"How colorism haunts dark-skinned immigrant communities" PBS NewsHour 5/19/2021
Excerpt
SUMMARY: The death of George Floyd last year has shone a spotlight on what it means to be Black, and especially, to be dark-skinned in America. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro has our report from Minnesota, home to a growing population of African and other immigrants. It is part of our continuing series "Race Matters", and Fred’s series, "Agents for Change."
SUMMARY: Sean Sherman, better known as the Sioux Chef, uses ingredients native to the Americas to draw attention to the long-forgotten Native culinary tradition. His research and cooking are also a way to push back against processed foods that he and others blame for grave health consequences in the U.S. today. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports from St. Paul, Minnesota.
SUMMARY: Volunteers from some of the world’s biggest food producers, who decades ago took food-making from kitchen to the factory, are offering guidance to African entrepreneurs and helping nations become less dependent on imported food. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports from Kenya.
SUMMARY: Lack of access to running water is an issue in many developing countries, but it is also a problem in the United States. Nearly 40 percent of the homes in the Navajo Nation lack running water or sanitation, and many are in such remote areas that they will never be able to connect to a water line. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports on new efforts to bring them basic amenities.
SUMMARY: There is a heated battle in one Utah county over voting district lines and the effect on Native American representation. Last year, a federal judge ruled that the districts had been gerrymandered by lumping the Navajo into a single bloc, drawing angry reaction from some. Special correspondent Tommy Brookbank from the University of Southern California's Annenberg Rural Reporting Initiative reports.
SUMMARY: Most rural Indian parents dream of an education and job in the city for their children, rather than a life spent farming. But with a growing migration to cities, there is concern India might not be able to produce enough food to feed its people. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports on one group’s effort to restore rural land and communities, in part one of a two-part look.
SUMMARY: About two-thirds of India's 1.3 billion people live on small subsistence farms, struggling to eke out a living. Many farmers have felt left behind as crops have failed or diminished due to disease, degraded soil, and drought. Not thousands are returning to traditional seeds that went out fashion decades ago -- an approach that's gaining attention. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports.
SUMMARY: At a garment factory that makes T-shirts bearing the logos of American universities, about a fifth of the workers at high-school dropouts. But if they want to keep their jobs, they'll need to do something about it. Special correspondent Fred De Sam Lazaro reports from El Salvador on the factory turned college pipeline that employs those normally left out of society, including ex-gang members.
SUMMARY: A mysterious, chronic kidney disease is wreaking havoc on farm workers in Central America, particularly those who harvest sugar. Despite the risks, Salvadoran cane cutters continue the grueling work, pushed by economic troubles. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports on how some are trying to improve work conditions in El Salvador.
SUMMARY: What has driven tens of thousands of Salvadorans to leave home, many for the U.S.? El Salvador's coffee beans suffered a devastating disease five years ago, and now face an even greater existential threat, climate change. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports on how researchers there are trying to develop a plant that can adapt to warming global temperatures.
SUMMARY: Clubfoot, a treatable birth defect that can bring pain and social isolation, is often not treated in the developing world. But a treatment developed a half century ago by a doctor in Iowa is less invasive, less expensive and less painful than the corrective surgery that was once required. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports on how a charity is trying to bring the cure to children in India.
SUMMARY: More than three million women are forced into servitude as domestic workers every year, often lured to other countries in the Persian Gulf or Middle East under false pretenses. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports on ways some advocates are working to protect workers, as well as women in low-income countries who may be vulnerable to human traffickers.
SUMMARY: Larry Brilliant jokes that he doesn't live up to his last name, but he has lived a remarkable life, from his early days in the San Francisco hippie scene, to his work as one of the world's leading disease fighters who helped eradicate smallpox. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro sits down with Brilliant to look back at his career and current work identifying today's global threats.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO (NewsHour): The shiny red T-bird convertible is a nod to its owner's Detroit roots. But it's in San Francisco that he first made a name for himself. It was quite a name to begin with.
DR. LARRY BRILLIANT, Epidemiologist: It's so arrogant to have a name like Brilliant that I put 'Sometimes Brilliant and Sometimes Not So Brilliant.' And that's what I sign.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: The memoir Larry Brilliant is autographing chronicles a life of unusual journeys, a civil rights, an anti-Vietnam War activist, and hippie, who helped eradicate smallpox from the world.
Today, he's an adviser to Silicon Valley philanthropists who are helping him tackle other major diseases.
DR. LARRY BRILLIANT: In the last 30 years we've had 30 pathogens, viruses jump from animals to humans. We know some of them, SARS, MERS, swine flu, bird flu, Ebola, Zika.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: It all began in 1969 in San Francisco, where Brilliant had come for an internship after medical school and volunteered to work at the recently closed federal prison on Alcatraz Island, which was occupied by a group of about 100 Native American protesters. That stint got him on the evening news.
DR. LARRY BRILLIANT: Somebody from Warner Brothers saw me on television, and they called me the next day and they said, we're starting a movie in two or three days. We're going to be gathering at the same place I got off the boat, and it's going to be a movie about hippies and rock 'n' roll. It's going to have the Grateful Dead and the Jefferson Airplane and Pink Floyd.
SUMMARY: In India, home to the world's fastest growing economy, most workers, from street vendors to rickshaw drivers, aren't on the books, making them vulnerable to harassment by corrupt officials and policemen. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro profiles one group trying to protect vendors and improve their lives and businesses.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO (NewsHour): The big malls may have arrived, but in India, food, clothing and virtually everything else is still bought mostly from street vendors.
They, along with construction laborers, domestics, rickshaw drivers and rickshaw pullers, in fact, most workers in India’s economy, are, quite literally, off the books, says Indiana University’s Sumit Ganguly.
SUMIT GANGULY, Indiana University: Ninety percent of the work force in India is in the so-called informal sector.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: That could be a technical term that means a very hard life. They live from day to day. That is, if there’s work on any given day, they are paid at the end of it, less than $2 for most of them.
SUMIT GANGULY: These are people who have no Social Security provisions, who have no health care provisions, who can be hired and fired at will. And yet, according to a recent Credit Suisse study, it’s close to — they contribute close to 50 percent of India’s gross national product.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Not only are they underappreciated, but they fall easy prey to corrupt officials.
The market outside of Delhi’s main mosque has been here for more than 200 years. The vendors complain that they’re subject to regular harassment from police demanding bribes or from municipal authorities who conduct regular raids to evict them.
IMRAN KHAN, Street Vendor (through interpreter): They kicked us out from here in 2014, citing security reasons.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Across India’s cities, vendors like Imran Khan carry tales of harassment, sometimes along with their own video, of stalls dismantled and merchandise confiscated.
IMRAN KHAN (through interpreter): Then finally, we went to NASVI, to Arbind, and he said, you have only one option, straight to court.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Social activist Arbind Singh founded NASVI, the National Association of Street Vendors.
