The Next Big Story: My Journey Through the Land of Possibilities
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I go on a speaking tour after Latino in America airs. I have just released a book of the same name and schools are dying to hear my insights on Latinos. I speak at Hotchkiss shortly after the documentary is released. Hotchkiss is a private boarding school in Lakeville, Connecticut, with just under six hundred students, very diverse, yet with a traditional prep school affect. The lawns roll out into a golf course and fresh-faced kids hang out in khakis and button-down shirts. My screening is held in the main auditorium. The black and Latino organization invites me but the entire school is welcome to attend.
The room of teenagers looks entranced as they watch the stories of Latinos, rich and poor, enjoying great moments of triumph and terrible moments of hardship. The segments are interspersed with video shout-outs. Latinos of all backgrounds talk about their quinceaneras, about their family’s flight from war, about the way their mother embarrasses them when she speaks in Spanish. The videos are funny, depressing, inspiring, and the stories that come afterward flesh them out.
A girl whose parents bring her to the United States as a child is arrested by the Border Patrol as an adult. She is raised fully American and has an American child of her own. A Venezuelan chef in Miami opens up a chain of restaurants and remakes the cultural landscape. I can tell there is excitement in the room.
Then they watch the segment on Shenandoah. A town is torn apart by the death of a young man. The story quiets a room full of anxious teenagers. Luis’s picture flashes on the screen, beaten and bloated, near death. The town looks like any failing town, the kids like any kids.
Applause breaks out at the end. The lights come up. Hands are raised and questions come. I love the enthusiasm for the stories. How did you pick your stories? Why did you do this series? One kid with thick brown hair, a handsome athletic young guy, asks a question that is more of a statement about his opposition to illegal immigration. He is angry He challenges me for not making enough of the fact that Luis was in the country illegally He is angry that the Luis Ramirezes of the world are even here. He looks to be about fifteen years old and he is fuming.
I pause but I am not surprised. I keep waiting for the moment he is going to talk about his father losing a job to an immigrant but it never comes. The mood in the room has shifted slightly. “Why are you so angry?” I ask. I tell the audience this story is as much about murder as immigration. It’s as much a story of a community in conflict as it is about why they are so upset. There is some part of me that doesn’t understand his anger over the immigration debate. I have no dog in the fight. My parents’ immigration experience most closely matches that of the Shenandoah miners. They came here legally, looking for opportunities. I understand the competition over jobs, the complexity of the economic debate. I see the obvious need to find solutions. I also know that race plays a heavy hand. Yet I still don’t understand the rage. I look at this totally healthy, good-looking, privileged kid and just don’t get it. He is at a prestigious private boarding school, a place where everyone is college-bound. He has nice clothes and food and rolling lawns to play sports, a battalion of friends, and a family making a sacrifice for his happiness. Yet he is fuming over a dead undocumented immigrant who used to pick cherries on some faraway farm.
His is just the kind of anger that leads to shouting that leads to nowhere. I don’t understand how we can have a discussion about immigration or any other policy in this country if we are so angry we can’t listen to the other side. Talking and listening are what builds consensus. Shouting is just a bunch of noise.
The Shenandoah trial centered on whether Luis Ramirez’s death was the result of a fight gone awry or an attack, possibly with racial motivations. John Redmond, one of the six, said the boys had met up in a garage at Brandon’s house. A police officer was there with the mothers of Derrick and Brandon, none of whom has ever spoken publicly about the events. The aim was to get rid of references to the racial slurs and the kicking of Luis. And also to the fact that the boys had been drinking. Brian and Colin said Derrick arrived in a Shenandoah police cruiser driven by Shenandoah police officer Jason Hayes, who is identified as the boyfriend of Brandon’s mother. Officer Bill Moyer is also in the car. The boys talk about getting their stories straight.
At one point there is a suggestion from the defense that Roxanne and Luis were having a secret affair, and the story line becomes that the teens were imposing their moral authority. Roxanne even admits to it on the stand. Her sister Crystal doesn’t believe it was possible for her little sister to be having an affair with her boyfriend who worked seventeen-hour days. And would that have made it okay to kill Luis? Then the MALDEF lawyer Gladys Limon discovers a picture on Facebook of Derrick at a Halloween party wearing a shirt with a legend on it reading “Border Patrol.” There were three groups in the courtroom as the case went to the jury: the press, the teenagers’ supporters massed in the center, then three people representing Luis Ramirez—Gladys Limon, a lawyer from Philadelphia who had come to keep her company, and Enrique Luis Sanchez, an official from the Mexican consulate. The jury got the case on May 1, 2009, a day when marches and rallies were held across the United States protesting for immigrants’ rights.
The verdicts in the Shenandoah case came late at night. Brandon Piekarsky and Derrick Donchak faced decades in jail if convicted of murdering Luis but as the verdicts came—“Not Guilty.” “Not Guilty.” “Not Guilty.”—the cheering drowned out the tears of Gladys Limon, the MALDEF lawyer. To Limon fell the task of calling Luis Ramirez’s mother in Mexico to tell her the news. Piekarsky and Donchak were convicted of simple assault charges and corrupting minors by giving them alcohol. It turned out there was one holdout on the jury—the foreman, Eric Macklin—but the jury vote, 11-1 for an acquittal, came after two hours of deliberations.
Crystal Dillman was an outsider in Shenandoah even before she had met Luis. After he died, she lost her job, and Crystal was unhireable in that atmosphere. Even her own family stopped talking to her. She was holed up in her apartment through the trial, and now she locked her doors to avoid the people who chose to greet the verdicts by celebrating, driving through town with horns blaring like the local team had won a big game. There was a T-shirt that had been seen around town: “Fuck You, Crystal. Your Day Is Coming.” Crystal would later start making plans to leave Shenandoah. Luis’s mother wrote the judge a letter from Guanajato, Mexico. Luis was working to support his mother as well as his own family. He was undocumented—she knew that. “They killed a human being who was my son,” she wrote. “I believe no one deserves to die like this simply because he was Mexican.”
CHAPTER TEN
A VOICE IN THE DEBATE
I wake up one morning at home and I feel as if I’m about to snap. I jump out of bed and fall into my clothes. I kiss everyone, head out. I rush off to another day of hair, makeup, coffee, airplanes, car rides, and questions with no answers. I’m exhausted. The spring and summer of 2009, I travel seven days a week. I make a speech, show a clip, go to an interview, huddle with my producers, fight, complain, nag, praise, and eat on the run. These documentaries are a massive undertaking. There is just one me and there are a dozen stories unfolding at once, each with a producer and photographer in a different place, a different airport, with different demands. I can’t escape, but I am on the run. My feet ache. My back is stiff. I yawn constantly. My hair is wilting so I pull it back into a tight ponytail and slick it back. I am so tired from running but I can’t bring myself to stop.
I feel so different from when I started at CNN. It’s as though I’m not reporting stories anymore, but rather have been launched on this incredible mission. In the America where I was raised, I felt invisible—a light-skinned black girl in a white town. Now, my America is a kaleidoscope of people. I have permission to turn and turn the wheel and see all the different ways we can see ourselves. But I have to get it right.
In 1968, the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, the Kerner Commission, once blamed bad media portrayals of the black community in part
for fomenting riots. Black people on TV were too often depicted as poor, troubled, violent—as outsiders. That image affected how they were treated. Now brown is fast becoming the new black. A 2009 study by Pew Research Center found that Americans of all races believe Latinos face more discrimination in this country than any other ethnic or racial group. The National Association of Hispanic Journalists does surveys of how the networks cover Latinos. The biggest news is that they don’t much cover them at all, except in a negative light. I want to do better. The U.S. Census is predicting that a quarter of the U.S. population will be Latino by 2050. The pressure is insane. I really have to get this right.
But in the midst of reporting Latino in America, an angry public debate erupts about whether CNN is using my work as an apology for community complaints about another anchor on the network, Lou Dobbs. Lou’s is primarily a talk show of opinion and debate. He does not report straight-ahead news like the other anchors at CNN. And, he has a long-running series called Broken Borders, attacking illegal immigration. Latinos represent three-quarters of the country’s approximately 12 million undocumented immigrants. Lou is a broad man, imposing, with a swath of brown hair combed perfectly into place. He jumps out of the screen and his booming voice gives him a certain gravitas. His earlier reports on NAFTA and the working class sparked lively debates. At first, his reports on immigration have that same oomph; they are incisive, even scholarly. He speaks before the National Association of Hispanic Journalists in 2007 and gets some applause. But his tone changes and escalates over time. He doesn’t just oppose illegal immigration; he calls it an “invasion” and gives voice to groups that are accused of vigilantism. Even when big news might be breaking elsewhere, his show often headlines with our country’s immigration crisis, with a tight focus on Mexicans.
“Good evening, everybody Pro-amnesty senators and the Bush White House tonight are struggling to sell their so-called compromise on immigration reform to both Congress and the voters,” he says on Saturday, May 19, 2007.
“Opponents of that compromise say it would give amnesty to up to 20 million illegal aliens while doing virtually nothing to secure our ports and borders. But the supporters of the deal say it’s the best chance we have.” The show delivers five stories on immigration that day Dobbs has a piece on a hole in the border security fence and another crediting immigration with a rise in leprosy. He then engages in a rancorous debate with two of his guests.
At first, a parade of Latino leaders debates him on TV Eventually, most of them stop appearing on his show. They complain that his tone encourages xenophobia. They denounce him publicly. His report fuels the national immigration debate. He becomes a figurehead for anti-immigrant groups. He is the Harvard-educated founder of CNN Financial News, so his credentials give weight to opponents of illegal immigration. Two organizations are launched to ask for his head: Drop Dobbs and Basta Dobbs.
By the time Latino in America is in production, Lou has moved on from the Broken Borders campaign. The economy is spiraling downward. There is a new president. Lou reports on the “birthers,” people who believe Obama wasn’t born in the United States. This is Lou’s new focus. The launch of my project has nothing to do with him. I lobby to do Latino in America. I had come off the heels of Black in America and wanted to turn the same eye toward Latinos. CNN is years into a very successful editorial effort to diversify viewership, reach new audiences. They give me the green light. I start to research and find a common theme. Latinos are dream chasers, a varied people breaking roots with twenty-one countries and three languages in search of a better life. I feel like I’m making some headway But as soon as I begin shooting, Lou’s opponents turn their attention to me.
“Unfortunately for O’Brien, her colleague Lou Dobbs has so angered Latino activists and bloggers that her quality work is at risk of being ignored,” says blogger Kim Pearson.
“Will movement to remove Lou Dobbs overshadow Soledad O’Brien’s Latino in America at CNN?” asks the headline in the Examiner.com.
“We believe that Lou Dobbs is the number one pusher of anti-immigrant hate and that has poisoned the environment for immigration reform,” says Carlos Fernandez, a community leader in Chicago Now. “It’s a good series. It’s important and necessary. But four hours on the contributions Latinos have made is not enough to counteract what Dobbs is promoting.”
Our Latino in America Facebook page poses a question: “CNN’s Soledad O’Brien journeys into the homes and hearts of a minority group destined to change America. Is it the ultimate clash of cultures or the ultimate melting pot?”
The Latino authorAdam Luna reacts on the Huffington Post: “CNN seems to have already answered the question. Airing about 260 hours of ‘culture clash’ TV every year, and just a couple of hours to tell the story of Latino families who are a vibrant part of the American experience.”
The whole thing makes me queasy I get excited every time I see articles talking about my project, then I realize they’re really about this controversy. I can’t get out in front of it. I feel like I’m standing in a field waving a flag in hopes of getting everyone’s attention. I feel as if my effort is never going to get a chance to stand on its own. Latino community leaders are eager to spread the word about Latino in America, their opportunity to get wide-ranging coverage on national TV They want to promote my work. They lavish awards on me and ask me to speak at their luncheons. But they can’t resist the opportunity to talk about Lou Dobbs. He may have moved onto other stories, but they are not done with him. People used to thank me as I took the stage at community events. Now community leaders apologize as they stand to make a comment. “Soledad, I love your work,” they say before hijacking my event. Their strategy is clear. They praise me and support the documentary, but they seize this chance to vent.
A central figure behind much of the organizing is Roberto Lovato, a former journalist who has emerged as a commentator and community leader. Roberto is one of those guys who are always smiling even when his rhetoric sounds angry He can kill you with a friendly question. He has the shaved head, goatee, and bespectacled look of an activist.
“They [CNN] think that a few hours of serious reporting on Latinos by sunny Soledad O’Brien can make up for thousands of hours of anti-Latino extremism from the dark Lou Dobbs,” he says in his columns. He keeps demanding meetings with my boss. At some point, we begin airing promotional videos for Latino in America and Roberto immediately hijacks them, does a reediting, and releases them on the Web. There I am on camera, all hair and makeup, with my multicultural smile:
“This October CNN will take an unprecedented look at Latinos in America. We have so many stories to tell,” I say. Then brilliant bold letters flash across the screen: “BUT CNN HAS A PROBLEM.” All I can think is, no, actually, it’s me that suddenly owns this so-called problem! My promo has been intercut with Lou’s voice repeating over and over again the words “criminal illegal aliens.”
“Criminal illegal aliens are in the country including many murderers and rapists,” his voice says. The video ties Lou’s support of anti-immigrant patrols like the Minutemen Project to rising hate of Latinos, and even brutal attacks. There is a clip of Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes challenging the facts of his report that border crossers have caused an increase in leprosy
“I can tell you this, if we reported it, it’s a fact,” he tells her. Lesley insists: “You distort the figures, you exaggerate.” Then he faces off against the ultra-liberal Amy Goodman, who points out that he repeatedly says a third of prisoners in the United States are illegal aliens. Lou says he “misspoke.” “Mexico has become our enemy,” he says before a hail of images shows verbal and physical attacks on Mexicans. Then the video is done with him. But it is not done with me.
“Soledad understands,” the narrator says, and they pull a clip of me making a commencement speech at a college graduation. “The worst thing you can do,” I am telling a crowd, “is do nothing and say nothing and not act when your voice is needed.” The whole thing makes
me feel ill.
Lou doesn’t take any of this sitting down. He says nothing on CNN, but on his radio show he calls Roberto a “bozo” and a “joke,” a “delusional” liberal activist. “I’m just a dog and you’re one of my fleas,” Lou says. “... And the fact is, you wouldn’t be accusing me of anything if I were supporting illegal immigration and amnesty, and you’re not even man enough to admit that straight up. You are a typical left-wing activist coward propagandist, trying to use the Constitution that enables all of us to have free expression, trying to deny my rights.”
I choose not to engage in the debate, either publicly or in print. My best contribution to a debate over the best way to cover Latinos is to cover them well.
“Occasionally at screenings I get asked a question or two about Lou Dobbs,” I tell an interviewer at Latina magazine. “But you know, in my mind, going into this documentary it was the same as every documentary I’ve done. It’s me. It’s my voice. I’m fully one hundred percent responsible for the content of it. That makes it great for me, because I feel like my voice is really what you see and then sometimes it’s scary ’cause it’s my responsibility to make sure that these things turn out well. I think that, outside of the fact that we both went to Harvard, Lou Dobbs and I don’t have a whole heck of a lot in common. I don’t look to anyone else who works at this company who’s not on my production team to be informed by anything. That’s just how we do it.”