Printable PDF
Article No. 5
How the Grammys
Changed My Life:
Becoming An Op Ed Columnist
Key words:
newspapers, op ed
columnists, The Hartford Courant, Latinos
ABSTRACT
In this essay, I write about my
process of becoming an op ed columnist for a newspaper in Hartford,
Connecticut, called The Hartford Courant, the longest
continuously published newspaper in the United States. I
share some of my experiences as an op ed columnist, along with
examples of columns I have written. The examples demonstrate how I
introduce my politics as a Latina and a feminist to a mainstream
audience, and by doing so, writing becomes a form of activism, a
call to action and an educational tool to enlighten my audience
about a given subject.
In a curious way I have Jennifer Lopez to thank
for having become an opinion columnist. It was February, 2000 and
being pretty proud of being Latina, I was thrilled that the Grammy
awards were going to be a wonderful showcase for Latino musicians.
There were to be performances by Buena Vista Social Club, Marc
Anthony, and many others. Santana, alone, had received at least ten
nominations. As I watched, I realized that there were more Latinos
on that show alone, than I had seen on non-Latino TV for the whole
previous year. I was really enjoying the music when suddenly
Jennifer Lopez walked to the podium wearing a dress by Versaci which
barely covered her front or back. She was greeted with whistles and
jeers.
From that moment
I knew that the next morning, all newspaper stories and TV shows
would hardly mention that Santana had won eight Grammys, or which
artist was selected for the best album. It would be all Lopez all
the time, and was I right!
I was so angry by
what Lopez had done to steal all the publicity for herself that I
called the Hartford Courant’s op ed editor Carolyn Lumsden. I
had recently met her, so she took my call, and I explained my need
to write about Lopez and the Grammy awards show. Lumsden’s answer to
my request to submit an op ed was simple, “If you have it by 3:00pm
today I will take a look at it.” She accepted it, and the piece ran.
It was called “Lopez Ruined Hispanics’ Proudest Moment At The
Grammys.” For months after that, I kept running into people in the
Latino community who were angry with me for “putting down” Jennifer
Lopez.” I didn’t hear from anyone who agreed with me.
This was my
fourth opinion piece published by the Courant in twelve years. In
1988 I was a U.S. citizen who had grown up in Panama. I felt
compelled to write about the hypocrisy of the U.S. policy to oust
the Dictator Noriega after the U.S. had supported dictatorships in
Panama since 1968. I wrote of the suffering of the Panamanian
people as a consequence of both of these policies. In 1989 my
brother came to the U.S., and I was moved to write of his fleeing
the brutal dictatorship of Noriega, just as my father fled the
dictatorship of Cuba’s Batista. In November 1990, I was so
aggravated by the press predictions of low voter turnout that I
wrote a challenge to Connecticut citizens to vote, reminding them
that people were dying around the world for the right to vote while
so many here took that right and responsibility for granted.
A few months
after the Lopez piece I received a call. In response to complaints
from the Latino community in Connecticut, the Courant actively
sought to add regular Latino columnists for their “Other Opinion”
page. It would be disingenuous of me to think that I was invited to
become a regular columnist just because of my opinions and writing
skills. I know that my ethnicity played a large part in my being
hired.
For a number of
reasons, of the three Latino and two African American women op ed
columnists writing for the Courant in 2000, I am the only one left.
Today mine is one of only six local op ed columns. The others are
written by four white men and one African American man.
My first regular
column was published in July, 2000. It was titled “We Prepare for
Terrorists and Ignore our Own Terrors.” It dealt with racial hatred
and began with the words “Speak English or Die!” which an anonymous
caller had left on my answering machine at home. (I later learned
that the piece was translated into Portuguese and re-printed in O
Estado de Sao Paulo in Brazil.)
Before I accepted
the position of op ed columnist I asked if I was expected to be the
“Latina columnist.” I was worried because I wouldn’t presume to be
the voice for the Latino community and because the topics which
inspire my passion are far more diverse. I was given the go ahead
and have been able to write about Latino and gay issues, local and
international politics, education, the arts, and many more issues
that concern me, all without editorial interference.
One of the most
rewarding aspects of being a columnist is to interact with the
readers. I answer every e-mail, no matter how venomous it is. One
was illustrated with the US flag, a rifle, and the words “We Kill
Liberals.” Another claimed that Puerto Rican women in Bristol,
Connecticut only cared about their fingernails, were “loose,” and
had babies so they could get more welfare money. Other letters are
very supportive. Some voice happy surprise that the Courant
published such a view. The ones I like the best start with “I have
never written to a columnist before.” These make me feel as if I
truly accomplished what I set out to do: express my opinion and
provide a voice for those who do not have access to the same forum.
Thanks to the internet and especially to Hispanic Link, a service
which translates opinions into Spanish and distributes them through
the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, I hear from readers from across the
country. I love getting letters in Spanish from readers from other
states responding to my opinions.
For me, being an
opinion columnist is having the ability to do extensive research and
then “connect the dots” on a global scale, to follow the
repercussions of one act or event and its affect on our humanity, in
a compressed 700-word essay. Having the opportunity to write about
the misguided policies of President George W. Bush and the wonderful
contributions to the lives of Connecticut’s children by the Boys and
Girls Clubs with the same passion and fervor is something I cherish
and a responsibility I do not take lightly.
Here are examples
of some of my columns:
WE PREPARE FOR
TERRORISTS, IGNORE OUR OWN TERRORS
“Speak English or
die!'' was repeated several times on my answering machine as I
retrieved the day's messages. The person, whose voice was filled
with hatred, perhaps intended to call another number and got mine by
mistake. He was confronted with a greeting in Spanish, and his
response was immediate. To him, I was just another foreigner, brazen
enough to have a greeting on my machine at my house in my native
language. How dare I?
He did not care
to wait before he acted. He didn't care to think that there might be
a reason for that greeting. In my case, the greeting in Spanish was
designed to accommodate my elderly aunt, who was at the beginning
stages of Alzheimer's, to reassure her that she had, indeed, reached
the correct number. A 20-second message, intended as an act of
kindness for a loved one, became the object of a stranger's hatred
and a threat toward me.
I felt shocked
but not surprised. Acts of hate are something we have come to expect
in the United States. But we should be alarmed and not numbed by the
frequency with which acts of hatred happen in this country.
Recently, several
complaints have been filed with the U.S. Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission because hangmen's nooses -- widely associated
with the lynching of African Americans in the South -- have been
found by minorities at their jobs in Kansas, Miami, Chicago, Dallas,
North Carolina, and San Francisco. Hateful messages are found on
school walls. Churches and synagogues are burned, and women are
attacked in New York's Central Park and in Philadelphia.
Two years ago,
Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old gay college student, was brutally
murdered in Laramie, Wyoming, and James Byrd Jr., an African
American, was dragged to his death by white supremacists in Jasper,
Texas. Byrd's family has reported that his grave is frequently
desecrated. In June, Raynard Johnson, an African American teenager
who was an honor student, was found hanging from a tree in front of
his house in Kokomo, Mississippi. Authorities have ruled the death a
suicide, but his family and his neighbors insist that he was
murdered.
And just this
month, on July 4, in Grant Town, West Virginia, two white teenagers
allegedly beat Arthur “J.R.” Warren, an African American gay man.
They are accused of running over his body with a car and leaving him
to die by the side of the road. Under federal law, Johnson's and
Byrd's murders would be considered hate crimes and subject to a
federal investigation, but Shepard's and Warren's would not. The
difference is that Byrd and Johnson were allegedly killed because of
their race, but Shepard and Warren were killed because of their
sexual orientation. As part of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, the
federal statute prosecutes crimes committed solely because of a
victim's race, religion or national origin.
There is a
movement to pass legislation adding the categories of gender,
disability and sexual orientation. In June, Senator Edward M.
Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, introduced this legislation, which also
provides federal financial support to state agencies to aid them
with the prosecution of these crimes. Backed by Senator Gordon
Smith, R-Oregon, the Kennedy-Smith amendment passed by a vote of
57-42. The bill, HR 1082, is now languishing in the House, a silent
statement of our unwillingness to take decisive action against all
hate crimes.
According to
Senator Kennedy, 70,000 hate crime offenses have been reported in
the United States since 1991. The escalation of hate crimes among
young people is particularly alarming. Statistics compiled by the
FBI indicate that of all the hate crimes reported to them, 9 percent
were committed in an ``educational institution'' -- a school or a
college. Last May, Glendale, a community 10 miles north of Los
Angeles, became part of that statistic. In Glendale, which has a low
crime rate, teens from the Latino and Armenian communities have been
at odds. Three Armenian teens drove to the grounds of Herbert Hoover
High School looking for a fight with Latinos. Their attack on a
student waiting at a bus stop resulted in the stabbing death of Raul
Aguirre, an 18-year-old Latino who attempted to break up the fight
while nearly 50 other students looked on. The Armenian teens, whose
ages ranged from 14 to 17, will be charged as adults, with murder.
The saying
``Don't make a federal case of it'' should not apply here. The
escalation of acts of hate in this country does merit the passing of
additional legislation by the House. While we continue to spend
billions preparing for international terrorist attacks on our soil,
and more billions developing questionable defense systems against
foreign weapons, we continue to ignore the fact that we do not need
outsiders to destroy us. We are becoming our own worst enemies.
This column was first published
July 21, 2000
WE CAN'T BOMB
OUR WAY TO A SAFER WORLD
For as long as I
live, I will never understand the level of hatred that would prompt
people to dedicate the last months or perhaps years of their lives
to plotting the destruction of thousands of innocent people who
happened to be working in or visiting New York, one of the most
important and vibrant cities in our country.
If one may fall
in love with a city, then it was love at first sight for me. I think
of going to New York as a visit to a fairy godmother always ready to
give a magical present. Most of the books and magazines I read are
from publishers in New York. On many mornings, I drive to work
listening to music performed on Broadway, at Carnegie Hall, or the
Metropolitan Opera. The New York City I know is a city of love and
acceptance of our differences. It is a city that has always
welcomed, sheltered, and embraced people from all over the world.
It took only a
few moments of indescribable madness to alter the core of that city
and this country. It will take us a lifetime to recuperate from the
horrible effects of that one avalanche of hatred. What can we say to
those who lost loved ones in the crashes at the Pentagon and in
Pennsylvania? To those who are still waiting for a phone call or a
miracle? What can we do to ease their sorrow and ours?
What had been our
complacent way of life has been shattered, and suddenly we find
ourselves wondering: What did we do to deserve this?
The attack on the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon did not happen in a vacuum. I
find it ironic that the news media are suddenly asking, ``Why do
people hate us?'' -- willingly ignoring our involvement in the
affairs of other nations and the tragedies and horrible loss of life
our actions have brought worldwide. We hardly ever stop to analyze
how many crimes were committed in the name of democracy, because our
physical and ideological wars have been fought in other countries.
For the first
time, people in this country are walking around a city holding
photographs of their missing children in a way reminiscent of the
Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who looked for their children who
``disappeared'' during the brutal military dictatorship in
Argentina. In Chile, during the Pinochet dictatorship, relatives
looked for their loved ones in the jails and the morgue.
At one time in
recent history, every Latin American dictator had been trained by
the U.S. military, at the School of the Americas, with the support
of our tax dollars. In 1989, we stopped supporting Gen. Manuel
Antonio Noriega of Panama, who up to then had been one of our
exemplary dictators. We bombed Panama City, killing hundreds of
civilians and leaving thousands homeless. We did this allegedly to
capture one man. At that time, like now, no one stopped to ask about
the loss of human life or the financial repercussions of using our
troops in the ensuing game of hide-and-seek with Noriega.
There are some
parallels between the Latin American dictators and the Taliban. They
were both of our own making. By the middle of this week, we had
dropped an avalanche of more than 2,000 bombs on Afghanistan, killed
unknown numbers of people, smashed to pieces an already broken and
terrified populace, and forced millions more to seek refuge in other
countries.
How can this
destruction of another place and another people make the world
safer? Where is the good that can come from these actions?
This column
was published Oct. 19, 2001
From The Land Of Uncivil Unions
What a wild and
crazy heterosexual guy Geraldo Rivera seems to be. In his memoir,
aptly titled "Exposing Myself," he discloses his many infidelities
during four marriages. Now Rivera has married for the fifth time to
a woman 30 years his junior. We'll see if the big religious ceremony
and reception will keep him from going back to his old tricks.
Rivera is now neck and neck with Billy Bob Thornton in approaching
the record of that other oft-married celebrity Elizabeth Taylor. In
a great display of heterosexual love, Taylor has had eight marriages
and seven husbands. Her first marriage, to Nicky Hilton in 1950, was
a fairy-tale affair designed and produced by MGM studios. Later
husbands, particularly Richard Burton, significantly helped to
increase Taylor's jewelry collection.
These folks are just so lucky not to be gay. They have had the
opportunity to defend marriage over and over and over again,
exchanging spouses like buying and selling stocks in the
heterosexual commodities market.
Lately, you can't hear or read the news without encountering the
words "gay" and "marriage" or "civil union," lumped together as
items of great controversy - particularly since the U.S. Supreme
Court struck down the Texas sodomy statutes and the Episcopal
Church, in a cliffhanger, voted to confirm the openly gay Rev. V.
Gene Robinson as a bishop. The same Episcopal conference also
approved an option for dioceses to allow clergy to bless gay and
lesbian unions.
However, not everyone is as supportive of gay unions. In Hartford, a
coalition of black church leaders is organizing a march on the
Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut next Tuesday. What is alarming
about this group is that it includes the Rev. Wayne Carter, the city
school board chairman. Maybe Carter is not aware that because of the
constant harassment gay teens face in schools, New York City is
opening a new school for gay and lesbian students. One can assume
that Hartford gay and lesbian students who share that experience
will find no sympathy if they complain to Carter.
As is to be expected, the Vatican is urging Catholic and
non-Catholic lawmakers to oppose civil marriages for gays and
lesbians. Fundamentalist right-wing religious leaders trudge their
well-worn path to talk shows to defend heterosexual marriage. Now
President Bush is reviving attempts to codify marriage as a union
between a man and a woman.
But they all seem to be talking about the idealized version of
marriage, the one in which, after a beautiful ceremony (civil and
religious), the couple has children, and they all live happily ever
after. In today's real version, that marriage stands only a 50
percent chance of surviving.
Still, President Bush was quick to invoke the Defense of Marriage
Act against the possibility of civil unions and same-sex marriages.
His lawyers are looking for the best way to prevent them. Bush, who
was willing to use half-truths to lead us into war, now uses the
term "sinners" to define a couple of the same gender who are
committed to a long-term, loving relationship. He would deny them
the opportunity to be legally a part of the society to which they
contribute greatly. In a secular democracy like ours, we know that
civil marriage brings many legal advantages, including health and
pension benefits and transfer-of-property advantages, just to name a
few.
I wonder how Vice President Dick Cheney, whose daughter is openly
lesbian, feels about President Bush's efforts to maintain the status
quo of heterosexual marriages. Perhaps Cheney has forgotten that
during a vice presidential debate he said, "People should be free to
enter into any kind of relationship they want to enter into. It's
really no one else's business, in terms of trying to regulate or -
or prohibit behavior in that regard."
What all this talk about marriage between "a man and a woman" really
means is that I can get married as many times as I want - as long as
my partner is of the opposite sex. Then I can live my married life
in any kind of relationship - loving, violent, neglectful. I can
have children who might be loved, neglected or abused. And if I
choose, I can get a divorce and start all over again, and again, as
many times as I want.
I hope that when the time comes, gays will do better than that.
This column was published August 3, 2003
Feminism's Foes Turning Back The Clock On Gender Roles
I have a habit of
keeping a notebook and pen next to me at all times, even while
watching TV and reading the newspaper. I take notes about things
that interest, puzzle or upset me. Leafing through one notebook
reminded me of how aggravating TV advertising is, especially
commercials portraying wives and mothers. Like the commercial for
Florida orange juice: 1950s kitchen in black and white, wife making
breakfast for kids while husband reads paper at table. Cut to 2004
modern-day breakfast scene in color: Husband is still sitting
reading the paper. Another ad, for Pledge wipes, portrays messy boys
whose mother gladly cleans up after them.
Among the many helpless-man-of-the-house ads, J.C. Penney's is a
standout. Dad and kids are home alone, kids wreck the house, and all
the father can say is "Where is your mother?"
Other commercials make fun of women or treat them as lesser beings.
There is one that is so maddening I don't even remember the product.
A father and son build a rocket together, drive to the park to fly
it, and it lands on their car, damaging it. Father's response: "We
should have brought your mother's car." In the boys-will-be-boys
category is an ad for Tylenol in which a younger brother bursts into
his sister's room, disrupting her play with her friend. Sister
complains, but Mom doesn't stop him. Final scene, the boy is chasing
the girls with a water gun. The two messages in this ad are: 1.
Don't deal with the source of your headache; take a pill instead. 2.
Mom, don't discipline the boy; it's funny to harass and abuse
sisters and their female friends.
We spend billions of dollars on advertising annually because those
ads work. They sell products; they also sell ideas. I have yet to
meet a housewife whose life revolves around perfecting the cleaning
of toilets, but the message of these ads is that a woman's place is
to be the sole provider of care for her family in the home. In this
country, we have some of the best colleges and universities and a
highly educated female population, yet despite the many gains women
have made in the workforce, the insidious and constant message of TV
advertising in 2004 is that women are solely responsible for
cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the family's needs, whether
they work outside the home or not. Husbands are portrayed as being
absolutely helpless with home and kids or not present at all.
In the 1970s, the feminist movement rallied for equal pay for equal
work. Yet, thirty-some years later, The Courant's business pages
report that female employees from companies such as Wal-Mart,
Costco, Boeing Corp., and Morgan Stanley are filing class-action,
sex-discrimination cases alleging that these companies devalue
women, keeping them in lower paid jobs while promoting males to
higher paid jobs.
These advertisers and businesses are not the only foes of feminist
ideals. The Washington Post reported on a July 31 Vatican letter to
the bishops of the Catholic Church. Entitled "On the Collaboration
of Men and Women in the Church and the World," it was yet another
profoundly distressing attempt to turn back the clock on the roles
of men and women in contemporary society.
Feminism, with its struggle for equality between men and women, is
twisted in the rhetoric of this letter into causing a power
struggle, "leading to harmful confusion regarding the human person,
which has its most immediate and lethal effects in the structure of
the family." The letter urges women to follow their natural
inclination to model themselves after the Virgin Mary "with her
disposition of listening, welcoming, humility, faithfulness, praise
and waiting."
With trends like these in TV viewing and with alerts from
conservative groups in which women's liberation is equated with the
end of civilization, perhaps it is time to call on feminists to go
back to work full-time.
This column was published August 20,, 2004
Hearing The Dixie Chicks With A New Attitude
My idea of hell is to be stranded in Antarctica listening to country
western music. That's why most people who know me are going to be
very surprised to find out that in a gesture of sisterhood and
solidarity, I just bought "The Long Way Around" by the Dixie Chicks.
Several years ago, I heard a song on the radio that piqued my
interest. It was "Goodbye Earl" by the Dixie Chicks. I was very
impressed with how they dealt with the issue of domestic violence.
Having worked with victims of abuse, I felt that the song presented
victim's lives in a very realistic fashion. However, my dislike for
that particular musical genre kept me from learning anything more
about the Dixie Chicks or listening to their music. Truthfully, I
forgot about them.
Then, in March 2003, the group was playing a concert in London. That
was when President Bush was in a mad dash to invade Iraq. Before
singing "Traveling Soldier" about a young soldier who died in
Vietnam, Natalie Maines, the group's lead singer, had the audacity
to criticize President Bush. She said, "Just so you know, we're
ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas."
Until that moment, the Dixie Chicks had been popular, multiple
award-winning and the biggest selling female music group in the U.S.
A month before they had sung the national anthem at the Super Bowl.
Who would have thought that 15 words would cause some to criticize
all they had worked for and accomplished? Yet, those words
immediately changed their image for some people from
good-old-American gals to unpatriotic sluts. They received death
threats, radio stations stopped playing their music, and
demonstrators destroyed their CDs all over the country.
In a recent interview with Larry King on CNN, they said that if
other musicians had spoken out at that time, they would not have
been attacked in such a vicious manner. They expressed their sadness
when they heard that country singers Toby Keith and Reba McIntire
joined the anti-Chicks brigade. Keith performed with images of
Maines and Saddam Hussein projected onstage and, while hosting a
music award show, McIntire joked that the Chicks sang with their
feet in their mouths.
Since 9/11, many people who have expressed a public opinion that
cast doubt on the competency and honesty of the Bush administration
have been labeled unpatriotic and traitorous.
In 2004, Linda Ronstadt, was evicted from the Aladdin Hotel in Las
Vegas after she dedicated a song to Michael Moore and his
documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11." Writer E. L. Doctorow was booed and
nearly stopped from delivering a commencement speech at Hofstra
University when he said that the reasons Bush gave for going to war
with Iraq turned out to be lies. Parents were quoted saying that
Doctorow ruined the graduation with politics.
Average citizens have also felt retaliation for expressing anti-war
views. In 2003, in New Mexico's Rio Rancho Public High School, poet
and teacher Bill Nevins was fired from his position after the
broadcast of one of his students reading an anti-war poem on the
school's closed-circuit TV, which was seen by the military liaison
to the school who complained to the principal. At Overland High
School in Aurora, Colorado, 10th-grade social studies and geography
teacher Jay Bennish was put on leave after a student complained that
he had critiqued Bush's economic and foreign policy during class the
day after the State of the Union address.
The list of those vilified for so-called objectionable free speech
has been steadily growing. The politically correct conservatives
seem to believe that ideas shouldn't be expressed in commencement
speeches, musicians shouldn't talk politics in concerts, students
shouldn't write anti-war poems, and social studies teachers
shouldn't make comparisons that put presidents in a bad light.
One can only hope that as President Bush's approval ratings remain
low and those who have questioned his policies are proved right,
others might feel emboldened to speak out.
On their new album, the Dixie Chicks have included the song "Not
Ready to Make Nice," in which they respond to their critics and the
controversy by saying that they will not back down.
During the Larry King interview, Martie Maguire, another group
member, said that she didn't mind if people disagree with what
Natalie said. "If they want to do that, that's great. That's what
free speech is all about." If only.
This column was published June 16, 2006
REFERENCES
On the
Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church. (2004, July 31).
The Washington Post. Retrieved from
http://www.washpost.com .
Reyna, Bessy.
(2000, July 21). We prepare for terrorists, ignore our own terror.
The Hartford Courant. p. A17.
Reyna, Bessy.
(2001, October 19). We can’t bomb our way to a safer world. The
Hartford Courant. p. A19.
Reyna, Bessy. (2003, August 3). From the land of
uncivil unions. The Hartford Courant. p. A17.
Reyna, Bessy.
(2004, August 20). Feminism’s foes turning back the clock on gender
roles. The Hartford Courant. p. A11.
Reyna, Bessy.
(2006, June 16). Hearing The Dixie Chicks with a new attitude.
The Hartford Courant. p. A13.
|
