- Category:
- General
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Things I would like to do before death
Things I would like to do before death
SOCIAL READJUSTMENT RATING SCALE
On one week day in 1995 in Chicago’s north-side high school library few students were in a brain-storming session on a name for a new Bosnia themed paper. Chosen name, ‘Camparlija’, meant that all of their work will be anonymous as it made fun of their teacher. And they did not stop there; they made fun of most of students whose background was from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In atmosphere saturated with lack of knowledge and problems with adaptation to new country and way of life, ‘Camparlija’ shone brightly, though too briefly.
Their writers were funny, smart, thoughtful, provocative – and very courageous.
First issue, secretly distributed in Amir Campara’s class, was major success. It was all Bosnian community talked about and many wanted heads of those who had anything to do with writing it. Fortunately, no one except writers themselves knew who was behind texts.
Those writings included bashing of people from certain towns (Prijedor, Sarajevo), making fun of possessions of some students (Mitsubishi), implying sexual tendencies of some female students (basketball team), making fun of Campara’s classes, making fun puberty problems (facial, ehm…female parts), making fun of every situation that Bosnian immigrants went through and so on…
Texts were thought of and printed in school library for a while, but after few close calls to be discovered editors decided to move to local colleges. This measure did not help however, and their identities were discovered couple months after first issue. Fortunately by then people saw newspaper for what it was, a joke, and no harm to their bodies was done. This, and price tag of $1, was papers demise as well. One of the last things I can remember about ‘Camparlija’ included a joke about paper and finances:
‘Camparlija’, a Amundsen high school newspaper, is reporting that group readings of its news is strictly forbidden. Editors are afraid, and rightfully so, that group readings were interfering with profits. We threaten to write about anyone seen participating in these group readings.