Kwanwoo Jun

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

NYC Mendez

By Kwanwoo Jun

(In EAST VILLAGE, New York)

*Affordable Housing is generally made possible

when a rent does not exceed 30% of a household income.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Goldman & Crisis

“In my judgment, Goldman clearly misled their clients.”

By Kwanwoo Jun

LOWER MANHATTAN, New York -- Five years ago when Christmas was near at hand, a conference room on the 30^th floor of Goldman Sachs’ shiny 43-story global headquarters in Lower Manhattan was full of mortgage-market traders, experts and executives. No holiday mood was in the air. The housing loan market was teetering on the brink of collapse.

After hours of an in-depth market review during the meeting on Dec. 14, 2006, Goldman executives concluded the market would be in a meltdown. They decided to cash in on the crisis – an adept judgment that beat other Wall Street rivals.

Next day, Chief Financial Officer David Viniar said in an e-mail, “There will be very good opportunities as the markets [go] into what is likely to be even greater distress and we want to be in a position to take advantage of them.” Goldman traders acted accordingly, and the bank outperformed its rivals in the crisis. It was a big success.

Five years later, the e-mail was cited verbatim in a Senate report – in a totally negative context. The 639-page report, titled “Wall Street and the Financial Crisis,” portrayed Goldman as a greedy investment bank that misled and defrauded its clients for its own interests in the run up to the financial crisis.

Some of Goldman’s former clients have sued the bank for fraud over their massive investment losses. The federal regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission, last year slapped Goldman with a $550-million penalty – the heaviest fine paid by a single company on Wall Street in history – in a pre-trial settlement.

Ronald Filler, professor and director of the Center on Financial Services Law at

New York Law School, however, said the SEC-Goldman settlement did not draw a clear-cut line. “Goldman Sachs did not admit nor did it deny the allegations brought by the SEC,” Filler said.

Goldman has admitted to making “a mistake” in its marketing materials for clients, but it has denied fraud charges against it. Lawsuits filed against Goldman over its alleged fraudulent business practice are in a dormant state as they drag on.

The bank denies that it knew the mortgage market would collapse. “No one can ‘know’ the future direction of the market or economy,” Goldman said in its reply brief on June 15 this year in a civil case against South Korea’s Heungkuk Life Insurance Co., one of Goldman’s loss-making clients who have sued the bank for fraud.

But a closer look at various documents -- including previously confidential prospectuses, private e-mails exchanged among Goldman employees, the Senate report and legal complaints -- shows that the bank certainly duped its clients.

After the meeting on Dec. 14, 2006, Goldman traders rushed to shed mortgage-related assets from its portfolio and moved to bet billions of dollars against the housing loan market, according to the Senate report.

Unlike many other Wall Street banks, Goldman offers no retail banking services. Its customers are corporations, financial firms, funds and some very wealthy individuals. The 142-year-old bank manages $870 billion in total assets.

Founded in 1869, New York-based Goldman had provided investment advice to corporate clients, handled mergers and acquisitions for them and organized financing for customers through stock and bond offerings. Since1999 when federal regulations on investment banks became relaxed, Goldman has increasingly acted as a Wall Street trading house, structuring and financing financial products and deals for corporate clients and hedge funds, and engaging in proprietary trading activities for its own benefits.

At the center of the 2007-2008 housing market turmoil was a Goldman-designed complex financial product, known as the collateralized debt obligation (CDO) based on subprime mortgages. Goldman also helped create an index for investors to easily bet for or against the market for mortgage-related securities.

Goldman played a multiple role as “a market maker, underwriter, placement agent and broker-dealer” of complex financial products, the Senate report said.

At the Senate hearing last year, Goldman was under fire over allegations that the bank had designed and peddled the CDO deals while betting against them or shorting in the market. Goldman used the technique of credit default swaps (CDS), an insurance policy where the issuer makes up for a loss if an asset goes bad.

The Goldman-structured CDO deals quickly turned useless in value and wiped out investors’ money when the market collapsed, but Goldman could stay safe from the fallout of the meltdown and even profitable thanks to the CDS.

Goldman had designed mortgage-related financial products, including 27 CDO deals, with a total value of about $100 billion, the Senate report said. In the run up to the crisis that started in mid-2007, Goldman was marketing two major CDO deals, called Abacus and Timberwolf respectively.

Former Goldman clients, who had invested in Abacus and Timberwolf on the recommendation of Goldman traders, helplessly watched their money quickly evaporate. Goldman, however, raked in billions of dollars during the market collapse.

In 2007, Goldman posted a record net earning of $11.6 billion, $3.7 billion of which came from its short positions – a bet on a downturn of financial products in value -- in the mortgage market, according to the bank’s filing to SEC.

Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and chief executive of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., took a $68.5-million bonus home in 2007, and Viniar, chief financial officer of Goldman Sachs Group, received a $57.5-million bonus in 2007, according to Goldman’s proxy statement issued on March 7, 2008.

Goldman’s large-bonus payment to its executives was a stark contrast to other Wall Street banks’ treatment of their top managers in 2007. E. Stanley O’Neal, chairman and chief executive of Merrill Lynch, and Charles Prince, chief executive of Citigroup – had to resign respectively over massive losses of their companies.

Goldman attributed its outstanding 2007 performance to its employees’ hard work. “The talent of our people and our focus on teamwork were at the core of our ability to support our clients while delivering strong returns for our shareholders," Blankfein said, announcing a 13-page annual earnings report on Dec. 18, 2007.

But the top Goldman executive later downplayed Goldman traders’ financial prowess when the Senate’s subcommittee, led by Senator Carl Levin, began looking into the bank’s controversial business practice as a possible cause of the financial crisis.

Goldman has been busy denying what it clearly did.

“We didn’t have a massive short against the housing market and we certainly did not bet against our clients,” Blankfein said at a Senate hearing on April 27, 2010.

Chief Financial Officer Viniar also testified that Goldman’s profitable short positions just offset its loss-making long positions in 2007. At the Senate hearing, he highlighted the fact that Goldman’s long positions in the mortgage market resulted in a combined loss of $1.2 billion for two years until 2008. But he omitted the fact that Goldman’s short positions in the mortgage market created a profit of $3.7 billion in 2007 only.

The Senate report, released on April 13 this year, said, “Goldman’s denials of its net short positions in the subprime mortgage market, and the large profits produced by those net short positions, are directly contradicted by its own financial records.”

Senators Carl Levin and Tom Coburn, who organized the hearing, were so outraged by Goldman’s denials that they asked the Justice Department and the SEC to investigate Blankfein and other Goldman executives for possible perjury charges.

Goldman has also faced a slew of lawsuits by its clients who complain that the bank misled them into loss-making investments. ACA Financial Guaranty Corporation, a US bond insurer, is one of them. On January 6 this year, ACA sued Goldman for $120 million -- $30 million in compensatory damages and $90 million in punitive damages.

The ACA complaint was similar to the complaint that the SEC filed against Goldman on April 16 last year. The SEC alleged that Goldman defrauded investors by omitting a key fact that billionaire hedge-fund manager John Paulson helped design the Abacus deal in the way that investors would profit if the market collapses.

The federal regulation, called “SEC Rule 10b-5,” stipulates that it is strictly banned “to make any untrue statement of a material fact or to omit to state a material fact” in connection with the purchase or sale of any securities on Wall Street.

In the 24-page complaint filed in New York State Supreme Court, ACA said Goldman failed to tell them important information about how the Abacus deal had been designed: Hedge-fund Paulson & Co. picked many of the mortgage-backed securities that would go into the Abacus deal, and Paulson would take a short position – exactly the opposite way ACA would invest.

Goldman spokesman Michael DuVally declined to comment on the Goldman-Paulson relationship. Paulson was not available for comment on it.

In the Abacus deal, Paulson actually bet $1 billion on the collapse of the mortgage-linked security market. HedgeTracker.com, an online resource that closely follows major hedge funds, says Paulson raked in over $3billion in profit from the bet. Forbes says Paulson’s profits from shorting in the market reached $3.5 billion.

“Goldman Sachs knew and intentionally failed to disclose to ACA that Paulson had a short position in Abacus with the intent that ACA rely and act upon a false belief that Paulson was the equity investor in Abacus,” ACA said in the complaint.

The Senate report, after interviewing Goldman executives and traders, says Paulson initially proposed 49 out of the total 90 residential mortgage-backed securities underlying the Abacus deal, but it still remains unclear how Paulson came to make the portfolio selection of those lousy securities.

Born in Queens, New York City, Paulson, 55, studied finance at New York University and earned his master of business administration from Harvard University. He worked at the merger and acquisition department at Bear Sterns before launching his own hedge fund Paulson & Co. in 1994.

William Cohan, who wrote “Money and Power” about Goldman, told The Guardian on April 29 this year that Paulson had initiated the idea of massively betting against the housing market. Cohan also said in an article to The Irish Times on May 27 this year that Paulson had been one of Goldman’s hedge fund clients until in the summer of 2006, when a star Goldman trader, Josh Birnbaum, met Paulson and convinced Goldman executives of the imminent collapse of the mortgage market.

The SEC, however, has not brought any charges against Paulson. “It was Goldman that made the representations to investors,” SEC enforcement director Robert Khuzami said after the SEC complaint against Goldman last year. “Paulson did not.”

Paulson & Co. also issued a statement and said, “Paulson is not the subject of this complaint, made no misrepresentations and is not the subject of any charges.”

One of Goldman’s controversial business practices was aggressively selling clients lousy financial products in spite of its allegedly full awareness of their doomed fate.

E-mails exchanged between Goldman traders showed that the investment bank with 14,000 employees -- including economic analysts trained to detect the market risk around the clock -- in the United States knew well about the forthcoming market collapse and prepared well for it. The bank has 32,500 employees worldwide.

An e-mail sent by Daniel Sparks, then head of the Mortgage Department, to Goldman executives hours after the crucial December 14 meeting in 2006, details actions to take in line with the bank’s forecast of a market meltdown. The electronic message is one of hundreds of e-mails disclosed by the Senate report.

Sparks said, “Followups: 1. Reduce exposure … 7. Be ready for the good opportunities that are coming (keep powder dry and look around the market hard).”

Another e-mail, whose photocopy carried a note “Confidential Treatment Requested by Goldman Sachs” at the top, showed that Fabrice Tourre, then executive director of the structured products group trading at Goldman, knew about the imminent collapse of the mortgage market. The BlackBerry e-mail has not been included in the Senate report, but the e-mail can be found easily with a Google search.

In the e-mail to his “Darling” Marine Serres on Jan. 23, 2007, Tourre, a Frenchman who graduated from Stanford University in 2001 before joining Goldman, said, “More and more leverage in the system, L’edifice entire entire risqué de s’effondrer a tout moment… Seul survivant potential, the fabulous Fab,” The French part was officially translated as: “The entire system is about to crumble at any moment… The only potential survivor, the fabulous Fab.” Fab is Tourre’s nickname.

The SEC has filed a separate complaint against Tourre, a vice president at Goldman, for not telling investors about Paulson &Co, which had picked and bet against subprime mortgage-backed securities underlying the Abacus deal.

Goldman first reacted angrily to the SEC complaint against the bank for fraud. But Goldman’s reaction was gradually being toned down after reaching the $550-million pre-trial settlement with the SEC.

“The SEC’s charges are completely unfounded in law and fact and we will vigorously contest them and defend the firm and its reputation,” Goldman said in its first statement in response to the SEC complaint on April 16, 2010.

Agreeing on July 15, 2010, to pay the record penalty of $550 million in a settlement with the SEC, Goldman issued a watered-down statement. “The firm entered into the settlement without admitting or denying the SEC’s allegations,” the bank said in the statement. It also admitted to having made “a mistake” not to state Paulson’s role in the Abacus portfolio in its marketing materials. “Goldman regrets that the marketing materials did not contain disclosure,” it added.

Professor Filler of New York Law School said firms would settle regulatory actions for a variety of reasons. “You do not have to spend lots of legal and other fees to contest the charges,” Filler said. “You also know the amount of the fine.”

Goldman denies having defrauded its clients in the run up to the crisis, but evidences of Goldman traders duping its clients were found extensively in the Senate report.

Edwin Chin, a trader of Goldman’s mortgage department, spread out an upbeat commentary to his customers in the run-up to the crisis, according to the Senate report. Chin, on May 14, 2007, said, “Incredible as it may seem, the subprime mortgage slump is already [a] distant memory for some. It’s been two months…amid worries about a housing meltdown, and already investors (and some dealers) are beginning to get ‘complacent’ again.”

Goldman, however, was then frantically acting to bet on the market collapse. For the first two months until February 2007, Goldman had swung from a $6 billion net long position to a $10 billion net short position in the mortgage market. In June 2007, Goldman’s net short position peaked at $13.9 billion. Goldman constantly had to raise its internal limit on the usually risky short positions, according to Goldman’s internal memos and data submitted to the Senate hearing.

In a latest lawsuit against Goldman, Basis Yield Alpha Fund, a Sydney-based Australian hedge fund, in October this year sued the bank for $1.07 billion -- $67 million to recoup its losses and $1 billion in punitive damages.

The complaint, filed on Oct. 27, 2011, in New York State Supreme Court, focused on Goldman’s CDO deal, called Timberwolf. The Austrian hedge fund accused Goldman of “knowingly making materially false and misleading statements” in the sales.

Thomas Montag, a former co-head of Goldman’s global securities for the Americas before and during the crisis, described Timberwolf “one shitty deal” in an email to his colleague, according to the Senate report.

South Korea’s Heungkuk Life Insurance Co. and its sister firm also sued Goldman and three affiliates for fraud over Timberwolf. Heungkuk said in a 53-page complaint filed in New York State Supreme Court on April 13, 2011, that Goldman misled it to buy $47.32 million of subprime mortgage-backed securities in 2007. The Goldman-designed financial product quickly soured amid crumbling housing markets. Heungkuk sad Goldman had earned $3.7 billion in profit from taking its short positions in subprime mortgages -- a bet against Heungkuk’s investment. The South Korean insurer wants to recoup its total investment loss in Timberwolf.

Denying any fraudulence in trade, Goldman wants to settle the case with Heungkuk outside the courtroom, a Heungkuk attorney said.

“The case is still pending before the New York Supreme Court,” Andrew Corkhill, one of Heungkuk’s attorneys at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP. “Goldman filed a motion to compel arbitration and to dismiss the complaint.” He would not elaborate further and stopped responding to follow-up e-mails.

Goldman’s attorneys at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP. and Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP. did not respond to multiple e-mail requests for comment.

“Goldman defrauded Heungkuk by misrepresenting Timberwolf as a highly rated, secure and profitable long-term investment in which Heungkuk’s interests would be aligned with Goldman’s,” Heungkuk said in the court document. “The truth, however, was that Goldman had utilized its specialized knowledge of the subprime mortgage market to make a massive, concealed bet against the very CDO that it sold to Heungkuk.”

Goldman denied Heungkuk’s claims. “Defendants owed no duty to disclose their motives and opinions, which were immaterial as a matter of law,” Goldman said in its reply brief. “As an initial matter, failure to disclose a prediction of future economic events—such as the unprecedented collapse of U.S. housing markets—does not misrepresent any existing fact, the essential ingredient of fraud.”

Senator Levin has dismissed Goldman’s argument. “In my judgment, Goldman clearly misled their clients and they misled the Congress,” Levin said on April 13, 2011. “Our investigation found a financial snake pit rife with greed, conflicts of interest, and wrongdoing.”

Meanwhile, Goldman Chairman Blankfein has hired Reid Weingarten, one of America’s top criminal defense lawyers, ahead of a Department of Justice investigation of claims that his bank defrauded clients in the run-up to the financial crisis.

The Seoul-based Korea Herald newspaper said in July this year that Heungkuk filed a separate criminal complaint against nine former and incumbent Goldman employees with South Korea’s state prosecutors on June 28, 2011.

This year, Goldman has published a new code of business practices. “Our clients’ interests always come first,” the revised 67-page code said in the very first line.

# # #

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Undocumented Youths in U.S.

“We are undocumented not because of our own fault.”
By Kwanwoo Jun

BROOKLYN/ MANHATTAN/ ALBANY, New York -- A high school senior in 1997, Jong-Min, a South Korean immigrant living in Brooklyn, was dumbfounded by an unexpected disclosure that he was undocumented – thus an illegal resident of the United States. It was a fact he had not known for nearly two decades while living in the United States.

Having grown up in America, Jong-Min, 31, believes he should be American. But legally, he is not. He does not exist in any official U.S. documents. The reality is harsh. For example, Jong-Min can be deported anytime. He declines to give his family name because he fears its disclosure can do harm to his undocumented parents -- let alone himself. He always uses his first name.

Jong-Min was brought to the United States at age one in 1981 by his parents who were then on student visas. His parents later overstayed their visas and became illegal residents as well. Then after 16 years, at age 17, he found out his illegal status. Jong-Min, then an aspiring doctor, went to a hospital to apply for a volunteer work program. Hospital officials told him to submit a green card to verify his permanent residency in the United States. He remembered saying, “OK, I will go home and get a green card.”

At home, he called and asked his mother where his green card was. His mother, then working at a family-run grocery store, first said she could not remember where it was -- a lie. Jong-Min searched the house thoroughly but could not find the document. He called his mother again and asked her where his green card might be. She then admitted that there was no such document, saying, “Jong-Min, you don’t have one. You can’t do the program. You can’t tell anybody about this either.”

“I was like, ‘What?’” Jong Min said. “It was just shocking.”

Jong-Min then gave up his dream to become a pediatrician. He later went to the University of Tennessee and graduated in 2003 with a bachelor degree in sociology. But his college diploma did not help him find a job. Being undocumented, he has gone through tough times. Jong-Min cannot work legally. He cannot obtain a driver’s license because he has no social security numbers. He cannot receive federal loans or grants. He cannot travel abroad because he can be caught and deported. “Being undocumented is like living in an invisible prison,” he said, “You are trapped there behind these invisible bars.” Jong-Min now works at his family-run grocery store in Brooklyn.

Jong-Min is one of an estimated two million young illegal immigrants in the United States. Undocumented youths are different from adult illegal immigrants. The youths were brought to the United States regardless of their wishes. They formed their American identity while growing up in the United States, while adult immigrants had already their identity formed in their motherland.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security says that as of 2009, 10.8 million illegal immigrants are living in the United States. The number accounts for about three percent of the total U.S. population – estimated at 311 million this year by the U.S. Census Bureau. Various independent data shows there are about two million undocumented youths in the United States. The Urban Institute, a non-partisan think tank based in Washington, D.C., estimates the number of the illegal residents under age 18 at 1.6 million in 2002. The Pew Hispanic Center, a non-profit research group based in Washington, D.C., puts the number at 1.7 million in 2004. The National Immigration Law Center, a Los Angeles-based research institute, says the nation sees about 65,000 undocumented students graduate from high school each year.

Undocumented youths in the United States have been emerging as a pressing issue since 2001, when a group of lawmakers first attempted to introduce the so-called Dream (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act, which was designed to give legal residency and eventually citizenship to those who were brought young – age 16 or under – illegally to the United States if they attend college in the country or serve in the U.S. military.

The act has been repeatedly reintroduced to Congress since 2001, but the legislation has failed because opponents say the act would only reward law-breakers, cause national-security concerns, increase taxpayers’ burden and raise questions about fairness among those who have immigrated legally to the country.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Dream Act in December 2010. But in the U.S. Senate, the bill failed to reach the 60-vote threshold necessary for advancing to the floor. The Senate cast 55 votes for the legislation and 41 against. “We were all just sad, depressed, confused and angry,” Jong-Min said, recalling the moment when he and his undocumented friends watched the Senate vote it down.

Though living back in the shadows, Jong-Min has been campaigning for undocumented youths in what he calls a special calling. “We are undocumented not because of our own fault,” Jong-Min said. “We want to change it for the better. We’ve

made a vow to each other that we will come back in couple of years to try to pass the thing again.”

As the legislation process dragged on in Congress, Dream Act advocates began knocking on the doors of the state legislatures to push for a similar bill in New York State. The New York State Youth Leadership Council, a non-profit group that advocates the bill, has pushed for the so-called New York Dream Act at the state legislature in Albany since early this year. The state bill, which is similar to the federal Dream Act, stipulates that beneficiaries of the bill should enter the United States at age 16 or under, be 35 years old or under at the moment of legislation, and carry no felony convictions.
Among the youth leadership council members is Angy, 21, an undocumented immigrant from Colombia. Angy is her first name. She refuses to disclose her family name in public for fear of being possibly deported. Angy was brought to the United States at age three by her parents.

Angy said in an interview that efforts for pushing for a federal Dream Act have not stopped. “The Dream Act has never died because the dream is still here and we are fighting for it,” she said. “We know the Senators that are for the Dream Act. They want to help introduce it again even if it is going to be hard to pass, and even if it’s not now. A federal Dream Act might pass later on. So, we don’t think it’s dead.”

Pro-immigration activists believe the Dream Act would help undocumented youths in many ways. One of the legislation’s goals is to help undocumented youths get state or federal aid and continue to study. Because a 1982 Supreme Court ruling allows undocumented students to attend public schools, their illegal status does not affect their study all the way up to high school, except college.

Tatyana Kleyn, an assistant professor at the bilingual education program in The City College of New York, says undocumented youths are a resource for the nation to embrace. “I see many undocumented students pass through The City College of New York and it breaks my heart that they will not be able to use their skills and degrees to enhance our nation and themselves,” Kleyn said. “We must do everything possible to make sure that the undocumented youth in our nation have a chance to study, work, live and dream in ways that every other U.S. citizens does. They deserve that, and as a nation, we deserve to benefit from all they have to offer us too.”

Kleyn this year published a book, titled “Immigration: The Ultimate Teen Guide,” to help teachers and students to discuss the pending immigration issues at high school classrooms. It’s full of discussion materials. “I found this book goes beyond Ellis Island and to the very real issues many immigrant youth face today,” she said. “So it's a book for everyone, because I see immigration as an American issue that nobody should ignore.” She said she supports the Dream Act.

“Taxpayers have paid for their education from K(indergarten) through 12(th Grade),” Jong-Min said. “They want to become the next Bill Gates, next teachers, next lawyers and next doctors. Now all of sudden, at the age of 18, you say, (they should) ‘get out.’ It’s like you invested in these kids but you don’t get the reward back at the end of all of those years. You are just throwing money down on the drain.”

In a latest development in Congress, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., re-introduced the Dream Act in the Senate seven months ago. President Barack Obama has supported the legislation, but most Republican Senators still oppose the bill.

Conscious of the Republican critics who worry about possibly loosening national security, Reid has indicated that he would consider adding a workplace enforcement measure in the Dream Act that would require employers to use E-Verify, the government’s Internet-based work eligibility verification system. But Reid’s idea received a cool response from those who had sponsored the bill.

As Congress procrastinates, the skeptical critics of the Dream Act still remain vocal and powerful.

Opponents of the Dream Act argue that the bill would encourage and reward illegal immigration. Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, said that the Dream Act could be used as “a shield” for criminal gang members. In 2010, more than 1,300 of the 4,370 gangsters arrested were under the age of 30 and had yet to commit crimes serious enough to bar them from obtaining the conditional status offered under the bill, she said. “Unfortunately, most of the Dream Act proponents will not consider that, and are willing to sell out the most deserving young people to obtain amnesty for all,” Vaughan said in an e-mail interview last week.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies based in Washington, D.C., said that the country had a history of failure in awarding amnesty to

the illegal immigrants 25 years ago. Krikorian said that one-fourth of an estimated five million undocumented immigrants who received amnesty in 1986 should have been disqualified because of their fraudulent applications.

“We now have more than twice as many as before the last amnesty, and they’ve been promised repeatedly that if they hold out a little longer they’ll be able to stay legally,” Krikorian said in an article in December 2010 in National Review, a conservative New York-based biweekly magazine. “Any new amnesty, even if only for those brought here as children, will attract further illegal immigration.” He said that the amnesty recipients should not be put on a “path to citizenship” at all, but instead be given a time-limited work visa, indefinitely renewable so long as they stay out of trouble.

Krikorian also questioned the proposed age cap of 16 or under on the Dream

Act beneficiaries. “If the point is to provide amnesty to those whose identity was formed here then you’d need a much lower age cutoff,” he said. “I have a 15-year-old, and if I took him to live illegally in Mexico, he would always remain, psychologically, an American, because his identity is already formed.” He suggested the cap should be lowered to seven.

Anti-immigration activists also say the Dream Act may just import poverty and cheap labor, be abused to enlist recruits to the unpopular military, create more economic and social burdens and discriminate against the American-born or legal immigrants.

With little progress being made in the legislation of the Dream Act and the debate on the pros and cons underway, undocumented youths in limbo continue to suffer from

their illegal status in the face of ongoing arrests and deportations.

Pro-immigration activists insist that as a transitional move before enacting the Dream Act, Obama should issue an executive order and suspend the deportations of undocumented youths who could benefit from the bill.

Obama has publicly dismissed the idea, arguing that the legislature should pass the relevant bill and then he should sign the bill.

But the Obama administration issued a memo in June, telling immigration officials to consider an amnesty for arrested students and would-be military recruits in a quiet and low-key approach to the politically sensitive issue. In August 2011, the departments of Homeland Security and Justice were in talks to initiate a review of about 300,000 deportation cases to possibly suspend the deportations if they have committed civil offences but been convicted of crimes.

Frustrated and impatient, some undocumented youths have made an extreme choice: to take their own life in despair.

On Nov. 25, 2011, Joaquin Lun, 18, who had championed the Dream Act, committed suicide at his home in the Rio Grande Valley, Texas, in frustration over his illegal status, a local TV channel, Action 4 News, reported.

Lun’s family say that on a Friday night, the teen dressed up in a suit and tie, kissed them, then went into the restroom and shot himself in the head, the local news report said adding they say the teen would get frustrated while filling out the immigration status in college applications, and he was frustrated when the Dream Act didn’t pass.

Hours after hearing about the Texas teen, Jong-Min posted a 90-second-long video clip on a social networking site for the public, calling on undocumented youths to be patiently wait for the Dream Act to pass in the near future.

“If you hold on another day or week month year or two years or how long it will take, we will eventually pass the Dream Act,” Jong-Min said in the video clip. “Please never give up never lose hope. I do not want another undocumented youth to lose the life over the broken immigration system. So please seek help if you need it.”

Angy does not sit idle, either. She has recently launched an online counseling service for undocumented youths at the youth leadership council website. The Ask Angy blog (http://www.nysylc.org/category/askangy/) aims to serve undocumented youths who go through hardships and need friends to talk to and discuss problems with. She said the service was also exciting her. “Every time I saw an email labeled Ask Angy my heart skipped a little knowing someone out there was reading; someone out there cared enough to submit a worry or story,” she said in a post in October 2011. “Many times I’ve felt tired or overwhelmed but reading all these emails have provided me with strength to keep going. Many of these emails have helped me see that we are all connected through our struggles and stories.”

In a post in February 2010, she advised an undocumented youth anxious to travel to California by air but so afraid of being checked by airport security and deported. “I haven’t boarded a plane since I came to this country; it’s still on my list of things to do,” Angy said. She then advised the inquirer to use local airports, not security-tight International airports, photocopy all of his IDs and passport and leave them with friends just in case something goes wrong. Her counseling ended with a following line: “You are not alone. Remember, the insecurities and fears you have, someone else is them having too. Don’t be afraid to speak out.”

She also shared her own sad family story with other undocumented youths. In a poem posted by her on Oct. 9, 2011, Angy was talking about her personal grief that she could not visit her sick grandmother in Columbia due to her immigration status.

“Every time you begged for me to come say goodbye, to please see you one last time, I covered my mouth so you wouldn’t hear me cry,” she said in the poem. “I’m sorry for not being there every step of the way. I’m sorry for not being by your side as you faced this alone.”

In another correspondence on Oct. 3, 2011, with an undocumented New York resident who introduced him as “illegal” Cesar, Angy said in her reply: “Please drop the I-word. No human being is illegal or will be illegal or was illegal. You are not illegal.”

Kleyn, a professor of The City College of New York, said it is important to understand what foundation the United States has been laid on in order to address this immigration issue. “So seeing that we nearly all descendants of immigrants is important,” Kleyn said. “Furthermore, we need to look at immigration issues from a larger lens, one that is transnational and also humane.”

Kleyn said the country needs legislation to solve the problem. “The undocumented youths of our nation are a huge resource that we need to embrace, and of course the way we can do this is by passing the federal Dream Act, and the state acts in the meantime,” Kleyn said.

Samuel P. Huntington, a late American political scientist, who wrote “Who Are We?” about the crisis of the American identity, said immigration and assimilation are an essential part of the American history. “America has been in part an immigrant nation, but much more importantly, it has been a nation that assimilated immigrants and their descendants into its society and culture,” Huntington said in the book. “The assimilation of different groups into American society has varied and has never been complete. Yet overall, historically assimilation, particularly cultural assimilation, has been a great, possibly the greatest, American success story.”

At a recent rally held at Union Square in Manhattan, Rep. Charles B. Rangel, D-NY, who supports the Dream Act said: “If the whole world could see we don't care where you come from and that if you come here and we can help you become better people and better citizens, then the whole world will have more respect for us.”

# # #

FACT BOX

By Kwanwoo Jun
Undocumented youths living in the United States face various challenges in their everyday life. Their problems mostly stem from a lack of social security or proof of residency in the United States. Herewith a list of barriers that Jong-Min says he and many other undocumented youths have to experience every day.

They cannot travel abroad because they can get caught and deported by the immigration officials. They may fly domestically when less strict immigration rules are applied to local airports. But the risk of being caught and deported always exists.
They cannot drive. All states except Utah, Washington State and New Mexico require applicants to prove citizenship in applying for a driver's license.
They cannot vote. Only citizens are allowed to vote.
They cannot work legally. Even with their college degrees and diplomas, they are still unable to find employment within their fields. Most, if not all, job opportunities require social security and/or immigration paperwork, including citizenship.
They are not eligible for financial aid and scholarships when applying for or attending college. Most of them have to pay the full out-of-state tuition rates, which makes it very difficult for anyone to attend and finish college.
They generally do not have access to health insurance because most health insurance requires proof of residency. So, they have to go to free clinics or pay out of pocket. But students can have health insurance while attending college.
They don’t report it to the police even when they've been victims of violent crimes or even when they've been ripped off or sexually harassed by their employers because they are generally afraid of law enforcement due to their illegal status.
They often have to deal with tension often caused by mixed-status families where the younger sibling has U.S. citizenship because of being born here, while the older sibling is undocumented.
They may still have difficulty speaking English, if they've arrived here not young enough to quickly master a new language.
They may feel pressure to drop out of school and help out their parents who usually work menial jobs and don't make enough money to support the family.

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Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Poverty in U.S.

"...the poor need not always be with us. But it will take political movements much more imaginative and militant than those in existence in 1980 to bring that progress about. Until that happens, the poor will be with us.” -- Michael Harrington in his book, “The other America: Poverty in the U.S.”

By Kwanwoo Jun

< Video & slideshow for an NYU social justice class >
I. Video by Kwanwoo Jun

Can Collector "Mama Chula"

MANHATTAN, New York -- Acquaintances call her “Mama Chula,” an aged Spanish-speaking female can collector near NYU’s Elmer Holmes Bobst library. Few know her name, age or how she got the nickname “Old Lady Pretty” in English.

Her almost daily presence at 70 Washington Square South, in the alley just east of the library, has become a fixture of the early morning scenery at the library for years.

In business at 7 a.m. on a recent Tuesday, the woman was rummaging through garbage to collect cans and bottles for money. Wearing a black cap, a gray sweater and, more importantly, transparent plastic cooking gloves, she moved busily from a garbage bag to another to fill her box and bag with the recyclable.

Her wrinkled but deft hands restlessly poked about to pick cans and bottles from the garbage. She was in a hurry, probably because she knew a garbage truck would arrive at the temporary dumping site shortly for a pick-up.

She hysterically rejected repeated requests for an interview. She seemed to hate my presence. Her hostility was clear when at one point she pulled out a half-filled coke bottle from her collection box and sprayed the beverage toward me. Several droplets landed on my hand and my camera. Her act was intentional. My camera, however, continued to roll.

Several attempts for me to communicate with her failed. She shook her head wildly and made a “go-away” gesture with her hands whenever I tried to approach her.

The woman, who refused to identify herself, has been working as can and bottle collector near the library for years to support herself and her sick husband, said some of NYU’s maintenance workers who have acquainted themselves with her. “Her husband has got a cancer,” Kevin Lennon, an NYU library cleaner, said. “She usually earns $40 to $100 a day by collecting the cans and bottles there,” another NYU cleaner, Michael Lois, said. “She works hard.”

After a week of hanging around the woman, I could finally hear one single word from her. “Thanks,” she said after seeing me set a hot cup of coffee for her on a flowerbed nearby. Then she went back to work. She said nothing more.

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II. Slideshow by Kwanwoo Jun

(MANHATTAN, New York)

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Multimedia Work

< Multimedia work for The New York Times blog >

By Kwanwoo Jun

-- http://eastvillage.thelocal.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/east-village-monks-rasanath-dasa-an-investment-banker-turned-occupy-supporter/ (Banker-turned-Hindu-monk)
-- http://eastvillage.thelocal.nytimes.com/ohny-weekend-new-york-marble-cemetery/ (OHNY: New York marble cemetery)

-- http://eastvillage.thelocal.nytimes.com/open-house-new-york-weekend-an-introduction/ (OHNY: interview with chief organizer)

-- http://eastvillage.thelocal.nytimes.com/2011/10/03/harps-bagpipes-and-ukuleles-take-over-astor-place/ (Musicians performing on the streets)

-- http://eastvillage.thelocal.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/on-east-second-the-blessing-of-a-firehouse/ (Blessing a fire house)

Monday, November 7, 2011

Interview: NYT's David Barboza

“In every single story I write, I’m nervous.”
By Kwanwoo Jun

MANHATTAN, New York -- David Barboza, 45, The New York Times correspondent and bureau chief in Shanghai, has a glittering career that aspiring young journalists covet: starting as an intern and then moving up to become a staff member and correspondent at the paper.

Barboza, based in Shanghai since 2004, won the Gerald Loeb Award for Deadline Writing in 2005 and the Nathaniel Nash Award in 2008, both prestigious awards in business reporting.

Both hard work and luck led Barboza, formerly an aspiring journalist born in Bedford, Mass., to an internship at The New York Times. Working at the student newspaper of Boston University in 1985 and 1986, Barboza did an investigative reporting on Martin Luther King Jr.’s academic papers being damaged by the university and drew attention from The New York Times. The paper soon interviewed him for a story and then offered him an internship at its bureau in Boston from 1986 to 1987.

Studying history at Boston University and a graduate school at Yale University, Barboza worked as a research assistant for The New York Times for six years until 1996, a year before becoming a staff writer.

Despite a shining 21-year-long journalism career at The New York Times, Barboza still lives in tension not to make a mistake in reporting. “In every single story I write, I’m nervous,” Barboza, recently on a business trip to New York, said during an hour-long interview at 20 Cooper Square, Manhattan. “If there is one mistake, it’s bad. If there are two corrections for one story, you are going to be in a big trouble. If I have four corrections in a year, it’s a disaster.”

Barboza said The Times was maintaining an uncompromising standard of high quality in publication. “One of the amazing things for me working at The New York Times in my first years was to go into the meetings with editors and see them beat up other editors -- not literally beat them up but in the way they asked questions,” he said.

Barboza said he put enormous effort in his work. “My process is exhaustive research and then figuring out what this is meaning and then outlining it,” he said. “I need to do that 30 times before I write a story. So, my process is a torture. It’s a necessary torture.”

He said he often had to abandon his busy office and find a Starbucks coffee shop nearby to better focus on a story. “If I’m doing a feature story and if I’m doing an important story, I’m at Starbucks,” he said, smiling. “Every journalist has a different process. This is mine.”

He said he was still pursuing a goal at the paper. “My goal was The New York Times,” Barboza said. “And my goal now is to be one of the best reporters at The New York times.”

Barboza served as the paper’s Chicago-based Midwest business correspondent for five years. His coverage included the Enron scandal. In 2004, he was posted as correspondent in Shanghai.

In 2005, Barboza and four of his colleagues wrote about Chinese multinational company Lenovo’s acquisition of IBM’s personal computer business. His team won the 2005 Gerald Loeb Award for Deadline Writing.

Barboza was once held hostage while reporting on a Chinese toy factory suspected of making tainted products. “As an American journalist based in China, I knew there was a good chance that at some point I’d be detained for pursuing a story,” he wrote in an article published by The New York Times on June 24, 2007, shortly after being released from a nine-hour detention by Chinese factory officials. “I just never thought I’d be held hostage by a toy factory.”

When Barboza won the Nathaniel Nash Award in 2008, The New York Observer described him as having “captured the complexities of China today by immersing himself in its culture in a way that few foreign correspondents can.” He has a Chinese wife, Lynn Zhang.

Responding to my follow-up e-mail question, Barboza said he was enjoying his job in Shanghai very much. “So let me just say, traveling in China, speaking Chinese and interviewing everyone from migrant workers to CEOs are a wonderful and memorable experience,” he said. “Getting to know another world, another culture is quite special.”

Q: Would you tell me how you started work in journalism?

A: My father had a small printer, and I got my father give me a typewriter. I typed up sports stories, and I put together a magazine when I was in junior high school and high school. That was my semi-beginning in journalism. And then when I went to a college, I started to read a lot of non-sports books. I felt, “You know sports journalism. It’s nice to follow sports, but I want to do something really important. I don’t want to just write and follow athletes.” So I started reading politics, history, et cetera. I started going to non-sports journalism. At Boston University. I was one of the editors of the student newspaper. And I did an investigative story on how my university was damaging the Martin Luther King papers. And The New York Times picked up the story. The Boston Globe did it too. A week later, The New York Times said, “We want you to be our intern. It’s unpaid. It’s working at the Boston bureau and clipping paper." I said, “Great.” So I was working at the Boston bureau during the weekend in summer.

I read everything about The New York Times. I subscribed to The Christian Science Monitor. I became a news junkie. On the weekends at Boston University, I had a filing cabinet that had clippings of The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, Newsweek and Time Magazine. Every weekend, I had files on every subject. I remember meeting Richard Bernstein, a correspondent who interviewed me in Boston. He said, “I was very impressed with your investigative story on the Martin Luther King papers. I think someday you will get to The Times.” That gave me an even more motivation. Everyone doesn’t have to work at the top-tier papers or publications, but you can decide what is your goal. My goal was The New York Times. And my goal now is to be one of the best reporters at The New York Times.

Q: Has journalism changed you?

A: It’s made me more balanced and thoughtful and also taught me to question and wonder about the world.

Q: Tell me about working at The New York Times?

A: Reporters have power, but the editors and the top editors in the end make a decision. Unlike other newspapers or wire services, in which it is more lightly edited, it is going to go through a whole line of people again on the paper. If it is a front-page story, it’s going to be pretty intense. And they may just rewrite parts of it for you if you can do it or if you want to do it. You can’t say, “I disagree with you.” One of the amazing things for me working at The New York Times in my first years was to go into the meetings with editors and see them beat up other editors -- not literally beat them up but the way they ask questions. I couldn’t event think of those questions. Even though I’ve been in The New York Times for 20 years, I’m still amazed to see the quality of the editors and questions and reporters.

I’ve written probably 1,200 stories for The New York Times in my career, maybe more. In every single story I write, I’m nervous. If there is one mistake, it’s bad. If there are two corrections for one story, you are going to be in a big trouble. If I have four corrections in a year, it’s a disaster. So, I’m nervous when the story is handled. I’m going back and trying to think if all these names are right. It’s very easy to make a mistake. So, you have to be on alert to correct every single story even after 15 to 20 years now.

Q: Where do you usually get story ideas?

A: Newspapers, magazines, TV shows, friends and dinners. I’ve got hundreds of story ideas. My problem is how I finish the story ideas. Once you are in journalism, you are used to picking up story ideas everywhere. Wherever you go, you are asking questions and you’re wondering about things. Story ideas are all about asking questions. Creativity in story ideas is about asking questions that people don’t generally ask.

Q: How do you develop your story?

A: I get a folder, interview people, call people, take notes and especially investigate a lot. Then I go through everything again, all the notes and everything. Then I start making an outline of my article -- what are the main themes, what this article is about, what I can use and what are the best quotes. Then from there, I have all the subjects. Then I start to think. Maybe, I put them in this order. Then I go to Starbucks. I have a notepad and I start writing my story by hand. If it is a breaking story, I don’t do that. If I’m doing a feature story and if I’m doing an important story, I’m at Starbucks. Every journalist has a different process. This is mine. It’s been working pretty well lately.

Figuring out what the story is is hard. I want to be able to tell you what the story means in two sentences. If I can’t, I don’t understand the story. What is the essence of this article? Everything else will flow off of that.

We really need as a journalist to understand the structure. Even though I

have been at The New York Times for 20 years, I still take my favorite articles, clipped them and put them in my good writing files and then dissect them. This is my process. My process is exhaustive research and then figuring out what this is meaning and then outlining it. I need to do that 30 times before I write a story. So, my process is a torture. It’s a necessary torture.

Q: In your career, what are you most proud of? Why?

A: I’m most proud of being able to do great work for The New York Times. In college, I aspired to work at The New York Times. And now, I’m here and working as the Shanghai Bureau chief. I’m interested in education, learning and writing about the world, and that’s what I do.

Q: Any memorable experience at work?

A: This is too difficult to answer, kind of like asking what special has happened in my life. So let me just say traveling in China, speaking Chinese and interviewing everyone from migrant workers to CEOs are a wonderful and memorable experience. Getting to know another world, another culture is quite special.

Q: Would you give some advice to young, aspiring journalists?

A: Follow your passion, learn from the best, and don’t worry about jobs, just about getting better. And if you are focused and determined, good things will happen.

Q: Have American newsrooms changed over the years? How? For better or worse?

A: Certainly American newsrooms have changed. We basically do the same thing at The New York Times, but we contribute to multimedia, radio, television, etc. Probably newsrooms today have more women than they did two decades ago. But basically we have the same principles. Reporters are probably younger since the web and fast pace has pushed some of the older journalists to retire earlier.

Q: What do you think of the state of American journalism today?

A: I think the state of journalism has to reflect the state of America. Great strengths, particularly at The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, etc., but people seem to read less. And that’s troubling. I think TV journalism is generally worse than it was two decades ago, but print journalism is a mixed bag – some of it much better, some of it worse. The very best journalists today, though, are as good as we’ve ever seen.

Q: What do you think is the future of American journalism?

A: The future of journalism remains bright because people have a hunger for knowledge and information, they want to understand the world, they need context, they need people to help make sense of what’s going on around the world – content is king, as they say – so American journalism will thrive. But we need to be prepared to figure out new ways to deliver the news.
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