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April 2
Thursday, April 2, 1992
Lifestyles
The Battalion y)
Page 3
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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 â–  ^ 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
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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.
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'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
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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
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