1
First Hispanic national FFA officer
sees globe, tries to break stereotypes
By Kimberly Sweet
Staff writer
For the past year, UNL
freshman Jose Santiago has
known home to be a hotel
room.
As one of six national offi
cers of the FFA organization,
formerly known as the Future
Farmers of America, Santiago
visited nine countries during
his yearlong tenure, which
ended in November.
He spent 280 days of the
last year in airports.
While touring Japan, he
met with the presidents of the
Toyota and Mitsubishi car
companies.
When he was in
Washington, D.C., he shook
hands and talked with the pres
ident of the United States.
But amid all the grandeur
of traveling across the globe
and meeting with dozens of
dignitaries, the first thing
Santiago mentions when you
ask him about his trip is the
portion of the 100,000 miles
he logged that included
America.
The Puerto Rican native
left his home for the first time
to come to college at the
University of Nebraska
Lincoln so he could learn
English and take advantage of
its top agriculture program.
He wanted to learn the lan
guage so he could run for the
office of Southern Region vice
president - the position that
represents Puerto Rico and the
southern part of the United
States.
After being appointed to
the office late in 1998 and
spending a year being an
ambassador to the 450,000
TFA members across America,
Santiago said his greatest
experience was learning about
what it means to be an
American.
He brags about being in the
stands for the Kentucky Derby,
as well as the Indianapolis 500.
He talks about meeting
NASCAR Winston Cup Series
winner Jeff Gordon.
And to top it all off, he and
his fellow officers talked to
President Bill Clinton and Vice
President A1 Gore when they
were guests at the White
House.
Shaking hands with the
president and talking with him
about economics, the role of
government and the outlook
for youth in America meant a
lot to Santiago.
“It’s pretty amazing for a
little guy from Puerto Rico
who has never seen what
America is all about.” Santiago
said.
Of course. Santiago’s
duties included more than
sight-seeing.
Along with giving work
shops to students across the
country, Santiago and other
executive FFA board members
met with leaders throughout
the agriculture industry.
Santiago said the post gave
him a chance to ask agriculture
industry leaders the pressing
questions facing many youths
considering going into agricul
ture or related jobs.
The future of family farms
and the effects of biotechnolo
gy were two of Santiago’s
biggest concerns, he said.
But Santiago said industry
leaders assured him and the
other national officers they
would do everything possible
to help fanners.
“(Industry leaders) are try
ing to educate the public,”
Santiago said. “They want to
change things and create good
results.”
Santiago said he was happy
to talk to industry leaders
about issues important to FFA
members.
But he said his larger goal
for the office was also met.
“I tried to change the
stereotypes of p.eople,”
Santiago said. “1 wanted to
show that it doesn’t matter
what you do or what language
you speak.
Nate Wagner DNf
JOSE SANTIAGO has visited 40 states and nine countries as one of six national officers chosen
to represent the national FFA organization in 1999. He was the first person from Puerto Rico
or any territory to be a nationd! officer of the FFA organization. While in Japan, which he said
was his favorite of the nine countries he visited, Santiago learned the phrase “gembate,”
meaning “Do your best.”
“The most important thing
is the desire to do it.”
Phil Erdman, a fellow FFA
member and Santiago’s friend,
said Santiago’s contributions
as the first Hispanic national
officer were important.
“Not only has he made an
impact on high-school and col
lege-aged students,” Erdman
saitji. “I would say he has made
a really big impjet on the
national advisers and the state
advisers in the organization.”
Being from a small farm in
Puerto Rico gave Santiago a
different perspective from
other national officers.
Erdman said.
Santiago admits the obsta
cles he had to face to become
the first Hispanic national offi
cer in the 72-year history of the
FFA organization were big.
Leaving his family in
Puerto Rico, learning a new
language and attempting to
break the stereotypes present
in the industry and the organi
zation were challenges, he
said.
But now that he has suc
cessfully completed the task,
he is going to try to succeed in
the classroom for the next few
years while pondering the way
to fulfill his next big goal:
becoming the governor of
Puerto Rico.
Santiago said his newest
goal is a result of his year of
trying to represent and help the
people of his home territory.
“I want to help the people
back home,” he said. “I want to
make (Puerto Rico) a better
place to live.”
Erdman said he has no
doubts that Santiago’s next
goal could be just as realistic
as his last one.
‘‘If he wanted to go back to
Puerto Rico and be governor,
he has the ability to do that.”
McNamara, Kerrey speak about Vietnam
MCNAMARA from page 1 -
Poughkeepsie, N.Y. - McNamara is
the co-author of the recent book
“Argument Without End: In Search of
Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy.”
The book grew out of a dialogue
among policy-makers and scholars
from the United States and Vietnam.
The Vietnam War claimed the
lives of 58,000 U.S. soldiers and
about 3.8 million Vietnamese -
appalling losses that must not be
repeated in the 21st century,
McNamara said.
Despite the carnage, he said, each
side achieved its primary objectives.
Vietnam was reunited and gained its
independence, and the United States
prevented further communist expan
sion in Asia.
“Ironically, each of us achieved
our geopolitical objectives,” he said.
“This led me to a hypothesis: Each of
us could have avoided the war or ter
minated it earlier without changing
the geopolitical outcome.”
McNamara now believes both the
United States and North Vietnam,
plagued by mutual misunderstanding,
missed several opportunities to avoid
or shorten a tragic war.
For example, he writes in the
book, both sides missed chances to
create a neutral coalition government
" " S'
in South Vietnam or to reach a peace
agreement in the mid- to late-1960s
rather than escalating the war.
“Our mutual ignorance was mind
boggling,” he said. “That was the ori
gin of the conflict. We didn’t under
stand each other.”
While seeking to prevent the fall
of Asian “dominoes” to communism,
McNamara ^aid, the United States
failed to understand that Ho Chi Minh
and his North Vietnamese regime
were nationalists first, communists
second.
But North Vietnam mistakenly
viewed the United States as a new
colonialist power seeking domination
in Indochina and missed its own
chances to avert it catastrophic war, he
said.
The United States should learn
several lessons from the Vietnam
War, McNamara sa$.
Leaders should use high-level
contacts to communicate their views
more clearly to adversaries, recognize
that certain problems cannot be
solved by military force and “never
use our economic, political or mili
tary power unilaterally,” he said.
“I hope what we learn will permit
us to have more caution as we enter
the 21sl century, so we can make it
less tragic,” he said.
While Kerrey applauded
McNamara’s efforts, he disagreed
with many of the former defense sec
retary’s conclusions.
“Simply put, our objectives were
in such contradiction with those of
North Vietnam that it is highly unlike
ly either side could have achieved its
objectives without loss of life,” he
said.
Had the United States sought
merely a geopolitical outcome - pre
venting the fall of South Vietnam to
communism - it could have achieved
that objective through a neutral coali
tion government, Kerrey said.
But, he said, those who conclude
that the war was “wrong, terribly
wrong” ignore that the United States
was fighting for something that went
beyofid its own self-interest: freedom
for the people of South Vietnam and
surrounding countries in Asia.
The U.S. effort in Vietnam helped
countries like Thailand and the
Philippines resist communism,
Kerrey said.
In contrast, he said, the U.S. with
drawal from Vietnam in 1973 left the
Vietnamese people under a dictator
ship that has denied them basic rights,
such as freedom of speech and of the
press.
“It’s easy to look at 58,000 names
on a wall and conclude the war was
not worth the loss,” he said. “It's not
/
easy to quantify the fight for free
dom.”
Kerrey said the United States
should not conclude, based on its
experiences in Vietnam, that it should
never fight for the freedom of people
who live under dictatorships - as in
Iraq or Yugoslavia.
Only by continuing to provide
world leadership - unilaterally if nec
essary - can the United States encour
age the spread of political freedom
and democracy, which are essential to
humanity’s well-being, Kerrey said.
“Thirty years ago, I was not sure
of the worth of my effort in Vietnam,”
he said. “But in the 30 years since, I
have seen that one of the most noble
characteristics of the American peo
ple is the desire to spread the promise
of freedom and democracy through
out the world.
“The lesson I take from Vietnam
is that the fight for freedom, though it
often has terrible costs, is the highest
value of all.”
