March 27, 2005: Headlines: COS Kenya: Writing - Kenya: Civil Rights: Poverty: Afrifan American Issues: Minority PCVs: Amazon: Rosa Lee: A Mother and Her Family in Urban America by Kenya RPCV Leon Dash
Peace Corps Online:
Peace Corps News:
Peace Corps Library:
African American / Black Issues :
March 27, 2005: Headlines: COS Kenya: Writing - Kenya: Civil Rights: Poverty: Afrifan American Issues: Minority PCVs: Amazon: Rosa Lee: A Mother and Her Family in Urban America by Kenya RPCV Leon Dash
Rosa Lee: A Mother and Her Family in Urban America by Kenya RPCV Leon Dash
Rosa Lee: A Mother and Her Family in Urban America by Kenya RPCV Leon Dash
Rosa Lee: A Mother and Her Family in Urban America
by Leon Dash
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Drug-addled, welfare-using and AIDS-infected, Rosa Lee--a black woman living in the slums of Washington, D.C.--shines an enormous amount of light on the seemingly intractable problems of the underclass by allowing Leon Dash to tell her story. You won't find any diagrams or number-crunching in this book, just an absorbing tale of inner-city despair. Dash won the Pulitzer Prize for his series of articles on Rosa Lee for the Washington Post. The book is even better--easily the best of its type since Alex Kotlowitz's There Are No Children Here.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
An African American "uncomfortable and alarmed by the growing black underclass," Washington Post reporter Dash (When Children Want Children) spent four years immersed in the life of Rosa Lee Cunningham, who is mired in a world of poverty, drugs, theft and imprisonment. The book is compelling and disturbing, written in a brisk, unadorned style. Rosa Lee's life is one of continuous crisis: she deals with her HIV and her drug addictions, Washington, D.C., bureaucracies (she's sharp but illiterate), the adult children who live with (and off) her and have not shaken free of crime and drugs. As Dash becomes driver, translator and confidant of Rosa Lee, he learns more of her family's sad and shocking history: how Rosa Lee acceded to her daughter's demands for drugs; how, as a child, her gay son was raped by a babysitter. Yet all is not grim; two of Rosa Lee's eight children (fathered by six men) have joined the middle class; now army veterans, as children both men despaired of their family's self-destructive lifestyle and found crucial mentors in a teacher and a social worker. The newspaper series on which this book is based won a Pulitzer Prize, yet generated criticism. Dash allows in an epilogue that, depending on one's ideology, Rosa Lee could be seen either as a victim or as a moral failure. Photos not seen by PW. $50,000 ad/promo; U.K. translation and first serial rights: HarperCollins.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
When this story was posted in March 2005, this was on the front page of PCOL:
Peace Corps Online The Independent News Forum serving Returned Peace Corps Volunteers
| The Peace Corps Library Peace Corps Online is proud to announce that the Peace Corps Library is now available online. With over 30,000 index entries in over 500 categories, this is the largest collection of Peace Corps related reference material in the world. From Acting to Zucchini, you can use the Main Index to find hundreds of stories about RPCVs who have your same interests, who served in your Country of Service, or who serve in your state. |
| Crisis Corps arrives in Thailand After the Tsunami in Southeast Asia last December, Peace Corps issued an appeal for Crisis Corps Volunteers and over 200 RPCVs responded. The first team of 8 Crisis Corps volunteers departed for Thailand on March 18 to join RPCVs who are already supporting relief efforts in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and India with other agencies and NGO's. 19 Mar 2005 |
| RPCVs in Congress ask colleagues to support PC RPCVs Sam Farr, Chris Shays, Thomas Petri, James Walsh, and Mike Honda have asked their colleagues in Congress to add their names to a letter they have written to the House Foreign Operations Subcommittee, asking for full funding of $345 M for the Peace Corps in 2006. As a follow-on to Peace Corps week, please read the letter and call your Representative in Congress and ask him or her to add their name to the letter. |
| Add your info now to the RPCV Directory Call Harris Publishing at 800-414-4608 right away to add your name or make changes to your listing in the newest edition of the NPCA's Directory of Peace Corps Volunteers and Former Staff. Then read our story on how you can get access to the book after it is published. The deadline for inclusion is May 16 so call now. |
| March 1: National Day of Action Tuesday, March 1, is the NPCA's National Day of Action. Please call your Senators and ask them to support the President's proposed $27 Million budget increase for the Peace Corps for FY2006 and ask them to oppose the elimination of Perkins loans that benefit Peace Corps volunteers from low-income backgrounds. Follow this link for step-by-step information on how to make your calls. Then take our poll and leave feedback on how the calls went. |
| Make a call for the Peace Corps PCOL is a strong supporter of the NPCA's National Day of Action and encourages every RPCV to spend ten minutes on Tuesday, March 1 making a call to your Representatives and ask them to support President Bush's budget proposal of $345 Million to expand the Peace Corps. Take our Poll: Click here to take our poll. We'll send out a reminder and have more details early next week. |
Read the stories and leave your comments.
Some postings on Peace Corps Online are provided to the individual members of this group without permission of the copyright owner for the non-profit purposes of criticism, comment, education, scholarship, and research under the "Fair Use" provisions of U.S. Government copyright laws and they may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner. Peace Corps Online does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the postings, which is the sole responsibility of the copyright holder.
Story Source: Amazon
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS Kenya; Writing - Kenya; Civil Rights; Poverty; Afrifan American Issues; Minority PCVs
PCOL18030
68
.