Chicago Sun-Times

Farmers often cheat immigrants

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 02:15:58 -0500

In the mid-1950s my father started traveling from Mexico to the U.S. for the same reason millions of others have done so: to find work. He became a migrant worker, toiling in the hot sun, often in pesticide- and fertilizer-soaked farm fields. He picked potatoes in Idaho, tomatoes in Delta, Ohio, and cotton in Texas. There were stops in Tennessee, Oklahoma and Utah. Decades later, he still had earnings — if you could call them that — from one job. They were a few silver dollars he kept in a small metal box. The coins were produced in the late …

He wants to unfix an Olympic fix

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 02:13:17 -0500

Donald “Taps” Gallagher insists history can be rewritten for the outcome of the 1972 Olympic men’s gold-medal basketball game between the U.S. and Soviet Union. Amid American jubilation over a narrow U.S. win, the Soviets were given end-of-game do-overs because of timing errors and involvement by the governing body, until the U.S.S.R. scored a winning basket to end the game. U.S. players, amateurs in their early 20s, believed they were pawns in geopolitics unjustly defeated and refused to accept silver medals. To this day the players, including Illinois native and former Bulls coach Doug Collins, are in agreement to decline …

Being undocumented didn’t stop techie

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 02:16:25 -0500

For some teenagers, being undocumented brings on social paralysis. They cannot shake a fear of deportation or a future pocked by the poverty that plagues their parents. Fabian Garcia fought those fears and made it. At 18, not long after graduating from Curie High School in 2000, Garcia became a businessman. He had enjoyed courses in video production at Curie and talked his father into letting him use a credit card to buy $4,000 worth of camera and editing gear, he says. Garcia recorded and edited videos for weddings, baptisms and Mexican cotillions. “I was partying,” he says. “Well, I …

Ballplayer faced staunch racism

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 16:24:39 -0500

Fourteen years before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in modern baseball with his debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, Baldomero Almada became the first Mexican-born baseball player to play in a major-league game. Born in the state of Sonora, Almada grew up in Los Angeles with an abbreviated first name: Melo, then Mel. Like Robinson, he was an outstanding all-around athlete, excelling in football, track and field and baseball. Almada played seven major-league seasons as an outfielder, batting .284. He was a respected leadoff hitter and speedy base stealer. Among his career highlights chronicled by the Society for …

Coach K: From Ukrainian Village to March Madness

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 02:16:26 -0500

Mike Krzyzewski is a familiar name to even casual sports fans. One of the country’s most successful basketball coaches, he has led Duke University to four national championships and twice coached the USA to gold-medal finishes in the Olympics. What many forget is that Krzyzewski, the son of Polish immigrants, grew up in Chicago. His parents rented an apartment on Cortez Street, near Western Avenue, in Ukrainian Village. He attended Saint Helen School on Augusta Boulevard and Weber High School, which closed in 1999. In the book “Leading With the Heart,” published in 2000, Krzyzewski, spoke fondly of his neighborhood. …

Sports keeps these kids on straight path

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 02:15:12 -0500

Over the weekend, the Big Ten men’s basketball tournament took over the United Center to large jazzed crowds while the top high school teams descended on Peoria for the conclusion of the Illinois High School Association’s state tournament. Meanwhile, I was the lone spectator sitting in the wooden bleachers at Maryville Academy in Des Plaines for a boys basketball game between Maryville’s Jen School, which houses and schools neglected boys classified as wards of the state, and Aspira, an alternative school from the city. After a little while, Maryville’s communications director, John Gorman, joined me. In describing the children of …

Obama policies bad for immigrants

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 02:17:03 -0500

When Barack Obama ran for the presidency in 2008, he was all about hope and change. After he was elected, he delivered on “change” for undocumented immigrants but not in the way many had hoped. Obama deported more undocumented immigrants than any other president, though that was largely ignored by Latinos who gave him overwhelming support in last year’s election. Thousands of undocumented area residents have been affected by Obama’s policies, carried out by Immigration Customs and Enforcement. Amid an ICE crackdown in 2010, Jorge Cervantes became another statistic. Stopped for speeding in Warrenville, he was arrested for driving without …

Skullcandy gets the better end of Simeon sponsorship deal

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 02:13:53 -0500

Jabari Parker is a senior in high school, months shy of starting college, but corporations already view the Simeon Career Academy basketball player as a hot commodity. Parker is a 6-foot-8-inch man among boys who will play at Duke next season and could be earning millions as an NBA player within two years. Parker also is articulate and charming, qualities that help make him an ideal pitchman for trendy and pricey Skullcandy headphones. Skullcandy hooked him by signing a contract with his school that calls for Parker and his teammates to appear in advertising material for the company. They are …

Why even Rice Chex makes me nervous

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 02:12:46 -0500

As our nation fights an obesity epidemic, we are bombarded with messages about healthful eating. Yet the messages are mixed. One day we are encouraged to eat blueberries because they are high in fiber and antioxidants. The next day we hear that blueberries absorb dangerous pesticides. Last year blueberries made the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen list of fruits and vegetables with the most pesticide residue. Apples, celery, sweet bell peppers, peaches, strawberries and grapes also made the list. The group also came up with a Clean 15 list for fruits and vegetables that rank lowest in pesticides. Onions top …

Wrigleyville 20-somethings committed to building schools in Uganda

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 02:16:55 -0500

When I think of Wrigleyville, my mind turns to Wrigley Field and the lucky 20-somethings who live near the ballpark and the surrounding taverns and restaurants. Andy Bauer, Drew Edwards and Kevin Oh, roommates who live a block away from Wrigley Field whom I can best describe as humanitarians, tell me they don’t spend any time at the nearby bars. They are a sophisticated group devoted to the nonprofit Pangea Educational Development, which they founded in spring 2011. The term Pangea is of Greek origin meaning all-earth. “It’s unity,” Bauer, 25, a fourth-grade teacher at Western Avenue Elementary in Flossmoor, …

1979 unforgettable, catchy name or not

Sun, 17 Feb 2013 16:25:40 -0500

As winter storm Nemo barreled down the Northeast last weekend, I momentarily and perhaps selfishly felt a sense of relief. At least it wasn’t us buried deep in treacherous conditions. Chicagoans know a lot about that, and those of us about 40 or older can remember the brutal conditions of 1978-79. Many Chicagoans also have not-so-fond memories of being stranded in the Blizzard of ’67, but that season total of 67.7 inches, the official amount recorded at O’Hare Airport by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, didn’t come close to 1978-79. Just a grade-schooler in ’79, I had to find …

If we slow down, we’ll teach more

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 02:13:53 -0500

Now and then, math test scores create a buzz in education. This happened in December when test scores among fourth- and eighth-grade students showed the once-dominant U.S. still lags behind countries such as Singapore, Korea, Hong Kong, China and Japan. Math curriculum expert Phil Daro, an author of the Common Core State Standards in math being implemented in the U.S., thinks he knows why. In other countries, teachers move patiently and thoroughly through fewer topics, Daro told me. “Our lessons go way faster. In other countries, they will take a topic that we spend a few weeks on and they …

Scholarships for undocumented?

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 09:49:19 -0500

For the poverty-stricken, going to college is a hardship that can be overcome with state and federal financial aid. That’s not true for those who are poor and undocumented. Regulations ban them from receiving such aid because of their immigration status. There is no regard for the fact that most of these teens and young adults came to the U.S. as children, without a say in the matter. We have adopted such a hard line on immigration that our policies have lost a sense of humanity. But undocumented kids should not give up hope. There are Chicagoans in their corner, …

Te’o online love is not only fantasy

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 02:14:55 -0500

Manti Te’o went from being a heroic, celebrated football player for Notre Dame to a national punch line, because his girlfriend, whom he supposedly nurtured by phone in her dying days, never existed. He got caught up in a hoax. The jury is out on whether he was in on it, but I’m willing to bet those who have been duped in phony online and phone relationships aren’t laughing. On the contrary, they’re embarrassed for making themselves vulnerable and easy marks for those all too willing to exploit their emptiness. “You would be surprised how many people do it,” Los …

Searching for Korea Town

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 02:14:43 -0500

The sign is familiar to anyone who regularly drives on the inbound Kennedy Expressway from O’Hare Airport. Korea Town, Exit 84. That’s the Lawrence Avenue exit, and I took it one day last week. But I couldn’t find Korea Town. A lengthy stretch of Lawrence is Honorary Seoul Drive, a tribute to the South Korean capital, but Korean businesses are almost nonexistent there. Bryn Mawr Avenue, between Spaulding and Kedzie, is where I found a handful of Korean shops along with the Korean American Chamber of Commerce. It’s a shame to see Korea Town disappearing there, too. On one stretch …

Suburban counselor helps kids escape gangs

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 02:16:49 -0500

Street gangs usually are synonymous with city life, miles away from the suburbs. Yet police officers, teachers and counselors in many suburbs can tell you gangs long ago infiltrated the neighborhoods they serve. Carlos Rodriguez and Ivan Ibarra have seen the gangs up close. Rodriguez is a gang and substance abuse counselor for northwest suburban Omni Youth Services. He helped rescue Ibarra, a 21-year-old Prospect Heights resident, from gang life. “Gangs aren’t out here killing like they are in Chicago,” Ibarra says. “But people look at the suburbs like good neighborhoods. No drugs. No gangs. It’s interesting, because I see …

How to make the perfect holiday tamale

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 02:15:53 -0500

We have turkey at Thanksgiving. Candy at Easter. Fireworks for the Fourth of July. During the December holidays, tamales are a staple for Latinos, a tradition that goes back centuries. Tamales are the ultimate comfort food, and when done right, they require hours of work. My mother, like her mother and generations of relatives before her, makes hundreds of tamales at the holidays. They last about 24 hours before her seven children, plus significant others, and 11 grandchildren stuff themselves. This year I dug a little deeper into the ingredients to find what makes them so good. Not all of …

Giving where it matters most

Mon, 24 Dec 2012 02:15:16 -0500

For a few reasons, December is a big month for charitable giving. There are tax deductions to accumulate as well as a giving spirit connected to the holidays. This month’s issue of Chicago magazine featured 15 local nonprofits that use 75 percent or more of their funds for programs. According to the magazine, 95 percent of the budget for United Cerebral Palsy of Greater Chicago is spent on programs; PAWS Chicago uses 91 percent for its pet-adoption programs and advocacy for humane treatment of animals. Those percentages are astounding. In recent months I have written about under-the-radar initiatives in Chicago …