportunity to create a tabloid newspaper, the Miami Montage.
This year, two students traveled from Puerto Rico and St. Petersburg to participate.
The students also worked on producing multimedia videos, a Web site and a blog.
“The program gives kids a chance that they normally wouldn’t have at their own high schools,” said Sam Grogg, dean of the UM School of Communication.
James Ansin and Peace Sullivan are major contributors of the program, along with the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund and the Miami Herald.
James Ansin is the general manager of WSVN-Channel 7, the local Fox affiliate in Miami, while Peace Sullivan is a philanthropist, retired journalist and psychoanalyst.
Ansin and Sullivan offer a half scholarship to one workshop participant to pursue journalism at the School of Communication.
UM provides the other half, based on the student’s financial need.
“The best part about the scholarship is that it’s helping you make the commitment to a future in journalism,” said Steve Pierre, 18, a recent graduate of Miami Edison Senior High, and a former workshop participant.
“It’s a morale booster and a gift toward your dreams.”
Pierre and Cioffi share the 2008 Sullivan/Ansin scholarships at UM.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the workshop, which was founded in 1984 by Bruce Garrison, a UM journalism professor.
At the time, the workshop was a minority program, focused on introducing young journalists in the Hispanic and African-American communities to journalism.
“I thought it was important to bring diversity into our program,” said Garrison, in an e-mail.
The program began as a seven-day crash course. Garrison recalled the long nights and endless hours the students committed to produce the workshop newspaper.
“We never seemed to have enough money or enough time,” Garrison said. “But, in the end, it worked.”
Garrison left the program after 15 years and UM journalism professor Tsitsi Wakhisi took over. Then, the workshop grew to two weeks.
“Imagine doing all (this work) in a span of 10 days instead of three weeks,” Wakhisi said, a former Miami Herald editor.
With the help of Ansin and Sullivan, the program has evolved into an intensive three-week experience.
As the students work to produce the newspaper and multimedia, they are introduced to college life by living on campus.
Students adjust to living with a roommate, sharing bathrooms and facilities, and being away from their parents and homes.
“The dorms were a place to unwind coming back from a long day,” said Aura Altamiranda, 17, a former workshop participant and senior at Miami Sunset Senior High.
“That’s mostly where we got to know everyone. I was surprised how close we all became after the three weeks.”
The workshop also helps students understand the importance of teamwork.
“If one person on the team slacks off, the whole team suffers as a result,” said Robert Hosmon, vice dean of the School of Communication.
Professional journalists are brought in as guest speakers to introduce students to the journalism industry.
Former workshop participants, including Miami Herald foreign correspondent Jacqueline Charles, have gone on to work in broadcast and print journalism.
“I knew journalism was what I wanted to do,” said Rudy Tomarchio, a former workshop participant who now is a writer at WSVN.“The workshop is a good crash course in what it takes to be a semi-pro. You’re learning in a matter of days to do what professionals do every day.”
Yves Colon, the current workshop director and UM journalism professor, describes the main goal of the program.
“Hopefully we’ve stoked their interest during the three weeks that we are here,” said Colon, a former Miami Herald reporter and editor who is in his second year of directing the workshop.
“The students have had the opportunity of really doing great stuff, which encourages them to go on and do more.”