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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 2, 1992)
l April 2 Thursday, April 2, 1992 Lifestyles The Battalion y) Page 3 said. "And{ 'ii so friend! ticipants night at the Lecturer reflects on cultural differences By Timm Doolen The Battalion tudent vol ntact with it stmWd Tony Caraballo, a lecturer in lot of fun.' 1 ■ ^ ie ^ >e P artrnen ^ Modern Lan- guages, knows what its like to be * night hfe P a 6 strange situation and feel like a minority. When he was just a ju nior in high school, he came to ,p Texas from his native Puerto Rico 9 m/ r3Ct without knowing the language or knowing anybody. "When I was 15, one of my best friends became a member of he Baptist church," he said. "After he witnessed to me, I became a Baptist too, which almost caused my family to disown me." Because his parents, who were Catholic, would not let him attend a Protestant church, he sought help from the Baptist church and made arrangements to move to America. He said it was a culture shock, to say the least. The only knowl edge he had of the Southwest United States was from old televi sion westerns like "Bonanza" and "High Chaparral." I left Puerto Rico when I was 15 years old, Caraballo said. "I had a track scholarship to the Vil lage Baptist Academy in Harlin gen, Texas. I went there to learn English and when I spoke Span ish, the Mexicans laughed at me." They laughed because not only was his accent unique, there were also some words different in Puer to Rican Spanish from Mexican Spanish. He said in Puerto Rico, jugar de eager means to play tag, but in Mexico it means to have Dst reporlt 5 analysis! dicated k trend, soi ies will hai re ticket ■rage, aid statistii me wealth' Dallas-Fi suburbs, % srs per ca] o sell Tei e allowed r sales totd said the iS xw V Sit^ m »g I 11 iilMill ; ; ; ;■ n iwB* ■ ft #1 HUY NGUYEN/The Battalion Tony Caraballo, a lecturer in the Department of Modern Languages, has adjusted to life in America with a little bit of humor and some tolerance. :tery must: apply aa ds. in poorer;' become I* re's not®' re goinjto mates®’ ?bajfer^ '1 was inviting some friends to ,veen 15,d play tag and I was slapped by a young lady, because she thought something else," he said. In fact he was slapped twice within a month after coming to the United States. In Puerto Rico, pinche means a hair barrette. So when he told a girl she had a pret ty pinche, she slapped him. "Both in Valley Baptist and at Howard Payne University, I be came extremely popular, and I never understood why people were so friendly," he said. "I think they saw me as a 'little E.T.' be cause I was small and had a differ ent accent. The students were all very nice to me." He said during the breaks in between semesters, he never had problems finding a place to go. Many students would ask him to go home with their "little E.T." so they could show him off to their family. He said he was very popu lar among the whole student body because of his uniqueness. "They chose me president of their class, and I didn't even speak English," he said. "At Skyline in Dallas, they nominated me to be class representative to the student senate." After a year at Valley Baptist he went to live with his guardian in Dallas, and attended Skyline High School, where he first en countered racial differences, and had to be aware of the color of his skin. He said although no racist acts were directed at him, he real ized things like this were a reality in the United States. While staying at his guardian's orphanage, one of the best ways he learned English was by listen ing to Cat Stevens albums. "When I was in the orphanage, one of my friends was a big fan of Cat Stevens," he said. "I started listening to Cat Stevens and read the words on the album." After high school he went to Howard Payne University, where he ran for cheerleader and was elected by 100 percent of the votes. For the tryouts, he did the yell "Power," in which he had to spell out the word. But during the cheer, he forgot how to spell "power," so he stopped, ran be hind a podium where he had the cheer written down, ran back out A/edneS' imosexu- Friends Christ ras qw 3 is wi ; tin tl joncern- arriages United and st > totally MSC OPAS WE NEED SOMETHING NEW... AND IT'S YOU!!!! MSC OPAS IS NOW ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS FROM ALL INTERESTED STUDENTS APPLICATIONS MAY BE PICKED UP BEGINNING APRIL 3 STUDENT PROGRAMS OFFICE, 2ND FLOOR MSC, ROOM 223 ORIENTATION MEETING FOR ALL POTENTIAL APPLICANTS: APRIL 7 f 8:30 PM.-231 MSC OR APRIL 8,8:30 PM.-231 MSC ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE CALL THE MSC OPAS OFFICE 845-1661 MEMORIAL STUDENT CENTER OPERA AND PERFORMING ARTS SOCIETY US, >. IT COFFEEHOUSE MU6IC, POETQY. PQOSl DRAMA, COMEDY, INTERNATIONAL ACTS FRIDAY, APRIL 3, 1992 8:00 RUMOURS FREE FOR ALL MSC TOWN HALL and started over. "People thought I did it on purpose. I was the first minority cheerleader in almost 15 years," he said. After his first year in college he went home to Puerto Rico and made peace with his family. "I didn't return for three years. Then I went through a reverse cul tural shock," he said. "I realized my accent had changed and peo ple thought I was from Mexico. My whole speech pattern changed, so my family considered me a whole different person." He said upon his return, his family was more receptive to the fact that he was not a Catholic. "What's ironic is now most of my family has converted to Protestantism," he said. After graduating from Howard Payne, he spent one year See Spanish/Page 5 Comedian finds hidden blessing in cancer struggle By Dawn Heliums The Battalion For most people, being di agnosed with cancer would change their life in a terrifying way, but for Joe Kogel, it was a hidden blessing. Over ten years ago, Kogel was diagnosed with malignant melanoma, an often fatal type of skin cancer, but today he still lives to tell the story of his struggle to beat cancer, and he does it in a unique way: with comedy. "All the things that I as sumed to be impossible in life, I now no longer know to be im possible," Kogel begins in his performance of "Life and Depth, Actual Stories of Whim sy and Alertness" on Monday to A&M students and faculty. Laughter fills the room with his motto, "Love like a poet- pray like a lawyer." Once a reporter and broad caster, Kogel now tours the na tion performing his one-man show in hospitals, universities, theaters, and other various set tings. Something he said he has always wanted to do but didn't realize until his diagnosis in 1981. "It seemed that everything I was doing before was prepar ing me to do something else," Kogel said. "(Cancer) brought me greater relief in everything else in my life, and it helped me to see." Kogel uses moments in his life, both humorous and dra matic to describe his new prospective of life. Such as the time he and a deer crossed paths on an Oregon freeway; when just as he thought he would hear a horrible smashing sound, the deer leaped over his Honda making a safe landing on the other side. To Kogel, it was a message. "You're cruising down the freeway of your life in a Honda (your body), when you see something cross your path. And from your experience of problem solving and problem not-solving, you know this is going to be mess... but then the deer seems to say, 'This may be true, but then again (as the deer clears the car) maybe it's not'." Kogel 's goal is to be able connect with his audience and to have them leave the show asking themselves, 'Am I doing what I should be doing in life?' Apparently he has succeeded. After his performances, many members of the audience, some also stricken with cancer, come down to shake his hand and to tell him how much they can re late to his stories. One incident sticks in his mind the most. "I was approached by a woman who also suffered from malignant melanoma. We be came good friends through let ters. She told me she had al ways wanted to be an artist so she began painting, and sent me some of her work. She died two years later after she began painting. I miss her." In his performance, Kogel stresses to the audience that ex periencing ones own mortality won't necessarily change ones lifestyle, but he claims it is a good place to start. He con cludes his performance with his theory of life which he calls. The Kogel Effect. "Sometimes the worst thing in your life or in any given situ ation, may contain the seeds of the best- notice I say may- be cause I like to leave room ih my theorem for the possibility that some things in life just may suck." THE secs HNO D 'CHAPTER', SRTURDRV, RPRIL 4,1992 6 PM - 8 PM 2 $ OFF ALL FULL LENGTH DANCE CD S , 1 $ OFF ALL IMPORT 12" AND IMPORT CD SINGLES Free Refreshments (with proper ID) marooned 1] CD's •Tapes • IP's 110 College Main on Northgate 84MD017 MS Ww MB MEXICAN CAFE F w © Phone-In Orders Welcome 846-4135 LIVE Friday and Saturday Show Starts at 9:30 p.m. Real Mexican Located in Northgate Real Fresh