ND hosts foreign language week

By COLLEEN FARRELL news Writer

The University held the Foreign Language Week culture fair on Wednesday, showcasing food, music and presentations of various cultures from around the world. The event occurred in the d ahnke b allroom in d uncan s tudent c enter and featured booths and performances from many language departments and cultural groups.

Junior b ecca Kubick worked at the booth for the s panish club, which had candies from s panishspeaking countries as well as paper and scissors for making paper picador, a traditional m exican craft. s he spoke about the benefits the culture fair offers for n otre d ame students.

“A lot of people in a university like this are so wrapped up in the school and the academics that they forget to incorporate extracurriculars, specifically culture,” Kubick said. “It’s a really good opportunity for everyone to remind themselves of the importance to learn about different cultures because we’ve seen so many others just by being here.” s abina Iusupova, a Fulbright foreign language teaching assistant, hosted an event showcasing r ussian food on Tuesday as well as a booth for decorating r ussian nesting dolls at the culture fair. s he explained that Foreign Language Week was important to her because of her goal to share r ussian culture with the world.

“ r ight now… there [aren’t] that many opportunities to go and visit r ussia. s o, it’s like, I’m bringing r ussia here.” Iusupova said.

Jefferson s aransig, a Fulbright foreign language teaching assistant of the Quechua language, hosted a booth featuring a traditional kind of embroidery from that the problems he faced were unique to his time. e cuador. h e noted how the culture fair helps n otre d ame students learn about less well-known languages.

“This [week] gives students the chance to know that there are more languages, not only the big languages like s panish, French, Italian but in this case, for example, many people came to this table because they were interested in the embroidery activity, but then they started asking about the language, the Quechua language,” he explained. “ s o I think this is a great [idea] for the languages and for students to get to know that there are many other options, many other languages that they can study here.” m onica Jancha, an associate teaching professor for the department of romance languages and literature, explained how the culture fair helps the department reach out to students and celebrate the four romance languages studied by the department. s he mentioned the many student-run clubs related to romance languages and explained the role these organizations play in Foreign Language Week.

“You can connect with the students who might be interested in taking our languages or who already do take our languages to celebrate with them the cultures of our department,” Jancha said.

“There are student-run organizations for dance and music and performance and so it was really easy to reach out to them and invite and they’re usually here to participate, they participated last year and now this year,” she noted. “It is a nice place to give them the stage to highlight all the work they do.”

Contact Colleen Farrell at cfarre23@nd.edu

was deprived of any accommodations. d espite the difficulties, Perry said, Tolton remained a committed priest and continued his mission.

“Like all of the b lacks of his day, Tolton had to take all of the wacks and insults, and keep his dignity and the holiness of his priesthood,” Perry said.

Although Tolton may have preached almost a century and a half ago, b ishop Perry stood against the notion

“The 19th century which we like at first glance considered to be antiquated, backwards in its concepts of social relations,” Perry said, but Tolton’s time “presented a challenge that is set before us still to this day.”

While there are many b lack priests in the United s tates today, Perry noted, there is still a great degree of racial segregation between parishes, and there are only about three million b lack c atholics in the country. Perry urged Americans to confront these facts.

“The ideal parish is not one in which everyone looks alike, talks alike, shops at the same stores, wears the same clothing, sports the same hairdo, cheers for the same sports teams and votes for the same political candidates,” Perry argued. “The c hurch was never meant to be that comfortable.”

To Perry, much of blame for the lack of diversity in the c hurch rests on the historical exclusion of African Americans in the c hurch.

“ o rganized churches, on the other hand, have a mixed record with the acceptance of b lacks in their churches, participants and leadership-wise,” Perry said.

Perry urged the c hurch to confront its shameful past of racial discrimination and, in doing so, stay true to its teachings.

“ r acism is an evil because it attacks the inherent dignity of the human person created in the image and likeness of God,” he said. “The c hurch was meant to branch out to embrace every man, woman and child on the face of the earth.”

Contact Liam Kelly at lkelly8@nd.edu