4A
Thursday, September 22, 1994
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OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NICOLAS SHUMP Chicano culture is a large part of American culture. Where are Chicano Studies at this diverse university?
Chicano Studies program is needed at University
On a recent Saturday, I took the entire day off from work. I spent part of it sitting in one of the rooms at the Convention Center of the Holiday Inn listening to papers on Chicano literature. Why? Because there is virtually nothing offered on Chicano culture at KU.
It was really depressing to think that there were more Chicano scholars on that panel than there are at the entire University of Kansas. In the five years that I have spent at the University, there has been a total of one class offered in Chicano culture. One! This one literature class seems to be the extent of the University's commitment to diversity when it comes to Chicano culture. Why are there no history classes? Why are there no
sociology classes? Why are there no American Studies classes, etc. Having talked to professors in these various departments, the best answer seems to be that there are no qualified faculty to teach these classes. Why is this the case?
My argument for a Chicano Studies program is not just another attempt at creating a multicultural campus or another example of political correctness. I believe that without studying the history of Chicanos, it is impossible to have a complete understanding of American history. The history of the United States is inextricably linked with that of Mexico. Before 1848, all of what is called the American Southwest was the northern part of Mexico. Thus it is incorrect to refer
to all Chicanos as immigrants because some of their families have lived in what is now called the United States for over four hundred years. There is also a strong Hispanic legacy in Florida, which was ceded to the United States in the Adams-Onis treaty of 1821. This treaty specified that the United States could have Florida if it renounced its claims to Texas. Unfortunately, this treaty conflicted with President Polk's claims of Manifest Destiny.
Even in Kansas, the Chicanos have had a long presence. In communities like Chanute, Topeka, Emporia, Wichita, Dodge City, Garden City and Liberal, Chicanos have lived and worked for more than seventy years.
Despite the history of the Chicano in
Kansas, they are virtually invisible in the University curriculum. For the present, I am advocating merely a core group of classes taught in various disciplines that could be cross listed as Chicano Studies classes, thus offering students the opportunity to earn a degree in Chicano Studies. Similar programs exist for other minority groups, such as African-American Studies and Native American Studies. Why have Chicanos been excluded? The Latin American Studies program is not enough. Chicanos are not from Latin America. We are Americans. A Hispanic Studies program would be more appropriate because it would cover the experiences of all the various Spanish speaking peoples in the United
States, not just the Chicanos. However it is done, or whatever name it is eventually given, such a program is needed here at the University of Kansas.
Consider the fact that two issues that have been in the news consistently, Cuba and illegal immigration, are the result of the history of the United States and its Hispanic neighbors. Like it or not, the United States cannot continue to ignore the impact that Chicanos and their Hispanic compadres have, and will continue to have, on our country. As the intellectual vanguard of the country, neither can its universities.
Nicolas Shump is a Lawrence senior in comparative literature.
VIEWPOINT
Loss of junior varsity sports damaging to college sports
In an effort to "improve" intercollegiate athletics, the Big Eight Conference has banned all Junior Varsity sports in the conference, effective this year.
For KU, this affected the baseball and men's basketball teams. This decision, however, was both unnecessary and damaging to college sports.
JV teams were always based on the school's willingness to pay. As a result, few JV teams existed. But these JV teams did not create an unfair advantage for those schools. They merely gave more people a chance to play at a competitive level.
These players weren't getting scholarship money to play, nor were they playing all across the nation in front of millions of TV viewers.
But the issue of JV sports is more than a cost and fairness question. JV programs exist for one primary reason: the love to play.
They were looking to play the sport they loved for the school they loved.
Apparently, the Big Eight thinks those students who want to represent their schools by playing JV sports are bad for intercollegiate athletics. That assumption could not be further from the truth.
RICHARD BOYD FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD.
U.S. Postal Service should not change images on stamps
Jazz and blues are important cultural and historical contributions to America.
The Robert Johnson stamp is based on a picture of him holding his guitar, with a cigarette between his fingers.
The artist who prepared the stamp, however, deleted the cigarette.
To honor some of the pioneers of these indigenous musical forms, the U.S. Postal Service has issued a series of stamps depicting, among others, Billie Holliday, Ma' Rainey, and Robert Johnson.
To delete a portion of an image to satisfy the antismoking lobby is inaccurate at best and revisionist at worst.
It is not the business of the Postal Service to protect stamp-buyers.
To insert something into an image for a stamp would be unforgiveable, to take something out is no less of an offense.
The original image, as it has been for over fifty years, should be presented on the stamp and the Postal Service should adopt a policy of remaining true to the original pictures it chooses.
MARK YONALLY FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD.
KANSAN STAFF
STEPHEN MARTINO
Editor
JEN CARR Business manager
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General manager, news adviser
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Jeff MacNellv / KANSAN
Minority-voter apathy is not cured with math
Join me in taking a simple arithmetic test. You need answer only true or false.
Q. The number 55 is bigger than the number 42.
A. False. The number 42 is much bigger than the number 55.
You disagree? That isn't what they taught you in school?
All that means is you are unaware of a highly regarded form of new goofy math.
I'm not talking about the "new math" that popped up in schools a few years ago, confusing the teachers almost as much as the students.
This new goofy math is used by lawyers, judges, politicians and other madcaps to create a new entitlement, which might be described as voting welfare.
Let's say you don't want to register to vote. It's too much bother or it is not part of your lifestyle or it doesn't change anything. Or if you register, it is too much of a hassle to go to the polling place.
Don't worry. You don't have to go through the tiresome fuss of registering or even voting. Thanks to the new goofy math and nursing welfare, you will still be represented by someone who would probably be your choice if
COLUMNIST
MIKE ROYKO
you were willing to endure the pain and discomfort of casting a vote.
This process is laid out in federal court record, where many weird ideas can be found.
It is part of a lawsuit in which black Chicago politicians say they are being shafted by a new ward map that does not give black voters as many aldermen as they deserve.
After the suit was filed, it was tossed out by a federal judge. But a federal appeals court has sent it back for further legal blathering.
Here is the way the situation is described by the appellate court panel:
"The challenged plan created 23
wards in which whites are at least a bare majority of the population, 19 in which blacks have at least a 65 percent majority and 1 in which they (blacks) have 55 percent, and 7 in which Hispanics have at least a 65 percent majority.
"The rule of thumb is that these groups must have at least a 65 percent majority in the electoral district in order to have a reasonable assurance of being able to elect a candidate of their choice."
That is some rule and some thumb. I don't know whose thumber they are using. Maybe they are using a couple of big toes by mistake.
It doesn't seem to occur to the politicians, the lawyers, the judges and the other social tinkers, that if 62.6 percent of the people in a ward can't win an election, the fault lies with that 62.6 percent. The solution is for more of that 62.6 percent to haul themselves to the voting place and vote.
Lucky for these guys they became politicians, lawyers and judges instead of bookies. If they covered bets with Goofymath, they'd be broke or floating in the river.
Mike Royko is a syndicated columnist for the Chicago Tribune.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Mike Royko, in a column on Sept. 15, asked who was to blame for the tragic life and death of Robert Sandifer, the Chicago youth who was both a suspected killer and a murder victim at age 11. He then listed the usual targets for blame — parents, courts, social service agencies, gangs, politicians, gun laws, drugs, bloody movies, television, rap music, schools, the economy, slavery and our violent and racist society. He left out the biggest culprit of all, the university.
Education could prevent violence
The cultivation of conscience, which is the true solution to crime in our society, cannot take place within the nihilistic secularism that is currently tyrannizing public education. Public schools used to teach morality in conjunction with the family and the church, largely Judeo-Christian values. But this approach has been replaced in recent years with something called "values clarification," "decision making" or the "dilemma model." It is this that is causing the current moral wasteland in our schools, and producing children like Robert.
Research has shown repeatedly that this approach, based on the naive ideas of university social scientists such as Carl Rogers and Lawrence Kohlberg, result in significantly higher rates of crime, drug abuse, sexual activity and racism. Values, conduct, and the prevailing moral tone are established at the top.
To solve the problem of crime in this country, we need to begin with a massive acknowledgement of bankruptcy in the social sciences and immediate exposure of their basic assumptions to reexamination in debate with theologians.
Leonard Magruder
Founder and Director of University Liberation
HUBIE
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By Greg Hardin