What reminds you of your Hispanic heritage or culture in daily life?

[EFerrari]

I don't know about most people (and it may be a function of my upbringing or my age) but I don't walk around constantly thinking "I'm a woman" or "I'm a Latina" or "I'm right handed, smoke too much and need to lose 30 lbs" all the time.

But I've noticed that there are things, by their absence or by their presence, that do make me stop and have a Latina moment. When we spent several years in Santa Monica, California, I had a Latina moment when I realized that the only other Spanish speaking people I saw or heard in my neighborhood were behind a leafblower or going in to clean my neighbors' homes. It was creepy, like upside down world.

(Also, everyone on that block had a gardener and a house cleaner. My neighbors always seemed slightly freaked out when they saw me in my own garden, let alone doing things like building my own fence or taking out my own trash. I hope they never get caught in a flood.)

When I first moved down there, I was on my own and I'd get so lonely for home (my family's place in the foothills of San Jose, an extension of our barrio), that I'd walk five blocks to the panaderia just to hear Spanish and smell Cinnamon. No kidding. Just to be around something that felt "warm". (The bakers probably wondered what the heck this gringa was up to.) Santa Monica is or was very pretty and close to the beach but it's turning into everything that is wrong with small town America. Big Box vanilla, no dogs on the beach, lots of American flags mindlessly blowing in the latest direction.

The obverse or reverse is, up here in our neighborhood, my grocer friend Rolando (whom I have already mentioned in other posts) seems to get everyone speaking Spanish. It's so funny because, out of affection or regard, everyone that walks into his store is an honorary Latino unless they are freepers. The first time I went in, I was just hassled, trying to get my family moved in. I saw chipotles en adobo on his shelf and my shoulders dropped about three inches as if some anchor had just touched a nice soft bottom.

[Lost-in-FL]

1. When my coworkers

need help translating for patients. They even call me when patients speak anything other than spanish :wtf: What make them think I speak any other lenguage? like for example, filipino?

When people stare at me with a dumb look thinking I won't be able to answer their questions maybe thinking I don't speak English. And that happens a lot.

I don't go around thinking that I am latina but I don't think I need to be reminded either. I just know I am. Of course, I always thought I was different but in a good sense. For a few years now I noticed that I don't care what people think of me.

[EFerrari]

2. LOL! It can be funny when people shout because

shouting increases the understanding of any language or when they ask you to channel someone who speaks Japanese.

:rofl:

[Lost-in-FL]

3. Once I was asked to translate German

I was like :wtf: My coworker said that since I spoke Spanish and my husband spoke French that there could be a chance I know other languages. I was stationed in Germany for 2 years but that doesn't mean I spoke German.

[EFerrari]

4. As far as I know, German isn't contagious.

:rofl:

I worked in my aunt's translating agency when we were, apparently, the only two people in San Francisco that spoke Spanish in 1980. I'm not kidding!

We ran in and out of courtrooms all day and somehow tried to fit depositions in between. And, those can take HOURS and DAYS.

I still can't BELIEVE that!

[Cleita]

13. Hehe. That reminds me of a scene in Gray's Anatomy, when

Izzy asks Christina to translate for an Asian women in the ER. The woman is Chinese. Christina has to tell Izzy that she's Korean not Chinese and can speak hardly any Korean let alone Chinese.

[Nevernose]

5. 85% of my students speak Spanglish; 50% speak fluent Spanish

They don't have enough ELL teachers, so I am forced most times to teach "remedial" classes which aren't really for "below average" kids, but for kids whose families, friends, and neighbors all speak Spanish.

They came here as young children or just grew up in one of "those" neighborhoods, and are left English-defeicient as a result.

After six years of Spanish classes (2 in middle, 2 in high, and 2 in college) I can read many things written in Spanish, like some newspaper articles, ask where the bathroom is? or when does the bus get here?, and I've gotten pretty good at figuring out when a fourteen year old girl is lying to her parents in Spanish ("No, no, no, no! No es verdad! You hablo 'tareja de escuela es muy importante! Todos los dias! Comprendes?'" It's the best I can do :)). I suck, still, but try very hard; I understand what new immigrants must be feeling.

The Latino kids bring food whenever they think they can get away with a party -- which is most three day weekends :), at least with me and as long as we're learning something (whether the learning meets NCLB is irrelevant, to be honest). There's always papusas from the Salvadoran and Guatamalan kids, and tamales and enchiladas and fajitas from the Mexican kids, and there's always a few things that taste great but I don't recognize and can't pronounce. The girls always put on "Daddy Yankke" on the radio, and even though he burned the Mexican flag, they stil love him; they try and dance seductively; the boys put on sunglasses and flirt shamelessly while pretending not to know how to dance.

Sometimes I give an example of what an adjective is in English, and sometimes in Spanish. It's more expedient that way. And sometimes the kids will invite me to their house for dinner.

Yes, they're poor. Yes, half of them are illegal. Yes, virtually all of them speak English as a second language. And yet I wouldn't trade my kids for any students in the world.

And the most ironic thing to me is that I grew up in the same bad neighborhood that they grew up in, just a few blocks away. When I was a kid, though, it was mostly poor white and black; now it's Hispanic and black, and the poor whites have moved to a newer ghetto all their own.

I had a great-great-granduncle who died fighting for Mexican's freedom at the Alamo, and a lot of light-colored-skin relatives since then. So what exactly is my "Hispanic heritage?"

Personally, I believe that my appreciation of the finer homemade tamales available qualifies.

[EFerrari]

7. Definitely! My whole prefered menu divides up into the three

food groups, chile, chocolate and corn. :)

[scarlet_owl]

6. For me, it's food (it's always food with me:)).

I think about the food I ate as a child, and the way I cook now. It really connects me to my roots.

[Cleita]

8. The attitude towards work.

Latinos work to live. I always noticed that Americans live to work. In my country anyway, people don't take work that seriously. I'm not saying that they don't work hard and work well, but there is just that attitude that the job was a means to an end, not the end itself.

I have always had that mentality myself. I never let my job take over my life.

[Lost-in-FL]

9. AMEN!!

:applause:

[EFerrari]

11. There is also a division between work and play in American culture

that is not as sharply there in Latino culture. We seem to have more fun at work and work harder at having fun. :)

[RagingInMiami]

10. Music, food, passion for partying

This becomes more evident if I live in an area where there are very little Hispancis, like when I lived in Tempe, Arizona. In Miami, it's just something I take for granted.

In fact, in Miami, the Hispanic presence is so strong and there are so many recent immigrants, that I am constantly reminded just how American I am.

[Cleita]

12. Yes, I love the party aspect of daily life among the Latinos.

Anglos are really boring. Their idea of a good time is to drink until they are so drunk, they throw up. Then they sleep it off, wake up with a hangover, and think that they had a good time the night before.

I always hate to go to parties except a wedding if they have a band for dancing. Everyone just stands around, eats, and drinks. The men cluster into one group and the women into another. Then everyone goes home. *yawn*

[Cybergata]

14. My Job & Where I live

I live in a neighborhood that is truly New Mexican. It is made up of what makes New Mexicans. African-Americans, Native Americans, Hispanic, and a couple of token "Gringo" husbands. ;-)

I also teach in a school that has the exact same racial mixture as the rest of the city. Probably 40+ percent Hispanics and 40+ percent "Anglo-American" and the 20%- Blacks and Native Americans, with a sprinkle of Asian. This year I had a couple of students from China, who plan of going back to China. Of course most Hispanics here are mixed with a touch of Afro-Españo & and plenty of Native American. In fact, it seems like there is even more and more a mix between the Hispanic-Black-Anglo folks. Kids have names like López-Binder, etc. Black kids with the name of Sánchez, etc. The part that makes me remember my heritage is that I teach New Mexico History, and through the time we study the Spanish Colonial Periods, we study about Hispanic culture. We also study about Mexico, and ancient pre-columbian cultures, so I am always excited about our Latino/Hispano Heritage. Then I can get excited when we study the people who migrated to New Mexico to paint, write, etc. (Such as Georgia O'Keefe)

[Melissa G]

15. My work neighborhood has a panaderia across the street and

mexican food almost exclusively for blocks..(the is also 1 argentinian cafe) Austin, is very segregated. If you are where Spanish is spoken , you hear it every day..
if not, it could be months or a year..

In San Antonio, where I am from, a day rarely passed that I did not hear spanish somewhere..

[EFerrari]

16. Berkeley is somewhat like that. Oh, there is a bit of everything

on the main drags. But when I wanted dry chipotle chiles, I had to drive to a 'hood in Oakland. Maybe what I mean is, while the campus itself is wonderfully diverse, the residential areas are pretty segregated. Many of the black families have just up and had it and are moving out. There is a Latino corridor close to the bay. It is also the student / painter corridor. :)

[imlost]

17. Whatching my novelas every night. n/t

[demosincebirth]

18. When I turn on my car radio and my favorite Mexican station is on.

[Lost-in-FL]

19. The smell of empanadillas!

For ya'll is empanadas. Empanadillas are in Puertorrican.

So today I decided to make some for dinner.

Too bad I can't share them. Mmmmmm... estan riquisimas!!:-) :-) :-) :9 :9 :9