Letters

Published: Friday, October 28, 1994

Keep Tagalog at UCLA

Editor:

As members of the Concerned Asian Pacific Students for Action (CAPSA), we express our thanks to Dean of Humanities Pauline Yu for her verbal commitment to fund the Tagalog language for an additional year. We are pleased that the Pilipino Coalition, along with other UCLA student groups, have succeeded in retaining the Tagalog language.

Despite the fact that 35 percent of the undergraduate population is Asian Pacific Islander, UCLA only offers three permanent Asian Pacific languages, while Vietnamese and Tagalog must undergo an annual review process which determines their existence. Considering the importance of language in strengthening cultural diversity and integrity, we hope to see both Vietnamese and Tagalog shifted into a permanent status here at the university. We further hope the university will implement intermediate Tagalog and Pilipino Studies classes in the immediate future.

Through the continued reform of the college curriculum to keep pace with the needs of a changing student body, the university can continue to live up to its commitment to address its multicultural community. Once again, we are pleased with Yu's decision and commend the university for responding so succinctly to the needs of the student population.

This statement was sponsored by Concerned Asian Pacific Students for Action

'Living history' only entertains

Editor:

Tom Momary's analysis of "living history"(''Living history lets those of past speak to us still," Oct. 26) is woefully inadequate. Furthermore, his diatribe against historians and other 'unthinking people' is forgive me downright shallow. His many assertions are so misguided, in fact, that their complete refutation would far exceed the confines of this forum.

Momary preaches that "no greater method exists" than historical teaching via the "living history" method. We can just forget about vigorously studying the social, political, economic, religious and intellectual forces that led to specific events; and to hell with their effects. All that is required is the replacement of those wretched professors with theatre troupes to teach us history? Isn't that special?

The reenactment of history and that's all it is, not "reliving" history or a "dream brought to life" is principally entertainment. That's it. I like entertainment, but when it is declared a deity, the holy water must start flowing.

It is readily apparent that Momary is quite naïve. While it may be true that Walt Disney started with a dream, his successors have taken that dream and turned it into a multibillion dollar enterprise. Mr. Momary, do you really believe that the Disney company's motive in Virginia was to, as you say, be a "better instructor of history than all the teachers I ever had combined"? Isn't it more probable that they saw a tremendous money-making opportunity? Do you enjoy being fooled? By the way, I'm not anti-business. I'm even a Republican!

In Momary's worship of "living history" and concomitant contempt for professors, is he ignorant of who makes it possible to "relive" history in the first place? Mr. Momary, those evil professors and historians make possible that which you so love.

Jackson Eskew

Junior

History