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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 26, 1982)
etc Battalion/Page 11 January 26, T Refugees (continued from page 1) how to get things done. They are punctual, hard-working, sophisticated people, and they need less help.” The area they do need help in, though, is in acquiring En glish. The San Antonio Literacy Council, a privately funded, non-profit foundation, special izes in helping non-English speakers learn the language quickly. ^ Its executive director, Mar garita R. Huantes, says the coun cil, working through volunteer teachers, can provide free train ing up through high school level. used to be easier when we had teachers whose salaries were paid by the GET A program; the (Reagan administration’s) cut backs have hurt us pretty badly. But I’m sure we’ll find sor someone This group won’t be the first group of Polish immigrants the the The council is arranging free classes for the refugees at the Shrine of Our Lady of Czes tochowa on the south side. The problem, Huantes said, is find ing a teacher. “We are all-volunteer now, and finding the right volunteer can be a problem,” she said. “It Employment (continued from page 1) can do about the cut backs since they are the result of federal action. “It’s just something we’re going to have to live with,” Ford said. Sharon Lapaglia, a TEC worker who lost her job Dec. 31, said layoffs had been expected in the Bryan office. “We had been prepared,” she said. “It really wasn’t a shock.” But Lois Schaffner, laid off in the second round of staff cuts, said after she was spared in the first series of layoffs, she ex pected to keep her job. She was out of the office when word came that she would be laid off Friday. “I was the last one to be cut,” Schaffner said..“I thought I was set for a long, long time.” Baker said five of the 12 Bryan workers laid off have already found new jobs. The latest series of federal budget cuts, which reduced TEC’s budget by 14.3 percent, will cost 700 commission em ployees their jobs as of Saturday. Earlier cutbacks led to the layoff of 800 employees on Dec. 31. The commission will end up with a staff of about 2,800 this year, compared to 4,300 in 1981, a difference of 61 percent. The budget cuts that brought on the latest layoffs are part of the continuing resolution pas sed by Congress to keep the gov ernment running during this quarter of the 1982 fiscal year. Although there will be fewer TEC staffers, employers will still pay the tax that funds the com mission, Baker said. “We are state employees, but we are federally funded ... through the Federal Unemploy ment Tax Act,” he said. Under this act, employers pay taxes into a fund which finances employ ment services like TEC and pays some unemployment insurance. Texas employers paid almost $250 million into this fund last year, Baker said. FUTA taxes still have to be VISION HAIR DESIGNERS 303 College Main (Down From Loupots Next to White’s) JANUARY SPECIALS Men’s Haircuts Women’s Haircuts $ 15 Monday-Satu rday 9 a.m. till ? 846-8528 DO YOU LIKE TO HELP OTHERS? OPA IS FOR YOU! SPRING "BLUE JEAN' RUSH ft Thursday, Jan. 28 Room #145 MSC 6:30 p.m. Please call us for more info: Glenette 260-5869 Jan 260-6354 Judi 260-0148 OMEGA PHI ALPHA National Service Sorority traditional celebrations for the refugees at holidays, including the Christmas Eve dinner and council has taught at the shrine. Ten years ago, a group of nuns of the Seraphic Order, led by Sister Hedwig, fled Poland and settled at the shrine, which had been the Polish-American Center. The council trained them in English, and 10 years later, the nuns proved in strumental in settling the cur rent group of refugees. “When we came, Sister Hed wig let us stay in the convent, she fed us, she clothed us, she did everything,” one refugee said. “We wouldn’t be here if not for her.” In addition to supporting them their first weeks in Amer ica, Sister Hedwig has arranged mass. But the main support for the refugees has been their spon sors. Holy Spirit Parish, located in an upper-middle-class section of the north side, sponsors seven of the immigrants. The people they sponsor in clude Maciej, a former mining engineer now working in a gas station; Maria, his wife, who was a lawyer but is now peeling vegetables in a cafeteria; Stanis- law, an electronics technician who is waiting for his wife to ar rive from the Austrian camps; and Janusz, an electronics en gineer. In addition to providing them w'ith food, clothing and apartments, the parish has done a number of things for the re fugees. They have helped all of them find jobs and paid for night-time English courses. The parish is also trying to tailor its help to the individual refugees. They are trying to find Maciej some kind of work where he could use his engineering knowledge; they are looking for a law office for Maria to work in; and they are helping Stanislaw and another of the refugees to bring their families over from Europe. And other sponsors of re fugees are doing the same. St. Thomas More sponsors Marek, Krystyna and their two daugh ters. Marek is working as a cadet engineer at a local utility, and although he can speak a little English, his wife speaks none. So the parish has engaged the ser vices of a tutor, who visits the couple at home during the evening. But for their 6-year-old daughter Dominika, Marek and Krystyna decided immediate en try into the parochial school would be best. Dominika’s teacher, Sister Cabrini Foley, says she is having a rough time. “The children chatter at her in English, and she talks back in Polish,” Foley said. “I know she gets frustrated, not being able to understand them, but she can often understand me and she is very determined to learn.” And this determination to make it in America is a trait all the refugees share. “In Poland, everyone is (equal); a few at the top have everything and the rest have no thing,” Marek said. “But here you have the contrasts: big money, some money, little money, no money. And the con trasts are what push you, make you want to get ahead.” All the refugees said they feel the push. Every one of them said he or she was planning to learn English, save some money and then go back to school. School is the way back to the professions for which they were trained in Poland. For Maciej, training means returning to the coal mines; for Maria, the law. Marek and Janusz want to move up the engineering ladder. Andrzej, a computer systems de signer, wants to return to com puter design while his wife Anna, a former university En glish teacher, wants to return to education. To all of them, America is the promised land, the place where they can raise their children without fear or oppression. And it is the place where life has more to offer than a three-hour wait for a stale loaf of bread, “We come to this goldea and we see around usthtj that there is a landofopp] ity,” Andrzej said. “Here,; work hard and you arefe achieve something wortM there is nothing you achieve. “And we Poles, we M highly-trained, and well how to work hard. “Come back and doastij us in 10 years.” ALVAREZ GUITARS 75 Nc paid even though the budgets for the agencies they fund have been cut. Baker said. “There just aren’t any win ners here,” he said. “On paper, the number of state employees gets reduced, but there’s no tax reduction for Texas em ployers.” Because many states have higher unemployment rates than Texas, a large part of the FUTA taxes Texas businessmen pay ends up paying unemploy ment benefits in other states, Baker said. Ford said Clements would like to see FUTA taxes reduced. • Genuine Inlay • Specially Braced Tops • High Crowned Frets • Precision Machine Heads • High Quality Woods • Careful Craftsmanship • Special Adjustable Neck • EZ Plav Books Some Models Specially Priced Texas A& in their se ew System oint one 3r. Fran etirement ffue.effec heTexa rd of R became fe has beei KeyboARd rsity in \ ars. = Center Regents Tight app< t»¥ a xrrv fee-headed PIANO idates and Inc. RENTAL MANOR EAST MALL Bryan, Texas 77801 See rela ellor to the The coi oard Vice «d Regen oursome sident ointed It’s here! 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