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Latino-Native American Cultural Center newspaper clippings, 1970-2001
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The Daily Iowan--Iowa City, Iowa--Tuesday September 8, 1981--Page 11 [photo] Two dancers rest during a break Friday night in the Union Main Lounge. The Daily Iowan/Wei-Kang Wang [photo] Many native American parents are beginning to put emphasis on educating their children in tribal customs, such as dancing at the pow wow. The Daily Iowan/Bill Baxson Cultural center celebrations told to work for change By Cal Woods Staff Writer There is no such thing as an Hispanic people in the United States; there is only an Hispanic label, Samuel Betances, an authority on ethnicity and multicultural education, said Saturday night. Betances, a sociology professor at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago, addressed about 50 people at the 10th anniversary celebration of the Chicano/Native American Cultural Center Saturday night. Betances said Hispanic is a misunderstood label given to Chicanos, Mexican Americans, Columbians, Puerto Ricans and others. "The point is the Hispanic label does not describe a people but it describes an umbrella under which many different peoples get grouped for many different reasons, some of them not good," Betances said. It has become "an administrative label that often times does violence to one's search for ethnicity and identity." Betances was born in Harlem, spent his early childhood in Puerto Rico and later returned to Harlem and southern Bronx. Students at the school Betances attended in New York were classified as black, white and other. Ninety percent of the people in his school were "other," he said. "We objected to being 'other' ... We want to matter, but to matter in the United States is tricky," Betances said "There are good things in the United States culture that I wouldn't trade for anything, like the freedom right now that I have to speak to you citizen to citizen, to be critical and to feel comfortable that I can walk out of here and feel free. But there are some things in America "that I don't like, that stink," he said. "We have a heterogeneous society but we have homogeneous values as to what is beautiful. I want you to know that I am beautiful not in spite of the black that's in my culture, but because of it." Betances said he found it ironic when people say to those who choose to retain their ethnic identity, "Why don't you be an American?" "No one is more American than a Chicano," he said. "If you tell me a Chicano 'Go back where you came from,' he would go back to Texas, California, Arizona, New Mexico. The Chicano did not come to America, American came to the Chicano," Betances said. If prejudices and biases are to be broken down Chicanos and Native Americans will have to become actively involved in the processes of change, he said. "Let me just challenge you to use the university experience as a time to explore what it means to be a member of one of those groups that is labeled Hispanic and explore the ways in which we can build a diplomacy with the Native American population, with the black population and with ourselves across generations. "We have a unique responsibility to make something that comes close to the very, very ideals of this society. If we are indeed going to matter, if this organization is going to have another 10 years, they're going to need people who have a conscience, people who care, people who will work ... so that we may make ourselves agents of history for the betterment of us all." [photo] Samuel Betances The Daily Iowan/Bill Paxson
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The Daily Iowan--Iowa City, Iowa--Tuesday September 8, 1981--Page 11 [photo] Two dancers rest during a break Friday night in the Union Main Lounge. The Daily Iowan/Wei-Kang Wang [photo] Many native American parents are beginning to put emphasis on educating their children in tribal customs, such as dancing at the pow wow. The Daily Iowan/Bill Baxson Cultural center celebrations told to work for change By Cal Woods Staff Writer There is no such thing as an Hispanic people in the United States; there is only an Hispanic label, Samuel Betances, an authority on ethnicity and multicultural education, said Saturday night. Betances, a sociology professor at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago, addressed about 50 people at the 10th anniversary celebration of the Chicano/Native American Cultural Center Saturday night. Betances said Hispanic is a misunderstood label given to Chicanos, Mexican Americans, Columbians, Puerto Ricans and others. "The point is the Hispanic label does not describe a people but it describes an umbrella under which many different peoples get grouped for many different reasons, some of them not good," Betances said. It has become "an administrative label that often times does violence to one's search for ethnicity and identity." Betances was born in Harlem, spent his early childhood in Puerto Rico and later returned to Harlem and southern Bronx. Students at the school Betances attended in New York were classified as black, white and other. Ninety percent of the people in his school were "other," he said. "We objected to being 'other' ... We want to matter, but to matter in the United States is tricky," Betances said "There are good things in the United States culture that I wouldn't trade for anything, like the freedom right now that I have to speak to you citizen to citizen, to be critical and to feel comfortable that I can walk out of here and feel free. But there are some things in America "that I don't like, that stink," he said. "We have a heterogeneous society but we have homogeneous values as to what is beautiful. I want you to know that I am beautiful not in spite of the black that's in my culture, but because of it." Betances said he found it ironic when people say to those who choose to retain their ethnic identity, "Why don't you be an American?" "No one is more American than a Chicano," he said. "If you tell me a Chicano 'Go back where you came from,' he would go back to Texas, California, Arizona, New Mexico. The Chicano did not come to America, American came to the Chicano," Betances said. If prejudices and biases are to be broken down Chicanos and Native Americans will have to become actively involved in the processes of change, he said. "Let me just challenge you to use the university experience as a time to explore what it means to be a member of one of those groups that is labeled Hispanic and explore the ways in which we can build a diplomacy with the Native American population, with the black population and with ourselves across generations. "We have a unique responsibility to make something that comes close to the very, very ideals of this society. If we are indeed going to matter, if this organization is going to have another 10 years, they're going to need people who have a conscience, people who care, people who will work ... so that we may make ourselves agents of history for the betterment of us all." [photo] Samuel Betances The Daily Iowan/Bill Paxson
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