International
students’
insight on
Trump
MAGGIE HADDOCK
Assistant News Editor
mhaddock@unca.edu
President Donald Trump’s admin
istration continues to face criticism
nationally as new policies on exec
utive orders arise. While residing
U.S. citizens share their opinions
on Trump regularly, international
students studying abroad at UNC
Asheville bring a new perspective
to the discussion of U.S. politics.
“I was here for the inauguration.
Trump’s inauguration speech ev
eryone said was quite presidential,
quite boring. He didn’t do anything
much. Then after that, all this ex
tra stuff comes out,” said Gordon
Barlow, a political science student
from Sydney, Australia. “Everyday,
there’s some new controversy.”
Berkay Denli, an international
trade and business and economics
student from Istanbul, Turkey, said
U.S. politics seem like fiction to
him and those in other countries.
“I was seeing debates as some
hctional TV series. Debates are like
TV series where people are watch
ing. The speeches were so popular
ized, you know, they were saying
what sells, basically, what society
wants,” Denli said. “But when I
came here, I see people are march
ing, they are in the streets. Some
thing is more serious than those
speeches.”
Politicians and the people they
govern remain separate entities,
Denli said. The 22-year-old notic
es a much more diverse group of
people than what was represented
through the debates he watched
during the U.S. presidential elec
tion.
“I feel like U.S. politics don’t rep
resent U.S. people at all. I always
try to make a separation between
society and politics. Because in
politics, they are talking about the
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NEWS
Celebration of languages and cultures
attracts large crowd and community
AUDRAGOFGRTH
Managing Editor
agoforth@unca.edu
The outdoor courtyard between
Highsmith Union and Mills Hall was
full of food, music, poetry and dance
as UNC Asheville’s campus celebrated
a day dedicated to the appreciation of
languages and cultures.
“I think language day is an absolute
wonderful idea,” said Michael Davis,
a sophomore business management
student. “As far as people, we must
understand each other by beginning at
the basis — language. Language is one
way that we communicate with each
other, so what better way for our great
university, as well as myself, to get to
know our peers and colleagues better
than by going at the basis of culture and
learn languages.”
On Thursday, UNCA celebrated its
second annual Languages and Cultures
in Action Day. The event lasted from
noon to 3 p.m. and was open to Ashe
ville and the campus community.
“The idea of language day came
from Jeremias Zunguze (assistant pro
fessor of interdisciplinary studies)”
said Michelle Bettencourt, associate
professor of modem languages and lit
erature. “When we hired him, he was
coming from University of California,
Berkeley and this is an activity that
they would do there that was really
popular.”
Bettencourt said UNCA added its
own spin on the language and culture
celebration.
“At Berkeley it was more focused to
ward majors in the language, so it was
a higher level of complex poetry,” Bet
tencourt said. “For the UNCA crowd,
we just wanted this to be open to every
body and to all other departments, not
even world language departments or
classics departments, but to all people.
This is for people who are just inter
ested in languages and culture in any
aspect.”
Songs, poems, food, recitations and
performances, represented by students,
were in languages such as Cherokee,
Chinese, French, German, Greek, Lat
in, Lingala, Portuguese and Spanish.
Food and drink recipes from around
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UNCA students prepared culinary masterpieces across cultures and
were more than willing to share them with o
the world, such as the French dish
Ponding Chomeur (Poor Man’s Pud
ding), were made by students and dis
tributed for tasting.
Davis said he was excited to taste the
food and happy to provide support to
the students.
“But really, the main way I am con
tributing is through my support. Sup
port is one of the best things that you
can give to people,” Davis said. “It is
better than money, or anything else, be
cause you being there speaks volumes
to people. Being there really shows
that you genuinely care about them,
their cause, their culture and them as
people.”
Junior psychology student James
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