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Page 2, Portland Observer, Juna 19,1966
Sylvan
Seattle reporter pans
Chilean dictatorship
Learning Center
CXAÛN06TIC a PRF SCRIPT IVE INSTRUCTION
M READING ANO MATH FOR ALL AGES'
JEANNE HARTZOQ
OWNER! DIRECTOR
by Robert Lothian
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A Seattle journalist who visited
Chile last fall reports the country’s
dictatorship to be more "corrupt
and rotten" than those in Central
America.
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Emmett M urray, a copy editor and
reporter with The Seattle Times, visit
ed Chile with his wife, Nancy Rising,
in September.
They spoke in Portland at a gather
ing sponsored by the Fellowship of
Reconciliation at the First United
Methodist Church.
Portlanders
protest funding
by Nathaniel Scoil
Wednesday, June 12 was national
“ Pledge o f Resistance" day to U.S.
involvement in Central America.
Across the nation hundreds o f people
demonstrated in a show o f national
solidarity to what they consider to
be an "escalation o f the military role
o f the United States in Central Am er
ica.” Portlanders, approximately 400,
locked hands last Wednesday and
circled the federal building chanting,
" N o , contra a id ," " N o , Pasaran,”
and "O ne, two, three, four, we don’t
want Reagan’s w ar.”
The "non-violent pledge of resist
ance was to oppose (Reagan's) war
policy,” John O 'B rien, one o f the
organizers with W orld Peace Makers,
said.
O'Brien said the demonstration
was held because o f the instigation of
a number o f governmental policies,
including, "Am erican planes carpet
bombing El Salvador with phos
phorus and napalm bombs every
day.”
The protesters marked aound the
federal building banging pots before
entering the lobby to read testimonies,
sing songs, recite poetry and make
speeches.
However, one group o f demonstra
tors thought more stringent measures:
"civil disobedience," was needed
A group o f students from different
Portland area high schools who call
themselves No M inor Cause were
particularly outspoken.
Several members o f the group had
to be forcibly removed from the fed
eral building when it closed for the
day.
One o f the founding members
of No M inor Cause, 16-year-old
Monica Koskey, a student at both
Jefferson High School and the M etro
politan learning Center, said, “ We
would not like to see our government
dishamed (through us involvement in
Central Am erica)."
Koskey and the members o f No
Minor Cause are not your "rocking
and rolling disinvolved youth.” They
are saddened because o f the world
they have inherited: nuclear weapons
that continue to grow at an alarming
rate, and not knowing what lies ahead
in this mad dash race for the suprem
acy of earth.
"Y o u get a helpless feeling when
you are a youth because we don't
vote,” Koskey said. "How ever, we
feel real strong because there are other
things we can d o ."
One o f those "other things" hap
pened last Wednesday after the main
body o f protesters had disbanded.
Almost immediately after the dis-
banning, No M inor Cause and several
other youths began roaming the halls
o f the federal building passing out
leaflets and giving away little bags of
“ Nicaraguan coffee.”
“ We feel ashamed about what our
government is doing," Koskey said.
Koskey said No M inor Cause was
formed two years ago and that while
education was very important to
them, they wanted people to know
that "up-coming youth" are acting
out and are not going to conform to
what they believe is wrong.
" I think the youth o f today have a
hard time thinking about the future,"
she said "Right now I wouldn't want
to have a child as the world is."
Koskey maintained that her genera
tion inherited “ nuclear weapons"
from the generations that preceeded
them and it’s their responsibility to try
to set this mad world on a safer
course. She said No Minor Cause has
vowed to continue to resist govern
mental policies that lead to destruc
tion through whatever means neces
sary, even if it calls for civil disobedi
ence.
Angela Morales wiih Portland's
Central American Solidarity C om
mittee said some 35 organizations
took part in the demonstration and
that most had signed pledges "to
resist by legal means or through non
violent civil disobedience."
However. No Minor Cause had no
such intentions in mind because they
were concerned about becoming
adults; raising families and enjoying
the fruits o f life.
One elderly gentleman in the crowd
wanted to know: " Is that too much
for any youngster to expect?”
Black population growing fast
I
The nation’s Black population
grew at twice the rate o f whiles be
tween 1980 and 1984, according to a
report from the Commerce Depart
ment’s Census Bureau.
The bureau's latest annual popu
lation estimates by age, race, and sex
indicate that Blacks totaled 28.6 mil
lion in July 1984 — up 1.8 million or
6.7 percent over the 1980 census
count. The while population rose
195.1 million to 201.4 million, up
3.2 percent. The total U .S. popu
lation was 236.7 million (including the
armed forces overseas), up 9 6 mil
lion or 4.2 percent.
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COMING JUNE 29 & 30
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EXPOSITION CENTER * MAIN HALL
SATURDAY 10 A.M.-9 P.M. SUNDAY 10 A.M.-6 P.M.
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F O R B O O T H S P A C E IN F O R M A T IO N C A L L O U R
P O R T L A N D O F F IC E A T 226*03 21
SW AP
N S H O P A S S O C IA T IO N
OF THE N O R T H W E S T
»T.
Murray showed copies of a long
scries of articles he wrote for The
Seattle Times about his visits to Chile,
El Salvador, Honduras and Nica
ragua.
He speaks Spanish, and often cov
ers Hispanic-related stories, he said.
Rising is executive director o f the
Seattle Downtown Association and a
member o f the Greater Church Coun
cil o f Seattle.
After 12 years in power, said M u r
ray, the PiniKhet regime in Chile is
characterized by "a deep corruption
of morality, o f the principle of inner
being." He described police who
benefit from the state o f siege by
drawing double pay, and officials
who skim earthquake relief money
from agencies like the Red Cross.
"W e have no censorship in Chile,
and we never w ill,” officials told him.
Then, said Murray, while walking on
a downtown street he
maganne with the front
out. All photographs
from being published in
discovered a
cover blacked
are banned
Chile, he said
Repression is evident on the street,
said Rising. They were out for a walk
one day. she said, when they noticed
police dragging a well-dressed older
man to a van. His family and friends
cried. " I f you would have blinked
your eyes, you would have never
known what had happened,” she
said.
On another occasion they attended
a protest service at a cathedral where
"nobody had done anything but
sing," said Murray. A phalanx of
mean-looking police soon showed up,
and M urray found himself in a pre
carious position between the police
and protesters with his camera
around his neck. He decided it wasn't
the time for snapping pictures. " I
expected to get hit,” he said.
Spittle dripped from the mouths of
the police, whose faces were mad svith
fury, he said. Even though faced
with a brutal heating, arrest, deten
tion and torture, "T h e people there
didn't even flinch," and the police
eventually hacked down, sid Murray.
"They have managed to kill, exile
and relegate to Ihe interior most o f
the men so it’s left to the women to
organize the opposition, and boy, are
they ever," she said "M o re and
more, people are going beyond fear."
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Sa«a tim e an d m o n e y all to g eth er
Amerasian kids try
to adjust to new life
by Robert l.olhian
last summe, an orphaned Vietna
mese refugee hoy named M y Lai
commuted suicide by jumping from
the Fremont Bridge
He had made his way to Portland
in 1979 Bounced from foster family
to foster family, he joined a gang of
Vietnamese teenagers and descended
into drugs.
His mother had disappeared some
where in that ravaged land His father
was an American serviceman whom
fie had never met.
M y l.ai was one of an estimated
7,000 - 15.000 Amerasian children
fathered by American servicemen
during the S.E. Asian wars About
1,500 o f the children have entered the
United Stales since 1982, according
to the U.S. Office of Reufgee Re
settlement About three dozen live
in Portland, according to local refu
gee agencies.
Amerasian children come to the
U.S. with all the problems that other
refugees have and more, say social
workers. Viet Nam doesn’t want
them, they say, and the United States
tut ns a blind eye.
The children have trouble getting
into school in Viet Nam, and it’s hard
for them to get jobs. Some are forced
into prostitution at an early age, say
social workers.
M y Lai, whose name resembles that
of a village where American soldiers
carried out a terrible massacre, was
known as “ half-breed" to his
friends.
" H e wasn’t easy to live with,”
said Ana Kammann, who took M y
Lai into her home from time to time
when his current foster family
couldn't handle him Kammann di
rects the Unaccompanied Indochinese
Minors Project for Lutheran Family
I Services in Portland
"W hat his friend said to me was,
that he just kind of ran out of friends
and had no place to g o," said Kam-
mann.
Discriminated against in Viet Nam
and neglected by the country that
sent a soldier to father him, caught
between two cultures, carrying the
burden of war — could it have added
up to an extreme psychological bur
den that made life unbearable for
C h e c k C a s h in g O p en
12 p m 1 0 P M
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M y Lai?
It appears that way, but who
knows? One thing is uncertain —
tie was very unhappy.
No such tragedy is apjsarent with
Tu Dang, 13, an Amerasian girl who
just finished the 8th grade at Kellogg
School. Her pastime since school let
out is playing with her best friend,
Huong Hguyen, 12. another Am er
asian girl.
Except for her eyes, that is .. . . eyes
that lose their brightness when Tu
Dang is asked about her father.
“ M y father, he doesn’t like m e,"
she said meekly, in halting English.
Tu Dang is one o f the few Am er
asian children lucky enough to ac
tually have met their American fa
thers.
He left his new faintly in Montana
to come visit. Tu Dang returned with
him to go on a family camping trip.
She hasn't heard from him since.
“ I just want to be svith my mother,"
is all Tu Dang will say about it, shyly,
her eyes darting away as she skips o ff
to play with Huong Nguyen.
Pain? Perhaps it’s the pain in any
child's eyes when confronted with the
reality o f her broken fam.ly.
Perhaps it’s the pain of something
much darker and deeper, that no
one can understand or control, but
just live with.
Next week Pert Two.
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