NEWS The Battalion I 3.9.15 3 CULTURE HILLEL Cody Franklin—THE BATTALION Former A&M president and keynote speaker Elsa Murano speaks on the application of A&M core values and ethnicity. Summit emphasizes A&M values as they apply to Hispanic community By Lenae Allen Hispanic figures from around the world gathered in the Clayton Williams Alumni Center this weekend for the Texas A&M annual Hispanic Network Sum mit. Keynote speaker Elsa Murano, director of the Borlaug Institute and former president of Texas A&M, stressed the importance of the Aggie values and how they applied to ethnicity. “We are to live and work to gether in harmony with each other,” Murano said. “At Texas A&M, we have a saying: ‘For we are the Aggies, the Aggies are we,’ and that is meant to depict how we are all for one and one for all. When we say this, we should mean every Aggie. Not just those who look like us or have the same background as us.” Other speakers, including Brig. Gen. Joe E. Ramirez Jr., commandant of the Corps of Ca dets and National Hispanic Insti tute President and Founder Er nesto Nieto, also addressed issues in the Flispanic community in the United States, such as differences in household income, the desire to see more Hispanic students graduate from four-year institu tions and how to help Flispanic students dream big. Nieto said a key in Hispanics moving forward is to change how Americans views minorities. “It seems to me like we some times look at Hispanic issues or issues within the Latino commu nity as something that the com munity needs to address by itself, rather than address the systems that create the problem,” Nieto said. MORE AT TX.AG/BATT12 MEMBERS OF STUDENT SENATE IMPEACH DOUGLAS The impeachment of Student Government Association election commissioner Emma Douglas will go before the Student Senate at its regular biweekly meeting Wednesday. > The article of impeachment that garnered the necessary signatures to be brought to the Student Senate floor was written by student senator Lauren Felder. In it, Felder alleges that the election commissioner "openly defied" Student Government Association rules by incorrectly handling Yell Leader elections and fining SBP candidate Isaiah Tsau but not fining SBP-elect Joseph Bemgno for campaign violations. "Never before have Yell Leaders been forced to practically secede from SGA in order to maintain that students have a voice," reads the statement. Place an Ad Phone 979.845.0569 Suite L400, Memorial Student Center Texas A&M University When to Call 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday Insertion deadline: 1 p.m. prior business day Film shows inner workings of Haredi culture By Caleb Vierkant The Texas A&M Hillel will evaluate the strict rules placed on women in the Haredi community, a branch of Orthodox J udaism char acterized by its rejection of modem secular culture, with a showing of the documentary “Black Bus.” The Monday showing will be fol lowed by a discussion with the film maker, Anat Zuria. “Black Bus” is about two women attempting to escape oppression and gender segregation from the Haredi community. Zuria said she made the documentary at the request of a friend, who was a part of the Haredi community. “I was living in Jerusalem — I have so many friends in those communities and I heard from her and more or less she asked me — told me — ‘Please, Anat, go and make a film about it,’” Zuria said. The Haredi are very traditional, closed-off to the outside world and have strict views of their teachings, said Ashley Passmore, international studies professor. “It’s amazing and unique that Anat, who is sort of an outsider from that community, got a lot of access through her work and through her connections and research and so on,” Passmore said. Zuria said it took four years to get enough people to trust her and her crew enough to let them into the Haredi community. Even then, her crew had to be cautious when shoot ing the documentary in secret. “We had to do many, many tricks,” Zuria said. “We had all types of hid den cameras. In the film we show the segregated buses. If you go into a bus and try to film what is happening there, immediately someone, some man, will jump on you. And you can be harmed and there can be violence and we had to face these kinds of con ditions.” Passmore said if they had found the camera on Zuria, physical violence may have been used against her and her crew. “So in many ways what she was exposing was a taboo thing that was very difficult to film, and because what happens is if they had found her camera on these buses, they would have destroyed the camera or prob ably physically assaulted her or any body else working on the project,” Passmore said. “That was what Anat was talking about in this discussion about if you confront a taboo you’ll often face some blowback.” “Black Bus” does much more than just show problems within a religious community — it brings up questions about religious fundamentalism and cultural taboos, which are part of the reason this documentary was so dif ficult to make, Zuria said. “Because it’s a taboo, you know?” Zuria said. “You could maybe do an article after being there, maybe, two years. But you can’t really make a film. Women — they’re more or less not allowed to be shown or be seen in public.” Passmore said this oppression is present, but many people are simply ignorant of it. “The issue about this ‘Black Bus’ thing is that these gender segregated buses exist in Israel, but basically sec ular people don’t really know about them,” Passmore said. “They read about them, but they don’t ride on these buses, so nobody really talks about it.” Brent Olian, international studies senior, said Texas A&M is becoming more aware of other religions. “It obviously is a very conserva tive, predominantly more right-wing leaning kind of Christian university,” Olian said. “So certain things, such as religion and maybe even politics, aren't discussed tod openly. Or, even if they are, one side is heavily outnum bered by the other. But it is growing more and more open, I would say.” The “Black Bus” showing will be 6:30 p.m. Monday in the Hillel Cen ter. THEBATT.COM Students work to solve industry problems Tim Lai —THE BATTALION Nuclear engineer junior James Bunsen works on his invention at Aggies Invent. The weekend competition entails teams made up of freshmen to doctoral students coming up with solutions to industry problems. The theme for this year is making the "Internet of things" come alive. See story at tx.ag/batti 1 -'4