CULTURE: Assimilate This!

This article was originally published in The Lexicon Feb. 17, 2007

Resistance is Futile
The Latino Writers Collective is bent on un-assimilation

Angela Cervantes, co-founder of the Latino Writer's Collective, at Eclektica Salon.
Video courtesy of milatino.com

by Miguel M. Morales

They filled the room and still kept coming.

No, they weren’t the pasty white cybernetic beings from "Star Trek" who destroy cultures.

Kansas City area Hispanics gathered to reclaim their culture at The Latino Writers Collective’s Primera Pagina, or First Page, reading series at The Writer’s Place in Kansas City, Mo.

Angela Cervantes, a founding member of the collective, said the group’s mission is to “support, foster and promote Latino literature and each other’s writing ambitions.”

Cervantes said she hoped the reading series would help turn a new page for Latino writers in Kansas City.

“The group is a mix of different perspectives,” said Jose Faus, another founding member of the collective. “We all have different outlooks but we all have a passion for what we do.”

Faus said the writers aren’t limited to one language or one experience.

“We try to help other voices in our community that aren’t heard,” he said.

While most of the readings have featured poems, there were not overly rehearsed readings, bilingual hip-hop rants, or angry def jam poetry readings. This was not a Nuyorican poetry slam circa 1993.

Mothers, fathers, sons and daughters shared their writings about their culture. They felt compelled to share with those who had similar expereinces and those who haven’t.

Some of the readings could have easily slipped into performance pieces as the writers fed off the audience’s energy when delivering their characters' lines or speaking their characters' thoughts.

Cervantes’ short story “Angels” was just such a piece.

She read/portrayed two young Latinas who, if they weren’t friends, would certainly be enemies. Together they roamed the neighborhood pretending to be the Sabrina and Kelly of “Charlie’s Angels.” When people asked about the blond-haired Jill, they said she was getting a perm at the salon.

Cervantes embodied the two girls drawing the audience into their silly then dramatically urgent story.

Like Cervantes, Gabriela Lemmons’ short story “Bad Girls” reflected her Latin and 1970s pop culture youth.

Lemmons expertly mixed Donna Summers, Nelly Olson from “Little House on the Prairie,” and a Mexican Quinceanera into her humorous and touching tale of thieving relatives.

The first of the collective’s three-part series took place Jan. 19 and exclusivly featured member readings. The second on Feb. 10 incorporated an open mic session.

The series concludes with a reading from Tomas Riley of the famed Taco Shop Poets collective at the Plaza Branch Library, March 15.

The Latino Writers Collective meets the second and fourth Wednesdays from 6:30 – 8:30 p.m. at the Writer’s Place in Kansas City, Mo.

Sunshine Week: Sunflower Power!

The Student Press Law Center is writing a series of articles to celebrate Sunshine Week. The first article features my struggle reporting for The Campus Ledger at JCCC:

SUNSHINE WEEK: Student journalist fights for access at community college

Anonymous tip leads to big story, rejected open records requests

By Jared Taylor, SPLC staff writer
© 2007 Student Press Law Center

March 13, 2007

A citizen's right to know and journalists' rights to report are threatened every day, say the organizers of Sunshine Week, who planned the weeklong program to highlight freedom of information issues and emphasize the importance of open government. The Student Press Law Center is celebrating Sunshine Week with a series of reports on how student journalists can encourage open government and use open records to expand their journalistic horizons and let the sunshine in.

Student journalist Miguel Morales has reported stories that have rocked his community college’s foundations.

But after unearthing controversies by using open records requests and building trust with key whistleblowers, Morales said reporting on campus issues has only become tougher.

For the 39-year-old Morales, journalism was not his first pursuit in life. After spending about 10 years as a HIV outreach worker, Morales enrolled part-time at Johnson County Community College in Kansas in 2001 and set his sights on a career in journalism.

“Writing was the one thing I could always do,” he said.

In March 2005, Morales received an anonymous e-mail from someone who told him to examine attachments to the agenda of a recent board of trustees meeting. He did, but found nothing that seemed out of the ordinary.

Morales then received a tip and documentation from his anonymous source that documented that Charles Carlsen, the college’s president, had allegedly sexually harassed college administrator Teresa Lee since 2003. Lee alleged that Carlsen had touched her breast with his forearm and performed other acts that made her feel uncomfortable.

College officials had not responded to Lee’s complaints against Carlsen, the popular leader of a campus with a performing arts center that bears his name. Lee agreed to speak on the record for a story, understanding it could lead to her losing her job, Morales said.

While none of Lee’s coworkers could confirm her claims, Morales confronted Carlsen about the accusations. During an interview, he said that the president’s face said it all.

“He just turned red,” Morales said of Carlsen’s reaction when asked about the harassment allegations. Carlsen denied everything Lee alleged in the complaint.

Following the meeting with Carlsen, Mark Ferguson, the college’s attorney, confronted Morales about investigation, saying Lee’s accusations were not credible. “I felt he was intimidating me into not writing this story,” Morales said.

Despite the perceived threats, Morales continued to investigate and found another potential instance of unaddressed sexual harassment, which involved student employee Andrea Evans and her campus services department supervisors. After Evans shared documents she kept that detailed the harassment charges, Morales’ harassment story broadened.

After reporting for more than a year, The Campus Ledger published the results of Morales’ investigation on April 14, 2006. In two stories, he detailed the harassment claims involving the president and the campus services employees.

Less than a week later, Carlsen resigned from his post after 25 years as president. The college board of trustees launched an independent investigation into the matter. The campus services employees in the other alleged harassment case left the college.

“I have had two heart attacks, an angioplasty, and quintuple bypass surgery. It is apparent to me from the stress of the last two weeks that immediate retirement is the appropriate step to take,” Carlsen wrote in his resignation letter, dated Apr. 20, 2006.

After the stories were published, The Campus Ledger received another lead — this time from one of the former campus services managers. The former manager alleged that the college was improperly paying overtime to campus employees.

Along with reporter Kevin Mimms, the student journalists began looking into the matter, but because of the controversy surrounding Carlsen’s departure, administrators would tell little to Campus Ledger reporters, hesitant of further negative publicity, Morales said.

“It’s my story that’s not getting them the quotes that they need,” Morales said.

The two turned to using open records requests to get the information they needed — but found further road blocks.

“Denied left and right”

College officials declined open records requests for budget information that would show potential overtime violations because their letters were “poorly worded” and even criticized the reporters for using the Student Press Law Center’s state open records request letter generator, rather than authoring the open records letters themselves, Morales said.

“A request is a request whether it’s [from] a letter generator or if it’s written in crayon,” Morales said in an e-mail.

Morales recalled one instance where an administrator denied an open records request because “you’re going to write a story about it.”

“It got to the point last spring where they weren’t responding at all,” Morales said.

With an interim president still to be named and as the independent investigation into Lee’s alleged sexual harassment was scheduled to end in the June 2006, Morales and his staff asked the college’s publication board for permission to publish throughout the summer. The publication board approved the request, but it was soon overruled by the college board of trustees, which Morales said, “didn’t want to spend any more money” for a summer paper.

But Morales and Mimms would not let that stop them from chasing the story.

“We scraped up our money, found a printer and got donations from employees and students at the college, and published our own paper,” Morales said.

By July 2006, Morales and Mimms had reported in The Lexicon — the alternative paper they created — on the search for a new president and the results of the independent investigation confirming Carlsen’s harassment, which cost the college more than half a million dollars.

Today, Morales says many open records requests continue to be refused by administrators without clear reasoning, but he said the newspaper is “just collecting all our rejections” hoping to “integrate them into a story.”

“I think they just don't know what information citizens can request nor do they know what they can release,” Morales said. “So our information requests get denied as a precaution.”

Johnson County Community College spokeswoman Julie Haas said administrators understand which records are public under state law. She said the college has responded to every records request from Campus Ledger reporters.

“We responded to everything that I know of,” Haas said. “I want to know what it was that [Morales] perceives that we didn’t fulfill.”

While he has received some of the budget information requested, Morales said the data has been difficult to interpret.

“We asked for budget numbers. They’re not giving it to us electronically, they’re giving us [printed] spreadsheets,” Morales said. “It’s hard for us to manipulate the data.”

Morales would not clarify which documents or the sources of the data he is requesting for his ongoing investigation into alleged overtime violations, saying only that the college’s budget and documents related to it are a “treasure trove” of information.

“It didn’t really hit me”

Morales and The Campus Ledger staff’s efforts did not go unrecognized. At its convention held in August 2006, the Society of Professional Journalists awarded Morales and Campus Ledger staff with the First Amendment Award given to individuals and groups for efforts to preserve and strengthen the First Amendment for their harassment story.

Morales said when he found out about the honor, he did not understand the magnitude of the award. He said he was unsure if he should even make the drive to Chicago to accept the award, but his instructors told him that it was “a big deal and [he] should really go.”

Even though college administrators are now more hesitant when a Ledger reporter makes an inquiry, Morales said he “wouldn’t do anything different” in his reporting of the harassment story. He said it is best to get to know the people in campus offices and use formal open records requests as a last resort.

“Be nice — know where document is,” Morales said. “Don't just slap the letter down on [the administrator’s] desk.”

Morales said he plans on graduating from Johnson County Community College at the end of the summer, and wants to complete his degree at the University of Kansas. Eventually, he said he would like to return to Johnson County Community College to teach journalism.

For Morales, whose name means “morals” in Spanish, he said he believes he “finally found my calling” in journalism.

“I let my ethics and integrity guide me,” he said.

Mr. Morales Goes to Washington

I've been accepted into the National Press Foundation's An Introduction to Washington for College Journalists program Jan 25-28. I'm eager to learn how to better link national issues to my campus and local area.

Last October, I attended the NFP's Opening Washington's File Cabinet session at the ACP conference in St. Louis. I had heard about that session and knew it was only open to professionals. So when I heard they were adapting it for students, I jumped at the chance.

Now for this program, we're supposed to visit the Pentagon. I don't think I'll get the security clearance since I have an arrest for Civil Disobedience from a protest I attended at the White House a few years back.

I'm not much for sightseeing. However, I want to visit the Newseum and the Student Press Law Center. I should try to take advantage of the visit and grab a few interviews for a few freelance articles or content for The Lexicon.

TIME OUT: "As Told to"

Today, The PITCH published an article called, "You Can't Go Back: That and Other Lessons Learned By Locals in 2006."

Ben Paynter wrote the piece in an "as told to" style (I don't know if that's what its called -- its just what I'm calling it). I like this approach because it draws on the section technique of which I'm a huge fan. As a traditionalist, I was uncomfortable in that the style employs a single introduction attribution and eliminates quotation marks.
However, the streamlined style won me over in how easily it allows subjects tell the story in their own words. It also created a change in the byline (in the print edition but not in the online version) The byline reads: "As told to Ben Paynter"
I'm totally going to steal this approach.

My shirt reads: "Trust Me, I'm a Reporter."
-Photo by Angela C. Bond

Miguel Morales, 39, reporter for the Johnson County Community College Campus Ledger and author of articles about a sexual harassment scandal that forced the resignation of JCCC President Charles Carlsen

I probably broke the biggest story of my career while still in college. At the time, I was kind of freaking out. I thought somebody was trying to set me up. Or, if it's true, I'm in way over my head.
I had a meeting with the president, and I basically dropped the bomb. I said, "There's these allegations — did you do it?" And he says, "No," and he turns all shades of red.
Did I print the victim's name? Yeah, I did. I said, "I'm going to use your name, so what do I need to do to protect you?"
The college had this big investigation that cost half a million dollars. It's very corny, but one person really can make a difference. It's not that people have ethics or they don't have ethics.
It's just, they don't always follow them. And then, pretty soon, they're sliding down the slope where they are doing all kinds of crazy things.
The JCCC Board of Trustees recently announced that the college is going to build this $300,000 scholarship in the name of Carlsen. He's trying to buy his way back into our college.
The good ol' boy network is still deeply entrenched at the college. There are professors who have tenure who say they're not going to speak because their classes will be reassigned. They can still get to people.
I don't know if I want to be in a traditional newsroom. I'm thinking of creating a local newspaper that's only online. With today's media, you don't just have to find your place — you can create it.

BREAKING NEWS: SPLC's NewsFlash

The Lexicon, The Ledger and Johnson County Community College make headlines -- again.

BREAKING NEWS: Start the Presses!

Lexicon:
noun

1. the vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of knowledge;
2. a dictionary;
3. a new publication debuting July 19, 2006