Students return from break immersions in El Salvador

By Richard Nieva

Moments after Patty Hua got back to campus Saturday night, she looked at the eight small crosses dug into the soil in front of the Mission Church and thought to herself, "I'll never look at these the same way again."

That's because she was a part of one of two different student groups who traveled to San Salvador, El Salvador, over spring break and visited the site where six Jesuits and two other bystanders were killed in 1989. The crosses serve as a memorial to their lives.

The two groups consisted of business students on one trip and art students on the other. Although these were only two out of the several spring break immersion trips, these two were unique in that they were both tied to an academic course.

The business trip was tied to a winter quarter weekly lecture series, so the group could bond for 10 weeks before they left. The arts trip was tied to a social justice and the arts course which paved the way for hands-on application of producing social change through art. Though the trips ran independently of one another, the groups met up twice during their immersion, once to honor the 28th anniversary of Oscar Romero's death, and once to eat El Salvadorian food.

The business trip, which was co-funded by a Bannan Grant and the Leavey Business School, was coordinated by senior business majors Kyle Ozawa and Sam Baker and moderated by management professor John Toppel.

The 13 students that participated finished finals before flying to the war-torn country, still reeling from a civil war that lasted 12 years and devastating earthquakes that shook the country in 2001.

The business students, who had all learned about economy theory in their required courses, wanted to see firsthand how the economic issues affect the people of El Salvador.

"We've all learned about the thematic issues, like what happens when a fair trade agreement is enacted, or when there's a shift in industry from agriculture. But we wanted to see the humanistic side," said Ozawa.

It was this human presence that made the most impact for many participants. Ozawa recalled staying in the poorest parts of the rural countryside and thinking to himself, "How can these people be so much happier than us?"

The group even participated in a pick-up soccer game with some of the local community members that at first ended in a stalemate, though the home team eventually won in penalty kicks.

"I bled for my country," said sophomore Michael Gibler jokingly, lifting his shorts a bit to display the scab on his knee.

But the trip was not merely observational. The business students also raised $1,000 through fees and personal donations in the form of a microloan for the city -- a loan with no interest to be paid back -- to be spent on building a better irrigation system for the community of Santa Maria de la Esperanza.

The current system consists of a brick square and a meager pump, while a more efficient system would allow community members to yield more crops for capital, said Ozawa, who added that one of the real joys for the participants was seeing their time and funds put to good use.

The arts trip was moderated by Aldo and Renee Billingslea, musical theater chair and a professor in the art department, respectively, and was coordinated by senior Maureen McKenzie and junior Ashley Borchardt.

With 11 students participating, the arts trip was one-of-a-kind in that it was the first immersion trip ever to be completely inspired by the arts -- that is, dance, theater, music and visual arts, said Kristin Kusanovich, co-director of the Justice and the Arts Initiative, along with Aldo Billingslea.

Christians for Peace in El Salvador, an organization which regularly creates itineraries for immersion trips at many universities, developed a different kind of schedule for the group, which it had never created for any trip before.

The arts group wanted to look at different social problems facing El Salvador though the lens of the art. They found various arts groups, such as dance and sculpting groups, that were operating in very poor areas, said Kusanovich.

McKenzie recalled watching a local B-boy crew, the Veracruz Breakers, whose members credit the break dancing group in keeping them out of gangs. After the crew performed, they asked if the Santa Clara dancers could perform for them.

Without any notice or practice, the dancers in the group did an impromptu performance, much to the appreciation of the local community members.

"It was amazing. They were just as excited to see our form of dance as we were to see theirs," said Jessica de Leon, a junior dance major.

Participants got to tour the future Centro Arte de la Paz, a community art center still in construction, and also got to visit the national university to speak with first-year art students, exchanging personal experiences, said McKenzie.

Since Spanish proficiency was not a prerequisite for the trip, verbal communication was difficult at times, but McKenzie found other ways to express herself.

"The arts is such a great way to communicate without language," she said.

Contact Richard Nieva at (408) 554-4546 or rnieva@scu.edu.