Keegan Cooke is a 23-year-old international student athlete at the University of Arizona. As a member of the track team, he competes in the ten events that comprise the decathlon. I met Cooke in a religious studies class this semester and have found him to be very interesting. Although he is from another country, Harare, Zimbabwe, he is completely articulate and aware of his surroundings in the United States. Based off his class presentations, I knew I wanted to write an article about experiences at the UA.
This blog post will preview all that you can learn about Cooke through my next Border Beat special project, to be published in April. My classmate, Lauren Sokol, and I will be taking a close look at what it means to be an international athlete, 24/7.
---
Although Cooke is from Africa, he did not ride an elephant to school, and yes he drives a car and has a cell phone. In our first interview he joked that these are the questions he's asked when he tells people he meets where he is from.
He said he's also had to face a few stereotypes since moving to the U.S. "I’m white and from Africa," he said. "A lot of people think that all Africans are black."
With generalities aside, Cooke said he has dealt with culture shock. During our conversation in the Lohse room, in the McKale Center, he recalled two stories that truly explain experiences.
"My transition from Zimbabwe to America was a huge culture shock. There were a lot of things I had to learn, like driving on the other side of the road and not jaywalking and things like that. But, my biggest culture experience that happened right after I got here was in California. I was staying with some friends next to the UCLA campus and they’d been talking about this Undie Run that everyone was going to do, and because it was a run I knew that it was something that I wanted to be a part of. I didn’t understand the undie part of it and that weekend I found out that it was a run where everyone took their clothes off and went for a long run. It was quite funny, but I knew that was the beginning of learning about how people do things different in another country."
My classmate and I couldn't help but laugh along with Cooke about his experience, but the stories didn't stop there.
"Another culture shock that I had since I’ve been in America was this last weekend, actually, here in Arizona. I got pulled over by a cop. I hadn’t been pulled over by one yet so I was pretty nervous. He pulled up to my window and asked for license and registration. I don’t have a license here in America, so I gave him my Zimbabwe driver’s license, which is like a little metal disc. He kind of laughed at it and thought I was joking, so he had to call another cop to come verify that it was somewhat legitimate. And then I learned about registration and how you have to keep up-to-date with your insurance, and things like that. Obviously I wasn’t quite following the rules, so I learned very quickly that that’s another thing that’s different from Zimbabwe."
Cooke continued to tell us about his daily life as a collegiate athlete, but always made sure to talk about his journey to the U.S. as a blessing and opportunity. Through his interview you can tell he is very proud to be African, and to represent his country as he works towards his goal of competing in the Olympics.
Make sure to check out the Border Beat website to find the full story about Cooke in late April.
No comments:
Post a Comment