Brian Tedder, Collegian

Every Wednesday morning since 1996, political activist Dade Singapuri can be seen setting up her table, adorned with fliers and posters, in the University of Massachusetts Campus Center to spread her message of peace and social justice to college students.

A resident of Amherst since 1977, Singapuri has used her proximity to the five colleges to reach out to the students and community simultaneously. On the UMass campus, a place where tens of thousands of people go about their business every day, she said she has had an opportunity to reach out to tomorrow’s leaders.

“I love meeting young people. I feel more alive here. Your minds are wide open, and you haven’t solidified into your prejudices yet. You’re inquiring and you’re thinking,” said Singapuri.

Since childhood, Singapuri has been one to think outside the box. She said her strong beliefs and ambitions, along with a core set of social values, have shaped her to become the woman she is today.

Each Wednesday, Singapuri sets up her table in the Campus Center concourse and offers those who stop by an array of newspaper articles and clippings that cover issues often ignored by the mass media. These articles cover political, social, economic and environmental issues of which she believes all students should be aware.

She’s not trying to sell anything, and she’s not paid to be here either. And though she doesn’t have to be here, she said it’s her passion for standing up to our politicians and her genuine concern for what students think about the issues that keep her motivated to come back.

Born in 1933 and raised in the quaint United States-Mexico border town of Del Rio, Texas, Singapuri always felt like she never quite fit in.

“In my town, the main entertainment was gossip. It was deadly and extremely racist. You were either Mexican, with condescension, or you were an Anglo. Right away, I knew that the only ticket out of there was an education,” she said.

But long before embarking on her college career, she was an avid reader. Learning more about the world than the average adult, by the age of 10 her favorite books were about other nations, their cultures, governments and history.

“It drives me crazy that we don’t teach history well in this country,” she said.

After high school, Singapuri left her hometown to go to college, where she obtained a degree in zoology at the University of Texas at Austin. However, Singapuri longed for more in life and decided to leave Texas behind her.

“There was just nothing to do in Texas so I decided to move to Chicago. I wanted to be in a big city,” she said. And for the next eight years, that’s where she stayed.

A life-altering moment, after Singapuri lived in Chicago, was her impulsive decision in her life to travel around the world, she said.

“I didn’t have the money for it, [but] managed to travel the cheapest way. I hitchhiked through Europe, and eventually wound up in Singapore, where I met the man who I’d later marry,” she said.

According to Singapuri, your whole life’s perspective changes when traveling around the globe, particularly when visiting countries in the Third World.

“Traveling is one of the most educational things you can do,” she said.

While promoting her message of peace and social justice to the community, she advocates an end to the war in Iraq.

Signs declaring, “Abolish the War,” and “Justice for Peace,” can be clearly seen hanging on her Campus Center table. Outraged with how the war in Iraq doesn’t seem to have an end in sight, she is particularly angry with some of the consequences it has had on us as a nation.

“I’m unhappy about the direction that we’re going, in this world,” she said.

And Singapuri is not only frustrated with the direction the United States is heading as a country, but also frustrated with the operations of the U.S. military.

“Our military exists only to serve our corporations. This has been going on since the 1820s or ’30s. When Andrew Jackson was president, he sent Marines all over Central and South America, and those countries opened up to corporations like the United Fruit Company, and others that existed back in those days,” she said.

“We called it our sphere of influence, but it was [really] to take over any government that didn’t want us taking over their resources.”

This idea of the military being run by corporations is what she calls a “corporate-ocracy,” rather than a democracy. She said in the book, “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” by John Perkins, he describes how our corporations sent people all over the world. These corporations would invade other countries and claim the resources as their own and when countries disagreed with us, we would overthrow their governments and kill their leaders, Perkins said in his book. Singapuri believes this book is one of the ways young people can learn more about the lack of justice in this world.

At her table, Singapuri encourages students to debate and have discussions about issues such as these. She can be very opinionated about how she feels on certain issues, but she said it is only because she feels so strongly about them.

As far as Singapuri’s views on Iraq are concerned, it all comes down to the issue of resources, particularly oil.

“If we were a just nation, we would talk to these people and say, ‘We’d like to have your oil, we’d like to have your tin and we’d like to have your copper. What can we pay you? Let’s negotiate,'” she said. “That way your people can have lives and we can make a profit. But we don’t because capitalism is a cancer, a growing cancer.”

Another frightening thing about our country right now that our economy is failing, she said. “It can’t help but fail when you don’t put your people to work and you don’t give them the social services they need, like health care and education.”

And while many of these government failings are on a grand scale, such as rising gasoline prices, Singapuri said citizens see smaller problems every day, in the form of goods produced or bought from foreign nations.

“When Bush came to power, gasoline was just $25 a barrel. But now, the price has escalated to $100. Through this inflation, it has caused Saudi Arabia and other oil producing countries to own us,” she said.

“Unless everybody, and that means 90 percent of UMass, 90 percent of all the people around this country, does something, the United States is going to continue to go down,” she said. “The poor will get poorer while the corporations will get stronger and stronger and ultimately take over.

Now retired, Singapuri dedicates all her free time on research and political activism.

“It’s like my religion. I learn so much from being here. People tell me about their lives. I figure, here’s something you can do – work for change,” she said..

Frank Godinho can be reached at [email protected].