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The Skatalites teach new ska some old tricks. See the review of The House of Blues Show in Detour. Pg. 6
English department not loyal to Bookstore TUESDAY
VOLUME 66, ISSUE 12
By CINDY JIMENEZ Daily Titan Staff Writer
Joan Greenwood has a long memory. Ten and a half years ago the tenured Cal State Fullerton English professor put her book order in at the Titan Bookstore on Oct.1. She found out later that the order was not placed until Jan. 24, too late to have the book available to her students for the beginning of the semester. This oversight caused her to take her business to an off-campus vendor. The Little Professor has been that vendor ever since.
Asians in financial dilemma
n PROTEST: Because of past headaches, many English professors get their books through The Little Professor, but
Titan Shops still feels it can provide more convenient service. Greenwood said the English Department had many problems with the bookstore in the past. “The Little Professor turned in book orders on time,” Greenwood said, referring back to her bad experience with the bookstore. “I will never, never change from Little Professor.” Greenwood, along with other instructors in the English Department and other departments at CSUF, have had book ordering problems in the past with the bookstore causing delays in books being
available to students. This one problem seems to be a main reason instructors are looking elsewhere for their book business. Even as recently as three years ago, the bookstore did not order a required book for one of Greenwood’s collegues the same book Greenwood used and students were told by the bookstore to buy them at Little Professor, where Greenwood had her book. This caused a shortage of books for both classes. English professor Joan Gass has had
similar problems, claiming that the bookstore did not call her when her books were not ordered for the Mission Viejo campus. They told her there was a problem getting her book but when she checked with the book publisher herself she found out this was not true. She wrote to the Titan bookstore to complain but she said she never received a response. “I now am a part of a group of people who use off-campus bookstores,” Gass said. “They call if there is a problem.”
Cal State Fullerton alumnus Robert Nguyen has gone to war and to prison, but he has never given up his fight to eliminate discrimination.
crises overseas effects CSUF’s Asian enrollment; the campus community extends itself to international students here at home. By MITCH GREENWOOD Daily Titan Staff Writer
see ASIAN/
English instructor Howard Seller is a regular customer of The Little Professor but admits that the bookstore is doing good “at the moment.” “I’ve developed a loyalty to The Little Professor,” Seller said. They are very conscientious, checking with him when book orders need to be addressed, he said. Sellar said he now uses The Little Professor out of loyalty, not because of past problems with the bookstore. Titan Shops director Jerry Olson said
that they know years ago they did something wrong. “When we have made our mistakes we have mended them,” he said. Olson said he does not want to control all book orders. “If we had all acquisitions we would take away 50 to 60 percent of off-campus books,” Olson said. “(They can) stay loyal to whoever they want. It is difficult for the bookstore to be the primary source of materials if some instructors refuse to deal with the bookstore, Olson said.
see ENGLISH/
Soldier against prejudice
n IMPACT: Asian currency
Imagine the fear of waking up one morning and the money you saved for college and other expenses had vanished. All of sudden you have no money to pay for school or living costs. You’re left with the choice of finding a way to earn money or dropping out of school. This fear is a reality for some Asian students at Cal State Fullerton, because of the economic problems in Asia. Many Asian students come to CSUF from their home countries to improve their education with the hope of giving their families a better future. Many families make great sacrifices to send their children to CSUF. Now, because the currency in some Asian countries is losing its value compared to the American dollar, some Asian families are discovering that they cannot afford to keep their children in school abroad. The economic crisis has dashed hopes and dreams. Asian students who came looking for a better future are having to return home feeling empty and unfulfilled. One Japanese student, who wished to remain anonymous, had to struggle with the decision of quitting school and going home. “I came to this country to gain an education so that I could return home and help my family and my people,” the student said. “For a year-and-a-half things were going great until this past summer my father lost his job as a high school teacher and told me he could not send me any more money for school. The news was devastating to me. I didn’t know how I was going to pay for school and my living costs. Fortunately I had some money saved up to pay for this semester. However, I do not know what I am going to do in the near future, because the money is running out. Cultural values in many Asian countries are closely tied to the work people do. As a result, when an economic crisis like this happens the people take it as a personal reflection on themselves and it causes great embarassment for people in some countries. Then you have an added complication of some cultural issues here, said Bob Ericksen, director of the International Student Office. These students are in all cases from the most impacted countries . . . where this whole situation has brought great embarassment and shame to those students. Many of them are reluctant to come share their problems with us. That is very unfortunate. The International Student Office at CSUF is trying to help Asian students
MARCH 5, 1998
RON SOLIMAN/Daily Titan
Anthropology major Robert Nghiem Nguyen graduated from Cal State Fullerton in January 1998 with honors. Memories of Nguyen includes the photos (right) of him when he was a high ranking officer in the Vietnamese Army, and a picture
By LAURIE SCHULTZ Daily Titan Staff Writer
The Cal State Fullerton graduate motions to the couch, where he is seated. He says he had the first of his three strokes in a cell approximately the same size as the couch. Robert Nghiem Nguyen, 68, faces his brick fireplace, decorated with dolls and miniature musical instruments, from his faraway homeland. Looking at his native keepsakes reminds him of his life’s mission that, despite a nine year interruption, has consumed his entire life. Before 1975, Nguyen studied an ethnic minority in Vietnam, a group of people he called the Montagnards—or “mountain peasants”—as part of his military duties. He urged the Vietnamese government, which had persecuted them for many years, to treat them justly. “My Montagnard friends and soldiers were my professors, and their villages were my universities,” Nguyen wrote in a paper detailing his life. But in 1975, Nguyen, who was a soldier in the South Vietnamese army, was captured when the North Vietnamese took over the country. He spent the next nine years as a prisoner of the new communist regime. While in the prison, Nguyen suffered a stroke, temporarily paralyzing him and giving him double vision for two years. But his sight did return and his double vision did not blind him from his life’s mission: to help end racial discrimination in Vietnam and in the United States. Nine years after entering the prison, Nguyen was released and he picked up where he left off combatting prejudice. Studying the persecuted The Vietnamese government had been forcing
the Montagnards to assimilate into the Vietnamese culture too quickly, Nguyen says. In 1957, President Ngo Dinh Diem abolished their right to own land. The Vietnamese government did not allow the Montagnard’s children to be taught in the elementary schools and destroyed their textbooks On September 20, 1964, the Montagnards revolted against the Vietnamese government. Four other generals ordered Khanh to negotiate with them. Thus, Nguyen says, he helped avert a civil war. In 1967, the U.S. Department of States invited him to tour the United Stated to examine and study the problems of America’s ethnic minorities: the Polynesian-Americans in Hawaii, the African-Americans in Harlem, the Indians on a Navajo reservation in Arizona and the Chinese Americans in San Francisco. “When I visited the U.S ethnic minorities, I was so sad. So very concerned,” Nguyen said, as his tears gently soaked his eyes. “On a Cherokee reservation in North Carolina, I heard of the Trail of Tears. I cried so much. I hoped I contributed a part of a better understanding between cultures.” When speaking of his visits with African Americans, he said, “After the slaves were liberated, they had nothing, no land. They went up North to labor and the poverty cycle continues even now.” Becoming the persecuted Nguyen says he was prepared to die. When he was in prison, he went as far as befriending a Catholic priest, who annointed him with oil and performed last rites. “I could hear everything, but could not move even as the ants were biting me,” Nguyen said.
see NGUYEN/ 3
Cultural diversity often hidden under campus’ nose n CULTURES: CSUF’s
exchange students discuss culture shock they experience in America. By LAURIE SCHULTZ Daily Titan Staff Writer
Many people only see the visible, tangible aspects of culture. Some students do not perceive the culture any deeper than the Mexican dancers they see on Cinco De Mayo. The values, assumptions and unwritten rules of the Mexican culture often go unnoticed. “Culture is like an iceberg,” said Bob Ericksen, the director of the International and Exchange Office. “Ninety percent of it is below the surface.” According to Ericksen, 1,200 international and 3,000 immigrant students attend Cal State Fullerton. Fumiyo Araki, the international student adviser, was an exchange student in high school and college. She said she was constantly traveling back and forth from the United States and Japan. Araki earned her master’s degree in speech communications at CSUF. She married a man from Chile whose family mainly spoke Spanish. Not only did she work with foreign students during the day, but she came home to a husband of a different culture.
“My life story has been a constant culture shock,”Araki said. Lay Tuan McCarroll, the associate director of the International Education and Exchange Office, can sympathize with international students because she used to be one of them. McCarroll is also dealing with her bicultural child who sometimes asks her, “Mommy, why isn’t my hair as black as yours?” Darren Miller, a CSUF student born in Ireland, spent six years in England and attended high school in SouthAfrica. “When I came to America at 17, I had a massive culture shock. I was like a nun getting out of a convent for the first time. Carl’s Jr. was open 24 hours a day. There was so much more freedom. It was like I got dropped in the fast lane and was going from 25 miles an hour to 65 miles an hour in zero seconds,” Miller said. Ericksen said one of the dominant traits of American culture is individualism. Miller said this individualism is like a double swinging door. “On one hand, Americans will pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. On the other hand, they are willing to step on any one to get what they want,” Miller said. Yasuito Nakamishi, a student assistant at the International and Exchange Office, said his fellow Japanese are very group-oriented, unlikeAmericans.
RON SOLIMAN/Daily Titan
Bob Ericksen, director of Cal State Fullerton’s International Student Exchange program, works with students from a wide range of backgrounds. “Where you are working it is a big part of who you are, your title and where you belong. “Keeping in harmony with group members is important. Conflict is seen as nega-
Copyright ©1998, Daily Titan
tive. For example, in a T.V. advertisement in Japan, a company would never compare its brand of car with another using the specific name of its company,” Nakamishi said. One aspect of American culture that
suprised Nakamishi when he first arrived at CSUF was that students did not view professors as authority figures like they do in Japan. He also found that students did not engage
see INTL/