Month: January 2018

A Manatee Dreamer Helps Her Community as DACA Fades

On Sunday, Holy Cross Catholic Church of Palmetto hosted the Protect the People Clinic & DACA Renewal, an event organized by the Florida Immigrant Coalition (FLIC). The event offered information on civil rights, free legal screenings, and emergency planning for Manatee county residents looking to impacted by the September repeal of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. FLIC volunteer coordinator Patricia Lara, 29, of Bradenton, is a DACA recipient and a Manatee local.

“It’s Manatee County, you know, it’s home. This is where I’ve been since kindergarten through graduation,” Clara said. “That’s why I love working in it, because I know everybody, I know where everything is.”

According to Migration Policy Institute data, as of September 2017 there are an estimated 27,000 DACA recipients in the state of Florida, where 72,000 non recipients meet the requirements to apply. For the immigrant community in Manatee, the County’s health department currently offers the immigrant community medical examinations and immunizations required for immigration status. On Jan. 17 the Bradenton Herald reported the partnership between the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office partnership with ICE to hold arrested undocumented immigrants for up to 48 hours as a part of “basic ordering agreement.” According to the Herald article, Sheriff Rick Wells commented in response to the agreement, “We’re just trying to keep our community safe, and when you have a criminal illegal alien who has been committing crimes in our community, they need to be held accountable.”

DSC_8552
Patricia Lara, 29, of Bradenton checks in arrivals at the event. (Photo: Alexander Michael Buono)

To Lara, it is crucial that the immigrant community knows their rights to protect their loved ones in Manatee County, especially in the current political climate.

“Just to know how they can keep themselves and their family’s safe and protected and make sure that they understand that the even though they don’t have a documented status here, they still have civil rights.”

To learn more about the Florida Immigrant Coalition, click here.

County Fair Unites Manatee while the US Government Shuts Down

The Manatee County Fair wrapped up its final weekend of festivities at the county fairgrounds in Palmetto, hosted by the Manatee County River Association. The fair promised “Good Food, Good Rides, Good Times” one last weekend for fairgoers to usher in 2018, even as early Saturday morning marked the beginning of the federal government shutdown following the one year anniversary of Trump presidency on Friday, according to CBS News. Despite these recent national events, fair organizers were optimistic in how the fair unifies Manatee County in times of adversity.

“There’s folks from every corner of this county that are involved with the fair,” said fair manager Daniel West, 48. “That’s what makes the fair so special, it’s almost like a homecoming for Manatee County.”

According to Manatee County Supervisor of Elections, President Trump won 56 percent of the Manatee County vote in the 2016 general election. A recent Florida Atlantic University Poll reported in a November 2017 Palm Beach Post article placed the president’s approval ratings in the state of Florida at 41 percent, slightly higher than current national average of 39 percent according to Gallup Poll featured in a January 16 Associated Press article.

IMG_5827
Fairgoers were enjoying the warm weather after the bitter cold snap in early January. (Photo: Alexander Michael Buono)

“The government shut down nationally doesn’t affect me as much as the issues locally,” said Jason Drane, 39, a media professional and supporter of the president from Bradenton, who visited the fair along with his wife Gloria, 38, and two foster children.

“While we may not be shutting down the county government, we need to do some overhaul of some of the facilities are county does use, such as Centerstone, DCF and the various child welfare agencies,” Drane said.

“Otherwise these kids have no hope,” Gloria added.

The county fair has an enduring legacy when the nation has faced difficult times. In its 102 years of offering amusement for Manatee, the fair survived a loss of funding during the Great Depression and the brief discontinuation during the years of World War II according to the Manatee River Fair Association website.

“It means a lot to our county,” said West. “I think that we’re going to finish this weekend out with a bang and I think everybody is going to be real pleased with our turnout.”

For more information about the Manatee County Fair, click here.

The Cultural Mapping of President Trump’s Tweets

Donald Trump Donkey

President Trump’s Twitter account has been the subject of media scrutiny in the first year of his presidency, where Trump’s recent “stable genius” tweet in reaction to those questioning his mental fitness for office has come into focus in the last month.

CNN’s Chris Cillizza recently commented in his CNN.com column The Point reacting to Trump’s that Trump, “is a political creature of almost entirely id.” Breitbart’s Daniel Nussbaum framed the social media reaction to Trump’s stable genius tweet from Hollywood as “triggered”. Teen Vogue’s Melissa Moreno criticized the media’s various reactions to Trump’s tweet in a January 11 op-ed stating, “When language starts to involve hypotheses about mental illness, things not only get difficult and confusing, but downright dangerous.”

DT
President Trump’s “genius tweet” from Jan 6  has media outlets speculating on his mental fitness. (via Twitter)

Tim Stock, the co-founder of ScenarioDNA, a global innovation consulting firm and adjunct professor at the Parsons School of design, is an expert in forecasting cultural trends and behaviors. Stock and his cohorts have found a way to clarify media speculation by employing scientific methodology and research to deconstruct Trump’s tweets through a combination of semiotics, consumer anthropology and data science called “cultural mapping,” a process that Stock himself has co-created. ScenarioDNA’s research into the tweets of Trump’s first 100 days in office through cultural mapping offers insight into the present and future implications of Trump’s mentality through his tweets, as well as offer how as civic-minded American citizens and the news media can benefit from becoming more literate in semiotic analysis.

“There’s an interesting aspect to Trump where it’s almost sort of hiding in plain sight,” Stock said about the genius tweet. “Where he essentially never has to be right, he has to bury himself in untruths so it doesn’t really matter.”

To see more of scenario DNA’s cultural mapping projects, click here.

Aside

THE HomelesS OF MANATEE COUNTY
17th Street East is an industrial backroad lined by towing and auto service companies, where the pavement gives way to a dusty dirt road as you reach its dead end. It is at this dead end where Oneco’s homeless community have constructed their woodland campsite after being displaced by the La Mexicana Flea Market fire reported in the Bradenton Herald in Dec. of 2016.

homeless trailer
An abandoned trailer homes several campsite residents. (Photo: Alexander Michael Buono)
“The police have changed,” said Sonia T, one of the encampment’s newer residents,(who asked not to be identified). Sonia added, “We like the people who bring food, but they haven’t been around here for a while.”
According to last year’s Point-In-Time Survey conducted by the Suncoast Partnership to End Homelessness, the homeless count for the area in Manatee County outside of Bradenton has increased from 23 to 242 persons. Several non-profit agencies along with Suncoast have worked with the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office in offering to provide services to the homeless communities across the county.
“We will visit homeless camps and supply the people that are there that they can get help, whether it be the Salvation Army or there are several organizations here that will help the homeless,” according to Dave Bristow of the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office.

From inside the 17th Street East campsite, the homeless community tent homes are made up of salvaged building materials, such as plumbing fixtures, cement blocks and scrap lumber. Many of the residents have bartering system for tools and other wares that aid in their day to day survival. In the recent months, the winter cold and living within a floodplain has created challenges to the community.

Homeless Camp
Josh’s two-story structure that he himself has constructed. (Photo: Alexander Michael Buono)
“It wasn’t Irma, but actually a storm two weeks before that flooded the whole area, water up to these tracks,” said Josh, a man in his 50’s who has hand built the two-story structure set back from the train tracks (above). “I’ve lived in Buffalo, Sarasota, and this community is the most difficult to live in.”

For more information on how to get involved the non-profit special projects geared to helping Manatee County’s homeless, click here.

Homeless of Manatee County Find Refuge in Woodland Campsite