Will the Cafezinho become a Venti?

Will the Cafezinho become a Venti?
By Marion Geiger

BOSTON--Until the stock market crash of 1929, Brazil monopolized the coffee industry. Despite the difficulties in maintaining prices and losing business throughout the twentieth century, Brazil continues to be the largest coffee producer, controlling about 30% of the world market and coming in second to the United States of America in consumption.

Is it possible that the American coffee franchise, Starbucks, will have the same success in the coffee superpower of Brazil as it has in the U.S.? Is this a coals to Newcastle situation or, scarier to some people, will the spread of Starbucks replace the already-established coffee culture?

In December of 2006, Starbucks opened its first two Brazilian stores in the mall, Shopping Morumbi. Seventeen months later, they have eight stores around the city, which are all strategically located in upscale neighborhoods or malls where those willing to pay $6 for coffee will be.

In a press release by Starbucks on November 30, 2006, the president of Starbucks Coffee International, Martin Coles, said, “São Paulo will serve as a springboard for Starbucks strategic expansion into Brazil – a country with a very rich coffee heritage and tradition that we greatly cherish and respect.”

Maria Luiza Rodenbeck was the first general manager for Starbucks after her holding company, Cafés Sereias do Brasil signed a joint venture with Starbucks International. She and her husband Peter Rodenbeck worked together on both Cafés Sereias do Brasil and Starbucks. Maria Luiza Rodenbeck died on December 10, 2007 in a tragic car accident. Since then, Peter Rodenbeck has taken over the businesses.

Peter Rodenbeck first entered the international franchising world in 1979 when he introduced McDonalds to Brazil, which has remained successful for 29 years. Rodenbeck has also helped introduce Outback Steakhouse to Brazil.

A short woman with curly hair and a small, square, disorganized office, Regina Cati, a professor of economics at Boston University who based much of her studies on Brazilian coffee and economics, talks about the influence of immigrants on the growth of coffee. The 3 million poor, northern Italian immigrants of the late 1800s caused a strong Italian influence in Brazilian coffee production says Cati, speaking in Portuguese.

“Ever since I was a little girl I’ve been drinking good quality coffee with milk,” she says as she points out how differently American coffee drinkers think of coffee compared to Brazilians. Americans may think of it as their caffeine kick; while Brazilians may use it for the same reason, they do not think of it that way when they drink an espresso at 11 p.m. after dinner. “I can’t imagine Brazilians walking around with that bucket of coffee,” she says with a laugh at the thought of how enormous a large coffee (venti) at Starbucks is compared to the typical cafezinho (little coffee) that most Brazilians drink.

A coffee mug for sale at Starbucks says "bom dia,"
which means "good morning" in Portuguese.
Photo by Marion Geiger

“I can’t see Brazilians waking up and going to school with a to-go-cup of coffee” says Thiago Mello, 19, a B.U. engineering student from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He was referring to the thousands of college students and professors that drink coffee out of paper cups every morning. He talked about how Rio has warm temperatures year-round, which makes him believe people would not be drawn to Starbucks. He adds, in Portuguese with a Rio de Janeiro accent, “Instead of facing a long line and paying R$10, I can go to the beach, drink coconut water for R$1.50, and then start my day.”

The general manager of Starbucks Brasil, Peter Rodenbeck, says in an email message that Starbucks Brasil gets its coffee “From Starbucks Corporation, who imports from producers around the world and processes the product in Seattle with special processes guaranteeing quality and standardization.”

Bringing her feet down off the desk with her forehead high in disbelief, Cati acts shocked at hearing that Starbucks Brasil imports its coffee from their headquarters in Seattle instead of using “Brazilian coffee which has higher quality.”

“Many of them knew Starbucks from somewhere else in the world,” says Rodenbeck. According to the general manager, this made introducing Starbucks a lot easier because it was already popular through other mediums.

During an online video conference, Marcello Votto, 21, a film student in São Paulo Brasil talked in Portuguese about his initial reaction to Starbucks Brasil, “I found it curious because it proves the force of a brand that ended up famous in Brazil indirectly through media or word of mouth. It also proves globalization and the easy dissemination and influence of a mass culture mostly through media and film.”

Votto also added that the clientele will be “those who frequent the place for the ‘craze’ of going to the famous Starbucks, principally those who appreciate American culture. The elite, definitively.”

Henrique Carvalho Pinto, 20, from São Paulo, Brazil has gone to Starbucks in there a few times. He agrees that Starbucks is going to be contained to an upper-class niche, and says that the benefits are only short term economic boosts. In an email response, he wrote in Portuguese, “By imposing a culture with a more luxurious and exclusive outlook on life, whether it is meant to or not, they are creating a certain exclusivity on the São Paulo streets that is not accessible to everybody (because of the prices and American culture that come with Starbucks), contributing even more to the air of social inequality.”

A São Paulo mathematics and business administration student at B.U., Bruno Weinberg Crocco, 22, does not think the Starbucks experience is going to be the same in Brazil as it is in the U.S. He says “I think Starbucks has a lot of identity. It’s a symbol. It reminds [Brazilians] of the U.S. It’s not going to be a daily thing, it’s going to be that you go there to have fun.” He says that price and quality won’t allow it to achieve the daily routine level. “they should market it as the American Starbucks, not as a Brazilian thing,” he says, because Brazilians are attracted to the image and novelty of it rather than the quality.

To make the adjustment process even easier and attract more customers, Rodenbeck says, “We offer as an alternative espresso coffee, the Brazil Blend, a blend of Brazilian with other Latin American coffees which offers a flavor profile which many customers prefer, and pão de queijo [a Brazilian cheese bread commonly eaten with coffee], savory muffins…and more to come!”

Photo Illustration by Marion Geiger

The challenge was not attracting customers, “The most demanding was the training process which offers us our competitive edge by providing all of our staff with coffee knowledge and a very positive approach to customer service,” says Rodenbeck.

Other Brazilian coffee chains hire a different profile worker, typically low-income servers. Consequently, finding people with the education to be trained in Starbucks’ specific way, and who wanted to work as a Starbucks barista, was one of the hardest tasks for Rodenbeck.

“If you look at their website, they advertise hiring through the site and you have to go to the store to apply; this guarantees a certain level of competence from the candidates” says Crocco in response to his own wondering about how Starbucks would be itself in Brazil if they hired the typical low-income server.

“People are going to be looking for an experience, not the coffee” says Crocco, simplifying what Starbucks Brasil is to many Brazilian consumers.

Although Rodenbeck says, “Brazilians have embraced the little rituals which make up the Starbucks experience, as well as the products and our manner of serving,” it still looks like the cafezinho is safe from being replaced with a venti.

Is it Scary out There?
By Marion Geiger

BOSTON—In relation to the increase of crime rates in the Boston area, students who moved from suburban towns talk about the need for awareness of self in a city where they mostly walk.

There were three shootings in the Boston area Monday April 21, the first one wounding a 13-year-old boy from Dorchester and a later one killing Luis Troncoso of Jamaica Plain. Neither of the victims were far from their homes, leading to increased concerns about safety by residents.

Considering that Boston is a city of hundreds of thousands of students, it is not a surprise why people from even outside of Massachusetts may be concerned about the increased crime.

“Common sense can prevent a lot of crimes,” said Laura Veckereli, 21, from Bedford, New Hampshire. “As a female in a city, I think it’s very important for women to be aware of their surroundings at all times. I also feel that women should be able to defend themselves by taking a self-defense class,” she added.

An Irish-Italian redhead from a small town in New Hampshire, Veckereli points out that since many of the recent attacks on and around the Boston University campus were aimed at women walking alone at night, she thinks women need to become more aware. She continued to say that the benefits of a self-defense class are that “knowing you can do the moves gives you confidence that you’ll be able to react in a high-stress situation.”

Another Boston University student, Ali Donahue, 20 from Cape Elizabeth, Me., also feels the attacks that occurred during Boston University’s spring break, the week of March 9, have made her more cautious, especially because the victims were all women. Donahue said, “before spring break, since I have a lot of friends who live in Allston, I would walk by myself. But now I get a cab, even if it’s only two blocks, because it has been a lot of girls that have been attacked.”

“I don’t feel any more threatened than I felt before,” said Jason Ye, even though he agrees the crime rates have gone up. Ye is a 21-year-old male at Boston University who grew up in central New Jersey. He believes that being close to New York city made him more prepared to live in a city environment, even though he grew up in a safe suburban area.

Laura Wolf, 19, from Poway, a suburb of San Diego, said “I’ve done some stupid things in Boston, at night in bad places. But after being here for a while, I can identify bad surroundings and protect myself from them, now that I’m more familiar.”

Wolf pointed out that in her suburban town of Poway, she mostly got around by driving. Now, in Boston, she does everything on foot, bike or on the public transportation. She said, “being on foot most of the time definitely makes it less safe.”

“I guess I do hold my purse a little closer to me when I’m on the “T,’” admitted Donahue when talking about her transition from suburban Cape Elizabeth to Boston. In response to whether she has ever considered taking a self-defense class, Donahue said her roommate took one that was held in their BU dormitory building and that “she said it was fun, but I guess it would have to be, like, at a convenient time.”

The four students form suburban towns agree that people need to be aware and have taken their own precautions at times, but they still have a general feeling of safety and still walk freely at night time.

18-20 Year Sentence for the Murder of a Toddler

18-20 Year Sentence for the Murder of a Toddler
by Marion Geiger

BOSTON—With his head bowed, a 28-year-old man from Dorchester admitted to killing his girlfriend’s young child in 2006.

Daniel Santana pleaded guilty for the involuntary murder and also for the possession of heroin and cocaine that he intended to distribute at the time. He is quoted by Daniel F. Conley’s office to have said he wanted “to get sentenced for my mistakes.”

In June of 2006, Santana admitted that he beat and eventually killed Jaziel Ponce, a 23-month-old baby who belonged to Santana’s girlfriend. Jaziel’s mother was reported to have been visiting Santana at his Harbor Point Community Apartments in Dorchester.

Witnesses are reported to have said that Santana came downstairs with the baby after the child had been napping and that he had a bluish-grey tint to him.

As the family arrived shortly after Santana carried the child downstairs, they called emergency medical services, and the baby was rushed to the hospital. Jaziel was pronounced dead at 5:30 p.m. from physical trauma to the abdomen caused by force and a wounded liver. He also had bruises all over his chest, stomach, arms and back.

According to a press release by the Suffolk County District Attorney’s press office, Assistant District Attorney David Deakin called Jaziel’s death “tragic and wholly unnecessary” and recommended 18 to 20 years in state prison followed by two 30-month periods of probation for the possession and dealing of Class A and B drugs. Deakin also suggested that Santana not be allowed near children younger than 18 years unless accompanied by an adult who is informed of how he killed Jaziel.

Superior Court Judge Margaret Hinkle accepted the recommendation by Deakin so Santana has been sentenced for 18 to 20 years

Debate, Negate, Continually Unsolved
By Marion Geiger

BOSTON—With increased hype about global warming and energy efficiency in the media, economy, politics and science, the 25th Great Debate at Boston University generated a lot of defensive energy and hardly a clear solution from each side. It was after the debate that opinions and solutions became clearer.

The question Wednesday evening was, “should biofuels and the renewables be a critical component of U.S energy policy?”

The two closing remarks were given by R. Brooke Coleman, president of New Fuels Alliance and the Founder of REAP (Renewable Energy Action Problem) Coalition, and Kenneth P. Green, a resident scholar and scientist at American Enterprise Institute. The main difference between their arguments seemed to be whether the US needs to think about the here and now or if the U.S. needs to pour money into research and development of potentially better solutions than what are offered now.

“We are stuck. We built our civilization on concentrated energy,” said Green after the debate. “We’re not going to be able to just cut and go ‘cold turkey’ on it,” he added.

Green does not think the answer is ethanol, which is what the debate mostly revolved around rather than also focusing on other renewables.

Green believes that there needs to be a focus on new developments such as space-based solar energy, which would involve capturing solar energy from outer space via satellites and then transmitting it wirelessly to Earth. Green also mentioned the absorption of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere through algae ponds. “We can already do this” Green said, adding that removing carbon dioxide from the air, “is no more rocket science than anything else. I think we’ll get there.”

On the other hand, Coleman said, annoyed, “they think we can leap over biofuels as a solution,” referring to the idea that his opponents preferred sticking to the current fossil-fuel method until something better is found.

Coleman said that he is not against development of better energy sources, but he also said, “There’s nobody out there in the venture capitol community, in the private equity community with the banks that are funding companies to make space solar a reality.” He added, “We say biofuels play a part here.”

Bob Zelnick, the chairman of the debate and a professor of journalism at B.U., said, “I think that [this debate] has been one of the most informed and informative that we have had in quite some time. And I think our participants should be congratulated in that.”

“He simply made negative arguments against the negative arguments. And two negatives in this case don’t make a positive,” said Green referring to Coleman’s argument, which he found surprisingly defensive.

Coleman seemed to think Green and his team were not defensive enough, he said, “I wasn’t very compelled by them, honestly, because I think they kind of hit on the imperfections of an energy source, and that’s pretty easy to do because there are no perfect solutions to the energy crisis we’re in.”

"Sanitation Matters"

“Sanitation Matters”
By Marion Geiger



BOSTON—Six in 10 Africans are without access to a proper toilet, according to the March 20 press release by World Health Organization and UNICEF. The results were released as part of World Water Day 2008, which is concerned with “Sanitation Matters,” their motto.

Improper sanitation, the lack of toilets and the lack of ways to wash hands with soap, puts millions at risk for many diseases. Without water and soap to wash up, bacteria and viruses can more easily transfer from person to person.

Without toilets, parasites in human excreta can contaminate food, water and soil. Consequently, people can develop diarrhea, which is, according to a UNICEF press release, “the second-biggest killer of children in developing countries, and leads to other major diseases such as cholera.”

World Water Day 2008 aims to underscore the 2.6 billion people around the globe who are subject to varied health risks because of a lack of a toilet in their homes. WHO and UNICEF estimate that if there is no added attention to sanitation improvements, then in 2015 about 2.4 billion people will still be deprived of their basic sanitary needs.

The WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation expresses the belief that simple domestic improvements in sanitation can change many other factors in the lives of each family.

Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of WHO, said, “sanitation matters because a toilet at home spares a family from illness, health care expenses and time lost from work and school.”

Another sanitation concern involves safety. “Safety issues are particularly important for women and children, who otherwise risk sexual harassment and assault when defecating at night and in secluded areas,” said the press release. In addition, schools that do not have the needed sanitary facilities showed difficulty in attracting and retaining students. UNICEF’s communication office said, “Where such facilities are not available, girls are often withdrawn from school when they reach puberty.”

“The focus on sanitation is fundamental to human beings” said Pasquale Steduto, UN-Water chairman. “The U.N. Millennium Development Goals target on sanitation is seriously lagging behind schedule. The entire U.N. system has a shared responsibility in mobilizing concrete actions towards its achievement: investments must increase immediately.”

Polish Soup and Mexican Fences

POLISH SOUP AND MEXICAN FENCES
By Marion Geiger

BOSTON—When Jake Siembida is at Boston University, he eats hamburgers and french-fries, but when he’s home, he has soup every night for the first course and some meat for the second, a traditional Polish meal.

Siembida, 20, grew up in Chicago. He has an American passport and speaks perfect English. However, Polish is his first language and his parents were once poor immigrants. Siembida recalls his mother working as a babysitter and that his father laid floors.

He has small eyes, a prominent nose and high cheek bones. He is thick in the neck and his hair is shaved down to a buzz cut. He has a Chicago accent and he is wearing green basketball shorts and a large white t-shirt like the American men who live around him.

Twenty three years ago his parents, Stanley, 55 and Barbara Siembida, 48, immigrated separately to the United States and met each other in Chicago during English classes, which they later dropped out of together.

“I didn’t speak English until kindergarten or first grade because my parents still don’t speak English,” Jake said in his small double dormitory room. Despite the language barrier, the Siembidas have found a comfortable home in the US, according to Siembida. He said they are an example of first-generation immigrants succeeding in the US and contributing to the economy in a positive way.

Siembida’s parents left Poland during the rise of the political force called “Solidarity,” or “Solidarność” in Polish. This group was formed due to labor struggles under communist Poland and eventually led to the dissolution of the Communist Party. By 1990 Poland became a democracy.

Barbara Siembida left Krakow, Poland, because of the pending revolution. Siembida said that his mother could not return to Poland until the democratic movement took over and the turmoil died down.

His father came to the U.S. from a small town in Poland called Pysnica in search of work. Siembida smiled with pride while telling his father’s story. “His story is actually kind of cool,” said Siembida, “my dad comes from a poor family. He went around his town, from door to door, asking people for money so that he could afford his airplane ticket. He flew over here and had something like fifty dollars.” Today, Stanley Siembida owns two construction companies in Chicago.

According to Siembida, Chicago has the second-largest Polish population in the world, even including Polish cities. “We never lived in a Polish neighborhood, but my parents’ friends are all Polish,” he said.

Siembida recalled a story his mother told him about how when they first arrived in the U.S., “police would randomly round people up and check if they had visas, and if they didn’t, they would be deported,” he said.

“They only became citizens when I was in high school, so pretty recently within the last five years. And I know that some of my family members here still aren’t citizens. I guess it’s pretty hard to get citizenship,” said Siembida “It was a six-year process after applying.”

Sympathizing with his parents’ story, Siembida said he thinks it is important to allow immigrants into the country. He said, “I’m not really for keeping people out because my parents came here and immigrated, so it makes me think we should give everyone an opportunity. But if there are too many people coming in, then something has to be done, I guess.”

“I think that’s going overboard,” said Siembida in respect to raising fences along the Mexican-American border, part of the immigration policies put forth by the Bush administration. They have added border patrol agents and technology such as fences to help deter illegal immigrants.

In reference to Bush’s State of the Union address in which he said the number of apprehensions of illegal immigrants has declined at the Mexican border, Siembida said matter-of-factly as he lay back against the wall behind his bed, “If I really wanted to get into the country, if I were really determined, I don’t think a fence would stop me.”