Cena con mi familia

On Saturday night, my two children and I decided we needed some authentic Mexican food, so we headed to West St Paul and had dinner at Los Arcos which means The Arch in Spanish.  We each enjoyed food such as tacos, and fajitas and my favorite steak with cactus and stuffed pepper.  We enjoyed mariachi music and a round of horchata which is a rice flavored drink sometimes with vanilla and in Guatamala and Mexico it always has cinnamon.  Here are pictures of what we ate.  My kids both speak Spanish so, we try and talk with the servers and practice our Spanish.  I have talked with my kids of the importance of learning Spanish and using it.  My daughter who is 16 has already discovered how useful Spanish is.  She applied for two jobs and was offered both and a big deal to both employers was that she spoke Spanish.  I am glad I made them both attend an immersion school.  I really think it will be beneficial to them in the future.

Spanish Immersion and Parent Involvement

Last week, I attended the Adams Spanish Immersion PTO meeting.  I have attended in the past but this one was different.  How?  This is the first year that Adams PTO has had a Spanish speaking PTO president.  Wilmar Delgado is from Columbia and two of his children attend Adams and one has graduated from Adams is now attending Highland Sr.  Some might not see this as an important event but it is.  I have found, even when my own children were younger and attended Adams, it is sometimes very difficult to get parents and families involved in the school.  Whether they are non Spanish speaking families or native Spanish speaking families, it is usually the same families that are involved and do a lot of the volunteering.  It has been extremely difficult to have Spanish speaking families come and attend events or volunteer.  When I talked with Wilmar, he said that most don't get involved because that is just not something they do in their own countries, so it is not uncommon to not have them involved here.  His goal, as president of the PTO, is to encourage more involvement from our Latino families.  Why do I feel like this is important?  As an employee in a St Paul public school and especially as a Parent Resource Coordinator, I see the difference it makes in a child's education and life to have their parents or guardians involved in their schooling.  To me, those children are much stronger in their education and are much more involved in their communities if their families are there to back them up and are involved as well.  It is my belief that the more a parent is involved in their child's life and education, the greater chance of success they will have.
So, having Wilmar elected into the Adams PTO was a  big step in getting our Spanish speaking families involved more.  It was a great example to me how he wants families to be involved and he is willing to step up and do what he can to help.  It was the first PTO meeting of the year and it was exciting to have some Spanish speaking families there already.  I am excited for the year and I think Wilmar will do a great job.

Feelings

After our Tuesday night class, I have been trying to put to words exactly how I have been feeling.  It was a pretty powerful discussion.  Along with the reading and things we are learning, I am feeling very overwhelmed.  It's not just that things are coming at me so fast, it's because I am making some real discoveries about myself and my family and my friends and how we all live and work together. 
I first have to say how impressed and honored I am with everyone in my class.  To share the things that they did about their lives was pretty amazing.  To really open up and share what we have seen, what we hear, what we live on a daily basis is awesome.  I feel closer to all of them and have learned a lot from them in the short time we have known each other.  I wrote in our five minutes of reflection how I feel like growing up, my family was, and some still are, so sheltered.   How can we raise our children to hate when we ourselves really don't know.  You can't go by what others say or what they feel and share.  You really have to get to know others and to know their cultures to understand.  I think about my religion and how we believe that all of us are brothers and sisters and are all connected somehow, and yet, because we forget this and don't understand we have brought hate into our lives. 
We have talked about borders in our class.  Do we put up our own borders?  Are we scared to learn so it's easier to block people out and stay in our own little box?  Why?  It's so stupid!
I think one thing I have really found eye opening is the history and how it's not so rosy perfect like we learned when we were younger.  I am amazed at the brutality of it all and how this land was and has been a breeding ground of hatred and a bias that still continues.  I love this country and I am very patriotic.  I cry during the national anthem, I have family that are veterans and have fought for the freedoms we have today, but, I can also start to see the other side of all of that as well.  The beginnings and the power struggles that were all so senseless. It has been a wonder to learn all of this. 
I have been testing students at my work, which is a Spanish immersion school,  and this year was the first time our second graders were to take this state mandated test.  Second grade in an immersion school is the first year that English is integrated into the curriculum and the state test is in English.  I felt so bad for some of these students, who were in tears, because they couldn't read or understand the questions to answer them.  It really made me ponder all week how immigrants to this country must struggle when they get here.  I know when I have visited a country that I was unfamiliar with the language, it was so confusing and I was so frustrated.  To me, it made me realize even more how unlearned I am in many aspects of the world and different cultures.  This has all been very eye opening and has raised a determination in myself to be better about looking around, listening, asking questions, and getting to know others more.

Learning From The Past

When my kids complain about their history class or learning anything about history, I always tell them that if we don't learn from the past, we won't succeed in the future.  I am sure it is a quote that I have rewritten to suit my needs but it is something that I firmly believe.  So, with that, it was great to hear John Pugno, our Mayan calendar expert that telaported to our class on Tuesday night, say that the most important reason for studying history is to apply it today.  What  a great class!  Who knew that the calendar originated from Africa with the Olmec.  I don't think I even knew they were the first major civilization in Mexico.  I always thought the calendar came from the Mayans and it was interesting to learn that they only perfected it.   It was fun to learn how the calendar is set up and how the Mayans believe that we don't separate the individual from the environment and that everything in the calendar is associated with the elements, different frequencies, animals, etc.  And, who knew that 12/12/2012 is just the end of 16.4 billion years and that all their predictions have just come down to a time of rebirth not destruction. 

I talked with a teacher from work about what I learned.  She is from Texas and her family is Mexican descent and she didn't know about the things we were learning.  She had no idea about the Olmec or that the calendar came from Africa.  We discussed how little we both actually know about things that we thought we knew about.

I listened to one of my classmates last night, lament how bad she felt about not knowing and understanding a lot of what we were learning in class.  She feels bad how little she knows about her ancestors and her own culture.  It made me think about how little I know about my ancestors and my own history.  It's so important for all of us to learn from our pasts and our cultures.  Reading Gloria Anzaldúa's book Borderlands/La Frontera and reading about her suffering, her family and those around her and their experiences has made me realize how little I know about the world around me.  I love history and read about it all the time, but I feel like I have barely scratched the surface in learning about any culture, even my own.  It made me think how am I suppose to teach my own children about succeeding in their future in the world if I myself haven't learned enough from the past that will help me succeed in being a better world citizen?  How important is it for us to learn all of these things?  Why is it important to know about the Mayan calendar?  Is it?  How do we as a society even attempt to "fix" the problems if we don't even know where we are all coming from and understand each other?  I think that is a small portion of what Curtis is trying to relay to us.  That until we truly understand and know about a society and a culture, we can't just assume that we know.  We can't say we know about Mexico and Mexican culture because we eat Mexican food or because our neighbors speak Spanish.  We haven't even began to understand who we are let alone who our neighbors are. 

First Impressions

So, my first day in my Hispanic Cultures and Civilization's class was a lot of fun yet very humbling as well.  You wouldn't expect a class where you are introduced to be humbling but it was.  I've been introduced a lot and in many different settings, however, when they wanted to know more about me or wanted more information they could ask me and I could elaborate.  During introductions in class, I felt put on the spot and frustrated because I wasn't allowed to answer questions about myself.  My partner was suppose to answer the questions for me.  Or, when I was asked questions about my partner that I did not know the answer to, I felt unprepared and lacking in abilities that I thought I was good at, interviewing.

Thinking about the experience and what we were suppose to be learning in our class, it really made me think about how others may feel the same way.  Especially when their cultures are different, or their ideas, hopes and dreams, may differ from mine or society as a whole.  How do we overcome these differences and get to know others?  Knowledge helps us get past the cultural differences and barriers that impede us from making human connections within society.

What excites me about this class, is the opportunity it will bring to learn more about a society and culture that I totally love and admire.  I am anxious to grow as a person in knowledge and learning how to breach the barrier that is placed before me in my work and in my personal life.  As an employee at Adams Spanish Immersion school, I work with many Latino families and I am anxious to be more involved with them and learn more about their communities and culture and ways that I might be more helpful to them and their families and improve my skills as a parent resource coordinator and parent advocate.

My first impression of our class is that I will be working with a group of people that I will be able to learn from and have fun with in class.  I am excited for the next few weeks to explore and learn together.  When I was asking some people at my work for a good name for my blog, someone said name it ¿Que pasa calabaza?  Why?  Because it rhymes, it's in Spanish, and it's kind of fun.  That's what I want from this class, to have fun.