Activists attend rallies, conferences over Break

For some Oberlin students, Fall Break was actually a Fall bonding, as many students attended workshops and meetings throughout the Northwest aimed at bringing different communities together.

The College sponsored students who attended workshops, a marche and meetings over the week off in order to support a wider understanding of different groups on campus.

The Million Women's March was one of the school-sponsored events. Thirty students and ten community members went to the October 25 march in Philadelphia. The Multicultural Resource Center (MRC), Student Union (SU), and the office of the Dean of Student Life and Services sponsored an Oberlin group consisting mostly of black women, but it included other men and women of color.

Speakers at the march included keynote speaker Winnie Mandela, Congresswoman Maxine Waters and Minister Ava Muhammad. "The speakers brought everything together, particularly Maxine Waters," said Junior Adeola Oshodi, who attended the march. Waters spoke on the educational system and the incarceration of black people.

Sophomore Javiela Evangelista agreed that Waters was excellent.

Although the March has been criticized for being disorganized, Carmen Mitchell, African-American intern at the MRC, said, "It was a collaboration of many autonomous black women's groups at the grass roots level." She said, "I glad to go. The solidarity of being around black women was really inspiring."

"I felt it was well-organized. I think it's beautiful anytime that black women can come together for something positive," Evangelista said. "I felt bonding with the groups standing near me."

"Although a combination of the bad weather and a bad day weighed me down, the march made it better; people didn't know each other, but there was a general unity among the people," Oshodi said.

Evangelista purchased one poster that read, "And we march on, not away from what is or what was." She said, "[It] captured the essence of the march."

La Alianza, the College's Latino student organization, sponsored four Oberlin students going to the East Coast Chicano Student Forum Conference (ECCSF). Hosted by Harvard University's Mexican-American student group, the Raza, at Harvard on Oct. 24th and 25th, the ECCSF is composed of Oberlin, Harvard, Georgetown and Yale.

Its purpose, according to sophomore Bobbi Lopez, was to help with "providing funding for students to go to conferences like those over Fall break as well as to places that are predominantly Latino for recruitment into colleges. Students feel like they have to do this to recruit for our schools since the schools themselves are not."

This particular conference, one of multiple forums held by the ECCSF each year, centered on Latino student retention and recruitment and was entitled, "We're here, now what?"

The conference was run mostly by students, but it was "still high quality," according to MRC intern Adrian Bautista. Oberlin students went to "give support to the forum," Bautista said.

Lopez agreed. "It was a good conference because there was a lot of communication. It's just nice to go and realize that other schools are going through problems with attaining ethnic studies." She added, however, that, "Although Harvard has a much larger, well-developed Latino student body, they don't have the administrative support that Oberlin does."

Workshop topics included religion and spirituality, the role of Catholicism among Chicanos, mujerismo, which involves the role of women in the Church, as well as maschismo, the stereotype of Mexican-American males. Workshop organizers planned to discuss homosexuality and homophobia among the Latino community in future workers.

The College also sent sophomores Noranne Toth and Durga Roy to Brown University with Associate Dean of Students Bill Stackman to talk about college religious experiences. The forum was titled "Religious Pluralism, Spirituality and Higher Education." The conference was sponsored by the Office of Chaplains and the office of the Dean of Student Life and Services.

"The conference was about planning for long term redefining of the role of religious groups and religious pluralism in higher education, basically in the 21st century," Toth said. "It was a great time. It tied into a lot of things personally, especially going to Oberlin where there's such a diverse religious community."

Roy represented the Hindu religion and Toth represented Christianity.

"We ended up leading a discussion about Christianity and Hinduism that was so great we talked about it for the entire trip. We look forward to going back next time."