"Students speak Spanish all day to raise awareness"

By Staff Writer, RuthAnn Day

 

L to R (back row): Mandy Pfeiffer, Brittney Elser, Divine Muragijimana, Kathryn Foust, Liz Hopkins,

Colleen Sjoberg, Heather Kindel, and Ashley Cooper

L to R (front row): Mandi Weaver, Paige Addison, and Sara Holtzman

Students from the Spanish club and classes spent an entire day speaking Spanish for a cultural learning experience on Monday, Nov. 19, also the same day as the Worldview Forum occurred and covered the issue of illegal immigration.

Sara Holtzman, senior communication arts and Spanish major, and students in the Spanish club collaborated on the idea. They asked if they could have a day where they only spoke Spanish as a class assignment. Their main objective was to gain a new perspective on how immigrants feel when they first come to the United States. “[Spending the day speaking Spanish] was not a protest of the Worldview Forum. It was not [a] social [event]. It was a learning experience,” Holtzman said.

Dana Discher, senior liberal arts major, said, “[We’re] not protesting [the] Worldview Forum. We are just concerned that people talk about these issues [and] they don’t know what it means. [They’re] not considering the people involved [and] not aware of the situation.”

In a document created by the Spanish club, it said, “As a body of students and concerned citizens we agree that immigration is an issue that calls for immediate attention. However, as members of an organization that stresses the importance of Latin culture within the melting pot that is the United States, we want to stress the fact that immigration should not be viewed as either a positive or negative situation, but rather a reality that our country is currently facing.” The document also says the club welcomes debate on the topic of illegal and legal immigration and desires to “promote a better understanding of the immigration situation.”

They wanted to raise awareness of the increasing number of people in the United States who speak Spanish, to have students engage in conversation and to encourage students to attend the Worldview Forum.

Holtzman said that she had to depend on other people to help her translate if they knew Spanish or she used sign language so people could understand her.  Holtzman said, “I felt isolated. For instance, in writing for media there are only three other people in the class. No one spoke Spanish [so] I had to shake my head yes or no when a question was asked.”

Discher said, “I spent two months in Argentina speaking Spanish. It might be hard speaking Spanish because people may not respond back in Spanish [and are] not going to understand [me].” Discher said, “[I] think a lot of people, when they think about immigration, jump to illegal immigration but its [a] bigger [issue]. Immigration as a whole is difficult [and there are] so many issues to think about—it is complex.”