Watching a popular video clip on YouTube typically causes me to laugh at a clever bit of irony or to groan at some ridiculous slapstick. More often than not, clips involve cute babies, funny pets, or somebody falling down and being embarrassed – far from intellectually challenging. I recently watched a video that was sentimental, but also thought provoking.  Caine’s Arcade features Caine Monroy, a nine year old boy who lives in an East Los Angeles. To keep himself busy while his dad works in his used auto parts store, Caine spends months building an arcade out of cardboard boxes and miscellaneous found objects and dreams of the day when customers will come and play in his arcade.  Nirvin Mullick just happens to come into the shop in search of an auto part, notices this little boy and his arcade, and becomes not only the first customer in Caine’s Arcade, but an advocate for creative kids everywhere.  Remarkably, Nirvin is a film maker and skillful in the use of social media.  He organizes a flash mob to bring customers into Caine’s Arcade and uses Facebook to create interest, which draws in television media and a lot of exposure through reddit.  Nirvin films Caine before the surprise flash mob and captures his reaction when he sees the crowd and interacts with a throng of eager customers. The film was posted to the internet.  (My viewing was hit # 3,086,106 on YouTube.) Continue reading “Caine’s Arcade”

For students returning to school this fall lunch in the cafeteria will look different. That’s because the upcoming school year marks the beginning of the new Nutrition Standards in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Program. The regulations, unveiled in January of this year by First Lady Michelle Obama and U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, are a component of the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act and include offering students whole grains, larger portions of vegetables and fruits, and less overall sodium and saturated fats. Continue reading “Brain Food: New National School Lunch Program Standards”

Yesterday was the last day of school for my first grade son. He came home with a backpack full of journals filled with writing, unsharpened pencils, jackets I thought were gone forever, and a bag of candy from his teacher. His younger sister will go to Kindergarten in the fall and she is full of questions about school. She asked him what the best thing about first grade is. His reply made me both smile and frown as comments from older brothers to younger sisters often do. He said, “My teacher, of course. She is cool and nice. But she is going to a new school, so she won’t be your teacher.” My daughter looked a bit sad, but then he said, “You know school is a nice place to go. There’s recess and P.E. and music. And when you do have to learn stuff the teachers make it fun, so you don’t want to leave. Plus you get rewards if you are good. I can show you how to act good.” I am not sure what exactly that means, but I am choosing to be proud of it anyway. Continue reading “School’s Out for the Summer!”

As a company passionate about imagining and enacting a public school system that overcomes historic and persistent inequities, you might think that celebrating national cultural heritage months is a standard staff activity for us.  It is not.

Don’t get me wrong.  The West Wind staff agrees that these observances are important.  Our dilemma is, what is what are we recognizing? What does it mean to celebrate groups based on certain shared physical or genetic attributes? When we try to decide we find ourselves with all sorts of questions: Which cultural heritage months do we observe? Which cultural/social attributes count: Race? Ethnicity? Gender? Is it an observation or celebration and what action do we take to observe or celebrate? By making these observances are we taking part in something that separates specific groups from the whole of American history and experience? Continue reading “Observing Cultural Heritage Months: Not a Simple Decision”

New Year’s resolutions are all about better living which is something we work to have as part of our culture here at West Wind. We strive to create a healthy and joyful workplace that promotes balance between work and life.

We recently decided to experiment with the concept of standing more during our work days for the sake of our health. We purchased some standing work stations to try out and we are finding they keep us on our feet with our muscles activated. So far, so good! Here’s an article that explains the health benefits of getting up and keeping our bodies in more full motion during long days at the office: http://tinyurl.com/42cx4eu.

Movement is great, and so is laughter. We’ve all heard laughter is the best medicine, right? Well, here’s an interesting article that explains the potential emotional and physiological benefits of laughter: http://tinyurl.com/aq2nc9.

And, to tie it all together, here’s a short clip from the t.v. show, The Office, about office-dwellers standing at work. This entertained us and might make you laugh too: http://tinyurl.com/88yrgm6.

Best wishes for good health, laughter, and happiness in the New Year!

Earlier, we wrote about the planning of the Iowa Latin@ Conference[1]. Every year for the past thirteen years the conference has occurred in a different town across the state – it was Muscatine’s turn in 2011. In just about the same span of time (about 10 years), Iowa’s Hispanic population has doubled, still totaling just 5 percent of the whole[2].

The selfish urgency to attend to an increasing Latin@ population for the greater good of the majority is a notion I increasingly see in a lot of public messaging as Latin@’s populations increase in many places across the US. But, that was not the message behind this conference.

The conference convened over 200 Iowa youth and adults over two days to learn about the importance of uniting, becoming informed and advocating for the good of [our] people who are dispersed across Iowa’s changing communities. West Liberty, Iowa City, Dubuque, Waterloo and other Iowa towns were represented at the Youth Development Summit portion of the conference and individuals came from as far as Michigan to attend the Professional Institute portion.

Two sophomores, Joanna and Areli from West Liberty High School attended the conference for the first time with one of their teachers and some of their classmates.

One thing Areli, originally from New York, enjoyed about the Youth Development Summit was the opportunity to meet new, Latin@ youth. Both she and Joanna agree that being Latina in Iowa is something they appreciate and embrace– recently their West Liberty place of residence (also located in Muscatine County) was recognized as the first Hispanic majority town in Iowa.

With an offering of a variety of workshops – from a showcase of indigenous dancing by Omeyocan Dance Co. to a session on trading Gang affiliation for Academia and a screening of the film, “abUSed: The Postville Raid,” there was much to take in.

The girls’ favorite part of the Youth Development Summit; however, was its Keynote Speaker, Michael Benitez Jr.

Benitez Jr., a doctoral candidate at Iowa State University engaged the over 150-student audience during his 45-minute speech and encouraged them to become young activists. He urged them to be willing to listen to and believe in the stories their elders (“wisdomkeepers”) told them. But, he also asked the same of the wisdomkeepers – that they take the time to hear what young people (“wisdomseekers”) have to say, even if it isn’t stated politically correctly.

What Joanna and Areli took away most from Benitez Jr.’s speech was the significance of being  bicultural; that we must adapt to and continually learn from our Latin@ identity in the United States (and Iowa). In other words, while understanding American culture, “we have to be proud of our culture, [too]” Joanna said.

One example Benitez Jr.’s used to illustrate this notion took place in his classroom experiences, long before his doctoral candidacy days—“I got all A’s in my classes except for in Social Studies, History…because I didn’t see myself [in the books].”

Much like the duality of cultures, American History cannot be considered without considering Latin@ History, too. They are one in the same. Unfortunately, though as Benitez Jr. sought a raise of hands from the audience, asking what pertinent Latino history—i.e. the 1930 Lemon Grove, California desegregation case and the Bracero Movement of the 1940s, they have learned (as high school students) in their classrooms, few hands were raised.

The conference was successful for bringing Iowa Latin@s face-to-face with each other and for giving them a rare chance to embrace their impact on the state. Those who were there to learn also were given a thorough picture of what it means to be Latin@ in Iowa today. As such, we look forward to supporting the conference again in the future.

Click the respective links to read more about Muscatine’s first time hosting the conference and Benitez Jr’s keynote.