Esther J. Cepeda

As ever, Latino vote up for grabs

By ESTHER J. CEPEDA

CHICAGO -- Wasn't the 2016 presidential election the event that taught us to distrust polls? Didn't almost everyone get it wrong, eroding the public's trust in both journalism and their fellow citizens, who made electoral choices that seemed to go against their own self-interest?

Welcome to the 2020 campaign season, which is already making me -- and probably many others -- want to tear my hair out.

It's because I'm looking at new poll numbers from Latino Decisions, the nation's (perhaps not incorrectly) self-proclaimed "leading polling and research firm on Latino Americans." But instead of fearing that the numbers are wrong, they seem frighteningly on-target.

Twenty-five percent of all the Latino registered voters who were polled have not only heard of President Trump but also have a very or somewhat favorable impression of him, according to the Spring 2019 national poll.

Twenty percent say that the president and Republicans are doing a good job of reaching out to Hispanics.

Seventeen percent say they will be voting for Donald Trump in 2020, and another 3% are undecided but leaning toward Trump.

Twenty-seven percent either strongly or somewhat agree with Trump's February decision to declare a national emergency on the U.S.-Mexico border and redirect money meant for military and disaster relief to build a border wall.

I was also mildly surprised to see how the registered Hispanic voters who were polled reacted to potential democratic presidential contenders. They did not jump at the Latino candidate, former housing secretary Julián Castro, as a top choice.

They weren't set on fire by Kamala Harris, a leader in the Latino-majority state of California and a woman of color who has come out strong against the Trump administration's treatment of migrants at the border.

Nope. It's Biden, with 59 percent favorability.

Or "Tío Joe," as in "Uncle Joe," a moniker that was supposedly used in a top-secret Spanish-language TV ad designed to be released when he officially declares the week after Easter, according to Politico.

He's followed very closely by Bernie at 58 percent favorability -- that would be the socialist Bernie Sanders who's been a millionaire since 2016.

And after Sanders, the list of the top three most favored candidates is rounded out by, drumroll please: former Texas congressman Beto O'Rourke, at 48 percent, the non-Latino guy with the Hispanic nickname.

Oh boy.

If these are startling revelations, then you just haven't been paying attention.

Latinos were never the monolith that the mainstream media portrayed them to be. There's no denying they are an increasingly diverse population in the United States, one that no longer counts language, country of origin, geographic concentration or immigration status as a unifying common denominator.

This is also shown clearly in what Hispanics ranked as the most important issues to them in the Latino Decisions poll, which echoed decades of prior research. Even in this time of Trump-induced humanitarian crises at the border, the issue of protecting immigrants' rights rates only a third-place spot, overshadowed by the high cost of health care and the desire to see wages and income improve.

But we shouldn't underestimate the fact that these are the thoughts of Latinos who are already registered to vote and thinking ahead about the presidential race, which is still more than a year away. They may skew more conservative or be outliers because of their political interest at this early stage. Or the sample size of the poll could simply be too small.

We don't know what a Latino voter who registers close to Election Day cares about because we're still pretty far out from November 2020 for the average person's interest in politics to kick in.

And when it comes right down to it, history tells us that not enough of the 32 million Hispanics who will be eligible to vote in 2020 will be registered and then show up at the polls. (In the 2016 presidential election, Latino turnout was 47.6 percent, about the same as in 2012.)

If Democrats want to be competitive with Latino voters, they need to provide what Hispanic grassroots organizations across the country have consistently said they need -- money and resources to invest in voter registration and get-out-the-vote organizing.

Without the proper investments, Latinos might have lackluster turnout, furthering a track record of not seeming too invested in their government.

And what a shame it would be for eligible Latino voters to again be kept on the sidelines of a presidential election because slick ads with pandering and sometimes unintelligible Spanish translations are more palatable to fund than the education of a whole new generation of voters.

Esther Cepeda's email address is estherjcepeda@washpost.com, or follow her on Twitter: @estherjcepeda.

Posted at 08:58 PM | Permalink

Unauthorized immigrants help prop up U.S. economy

By ESTHER J. CEPEDA

CHICAGO -- Whenever I see a viral video of a racist person harassing a Spanish speaker with brown skin because they seem "illegal," I comfort myself with the vivid image of millions of Latinos watching the spectacle with bafflement as they fan themselves with a stack of $100 bills.

It's not silly.

People act like unauthorized immigrants are the biggest pox upon the Great American Experiment, but the fact is that immigrants pour billions of dollars into the tax coffers of local and state governments every year. In fact, they paid an estimated $11.7 billion just in 2014, according to the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy. This includes an estimated $1.1 billion in state income taxes and $3.6 billion in property taxes.

Federal taxes can be added on top: The IRS estimated in 2015 that 4.4 million income-tax returns came from workers with no Social Security numbers, resulting in $23.6 billion in income taxes. This, of course, doesn't include payroll taxes or the taxes paid by immigrants who work on someone else's Social Security number.

For years, it's been an open secret that unauthorized immigrant workers are propping up the Social Security retirement trust fund and Medicare systems -- even though they can't access benefits from either of those programs.

Most people don't know that there's been a system in place for unauthorized immigrants and other foreign-born people to get Taxpayer Identification Numbers with which to file income taxes since 1996.

Moreover, schemes to legalize immigrants have often hinged on requiring them to prove they have a track record of paying their taxes. This has, at least in part, resulted in a windfall for the government.

You also have to stop to consider that unauthorized immigrants represent but a small percentage of all the Latinos in our country -- as a whole, all immigrants represent only about a third of all Hispanics.

And make no mistake: Latinos have money. They also have property.

"Over the past decade, Hispanics have accounted for 62.7% of net U.S. homeownership gains, growing from 6,303,000 homeowners to 7,877,000, a total increase of 1,574,000 Hispanic homeowners," according to the 2018 State of Hispanic Home Ownership report from the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals.

This same report calculated that the median household income for Hispanics rose to $50,486 in 2017, accounting for the largest increase in income (3.7%) among all racial or ethnic population groups.

As if this weren't enough, we're just sunnier about our finances than almost anyone else. In a recent analysis of national survey results, Florida Atlantic University found that 67% of Hispanics said they are financially better off today than a year ago, and 74% said they'd be better off over the next year. Meanwhile, 59% said they expected the country as a whole to experience good business conditions in the upcoming year.

Only people with a vested interest in a business would forecast economic conditions for the year ahead, folks.

None of these numbers fits with the impoverished, downtrodden and marginalized people you might imagine if your only exposure to immigrants is what you see on cable TV.

But, alas, well-to-do Hispanics who are the third or fourth generation in a family to attend a good college -- or who are simply successful in life without having been traumatized at the border or otherwise harmed -- are not of great interest to lots of people in the mainstream media who have the power to tell stories about middle- and upper-class Latinos.

To borrow the tortured cliché about how Hispanic voting power is a "Sleeping Giant," many Latinos are unaware of the strength they wield in the marketplace as well. And, alas, so far they are unable or unwilling to transform their considerable economic clout into the kind of political power that stops prejudiced people from attacking those who "look" or "sound" like an unauthorized immigrant.

Don't let ignorance get you down, though.

Remember: There are way more Latinos who have the capacity to use fistfuls of hundred-dollar bills to cool themselves than there are close-minded bigots who think they're entitled to harass someone just based on the color of their skin or their ability to speak a second language.

Esther Cepeda's email address is estherjcepeda@washpost.com, or follow her on Twitter: @estherjcepeda.

Posted at 08:56 PM | Permalink

Now is the time to speak out about cruelty to immigrants

By ESTHER J. CEPEDA

CHICAGO -- By all accounts, the Trump administration is on an anti-immigrant tear that threatens to obliterate the already-broken immigration system in this country.

President Trump has ousted top officials, saying they weren't as tough as he thought they should be, and elevated the anti-immigrant hardliner Stephen Miller.

At a Texas fundraiser on Wednesday, Trump made the border out to be an apocalyptic battlefield on which Central American gang members are threatening American ranchers. Trump even suggested that the military is hamstrung by political correctness and can't adequately mistreat migrants.

"Our military, don't forget, can't act like a military would act. Because if they got a little rough, everybody would go crazy," Trump said.

The rumors coming out of the White House are astounding, everything from new policies making it harder for asylum seekers to pass their initial screenings (not passing triggers immediate deportation) to making it easier to deny green cards and possibly even reinstating last summer's disastrous family-separation policy.

Observers of Trump's Faustian appetite for gaining favor with his radical base at the expense of people looking for a lifeline in this country say he's not likely to find some heart on this issue.

"This is an administration that by many reports appears willing to implement policies with questionable legal justifications because, regardless of whether the policy is inhumane or is struck down by a court in the future, they still see the public fight against immigrants and immigration as a win for Trump politically," said Ur Jaddou, director of DHS Watch, the watchdog arm of the advocacy organization America's Voice, at a recent press conference.

What to do?

A few weeks back I spoke to Adam Estle, field director and director of constituencies for the National Immigration Forum, a Washington-based advocacy organization. He told me that regular Americans have a lot of sway when it comes to whether policy proposals become reality -- just by making their thoughts known to their elected officials.

Estle said social media, email, phone calls and even faxes can help make a difference.

"Offices keep track of phone calls on an issue and a personal letter -- not a form letter that you just stick your name on, but a personally written letter about why this issue matters to you -- is usually held in high regard, because it's something that takes time," Estle said. "But studies have shown that the very best way to get the attention of a member of Congress is in person. You can fairly easily access district offices and request someone who works on immigration to talk to."

It's not tough to reach out to your elected representatives in the House or the Senate, you need only Google the phrases "Who is my representative?" or "Who is my senator?" and you'll usually get a variety of government sites that make searching by ZIP code or by state a breeze.

This pro tip comes from Griffin Anderson, a spokesperson for Marcy Kaptur, a Democratic congresswoman in the 9th district of Ohio: "At the bottom of every house website there is location and contact information for D.C. offices as well as offices in the district, and information for where to get in contact with the office and how find them in the district."

Anderson told me that in-person meetings get more attention.

"We do read every single bit of correspondence -- from social-media direct messages, to our mail, phone calls ... but I think you can't put a price on in-person meetings and being face-to-face when we hear your stories," said Anderson, adding that most congressional offices will do town-hall and Q&A events in the community and people can talk to their representatives even if they don't have public transportation or a car.

If you've never put pen to paper and mailed a physical letter, now is the time to drop a line to your elected officials, letting them know that you think the border is not a war zone and in fact needs humanitarian aid.

Call your representatives and, if necessary, leave voicemails and request call-backs insisting that no more families be penned like animals under bridges at the border, as was occurring just a few weeks ago due to overcrowding in facilities.

If you're better on your feet, walk into an office and politely ask someone to listen -- your voice matters greatly in not letting 2019 be the year the U.S. ceases to be a beacon of light for the world and instead becomes an international shame.

Esther Cepeda's email address is estherjcepeda@washpost.com, or follow her on Twitter: @estherjcepeda.

Posted at 08:52 PM | Permalink

Superhero movies taking toll on boys' body image

By ESTHER J. CEPEDA

CHICAGO -- It seems pretty obvious that the superhero movie genre is jumping the shark.

I used to get everyone in my family psyched and out the door for the comic-book blockbusters, but the spectacle of superhero movies went stale for me a few years ago.

And I'm not the only one -- even my husband and my teen son have not been able to gin up enough interest in "Aquaman," "Hellboy" or "Shazam!" to actually make it out to a theater.

This is not to say that all the love is gone -- they thoroughly enjoyed "Black Panther," which was such a cultural phenomenon that even I went to see it. More recently, they also watched "Captain Marvel" (without me), and they're looking forward to "Avengers: Endgame."

But there are just sooooo many of these movies out right now.

And there was bound to be some superhero fatigue between yet another "Spider-Man" ("Far From Home") and the drama surrounding the on-again, off-again status of writer/director James Gunn at the helm of "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" -- his past social-media posts made light of rape and pedophilia, making him a problematic leader in a Hollywood attempting to gaining its footing in a post-#MeToo world.

In a 2018 New Republic piece -- titled "Is Marvel Killing the Movies?" -- Josephine Livingstone wrote: "I think I felt what the movie wanted me to: overwhelmed. The action of 'Infinity War' keeps it all at such a high pitch that the movie obliterates its own emotional stakes. I think it was intended to engender one long sharp intake of breath."

What it engendered in me was a nap.

I nodded off after "Captain America: The First Avenger" insulted moviegoers' intelligence in 2011 with the terrible CGI job to make Chris Evans look like a 90-pound weakling. And the hollow-chested version of the character Steve Rogers, and the jeers he got from his peers along with the excruciating pain he endures to become a superhero, left a bad taste in the mouth of this mom who, at the time, had two impressionable boys -- 13 and 10. That movie taught them that nothing was more important than being buff, cut, jacked, ripped with muscles, developing a six-pack of abs and bursting out of standard-sized T-shirts.

In the years after, both my sons went on exercise regimens and started eating "clean" protein. One even went on a rendezvous with body-building protein powders that clogged his intestines so badly he nearly had to go to the hospital.

These days, even many superhero costumes for little kids are outfitted with foam "muscles" so the kids can look buff at their Halloween parties.

This may all sound incredibly minor. Silly, even, considering the kinds of overwhelming social, emotional and academic pressures boys deal with these days, but it's not.

The pressure to bulk up has contributed to weight-gain attempts among adolescent boys. According to an article in this month's Journal of Adolescent Health, 29.6% of all adolescent boys attempted to gain weight.

Among boys of normal weight, 39.6% attempted to gain weight, as did 12.8% who were overweight, and 10.6% who were already obese by body mass index (BMI). For comparison, only 6.5% of adolescent girls reported attempts to gain weight.

Another important number to know is that only 3.3% of adolescent males actually are underweight by BMI, yet 19.3% perceive themselves to be underweight. This backs up other studies that say boys are increasingly looking to gain weight to be bigger and more muscular.

Do these statistics demand that we boycott superhero and action movies with our boys?

Not at all.

Enjoy the escapism, celebrate the fantasy and empowerment. Have fun while your kids still want to go to the movies with you!

Just be aware that body-image concerns, body-dysmorphic disorder, anorexia and bulimia are newly rampant among young men and boys in ways far different from our day, when, as kids, we remember old-timey Batman and Superman being average-proportioned guys in tights.

Be ready to talk to kids about the two hours a day, six times a week that, for instance, "Aquaman" star Jason Momoa spent weight and cardio training, and then eating expensive protein as directed by a personal trainer hired by a deep-pocketed movie producer.

Whatever you do, just do something -- despite their bluster, young men are every bit as vulnerable as girls to marketing-driven social pressures surrounding looks and beauty. Use superheroes' strengths and weaknesses to engage with your boys about real-life concerns.

Esther Cepeda's email address is estherjcepeda@washpost.com, or follow her on Twitter: @estherjcepeda.

Posted at 07:54 PM | Permalink

Don't torture children at the border in order to "help" immigrant children

By ESTHER J. CEPEDA

CHICAGO -- Most Americans have no reason to know anything about the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), but it has recently become a flash point in immigration policy.

Initially established in 2000, the alphabet-soup legislation made human trafficking a federal crime. It has been reauthorized over the years to expand its scope to unaccompanied minor children and people from outside the United States. The TVPRA is now being used as a so-called pull factor that anti-immigration zealots say creates a system to be cynically gamed by parents and ne'er-do-wells who try to use defenseless children to sweet-talk their way into our country.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen recently told a congressional committee that she believes that "recycling rings" are victimizing children when adult immigrants claim them as family and then pass them on to be used over and over to help other immigrants get into the country.

As multiple news outlets reported, Nielsen did not offer any evidence to place her claim in any type of context. And the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) haven't provided any reports that could point to multiple specific instances of the sort of coordinated, malicious activity that could rightly constitute a "ring."

Realistically speaking, there may be some small number of adults who have victimized kids in this way. It's despicable, but in no way does such behavior represent the vast majority of loving families fleeing their homelands to avoid violence or to seek the opportunity to eat and find housing.

But Nielsen made the unverified claim, and in doing so fed a now-popular caricature of dangerous, criminal migrants. In reality, these people risk everything to plead for asylum in this country, as is their lawful right.

Worse, tall tales about the "migrant hordes" carry water for the kind of headline-seeking policies the Trump administration depends on to convince its base that it's keeping campaign promises to crack down on illegal immigration.

The Trump administration is now on the precipice of undermining the TVPRA for the supposed purpose of helping children.

As it stands, the law requires unaccompanied children to be screened by Customs and Border Protection officers and then be transferred to the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement within the Department of Health and Human Services, typically within a 72-hour period, for care and further screening. This requirement is meant to put kids in the care of an agency tasked with safeguarding their best interests, instead of an agency whose mission it is to enforce immigration laws.

The Trump administration's rule changes seem designed to keep out as many children as possible. They would require Central American children who present themselves at the U.S. border seeking asylum to have a qualified parent or guardian who could take them in unless they want to be bounced back home immediately. Or the children could be required to pay an application-processing fee.

"The legal system and policies of this country created a magnet, drawing people to the border and then telling them we don't want them to be here," said Adam Estle, field director and director of constituencies for the National Immigration Forum, a Washington-based advocacy organization. "The reality is that a lot of people won't be able to meet the higher bar of asylum and will be sent home -- but sent home to what?"

Estle told me that most of the organizations he works with, which are mostly religious, agree that there must be balance between compassion and national security.

"As a person of faith, I've had the opportunity to express tangible care for some of these young people," Estle said. "It has been a powerful expression of my faith, and I would hope the government would not take that opportunity away from me and from faith organizations. If the government takes away the opportunity for these kids to have their say in court, it takes away the chance for us to make a difference in their lives."

Yes, we should get the most out of the money the United States gives Latin American countries for nation building and insist that those dollars are spent directly on the most vulnerable. And our government should spend money wisely within its borders, by expanding personnel at ports of entry and hiring more asylum officers instead of putting up walls.

But preemptively mistreating migrant children so that others don't do it first isn't the way to do it. Surely, there are more efficient and humane ways for our president to make America great again.

Esther Cepeda's email address is estherjcepeda@washpost.com, or follow her on Twitter: @estherjcepeda.

Posted at 08:01 PM | Permalink

Sooooooo many Mexicos, so little time -- Mexico through the eyes of ignorant people

By ESTHER J. CEPEDA

CHICAGO -- So many Mexicos, so little time!

I have no idea who created it, but there's a handy little chart of "all the Mexicos" rocketing across the internet. It's a humorous clapback at the recent folly in which an onscreen chyron on Fox News said that President Trump was cutting aid to "3 Mexican Countries."

Some genius mocked up the graphic showing the Mexican flag labeled as "Mexico" and the flag of Peru labeled "Mexico with Llamas," the flag of Brazil as "Portuguese Mexico," the flag of Venezuela as "Comunist [sic] Mexico" and the flag of Bolivia as "Mexico Without Sea."

Identifying, in part, with my dad's homeland of "Irrelevant Mexico" (Ecuador), my own reaction echoed that of countless non-Mexican Hispanics who rolled their eyes and/or belly laughed at the Freudian slip of whoever wrote the chyron. They seemed to channel the disinterest of countless white Americans when it comes to any non-Mexican country they're confronted with.

It's good to laugh at such stupidities because otherwise you'd have to cry -- and you'd be right to.

The lack of understanding most Americans have about our neighbors to the south is merely stunning under the best of circumstances and adds insult to injury under the worst.

Even as many of us were enjoying the privilege of lightheartedly tweeting about whether we're from "Narrow Mexico" (Chile) or "Tiny White Mexico" (Uruguay), several news outlets were circulating the story about the elderly white Anaheim, California, man who went on a racist rant against the owner of a restaurant, screaming "That's bull----! It says it in Mexican. We're not in Mexico, we're in America ... This is America. Not Spanish."

The man, who also threatened to call immigration officials, was upset about ... wait for it ... a Mexican restaurant's taco sign. Yes, in southern California.

Stories like these are in danger of becoming of the dog-bites-man variety: too commonplace to bother reporting on.

To be sure, these sorts of misconceptions -- that if you "look" Mexican, you must be in the country illegally; that "Spanish" is the correct way to describe our neighbors to the south; and that "Mexican" is the accurate way to refer to the Spanish language -- have been around forever.

But these misconceptions are getting multiplied and accelerated by the twin evils of social media and our president's own histrionic and uninformed policies and declarations about Latin America.

They're about as far from funny as you can get.

Trump launched his campaign with the crack about Mexico "not sending their best." Now, with his counterproductive plan to cut aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras -- which most informed observers agree would only worsen the flow of economic refugees from those countries -- he is merely doubling down on his election-stump promises, the crown jewel of which is shutting down the southern border.

"Any effort to close the U.S.-Mexico border or cut off aid is doomed to failure. It is like stopping funding for cancer research on the theory that fewer cancers will occur," said Stephen Yale-Loehr, professor of immigration law practice at Cornell Law School, in a statement. "We need more foreign aid, not less, to attack the root conditions of poverty and violence in Central America so fewer people in those countries will flee to the United States."

But facts, reason and pragmatism seemingly have no place in Trump's administration, in his America or among his most ardent supporters. They appear to place a premium on how Trump makes them feel -- elevated, empowered and on the "winning team" after so many years of being ignored or mocked by liberal elites who turn a collective blind eye to their misfortunes.

It's not good, nice or humane for people to have little to no regard for their "fellow man" outside the borders of their country. But it certainly is human nature -- flawed, selfish and, ultimately, as self-harming as it is self-interested.

After all, students of America's immigration history know that past crackdowns at the border have been largely to blame for exacerbating unlawful residency, because limiting the to-and-fro flows of migrant workers has the effect of incentivizing immigrants to put down roots in this country even without "papers."

But just try telling that to anyone committed to the slogan "Make America Great Again."

You might as well try to explain that Ecuador is a South American country located on the equator, and not some exotic far away land with zero value to anyone in the United States.

Esther Cepeda's email address is estherjcepeda@washpost.com, or follow her on Twitter: @estherjcepeda.

Posted at 01:07 PM | Permalink

The GenderCool project, showing trans people are people, too

By ESTHER J. CEPEDA

CHICAGO -- The world is a frightening place filled with peril, abuse and discrimination -- and it's even worse for people who don't fall neatly into society's traditional buckets.

This was my state of mind last week as I drove out to a home in a suburb north of Chicago to meet a gaggle of teens, some of whom have already gone through things in life that most of us could never imagine. Tough stuff like bullying from adults, mistreatment by school administrators and abandonment by friends and family.

But instead of meeting scarred, jaded young people, I was greeted by a stunning cross-section of tomorrow's leaders: articulate overachievers with resumes that put mine to shame and accomplishments to make Ivy League college-admission counselors drool.

Morgan, 13, from Colorado is already a celebrated photographer. Her picture of a tiger moth's pearls was featured at London's Natural History Museum for Wildlife, where she was a finalist for photographer of the year in the 10-and-under category.

Jonathan, a half-Filipino, half-white 17-year-old from Connecticut, started college when he was 13 and is now in his third year of studying biochemistry. He's looking toward medical school in an M.D./Ph.D. program.

Tru, a half-Jamaican, half-white Canadian who just turned 16, has already given a TEDx talk in Vancouver and was named one of that town's most powerful people.

These sorts of high achievements are what make Morgan, Jonathan and Tru shining examples of the best hope we have of someday solving problems like inequality and lack of access to medical care.

And their specialness has nothing to do with the fact that they're all transgender and have known it as long as they can remember.

The LGBTQ movement has come a very long way. So even though the adult transgender population suffers from outsized poverty, lack of access to jobs, poorer health outcomes, as well as increased rates of violence and murder, Morgan, Jonathan and Tru are part of a cohort of young people who will hopefully never experience society's wrath about whether they should or shouldn't present as the gender they identify with.

"I didn't experience any negativity at all," Morgan told me in recounting when she began to present herself as a girl. "Basically, everyone was pretty cool with it. None of my Facebook followers unfollowed me when I made the announcement, no one sees me as an in-between person, I'm just me."

Jonathan is similarly understated about his journey from his parents' "little girl" to their handsome young man.

"I'm just really focused on my education," Jonathan said, describing his transition as totally organic and happy within his family, even if some extended family isn't supportive. "It all happened, like, the way it needed to; there was no defining moment. It was more, like, 'This makes sense.'"

Tru did experience quite a lot of painful roadblocks in transitioning to girlhood, starting when she marched up to her elementary school principal and asked to begin wearing the girl's uniform the following academic year. There were fights, tears, transphobia, a separation from her school and, eventually, a human-rights lawsuit she won ensuring policies to benefit transgender kids in Canadian Catholic schools.

Today, Tru, Jonathan and Morgan -- as well as Daniel, a 13-year-old visual artist from Connecticut and Chazzie, a 12-year-old who speaks Spanish and loves making friends -- are part of a nonprofit organization started by Chazzie's mom, Jennifer Grosshandler, and co-founder Gearah Goldstein.

It's called the GenderCool Project. Take a look at all the "champions" who speak on behalf of GenderCool at www.gendercool.org and you'll see courageous kids who have chosen to openly identify themselves as trans even though they have no need to.

Their aim is the same as mine, as a Latina, and that of every other person considered different from the so-called mainstream: to show that we're just like everyone else and should be viewed in terms of who we are, not what we are or how other people might see us.

The GenderCool project launched in February -- perfect timing for International Transgender Day of Visibility on March 31. The event aims for people to recognize that the issue is more personal than they might know.

"Most people think they've never met anyone who is transgender," said Grosshandler. "But you probably have and just didn't know it."

The world is harsh -- but these GenderCool kids are one more reminder that it's also beautiful, exciting and full of promise.

Esther Cepeda's email address is estherjcepeda@washpost.com, or follow her on Twitter: @estherjcepeda.

Posted at 12:56 PM | Permalink

Herman Melville, brilliant artist who was sadly undervalued in his time

By ESTHER J. CEPEDA

CHICAGO -- There's no end to the awfulness we heap upon artists -- it happens to the best of them.

Beethoven himself was panned by John Ruskin -- one of the Victorian era's most famous art critics -- as composing music that "always sounds to me like the upsettings of bags of nails, with here and there an also dropped hammer."

Claude Monet's impressionist masterpiece "Sunrise" was trashed by French art critic Louis Leroy thusly: "A preliminary drawing for a wallpaper pattern is more finished than this seascape."

Look to the story of nearly any genius, trailblazer, big thinker or revolutionary and you're likely to find a number of people gleefully ripping their work, and their very intellect and character, to shreds.

It was no different for the master of the meticulously detailed "Moby-Dick," according to the exhibit "Melville: Finding America At Sea," at the Newberry Library in Chicago. The show details Herman Melville's failure to rise as a member in good standing of America's literary canon -- during his own lifetime, of course.

Melville was born a little over a year before an American whaling ship named "The Essex" was taken down by a giant whale in 1820. As a young man, Melville worked as a clerk, farmhand and teacher before setting off for his first sea voyage on a merchant ship.

On his travels, most people will be surprised to know, Melville became something of a political progressive during a time in which rich white people routinely landed on small islands and declared them the property of one or another empire.

Melville's first two books, "Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life" and "Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas," stirred controversy -- and not just for including details that had been swiped from source materials other than the author's own experiences.

His perspective was alarming to the establishment because "Melville criticized the Protestant missionaries in the islands for treating the Polynesians as menial servants and acting as agents of colonialism, introducing greed and the worst kinds of vice from their home countries and imposing moral standards with little regard for local practices," according to the exhibit, composed by Will Hansen, the Newberry's Curator of Americana. "Reviewers in religious periodicals took great exception, and the controversy set the pattern for Melville's reception as a somewhat dangerous author for pious readers."

Things only devolved from there. "Moby-Dick" didn't do well. It was neither a critical darling in the United Kingdom, where it was first published, nor a big moneymaker in the U.S.

Reviewers, like the one in The London Spectator, remarked that the book "provoke[s] wonder at the author rather than terror at the creation; the soliloquies and dialogues of Ahab, in which the author attempts delineating the wild imaginings of monomania, and exhibiting some profoundly speculative views of things in general, induce weariness or skipping."

Fair, perhaps. Listen, this is one of my favorite books of all time, but even I can attest that it takes a certain impulse -- and being an absurd completist -- to truly relish every word of the whale tale. But what is art without some suffering, even if by the reader?

His subsequent books did even worse. "Pierre, or, The Ambiguities" led even Melville's more forgiving -- American -- critics to suggest the author was crazy and/or morally bankrupt.

A snarky post in the satirical paper "The Lantern" reported a "Fatal Occurrence: About ten o'clock yesterday, an intelligent young man was observed to [enter a bookstore] and deliberately purchase a copy of Herman Melville's last work. He has, of course, not since been heard of."

And so it went for Melville, who ended up writing magazine articles under a pen name just to make ends meet, had a failed transcontinental lecture tour, resorted to writing sad poems about the Civil War and eventually just gave up, taking up the mantle of civil servitude by becoming a U.S. customs inspector at the port of New York. He did the job for 19 years before retiring, and eventually died in 1891.

Melville would surely have been startled by the Chicago exhibit's two whole rooms filled with his books, personal correspondence, obsessively catalogued collection of special editions of "Moby-Dick" -- in Russian, in graphic novel form, in an Army-pamphlet versions and as colorful comic books -- as well as a kaleidoscope of colorful visual interpretations of his tome, among other curiosities.

And his critics?

Dead to history -- and as devoid of personality and importance as anyone who dismisses something new as bad just because it's difficult.

Esther Cepeda's email address is estherjcepeda@washpost.com, or follow her on Twitter: @estherjcepeda.

Posted at 12:53 PM | Permalink

Jason Stanley talks about 'How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them'

By ESTHER J. CEPEDA

CHICAGO -- I used to have a running conversation with an older, white, male column-writing colleague about how your skin tone impacts your credibility.

He used to stroll over to my desk in the newsroom, practically get on bended knee, and ask for the hand of my immigration issue du jour.

"I don't want to poach in your pond, Esther," he'd always say.

My response never changed: "If I write about immigrant rights, I'm a biased activist with unchecked self-interest because of my ethnicity. If you write about it, you're an informed and impartial advocate for an important and growing segment of the community. You practically need to write about this more than I do."

And so it went whenever news broke about a Hispanic worker getting hurt in an unsafe workplace, immigration legislation moving forward or generalized xenophobia rearing its ugly head. It wasn't perfect, but it was a complementary relationship.

These sorts of cross-collaborations are thornier today amid questions of who can speak for whom, and who should shut up and let others have their chance to talk. After all, there's no shortage of black, Hispanic, Native American and Asian experts in their field who have been ignored or simply discounted when pointing out the ways in which the United States has nurtured racism, white supremacy and power imbalances.

But, realistically, when white males make bold claims, people listen. So we can embrace their voices in the hopes of getting people to pay attention to critical issues they might otherwise ignore.

For example, one recent book that can help shed light on a key political moment for all of us is the book "How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them," by author Jason Stanley. He makes the case for truth as the bedrock of freedom and details how propaganda and rhetoric enflame the move toward fascism.

In an interview earlier this month, he explained to me why, contrary to popular perception on the left, we can't quite use the f-word with our president.

"I don't think Trump is ruling as a fascist," Stanley said. "But classic fascists like Hitler and Mussolini campaigned against globalists seeking to 'destroy the nation' and reminded us about 'past greatness' that involved eliminating 'rampant' crime and the 'threat' of 'liberal conspiracies' designed to bring leftist immigrants into the country."

It sounds awfully familiar as, simultaneously, far-right nationalism flowers in places like Russia, Hungary, Poland, India, Turkey, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and the United States.

Stanley, however, marks a clear distinction between fascist tactics that are used as a mechanism to grab power and an explicitly fascist state ruled by a truly authoritarian leader. And he does it while standing apart from other philosophers -- and other commentators whose parents fled Europe as refugees -- in his acknowledgment of how racism and inequality fuel political divisions.

"Where I agree with the left's critique of Trump is that we've always had this kind of propaganda -- in 'Mein Kampf,' Hitler praises the 1924 U.S. immigration act and praises white supremacy," said Stanley, who is a philosophy professor at Yale. "But my work differs from that of others because I focus on how the present is not actually a break from the past. Russian propaganda exploits already existing inequalities and exacerbates them with the goal of showing that democracy is fake and that ethnic groups can do nothing more than fight each other."

Stanley told me his book is radically different from other end-of-democracy books because it forces us to look at race relations and look at persistent achievement and wage gaps between blacks and whites and see that our present is a continuity of our past, not a break from it.

"My book is based on African-American history, on Hitler's American model, on the impact of mass incarcerations of black people, on the 'super predator' criminal justice theory that laid the groundwork for Trump," Stanley said.

Whether we like it or not, the history of marginalized groups in the United States is a topic few white people seek out on their own. And Stanley's chilling book does a great job of getting to the heart of why truth is the critical prerequisite for both equality and liberty.

If Stanley can help spoon-feed his insights to the very people already invested in seeking justice for everyone impacted by President Trump's misguided, ill-informed and frankly ignorant policy declarations, then so be it.

Maybe Stanley's work can be a jumping-off point for critical discussions about race, ethnicity, male privilege and white privilege that rule the current political moment -- especially among the portion of the population that thinks these baked-in power imbalances don't really exist.

Wouldn't such dialogues be a refreshing alternative to simply blaming all of our political polarization and the death of truth and facts on the reliable and supposedly race-blind excuse of white economic anxiety?

Esther Cepeda's email address is estherjcepeda@washpost.com, or follow her on Twitter: @estherjcepeda.

Posted at 08:03 PM | Permalink

Admissions scandal no surprise to students and families of color

By ESTHER J. CEPEDA

CHICAGO -- There is a college-bribery scandal in the news, and every nonwhite college student who was ever mistaken for a janitor, maid or potential assailant just rolled his or her eyes.

Rich, privileged -- and very often white -- people use their money and influence to give their kids a leg up in a rigged college system?

You don't say.

In the days after it came out that some wealthy Hollywood actors have been accused of criminally conspiring to get their kids into the University of Southern California, I loved this Associated Press headline: "Admissions scandal highlights divide over class in America."

All it needed was this amendment: "for white people."

Not to be crass, but the only people who need the scales to fall from their eyes about how money and power are abused in a country that supposedly reveres merit are those who don't need to prove themselves.

For those who still go to bed at night with the comforting fantasy that all it takes to succeed in America is the willingness to pick yourself up by the bootstraps and work harder than the other guy, "the corruption in the college admission system exposed by Tuesday's indictments further shatters any notion that hard work, good grades and perseverance are the way to get into a prestigious school."

The Associated Press goes on to list the ways that students matriculate into college. The "front" door, which means the standard fairy tale of hard work, good grades and excellent standardized test scores; and the "back" door, wherein parents donate large sums of money to a school expecting to influence admissions decisions.

Newly introduced to our lexicon is the "side" door. This scenario, the one that got the Hollywood people into trouble, involves all kinds of alleged malfeasance, like bribing college-entrance exam proctors, substituting test-takers, and passing off nonsports people as recruited athletes.

And that doesn't even take into account the whole "legacy" system of college admissions at the most elite universities, where the children of graduates are given preference.

Whatever. That's all been well known to people of color who made it through the higher-education system in this country.

More interesting were the reactions of people who, like me, were the first in their families to attend college and, upon arriving to campus -- and then in the professional world -- had to constantly prove that they belonged.

"Shout-out to all the children of immigrants who had to figure out college application forms, fees, financial aid forms, books, tuition on their own because they knew the impossible burden it would be on their parents," tweeted Gabe Ortíz, an immigrant activist and staff writer for the Daily Kos.

The novelist and Princeton fellow Erika L. Sanchez wrote on Twitter: "I hope all you brilliant kids of color in college who suffer from imposter syndrome feel somewhat vindicated by #collegecheatingscandal. At the very least. Sending you all the hugs."

The nationally syndicated political cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz was infuriated at the news. "I worked my way through high school to support my mom and myself and then I worked my way through college to pay my own way at San Diego State then I got into Berkeley and now I am trying to get my kid into Ivy League schools but William and Felicity are ahead of me in line," Alcaraz tweeted, referring to actors William H. Macy and Felicity Huffman, whose fame has pushed them to the center of a juicy media circus.

"My kid had the highest SAT score in our school district, but my kid has to be below the kid whose parents bribed their way into elite schools? This is infuriating," Alcaraz continued. "We did everything fair and square, by the rules to get our smart brown kids into good schools and we even have the money to pay for the SAT coach and the admissions fees but [we'd] never pay half a million dollars for f -- - bribes EVEN IF WE HAD IT, so too bad for us, right?"

As for me, well, I'm on the record for having walked away from a full-ride scholarship at a prestigious university because it was clear to me that the professors, staff and all my fellow students believed I had gotten in just for being Hispanic.

Now that people are finally understanding that lots of kids get into universities and colleges merely because their parents have the cash to make it happen, I kinda wish I'd stayed.

Esther Cepeda's email address is estherjcepeda@washpost.com, or follow her on Twitter: @estherjcepeda.

Posted at 07:59 PM | Permalink

Teachers, especially those of color, need the best shot at passing teacher certification exams

By ESTHER J. CEPEDA

CHICAGO -- What if there were a relatively simple way to add more than 8,000 teachers of color to public schools to raise academic achievement -- but no one really cared enough to actually change the status quo?

It wouldn't surprise me one bit.

As in so many industries that vow to diversify their ranks, a case is made year after year for why it's important for more teachers of color to stand before classrooms of increasingly Hispanic, Asian, black and mixed-race students.

But not much happens. Meanwhile, the statistics show that not only are there not enough teachers of color interested in education careers, but the subject-matter tests they're required to take for state licensing continue to weed out promising candidates by the boatload.

This isn't due simply to economics and systemic racism -- although it's tough for bright, civic-minded people of color, often the first in their families to attend college, to commit to a relatively low-paying job in environments where they would be an ultra-minority.

It's also due to "the profound lack of alignment between preparation program coursework and the content knowledge that states have determined an aspiring teacher needs to be an effective elementary teacher," according to a new analysis by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ).

The tests for student teachers are rigorous and, theoretically, provide a decent picture of what subject matter has been mastered. But the education programs themselves fail their teacher trainees, according to the NCTQ report, "A Fair Chance: Simple steps to strengthen and diversify the teacher workforce." The report's key points are a disgrace:

-- While most programs require teacher candidates to take a course in composition and writing, they seldom require a germane literature course. Notably, only half require a children's literature course that corresponds to curricular expectations for elementary classrooms.

-- Only one in four programs covers the breadth of mathematics content necessary for elementary grades. (And if you've seen today's first-grade math curricula, with its algebraic concepts and higher-order thinking exercises that require real mathematical expertise, you'd be shocked that (BEG ITAL)any(END ITAL) programs make the grade.)

-- One in three programs does not require a history or geography course aligned with the needs of elementary teachers and their curricula.

-- Two in three programs do not require a single science course that could be considered parallel to curricular expectations for elementary schools.

As if this weren't bad enough, the impact of this lack of alignment between what is taught in teacher-preparation programs and what is tested has an outsize effect on potential teachers of color. And, by extension, the very students who would benefit most from teachers who look like them.

It's shocking that, according to NCTQ, even in professions with a reputation for requiring challenging qualifying exams -- bar exams for lawyers, boards for psychiatrists and nurses, tests for civil and nuclear engineers -- first-time pass rates on those entry exams far exceed those achieved by elementary-teacher candidates.

This really puts potential teachers of color at a disadvantage. Only about 38 percent of black and 57 percent of Hispanic elementary subject-matter test takers pass, compared with 75 percent of white test takers. NCTQ estimates that approximately 8,600 candidates of color each year are likely not to qualify to teach because of low test performance.

The answer is definitely not to lower the testing standards for teachers -- but to demand that teacher-preparation programs adequately train candidates to demonstrate mastery of the subject matter that their states deem necessary for students to achieve high academic performance.

It also wouldn't hurt to publish the test-pass rates for all candidates enrolled in a teacher-prep program. Why not give prospective teacher candidates the information they deserve to choose a program where they are more likely to be successful?

There are no easy, systemic ways to ensure that the most vulnerable students -- those from nonwhite cultures who are attempting to fit into the mold of an overwhelmingly white teaching corps -- get a fair shot at an excellent education.

But simple solutions for public education to steer these students in the right direction are clear: Demand that college and university education programs provide transparent reporting standards for pass/fail rates on licensing exams so prospective teachers can pick good programs.

Such calls for accountability should naturally incentivize college and university teacher-training programs to better prepare their prospective teachers -- especially ones of color -- to actually pass their licensing tests.

Esther Cepeda's email address is estherjcepeda@washpost.com, or follow her on Twitter: @estherjcepeda.

Posted at 07:56 PM | Permalink

CHICAGO -- What if there were a relatively simple way to add more than 8,000 teachers of color to public schools to raise academic achievement -- but no one really cared enough to actually change the status quo?

It wouldn't surprise me one bit.

As in so many industries that vow to diversify their ranks, a case is made year after year for why it's important for more teachers of color to stand before classrooms of increasingly Hispanic, Asian, black and mixed-race students.

But not much happens. Meanwhile, the statistics show that not only are there not enough teachers of color interested in education careers, but the subject-matter tests they're required to take for state licensing continue to weed out promising candidates by the boatload.

This isn't due simply to economics and systemic racism -- although it's tough for bright, civic-minded people of color, often the first in their families to attend college, to commit to a relatively low-paying job in environments where they would be an ultra-minority.

It's also due to "the profound lack of alignment between preparation program coursework and the content knowledge that states have determined an aspiring teacher needs to be an effective elementary teacher," according to a new analysis by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ).

The tests for student teachers are rigorous and, theoretically, provide a decent picture of what subject matter has been mastered. But the education programs themselves fail their teacher trainees, according to the NCTQ report, "A Fair Chance: Simple steps to strengthen and diversify the teacher workforce." The report's key points are a disgrace:

-- While most programs require teacher candidates to take a course in composition and writing, they seldom require a germane literature course. Notably, only half require a children's literature course that corresponds to curricular expectations for elementary classrooms.

-- Only one in four programs covers the breadth of mathematics content necessary for elementary grades. (And if you've seen today's first-grade math curricula, with its algebraic concepts and higher-order thinking exercises that require real mathematical expertise, you'd be shocked that any programs make the grade.)