Vol. 115, Issue 20 March 20, 2014
The BEacon
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The Student Voice of the University of Portland Since 1935
News, p. 4-5
UP alum presents video at SXSW
See the Beacon’s pick for ASUP presidential team 2014-2015 Opinions, p. 13
Living, p. 6
Week in Haiti and Arizona incites passion to serve
Photo courtesy of Amanda Ewing
Photo courtesy of Kay Bodmer
Photo courtesy of Marissa Kelly
(Top left) Sophomore Kealey Johnson and junior Lauren Anneberg playing with Haitian children. (Bottom left) Senior Nick MacKinnon gives a talk about the importance of smiling to students at a vacation bible school in Haiti. (Right, from left) Senior Nicole Simard, freshman Estefania Morales, sophomores Noah Forrest, Zarah Gaeta (both in the back), junior Aurora Myers, junior Marissa Kelly, junior Erika Murphy, juniors Erin Savoia, Gonzalo Garay-Romero, sophomores Linda Hong and Sharon Cortez.
Students embarked on a self-created service trip to help build homes and foster relationships in Haiti Nastacia Voisin Staff Writer voisin15@up.edu On the seven-hour truck ride down from the Haitian mountain village of Thiotte, Amanda Ewing and Tara Benavente were already plotting a return journey. The senior social workers had spent their fall break under the unforgiving Caribbean sun replacing tin roofs, building relationships with villagers and testing the limits of strength. Both women returned to UP convinced they needed to share their stories and inspire others to follow them back to Haiti. “I developed such a passion for these people and this country, and I know how God’s presence can completely transform
people’s lives there,” Ewing said. “I wanted people to be part of that experience.” Over spring break Ewing and Benavente led 23 UP students and two hall directors on a service trip to Haiti – the result of over a year of planning, fundraising and teamwork. In Haiti the group divided their time between working to expand a church and helping with a Bible school program. Each day half the team would labor at the church worksite in Mariani while the other half visited schools – some with up to 600 children – telling Bible stories, teaching songs and building friendships. “There was a lot of selfsacrifice and hard work,” Benavente said. “The days were long and hard and
people were definitely tired. But when we did our debriefing, the consensus was that it was a life changing experience for everyone.” Days spent mixing cement, digging the foundations of a church and interacting with people amid the extreme poverty of tent villages was challenging for some students, a few who had never left the States before. The team learned to communicate with a mixture of English, Spanish, Haitian Creole, gestures and smiles. They adapted to the Haitian way of keeping a flexible schedule, and stepped outside their comfort zones to connect with the people See HAITI, page 3
Students learn about the reality of life as an undocumented immigrant on the Border Immersion trip Olivia Alsept-Ellis Staff Writer alseptel14@up.edu The warmth of Tucson, Ariz. welcomed a Moreau Center immersion this spring break, but the students saw for themselves the tense political environment for undocumented immigrants living so close to the wall – the structure that marks the border between the United States and Mexico. Two students, seniors Jeffrey Kuang and Elizabeth Polsin, felt the Border Service and Learning Immersion gave them far more than an academic education about political tensions. The multifaceted approach to the trip allowed them to learn about American immigration from a wide
variety of sources such as nonprofits, federal judges, governmental facilities and locals – like a rancher who lived only 20 miles from the border. They even walked into the desert to pay homage at the memorials for those who died while trying to cross onto American soil. The immersion trip left the group troubled over the American treatment of immigrants, yet inspired and motivated to create awareness. “I will always picture the wall, just there. With myself on one side and a whole other community on the other. And just that image makes me really angry,” Polsin said. “It’s really important to expose people to the injustices.” Pat Ell, assistant director for leadership
development in the Moreau Center, said the trip offers a tangible understanding of these issues. “It becomes more real. You’re actually, physically in a place. You talk to real people,” Ell said. “You get a thorn stuck in your foot, or something, and feel how hot it is. And we were only walking for an hour, instead of three days.” Kuang said he learned how the legal system in Arizona was designed to act against the undocumented immigrant living in the U.S. They listened to a judge, who quoted American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.: “This is not a court of justice, young man, this is a court of law.” See BORDER IMMERSION, page 3