Diario las Américas Newspaper, November 25, 1956, Page 22

| | Borrowed Families Mexican Professor Promotes International Student Exchange BY MARION WILHELM IN THE PATIO of the ancient building then occupied by the Uni- versity of México summer school, Professor Gabino A. Palma _ re- eognized a friend from the pre- vious season, a high-school Spanish teacher from Wyoming. “Welcome back to México!” he hailed her in Spanish. “How is your Spanish this summer?” “Pretty good,” replied Mrs. Mar- garet Condie in the same language. “But I haven’t been doing so well with my sons, I’m afraid. My boy Earl has been studying Spanish a full year and doesn’t speak a word.” “My Alejandro is the same. Two years of English and he can’t talk two minutes. A pity.” Suddenly the professor smiled. “Margaret, I have an idea: let’s exchange children! You send your boy to live with us mext summer, and I’ll send you mine in the winter vacation.” So in 1949 thirteen-year-old Earl Condie came to spend two months with the Pa'mas in México. The professor met him at the railroad station, greeted him with a warm abrazo, then took him home and made him one of the family. Earl Reprinted from AMERICAS, monthly magazine published by the Pan American Unien in English, Spanish and Portu- guese. As a result of these visits, some two hundred students each year share in tne benefits of a similar interchange. Through Professor Palma’s Student Exchange of the Americas, any U. S. boy or girl who wants to live in México, any young mexican who wants to visit the U. S., can find a home and a friend. The only expense is trans- portation costs; the only condition, that the student take his host into his own home for a return visit. To date 1,054 exchangees — 490 boys and 564 girls — have parti- cipated in this non-profit program designed to bear out Professor Pal- ma’s conviction that “misconcep- tions are born of misunderstand- ing and lack of knowledge; when people know the truth about other countries, they cast off their pre- judices.” When then professor put one boy, sixteen-year-old Francisco, on the Mexican boy strums guitar and sings Mexican songs for U. 8S. guest during party given to introduce went fo Secondary School No. 3, on palmlined Avenida Chapulte- pec, with Alejandro Palma and his brothers Raul and Ricardo, He layed baseball on the school sand- ot with his new Mexican friends, surprised to learn that they knew as much about the Yankees and swung at clay pifatas to share in the scramble for the goodies in- side. Seon he was speaking the Gpanish words frem his. Wyoming and learning new ones. Alejandro Palma spent two equally profitable months with the Gondies e exchange student to his friends. train for Portland, Oregon, he handed him two large picture books of modern México City published by the Federal District Government. They showed broad palm-lined avenues choked with late model automobiles and stream: lined streetcars and buses; beauti- . ful city parks with high-shooting fountains; towering buildings of an architecture bolder than the new- . est buildings in New York. “They came in handy,” remarked Fran- cisco on his return to México. “My U. S. family asked me if there were cars in México and whether the people wore shoes. They were sur- prised when I told them we had almost the same kind of life and customs as the States, even though there is still a lot of poverty.” Francisco had learned some- orthwestern Senior ‘High School students in Hyattsville, Maryland, give annual banquet and dance in honor of Mexican exchangees. Professor Palma probably meets more trains, buses and planes than any other Mexican. Here he welcomes exchange student with a friendly abrazo. thing too. Though he had always had the idea that everybody in the United States was rich, he found that Duane, his host, lived in a small house. Duane’s father is a truck driver. The boys went to a neighbor’s house te watch televi- sion, because Duane’s family did not own a TV set. “When Duane comes to México,” said Francisco with admiration, “he will ride as. far as the border with truck drivers who are friends of his father’s. That will save him a lot of money, so there will be no reason not to come.” Gabino. Palma, described by friends as “a mixture of economist and poet,” has been teaching eco- nomics and social problems at the National University for twenty-five years. Since 1933 he has also been a supervisor of teachers at the Na- tional Polytechnic Institute. In ad- dition, he teaches economie geo- graphy at the Normal School and at a public school. Translating poe- try is one of his hobbies; volumes of Kipling — with translations by Palma — line his desk. A man who laughs easily, he has a con- templative, serious nature because, as he says, “I am old enough to know there isn’t enough time for me to carry out all the things I have on my mind.” One of the things on his mind for many: years was the idea be- hind the Student Exchange of the Americas. On July 30, 1931, as an exchange tea her in the United States, he told a group of U. S. educators: “The specialization and mechanical character of our pre- sent day is making us strangers toe one another. Our principal aim must not be to prepare technicians, who are ignorant and strange to other fields of human thought. The noblest of all professions is. not to be a lawyer, an engineer, or a teacher, but to be a man with a universal sense of his time and mission.” This was certainly true, agreed his audience. But how could they help their sudents to become such men? “Exchange teachers and students with other nations,” answered their Mexican colleague. “Exchange of thought between different peoples may partially shift the emphasis from specialization to broad, funda mental training for world citizen- ship.” The professor still meets all the trains and planes and sees the vist- ors off at the end of the sum- mer. (Mexican arrivals are met in the United States by the host fami- lies, together with the high-school or college teacher supervising the program in that city.) The young hosts are there too — twenty- three of them, on one occasion, As the silver-and-red Aguila Azte- ca ground to a halt in Buenavista Station, they broke into loud shouts of “Olé!” like Sunday bull- PAG: 10 HEMISPHERE fight fans. The twenty-three guests were easy to recognize as they scrambled from the train; in teen- age deference to the Mexicans, they wore washtub-sized straw hats —the only difference in dress be- tween the two groups. Back at the station two months later, the faces were glum and there were tears instead of shrieks. The “truer understanding among peoples” that Gabino Palma finds so necessary was a fact. All the good-byes were in Spanish: “Don’t forget to write, Pepe!” “Clarita, promise you'll come next winter!” “Pancho, tell your mother I’ll miss her!” “See-you again, profssor!” Arrangements for the exchange are made primarily by U. S. teach- ers of Spanish who have studied with Palma at the summer school. These teachers, representing more than thirty-five schools through- out the United States annually post bulletins in their classrooms with the names of Mexican seaking exchange homes. A number of col- leges and universities—including the Universite of Michigan, Yale, State College of Illinois, Sacramen- to College, Pasadena City College and Los Angeles City College—also post bultins. In México, Palma puts up notices in public high schools and in all the major institutions of higher learning, including the National University. The program is not yet well enough known to dispense with such publicity. The students apply direct to Palma (whose office address is Inter- cambio Estudiantil de las Améri- cas, Articulo 128 No. 97, Oficina 104, México, D. F.) A certain number of problems are bound to arise im such a pro- gram. The professor tries to mini- mize them by matching, as. nearly as possible, the economic back- grounds, interests, and ages of the exchange students. One is the independence of U. S. adolescents. Girl visitors from the United States are inclined to startle Mexican parents by running out of the house any time during the evening. Even Mexican boys have less freedom than U. S. youths. Parties in México, with their ever-present chaperones, therefore come as something of a surprise. But Professor Palma con- siders this a small obstacle that will be overcome by time and more interchange, Mexican parents, on the other hand, are sometimes reluctant to send their youngster so far from home. Latin children, more an- xiously watched, rarely travel alone even in their own country. There is also the secret fear that their child, with his different lan- guage and nationality, may exper- ience discrimination. The history of the program shows this fear to be umgrounded. Treated with the uninhibited respect all children grant to people they like, the Mexi- can visitors are carrying home im- pressions that challenge the often exaggerated headlines about pre- judice north of the Rio Grande. Religious eifferences, in many cases, pose no big problems any more — a fact that in itself Pro- fessor Palma considers sufficient justification for international stud- ent exchange. “When I started,” he has said, “Mexican parents were eoencerned above all with the re- ligion of the host family, and often arrangements were cancelled to satisfy them. Now the situation is changed on both sides. Better yet, parents in both countries have tak- en their ‘temporary children’ inte their own temples to create great- er understanding.” What might under other circum. stances prove a little troublesome Fierce Visiting Mexicans join their U. S. counterparts to broadcast prom ram over Washington, D. C., station, = 2 SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1956...