Part One
The first images of Port Au Prince, Haiti after the devastating earthquake struck on January 12, 2010 focused on crumpled buildings, including the Presidential Palace. The real impact of the earthquake was on the people, both those killed and those who survived.
When the earthquake devastated the capital of Haiti, it killed an estimated 230,000 people and injured 800,000. The 35 second tremor left 100,000 homes destroyed and 200,000 severely damaged.
When a tragedy like this strikes, journalists rush in, many with no real familiarity with the society and its people. In the case of Haiti, however, Cincinnati Enquirer reporter Mark Curnutte, had already spent significant time with three Haitian families on two earlier trips to the island. Mark has now published a very interesting book about his insights into the lives of three Haitian families entitled "A Promise in Haiti: a Reporter's Notes on Families and Daily Lives."
Dan Hurley was joined by Mark Curnutte who has worked since 1993 as a reporter at the Cincinnati Enquirer. He covered the Cincinnati Bengals for seven years, but in recent years has turned his reporting to what really motivates him, the plight of the disadvantaged.
Part Two
"One morning after I brought out two different customers the completely wrong specials, Mrs. Fredericks pulls me aside and says, "Ginney, I've been watching you pretty careful these last few mornings. You can't read, can you? I get all embarrassed and stare down at the tile floor. 'No Mam, I never learned how."
Across centuries and groups, the experience of immigrants to Cincinnati have certain common threads knitting them together. That is what six actors explore in a new play entitled Cincinnati: City of Immigrants. Across two centuries, German, Irish, Russian Jews and now Mexicans and Guatemalans have come to Cincinnati in search of the American dream. Along with internal migrants, freed slaves and families from the mountains of Kentucky and Tennessee, all of these newcomers have shared the suspicion and scorn of so-called native born, worries about being inadequate with language, and the desire to make a new home for their children.
Historians, including me, have written about these experiences, but a new play, Cincinnati: A City of Immigrants, cuts through all the statistics and brings to life the stories of these immigrants. Dan Hurley's guests were Darryl Harris, the director, who teaches theater at NKU, Bob Allen, who portrays a turn of the century Russian Jew named Samuel and Alfonso Cornejo, the president of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce who is the engine that has driven this venture for several years now.
