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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 29, 1988)
Thursday, September 29, 1988/The Battalion/Page 3 State and Local r )se$ii ibort; an’sf 30x1 rs.[j. COffip ihiini ditior. i ofij theic ridatc! ork. latKj I Organizations help make life in new culture easier By Richard Tijerina Staff Writer Setting foot in America for the first time can cause culture shock for most students from other countries, but members of the International Student Association and In ternational Student Services can help make the initial visit easier. Students from 116 countries attend Texas A&M, the ISA said. The organiza tion’s goal is to try to alleviate any problems those students may encounter in trying to adjust to a new culture. ISA president Gabriel Carranza said that it can be difficult trying to please all of the students all of the time because of conflict ing cultural backgrounds. Attempts to bring all international students together at events can become tricky because of the conflicts. “You have to realize that there are 116 different cultures here at A&M,” Carranza said. “You can’t always have a party with alco hol there or the Moslem students won’t come. If you have a party at night, the Chinese students won’t come. They feel dif ferently and they perceive things in a dif ferent way.” Carranza said the ISA and ISS instead try to schedule events that every interna tional student can attend, including picnics during the day and parties with live bands from Texas. ISS student adviser Tina Wadkins said her organization tries to help international students become comfortable with the United States even before they arrive. “I’ll send them a letter saying that I’ll meet them at the airport,” Wadkins said. “I’ll tell them what they should take care of. I’ll take care of their passports and make sure they arrive at the right university. “Once I had a student accidentally end up at Texas A&I (in Kingsville),” she said. Carranza said the hardest thing for stu dents to overcome is homesickness and the difficulty of becoming familiar with the new culture. “Our main purpose is not only to im prove the interaction among the interna tional students and between the students at A&M, but to show the community all the different cultures they are representing,” he said. “It’s very, important for American stu dents at A&M to realize that even they are international students. They’re just staying in their country.” Both Carranza and Wadkins said they have encountered bigotry and prejudice, from international students as well as American students. However, both said that problems of prejudice are not as apparent as they used to be, and that with effort, they can be over come. Problems among international stu dents who come from countries with con flicting ideologies or cultures are not uncommon. “You have to be a little bit careful,” Car ranza said. “But the governments don’t rep resent all the people from their countries. You can now sit at a table and have Arabs and Jews sitting together. There is no longer a problem with people from Taiwan or China. It’s very much like the United Na tions. It’s a very nice experience to over come these problems.” Wadkins said that in her experience here, she had two international students from Iran and Iraq become good friends, and who remained in close contact even af ter they left the University. “One of them called and said ‘All my life I’ve grown up hearing that they are bad people, but now I can go home and still call Both students agreed that even fewer problems stem from antagonism from American students at A&M. “That is one of the things that is very nice here at A&M,” Carranza said. “We never have problems here. Some of my friends have had problems in Austin. We just be lieve it’s an incredible waste of opportunity because the American student needs to be more aware to learn different languages and different cultures.” Wadkins said the students she works with come to her with problems that would not be unfamiliar to any other student at A&M. “Sometimes they will come to me and tell me that they are being discriminated against, but that’s becoming rarer and rar er,” she said. “Instead, they’ll come to me with prob lems about money, school, parents, and boyfriends or girlfriends. They’re just like any other student that’s here at A&M.” come ftfc here e i lavs vageii of lie Of none c 31 ivho v :el$e, r of tin is go 11 mall I'm hi entwii iwifli rjom TheSi State official bets A&M will win voter drive By Melissa Martin Reporter Secretary of State Jack Rains, Class of ’60, bet his staff members who graduated from the University ofTexas that Texas A&M will regis ter more voters than UT. • “I am very interested in seeing that A&M has more registered vot ers than ‘t.u.’ because I don’t want to buy my staff dinner,” Rains said. Mike Parkhouse, a senior political science and history major and chair man of Aggie Voter ’88, estimates that about /,000 A&M students have registered during the drive. He said they hope to register 18,000 voters this semester. Parkhouse said he believes Secre tary Rains will win his bet. “This is the time for the Twelfth Man to stand up and ‘play’ their part,” he said. “Voting is a duty, it’s a right and, most importantly, it’s a privilege.” Chris Bjornson, chairman of voter registration at UT, said he and other volunteers have registered about 10,500 voters since the beginning of the fall semester. Because they have surpassed their original goal of reg- /£ NOV © © TEXAS VOTE*88 TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY istering 10,000 registered voters this semester, he said, they are now working to register 15,000 voters by the end of the school year. Bjornson said said that UT will beat the Aggies not only in the voter registration drive but in the Novem ber football game between the schools as well. “I don’t think secretary Rains will win his bet,” he said. The deadline for voter register is midnight on Oct. 9. Students in Texas may register to vote in the county where they attend school. A&M students should list their school address as their permanent address on the registration card if they are registering to vote in Brazos County. If students are registered to vote in their home county, they should contact voter officials in that county to obtain a mail-in absentee ballot. Parkhouse said that Aggie Voter ’88 is sponsoring a contest among student organizations to register vot ers. A cash prize will be awarded to the organization that registers the most voters. Second and third prizes will also be awarded in the following categories: Corps outfits, non-Corps dormitories, student organizations, fraternities and sororities. In 1984, contest participants reg istered more than 15,000 students, Parkhouse said. Aggie Voter ’88 is a part of Voter ’88, a non-partisan program spon sored by the secretary of state’s of fice. Rains said that Voter ’88 is a statewide program designed to take voter registration to the people. Some colleges and universities regis ter students to vote when they regis ter for classes. Utility companies are mailing voter registration cards in their monthly bills, employers are requir ing prospective employees to fill out registration cards with an employ ment application and motels and air lines are distributing registration cards to their guests and passengers, he said. “Eighty-five percent of young people who register will vote and will continue to vote throughout life.” Cooke foils attempt at pay-per-viewing By Alan Sembera Senior Staff Writer Cooke Cablevision’s attempt to broadcast the Texas A&M-Okla- homa game on a pay-per-view ba sis turned into a flop Saturday when technical problems forced the company to let all subscribers view the game. Tom Rose, acting general man ager of the company, said about 1,000 customers paid $20 to $30 each for the privilege of watching the game at home. However, near the middle of the second quarter anyone with a cable converter box-could watch the game by turning to channel 23. Rose said the company was forced to send the signal to every one because many paid subscrib ers were unable to receive the transmission at the beginning of the game. “We had a computer problem that wouldn’t authorize the game to all the paying people,” Rose said. The company will decide later this week if they will give refunds to any of the people who paid to see the game, he said. The A&M-Oklahoma game was Cooke Cablevision’s first at tempt at pay-per-view broadcast ing. Even though the pay-per-view attempt didn’t work Saturday, the company will continue the service because of the favorable initial re sponse, Rose said. Cooke Cablevision contracted with the Home Sports Entertain ment network to show the game on a pay-per-view basis. Rose said the cable company contracted with HSE to broadcast the game on a pay-per-view basis because it would have cost too much to show the game to all sub scribers. tjh '0 PARTHENON presents $.25 Coronas Thursday 8*11 815 Harvey Rd. 764-8575