Sleeping With Strangers: The Wide World of Couchsurfing

I am a couchsurfer.  When I travel, I do not pay for a hotel, but rather contact other couchsurfers, usually strangers, before I arrive and ask if I may stay them.  In return, I host foreign travelers in my apartment when circumstances permit.  While in Los Angeles, it is not uncommon for me to host up to four couchsurfers— all previously strangers— in my bedroom and living room.  Oftentimes they will contact their fellow traveling friends, and groups of up to ten foreigners may gather to meet at my apartment on certain Saturday nights.  In essence, I have allowed a group of strangers who often do not even speak my own language to come to my house and throw a party.  Yet I am not crazy, having no outstanding psychiatric disorders.  Upon my initial announcement to my roommates back in September that I was having a stranger from Germany come live with me for a few days, however, I was looked at as if I was out of my mind.

I was not surprised by their first reactions.  True, only the bravest of souls would invite a complete “stranger” right off the streets into their house.  Need one be so bold, however, to arrange the stay a week or two ahead of time, with the opportunity to meet them online beforehand and assess compatibility?  A fast growing website known as Couchsurfing.com has been doing just that since 2004.

Couchsurfing, in the broadest sense of the word, has been around for thousands of years.  Yet it was not until 2003 that the aforementioned internet version was first dreamt up by avid traveler Casey Fenton.  Booking a last-minute flight to Iceland and not wanting to pay for a “touristy” hotel, he sent a mass email to University of Iceland students asking if anyone could accommodate him.  The response was inspiring: “Fenton ultimately received more than fifty offers of accommodation… [and] On the return flight to Boston he began to develop the ideas that would underpin the CouchSurfing Project."  In January 2004 the project, now known as Couchsurfing.com, became a public website, and by the end of 2005 “membership stood just under 45,000."  The website launched CouchSurfing 2.0 in July 2006, and, after garnering international media coverage, grew in excess of one million members, with over 40,000 new accounts made each month on average.  Proudly and boldly displaying the slogan “Participate In Creating A Better World, One Couch At A Time,” Couchsurfing.com is quickly making couchsurfing a much more accessible and global phenomenon.

This prospect of creating a better world and forming strong social ties certainly provides a fair share of bait.  The question remains, however, as to whether people will bite.  Certainly, Couchsurfing.com’s statistical success seems to affirm this hope, representing over 232 countries and nearly 60,000 cities as of late.  Yet others I have spoken to have been adamant in their decision to travel by more traditional methods.  Clearly, Couchsurfing.com is not for everyone.  What then, are the obtained beliefs that underlie one’s drive to be either enticed or repulsed by the idea of this online couchsurfing system?  The purpose of this current study is to discover and assess the opinions that people have of the system, thereby determining what causes and motivates one to be a couchsurfer (or hotel surfer, for that matter).  The hypothesis of this report is as follows: people join Couchsurfing.com in order to gain a rich “local” experience, are usually (but not always) quite outgoing and interested in making new acquaintances, and are attempting to save money, given that couchsurfing is free of charge.  In addition, they will generally not have many concerns as to the dangers of the system, although they will be aware.  Those who report that they would not consider participating will be more concerned with the risks of inviting couchsurfers into their home, as well as less social.  They will more often describe themselves as introverts when compared to those who said they would participate in the system, and not as concerned with saving money when they travel.  In addition, forming broad social networks will be more heavily favored among those who participate as compared to those who do not.

Methodology

Two methods of qualitative data collection were employed in this study.  In a non-random sample, three roommates, each one with a Couchsurfing account of his own, was thoroughly interviewed.  They were asked a list of questions, concerning what brought them to participate in Couchsurfing.com, what initial fears (if any) they had, if they were in it more for the experiences or to save money, and if they would prefer a hotel if it were also free.  Two other roommates, observed prior to this study as being against the system, were also given a very similar interview.  These interviews asked such questions as to how they made the decision to not participate in the program and why.  In addition to these interviews, seven questionnaires were returned from either former couchsurfers who stayed in my apartment or from peers with whom their opinion on the matter was initially unclear.  The questionnaires consisted of the same set of questions as the conducted interviews, but given the nature of the method solicited much shorter responses in most occasions.

As with most studies, there are several limitations as to the methods of data collection used in this research project.  A small sample size is often a limiting factor in such studies, and this project was no exception.  Although the five interviews and seven questionnaires were within the recommended parameters for the study, a truly accurate study would perchance require even more studies.  A larger population of subjects, for example, would no doubt increase the range and diversity of responses, thus giving new insight into the motivations behind one’s decision to be a couchsurfer.  Subjects were also not chosen randomly, although there seems to be no inherent connection between subjects that would alter the obtained results.  However, one could argue that the fact that all personal interviews with fellow couchsurfers and hosts were living within the same building is indeed not a limitation.  For instance, all hosts decided independently, and at different times throughout the past two years, to sign up, and conducted all couchsurfing activities independently of each other.  Still, further studies with a broader population sample should be conducted in order to obtain more certain results.  In any case, the findings of the study were both inspiring and surprising, bolstering and challenging the validity of the hypothesis.

Results

As predicted, those against the online couchsurfing system were primarily concerned with the potential dangers involved.  Safety seemed to be their main concern, with one subject stating “new and inexperienced travelers need to be careful of the website because, all in all, you really don’t know who you are going to be staying with.”  One interviewee stressed his claim that couchsurfers were potential thieves when he said “they know where you live, but you don’t know where they do.  You could fall asleep one night and the next night wake up without a laptop, with absolutely no way of tracing the person, who had probably created a fake identity on the website anyway.”  A final interviewee offered an even grimmer prospect: “when you meet someone online at couchsurfing.com, it is no different than a dating website.  People probably exaggerate their features and lie about who they are all the time.”  The subject went on to state, “with such dishonesty, who knows what psychopathic killers could be lurking on the site?”

It seems that the very risk decried by the above objectors to couchsurfing is what entices others to participate.  Indeed, the fact that one does not know the person with whom he or she will be staying is part of the fun.  According to some of the conducted interviews and completed questionnaires, “While you won’t really know who your host is at first, by the time you leave his home you will know him quite well, and possibly have gained a lifelong friend.”  Others stated that they carefully analyzed the surfer’s profile prior to accepting, yet still believed that couchsurfing was relatively safe.  One subject who herself had never been couchsurfing but liked the idea stated “I don’t believe there are that many things that can go wrong.  Why would people that you give a place to stay rob you?  It just doesn’t make sense or follow any type of norm.”  In the same way, she stated that travelers themselves need not be afraid of being robbed by their hosts, as “you know where they live.”

Although most of those subjects against online couchsurfing stated that they would prefer to not be forced to socialize with the same people their whole trip, one interviewee gave an interesting and diverting response.  She stated that, rather than couchsurf, she would “stay at a hostel because they are actually more social, with large groups of people meeting in a new place at the same time.”  This desire for new social interactions was hypothesized to be a prime factor behind the choice to couchsurf, and the surveys certainly supported this.  “I have been couchsurfing for three years, and it all started the day I decided to stop wasting time in hotel rooms and playing the tourist role,” cites one subject.  Another subject gave a hearty response: “Those who prefer to travel around with a guidebook while checking off all the main attractions will probably not prefer couchsurfing.  If you want to truly experience a country, live with the locals.”  Indeed, this “When in Rome” mentality seems pervasive within nearly all decisions to become a couchsurfer.  One subject stated, for instance: “living with a local means knowing the real hotspots, not just the touristy ones.  It means not only getting the best burritos but knowing when to go to avoid the lines.”

Surprisingly, there were several other additional findings that went against the hypothesis.  Although many cited that the nonexistent price of couchsurfing was attractive, nearly no one said that it would ever be a factor in their decision on how to travel.  Those who prefer hostels and hotels cited that they felt an obligation to accommodate the host when they were living in the home.  “I’d prefer to pay for a room in exchange to be free to do as I please,” stated one subject, adding “I just feel too guilty refusing anything they offer me.”  One couchsurfer was interviewed later, and when asked what he thought of the previous statement, gave a counter reply.  “I arrive with very little expectations of my hosts.  Although they are usually polite and invite me along, I feel it is perfectly fine and not insulting at all if I do not choose to go.”  It seems, therefore, that a significant part of the decision to couchsurf or not depends on the amount of freedom that the prospective traveler believes he or she will have whilst couchsurfing.  Describing oneself as social or non-social, extroverted or introverted interestingly did not make much of a difference in one’s decision to couchsurf.  Those who thought they were social were certainly more likely to participate, true, yet some who checked the “introvert” box still thought they might eventually sign-up online for the program.  As one subject stated, “I think of myself as shy and would usually not ask anyone for a place to stay.  But with an online couchsurfing site, where people actually sign up to be hosts, I might feel more comfortable.”  The opportunity to assess a traveler’s potential compatibility with one’s own therefore abated most interviewee’s wariness towards trying the system.

This study ultimately obtained results that went both for and against the hypothesis.  It was correct to hypothesize that safety would be a key issue among both groups, and that those against couchsurfing would consider the dangers to be far greater than those who had participated in the program.  One subject even stated that he was afraid of hosting a “psychopath.”  In deviating from the hypothesis, however, most were more concerned that their belongings would be stolen than they were about their own well-being.  Participants in the couchsurfing program also surprised when they stated that the very fact that one does not know the person whom they will be staying with is part of the “fun.”

Perhaps the most compelling of findings that went against the hypothesis is that some people who do not couchsurf base their reasoning on entirely social, rather than anti-social, elements.  For example, several believed that going to a hostel was actually more social than staying at a host’s place, stating that hostels provided an even greater context for meeting new people.  People stating that they would not couchsurf were not always less social, and did not always describe themselves as “introverts,” as predicted earlier in this study.  The hypothesis was correct, however, to assume that a desire for social interactions was what drove many to choose couchsurfing as their means of shelter.  It was also right in its assumption that many couchsurfers were hoping for a more “local” experience, rather than playing the role of tourist once again.

The chance to save travel money was also not an issue affecting anyone’s decision to use or not use couchsurfing, as previously predicted.  Some who were against the system stated that the cheap price was not enough to convince them, citing that they would rather not feel obligated to engage with their hosts.  This does not mean that the money-factor was nonexistent, however.  Many did mention that the chance to save money was enticing.  However, they always stated that this was simply a bonus characteristic of the process, and that the real reason was to gain valuable experiences and friendships.

In summary, the hypothesis was mostly accurate in its predictions.  Where it erred, it set up a grounds for discovering many intriguing reasons behind people’s decisions to cooperate with each other on such a personal level.  To further such research in the near future, the chosen subjects for the current study should be interviewed again after the summer of 2009, after they will have had plenty of time to do much traveling themselves and been host to many others.  Perhaps becoming more accustomed to the practice will make them even more accepting of the idea, and cause them to practice it more frequently.  Although this research project called upon an adequate number of subjects set forth by the parameters, adding more participants to the study would no doubt increase the global accuracy of the results.  In the end, however, it is safe to assume that based on the majority of people stating that they either do couchsurf or would strongly consider it that couchsurfing is quickly becoming a phenomenon.  It seems that the “doveryai, no proveryai” (Russian proverb for “trust, but verify”) aspects of the popular website has turned couchsurfing into a virus that people are catching at an alarming rate.  With the ability to verify that a traveler is compatible, the wariness felt by many potential hosts lessen, and lifelong, trusting friendships are soon made.

This is a Conversation: the Facets of the Online Journalism Blog

Few websites cover and critique the ever-changing face of modern journalism and the techniques involved in it as well as OJB, or the Online Journalism Blog.  Right from the start, the blog offers a refreshing and unbiased look at the world of online journalism and the issues confronting the medium.  Perhaps its most enticing characteristic is the ability for many authors to contribute to the website’s postings, thereby increasing the scope of topics discussed and making the discussions more helpful.  Indeed, the blog’s unapologetic motto is: “This is a conversation.”

My particular interest in this blog began when I discovered a posting titled “Do blogs make reporting restrictions pointless?”  Here the blog is directly addressing, in my opinion, one of the most pressing issues in journalism today.  With the invention of the blog has come an unprecedented ability and power to reach worldwide audiences with little effort.  But, with this new swiftness in reporting speed has come the possibility of publishing articles without much proofreading for factual errors.  In several cases in the past this has resulted in stories being picked up by larger news organizations and wrongly published.  Such a problem can have dire consequences in the future as more and more of the public obtains access to the online world of “citizen journalism,” and I was pleased to find a blog that addressed the issue.

Another piece contained within the blog that I was very happy to see was one written about how some journalists will do anything for a story, even violate privacy.  The blog posting tells of reporter Paula Murray, who “managed to inveigle her way into a Facebook friendship with teenagers from the town [of Dunblane] and write a salacious piece about their ‘antics,’ based on information culled from their profiles.” 

Although the original article was quickly taken down, the story nevertheless shows how some reporters need to approach their coverage in a more ethical manner, lest the entire journalistic community be given an even worse image than it already has developed over the years (it has been deteriorating for quite some time).  In this way, therefore, OJB is quite useful in its role as critic of journalistic methods and initiator and mediator of important online public discussion.

Al Jazeera: A New Contender in Websites

Al Jazeera is a television network based in Doha, Qatar, in the Middle East, and is said to be the most influential news media company in the region by far.  Beginning as a news and current affairs satellite TV channel, it has since expanded into a vast network of specialty television channels, and, most importantly, Internet mediums.  Its websites have been translated into many languages, and since 2003 the website has been available in English.   Al Jazeera’s offering of a fresh perspective on Middle Eastern conflicts and news allows it to stand out from other news media companies.  Perhaps the meaning of Al Jazeera, island, is all too apt for the company, one that seems to stand alone in a sea of unworthy competitors.  On the other hand, some would state that the name translates more accurately to peninsula, in which Al Jazeera would be more of an attachment to a preexisting news medium in the Middle East.

Few would deny the websites stature as a serious competitor in the dissemination of daily global news.  One visit to the website and a deluge of information becomes available, offering headlines from Thailand, Bangladesh, China, and the United States.  A side column reveals countless links to other stories, neatly packaged and arranged by their respective countries: Africa, Asia-Pacific, Central and South Asia, Europe and the Middle East, to name a few.  Genres are laid out as well, ranging from business to sports, weather to blogs.  With such wide-ranging coverage, the site seems to rival that of CNN.com and BBC.com in competence, although its foreign nature might make it harder to find for the general Western public.

Concerning interest, the vast list of topics as well as live and consistently updated footage make the website very interesting and captivating.  Any news on a particular country is likely to be found on the website, making it a one-stop website for much news.  It contains topics that are not socially or politically related as well, such as sports and weather, but one criticism is that its branching out to other genres stops there.  Regardless, the site seems to be one of primary interest in the Arab world.  This is perhaps due to its many awards and far-reaching scope: according to Alexa.com, Aljazeera.net is the most visited website in the Arab world, as well as being nominated by the Webby Awards for best news website in the world.

The utilities of the website are vast and encompassing as well.  The introduction of the news media company and its subsequent website has had something of a liberating effect on the Arab world.  Prior to its arrival to the scene, many Middle Eastern citizens found it impossible to watch anything other than “state-censored national TV stations.”  The level of freedom of speech that Al Jazeera subsequently brought with it was unprecedented at the time, making it a vital new commodity in the news world.  Its employment of such links as “livestation,” a broadcast of its actual TV coverage, as well as Youtube links to popular episodes and an “In depth” section allow one to make full use of the websites very helpful, if sometimes daunting, links.

Perhaps employing the evaluative terms from Susan Beck’s article “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly: Or, Why It’s a Good Idea to Evaluate Web Sources” will provide a further look and critique upon the Al Jazeera website.  Concerning “Authority,” Al Jazeera shows mostly positive results.  Most of the pages are signed, with the more collaborative pages and profiles remaining anonymous.  The authors that are indeed listed are certainly qualified correspondents.  The sponsors are listed throughout the website, although the site is not riddled and polluted with pop-up ads.  Links to the sponsors are available on most occasions, and when an author is unavailable, Al Jazeera claims responsibility at the bottom of each article.  Concerning “Accuracy,” the results are more mixed.   The information is, for the large part, very reliable and error-free.  When a news source becomes as big as Al Jazeera, contending with the New York Times and the BBC, it no doubt has to be accurate and fact-checked, in addition to having seasoned correspondents as well.  Taking “Objectivity” into account, the information is mostly objective, but, as in any news medium, simply choosing what to report on in particular begins to hinder any claims of objectivity.  The pages are not, however, designed to sway public opinion, at least as far as the Western eye can see.  In Arab circles, for example, Al Jazeera has been said to cater to a nationalistic fever.  Although the website is frequently updated each and every day, the pages are not dated per se, hindering claims of “Currency.”  However, the homepage does include a clock that states the last time the page was updated, as well as listing that time in both the time of the visitor and the traditional “Mecca time.”  Finally, “Coverage” is taken into account, and this is perhaps the Al Jazeera websites strongest area.  It covers topics from nearly all the world, with correspondents on six continents.  Such extensive coverage and facilitated links are difficult to find anywhere else.  The material, too, is very in depth considering the little amount of time given to the correspondents to report the story.  Ultimately, Al Jazeera’s website stands out as a strong contender, and perhaps on its own, hence the name “the island.”  Some would still argue that its coverage is biased or too shallow, and that it was born by utilizing outlets that were already in existence.  If this is the case, making Al Jazeera more of a branching peninsula (as its name could also mean), then its unique and extensive coverage still allows it to reach farther out into the abyss of information than any other Arabic news media company or website before it.

Mail-Order Brides

Arranged marriage, although traditionally quite common in many countries, is an almost unthinkable proposition to many residing in the U.S.  Indeed, such an arrangement voids any romantic aspect of marriage, presenting a problem in a country that has long constituted marriage as being based on emotional intimacy and attraction.  If one were to arrange the marriage for themselves, however, might the stigma disappear?   Known sometimes derogatorily as the system of mail-order brides, this system allows for a man or woman to choose a significant other from an online catalog.  Prospective brides usually hail from overseas, and come live with their new spouse in exchange for citizenship and a better life.  Generally hailing from developing countries, a great majority of mail-order brides come from Southeast Asia, the Philippines, or countries of the former Soviet Union.  Such brides come to willing husbands with hopes of a positive change, but how often this dream is actually realized is debatable.  Abuse is sometimes reported, and there have been a string of murders committed both by and against such brides over the past decade.  Conversely, other statistics suggest that such marriages may be happier (or at least more successful) than the average U.S. marriage, with a divorce rate well below the United States average.  How effective and safe is the system, and does the mail-order bride business’ new standards of safety and protection cause the traditional American stigma against arranged marriage to fade?  And, if so, does the increasing evidence against the safety of such marriages construct new societal boundaries, or does the mounting evidence of the fortitude of such marriages assist the idea in becoming more generally accepted?

Many statistics would suggest that a mail-order bride will, although having never met the man she is about to marry, stay with him (and he with her) for longer and with a greater success rate than most marriages in the United States.  The divorce rate is reported to be significantly lower, with 80% of marriages lasting at least four years and often much longer.  Various studies done with between four to six thousand couples supported this claim of a lower divorce rate, but also revealed something else.  It was shown in these studies that the cultures of both man and woman could determine the success of the marriage. Brazilian or Thai women, for example, attained a divorce rate of lower than 30%, while men marrying women from the Dominican Republic or Philippines could enjoy a divorce rate of nearly 60%.  One possible reason for marital retention amongst Brazilian and Taiwanese women could be due to cultural beliefs.  Time magazine, for example, in a September 1951 article, states, “In most Western nations divorce is legal on grounds of adultery or desertion…Brazil has always prohibited-divorce for any reason whatever. Its constitution makes a legal marriage an-indissoluble contract.”  Little has changed sixty years later, where “because Brazil is 95% Roman Catholic, the disagreement over divorce was within the religious family.”  It is important to note, however, that longevity in marriage does not necessarily guarantee happiness in marriage.  Brazilians, in attempt to escape the stringent laws, have paid considerable sums to become divorced and remarried abroad, and “those who cannot afford to travel often get Uruguayan and Mexican divorces through Rio lawyers.”  Various other Brazilians who separate from their spouses simply introduce a new ‘wife’ into the household without any sign of a new marriage or divorce.”  In any case, however, the predominantly Catholic country has a history of life-long marriages, representing a continent-wide trend.  Colombian women, for example, who boast a record low divorce rate of less than 20%, certainly have a religiously based wariness of divorce culture.

Concerning the Thai culture, one might attribute the low divorce rate to a “fatalistic” sort of mindset, in which one’s life events are taken at face value and accepted, whether those events are positive or negative.    In any case, it seems that American men hope to stay with the brides, while the bride’s decision seems to be based more on the culturally based mindset they have developed.  Another reason for staying could be financial dependability.  Of course, all mail-order brides, given their situation, are at first going to be financially dependant.  The rate at which they stay after a few years, when this dependability may weaken its grip, may be based on how the culture sees couples of a more equal social status.

Although divorce rates in America are particularly high when compared to the rest of the world, it is by no means an enjoyable process.  A positive light is hence shed on the prospect of the typically enduring mail-order marriage.  Yet the reasons why men choose a mail-order bride remain controversial, as evidenced with the banners and slogans of such growing websites as Dream-Marriage.com, Goodwife.com and Mailorderbrides.com.  Upon opening Dream-Marriage.com, for example, a hopeful bachelor might think he ventured into a porn site.  Bursting with scantily clad women and neon banners, the website seems like more of a red-light district than a place to find a wife.  Goodwife.com claims, amongst other things: “Are there any good women left in the West?  Sure there are.  Are they easy to find?  Not on your life!”  Such a motto suggests that mail-order brides are a last way out, a sort of last-place trophy.  However, the truth is not so black and white.  Goodwife.com also claims that, aside from there being a scarcity of available Western women, a solid reason for choosing a “Cross-Cultural” marriage is that they “suffer divorce at a substantially lower rate than the U.S. domestic divorce rate.”  As stated previously, the reasons behind this are unclear and could be due to anything from cultural expectations to the traditional mindsets of the bride and her respective country.  Regardless of the reason, many websites that are aware of the unusually high U.S. divorce rate capitalize on this alluring notion.

Other sites expand upon this positive image, perhaps making it seem more socially acceptable—if not to the general public, then at least to eligible bachelors.  Planet-Love.com, for instance, claims that through its use of an Internet community in which prospective couples can learn about each other prior to arranging the marriage, it has “helped countless people find the path to success and the lifetime love they have dreamed of and desired.”  Perhaps the most obvious of names, Mailorderbrides.com, which specializes in Russian women, suggests that they are invaluable as lifetime partners: “Many beautiful Russian women actually downplay their beauty dressing conservatively with a minimum of make up.  These women don’t attract that much attention but are nonetheless beautiful and will appreciate your attention more than those who are flaunting their beauty.”  And Russianwomen.ca even goes so far as to list its credentials and a laundry list of its safety features.  It informs visitors that those living in America who wish to marry a Russian bride must first comply with IMBRA, the “International Marriage Broker Regulation Act” law.  Warning that many “sites featuring Russian brides” are unlawful, the company proceeds to proudly flash its IMBRA membership badge across the page.  The website’s warnings reflect a common illegality in the business.  This illegality perhaps explains the reason for the mail-order marriage system’s popularity rollercoaster: the facilitation of the internet in selecting prospective brides is downplayed by harsh gubernatorial restrictions placed in many countries from which mail-order brides originate.

Turkmenistan, for example, poses a $5,000 fine to any foreigner wishing to marry one of its citizens, either as a caution against the practice or perhaps as a way to profit from the industry.  The Philippines, which recognizes the abuse factor frequently reported in the marriages, has harsh laws curbing most of the legal aspects of the practice, although there are ways around it.  This only seems to support the notion that the practice is increasingly dangerous.  In 2005, the president of Belarus attempted to institute legislation curbing the practice, believing that western men were draining his country of women of childbearing age.  In the United States, a man often has to complete a questionnaire on his criminal and marital background, must be screened from all mental illnesses and disorders, must not be listed under the National Sex Offenders Public Registry, and a translation must be provided to the woman.  In many ways, therefore, the practice is going through many changes in safety and restrictions, in many ways portraying the system as safer and more “hard-won” and noble.  Perhaps the strict policies of the process and its interviews cause the system to be seen in a more positive light.  Once viewed as a system used only by desperate men unable to find a wife in America, the image is now (albeit slowly) changing.

The practice remains statistically dangerous, however, and the media frenzy following recent murders committed both to and by mail-order brides has certainly detracted from its image and added to the taboo against it.  In the past decade, four gruesome murders against mail-order brides have been reported, with another one being committed by the actual bride against her husband.  Alla Barney, Susanna Blackwell, Anastasia King, and Nina Reiser all made headlines after their disappearances, and all were reported as foreigners who had recently arrived in the United States to meet their fate.  Tessie Buhawe Spotts was charged with the slow poisoning murder of her husband, thereby covering the other end of the spectrum and to some extent tarnishing the image of the mail-order system further.  In November of 2004 Ukrainian mail-order bride Nataliya Fox was awarded nearly five-hundred thousand dollars in damages after Encounters International, a global marriage broker, arranged Nataliya’s marriage to an American man with a history of violently abusing women.  The jury also found the broker liable for “misrepresenting that it screened male clients when it did not.”  Given the circumstances, it is little wonder that ordering a mail-order bride has struggled in recent years to uphold any positive image it may have once had.

One particularly harsh commentary comes from an Internet article titled A License To Abuse: The Impact of Conditional Status on Female Immigrants.  The article describes Dominican Republic born Maria, who married a United States citizen in hopes of obtaining a U.S. citizenship.  The husband, whom she was supposed to stay with for at least two years in order to remain in the U.S., recounts the physical beatdowns she would receive from her abusive husband. “One time I had eight stitches in my head and a gash on the other side of my head, and he broke my ribs.... He would bash my head against the wall while we had sex. He kept threatening to kill me if I told the doctor what happened,” she recounts.  After finally running away, she had to return once more to get her papers so she could leave the country.  She tells of that terrible night in vivid detail: "He beat me on the head. He sat on my stomach. He put a knife to my throat and raped me. Then he threw me naked on the street.”  Such violence is not only deplorable, but the fact that these stories are so easily obtained and given to the public has certainly added to the mail-order marriage system’s struggle to be accepted as a safe institution, despite strict international regulations.

There are indeed “plenty of fish in the sea,” and many more if you are willing to look in international waters.  Each year many U.S. men (the actual number is unknown due to the large number of unregulated entries of mail-order brides into the U.S. each year) arrange marriages for themselves online, and the social acceptability of such a system is still being debated.  One side would argue that such arrangements are healthy because they typically defy the odds when it comes to the divorce rate, staying strong long after the average U.S. marriage has fizzled out.  Yet for every advocator there is a detractor, many of whom claim that the abuse rate is very high and that such women are taken advantage of and exploited.  Recent media stories have certainly done much to deter such marriages from gaining the societal nod of approval as well.  At the same time, however, many websites claim to follow international regulations and safety standards, many of which have been strengthened in recent years.  It seems, therefore, that the debate will continue for some time.  Ultimately, American society seems to walk a thin line on the issue, hanging in a tight balance between accepting mail-order brides either as opportunistic women who simply want a better life and stay true to their husbands or as poor victims of abusive men getting caught up in a system that never should have been allowed in America in the first place.

APA Works Cited

Land of no divorce - TIME. Retrieved February 3, 2009, from Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech Reviews - TIME.com. Web site: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,815340,00.html.

Mail order brides and the abuse of immigrant women.  Retrieved February 3 2009, from  No Status Quo Websites.  Web site: http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/anderson/brides/pg1.html

Mail-order bride's dream of a better life ends in death.  Retrieved February 3, 2009 from Seattle news, sports, entertainment | seattlepi.com - Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Web site: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/brid02.shtml.

Mail order bride guide.  Retrieved February 3, 2009.  Web site: http://www.goodwife.com/.

Mail order brides online.  Retrieved February 3, 2009.  Web site: http://www.mailorderbrides.com/.

Retrieved 03 Feb. 2009.  Web site: http://pacer.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinion.pdf/051139.U.pdf.

Renegades of Funk: Zack de La Rocha and His Influence

I have never even met one of the most influential persons in my life.  Even since the beginning of high school, Zacarias (Zack) Manuel de la Rocha, most famously the lead singer of Rage Against the Machine, has changed my outlook on life and what I need to accomplish while I am here.  Hailing from nearby Long Beach, he grew up in Irvine, a town neighboring my own.  It was perhaps his comment on life growing up in this town that first caught my eye and made me respect him.  Mirroring my own opinion, he once stated that Irvine was “perhaps one of the whitest cities” he had ever seen.  Given my own heritage, I am not one to talk, yet I feel that his comment on “whiteness” has much more to do with social attitudes than with skin color.  Irvine has (notoriously) been filled with what I would describe as a sea of people lacking in hospitality, something I have seen in no other culture except that of the upper class.  I am in no way implying that being upper-causes this, but growing up as a teenager it bothered me, and Zack’s comment was one reason I began to explore his lyrics and messages further.  What I would soon find would change my entire world outlook.

Attending a Catholic high school, I naturally had a lot of pent-up anger.  The school claimed that all were equal during its daily prayers and meditations etc., yet I found those who held different ideals or sexuality (and sometimes even those of a different race) were treated differently, even by the staff.  In some cases, I would see protesters outside my school, holding signs that read "I was molested by a principal at Mater Dei."  Such was my situation when I found Rage Against the Machine and the ways of Zack.  Never before had I seen a public figure so unabashedly unapologetic and unafraid to stand up for what he believed in.  Even before Rage, his description of his previous Long Beach hardcore punk band Inside Out seemed to speak to exactly what I was feeling at the time: “[it was] about completely detaching ourselves from society to see ourselves as…as spirits, and not bowing down to a system that sees you as just another pebble on a beach.  I channeled all my anger through that band.”

But it was perhaps his later work with Rage that truly made me respect him and discover more about who I wanted to be.  Although his band was perhaps the most politically driven act to ever receive extensive airplay from both radio and MTV, Zack refused to sell out and do whatever popular society wanted.  In 1993 in Philadelphia, for example, in protest of the PMRC, or Parent’s Musical Resource Center, he and his band-mates stood completely naked on stage for a full 15 minutes, wearing nothing but black duct-tape over their mouths in protest of the PMRC’s attempted censorship of musical groups.  Despite jeers from some angry fans who wanted to hear music, Zack never wavered.  In short, he is a man who does not care what people want from him, he does what he believes is right and is not obsessed with simply being a celebrity.

This is further demonstrated by his tireless advocating in favor of Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu-Jamal, widely believed to be political prisoners.  The Zapatista movement in Mexico, another movement he supports, also demonstrates his worldliness.  Perhaps the reason I so respect him is his refusal to sell his music along the typical terms of success as defined by monetary gain and a widened fan base.  Rather, Zack is said to have not considered “any of Rage’s albums a success unless the provoked tangible political change.”  Such commitment and courage is something that has inspired me to a career that would go beyond what is simply comfortable and secure, perhaps the reason why I have chosen to be a war correspondent, with high hopes of working for Arabic news network Al Jazeera one day.