Overseas traumas hit home for some

The group that assembled yesterday afternoon looked no different than any other group that might be borrowing the Huntsman Lounge on Locust Walk. The somber topic of their discussion, however, set them apart. Sponsored by the Office of International Programs, the discussion, titled "Trouble at Home, Trouble Abroad: Foreign Students at Times of Crisis" focused on students who have experienced conflict in their home countries while here at Penn. The conversation started with the three panelists discussing their experiences with crisis both while they were here and abroad. College senior Azra Hromadzic, a Bosnian Muslim, came to Penn after the war ended in war-torn former Yugoslavia. After spending time in Philadelphia, Hromadzic studied abroad in both Jordan and Israel with Arab and Jewish families to examine the conflict in the Middle East. This allowed her to better understand what had happened in Bosnia. Hromadzic was here when the crisis in Kosovo broke out, and was able to watch that conflict from a completely different location and perspective. Meanwhile, College senior Alicia Blum-Ross told of the pain that she felt when, while studying abroad in Chile, a member of her traveling group was killed in an accident in her host family's home. Ki-Man Choi, from Korea, a graduate student pursuing his doctoral degree in city and regional planning, ran out of money after the Asian stock market crash. The exchange rates were so high that his parents couldn't send him money. The dozen audience members in attendance also contributed to the discussion. Marc Llaguno, a graduate student in the Physics Department, discussed his effort to stay in touch with his native Philippines while a corrupt president, Joseph Estrada, held power. "The farther you are away from home, the more you want to know about your home," Llaguno said. He spoke of the corruption of the Filipino president, who just yesterday was impeached by the Congress of the Philippines. Llaguno and a number of his friends had written a letter to a newspaper in the Philippines decrying the presidency. He was able to get more than 100 signatures from Filipinos around the country and the letter was recently published in one of the country's newspapers. The discussion continued to return to the importance of having a support network with which to discuss these types of issues. "I feel like I'm boring people to keep bringing it up," said College sophomore Penny Bamber, who discussed discrimination against her family in her native Zimbabwe. "It's difficult to get support when you don't want to ask for it."