Issue #35, November 24, 2006

Southold Talks To China

33 Southold Students Have Very Long Distance Pen Pals

By Phyllis Lombardi

Once a week, at least. That’s how often you’ll spot the topic in a newspaper or hear about it on the airwaves. The dangers the Internet poses to young people. It’s enough to make parents yearn for the good old days of the crystal set.

Then why in the world is Vic Westgate, a social studies teacher at Southold High School for 30 years and advisor to the school’s chapter of the National Honor Society, so delighted that 33 Southold students are spending an increasing amount of time on the computer? What’s more – they’re sending e-mails to people they’ve never even met. Does Southold’s principal, Mary Fitzpatrick, know about this?

She does indeed. And Ms. Fitzpatrick is all for it. So with both their teacher and their principal offering encouragement, the students are buckling down to some pretty regular correspondence with e-mailers as close as South Dakota, as distant as China.

It’s like this. For several years, Vic Westgate (Mr. W.) has facilitated a kind of e-mail pen pal arrangement between students at SHS and high school students in a small Chinese town near Shanghai. Young people in Southold sit at their computers (at home, usually) and e-mail Chinese teens whose teacher is Mr. Roger Teng. The Southold and Chinese students keep records of correspondence, records they share with teachers and classmates. The result is a direct and personal insight into another country and culture. Southold’s young people, says Mr. W., are realizing just how much they have, starting with those computers in their homes.

Chinese students, on the other hand, generally have access to a computer only at school. Thus their response to Southold’s e-mail is not as rapid as North Fork youngsters would expect.

But when those Chinese students do reply, then the learning, the joy, begins. Seventeen-year-old Meng Dan probably spoke for all the Chinese students when she wrote, “How lucky I am to have a chance to communicate with an American friend.” Obviously she’s fun loving. She enjoyed hearing about our April Fool’s Day traditions and says she can’t wait until April 1 to try out some tricks on classmates. Is Meng Dan looking forward to the future? I’d say so. She invited her Southold e-mail friend to the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing!

Then there’s Quin Li. She’s a 16-year-old volley-ball enthusiast who happens to like the Backstreet Boys. She told her Southold pal that Jay Chou is her favorite singer. Southold pal will have to Google that. Similarities and difference. That’s what it’s all about.

Something quite different this year is the addition of Pine Ridge Indian Reservation to Southold’s e-mail address list. The reservation in southwest South Dakota is the second largest reservation in the United States (twice the size of Delaware) and is home to 40,000 Lakota (Sioux). Mr. W. contacted Ms. Mona Miyasato, an English teacher at Pine Ridge High School, and the e-mail process began.

It was Mona who did the “pairing.” She decided which senior at Pine Ridge would e-mail a counterpart at SHS. Mona must be a wise woman – certainly so in the case of Shannon Leonard, a Southold senior. Shannon, when I met her, was pleased with her e-mail pal. Her name is Nonalita and she lives with friends, not family, quite close to Pine Ridge HS.

There are several reasons why Nonalita lives away from home. One is distance. The reservation is huge and transportation, even if available, would be hours to and from school. Another factor that is foreign to us who live comfortable North Fork lives. Winter in South Dakota is cold and most homes on the reservation are poorly heated, if at all. Food is often scarce. School on the reservation is a warm, safe place serving three meals a day. (Yes, you can check out the Pine Ridge HS dinner menu on the Internet.) Thus, students are often drawn to school for reasons other than academics. All this Southold’s Shannon Leonard is learning about her friend, her country.

Shannon is a jogger as is Nonalita. And she likes country music. So does Nonalita, who, in her senior year, studies American and Indian literature. Certainly the two young women have much to e-mail about. Nonalita hopes to go to college in Rapid City, South Dakota. Shannon? Well, she has her eyes on college in Texas – and perhaps meeting Nonalita.

But before a Southold student considers travel to China or Pine Ridge, there are months of e-mailing ahead. Months in which North Fork young people will be enriched by things so very different. And yet, as Shannon has discovered, the Lakota have words to bridge the differences.

MITAKUYE OYASIN. We are all related.