Green card holder? Be prepared for fingerprinting at the airport!

by Scott Carmichael on

As part of the US-VISIT program, designed to protect the country from terrorism and other threats, US Permanent Residents will soon have to subject to fingerprinting when they enter the country through an immigration checkpoint. The new rules go into effect on January 18th 2009.

The scheme is already in place for non permanent residents and other visitors, but it is the first time it has been expanded to permanent residents.

Fingerprinting Green card holders is quite strange, because part of the process of becoming a permanent resident involves an FBI background check and a pretty intensive fingerprinting procedure.

Of course, the fingerprinting could also be a way of ensuring the person entering the country with a Green card actually is who they say they are. It could also simply mean that the records stored within the government systems are such a mess, that they can’t do any reliable matching against terrorist records.

The next step in US-VISIT could be a little more scary, as the Department of Homeland Security claims there are “not currently” any plans to start fingerprinting US citizens when they re-enter the country, but I suspect that is probably not very far away.

(Via: Cnet)

The many languages of Suriname

by Jeremy Kressmann on

If you’ve been following any of the recent language controversy in Philadelphia, you begin to see that a country’s language is a constantly evolving mix of the cultures, customs and the people who use it. Here at home, this interplay is at often work between our country’s de facto official language, English, and an increasingly populous minority of Spanish-speaking immigrants. Now imagine this same language debate among as many as ten languages, and you begin to get a picture of the small South American nation of Suriname as featured in this article.

Suriname is a former Dutch colony on the northern coast of South America. Due to the country’s colonial heritage, the official language is Dutch. But continuous waves of immigrants have left a unique mark on the country’s language culture. This includes a recent influx Brazilians, who speak mostly Portuguese, a small population of Chinese-speakers from the Far East and Indonesian residents of Suriname who speak Javanese. Add to this mix a local language called Sranan Tongo, a dialect passed down from West Africa by many of the former colony’s African slaves, and local indigenous languages like Arawak and Carib. AND, on top of all this, politicians in Suriname are urging the government to adopt English or Spanish as the new national language, hoping to create closer ties to with neighboring countries. Sound confusing? I’m with you.

It remains to be seen how this complicated language issue will play out in Suriname, but it raises some interesting questions. What factors should determine a country’s official language? The U.S. for instance, will always speak English, but what concessions, if any, should be made as our country becomes increasingly multi-lingual? Should we base our decision on economic circumstances? Political? Cultural? It seems to me it’s some combination of the three. What do you think?

[Via the New York Times]

The most tolerant Western countries (and the most racist)

by Iva Skoch on

I recently came across this survey and it caught my attention. It attempts to answer the question “What is the most racist, intolerant, anti-Semitic, homophobic country in the Western world?”

The results would make people, who are not Caucasians, probably want to avoid Italy, Muslims to avoid Greece, Jews to avoid Spain, and immigrants as well as homosexuals to stay clear of Northern Ireland. These countries were rated as the least tolerant in the Western world.

Human Beliefs and Values Survey experts went about conducting the survey by making people in Western countries answer yes/no to the following statements:

  • I wouldn’t want my neighbors to be of “different race” (Least tolerant: 1.Italy 16%, 2. Greece 14%, 3. Belgium 13%)
  • I wouldn’t want my neighbors to be “Muslim” (Least tolerant: 1. Greece 21%, 2.Belgium 20%, Norway 19%)
  • I wouldn’t want my neighbors to be “Jewish” (Least tolerant: 1. Spain 22%, 2. Greece 18%, 3. Italy 13%)
  • I wouldn’t want my neighbors to be “immigrants” (Least tolerant: 1.Northern Ireland 19%, 2. Italy 17%, 3. Belgium 16%)
  • I wouldn’t want my neighbors to be “homosexuals” (Least tolerant: 1. Northern Ireland 37%, 2. Italy 28%, 3. Ireland 27%)

The US, mercifully, ranked average or below average for all questions. Still, a surprisingly high number of Americans are not comfortable living around people who are not “just like them.”

The least racist and homophobic country was Sweden.

The country least concerned about having Muslim neighbors was Canada.

The least anti-Semitic country was The Netherlands.

The country least worried about having immigrants as neighbors was Portugal.

(The survey was conducted in 2000. I wonder how different the results would be now.)

The Motorcycle Doctors in The Gambia and Beyond

by Jamie Rhein on

This video published on YouTube by Good Magazine about a program that equips health workers with motorcycles in The Gambia brought back memories of when I was in the Peace Corps there. I was a health education volunteer who trekked with a community health nurse to three villages from N’Jowara, the village where she and I lived. The roads between these villages was soft dirt. From N’Jowara to the main road that led to Banjul, the capital, was about seven miles on a hard-packed dirt road. From the point my road hooked up to the main road, the trip to Banjul involved two ferry crossings and a taxi ride–also on a hard packed dirt road. Banjul was where The Gambia’s main hospital was located. Depending on the season, it could take several hours to make the journey. Some days the taxis didn’t go all the way.

Whenever N’Dey and I set out for a village visit as part of our job we hoofed it. I had a bicycle, but she did not. It didn’t matter anyway because the dirt was so soft, riding a bike through it was almost impossible. Often we would get to a village to meet with the village health worker or the traditional birth attendant to find out they weren’t home, so we’d turn around and walked the three miles back. The fact that she had me to walk with her keep motivated to make the trip. After watching this video, I’m happy to see that health care access is becoming much easier than back then. The scenery is just as I remembered it. I can almost taste that red dust. Thanks to Marilyn Terrell, our National Geographic Traveler information-giver extraordinaire for passing the info about the program along.