Thursday, Oct. 4, 2007
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JAMIE HUFNAGLE/NEWS EDITOR AND VICKIE PAPAGEORGE/COPY EDITOR
Above: executive director of DATA Jamie Drummond speaks in a private press conference before the ceremony. Right: Former Liberty Medal recepient George H.W. Bush urges the crowd to get involved in the fight against poverty. Bush later presented Bono with the award. JAMIE HUFNAGLE/NEWS EDITOR AND VICKIE PAPAGEORGE/COPY EDITOR
Bono receives Liberty Medal and Mayor John F. Street fol-
honor on me, I ask you, I implore
this fight to reduce poverty and
America is my country in the
and gave words of recognition in honor of the recipients. Former President Bush presented Bono with the medal as Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a member of the DATA Policy Advisory Board, accepted the award on behalf of the organization. “Today as you pin this great
some of these things close up, I ask you to remember, you do not have to become a monster to defeat a monster. Your America is better than that,” Bono said in his acceptance speech. A consistent question throughout the speech became what America is willing to pledge in
tendance to listen to the voice of young Africa and to take a stand. For the evening, Bono said he was taking on the identity of an American. “Let me set my foot here and say to you tonight, this is my country. With humility and pride in my own country let me say,
in liberty, has a stake in the United States of America for all you’ve been through, good and bad, this is my country too,” Bono said. “America is not just a country. It’s an idea, isn’t it?”
LIBERTY MEDAL, page 1 lowed Torsella’s introduction you as an Irishman who has seen take control. He urged those in at- sense that anyone who has a stake use their voices for liberty. “ In the words of our honoree, find the melody line in your head and sing it for liberty,” President and CEO of the National Constitution Center Joseph M. Torsella said in his introduction. Governor Edward G. Rendell
Alfred Lubrano: Up from the corner LUBRANO, page 1
KAITLIN BARR/EDITOR IN CHIEF
Alfred Lubrano spoke to the Cabrini community about the differences between blue and white collar families. He was honored for his book “Limbo: Blue-Collar Roots, White-Collar Dreams.”
apart when a member of the bluecollar family decides to enter the world of white-collar individuals. “I think most parents want the best for there kids, what they don’t always anticipate is that college can change your child,” Lubrano said. “It’s such a retro experience, education changes you, and it takes you further and further away from who you were as a working class member of your family, your still you, but there are differences and that’s what makes for a clash.” Lubrano said he felt that more balanced people, people who felt best about themselves, as people in general, could find the duality, do a balancing act, and feel like they could draw the best from their working class culture and bring it into their middle class lives, and kind of strengthen themselves. Lubrano concluded that for Straddlers, life’s ultimate goal is reconciliation: finding a peace with the past and present, blue collar and white, old family ways and
the new middle-class life. Straddlers can then celebrate the blending of the past with the present. “Peaceful reconciliation comes to us when we can finally meld the two people we are,” Lubrano said. “My father was a bricklayer. I am a newspaperman. He got his wish, that I graduate from college and not live the life of the outside man,” Lubrano said. “I got my dream, that I leave the neighborhood and get a chance to write about the world.” The evening concluded with Cabrini honoring Lubrano with a citation and a book signing. First-year student John Disanto was also recognized for his essay on Lubrano’s story. Loquitur welcomes your comments on this story. Please send your comments to: Loquitur@googlegroups.com. The editors will review your comments each week and make corrections if warranted.