| Augsburg Now |
 |
| Augsburg College > Augsburg Now |
|
|
|
||||
|
|
Editor's note: News/media director Dan Benson and I were fortunate to accompany two of the Interim travel classes in JanuaryDan went with a class on a bus tour through the U.S. South, visiting places of historic importance to the civil rights movement. I traveled to Cuernavaca, Mexico, with a Center for Global Education course. Seeing through their eyes . . . 
| . . . walking in their shoes | Twenty Weekend College students, co-instructor Don Christensen and I set off from snowy Minnesota for Mexico - not for a week of fun-in-the-sun, but to study Religion 366, Mexico: The Church and Social Change in Latin America. It was a chance to briefly encounter a culture with which we were unfamiliar, or knew only as tourists. Already on the first morning there, our immersion began. For an assignment called the Cuernavaca Quest, we were sent into the city, in groups of three, without translators or guides, to visit the main plaza, the cathedral and the central market. We had to purchase a kilo of frijoles and check out the prices of several common household items. Upon returning to Casa CEMAL, Augsburg's study center and our home for the week, we were asked to list words describing what we saw, heard and smelled in the city. Our week's activities included visits to historical sites, lectures on Mexican history, a visit to a convent to hear the story of the Virgin of Guadalupe and discussion of liberation theology, the Catholic movement of the 1960s and '70s that put social and theological focus on the plight of the poor in Latin America. The real learning during the week, however, came from the people we met and the stories and experiences they shared. We met women struggling to confront the social norms that have limited their roles to being mothers and housewives. We saw the strength they've found in the small, neighborhood Base Christian Community groups that grew out of liberation theology, giving them dignity and voice to seek education and work. In the small indigenous town of Tepotzlán, we met members of a women's cooperative who successfully led a three-year struggle with the government (at times violent) to prevent the building of a golf course and country club that would usurp their crop land and pollute the environment. But by the end of the week, we discovered that the real lesson was within ourselves - we had to learn to see Mexican culture through their eyes in order to truly understand. In looking back on the initial Cuernavaca Quest assignment, we realized that we saw, heard and felt the city from our own cultural perspectives, by allowing our own past experiences to influence what we saw and felt. "I imposed my own culture instead of taking their culture into myself," said one student. Another added, "We all had our lists - gotta do this, gotta do that. That's how we approached the quest, like North Americans." And this speaks directly to the goals of the Center for Global Education's travel seminars and courses-that by gaining better understanding of social issues locally and globally, we can make more informed decisions within ourselves and our communities relating to social justice. Jon Sobrino, the author of our class text on liberation theology, concluded a seminar once by saying, "Let the people in Latin America keep moving you when you return home." Patricia Hume, our Mexican co-instructor, brought it home for us-"Keep the images of this week in your hearts, like the pictures you took." 
Twenty-three Augsburg students became immersed in civil rights history during the Interim course Civil Rights Immersion. Following two weeks of study, the students embarked on a 10-day bus trip to the South, stopping in cities where historic civil rights events happened. Leading the tour were the course instructors, sociology professor Garry Hesser and Pan-Afrikan Center director Joe Young. In Little Rock, Ark., the journey's first stop, students met Elizabeth Eckford, one of "The Little Rock 9," who in September 1957 faced an angry mob as she and eight other African-American students walked to Central High School to integrate it. Meeting Eckford was the most memorable part of the trip for freshman Sophia Thompson. "[Listening to Eckford] made me realize that the past can't go away," Thompson said. "It's gonna always hurt. It's always gonna be there, but you have to grow from it. You can't erase it, you can't forget it. You just have to take it as a learning experience and learn from it and keep moving on." In Memphis, Tenn., the students toured the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in April 1968. "Standing and looking at the spot where Martin Luther King died had the most impact," said sophomore Nekesha May. "I just couldn't believe that I was actually there at the hotel where he was shot, looking at where he lay after he was dead." While many of the tour stops emphasized history, the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., offered perspective on current events. Internationally known for its tolerance education program and the tracking and prosecuting of hate groups, the center raised questions for sophomore Amanda Hasz from Mitchell, S.D. "I noticed on the map that in South Dakota there weren't any hate groups listed," Hasz said, "but then I realized that there is so much racism there, but it is all real subtle and undercover. I started thinking, is it worse to have hate groups and know the people who hate you, or is it worse to not know if people hate you, or to not know what they are thinking?'" Some sites prompted students to try to place themselves in the historical events. Senior Matt Lang imagined walking over the Edmund Pettus Bridge (Selma, Ala.) with thousands of people in a 1965 march for voting rights. "I was envisioning the troops , just expecting them to be there, sitting there waiting for us to come over the bridge," said Lang, "and it kind of made me think sadness, anger, just trying to put myself in that situation." In Atlanta, students toured the Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for Non-Violence and King's boyhood home and worshipped at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King, like his father and grandfather, served as pastor. Other stops included Nashville and Chicago. Offering this course was important in the context of Augsburg's mission and commitment to intentional diversity, Hesser explained. "I think its importance was captured by one of the students, who said that what made the course especially valuable was having two instructors - one white and one black - work together in a way that mirrored what was being taught in the course," Hesser said. "This student said seeing how Joe and I enjoyed teaching this course together-making use of and affirming our differences-brought more meaning and a deeper understanding of the issues we were studying, and set the stage for our travels together." Young said he hopes the class will have an impact on furthering race relations at Augsburg. "We wanted the immersion experience to address issues of race relations, and to particularly address the issue of relations between African-Americans and European-Americans," Young said, "because race relations in its greatest form is a black-and-white issue, with struggles that date back to the beginning of slavery." |
|||
| Copyright 2007.
Augsburg College all rights reserved. |
