Winter 1999
Volume 4, Issue 9

THIS ISSUE

CARLOS ALVARADO: UNEDITED

EDITORIAL: LOOKING BOTH WAYS

POETRY CORNER

THE 1999 FORMAL

Carlos Alvarado Un-Edited

FL=Flying Lambda
CA=Carlos Alavarado

The FlyingLambda found our ex-president Carlos Alvarado comfortably sitting at his desk at the front of a classroom in his hometown of Weslaco, Texas. Carlos, part of the original founding class of LKK, was President of the lambdas from the Fall of 95 to summer 96. FY: How are you doing? CA: I am not drinking as much, so you can say I am a little healthier. I enjoy being around my family, and I am having a decent overall time. FY: How is work going? CA: Working for my dad is tough because he doesn't listen to me half the time so he always does something I have to go and clean up, but it is okay, because their is someone now to clean it up. As for being a teacher at my old high school it is great! Everyone knows me so I get a lot of things done for me like copies, library reservations, computers and other stuff. It is really nice. FY: When at work, do you see yourself as a hispanic teacher? What do you think your students see? CA: Something interesting came up today that bothered me a lot. I have ALL mexican students with the exception of one, but the way they divide themselves is quite frightening. THere are the more "mexican" kids, and the "preppie" kids. I assigned two students to work together who were of opposite "groups", and they refused to work together. THe"mexican" girl said that she does not get a long with the other girl, and the "preppie" girl just refused to work with her. It took me a while to get the reason and when she told me I was shocked and I got very angry. She said she did not want to work with the "mexican" girls because she was a "mojo." Boy did I lash into that girl. It took her words to make me evaluated how my classes divided themselves, and I was really frustrated. I get along great with all my kiddos, so they see me as Hispanic, but I wonder what my students see? "preppie" or "Mexican". FY: Is there anything for LKK you carry into your classroom? CA: I have the banner that Johnny made along with a bunch of pictures on this little corkboard behind my desk. Plus, one of the teachers who I get along with really well is a SLaB. FY: How does it feel to be home after all this time being on your own? CA: It has its plusses and minuses. I have no privacy. I have to account for my time out. My mom does cook. My nieces are fun. I am spending some really quality time with my sister. FY: Rate these in order of importance: love of a woman, love of your mom, love of a [LKK] brother, love of the game. CA: love of my mom love of a woman love of a brother love of the game FY: Is there something you would like to admit to your family about about a certain ecuadorian friend who has gotten a bad rapp from yourself? CA: Hey, if my mom found all those empty bottles, and assumed it was you over a 6 foot 3 white guy who weighed about 280 pounds, had long stringy hair and dressed like a hippie, then what can I do about it? FY: Are you a little rap or a little rockanroll? CA: both FY: The 'Chicken Dance': your lambada (the forbidden dance), your rain-dance (charm 'em girls), or your endzone celebration (woohoo!)? CA: chicken dance, cuz I won some cash doing it, my lambada never got may anything remotely forbidden, it never rained, and I am too fat and slow to get into the endzone. FY: Post LKK and TCU, do you think you see the world through different glasses? CA: Not yet because I still think about being a college student. Strange huh?

FY: So what are your best memories of LKK? CA: The time we took Ray, Primo, and Aron's pledge class to that abandoned railbox area. I wish Hjalmar would let us see those pictures. FY: What are you worse memories? (be honest now...) CA: The way we handled the whole Elio situation. I still don't know what to think about him doing that, but I personally saw him do too much for our fraternity to justify the way we treated him at the end. It showed that we, despite being brothers, can let our personal feelings dominate over the best course of action. FY: What are you most proud off? CA: Winning the Outstanding Student Leadership Award, because even though I didn't do too much for the entire TCU community, the powers that be recognized what I did four our fellow people of color. THey recognized me, but in a sense they recognized all of us for all we accomplished in such a short time. "...I woke up face first in a Trash can..." FY: Drinking: a pleassurable sin? a painfull blessing? a kick in the nuts you cannot do without? just there? the extra 'humph'? a fad? CA: I guess I realize I can get on without it. I drink about once, maybe twice a week now, so I can have a good time without it. But, when you get the guys together... FY: Who do you think Silverio has in mind when he talks about double-agent Grasns Moker? CA: If anyone can tell what in the Hell is in Silvers mind, then they deserve to spend a year for free in the Playboy Mansion. FY: So what was your funniest experience in LKK? Your most fun? You most embarassing? CA: When we were at the CAMAC conference and we were all packed into those two vans and I was trying to relive the "good ol days" when I woke up face first in a Trash can with the words Rear Entry only written on my back. FY: If there was something you could change about the organization, what would it be? CA: I would have us be more committed to our Community service hours. I would vote to have people kicked out for not fulfilling the hours. FY: What do you see in the future for LKK? CA: I hope we get this ALumni association going so we can give ourselves a chance to survive. I really don't think we can survive unless we have a strong group of men raising money and keeping the organization as close as possible to our original goals. FY: Where do you see yourself in 20 years? CA: I have no idea! I want to do so much with my life, but it doesn't seem like I have enought time to do them all. RIght now I really have no clue what I am doing. I am just living. I know I will probably go to U of Oregon for Grad school. I really want to go to that area of the US. FY: What do you think LKK mean to you by then? CA: Everything it does now. Live or die. FY: What would be your first words to new kids joing LKK? CA: Have fun. FY: What would be your fist words to kids graduating after being in LKK? CA: Congratulations and Go straight to Grad school! FY: And your final thought? CA: Just do what you feel is right in your hearts.

Looking both ways

So here is my question: if there was not longer racism, would there still be race discrimination? I seems obvious to me that the answer is yes. Discrimination manifests itself as biases. Racism is "a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race." [WWWebster Dictionary]. So, if the basic believe of a superior race was banished, would preconceptions dissapear? No. And the reason is beacuse in most cases race is more about biological attributes than cultural. It is after all the outwards physical appearance that people use to determine and discern races. It thus inherits that people clustered by physical attributes will be different as a group from other clusters. One cannot deny that the average Black person is much taller than the average Oriental person. So what are the attributes of being Hispanic? I think the attributes of 'mestizos' are obvious, as for they are the result of the mixing of native americans (aztec, mayan, incas) and spanish (european: white mixed with moore, etc.) But being Hispanic is different from being mestizo. Hispanic comes from the Latin hispanicus, meaning from Hispania, the Iberian Peninsula, from mother Spain. It means having that Spanish / Latin American culture in your blood. Not a literal blood discendance, for it can obviously not be characterized easily s we are so diverse. Thus we are a culture. So why do something in the name of Hispanics and not mestizos? Good question. The answer lies in bringing out what we can recognize in ourselves as individuals and not as specimens in a breed. So what are we fighting? We are not fighting racism, for that would be a loosing battle. What we are doing is promoting tolerance. And the way to do such is by showing who we are as people. As human beings. By being proud members of an academic community with an even prouder culture. And as a culture we are evolving. We have arcaic outdated belives, and we have valuable strong fibers. We are learning, changing, different, and united. It is our duty to look at the past and the future. Decide what we can do today to improve the future without taking the flag of 'united against racism', but rather fueling the beacon which enlightens society as a whole.

AN ODE FOR IRONING
by pablo neruda

Poetry is white
it comes dripping out of the water
it gets wrinkled and piles up
We have to stretch out the skin of this planet
We have to iron the sea in its whiteness
The hands go on and on
and so things are made
the hands make the world every day
fire unites with steel
linen, canvas and calico come back
from combat in the laundry
and from the light a dove is born
purity comes back from the soap suds.

1999 Formal: The Talk of the Town!

Glorious! In no other terms could the night of December 9th be described. In a reception held at the Fort Worth's Worthing Hotel the first five years of Lambda Kappa Kappa were celebrated by over 100 in atendance. The event was organized by Alpha Chapter's president Rey Rivera with the support of both chapters. The evening started with a good old fashioned welcome line with the chapters presidents greeting the joyful atendees. It was quite a sight. Over 100 perfectly dressed young people, hispanic college students in their majority. As dinner was served, the formalities started.

Conmemorative T-Shirt designed by Brother X

	"A disturbing and undecipherable painting. It belongs to the 14 "black paintings", and it was painted on the wall of one of the Quinta del Sordo's rooms. There is no biblical or mythological inspiration, it could be possibly an expression of his own anguish. courtesy of: spanish-arts.net
"El Perro Seminundido" or "El Perro en Arena", Francisco Jose de Goya.

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