Los Chinos Mambises

I'm supposed to be doing some research on early immigration of Asians to the Americas, and came across a reference to Chinese immigration to Cuba in the mid 19th century. Unfortunately, the biggest page I found was written in Spanish. Using my ... excellent... high school Latin skills, this is as far as I got (original page here if you find it in your heart to help me out):

The first Chinese, mainly from arrived in Cuba on June 3, 1847. That first shipment was of 200 Chinese, 6 having died on transport. They, and subsequent Chinese "indentured laborers" were forced to work over 12 hours a day, for 4 pesos a month, for 8 years, except on Sundays. They worked mainly on plantations in rural areas, with not hope of returning to their native land.

Many of the Chinese seem to have joined the rebels in the 10 year War of Independence. They served with valor and sacrifice, and came to be known as Los Chinos Mambises. The article speculates that they joined the rebellion because of their inhumane working conditions, which caused sickness and death, similar to the conditions of the enslaved Africans and Creoles(?)

Going to look for the English copy of a Chinese report on Cuban immigrants, at the BPL later this week.

Part 4: Can Technology Make Us Better Organizers?

This will be the last in the technology and teleology series (I realize now that teleology didn't factor into the series as much as I planned).

One reason I started this series was because of a conversation I had with a friend. He said that although history has no teleology, its not headed anywhere specific, that technology has created a sort of progress, a democratization of power. His main point was military-- that with military advances, the underdog has a better chance of winning now than ever before in history. I disagree, but that's a conversation for another post.

Speaking about this democratization of power though, I argue that community organizers are usually the underdogs. Technology, however, does not naturally favor the underdogs. If technology can make things like publicity and communication easier for us, it can also make publicity and communication easier for the people who do stuff that we don't agree with. It boils down to who has access to technology and who can utilize it more efficiently.

It isn't good and it isn't evil, but it definitely isn't neutral.

**Bonus**

A video from Al Jazeera English, addressing media and its influence on the way world events play out.

Part 3: Can Technology Make Us Better Communicators?

Phones. Then email. AIM. Cellphones. Texting. Gchat. Friendster, AsianAvenue, Xanga, MySpace, Facebook. Skype. Twitter. And that line from "He's Just Not That Into You":

I had this guy leave me a voicemail at work, so I called him at home, and then he emailed me to my BlackBerry, and so I texted to his cell, and now you just have to go around checking all these different portals just to get rejected by seven different technologies. It's exhausting.

Does technology help us communicate better or does it just give us more options to miscommunicate? Several news outlets, including the New York Times have cited Twitter as an important factor in the recent protests over the Iranian election (article here).

I had a conversation about communication with an organizer from the late 60's. She told me how they used to meet at lunch everyday to make sure everyone knew what was happening. And how they would have long meetings in multiple people's cars to make sure that information stayed secret.

Communication took longer, but people met face to face. Forget about mass emails asking a hundred people to show up, only to have three at the event. A little personal contact goes a long way. We never know who's watching our email accounts and that's not just paranoia talking.

Someone once said to me: "Money isn't evil and money isn't good, but its definitely not neutral." Between censorship, monitoring, instant communication, and remote communication, I think the same applies to technology here.

Part 2: Can Technology Make Us Better Informed?

I'm thinking about how we get our news. As far as TV goes, there's a channel for just about everything. I once heard a statistic that claimed that more people get their news from news satire shows like the Daily Show and SNL than from the nightly news stations. Not verifying that, because its not the fact that counts. Its the idea that it could be true. Plenty more people I talked to last week said that they get a lot of their news from Facebook (from other people's feeds?). I watch Al Jazeera English on Youtube for a lot of my news.

There are the blogs, of course, ones far more current events tilted than this one. They provide not just insanely current news, but also a huge variety of interpretations. If you want something more official, you can get newspapers from all over the world online. Go ahead, read the LA Times, the BBC, and the People's Daily every day.

The number of possibilities becomes the problem. Who can you trust? Sources that have the same political opinions as you? Only primary sources? Or only sources that have a reputation for good reporting? How do you know what's gotten through censors and filters? If you only have time to read one blog a day, what would you pick?

I don't read multiple papers everyday. That's not what I get paid to do. But I've developed a list of media sources and people that I trust to tell me the truth. I don't agree with all of them, but having a balance tends to keep them in check, something I couldn't do without access to lots and lots of sources.

Part 1: Can Technology Make Us Smarter?

Anyone with internet has access to more information than most people did twenty years ago. With Wikipedia and Googlebooks and Youtube, a person can learn just about anything. Anyone with access to a library has access to more information than most people did a hundred years ago.

And we are building on our knowledge of the past. Less than two centuries ago, we were still learning how to harness electricity. Now, forget electric lights, we have compact fluorescents and LCD screens. Technology increases exponentially.

In the face of this information democratization, however, languages disappear because no one is interested in learning them. The same applies to traditional farming and crafts methods. Perhaps the overall amount of knowledge in the world isn't increasing. Maybe the accessibility is increasing but the diversity is decreasing because so many people are looking at the same thing.

Another problem with these lines of reasoning is they examine knowledge and products of knowledge, not intelligence. Having access to greater resources doesn't make a person more intelligent.

Unless the X-Men appear, the human brain doesn't seem to be making any evolutionary progress. We're just standing on the shoulders of giants.

Technology and Teleology

Which is to say, does new technology mean progress? And if so, is that progress leading us anywhere? Does technology make life easier, better, etc.?

I want to spend a couple of posts looking at the topic, so be on the lookout.

Money, That's What I Want

I was sitting with a group of friends in a post-college apartment. (Let's call him) Vy asked (let's call him) Paul how much he was making. Paul laughed a little and said "I'd rather not say. Enough." Whatever enough means. Enough to not live at home. To rent a modern 2 story apartment with 3 other guys. And have a car.

I was talking to (let's call him) Andrew about a job offer. He said "If they don't offer me over $30,000 a year, its not worth taking the job. I'm worth more than that." Then Andrew looked at me and said "But you decided a while ago to not make money." Did he mean that I worked in a sector where my salary didn't equal my worth, as opposed to his? Or was he embarrassed that he had called my salary small?

As a general rule, we spend money based on how much we make. And its hard to hang out with people who spend more than you. Do we hide our salaries to pretend we're all equal or because we really believe our salaries determine our worth? Why is money such a touchy subject?

Home, or Layers of a Neighborhood

I've graduated. And, like many others this year, I moved back to Boston, in with my parents. As I walked around my old neighborhood, I could see how much its changed.

Even when I was in high school, the neighborhood was changing. They spent a lot of money widening the street behind my house into a major thoroughfare. Then a lot of fancy restaurants started showing up. Then they starting building newer, fancier buildings for luxury apartments. The old Chinese folks who used to grow vegetables in the community garden started losing their plots to richer, young professionals who wanted to grow flowers. Rents went up everywhere. Gentrification reshaped the neighborhood relentlessly.

I was aware of all this in high school, but coming back after a few years made the changes so much more jarring. I didn't watch new buildings go up. They appeared out of nowhere. And old landmarks are gone, like the mural that is now a green wall by a dog park.

On one street, three old shops remained: a boarded up restaurant, a Syrian grocery, and a glass shop. They remain, next to gourmet cheese shops, artisan jewelry shops, and dim-lit restaurants. These shops have existed as long as I can remember, the last traces of the Syrian neighborhood that remained until the 1940's. Back then, the Syrian and Chinese communities shared what is now Chinatown.

Some moved away after the second generation, tried to assimilate as ethnic whites. More were pushed out when the City built a highway through the neighborhood. Its sad to imagine Chinatown being pushed out, leaving only tiny traces. Something precious is lost in this "progress and development".

A Method of No Methods

In Black Skins, White Masks, Fanon writes something to the effect of "I leave methods to the botanists and the mathematicians". Except he wrote in in French.

Everyone has a method of working. Fanon's point was to not get too caught up in making or following a method, but being flexible enough to do what each separate situation requires. Perhaps botanists and mathematicians need rigid rules because their objects of study remain stable, but for those of us that work with people, there is hardly a subject-object relationship, and no one situation is ever the same as another.

Let's take my church. We had a meeting about choosing leadership about two weeks ago (it takes me a long time to think these things over). I don't know how the process used to go, but right now, the church is transitioning into having a structure of voting membership. Because we are in a transitionary period, the rules that we laid down as a church didn't really work, so we had to change them. Flexibility as a guideline.

Guidelines are helpful. They give us a starting point, let us know what has worked in the past, and remind us of the convictions we want to hold on to. But, for those of us that work with people, the people are always more important than the process, and our method must reflect that.