Ask a Mexican Anything

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Edit: After thinking about it, I started the post as a place for the controversy regarding ethnic and cultural movements in society and their polite discussion but I think if I make another it would be about other things as well, given the jolly reception, with an opening line of a theme perhaps, as we did with this one about immigration. Is there an interest in a particular theme about Mexico and Latino related things? If yes let me know in the comment section and if not, the next post will be about food. A recipe perhaps? Odd dishes of far away local markets?

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Something I've noticed in the past five years is that some people are very touchy and yet curious about immigration matters; the nations involved and their culture and the corresponding implications in the societies of the nations involved, but most people I've tried engaging with are afraid of getting down to real talk to not offend, me or somebody else. I appreciate the gesture for sure given today's broad hysteria and conversations can get tough, but this I intend for such things to be discussed without them becoming personal.

Me? I like that immigration matters are brought to the fore after centuries of imperial immigrant abuse, but I also think that many of my fellow Mexicans and latinos here in the U.S seem to be enjoying too much the attention that SJWs have given them and turned capricious or they have been dumped by their apparent saviors and switched sides. They have good points but they also have blindspots --and some of their supporters magnify those with wishful thinking, that seems either self-sabotage or just ignorance about politics and economics. And even others, who used to favor the wall vehemently, now live in Puerto Vallarta or what not.

The image is the stunning sculpture Promerica by Polish American artist Stanisław Szukalski and it depicts his vision for the Americas: science and mysticism; engineering and magic; european and indigenous, working together. Oh, and when the wind hits it in the right way, the whole monument hums. He wanted it to be in the border between Texas ans Mexico where a university would be founded. He meant it as a mexican priest blessing an american engineer's blueprints but it can go both ways in today's America. It could very well be a Druid, Wiccan high priestess or Sioux medicine man blessing the code of an Ecuadorian software developer.

Ask me anything about being Mexican in the US; growing up in Mexico and it's history; Spanish language and mesoamerican esoterica; culture shock, food, art or religion; the differences between the US and Mexico; what I think about immigration policies, stereotypes. You get the idea, controversial, pleasant or just curious, I'll gladly answer it. You can just drop by and I'll listen too.

Comments

[ari_ormstunga]

My area has had shifting demographics for some time, and I am now in the awkward-for-everyone position of managing a number of employees who don't speak English at all. I'm trying to pick up a conversational level of Spanish so I can speak to my employees effectively (currently, we are using an app to communicate). In your opinion, is it better to jump in and use my embarrassingly bad Spanish to try and communicate with my co-workers right now, or should I try to attain a degree of fluency first and rely on the app until I am less clueless?

(This may not be a question you can answer, but you said to ask you anything and this has actually been a concern of mine for a couple of weeks, so why not ask I guess?)

If I can ask two questions, what do you think of the situation at the US border? Back in my factory days, I knew a migrant worker who felt that the Southwest should belong to Mexico anyway, so he felt pretty justified in coming to the US to live, even though it's illegal. I have no idea if that's a common opinion.

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Thanks!

Multiple questions are okay.

Trying to speak Spanish without any sort of fluency doesn't seem like a good idea to me and it wouldn't do much for your confidence in learning but using some stock phrases from time to time would be a nice touch, perhaps until you get some fluency in some months. Just greetings, perhaps some food dishes and stuff for the small talk. The best way I know to learn a language by the way is the modern equivalent of Giordano Bruno's technique, if you like movies or shows. The trick is to put the show in the language you want to learn and subtitles in english and pay a lot of attention and most importantly train you brain to listen to the subtle differences; or the old version with a book translated into both works best but is much harder work. This triggers the neuronal pathways for language and speech that we used as children to learn, and in my experience, both americans and mexicans haven't exercised it much ever since so it's a good idea to make our language structure more lax with listening.

I don't think the argument holds water. It was a terrible deal when Carlos Santana sold that portion to the United States, but it was legally sold and signed so it isn't ours anymore. Period, end of sentence. The remaining sting is still there among many of us for sure, it's a popular sentiment among the general population, but acting on it isn't justified by any reasonable means at this point and feels more like an immature excuse. When I was in high school I put it bluntly in debate club. If someone breaks into your home every night and eats the food, wouldn't you want to kick that person out? Now society is much more complex than that, but such issues should be solved by diplomatic and humanitarian agreements between nations, not underwater. That's too much to ask from a corrupt system however so I don't think it will change. "Coyotes", the guys you pay to cross the Bravo, are popular and you hear all the time about people that had crossed and came back (much common) or stayed there, even if for safety reasons. There is a really good movie -- I am no longer here -- about a counter-culture movement in northern Mexico surrounding Colombian cumbias regarding the latter reason for crossing the river with a Coyote.

It is odd however, because we have really good relationships with Spain, but I guess since, as nations, "we live together" and we come from different families it is much harder and we haven't gone to therapy.

[ari_ormstunga]

Thanks for the reply! I've used a few simple phrases now and then, my hope is that the individuals feel a little more comfortable knowing that their supervisor is at least trying. I'm sure it's hard having a job where no one can talk to you; luckily we had a few bilingual people who were able to get the people trained in the basics or I have no idea how we'd have managed it.

The guy I used to work at the factory came to my area from California, and he was quite well-spoken and articulated his thoughts and ideas well. He was very unpopular with my co-workers, especially when he said at a company meeting that he felt like we could all be working a lot harder and he would be happy to do so. A couple of the guys wanted to stomp him, and another was threatening to report him to immigration. Luckily, I don't think anything came of it, although I left not long after he started (for unrelated reasons).

I did get a fair number of notifications, but no worries :)

[open_space]

woops. hehe

Sounds like you are a good boss and it is very much appreciated : )

That doesn't sound like pleasant, it is what happens with culture clash with different economical backgrounds. The things is that people in Mexico that do a lot of manual labor are really tough workers and usually their families in extreme need so tend to be confrontational. The problem is that it ends up being sacrificial too, of which a more advanced culture clearly notices and disagrees with, understandably. Very different set of circumstances. I don't know if that was his case, but there is a lot of that. The father of the person that helps us with our house back home has his spine damaged and he needs to cut his fingernails with gardening scissors with help as he used to plow fields barefooted with tools he would make, mostly by himself and then his sons. He is old, but that is not decent way to get there.

[ari_ormstunga]

When I was growing up, I heard about "lazy Mexicans" from time to time; my experience in the workplace has revealed the opposite for the most part. I dunno if my region has anything like an "advanced culture", I think that most people at the shop regarded the owners as exploitative bastards and didn't want to work any harder than they already did (understandably, in my view; it was regarded as being one of the two biggest hell-holes to work in my hometown, but a lot of that probably depends on your perspectives, maybe it was nice compared to some of the factories south of the border).

Once upon a time I thought I'd write a novel based on my experiences in the shop, I thought it was an interesting microcosm of rural America. I don't think that a frank novel dealing with race, sex, and class written by a white guy would be publishable in modern times, sadly.

I've done some fairly light gardening with hand tools and it was a lot of work; I can't imagine plowing a field with hand tools or what that would do to a human body.

[open_space]

Advanced wasn't the right choice of words but certainly more developed in a civic sense and in conditions of living. I bet it was still hard for him, but yeah people clock a lot of hours here. It might not be published by the big ones, but it could certainly be self published on demand and read ; )

[ari_ormstunga]

I keep toying with the idea, but my experiences were back in 2005 and reality has gotten so much weirder since then!

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There is some truth to the "lazy mexicans" stereotype, btw, but I think the real problem is alcoholism.

[ari_ormstunga]

I'm pretty sure I'm not allowed to laugh at that, but I did anyway :)

[lp9]

Honestly, that picture looks just like my (American) uncles. :)

[open_space]

And that's a great point! I find the stereotype phenomenon very interesting. It's like a meme, in the Dawkins sense.

They exacerbate am area and it requires deliberate work to balance it with reality. Specially, in this interconnected but isolated world.

Mexicans clearly aren't all drunk and lazy and clearly not all Americans are polite and considerate successful businessmen. The inverse is also true, neither life in Mexico is as easy as some make it sound, even with money, nor all American tourists are annoying.