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Title
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Happenings from the Third World Coalition, 1980
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Date
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1980
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extracted text
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The Evergreen State College
HAPPENINGS FROM THE THIRD WORLD COALITION - January +9-r9 !9'lfe1
The Indian Student
Or, Force of Nature
From Susquehanna's farthest springs
Wh:re savage tribes pursue their game,
(H1s blanket tied with yellow strings,)
A shepherd of the forest came.
Not long before, a wandering priest
Expressed his wish, with visage sad-"Ah, why (he cried) in Satan's waste,
"Ah, why detain so fine a lad?
"In white-man's land there stands a town
"l~here learning may be purchased low-"Exchange his blanket for a gown,
\nd let the lad to college go."-From long debate the council rose,
And viewing Shalum's tricks with joy
To Cambridge Hall, o'er wastes of snows
They sent the copper-coloured boy.
'
On~ generous chief a bow supplied,
Th1s gave a shaft, and that a skin;
T~e feathers, in vermillion dyed,
H1mself did from a turkey win:
Thus dressed so gay, he took his way
O'er barren hills, alone, alone!
His guide a star, he wandered far
His pillow every night a stone. '
At last he came, with foot so lame,
Where learned men talk heathen Greek,
And Hebrew lore is gabbled o'er,
To please the Muses, --Twice a week.
Awhile he writ, awhile he read
Awhile he conned their grammar'rules-(An Indian savage so well bred
~at credit promised to the schools.)
Some thought he would in law excel
Some said in physic he would shine~
And one that knew him, passing well,
Beheld, in him, a sound Divine.
But those of more discerning eye
Even then could other prospects show,
And saw him lay his Virgil by
To wander with his dearer bow.
The tedious hours of study spent,
The heavy-moulded lecture done,
He to the woods a hunting went,
Through lonely wastes he walked, he run.
No mystic wonders fired his mind;
He sought to gain no learned degree,
But only sense enough to find
The squirrel in the hollow tree.
The shady bank, the purling stream,
The woody wild his heart possessed,
The dewy lawn, his morning dream
In fancy's gayest colours dressed.
"And why (he cried) did I forsake
"My native wood for gloomy walls;
"The silver stream, the limpid lake
"For musty books and college halls.
"A 1itt 1e co u1d my wan t s s up p1y- "Can w~alth and honour give me more;
"Or, w1ll the sylvan god deny
"The humble treat he gave before?
"Let seraphs gain the bright abode,
"And heaven's sublimest mansions see-"I only bow to Nature's God-"The 1and of shades wi 11 do for me.
"These dreadful secrets of the sky
"Alarm my soul with chilling fear-::Do p~anets in their orbits fly,
And 1s the earth, indeed, a sphere?
Page 2
"Let planets still their course pursue,
"And comets to the centre run-"In Him my faithful friend I view,
"The image of my God--the Sun.
At noon, in the CAB, Indian Tacos a1d
T-Shirts will be sold as a fund ra{ser
for the Wa He Lute school's athletic
fund. Please be generous.
"Where Nature's ancient forests grow,
"And mingled laurel never fades,
"My heart is fixed;--and I must go
"To die among my native shades."
Third World Film Series
He spoke, and to the western springs,
(His gown discharged, his money spent,
His blanket tied with yellow strings,)
The shepherd of the forest went.
Third World Coalition Welcomes You!
It is a new year, a new decade and a new
quarter at school. I hope everyone has
enjoyed their break and are ready to go
again.
We especially welcome those that are new
to Evergreen and suggest you drop in during
one of our open house days the first week
of winter quarter.
There will be light refreshments, the
"survival" manual for you to review and
a fifteen minute video tape giving a Third
World perspective on Evergreen. Questionaires will also be available to survey
your needs and interests in terms of workshops and activities you want to have on
campus.
Open house will be from 10:00 - noon,
Library 3205 on Monday, January 7, 8, &
10. For further information, call 866-6034
and ask for April.
Native American Students Present:
Hilistis Society
On January 7, the Hilistis Society of
Canadian Indian dancers will be on campus.
They are on tour from Bella Bella, Canada
and will be performing a selected number
of traditional dances. Along with this,
TESC student Lena Dunstan, will present a
slide show on Coastal Indian dancing.
It will take place on the fourth floor of
the Library beginning at l :00 p.m.
January's film is entitled: "A Dream
Is What You Wake Up From." It will be
shown Monday, January 7, Lecture Hall
l at noon and 7:30 p.m., FREE.
"What place if any, does the black family
have in the American Dream?" The film
explores this question, a~ong others,
through three black families with three
different approaches at struggling for
survival in a contradictory society. The
film portrays the difference in "everyday reality" and the way an i ndi vidual
examines life:
"This Is A Poem about a Dream I Dream
Soaping, brushing, out the door
Nodding on the train or bus trying to be
On time for work or school
Holding on to an image of love was a way
Of pushing back the reality of emptiness
... The rounds were made day by day~
A little more dead, deluded and dumb each
time ...
This dream is dying
Will the dreamers live on?
Only if they learn to say no, day by day,
Hour by hour, over and over and on and on."
--C.Y. Johnson
S&A j:oordi nator _Qp_~!]_
The position of S&A Board Coordinator is
open. The deadline for applications will
be 5:00 p.m. January 8th in CAB 305.
Please submit a resume and a letter of
intent.
This is a very important position, as the
S&A Board makes the decisions as to which
student groups get funded. In the recent
past, Third World student groups have had
difficulty in obtaining what is due them.
f there is any Third World student
1nterested, please find out more information and apply. The supervisor's (Lynn
Garner) number is 866-6210, also call
April, at 866-6034, for additional support.
Winter Festival
Plans for the winter festival (January 23)
are still in the making. Due to the
holidays, confirmation of entertainment
was difficult to obtain. We have contacted
Ewajo, a Black dance troupe from Seattle,
Bailadores Bronce, a Chicano dance troupe
from the University of Washington, and a
Thai Women's group who perform traditional
dances. We also have our own Georgette
Chun and Steve Bader billed for a multiethnic food fair in the CA8 at noon.
Georgette dances hula and Steve plays
music; so, there are still some promises.
We will keep you posted.
dia Loan
Ever wonder what equipment is available
to you as a student to check out, FREE?
Ever have difficulty reserving equipment
you needed? Do you need to learn how to
use the equipment?
Well here is your opportunity to answer
those questions. We have a workshop for
Third I·Jorld students, January 14 at noon,
with Karen Berkey. She is the staff hired
to coordinate Media Loan. She can respond
to your questions and complaints. It often
takes knowing someone to get what you want.
Here is one way to get to know the right
person~
We will meet as a group at 11:50
a.m. in Library 3205 first and go down as
a unit to Media Loan in the Library.
For more information, call 866-6034.
For the Taste Buds
The classic guacamole, predating the Con·est, was made with avocados, onions,
.•d salt. This variation is excellent as
a dip with corn chips, as a garnish to
accompany tacos and salads, or as a
stuffing for tomatoes.
4
l
2
l
l
cups avocados, mashed
cup tomatoes, chopped
t. canned jalapeno chiles, chopped
onion, chopped
garlic clove, minced
(or 1 t. garlic powder or garlic salt)
l t. lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste
Mash the avocado with lemon juice to
retard discoloration. Then blend well
with other ingredients. Serve with corn
chips and fresh vegetables. (You may
eliminate lemon juice and instead put l
or 2 avocado seeds back in the Guacamole
to prevent discoloration.)
Edi tori~l..gmmenta_r_y_
Reprinted from the T.V . Guide, Sept. 29, 1979
b_n_'J:_l~ti n Americ_~_I-~o_rtant
Too?
As far as United States television networks are concerned, Latin America remains
largely a terra incognita, an unknown and
ignored part of the world--except when
crises affecting American interests erupt
now and then.
This being so, Latin America continues to
be the stereotype it has always been to
the viewer in the United States, a place
where strange revolutions occur, where
Cubans are engaged in some form of mischief, and where an earthquake brings
awesome tragedy.
Film clips on evening news shows not long
ago presented scenes from the bloody civil
war in Nicaragua because it happened to be
a big story at the time. Otherwise, the
networks tell us precious little about
the 28 republics to the south of us.
It may be a question of news producers'
priorities, always a matter of controversy,
but, in my judgement, Americans should be
told more--and better--about what is a
crucial region for the United States. For
example:
The discovery of huge oil and natural-gas
reserves in Mexico is clearly of extraordinary importance to our future at a
time when America's dependence on oil
production from the OPEC nations becomes
Page 4
less and less tolerable. Mexico, a nextdoor neighbor and not an OPEC member,
would be an ideal and logical alternative
source of supply for the United States.
But for reasons that range from a foolish
dispute over the price of natural gas to
the problem of massive Mexican illegal
immigration into this country, MexicanAmerican relations are at a disturbingly
1ow point.
Yet, this is a topic in which the networks have shown no interest. The only
network to have touched on it (apart from
the coverage of the recent Carter visit)
in the last two and a half years was NBC,
with a segment of the Weekend show telecast on April 1, 1979. The nearest CBS
came to a discussion of Mexican-American
problems was a segment on "Life in a
Me xi can Ja i 1" on 60 Minutes, in June 1977
--two years ago--and a segment on Mexican
oil prices in February 1979. To ABC
producers, Mexico doesn't really exist,
except in an occasional news spot.
CBS's 60 Minutes has done more than any
other program to focus on Latin America,
but usually its coverage is narrow:
cocaine smuggling, tax evasion in the
Caribbean, the hijacking of yachts and
the search for a Nazi war criminal in
Paraguay.
Venezuela, one of the world's largest oil
exporters and an OPEC member, is by any
lights, a major story: How does she use
(or misuse) her immense petroleum revenues to develop the country and improve
the lot of her citizens? What part does
she play in inter-American politics?
Who runs her? A program survey for the
period from the start of 1977 to the end
of the first half of 1979, reveals that
Venezuela has rated zero interest from
the networks. Ecuador, also an OPEC oil
producer, and a nation of great and fascinating social contrasts, is a blank in network programming.
Brazil, Latin America's biggest and most
dynamic nation and a vital market for the
United States, remains unnoticed by the
networks, although it is expected to become one of the world's great powers by
the end of the century. Its recent grad-
ual shift to democracy has escaped network attention. Chile, five years -after
the military revolution, was one of three
segments on an ABC News Closeup, "The
Politics of Torture," on Dec. 27, 1978,
Argentina, a guerrilla battlefield, has
not made the networks during the period
under scrutiny.
The Caribbean, where new nations are still
born every year or so, has been virtually
ignored except for two ABC specials on
Cuba in 1977, one being a Barbara Walters
interview with Fidel Castro.
Panama, inevitably, had high visibility
when the Senate was debating the new Canal
treaties. But Panama was as much an
American domestic political story as a
Latin American one.
One of the most interesting--and fundamental--situations in Latin America is the
transformation of the Roman Catholic
Church, and its split into progressive and
conservative wings. This profound drama
was reflected only in two religious programs on ABC on Sunday morning, not exactl
a peak viewing time, last February and
March.
Central America in general is a powder keg,
but you wouldn't know it from watching the
networks. NBC and ABC have been all along
unaware of Central America and its explosive potential, although this is turning
into a serious policy problem for the
United States. El Salvador, Guatemala and
Honduras, sites of mounting guerrilla warfare, don't seem ripe yet for network
attention, although each is a study in feudalism clashing with leftist rebellion. If
these countries blow up, as Nicaragua did,
the American viewer will have every right
to be surprised: he has not been informed.
I realize, of course, that Latin America
has to compete for news space with the rest
of the world. But the competition is uneven: Latin American stories are seldom
in the running. The reasons for this state
of affairs range from what I believe to be
deficient news and feature judgement by
producers and program executives--quite
possibly a misjudgement of viewer interest-to a basic cultural problem. The latter
relates to the general way in which North
Americans tend to regard Latin Americans
as people and nations that just aren't
as important as Europeans or Asians. In
11 fairness, this anti-Latin bias has
ctlso always existed in the written press
in the United States. Many years ago,
James Reston of The New York Times wrote
that Americans would do anything for Latin
America except read about it. Evidently,
this holds true for television as well.
And yet, I think that we should be told,
more than just in passing, about countries
as vital to the United States as Mexico,
Venezuela and Brazil. We should know more
about social experimentation, with Cuban
advice, in Jamaica, Grenada and Guyana.
In short, I submit, time has come for
American television to discover Latin
America--and keep it discovered.
By Tad Szul c
A Reminder:
The Third World student groups meet on a
regular basis, as does the Coalition. We
are looking for your attendance and
~ upport.
Please drop by and check out
1e action! We all meet in the Third
World Coalition Board Room, Lounge 3205.
The Third World Coalition, administrative
unit on campus through student services,
provides a Board/meeting room combined
with a lounge that will also house the
library. We have a limited number of
Third World books and many magazines and
periodicals for your use. We also have
a study room, Library 3236, and an electric
typewriter can be made available to you
with given notice.
Regular workshops and activities are
scheduled throughout the quarter for your
enjoyment. One such activity is the
jointly sponsored Third World film series.
We show a fil~, the first Monday of the
month, Lecture Hall l at noon and 7:30 p.m.
FREE, as a part of EPIC's film series.
Our regular meetings are on alternate
Tuesdays at noon; all Third World folks
are invited to participate. For more
information, call April West, Coordinator
at 866-6034.
Calendar of Events
January
7
Asian Coalition, Library 3209, Steve
Bader, Coordinator, 866-6033. All persons
are welcome to participate, Mondays at
noon.
MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de
Aztlan), Library 3206, Susan Ybarra, Coordinator, 866-6143. All Latinos are welcome to participate Wednesdays at noon.
NASA (Native American Student Association),
Library 3217, Diane Devlin, Coordinator,
866-6024. All Native persons are welcome to participate, at this time a
definate meeting time has not been set.
1:00 p.m., Canadian Indian
dancers, fourth floor Library
Noon & 7:30 p.m., A DREAM
IS WHAT YOU WAKE UP FROM,
film - FREE, Lecture Hall
7, 8, 10
8' 22
9, 16, 23, 30
Ujamaa (Black Student Association),
Library 3207, Ernie Jones, Prime Minister,
866-6781. All persons of African descent
are welcome to participate on Thursdays
at noon.
l the student groups have message boxes
in the Third World Coalition secretary's
office, Library 3204, and in the Activities
office, third floor CAB.
Noon-CAB, Indian Tacos and
T shirts by Wahelute School
on sale
10, 17, 24, 31
10:00 - noon, Third World
Coalition OPEN HOUSE, refreshments, video tape
Noon, Third World Coalition
community meeting, Library
3205
MEChA meets, noon, Library
3205
Ujamaa meets, noon, Library
3205
14
Noon, workshop on Media Loan
15
Third World social hour,
4:00-5:00 p.m., Dean York
Wong's office, Library 2211
Page 6
Calendar of Events (cont.)
January
21 ,28
Asian Coalition meets,
noon, Library 3205
Festival,
tentative
23
l~inter
24
Ujamaa presents - THE
HARDER THEY COME,
Lecture Ha 11 1 , noon,
5:30 & 8:30 p.m., $1.00
admission charge to
cover rental cost.
OO£Z 1
zanb ~v1u3 A':m1
