Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Nov. 5, 1996, edition 1 / Page 5
Part of Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
I Etjp Bath} Ear lippl International students mix learning, culture BY SARA YAWN STAFF WRITER The International Center’s Conversa tion Partners Program is a mix of learn ing, friendship and culture that helps international students make the most of their experience in the United States. The program pairs an international student or a student’s spouse with an English speaker. The partners meet at least once a week to help improve the international student’s understanding and proficiency of English. “(It is) more than just conversation partners, it’s friendship as well," said Linda Litteer, volunteer coordinator for the program and a volunteer herself. Lakota elder discusses struggle to hold on to heritage BY KELLY O’BRIEN STAFF WRITER Lakota elder Doris Leader Charge spoke about the importance of retaining the Native American culture in her lec ture, “A Native American Experience, Education and Forced Acculturation.” “People have done everything to as similate our culture, ” Leader Charge told a full house in the Great Hall on Monday night. “I made up my mind they would never take it away.” Although experiences threatened to take away her culture, Leader Charge Homemade f Gourmet I COWIRONI 3 delicious food Sandwiches that’s good M® & Vegetarian for you! only a I minute walk Specialties! from campus! 105 N. Columbia Street, next to Copytron • 932-1020 BBS 4 AT&T MasieiOnJ. Like an AT&T True Rewards* •HUX'-KBl STFR VIDEO* makes your third I M • Amirak lets y hit itxnpank*n trawl |( >r 2S's, < >|f p|| Iki! True Rewards in . <• mr CDit© w/f To si>>n up l ir the Ain I True Rewards’ I TANARUS gram. cjII • aS.t Your True Choice Imp: Hisashi Sawaki, a graduate student from Japan, also emphasized the friend ship between partners. “It is not just a teacher-student rela tionship, it’s like a real friend. It’s a really good system,” he said. Sawaki’s English has improved through the program, and he has learned about many American customs, he said. Michel Brousset, a graduate student from Peru, said he hoped the program would allow him to “interact with people from American culture and see the differ ent approaches.” Erin Ajygin, a senior international studies major from Charlotte, has volun teered as a partner for the past two years. Her Japanese partner from last year gen held on to it, and now, as a teacher, passes it on to the next generation. “Be proud you have a beautiful his tory, a wonderful culture,” she tells her students. “After all, the United States used to belong to us.” In her lecture, Leader Charge described life on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, where she was raised. “It is stupid of people to assume that because I come from a reservation, I am poor," shesaid. “Wehavesomuchmore; we have each other and our relatives.” Reservations do not house orphans or homeless people, she said. Other adults erally socialized with other Japanese people and spoke mostly Japanese with them. She felt she helped her partner to experience American culture, Ajygin said. She said she and her partner often met more than the required number of times and attended cultural events to gether. Volunteers also get the satisfaction of working with the international students and introducing them to American cul ture, Litteer said. Volunteers are assigned partners based on gender, age, common academic inter ests, availability and the volunteer’s in terest in a particular country or culture, Litteer said. The program has grown from 12 vol may act as mothers or fathers to children without parents. Her own life illustrates this tradition. Along with raising six of her own chil dren, Leader Charge is currently caring for four children whose mother left the reservation. “We are beautiful people,” she said. “Anyone who comes to our reservation has a home.” After attending a boarding school that punished her for speaking a “dirty lan guage,” threatened her culture and forced manual labor upon her, Leader Charge vowed never to return to school. “They don’t know how bad they hurt us,” she TAR HEEL SPOUTS SHORTS TODAY at SAHOUHIA! Volleyball vs. Duke 7:00 pm at Carmichael Auditorium Students & Faculty Admitted FREE w/ID! NEWS unteers and students in November 1983 to a height of 150 students in 1992. This year, the International Center has paired 115 international students and scholars. They represent 35 countries, with the largest representations from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, Ja pan, Germany and Thailand, said Diana Levy, International Center program co ordinator. Student volunteers comprise about 80 percent of the volunteer force for the program, with community members and staff also contributing their time, Levy said. “I’m really delighted with the en thusiasm of the volunteers and their will ingness to befriend the international stu dents and, in many cases, their families.” said. “I wonder how we ever survived it.” Yet her determination to pass on her culture led her to earn a bachelor’s de gree. She is currently working on her master’s degree. Leader Charge is an expert on Native American culture and taught at the Sinte Glesksa University on her reservation. She currently holds the positions of chair woman of the Lakota Studies Depart ment and staffrepresentative to the Board of Directors at the university. The lecturewassponsoredby the Caro lina Union Activities Board and the Caro lina Indian Circle. Supreme Court deflects school prayer decision ■ The court ruled against student-led prayer in public school classrooms. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON The U.S. Su preme Court, dodging a grenade in the battle over school prayer, rejected Mississippi’s bid Monday to let students lead group prayers in public school class rooms, at assemblies and sports events. But confusion still reigns over just what the Constitution allows, and school officials nationwide remain caught in the middle of what the National School Boards Association calls “religious war fare.” Thejustices, acting without comment, let stand rulings that declared the 1994 Mississippi law a violation of the consti tutionally required separation of church and state. Monday’s action was not a ruling on the merits of the Mississippi law and set no national precedent. But it was a defeat for Mississippi officials who had hoped to revive the state law. The action also could be a setback for those outside Mississippi who argue that student-initiated prayers are constitu tional in various public school settings. “I hope lower courts won’t read into the court’s action any disapproval of le gitimate student-initiated prayer and sul>/cts Wkhted Hc<ly fcdults 18 yn. or ol<J<r & lio Iks. to participate ii\ lif-SXvit\y pl&Shn&pkeresis proyrJkirv. Approx. 1 kour per visit. Itotneii&te Coi*pei\Siktiot\! Neu & returning (ih&ctive for 60 diysl plxstrA mm dowors eXn\ $25 TODAY u/itk this id. CALL OR STOP Vi... ‘ SERA-TEC BNXjOGICALS I 1091/2 E. FBAHKUN ST.-M-THIO-6, FICM-942-0251 I Tuesday, November 5,1996 worship, such as prayer clubs,” said Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice. “The way the (Mississippi) statute was worded was problematic at the outset,” Sekulowsaid. “Officialsanc tion was all over it.” The invalidated Mississippi law would have allowed “invocations, benedictions or nonsectarian, nonproselytizing stu dent-initiated voluntary prayer” at “school-related student events.” T. Hunt Cole Jr., the special assistant attorney general who had filed the state’s spumed high court appeal, said, “Our arguments on constitutional issues are over. There’s nothing more we can do.” Republican leaders in Congress have proposed amending the Constitution to allow more opportunities for prayer in public schools. President Bill Clmton says such an amendment is unnecessary, but Republican Bob Dole supports it. Since a 1962 Supreme Court ruling, organized school prayers have been barredfirompublicschools. Butthat land mark case involved prayer sessions spon sored and led by public school officials. The court, of course, never has banned individual prayer from public schools. Students remain free to pray before lunch, before tests or even during class if they do so in an unobtrusive way. Thejustices in 1992 strengthened the ban on officially sponsored worship in public schools by prohibiting clergy-led prayers at public school graduation ceremonies. 5
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Nov. 5, 1996, edition 1
5
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75