Delwar Hussein describes his experiences as an editor for four weeks in Washington DC.
| Its certainly true that everything is bigger in America! |
The English Speaking Union provided funds for an internship for one CE editor to travel to the Children's Express headquarters in Washington last summer, and also for one Children's Express graduate to come to London. I was lucky enough to be the person who went to Washington.
The prospect of going away for a month, although very exciting, made me nervous. This was the first time I had flown in an aeroplane without a parent or guardian. The first week in Washington was a complete blur, I had to adjust to the ways of my host family as well as meeting the people at the Children's Express bureau. It's certainly true that "everything is bigger in America!" Believe it or not, I had some language problems while I was there: on one occasion I could not get a cab driver to understand my directions which surprised me for both countries supposedly speak the same language.
Down to work
At the Children's Express office, I signed up to cover various stories. One was about children affected by HIV and AIDS. This focused on people whose parents, friends or relatives were ill. I had already worked on a similar story in London, where we interviewed a paediatric AIDS nurse and a twenty-one-year old man who was HIV-positive. The London story was never published: we could not get access to children who were affected because they were being protected by adults. However, my experience was useful to the young journalists in the USA, and I learned a lot from their approach.
I also worked on what they call a Teen Express roundtable. We are all aware of the prominence of race and ethnicity as issues affecting us today. In the roundtable we shared experiences and thrashed out differing opinions on racial issues. When we watch American issues on British TV we have the impression of a country that is racially diverse and integrated. But among most people I met there, race was a specially contentious issue. People were grappling with words to identify themselves. For example we had many hot debates about whether the term "African-American" was a realistic label. In my personal opinion it is not because I believe that black Americans have more in common with white or other races living in America than they do with people from Africa.
It was very interesting as a British Asian to listen to the experiences of black, Hispanic, white and other Asian Americans' views on this subject. We did not agree all the time. On the whole, the Americans were much more proactive about tackling racism and very much in favour of positive discrimination, whereas in England we tend to sweep many of these problems under the carpet.
For me, the overriding issue, which is as problematic as the root of racism, is that of poverty. Part of my work while I was in America was working on the Community Revitalisation Project. This project targets young and deprived children who are interested in Children's Express but have problems getting involved because they live on estates (or projects as they called in the USA), which are inaccessible, or because they have experienced abuse at home, or poverty, truancy, or drug or alcohol abuse.
We tried to empower these young people by helping them to produce a local monthly newsletter in which their opinions, experiences, hopes and fears for the future could be aired. At Children's Express we firmly believe that acknowledging a problem is the first step to solving it. The young people that we worked with were predominantly black and it was obvious that black people and Hispanics were at the bottom of the heap socially. They tended to be either unemployed or doing low-paid menial jobs. Young children are faced with the realities of a brutal environment. On one of the days I did not go to the projects, some children aged five pointed out a trickle of blood on a stairwell to one of my colleagues, which they attributed to a shooting incident.
In the news letter for the community, the under-15-year-olds wanted to write articles about getting the drugs off their streets, being unable to walk around without the fear of having a gun being pointed at them and better facilities for recreation and education. Many of the children truanted from school. From my viewpoint there didn't appear to be any easy solutions or end in sight to the disparity of wealth between black and white people in the USA.
Personal memories
I met some great people and made many new friends while I was away. Rob Bisi, the Washington bureau director, took me to New York for a long weekend. We worked in the New York office, where Children's Express began 22 years ago. I saw all the major sights in Manhattan, Chinatown, the Empire State building, Times Square, Fifth Avenue, Greenwich Village and Central Park. I thought I would need a revolver to protect myself but with Rob as my bodyguard I was in safe hands. New York did not seem any more dangerous than London, but it was strangely familiar from having seen it so much in films and on television programmes.
During my time in the USA I stayed at three very different homes. As a result, I think I have begun to appreciate my home back in London. By the end of the trip I had gained some valuable insights into the cultural differences in family life between the USA and the UK. The first host family was similar to my own, with what appeared to be hundreds of yelling children tearing around in total mayhem. I fitted in well in with this environment, blurring in and becoming one of the kids. I was not treated in any special way because I was a visitor or a foreigner. Life at the second family different. We were expected to be in bed by 9.30pm every night, so my plans to check out the downtown night-clubs were dashed.
I will remember the four weeks in Washington all my life. I took with me many ideas on how Childrens Express operated in London, and I hope these were useful to the Washington bureau. I also brought back many ideas which we can use in London. Personally, I have gained a lot more confidence in myself. My horizons have been broadened by the trip and I am already planning a visit next year.
About the author
This article was written by Childrens Express Editor Delwar Hussein, 17. It was published in Concord, the Journal of the English Speaking Union, Winter 1998.
