20 minute read
Editor’s Letter
Back in the spring, when we were still plodding through the pandemic, I got a little desperate. I was running errands outside my normal range when I spotted a Vietnamese drive-thru. You don’t have to be an organic farmer to believe that drinking boiling liquids from single-serve plastic is a bad idea, but I was hungry, and a hot bowl of pho sounded great. Foolishly, I approached that beef noodle soup just like I would a cheeseburger, pulling into a parking spot and using chopsticks to drop the tangle of noodles into the boiling broth. I, unfortunately, miscalculated the volume of liquid that the noodles would displace, scalding myself and soaking my jeans. Disgusted and in pain, I dumped the food out the window and threw the packages out at QuikTrip, where I lunched on a roller hotdog. I made a note to myself then, which turned into an editor’s letter now:
Remember to never take restaurants for granted again. Returning to restaurants hasn’t stopped the minor calamities in my life— last month I locked my keys in my car while eating at the reborn Lazia (page 117). That mistake led to me chasing a sleeping possum from my garage with a garden hose while searching, in vain, for my spare house key. But, as I prepared to smash my kitchen window to break into my own house, it occurred to me that all of this wasn’t necessarily worse than doing dishes. This month’s cover feature is a celebration of our nine favorite new restaurants in town. We’re defining “new” as having opened since the start of the pandemic since we tabled this issue last year in the face of the late-fall
Covid surge. It’s an impressive class, especially given the challenges of the past two years. Spots like the new Jamaican place started by a Brooklyn transplant (page 89) and a great new taqueria in the heart of Johnson County (page 111) enrich the cultural life of the city. Out in Lawrence, a Chinese-American chef who grew up making dumplings is devising his own oddball creations (page 96). Our restaurant of the year, Town Company, has already established itself as one of the best fine-dining restaurants in the city— which might be expected given that, as far as I know, Johnny Leach is the only chef in the city who presided over a Michelin-starred kitchen before moving here, to a city he gushes about (page 84). Natalie Torres Gallagher, our longtime food critic, who helped us pick the top nine, previously shared her first experience at The Town Company in these pages—she ended her meal in tears, overcome with emotion upon experiencing something she missed Martin Cizmar more than she knew. I can’t guarantee you EDITOR IN CHIEF tears of joy from these nine new restaurants, MARTIN@KANSASCITYMAG.COM but I wouldn’t be surprised either.
Natalie Torres Gallagher
FOOD CRITIC This month’s cover feature on the best new restaurants in the city was shaped by Natalie Torres Gallagher, a longtime food critic at Kansas City magazine.
Shayla Gaulding
EDITORIAL INTERN Fall editorial intern Shayla Gaulding wrote the news story about the steep increase in homeschooling that’s continued even after the pandemic.
Jeremey Theron Kirby
PHOTOGRAPHER Our news story about a group of Native American activists who protest outside Arrowhead Stadium features photography from esteemed contributor Jeremey Theron Kirby.
NUMBERS FROM THIS ISSUE
10 20 50
Percentage of Kansas families who are now homeschooling. It was just two and a half percent before the pandemic.
PAGE 26
The age at which forgotten jazz great Margaret “Countess” Johnson passed away.
PAGE 34
Gallons of oil you can hold in a can of Topsy’s popcorn—the holiday cans started as a way to upcycle oil buckets.
PAGE 120
EX-FACTOR
Our most talked-about story over the last month was a web-only post in which we broke the news of former Chiefs superfan X-Factor “retiring.” X-Factor, whose real name is Ty Rowton, was involved in a high-profile scuffle inside Arrowhead during the Bills game, a fight that sparked discussion on social media and local TV news. Rowton says that he is in recovery for drug and alcohol addiction, but his motives and past behavior continue to be a hot topic in town.
Hopefully he will clean up his act and start taking care of his children. They should have been his main priority. —Norene Place
You have said this many times. Just four years ago you went off your rocker. On your first interview after being knocked out you said you was sober for over four years and two days later say you smoked and drank. You need to stay out of the spotlight and stop lying to yourself. Your poor daughter has been through enough in her life and you just put icing on the cake. Get it together dude. Stop trying to be a Hollywood star. You’re not. Stop lying to yourself. —Melissa Hall I was once a superfan and got to hang out with the group many times and it’s sad to see he could never get his act together. —Cara Losh One too many concussions? —Willie W. Frank You are always responsible for your actions no matter what. Too many people use drugs and alcohol as an excuse for acting like an ass and it doesn’t matter, you are still accountable for what you do regardless of sobriety. —Melvin Howell
I’m pretty sure the Chiefs retired him. But way to make himself feel like he’s going out on his own terms. —T.j. Oxley The only thing really missing from the title of this article are the words “Florida Man.” —Shane Pendleton
This guy is an embarrassment to Chiefs Kingdom! He should be banned from all stadiums! —Barrett Ballinger You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain. —Juan Gabriel Raya He’d make a great Steelers fan… —Carter Morrish
SHOUT-OUT
A big thanks to the staff at the New York State Archives in Albany, who dispatched an intern to comb through microfilm for the documents that were key to this month’s feature story on an officially unsolved Kansas City murder.
BEHIND THE SCENES
Samantha Levi shoots Associate Editor Mary Henn and Art Director Katie Henrichs in sheer socks for our Sway section.
CONTACT US Kansas City
P.O. Box 26823 Overland Park, KS 66225-6823 (913) 469-6700 EMAIL: editor@kansascitymag.com
LEADING THE CONVERSATION IN KANSAS CITY
Why a group of Native American activists has ramped up protests outside Chiefs games
BY LAUREN FOX
Protesters outside Arrowhead say they will continue protests until the Kansas City football team has a new name: ‘You can’t be a little bit racist.’
RHONDA LEVALDO travels from Lawrence to Kansas City for every Chiefs home game, but she’s never actually been inside Arrowhead Stadium. Instead, she stands by a bus stop at the corner of Red Coat Lane and Blue Ridge Cutoff. Her team is a group of Native Americans. Their field is the grassy corner by the busy street. Their hope: to get the franchise to change its name.
On November 1, as the Chiefs played the Giants on Monday Night Football, eleven protesters stood outside on a rainy, wet and chilly forty-degree night holding signs: No honor in racism; Our culture is not for sale; Change the name and stop the chop.
Passing fans occasionally offered their own input.
“No racism! Yeah, baby,” one man yelled out his window as he passed the group. Another car honked its horn while the passengers cheered. “Thank you!” someone from the group yelled back. But not all the interactions were supportive. One person in a passing car yelled, “I’m not stopping the chop. Go Chiefs!”
LeValdo has been protesting the Chiefs name since 2005, when she was a student at the University of Kansas. Now a professor at Haskell Indian Nations University, LeValdo has ramped up the protests, and for the past two years, she’s been protesting at every home game.
The use of Native American imagery such as the arrowhead, the drum and the tomahawk chop does not honor Native American culture, LeValdo says. Rather, they stereotype and misappropriate it. LeValdo, who is Acoma Pueblo, helped create the Not in Our Honor Coalition, a group that advocates against the use of Native American imagery in sports.
“We need to make sure that Kansas City knows that we are always going to stand here and oppose what they are doing,” LeValdo says.
The group has been getting more interaction with fans this year compared to last year, according to Gaylene Crouser, one of the protesters and the executive director of the Kansas City Indian Center.
The group gets yelled at, cussed at, receives the bird and is brought into lively “discussions” about the origins of the team name.
The Chiefs address their team name and actions they’ve taken regarding Native American imagery on
their webpage, “Celebrating American Indian Heritage.” The franchise established an American Indian Community Working Group in 2014, whose input has helped inspire changes such as banning headdresses and face paint at the stadium, retiring the horse Warpaint and introducing actions such as the blessing of the Drum and blessing of the Four Directions. But the Chiefs maintain that their advisory group is “clear and consistent that the franchise should not change its name.”
The Chiefs declined to respond to a media inquiry from Kansas City magazine about how many Native Americans are on their advisory group and how they respond to the protests that take place outside their stadium.
The Chiefs website does state that “early promotional activities relied heavily on imagery and messaging depicting American Indians in a racially insensitive fashion” but argues that it has “worked to eliminate this offensive imagery and other forms of cultural appropriation in their promotional materials and game-day presentation.”
Because the Chiefs have changed some of their promotional practices, LeValdo says the Chiefs know something is wrong, “so they should just deal with the whole situation.”
The Chiefs also note in their statement that the origin of the team’s name “has no affiliation with American Indian culture.” The team was named after H. Roe Bartle, mayor of Kansas City in the 1960s—he got the nickname “Chief” due to his association with the Boy Scouts of America and his creation of a fake Native American tribe called the Mic-O-Say, itself under intense scrutiny.
When people tell LeValdo that the team is not named after Native Americans, she asks them what they are named after: “If they’re named for police chiefs, then dress like policemen. If they are named for fire chiefs, then dress like firemen.”
One of the reasons LeValdo says she is passionate about changing the Chiefs’ team name is due to the psychological effects Native American mascots can have on children. In 2005, the American Psychological Association called for the retirement of all Native American mascots, symbols, images and personalities in schools, colleges and other athletic organizations. This decision, the APA wrote, was based on research that shows Native American sports mascots have negative effects on the self-esteem and social identity development of young Native Americans.
LeValdo said they’ve ramped up protests in the past couple of years because cultural and racial issues have been at the forefront of the news. LeValdo, who is a Royals fan, says she’d “love” to become a fan of the football team, rooting inside the stadium instead of protesting outside.
AN UNKNOWN LAND
One woman who fled Afghanistan in the ’90s shares her perspective on current Afghan refugees’ resettlement in the Midwest.
BY SOFIA TEWELL
IF HER LIFE HADN’T BEEN IN DANGER in Afghanistan, Sina Baha wouldn’t be in Kansas City.
“Under normal circumstances, no one wants to leave their homes, their jobs, their family and move to an unknown land,” she says.
Baha’s father was an officer in the army under the nation’s republican government, participating in a plot to overthrow the new Communist government. In 1979, he was captured and imprisoned. Baha and her family never saw him again.
Baha and her family left their homeland in 1993, when she was eighteen years old, and moved to Australia. Two years later, Baha got married and moved to the United States. She and her husband eventually settled in Kansas, where she is a stayat-home mother of four children.
As a new wave of refugees flees Afghanistan following the Taliban’s takeover after the American withdrawal, twelve hundred have come to Missouri and about five hundred to Kansas. We spoke to Baha about her experience and how people can help.
When you first came to the U.S., what surprised you? My experience when I first came to the U.S. is different from the majority of refugees who are arriving now in the sense that I was going to join my husband and had an idea of what to expect from previously living in Australia. Regardless, I missed my mom and my siblings terribly. I still do. I arrived in the U.S. in the month of October, and those cold snowy winter days, oh my. Afghanistan has four seasons and it snows but not as much as it does here.
How have your experiences formed you into the person you are today? I was born in a wartorn country. I was eighteen years old when we moved to Australia and left Afghanistan. I lost my father during the war. That was at the beginning of the war in the late seventies when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. The Communist government joined forces with the Soviet Union, and they were trying to withdraw the old government.
My dad was in the army after the previous government and, of course, he didn’t like what was happening in the country, so he was trying to organize an attack against the communist regime. Unfortunately, they had a snitch in their group and he was caught. So he was taken to prison and we did not see him again. I was five years old when this happened, so my mother, a single mom, raised me and my siblings on her own. My childhood experiences made me into a strong, resilient and compassionate person.
Are you currently working with any families or agencies to help other Afghan refugees? I volunteer for Jewish Vocational Services. They are one of the three resettlement agencies that help refugees of any origin. Trying to find them new homes, resettlement and provide their basic needs. I also volunteer for Catholic Charities, I try to do translation for them. Most Afghan refugees can’t speak English, so I try to be the connecting point for them. I have recently met an Afghan family, trying to help with their translation. The lady was going through some medical issues, and I went to see her last night in the hospital. I’m just trying to do this and that, I’m trying to organize a drive in my car to collect some winter clothes for them—trying to do whatever I can. What are some things that local Kansas Citians can do to help? First of all, I would like my Kansas Citians to realize that the Afghan refugees or any refugees have been forced to leave their homes. They have been driven by war to leave. They leave their homes, relatives, careers and family to pursue safety, to have a safe life. I would like my Kansas Citians to be compassionate and kind to these refugees. There are three resettlement agencies—Kansas Citians can make donations, they can find very detailed lists of needed items. If anyone has extra time, they can teach English, how to drive or take them to doctor appointments and help them stimulate society.
What are some ways we can make it more known that help is needed? I think to talk about the refugees and their needs, kind of understand how they ended up here in Kansas. We need to understand that these people only come with a pair of clothes and their backpacks. They have nothing else. They’re escaping from a war-torn country where there has been a war for forty years. They would not have come to Kansas or anywhere in the U.S. if their lives were not in danger, so to try to understand and be compassionate and kind toward people.
HOW TO HELP
Catholic Charities of Northeast Kansas
Catholic Charities of Northeast Kansas is providing resettlement services to Afghan refugees. They have already received twentyseven evacuees, with about a hundred to come. The ministry is accepting volunteers and monetary donations, as well as certain items to help furnish homes and provide transportation for refugees. “On average, we are receiving a two- to three-day notice of arrivals, which makes finding housing a challenge,” says Kasey Featherston, who runs the program. “We have limited free temporary housing available, but some evacuees are staying in hotels at their own expense, which comes from their $1,225 per-person one-time stipend from the federal government. We are seeking additional financial support to help offset this expense for these families.”
Della Lamb Community Center
Della Lamb Community Center is a nonprofit organization also working to resettle Afghan refugees. The organization is currently accepting around four hundred and fifty refugees, with the number expected to rise. “Our needs vary by the family, but we’d encourage anyone who would like to connect with our volunteer or in-kind giving program to visit our website and add your name to our email list,” says staffer Cori Wallace. “There are many assumptions about what refugees need, and it’s our pleasure to operate transparently and share with Kansas Citians who want to help how they might effectively do that.”
Jewish Vocational Services
Jewish Vocational Services is a nonprofit organization in the greater Kansas City metro area working to resettle all refugees, including those from Afghanistan. The organization accepts monetary donations. Kansas Citians can also get involved by joining one of JVS’s many volunteer opportunities. —Shayla Gaulding
STAYING HOME
Homeschooling boomed in the pandemic— and many parents say they aren’t sending their kids back to class.
BY SHAYLA GAULDING
WHEN THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC HIT, Sammantha Ford Olliso knew it was unlikely she’d ever send her son back to public school. Like many children, Olliso’s son, who attended elementary school in Lawrence, struggled with iPad learning during school closures. But that wasn’t the biggest problem.
“He has an autoimmune disease that presents as some severe behavioral problems, and it gets really bad when he’s sick, and he was always catching something at the school,” Olliso says. “When in-person school started up again and I saw many families actively trying to prevent masking, I knew it would be impossible to keep him safe and healthy.”
Olliso is not alone. School enrollment in Kansas has dropped by over fifteen thousand students since 2019 as virtual and homeschool enrollment has increased. Nationwide, enrollment in public schools has dropped by more than 1.5 million students during the pandemic, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
Olliso is one of many parents who says the unexpected shakeup has worked well for her family.
“Him being home and seeing how he healed and flourished and how we managed it as a family cemented it in our minds,” Olliso says.
As some students stay out of public school, they’ve turned to pandemic pods, traditional homeschooling and virtual learning,
Before the pandemic, Kansas City Public Schools, which serves much of Kansas City, Missouri, would see between fifty and a hundred students enrolled in its Virtual Academy. During the pandemic, that number skyrocketed—last school year, they started with three thousand students in the program, says its coordinator Leslie Correa.
While virtual schooling has increased significantly in the past couple of years and is beginning to level off, homeschooling is seeing a steady gain of interest.
Maureen Mulder, who runs a Facebook page called “So you want to homeschool in Kansas?” says she has worked with “tons” of families during the pandemic.
About two and a half percent of households in Kansas were registered for homeschooling in late April of 2020, and that number jumped to more than ten percent by late September, giving Kansas the sixteenth-highest increase of homeschooling in any state. Missouri wasn’t far behind, jumping from about six percent to almost eleven.
So why are so many Kansas and Missouri families turning to virtual school and homeschooling? Many parents and guardians say they are simply fed up with how schools handled the pandemic. Others reacted to what they saw firsthand on Zoom.
Bobbi Nelson’s daughter attended Arrowhead Middle School before the pandemic and was one of many children who began learning on Zoom, a move that Nelson says led to her daughter being left behind.
Nelson’s daughter was a part of her school’s special education program. Seeing the reality of the classroom on Zoom changed her perspective.
And students aren’t the only ones leaving. Teacher vacancies have increased by almost sixty-two percent from the fall of 2020 to October this year. With student to teacher ratios climbing, some parents feel their students are not getting the education they deserve.
The added flexibility can be isolating, though. Olliso, the Lawrence parent, says that while her son misses his friends, he is still enjoying homeschooling.
“As soon as he can be vaccinated, we’re going to join other homeschool families so he’ll have other kids to engage with and peers who are in the same school situation as him,” Olliso says.
