THURSDAY March 17, 2016
THE DAILY ILLINI The he independent student newspaper at the University of Illinois since 1871
WWW.DAILYILLINI.COM
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Vol. 145 Issue 81
Making a home in C-U The Muslim experience in Central Illinois BY ABRAR AL-HEETI SUPPLEMENTS EDITOR
Editor’s note: The author of this story is an active member of the Central Illinois Mosque and Islamic Center, and has professional relationships with the sources contacted. We felt the need to be transparent with the context surrounding this piece. To read the author’s experiences writing this story, visit dailyillini.com. The red metal door subtly squeaks as hundreds of congregants flow in and out. In the foyer, the shelves are packed with shoes. Pink light-up sneakers are stacked next to brown leath-
er men’s boots. Additional shoes lay on the tile floor covered with rubber mats. Backpacks and purses line the entryway past the foyer as students stream in for weekly services between classes, doctors come clad in scrubs during their lunch breaks and local restaurant owners take a break from business to spend an hour in worship. It’s a typical Friday scene at the Central Illinois Mosque and Islamic Center. Every person lining the dark blue rows of carpet in the prayer hall is more than just a member of the Urbana mosque. They are the lawyers, engineers, businessmen, professors,
bus drivers, secretaries, accountants, mothers and teachers of the community. *** It’s easy to overlook the beige, gated mosque sandwiched between apartment complexes and a gas station on Lincoln and Springfield avenues. Across the street, a rising new apartment structure sits on the former site of a few old houses, reflecting a growing city. But the Central Illinois Mosque and Islamic Center, or CIMIC, is growing, too. The Friday congregation, which numbers at around 300 people, can no longer fit inside the prayer hall.
Many people sit in the surrounding multipurpose area to listen to the sermon. A second prayer service was added a few years ago to help solve the problem, and an expansion project involving the construction of an annex across the street is in the works. When Waleed Jassim, Champaign resident and longtime MusLILY KATZ THE DAILY ILLINI lim comSarah Safe, junior in LAS, participates in a vigil on March 3 honoring the munity victims of Sudanese descent killed in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Two of the young leadmen were Muslim and one was believed to be Christian. The event drew in a diverse crowd despite the rainy weather. Speakers addressed the tragedies SEE COMMUNITY | 3A facing Muslims and African-Americans in today’s social climate.
IN BETWEEN WORLDS The story of UI’s only deaf student
BY ALICE SMELYANSKY FEATURES EDITOR
Guadalupe Pineda grew up speaking two languages — English and a secret one. Her secret language isn’t exactly a mystery for others to solve. In fact, there are roughly 70 million people who speak it as a first language or mother tongue. But at the University, Guadalupe, a junior in LAS, has far fewer people to speak her secret language with. She is
the only deaf student on a campus of approximately 40,000, and not too many other students are familiar with English sign language. Just how she speaks two first languages, Guadalupe lives on the border of two worlds. In the hearing world, she communicates with her mother and eight-year-old sister, her friends at the University who don’t sign and the majority of people who she encounters on a day-to-day basis. In the deaf world, she speaks in her secret language with friends, works at a deaf church in Chicago and competes in Miss & Mister Deaf International. She knew coming to a hearing school would be difficult, but she didn’t expect it to be this difficult. “I thought I was going to graduate here and not worry about the challenges,” she said. “But now, I’m worried about the challenges and if I’m willing to take the risk, too.” The small battery-operated molds in her ears are her survival kit. Without her hearing aids, Guadalupe couldn’t live in both worlds.
Year driven by breaking news
to take them off as a child so she wouldn’t hear her mother’s voice yelling at her when they argued. At around first grade, Guadalupe learned sign language in school. “She was all over the place,” Guerrero said. “She never went to her home school. … I’m losing track of all the different places.” Guadalupe’s hometowns changed throughout the Chicagoland area. But many didn’t offer a program for deaf students. For high school, Guadalupe took a 45-minute bus ride to Hinsdale South High School, the closest, and best, school that offered a program for deaf students. It was only when Guadalupe was in middle school did she and her mother discover Illinois School for the Deaf, the only school in Illinois to provide residential programming for students who are hard of hearing or deaf. Though she later attended summer camp at the school in Jacksonville, Illinois, her mother didn’t want her at a school where she would only see her on the weekends. “How can parents just come and leave their 5-year-old there?” Guerrero questioned. “And not see her for the whole week or maybe two weeks?” But when Guadalupe attended high school, she was one of 85 deaf students at Hinsdale South. It was the perfect scenario for her — a mainstream education with a deaf program. And she misses it. “I am better in a (study) group,” she said. “But if it’s hearing, I get lost. What am I going to learn from that? With deaf people I can sign. I don’t get lost.”
Adapting in a hearing world When she was 18 months old, Guadalupe received her first pair of hearing aids. “I remember I took her for the first time to Mexico and before we left, I started noticing she would take (the hearing aids) off and throw them on the floor because she was not used to hearing anything loud,” Hortencia Guerrero, Guadalupe’s mother, said. “So I’m like ‘Wow, these hearing aids are going to have to stay here, because the last thing I need is her to lose them there.’” Guadalupe gradually adjusted to the hearing aids, though she admits she used
MEGAN JONES Editor-in-chief
In
my opening column as editor-in-chief, I asked The Daily Illini to expand our online presence. In August, I was sitting on a boat with my family, enjoying a calm relaxing day of fishing in northern Wisconsin. Suddenly, I received a text message with the DI’s worst nightmare regarding being prepared for breaking news: Phyllis Wise resigned as chancellor from the University. My beagle began barking, I began rushing around the boat trying to fi nd cell phone signal rocking all of the poles, as both of my parents stared at me with the blank look of “Who is Phyllis Wise?” Thanks to the University for having one of the most notable years in history for breaking news, we expanded our presence by continually breaking stories online. From coverage of Salaita to a complete overhaul in all top University administrator positions and an athletics department plagued with scandal — boy, did we have fun this year. We have been quoted by The New York Times four times. But none of that would have happened without the hard working journalists who spend each day at the DI. Some of the best work we did was when we were all involved and working together as a team, and I think this is part of the reason why we excelled at covering breaking news this year. While the stories we told will always stay with me, my favorite ones to tell will be the stories of us editors in the newsroom at 11 p.m., striving to create the best product possible. We have met some of their best friends at the DI, and it helps on a campus of 40,000 students to have one place you can go that’ll feel like home. Thank you to all the editors who helped play a part in this year. It wouldn’t have been possible without you, and we learned the most about journalism from each other. By 5 p.m. Friday, I will no longer be the editor-in-chief of The Daily Illini. Masaki Sugimoto is taking over and will continue the charge even further into this ever-so-changing industry. I’m heading back to the trenches as a beat reporter covering UI administration. Hopefully I’ll manage to write a few good stories next year that catch your eye, but what I will miss the most is working side-by-side with all the amazing editors here at the DI. Thank you for reading.
A language barrier There’s one subject that Guadalupe doesn’t have to worry about struggling in. In Susan Minnye Dramin Weiss’ American Sign Language classes, Guadalupe can practice what she once considered her secret language. “Everybody is so enthusiastic about communicating with her and they’re talking, and so I
SEE GUADALUPE | 3A
Majors and degree programs in Deaf/Hearing Impaired Education across the U.S.
Hearing Loss in the U.S. More than 90 percent of deaf children are born to hearing parents. Approximately 15 percent of American adults (37.5 million) aged 18 and over report some trouble hearing. About 2 to 3 out of every 1,000 children in the United States are born with a detectable level of hearing loss in one or both ears. SOURCE: NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON DEAFNESS AND OTHER COMMUNICATION DISORDERS
Megan is a junior in Media. majones5@dailyillini.com @MeganAsh_Jones
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Farewell thank you
Wrestling to nationals
Illini of the Week
The Editorial Board thanks its readers as members change as a part of turnover
Martinez, Richards in search of individual glory at Madison Square Garden
Jonathan Wells finished eighth at nationals, earned All-American honors
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