[Reading-hall-of-fame] Waiting for watermelons on 9/11

[tsticht at znet.com]

Waiting for the Watermelons:
Remembering 9/11

Tom Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education

In my lifetime I have witnessed two major acts of war against America. The
first occurred on December 7th, 1941 when the military forces of the nation
of Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. "A day that will live in infamy"
declared President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Four years later, the allied
forces of World War II celebrated VJ Day – Victory in Japan! The war was
over. My family and I, and a lot of our fellow migrant workers who were
picking and cutting peaches in the orchards around San Jose, California,
celebrated the war’s end when the orchard owner showed up with a truck load
of fresh watermelons and we all dug in!

Some sixty years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, on September 11th, 2001,
I experienced the second major act of war against America – the suicidal
bombing by terrorists of the World Trade Center towers in New York City
using airplanes as armed missiles with hundreds of passengers on board.

Seven months later, in April 2002, I was in New York to present a seminar at
the Literacy Assistance Center (LAC), one of the premier adult literacy
organizations in the nation. It was utterly devastating to walk past the
memorials pasted on walls in remembrance of loved ones in the vicinity of
the bombed out World Trade Center. It was even more moving when I met with
and talked with members of the LAC and listened to their stories about how
they had experienced the 9/11 attack.

A couple of months later, in June of 2002, writing in the Literacy Harvest,
the journal of the LAC, Jan Gallagher, the editor, said,  "As I write at
the beginning of June 2002,the cleanup effort at the former World Trade
Center has just ended. I suppose this could be another opportunity for New
Yorkers to put the events of September 11, 2001, behind us and get on with
our lives and our work.

Perhaps some New Yorkers —at least those not closely affected by the tragedy
—are managing to do just that. But at the Literacy Assistance Center
(LAC)—located six blocks from what we still call Ground Zero —we continue
to be affected by last year ’s terrorist attacks and their aftermath in
ways large and small. We cannot escape the fact that the adult education
programs we serve —and, more to the point, the poor, working-class, and
immigrant students they serve —continue to be affected by the economic,
political, and social consequences of living in a city that has been bombed
and in a nation that is at war."

Even now, five years after 9/11, we are living in a nation that is still at
war. Adult literacy educators know that millions of the students they have
served and continue to serve suffer from a form of terror that results from
fighting chronic poverty, marginalization, and social exclusion. In the past
I have likened the life circumstances of millions of our adult learners as
experiencing conditions similar to the use of the "3 Ds" - dread,
debilitation, and dependence - used to break down the resistance of
prisoners of war so that they can be "brainwashed" to accept the conditions
of their life.

Today, dread, debilitation, and dependency instill constant stress, fatigue,
and terror in the lives of millions of undereducated, poorly literate adults
and too often form a psychological barrier that keeps them from enrolling in
literacy programs. But through literacy education, adults may not only learn
to read and write, they may learn to overpower the psychological
brainwashing of the 3 Ds that has kept them and their families in poverty,
social exclusion, and political subservience. Conceivably, by combating the
terrorism caused by the 3 Ds amongst impoverished and illiterate or
marginally literate adults, in all nations, we can also combat a
significant part of the terrorism caused by bombs and other weapons of war.

Adult literacy education is a formidable weapon against terrorism in both
war and peace. It is a weapon drastically in need five years after the
terror of 9/11. I was there to celebrate the end of World War II. I wonder
when this present war will end. Soon, I hope.  I’m waiting for the
watermelons.


Tom Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education
2062 Valley View Blvd.
El Cajon, CA 92019-2059
Tel/fax: (619) 444-9133
Email: tsticht at aznet.net