For much of Thon Deng’s life, staying alive was the overriding priority. One of Sudan’s “lost boys,” Deng survived years of war, terror and starvation. He’s now building a new life in the United States and helping those still in need back in Sudan.

1. fALL 2008
www.sjsu.edu
21 | homecoming
A week of fun for all
14 | Surviving Tomorrow
A Sudanese student’s story
10 | Wired 24/7
Think you’re tech savvy?
Think again.

2. volume 16 - number 1 | fall 2008 sjsu washington square is published quarterly by the Office of public affairs,
San José State University president jon whitemore vice president for university advancement Fred Najjar
editor Sylvia Light alumni editor Kat Meads art direction/design Eunice Ockerman
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on the cover
SJSUseniorThonMajakDeng(above)spentmorethanadecadeinrefugee
campsinEthiopia,KenyaandSudanbeforegettingresettledinthe
UnitedStatesin2001.AnassociateproduceroftheEmmy-nominated
documentary“TheLostBoysofSudan,”Dengalsoco-foundedCoalition
oftheWilling,anonprofitorganizationthatraisesfundsandawareness
abouttheongoingneedsinsouthernSudan. Photograph:SharonHall
2 From the editor
3 Letters
4 Quicktakes/Updates
7 Spotlight
Willcollegestudentsvote
inthepresidentialelection?
8 Panorama
Comingupwithsolutionstolife’severyday
problems.
10 Wired 24/7
WriterMansiBhatiaventuresintotheplurking,
tweetingworldofWeb2.0.
14 Surviving tomorrow
FormuchofThonDeng’slife,stayingalivewas
theoverridingpriority.Hisindomitablespirit
helpedhimthroughyearsofwar,terrorand
starvation.
18 Sports!
SpartanStadiuminherjubileeyear
22 Noteworthy
JennyDo:Alitigatorandartist
withapassionforhelpingothers.
25 From alums
29 Spartan Heritage
30 My VIP
inthisissue
sharonhall
fall 2008 sjsu Washington Square 1

3. Ug a n da
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De mo cr at ic
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CENTRAL
AFRICAN
r ep u bl ic
CH AD
l i b ya eg y p t s au di
a r a bi a
et h iop i a
SU Da N
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4. Now 30 and a senior in economics, Thon Majak Deng looks
likeanyotherSanJoséStatestudent,sportingaSanJoséSharks
jacketandcarryingacopyofTheQuietAmerican.Butthestory
of how he got here is both humbling and remarkable.
“I still remember that morning,” he says. “My sister came
running into my room and said, ‘Thon, Thon wake up! We
need to go!’ Then I realized there was shooting and bombing
going on, and people running everywhere in town.”
His sister left him with a woman from town and prom-
ised to return with a car and her husband, headmaster of the
town’s school. But the fighting was getting closer and every-
one was fleeing. The woman taking care of Deng began to
run. He followed.
“Afterrunningforabout30minutes,aToyotacamebyand
it stopped. My sister jumped out of the car to take her daugh-
ter,whowasaboutmyageandalsorunninginthecrowd,and
left me there,” recalls Deng, his voice drifting off. “I looked
around and there was nobody, so I kept running.”
One of thousands of “lost boys” displaced by civil war in
Sudan,DengfledtoEthiopiain1987.Hewalkedamonglions
and hyenas at night to avoid the brutality of the sun. He ate
mud and drank water only when he was lucky enough to
find them. He walked with strangers toward a country he’d
never seen, not knowing where he would sleep or what the
next day would bring.
“It was difficult to survive,” he says of what would be the
firstofmanyuncertainjourneys.“Therewasnofood.There
weremanypeoplelikeme,separatedfromfamilybythewar,
traveling east to where there was no sound of guns.”
The sound of guns has filled Sudan’s countryside for
muchofthelasthalfcentury.DominatedbyIslamicmilitary
regimes since gaining independence from Britain in 1956,
Sudan’s two civil wars were rooted in the Muslim north’s
social,politicalandeconomicoppressionofthemostlynon-
Muslim south. More than two million have been reported
dead and at least another four million have been displaced.
War’s children
Deng was among many refugees displaced repeatedly. War
betweenEthiopiaandneighboringEritreaforcedthousands
ofchildrenoutofEthiopia’sUnited Nations- and American
Red Cross-supported camps back to Sudan.
“There were about 22,000 boys of 8, 9 and 10, and some
girls without parents,” recalls Deng. “When we returned to
Sudan, only 17,000 arrived. Nobody knows what happened
totherestofthem.Becausetherewasintensefightingthere,
maybe some were shot in the crossfire.”
Having lived in the Ethiopian camp for four years, Deng
foundhimselfbackinSudan,againsupportedbytheUnited
Nations, but in more precarious circumstances. “Sudan is
Sudan,” he says, which means the government had access
to the refugees. Government forces mobilized and attacked
the town where Deng and the others had been living for
just eight months.
At 13, Deng had to run again.
“WespentthreemonthswalkinginthedeserttowardKenya,”
he says. “You can’t walk in the winter because it rains too
much.Theonlysafetimeissummer,whichmakesthedesert
hot and dry, but it’s better because there are no difficulties
with mosquitoes.”
Fighting broke out early in the morning
in his village in southern Sudan.
Without food, water or family, he ran
for three weeks through barren desert
to find safety in an Ethiopian
refugee camp.
He was nine years old.
Tawneechan
fall 2008 sjsu Washington Square 15

5. When Deng returned
to Sudan, he took in
the life he left behind,
visiting family in simple
homes made of mud
and straw, watching
boys fish in a shallow
tributary of the Nile
River, and walking
among “cattle camps”
and farms.
Deng reached the Kakuma Refu-
gee Camp in northern Kenya where he
would stay for nine years. Although he
was able to attend school for the first
time and complete high school, camp
restrictionsandinadequatefoodrations
made every day a struggle for survival.
“Life in the Kenyan camp was not
equaltohowKenyanslived,”saysDeng,
who likened conditions to those in a
concentrationcamp.“Manythingswere
lacking; we were not allowed to leave
the camp and the food rations were not
enough. Sometimes I went to school
with hunger because I hadn’t eaten the
night before.”
Every 15 days, each person was
given one kilogram of corn—which
contains roughly the number of calo-
ries an average American eats in two
days. Sometimes people would finish
their rations within five days and have
to wait 10 days for the next ration to
come.Teamsof15wouldcookandshare
one kilogram of corn each day to avoid
starvation.
“It was a hardship,” says Deng. “At
least it was safe in the camp because
there were no attacks.”
Trading the uncertainty of living
as a target in southern Sudan for near-
starvation, Deng and thousands like
him endured unimaginable trials, los-
ing their childhoods in an adult war.
Resettlement was a slow process, with
the first group of boys leaving for the
UnitedStatesin2001.ForDeng,agrown
manof23,movingtoAmericameantyet
another unpredictable journey.
Sudden possibilities
If coming to the United States was
fraught with uncertainty, it was also
charged with possibility. Getting to
whatisnowhislastsemesteratSanJosé
State has brought more than his share
of challenges, but Deng doesn’t dwell
on the negative.
“Sometimes God does what you
don’t know,” says Deng of his expe-
riences since arriving in San José. “If
you look around, you see all different
kinds of people and you find that there
are other people like you. Why not you,
if other people can make it? It’s a good
hope I see.”
Deng’sindomitablespirithascarried
him through each day since fleeing the
attack on his village in Sudan. Lydia
Ortega, chair of SJSU’s Department of
Economics and Deng’s academic advi-
sor, wanted more for him than to live
day by day. At their first meeting, she
asked about his career goals and plans,
but didn’t make any headway.
“Allofasuddenitoccurredtomethat
the concept of planning for the future
was foreign to him,” says Ortega. “For
much of his life, he just had to think
every day about how not to be dead
that day.”
Yet Deng has built a future taking
things one day at a time. When sup-
port from Catholic Charities expired
just three months after arriving in the
U.S., he found a job at Fry’s Electron-
ics and an apartment to share with two
other Sudanese refugees. When the job
and the apartment didn’t work out, he
accepted lodging from Fr. Noel Senevi-
ratne, a retired priest.
16 sjsu Washington Square fall 2008

6. To help Deng and Coalition of the Willing get assistance to
southern Sudan, visit www.coalitionofwilling.org.
“Theyareverydetermined,”saysSen-
eviratne of Deng and the two others
who lived in an annex to his San José
home.“Theyalwayswantedtosomehow
better themselves.”
After hosting the young men for
nearly three years, Seneviratne worked
with the Santa Clara County Hous-
ing Authority to get Deng and his
roommates the apartment where they
currently live. Deng focused on getting
aneducation,beginningfirstatDeAnza
College and then transferring to San
José State in 2005.
“IthinkThonhasastrongeducation,”
says Ortega. “But he also has wisdom
from his experiences and an apprecia-
tion for life that will take him far.”
“Lost” and found
Along with wisdom beyond his years,
Deng has an unwavering sense of duty
to those still in Sudan—to family and
friends he lost decades ago.
In December 2007, Deng, a freshly
minted U.S. citizen, traveled through
Sudan’s capitol in the heart of the Mus-
lim-dominated north to go home. After
arrivinginJuba,acityinsouthernSudan,
a six-hour bus ride over dusty, unpaved
roadsreturnedDengtohisvillageinBor
County for the first time in 20 years.
“It was hard, it was sad, it was joy-
ful,” says Deng about reuniting with
sisters Achieu and Ayen, and brother
Deng Majak Deng. “I felt bad that my
ownbrotherandsistersdidn’trecognize
me, being away all that time.”
During the month-long stay, Deng
took in the life he left behind, visiting
familyinsimplehomesmadeofmudand
straw, watching boys fish in a shallow
tributaryoftheNileRiver,andwalking
among“cattlecamps”andfarms.Seeing
thetremendousneedsofhisvillage—no
electricity, no sanitary drinking water,
inadequate medical facilities, and few
schoolsorsuppliesforhundredsofthou-
sands of children—was overwhelming
for Deng.
How does one man help hundreds
of thousands when he can’t even afford
an operation to remove bullets from
his sister’s back and knee, wounds left
untreated since the war?
Tomorrow comes
He doesn’t do it alone. In 2005, Deng
co-founded Coalition of the Willing
(COW), a non-profit that raises funds
and awareness about ongoing needs in
southern Sudan. The 2005 peace agree-
ment between northern and southern
Sudan gave the south autonomy for six
years, and stipulates that the south will
voteforeitherunityorindependencein
2011. With the world’s eyes on the dev-
astationintheDarfurregioninthewest,
Deng worries about the future of south-
ern Sudan during this unstable time.
“Tothinkaboutthefuturewithhope
might bring the good sense that people
shouldn’t go back to war again,” he says.
“But many people want to be indepen-
dent from the north, so there’s hope on
one side and doubt about what’s going
to happen.”
Milesawayfromhome,Deng’sheart
is in Sudan. He works as COW’s trea-
surer.Hesendsmoneyheearnsworking
part-time at FedEx Kinko’s to Sudan so
his niece and cousins can go to school.
And he will do much more.
“I have to pay back the people who
paid for the life I have, my education,”
he says. “I will pay back my debt by
doing good for the people who need it
most. The more we stand up—if we do
good for other people, we will be suc-
cessful. v
—Jody Ulate ’05
fall 2008 sjsu Washington Square 17