Nación Azteca
Anoche Univision was celebrating Mexican Independence. However, they referred to themselves as the "Nación Azteca."
Personally I have a problem with that (and yes, feel free to discount what I say because I'm nothing but a "loudmouthed gringo" - sure you may travel that line of reasoning, but that WOULD BE logically incorrect!) The Mexican "raza" if there is one, is a mixture of Spanish and the indigenous peoples found there. North and Central Mexico was Aztec - the southern was Maya - however, what is considered "Mexican" by today's standards is a mixture. Basically, modern day Mexicans come from Europe . . . igual de los Aztecas.
I know these days it's quite popular to dismiss one's European roots, since the Europeans are the world's whipping boys for EVERYTHING that's gone wrong in the world, but it's simply incorrect to dismiss one side of yourself in favor of another.
Such as Halle Barry and Tiger Woods claiming to be black instead of white and asian as well.
God, can't we all just put "race" behind us and declare ourselves ONE race: the HUMAN RACE.
La Raza Humana. La Nación Humana.
My wife says I should be more understanding of Mexican culture. In my mind, I understand it better than their advertisers. But then, again, I'm just a overbearing americano, right? So I s'pose debo aplacarme ahorita, cierto? OK, then . . .
descúlpenme.
VG
Melting Pot?
The idea of the "melting pot" has been instilled in us since we were children; however this may be the last generation that will retain the outlined idea of such a "melting pot." Es decir, dónde todo está mezclado until it is completely uniform - indistinguishable. (and in my mind, "indistinguishable" meant "indivisible")
However, my wife recently mentioned to me that she heard a better term - that the USA is more like a "fruit salad" - en lo que everything is jumbled together but each piece retains its individual characteristics.
Actually yes, America is more like a fruit salad. Take a bite out of Manhattan you'll get a far different flavour than if you nibbled on Arizona. But it would all still be in the same crystal bowl.
It's all in what you want America to be, immigrant-wise, so to speak. Do you want the immigrants to give up their culture? Or do you want them to retain it? What makes us feel more comfortable? The answers lie in each individual's feelings about this great nation.
I don't have the answers. Melting pot, fruit salad, gumbo, pot pie, whatever . . . as long as, at some point, we could all learn how to work together to keep it strong - instead of ripping each other apart and tearing the fabric with it.
Fabric: reminds me of my absolute all-time most favourite description of America - Jesse Jackson in his "Rainbow Coalition Speech" during the Democratic National Convention in 1984, in which he called America a "patchwork quilt" - many different pieces of cloth all woven together with the same unifying thread. (Of course, this unifying hope will forever be offset by his offhand remark about NYC being "Hymietown" but then, nobody's perfect!)
Acceptance . . . accept it.
Before it's too late.
VG
Univision
Sería impossible para discutir el efecto de los latinoamericanos en los EEUU sin incluir el canal de televisión que se llama Univision. Es un canal totalmente en español, para los hispanohablantes. Lástima que la mayoria de sus programas son telenovelas y comedias, pero hay noticias que parecen buenas, pero aunque puedo entender solamente más or menos cuarenta por ciento de lo que dicen es díficil to be sure just HOW good they are!
But I will say that it's very interesting - and I haven't wanted to get into coverage of the disaster much because en toda honesta it simply breaks my heart the damage and destruction, and I feel that if I let myself go I'd get on one of my soapbox rants and keep on going and never stop . . .
. . . like now. Pero, sin embargo hay dos cosas muy interesantes del "coverage" de Univision. Primero, parace que Univision tiene foco solamente en los latinos que han estado desplacado por el hurucán, which is not a BAD thing, I'm saying, just worth noting. Pero lo que es más interesante a mi (or is it "a yo" ? I have a hard time with that), es está mañana lo ví los muertos en los aguas de New Orleans - right there on the screen! No hay nada canal en inglés lo mostraría!! And just to make sure I said it right, let me repeat in English - there isn't an English-speaking news channel that would show dead bodies floating in the waters of New Orleans. Not one.
Let's face it: this is a country in which the President refused to let news stations show closed caskets, for goodness' sake. Yet, Univision shows the graphic news.
There is something there, something significant, something that reveals the difference between the two cultures, something that may change both cultures (in the melding de los EEUU) in the years to come. The way our news stations handle coverage of death, especially visual images of death and pain, reveals a lot about ourselves and our "others" (por whatever side of the cultural fence you might be on).
This is something, in all honesty, that many more studied minds than mine should be able to elucidate upon. Hopefully maybe some of those studied minds will happen upon this post and be able to comment.
Until then, let me just say a blessing for all those affected by the hurricane. The whole thing is simply mind-boggling.
VG
Defender DPL part 3
I wanted to post a link to an editorial that accurately expressed how I feel, but when I tried to paste the link it merely sent me to a subscription page - so let me just give the details: from the ContraCostaTime.com, on 08-26-05, an editorial entitled At the Library: Julie Winkelstein.
It begins with, of course, the fotonovelas españolas currently in question, and how she used these fotonovelas to attract inmates (this was, as you can tell, in a prison library) to the larger world of reading. Along with some other good links to other recent articles (fair enough she covered BOTH sides of the fence), she winds up the editorial by stating that the very true HECHO that libraries/las bibliotecas historically have been made accessible to ALL the public, not just a section of the public.
Libraries are the primary source through which immigrants can begin to assimilate into the broader culture, and not remain imprisoned within their own linguistic limitations. In no way should CAIR or the Colorado Minutemen or any of the other extremists seek to limit the access of people to the libraries.
Simply put: if one fotonovela in Spanish leads one person to bring his parents to one ESL class, with the slim hope that that family might eventually stay in the US, become legal citizens, and enterweave their lineage into the fabric of America, then that's worth MY tax dollar!!
Defender DPL part 2
Note to self to update this post: yesterday when searching for more news regarding the happenings at DPL, noticed that the only websites which were truly furious over the situation were an Engligh-only site (that's understandable) and a related website that was brazenly "Euro-American centered" - will link them later but for now just know that what amazed me about the Eurocentric one is that they promoted themselves as being "for European-Americans wherever they live."
That indicates to me that the gentlemen (and I use the term loosely) apparently no comprenden que el español IS a European language, and everybody from Tijuana to Tierra del Fuego is the child of a European . . . hmmmm, just - like - US!!!!!
I think everybody should occasionally be reminded that hispanics ARE of European descent. (Sometimes various Mexicans themselves appear to forget this fact.) But the Spanish screwed everybody. Practically every tribe they came into contact with (pun intended.) It's the English and Dutch who were too snooty to interbreed. (The Irish would have, but they got here too late.)
So I think it's ludicrous for a website to promote itself as PRO-those-of-European-descent and yet be anti-hispanic.
TTFN!
VG
