Today we'll look at how women's issues are taking the immigration reform spotlight. Then, the trial of former Guatemalan dictator begins, Iraqi immigrants refugees struggle to adjust to life in Orange County, we look at the state of African-American newspapers, and much more.
Women's issues move into immigration reform spotlight
Immigration reform is rarely thought of as specifically a women's issue, but it is central to the fight for women's equality. That's the argument of an organization of women calling themselves We Belong Together.
The group formed on Mother's Day of 2010 in response to Arizona's tough immigration laws. This week, they are in Washington, D.C. joining with California senator Barbara Boxer to lobby for immigration reform that will keep families together and empower women.
For more on this, we're joined by Pramila Jayapal, co-chair of the "We Belong Together" campaign.
Former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt stands trial for genocide
In Guatemala today, General Efrain Rios Montt will be prosecuted for the crime of genocide. It's the first time ever that a national court has put its own former head of state on trial for that crime. This case is being closely watched, both in Guatemala and here in the U.S. Jill Replogle
More than 200,000 people were killed or disappeared in Guatemala's 36-year-long civil war. It was one of the bloodiest and most vicious of modern times. But one period was especially brutal, the one in which General Efraín Rios Montt was in charge.
As he sought to squash a bubbling leftist uprising, thousands of Guatemalans were raped, tortured and slaughtered by the army he commanded.
In a scene from the documentary “When the Mountains Tremble,” filmed in 1982, indigenous Mayan women dressed in hand-woven blouses wail as they look upon a line of corpses — victims of a recent massacre in their remote village.
“I've seen brutality and had to analyze it through these cases in many places in Latin America and other regions, and what happened in Guatemala is very specific in the intensity, the premeditation,” said Almudena Bernabeu, a Spanish lawyer at the Center for Justice and Accountability, based in San Francisco.
Bernabeu is part of the legal team that has been working for 13 years to bring former president Rios Montt to trial. A UN truth commission after the war documented more than 600 massacres carried out by the Guatemalan army and its proxies. In some Mayan territories, up to 90 percent of villages were destroyed.
A group of survivors and human rights organizations first filed genocide charges against Rios Montt in Spain, but for years he evaded extradition. In 2007, Rios Montt won a seat in the Guatemalan congress, and Guatemalan courts ruled his public office granted him immunity from prosecution.
“They didn’t want to touch him," Bernabeu said. "Nobody wanted to touch the general.”
Until recently, that is. Rios Montt's term in congress ended in January 2012. Two weeks later, he was indicted for genocide in his home country. Bernabeu said a lot of things came together to change the aging dictator's fate — an intrepid attorney general, international pressure, and mounting evidence in the form of mass graves and secret army plans. Plus, she said, survivors of the genocide have been dogged.
“Guatemalan are quiet, never in your face, never confrontational, but they never stop what they need to do," Bernabeu said.
For a Guatemalan doctor living in the U.S., it's about time Rios Montt took the stand.
“It’s been nearly three decades, 30 years of waiting for this moment to arrive," said Marvyn Perez, who lives in Los Angeles.
Perez was among a group of students captured by Guatemalan police shortly after Rios Montt came to power. They were interrogated and tortured. Perez was eventually released and his family left for the U.S. a few months later. He'll be following the trial closely. Perez actually said he’s glad Rios Montt and other military leaders are getting a fair trial.
"Today they have the chance to defend themselves, something they denied to so many people,” Perez said.
The tinkling melody of Guatemalan marimba accompanied a recent dinner held in the parking lot of a San Diego apartment complex. A group of Guatemalan ex-pats organized the dinner as a fundraiser to support rural schools back home.
More than one million Guatemalans now live in the U.S. Thousands of them arrived after fleeing the violence in their home country. Not all are gripped by the trial of their notorious former president, and some at the dinner barely knew it was happening. Still Alonso Mendez remembered the fear that plagued his country in the 1980s.
"Everyone was scared of the army," Mendez said, "of their own president, actually. The guy who was supposed to defend the country, he’s the one people were most afraid of.”
Rios Montt is now 86 years old. If he’s convicted, he’ll spend the rest of his life under house arrest — not exactly a stiff punishment for genocide. Still, Bernabeu, the lawyer, said the trial itself is a victory.
“I think it is more the symbol of the dictator, the powerful man," she said, "being forced to listen to 130 testimonies of how people suffered with [what] this, you know, jerk and his men did."
And, of course, there's the possibility of a guilty sentence.
"And hopefully they pronounce it with a microphone and with the room packed," Bernabeu said. “You know, to me, it’s the power of that symbol, and that will be there forever.”
The trial is expected to last several months.
Rajiv Chandrasekaran on the aftermath of the Iraq invasion
Ten years ago today the U.S. launched its military invasion of Iraq. For Americans, there will be no official commemoration of this event, which still raises a lot of unanswered and uneasy questions.
In Iraq, the anniversary was marked by a series of explosions that killed more than 50 people in Shi'ite neighborhoods around Baghdad. It's only the most recent example of the sectarian violence that's been part of Iraq's landscape since the Americans toppled Saddam Hussein, the country's brutal former dictator.
All this week, we're looking back to the start of that war, which lasted more than eight years and claimed the lives of well over 100 thousand soldiers and civilians. Yesterday, we heard from Southern California veterans and a photojournalist about their experiences during the early days of the war.
Today, we look back at what happened in the first year after the invasion, as Paul Bremer and the Coalition Provisional Authority sought to create a new Iraqi government.
Rajiv Chandrasekaran was the Baghdad bureau chief for the Washington Post in 2003 and 2004, and he's the author of "Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone."
A flood of Iraqi refugees struggle to adjust in Orange County (Photos)
Since the U.S. opened up its doors to Iraqi refugees in 2007, more have ended up in California than any other state, nearly 20,000. An increasing number of then are arriving in Orange County and are facing big challenges once they arrive. As KPCC's Ben Bergman reports, they can face significant challenges.
RELATED: See all of KPCC's coverage on the Iraq War, 10 years later
'Being White in Philly' sparks racial debate in the City of Brotherly Love
In the City of Brotherly Love, there's little love for a magazine article that's stirred up race relations. Philadelphia Magazine recently published a cover story, "Being White in Philly."
Writer Bob Huber, who's white, published anonymous interviews with other white people around the city for their candid views on race. "I wanted to look at is how white people relate to people in the inner-city or don't relate to them," he explained at an forum hosted by the magazine.
For example, Huber shares the story of one resident he only identifies as John.
He tells me about the time, a Saturday afternoon more than 10 years ago, when he came downstairs to his living room to find a stranger had come in through his front door — “It was a n***er boy, a big tall kid. He wanted money.”
It’s a strange moment, not only because of the ugly word, but because of John’s calm in delivering it, as if it is merely fact, one that explains the vast changes in his world.
Unsurprisingly, the article set off a firestorm. Philly's mayor Michael Nutter, who's black, said the story was disgusting, and called for an investigation into the issues it raised.
But if the reaction to these views is so angry, how do you tackle race issues without making people afraid to say things openly?
Guests:
David Wall Rice, a professor at Morehouse College in Atlanta where he specializes in race and identity.
Vilma Ortiz, professor sociology and Chicano/Chicana studies at UCLA.
The state of the African-American newspaper
Yesterday, the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism released its 2013 annual report on the state of the news media. While most all sorts of media has been negatively affected, African-American news media outlets seem to be hit especially hard.
We'll speak with Eric Deggans, the TV/Media Critic for the Tampa Bay Times
Why Villaraigosa fell short as LA's education mayor
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa prepares to step down in June after eight years in office. Now he's taking credit for improving one institution where city law gives him no authority: public education. KPCC's Adolfo Guzman-Lopez reports on what grade Villaraigosa has earned in trying to better the city's failing schools.
As Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa prepares to step down in June, among the achievements he takes credit for during his eight years in office is improving one institution that the law gives him no authority over: the public schools.
Yet if any one policy area shows where his ambition outstripped his performance, it would be in his oversight of the city's troubled schools.
Villaraigosa campaigned, in part, on the idea that power over the city’s schools should shift to his office.
“I’ve said that I believe that the next mayor should be involved with the schools,” Villaraigosa said during a mayoral candidate forum in 2005. “And I even see a role similar to (Michael) Bloomberg in New York and (Richard) Daley in Chicago, where the mayor has oversight over the schools.”
RELATED: Antonio Villaraigosa's Legacy in LA
But the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education rebuffed him.
Villaraigosa, who had been a popular speaker of the California Assembly in the late 1990s, didn't give up. He rallied his allies in the state legislature, who passed a bill giving L.A.’s mayor significant authority over the L.A. Unified School District.
He celebrated his victory with supporters at a South L.A. charter school after then Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the bill.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I cannot possibly convey the sense of hope that I’m feeling for our city’s future right now,” he told a group of students, parents, and charter school leaders.
The party's over
The party was over within a few months, when the school board – led by then-president Marlene Canter – won a lawsuit blocking the new law.
“The court didn’t just say no. They shouted no and said that the law is unambiguous,” said Pomona College Professor David Menefee Libbey. “In the state of California, there is this deep separation between city politics and school district politics. The voters have put it there, and the state legislature may not eliminate that separation.”
Villaraigosa was undeterred. If the school board wasn't going to support him, then he'd change the school board.
He aggressively raised money and campaigned to elect members aligned with his education policies. Monica Garcia, Tamar Galatzan, Yolie Flores Aguilar, and Richard Vladovic won seats on the school board in 2006 and 2007 with Villaraigosa's help.
With friends in place on the board, he came up with another proposal: He would take over some of the city's worst performing schools and turn them around. Villaraigosa created a non-profit, the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools and funded it with a $50 million commitment from real estate developers Richard and Melanie Lundquist.
The Santee Learning Complex, a high school just south of downtown L.A., is one of 16 Partnership schools. The campus had the dismally low Academic Performance Index score of 502 in 2008, before it was taken over. A perfect score is 1,000.
“We’re still under Los Angeles Unified School District, but as a Partnership school we receive additional support,” Vice Principal Marissa Martinez said as she showed off improvements during a recent tour.
On campus once a week
What she means by support is that Partnership administrators are on campus at least once a week to go over statistics with the staff, talk about challenges and to help find solutions. Martinez in turn visits at least one classroom every day to make sure that teachers are being effective.
Martinez said this kind of daily attention has raised Santee's Academic Performance Index score by 20 percent. But that new score, 612, is still way below the state average of 788. At least half of the Partnership schools are more than 100 points below the state average.
And that’s really not a great outcome for Villaraigosa's effort, said UCLA education professor John Rogers.
He said Villaraigosa’s education legacy is a story about a mayor who wanted to duplicate reforms in New York and Chicago, “who in doing that found that he had real limitations because of the political dynamics of Los Angeles and so took on a smaller chunk,” he said. “And (he) found that even in taking on this smaller issue he wasn’t able to fully realize the goals he had."
A lesson for L.A.’s next mayor, Rogers said, is not to try to run schools, but to instead use the mayor’s office as a bully pulpit to rally support for schools.
L.A. Unified school board president Monica Garcia, who just won a third term with Villaraigosa’s political help, disagrees. She said the mayor should be judged on how hard he fought.
“His legacy, when it comes to schools: he fought for kids just like him," she said. "He challenged his friends in the teachers union, in the state legislature, and down the road from him.”
Villaraigosa considers his involvement with the schools a success and is proud that he "set a high goal." In an interview with KPCC's Pat Morrison, he took credit for a district-wide improvement in test scores, even though he has no role in the vast majority of the district's 900 schools.
His office has issued a two two-page list of education accomplishments, some of which date back a decade before he was elected, such as voter-approved school construction bonds.
There is one effect of his involvement with L.A. unified that no one can debate: He has pushed spending on school board races into the stratosphere. His Coalition for School Reform raised more than $3 million to support three charter-friendly candidates in this year's race – securing big dollar, big name donations from all over the country. And that's a role he said he's not giving up.
"I’ve committed to LA’s advocates for education reform that I will continue to be involved in these school board elections," he said.
So far, the coalition is 1-1, helping board president Monica Garcia to gain re-election, but failing to unseat incumbent Steve Zimmer in March. The group said it plans to spend another $400,000 supporting Antonio Sanchez, who will face teacher Monica Ratliff in a runoff in May.
Tuesday Reviewsday: Dan Croll, Chico Mann, Justin Timberlake and more
Tuesday's the day that record companies usually release their new albums, so to help get caught up on the newest in music we have Oliver Wang from Soul-Sides.com and Morgan Rhodes from KPFK.
Artist: Dan Croll
Album: From Nowhere EP
Release Date: March 12
Songs: "From Nowhere" and "Only Ghost"
Artist: Toddla T
Album: Worst Enemy
Release Date: March 25
Songs: "Worst Enemy"
Artist: Prince
Songs: "Breakfast Can Wait"
Get tracks here
Artist: Laura Mvula
Album: Sing to the Moon
Release Date: March 12
Songs: "Is There Anybody Out There," "Jump Right Out"
Artist: Beyonce
Songs: "Bow Down"
Artist: Justin Timberlake
Album: 20/20 Experience
Songs: "That Girl"
Artist: Chico Mann
Album: Magical Thinking
Release Date: March 18
Songs: "Same Old Clown (feat. Kendra Morris)"
Artist: James Hunter Six
Album: Minute By Minute
Release Date: Feb 26
Songs: "Chicken Switch"
Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello steps down citing poor earnings
It's game over for John Riccitiello. Yesterday, Riccitiello announced he's stepping down from his post as CEO of the video game maker Electronic Arts. He cited poor earnings as the reason for his departure.
But some say the move is a bigger indication of the shaky future of video games in today's media market. For more on this we're joined by Kyle Orland, he's the Senior Gaming Editor at the tech website Ars Technica.
Study: Swallows evolved smaller wings to avoid threat of cars
The bells will be ringing today at the Mission San Juan Capistrano to celebrate the return of a bird so legendary it has its own song:
The St. Joseph's Day Festival to commemorate the swallows of Capistrano has been a tradition at the mission for over a century. The swallows migrate to San Juan Capistrano every year around March from their winter home in Goya, Argentina. In recent years, however, their numbers have been declining, likely due to changes in the landscape from urbanization.
A new study out of the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma seems to suggest that the cliff swallows there are adapting to their modified environments in an interesting way. Researchers found their wings may be getting shorter to help them take get out of the way of traffic.
"We found that by picking up dead birds killed by vehicles over the last 30 years, the wing lengths on these birds has changed, and we're finding many fewer dead birds now than we were finding 30 years ago," said Professor Charles Brown of University of Tulsa in Oklahoma. "So it looks like something is going on in the population enabling these birds to better avoid being hit by cars."
According to data collected in the study, the swallows' wing span decreased about 10 percent. Though that is not a large number, Brown says it's significant because it's happening in birds.
"It's actually quite a bit as bird morphology goes," said Brown. "Bird morphology is fairly static, it doesn't really change much in response to selection, and this is actually a very dramatic change in a morphological trait."
Though scientific evidence points to how natural selection allowing swallows to avoid being killed by vehicles, there are many other environmental factors that can contribute to such a evolution. For instance, Brown says that a change in the availability of insects, the bird's natural prey, and changes to their habitat are factors to consider. Also, natural selection fluctuates over time, so adaptations we're seeing now could cease to exist in the long term.
"Natural selection is a fluctuating process, and sometimes it may go one way and then go back," said Brown. "Over the long term you don't see a lot of change, but in the meantime you can see how populations are adapting to environmental variability."