Meeting Notes March 18, 2015
Our Greeter this morning was Dorothy Bloom, and she did an excellent job.
President Barbara rang the bell at 7:30 a.m. Mike Henry gave a very nice invocation.
GUESTS: Dorothy Bloom; Pat Panfile; Sarah Andrew (Bethlehem RC); Prof. Christina Baudisch of LCCC, guest of Barb Kistler.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
The 2nd and 4th Thursday of each month are evening meetings at the Holiday Inn in Fogelsville from 5:30 to 6:30 PM. Next evening meeting is March 26th. VOLUNTEERS ARE NEEDED; PLEASE CONTACT BARBARA.
Today is Snack Packing at Parkland H.S. this afternoon.
The special initiative starting right now is called “Purses for Polio” See details elsewhere.
The March Dining Our will be at Hunan Springs on March 20th starting at 6:30 PM. Please sign up with AJ.
On Friday March 27th AW Rotarians will have a JOINT LUNCHTIME MEETING with the Allentown RC at the Renaissance Hotel where the Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.N. will be featured.
REGISTER IN ADVANCE at allentownrotary.org. AWRC will have an information table at this meeting.
Our regular Wed a.m. breakfast meeting STILL will be held that week on 3-25.
Tempting Tastes – Please sell at least 5 Admission tickets; but on-line. Sponsors still are needed. We may have a Mexican restaurant participating.
Halyna reminds us that the silent auction needs items.
Note that TT has a Facebook page.
Barb needs some members to help sort the purses and scarves for next week.
DID YOU KNOW?
AWRC’s application for a $30,000 Global Grant for projects in Sierra Leone has been approved by RI.
AWRC will be presenting its Global Grant story plus its Snack Pack story at BOTH the District Conference AND the District Training Assembly.
Our 3-25 scheduled speaker about Bees has been postponed. The replacement program is a surprise. Joe Goll is the Greeter for March 25th.
NEW MEMBER INDUCTION:
Chuck Ehninger called up Pat Panfile and sponsor Halyna, Dorothy Bloom and sponsor AJ, and Sarah Andrew who has transferred from the Bethlehem RC. Chuck welcomed them and conducted a formal induction ceremony. The sponsors presented the new members with their pins and badges. A standing ovation followed.
Former member Scott Hock has been reactivated and he will attend our Thursday meetings to start.
New member Orientation training sessions will begin again in April.
GAMBLING:
The door prize gift donated by Dottie Bloom was won by George Ikeda. Then Barb offered a second door prize of “Irish Potatoes” -- chocolate coconut candies -- which was won by Bill Palmer. The $103 pot of the 50:50 was not won by Sue Weber who selected a white marble.
FINES:
S-a-A Don Davis fined Randy and Candi for pin/badge infractions. Then he fined Lise for arriving late.
HAPPY DOLLARS:
Dorothy is happy to be a member of Rotary.
Gwenn reminds us that Engineers Without Borders (EWB) will hold their big fundraiser auction at the DaVinci Science Center on April 10th starting at 6:00 P.M.
Geoff Legg paid $2 in recognition of S-a-A Don Davis having achieved his budget so far at 200%.
Pat Panfile is delighted to be a member of Rotary.
Gloria is happy that Dale Hostetter and Don Davis delivered 30 dictionaries to the school where the Burkholder families’ children attend.
Gloria also is pleased that she now has a check for $450 for Snack Packs as a result of the Ziegels Union Church Soup Sale.
Lise, happy to be home, spent last week looking after her 4-1/2 and 2-1/2 year old grandkids; she survived!
Bill Palmer is happy that last evening he attended the opening presentation of Mary Poppins at the Emmaus H.S. and it was great. He also is happy that AJ Henry took such great notes at our 3-11 meeting.
Sue is happy with our three great new members.
PROGRAM:
President Barbara introduced Dr. MARY C. WATERS, the M.E. Zukerman Professor of Sociology at Harvard University. Her work has focused on the integration of immigrants and their children, the transition to adulthood for the children of immigrants, intergroup relations, and the measurement and meaning of racial and ethnic identity.
Waters received a B.A. in Philosophy from Johns Hopkins University in 1978, an M.A. in Demography (1981) and an M.A. (1983) and PhD in Sociology (1986) from the University of .California at Berkeley. She has taught at Harvard University since 1986, and was chair of the Sociology Department from 2001-2005 and acting chair, Spring 2007.
She is currently co-directing, with Jean Rhodes of University of Massachusetts Boston, the Risk Study. study of survivors of Hurricane Katrina. This study includes pre-hurricane data on physical and mental health and follows survivors and their children wherever they have relocated. A recent publication from this study is Christina Paxson, Elizabeth Fussell, Jean Rhodes and Mary C. Waters "Five Years Later: Recovery from Post Traumatic Stress and Psychological Distress Among Low-Income Mothers Affected by Hurricane Katrina" Social Science and Medicine vol 74 no 2 (January): 150-157.
Dr. Mary has studied immigration for 25 years. She notes that we celebrate our immigrant ancestry, and then we worry about new immigrants to the U.S. In 1965 the U.S. changed the rules and there now are 42 Million in the U.S. -- about 12% of our total population. Note that in 2008 with our recession there were almost no new immigrants.
Mary said that 25% of all of the children now in the U.S. have one or more immigrant parent. And 50% of the births in the U.S. are to non-whites. Europe now is experiencing a low birth rate. Also Mexico’s birth rate is down from 7 to 2.2 now. In the U.S. the “baby boomers” are retiring.
Mary points out that immigrants are consumers and they are workers. She says that we need to come to terms with how to handle immigrants and their children, Right now there are 11 million immigrants. One third are citizens. One third are able to become citizens. And one third are “undocumented” (i.e. illegal.) There supposedly have been 2 million immigrants deported in the last six years.
Assimilation takes a long time -- more than one generation. Three major studies conclude that the U.S. does a very good job of assimilation. Kids are doing better than their parents; but not as well as whites.
Language assimilation is difficult for the parents. The next generation kids are fluent in English. TV and movies help with that. Crime and health issues are low to start, and increase with the next generation.
Assimilation in the U.S. is rapid, but there is discrimination afterwards anyway. The children of the “undocumented” have problems in that they do not have any rights. About 65,000 of these kids each year graduate High School but cannot go to college.
Mary thinks that we are worrying about false issues, such as closing the border, and English as the national language. She prefers a path to citizenship as do 2/3 or Americans.
CLOSING:
President Barbara hit the right note to start us singing a good rendition of “God Bless America.” This was followed by the recitation of the Pledge to the Flag of the United States and then the saying “One profits most who serves the best.”
ocus on membership for our Club. 
