Sports | 5
Opinion | 6
Religion | 6
Lifestyle | 7
Latin American athletes
Torn between two worlds
Latin churches vs. American churches
Local Latin eateries
October 10, 2019 Collegedale, Tennessee
Southern Accent
Vol. 75 Issue 5
The student voice since 1926
LAC night to wrap up heritage month Letter
from LAC President
Joel Guerra News Editor Southern’s Latin American Club (LAC) will top off its Latin American Heritage Month activities with an ancient-civilizations-themed LAC Night this Saturday starting at 9 p.m. Similar to past years, the event will consist of Latino food, pre-show performances and a main play prepared and carried out by the club’s officers and members. The show has been in the works since the middle of January when the club began searching for a LAC Night Director and Kevin Acosta was chosen a few weeks later. Acosta said that he prayed and spoke with his mother before accepting the role a couple of days later. However, he claims he had the idea of focusing the play on ancient civilizations almost as soon as he was granted the role of director.
Something I really wanted to do this year was to make ancient characters relatable. Times change but people don’t. Acosta believes people tend to
Julio Hernandez Contributor
LAC 2019-2020 officers pose during LAC Vespers. Photo courtesy of Joshua Perez
prefer modern stories because they can relate to them, but he believes that students will still be able to connect to the more ancient tale. “I actually don’t think, especially the Aztecs, get a lot of representation,” Acosta said. “Something I really wanted to do this year was to make ancient characters relatable. Times change but people don’t.” Acosta believes the show’s ancient characters experienced similar struggles and aspects of life as people do today. “They struggled with things like love, and they struggled with betrayal, and they struggled with death and things that
haunt everyone up to this day,” Acosta said. “They were people too, and I think the story will be able to hopefully reach out to people’s hearts.” Kyle Salas, the play’s lead actor, expressed that the setting of a play rather than a musical gives room for “more fight scenes, more action.” Salas and LAC President Julio Hernandez said that while the club may face criticism over the play’s focus on an ancient population that only represents people of Mexican descent, they felt that it was easier to highlight one main culture during the play than trying to encompass all the different countries.
This is why, according to Hernandez, LAC has worked extremely hard to represent all of Latin America through the other parts of the night, as well as other events they have held throughout the month. The preshow will consist of musical and dance performances representing the various regions of Latin America, and so will the food. Besides LAC Night, to celebrate Latin American Heritage Month, the club has sold food every Tuesday of the celebratory month from different regions of Latin America. To represent the various regions and cultures, the club deconstructed Latin See LAC on page 2
For the most part of my life, I was distant from my Mexican culture. I grew up around my heritage but at the same time, I did not connect with it as much as everyone else around me. The only aspect I connected with was the food, but who doesn’t love good homemade Mexican food? As I look back, I think one of the reasons I felt distant was because I did not enjoy the loudness of our get togethers, or that we were always going to either a quinceañera or a wedding. As a kid I just did not like going to these events; it was just not my thing.
However, years later, it was here at Southern where I started to appreciate my Latin culture more and fully connect with it. However, years later, it was here at Southern where I started to appreciate and connect with See LETTER on page 3
Hurricane Dorian: The aftermath
Maddy Thomas highlights corrections to the Senate Constitution. Photo by Estefania Sanchez-Mayorquin
Senate proposes constitution changes
Sarah Klingbeil Lead Reporter
Bemis shared his motivations for the change.
Student Association (SA) Secretary, Dakota Bemis, proposed changes to Southern’s SA Constitution in order to update its policies. According to Bemis, the proposed changes are meant to clarify, polish and update the SA Constitution to reflect the current practices of the association. Bemis started this process at the beginning of the school year as part of his parliamentarian duties. Since then, he has become the SA secretary but he plans on finishing the process rather as there is no current parliamentarian. As the former Parliamentarian for the SA,
Part of the parliamentarian’s job is going through and making sure that everyone is following the constitution. “None of the documents have been updated since December of 2015,” Bemis said. “Part of the parliamentarian’s job is going through and making sure that everyone is following the constitution...I just had to become familiar with it and as I was looking at [the policies], there’s a lot of things in here that we haven’t been doing.” As stated in the SA Senate Minutes for Sept. 25, the proSee SENATE on page 2
Hurricane causes houses to flood. Photo courtesy of Myles Dean
Zach Roberts Sports Editor Myles Dean, a sophomore business management major, is from the Bahamas. His family was on the Grand Bahama Island when Hurricane Dorian hit. Initially after the storm, the last form of communication Dean had with his family was an “SOS” from his aunt posted on Facebook. She was asking to be rescued from his grandmother’s house. It was about two weeks later that he was informed that all of his family was safe and well. Though they were mostly displaced and suffered major damage to their homes, they survived. “It was heart wrenching as I watched the destruction on the news,” Dean said. “The only
thing I had to lean on was my faith in God, knowing that God had them.” Southern has formed disaster relief teams, according to uQuest. In fact, there were signups and a call for a team this year when Hurricane Dorian hit. Southern gathered a team, or a pool of applicants, and waited. This time, however, a team was not needed because the university relief partner company, To Serve, did not send anyone.
Southern gathered a team, or a pool of applicants, and waited. This time, however, a team was not needed because the university relief partner company, To Serve, did not send anyone. Instead of being frustrated about it, uQuest Missions director, Melissa Moore, said it is always good to be proactive. “That’s why we were recruiting on the front end to just see, if anyone was interested and if we could even get a group together,” Moore said. “We were intending to volunteer with [To Serve] and they had no volunteer need.” Moore believes it is a good thing that students applied and will continue to apply in the event of a disaster because proactiveness is essential in a situa-
tion like that. “The worst time to plan for a disaster is in the middle of the disaster,” Moore said. She encourages students to keep their applications and to continue signing up for a relief team. “[The students] are now part of our on-call pool,” Moore said. If there’s another disaster that happens, then we can already draw from this pool.” “I’m glad there’s something being done to help, even if they didn’t need to go,” Dean said. Students can sign up for a relief team at southern.edu/ administration/chaplain/ministries/uquest/trips.html.
High waters flood car. Photo courtesy of Myles Dean