International Reporting 2020

 

This semester I am planning on focusing the Philippine Islands mainly, with some input and viewpoints from the local Filipino communities in Queens and Manhattan.

Originally I wanted to tackle censorship and the closing of ABS-CBN in the islands, but upon further research I have grown wary about how easy or accessible information will be since a lot of more vocal sources seem to have become more careful about everything they say and post. A lot of the most outspoken currently are those who are located stateside, which offers a limited viewpoint through a westernized lens. I will continue to look into what routes I can take towards a more serious piece later on in the semester. 

While I work on looking into the aforementioned topic, I plan on doing a feature on Filippino “artistas” breaking into mainstream East Asian media. For a long time many actors and musicians were being snubbed for the fairer skinned Asians. However, some emerging Filipino stars are garnering negative attention for either “not looking Filipino enough” or being of mixed European descent. Aside from the starlets being criticized for their appearance, many critics claim that the media coming from the Philippines is inaccurate and tends to glamourize the Philippines as beautiful rich beaches despite 90% living close to the poverty line. I want to do a dive into the image the Philippines is portraying through music and movies and whether or not it is as detrimental as some claim.

The final topic I have considered covering is how LGBT is represented in the Philippines. Despite the country being quite conservative and strictly upholding Catholic values for the most part, the country is very accepting of homosexuals and mildly accepting of transgender people. Well, as accepting one can be while making these people the butt of the joke more often than not. My last idea would center around whether the acceptance and appreciation of the LGBT community in Philippine media is toxic or misunderstood. 

 

When examined more closely, history is alive and has left its marks in people who lived through the time. One of the examples is my grandfather who lived through the Korean War. Separated from their family in the chaos of the war, he never had a day that went by without thinking about or missing them. Although more than 20,000 people met their long-lost loved ones in reunions between the North and South, a lot of people have fallen short of their expectations and are still on the waiting list. According to the New York Times, “Since 1988, more than 75,200 South Koreans who applied to attend the reunion have died without seeing their parents, siblings or children again. More than 56,000 South Koreans, the vast majority in their 80s and 90s, are waiting to be selected by lottery for the next round of reunions, which has yet to be scheduled.” As fate would have it, my grandfather is one of those people who gave up all hope to see his lost family members. Writing his story in the form of a feature article, I would like to retrace his memories, recount the history of psychological trauma, and see how Korean reunification can come about and at what cost. Second, I would like to give an account of how Japanese colonial rule has still been affecting Korea. My grandparents, who lived through the time, still use a lot of Japanese words, and those words have been passed down through generations. This is more distinctly realized when my family — including myself — uses Japanese words even without noticing. According to Japan Time, “This anti-Japanese nationalism, now spread through school history textbooks as well as the mass media, is currently upheld by President Moon Jae-In’s Democratic Party government.” But the question still stands: Is this merely a hatred or a psychological scar from trauma left by Japan with no apology? In this particular piece, I would like to focus on the comfort women issue whose facts have been distorted but still live among us. Lastly, I would like to write an immigrant story. Although it might sound cliche, I’ll try to find an angle and frame it in a broader context or national/social issue.

In regards to the interview, I will reach out to my grandparents, experts (professors who have expert knowledge on each subject), and Korean community in the New York area.

This semester I will be focusing on the entire Caribbean nation to discuss the positive roles they have accomplished rather than what the media portrays. The media and other news sources discuss the negative international affairs between a country and their government. For example: “The oil exchange and political crisis in Georgetown, Guyana affects the Indian and Afro Guyanese people. The Guyanese President David Granger is supported by the Afro-Guyanese which bistands the Indian Guyanese who are farmlanders. Both sides are in fear of exclusion from public spending. Guyana is ought to be one of the poorest countries in South America, but has excluded that because now the land is filled with richness of oil.” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/world/americas/Guyana-election.html?referringSource=articleShare. Primarly I will be discussing the term “poor” since it describes the islands to be unstable and struggling rather than unique. I am a descendant from the island of Trinidad, adpated to my roots as a young child. Other islands have contributions of riches and minerals that are favored in the United States, but they never seem to be credited for accomplishments achieved in any type of businesses. In order to prove certain points and make my readers understand the logic and knowledge of the Caribbean I will be primarly focusing on major areas of residencies that center a large population of Caribbean people. Liberty and Richmond Hill in Queens, NY and Crown Heights and Flatbush in Brooklyn, NY. The significance of these places is filled with the people who came to live a better life and accomplish themselves and continue to still give back to their families back home. Often times the United States recognize people from the Caribbean such as famous musicians and athletes when there is much more we should recognize. Not only we should recognize the places we typically visit as a normal vacation spot, but what if we look beyond what we havent seen that could grasp our attention. More importantly its mainly about what the Caribbean can provide us and how we can recognize them for their accomplishments. Hopefully as well I can discuss if the Caribbean news channels can also broadcast towards the United States to share their views, also I do see myself broadcasting and traveling to the islands.

Caribbean News

 

This semester I would like to focus on either Dominican Republic or the community of Washington Heights and how COVID-19 has affected the everyday lifestyle of everyone living in these places. My parents are from Dominican Republic and currently live there, and I also went to high school out there and have many friends. I have been told of the many ways that life has differed in the span of a couple of months back there and how hard it has been for everyone to cope with these changes being that the DR has always been a very liberal place with loads of activities that have come to a halt.

For Washington Heights, I currently live here. It is usually called the little DR being that most of its occupants are from Dominican descent. I have many family members around me as well here. I know business owners in my area whose companies have faced tremendous struggle with less business hours and low customer intake.

I would like to focus on either of these places because I myself have experienced living in both locations. I would like to see the differences from how Dominicans in their own country are handling these situations and how Dominicans who are in a whole different country with just similar surroundings to their own home are dealing with todays world and these new restrictions.

As for sources, apart from having many family/friends/ and acquaintances that I can interview I found these websites that can help me look deeper into the crevices of how life has changed for Dominicans and what they are doing to change their lifestyle to fit into 2020.

https://www.godominicanrepublic.com/newsroom/coronavirus/

https://patch.com/new-york/washington-heights-inwood/town-hall-answer-uptown-small-business-coronavirus-questions

https://patch.com/new-york/washington-heights-inwood/uptown-coronavirus-death-rates-among-highest-manhattan-data

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/notices/warning/coronavirus-dominican-republic

 

 

 

For this semester, I would like to report current news about policy in China after the coronavirus outbreak at the head of 2020. China as the first COVID-19 outbreak country and the fastest hold the virus continues spreading. There are some of policies were declared after the virus were  controlled effectively. I had arrived Shen Yang in China before I completed spring session. I am able to offering reliable sources in order to report the last news and presents circumstance of China now.

Many countries have been struggling with coronavirus and the death toll of all global is over eight hundred thousand people since January. Some of countries had passed the urge infection and started the next step to cover the lose during the pandemic. China is the one that find the way to recover the economy as much as they can. I’ll use online sources and databases to be references which write in the report to present what is being happened during the COVID-19 in 2020.

China has already passed the toughest time of coronavirus and focusing on developed economy might backed to the level of the last year. Moreover, students are going back to school in September with effective method to prevent virus recurrent again. This topic would be the one which people are concerned about international news and also I have ability to report it well. I would like to interview people who lived in my community and stalls to get their opinions of the pandemic crisis. I also have plan to interview some education agents for collecting materials under the COVIE-19 then using for the report.

For the semester I would be interested in focusing on “non-traditional students” in New York City. What I mean by non-traditional is international students as well as undocumented students. Being an international student myself, the last few months have been a rollercoaster of emotions with the concerns of being away from home in a country by myself and then in summer to face deportation if classes were to remain fully online. Being part of this community for 2 years now has enabled me to meet students who come from all over the globe and to broaden the way I see the world. I have also met many students who are here without documents and who still fight for their dreams, which oftentimes is very inspiring. When it comes to what I would want to report about them, I am not quite sure yet but I believe that 2020 is a challenging year for everyone and I’m sure great stories can come from this among the population I want to focus on. The coming election are also very important for both these populations as the results could influence their stay in the USA. While I know undocumented students and have resourced based in my previous school (BMCC) I would report about this population only if they agree to or without giving out names for their protection.

I like writing profiles and if this format fits the class then I would like to present my stories in this way, or maybe with photography.

Otherwise I am also thinking about writing about my native country, France. Ever since I moved to the USA I have focused more on what is going here, forgetting to regularly check the news back home and this class could be an opportunity to do so. I am familiar with reliable sources such as Le Monde, 20minutes, Le Parisien etc and French TV channels. I also have friends and family spread out who I could get contacts from. The only down side of this part is that I am not sure which specific topic I could focus on but am open to any recommendations from my classmates if there are things they think should be covered about France.

For this semester, I would be interested in covering the Dominican Republic as well as the Dominican community in New York City. From the Table 2-2 shared on the class blog, Dominicans are the highest foreign-born population in New York City. Many Dominican immigrants are concentrated in the Washington Heights neighborhood in upper Manhattan; however, many Dominicans have been moving out of the neighborhood and into boroughs such as The Bronx as a result of gentrification. I would be interested in covering stories about gentrification in the neighborhood; specifically, I am interested in profiling older Dominicans who are still living in Washington Heights and how they are coping with rising rent prices. Moreover, I am also interested in covering the coronavirus and how Dominicans have been impacted by the pandemic. A recent article from The Patch shows that Washington Heights has the highest positive antibody rates in the borough of Manhattan which tells us that the neighborhood has been highly impacted by Covid-19.

Other than covering these topics, I am especially interested in writing feature stories on some Dominican change-makers and organizations. For example, Franchesca Feliz is a longtime Washington Heights resident that is preserving the culture of the neighborhood through her initiative, Uptown Girl Productions. I am also interested in speaking with the Dominican photographer of an image of demonstrators holding together a Dominican and Haitian flag during a Black Lives Matter protest in Washington Heights this summer. The image sparked a lot of controversy, which speaks a lot to Dominican and Haitian relations and the long held antihaitianismo in the Dominican Republic. Cardi B even had to defend sharing the image on her social media because of the uproar.

There are many other people and topics I would like to cover, but I want to keep this post short. In order to find sources, I will consult other Dominican journalists in my network, friends and family, as well as social media.

For this semester I would like to focus on the United Kingdom. The reason why I chose this country to be the focus of my reporting are the tensions surrounding the recent increase in migrations. From this there is an assumption that it is resulting in permanent cultural changes that are to the betterment or detriment to the country depending on whom you speak to. Some of this stigma has been attributed to the increase in conservative power in government, as well as the vote to leave the European Union.

The United Kingdom is not alone in this sentiment, with many other countries seeing a similar trend. This is a rise in conservative power and increased opposition to migration. For this research, I will reach out to multiple groups, such as political parties,  who have made their position known. I also hope to speak to a variety of people who currently live in the country and how they perceive migration. Getting data about the number of migrants coming into the country will also be imperative.

This issue is not new, this has existed for decades within the country. It started out as an issue that only 4% of the population worried about and has since increase to 48% of the population having concern over the amount of immigrants entering the country.

For this class, I would be very interested in doing reports on Mexican communities in New York City, as well as possibly certain reports on issues in Mexico. I am half Mexican, and I did see several relatives pass away this year due to Covid-19. I know that I can get many relevant stories about how the Coronavirus pandemic affected Mexican families in New York City. And, I also can get stories from within the country of Mexico, pertaining to how Covid-19 affected people there. I would be able to conduct video interviews through Skype and/or Zoom. Like I mentioned in the initial Zoom meeting, I do have experience with photography and videography, so it is a possibility for me to record and use certain media. Or, I would write very relevant and hard hitting reports of what I have researched. The issues I could reveal would be issues with Coronavirus in the Mexican/Hispanic communities of NYC, problems with kids going back to school, essential workers having to report to work everyday, and the loss of so many family members due to this unprecedented pandemic that turned all of our worlds into living nightmares. Additionally, I know people in my family who lost their jobs due to the pandemic, and they are now struggling to find new jobs, or they are taking hiatuses from working, all because of their fear of potentially catching the Covid-19 strain of Coronavirus. This pandemic brought on by Coronavirus has destructed so many people’s lives and daily ways of living. I firmly believe I can make great and timely journalistic reports based on this community.