Otro video que estaba queriendo compartir desde hace algunos días es este. Primero que nada es un resumen breve de lo que es el español y el por que de su gran trascendencia sin embargo me parece interesante que en todo el video no se mencione en ningún momento la gran cantidad de personas que viven en Estados Unidos y que hablamos español. Creo que de alguna manera no se le está dando la importancia que se merece. Es necesario que se tome en cuenta que el español, aparte del inglés es el idioma que está uniendo naciones no solamente de habla hispana pero en general (no solamente en Europa como lo dicen aquí). Si se menciona el español de Cataluña por que no se puede mencionar el de Nuevo México, si ambas tienen historia y trascendencia :) 

http://youtu.be/jHDF34hRBU0

Investigación

Al estar haciendo el trabajo de investigación final para esta clase, me puse a pensar como es que en otros países se valoran tanto otros idiomas. Me pareció interesante ver como es que en Tokio por ejemplo los anuncios no oficiales son multilingües. Esto nos muestra que existe una solidaridad en la población. En lo que he leído me di cuenta que estos anuncios no solo están en cierto sector de la ciudad pero por todas parte. Mientras tanto, aquí en Albuquerque (siendo el español un idioma con tanta historia en esta área) hemos encontrado que hay segregación en este sentido. En el norte de la ciudad no hay esta variedad de anuncios bilingües (o sea que se esta dando por hecho que no es necesario incluir a esta población de habla hispana), mientras que solo en el sur de la ciudad encontramos anuncios monolingües del español y bilingües. Seguiremos investigando…

My friend myrlin (rapper/poet) from Arizona

Hey Class,

So this is my friend Myrlin Hepworth from Arizona. He has lived in three places during his life: New Mexico, Idaho, and now Arizona. He is a really good poet and brings up a lot of questions in his poems about culture identity. Reminded me of the conversation we were having yesterday about "what do you consider yourself?"

I am going to post the link to the radio show he was on, it is kind of long but you can download it or just listen to it all on the link! Hopefully you all will enjoy.

http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_12916173

here is a direct link to his poems page and the poem I was talking about!!
http://soundcloud.com/myrlinpoetics/ritchie-valens

Around 6:30 and 23 min are his two sections where he raps one of his songs and does a poem! 

Justin Aragon

Community involvement

This morning Damián, Miguel, Sam and I took about 50 of our Spanish 112 students to East San José Elementary school. This was our second semester taking our students there to read children's books to them in Spanish. As you all know, we teach this level without a textbook. Instead, we use Spanish and bilingual libros infantiles! For their final project, they are required to write, illustrate and bind a children's book and take it to the elementary school to read to 1st and 2nd graders. As with last November, today's visit was another hit! It is so neat to see our students interacting with these kids. Everyone of our students comes out of the classroom beaming not only because the kids are so cute but because they just carried out multiple conversations with these kids in Spanish!

It is also so uplifting to see these 6 and 7 year old kids so incredibly bilingual. As we talk in class about language maintenance, its great to see that these young kids are maintaining the language and that our students are learning (and sometimes relearning) the language in an authentic setting. All of the signage around the school is in both languages and the teachers all speak in both languages to their students. Many of my students kept commenting on how cute the school was and they wished they had gone to elementary school like East San José when they were little so that they could be bilingual now as well. Many of the kids corrected my students as they spoke, but my students took it well and knew that they were only trying to help.

One of the most rewarding parts of the experience was when one of the 1st grade teachers pulled me aside and said that she really appreciated having us there because it is great for these kids to look up to college students. She said many of these students come from broken families whose brothers and sisters normally do not attend college. She said the school is always looking for volunteers and college-age role models! I told many of my students this information and they asked a few people about volunteering next school year. Hopefully they will!

As we were leaving one of the little boys even said to a group of girls from my class, "You may speak funny, but at least you can still read." :) I guess we did well when we read exactly what we had written in our books but when it came to "freestyle" conversation, we spoke funny! I think child honesty is the best!

SO much truth in political cartoons

I found these two political cartoons today and I thought they related to what we were talking about today in class as far as racism and the problems we are still dealing with everyday. Pretty heavy stuff.

Por Esto Me Gusta Tanto Mi Idioma!!!!

Unos de mis chistes favoritos Mexicanos:

1. Le comenta un hombre a alguien en una boda:
     - Oiga, ¿se fijó que horrible es la novia?
     - ¿Qué le pasa? ¡No se exprese así, que es mi hija!
     - ¡Uy! ¡Perdone, no tenía idea de que usted fuera el padre!
     - No soy el padre, soy la madre

2. Me puse el pantalón de rayitas... y Rayitas se quedó sin pantalon

3. Hola, ¿hablo con el verdugo? 

    - Sí.
    - Por favor, no me cuelgue!

4. La maestra está dando una clase acerca del renancimiento italiano. Entonces pregunta: 

    - Dime Juancito ¿Por qué muchos de los pintores más famosos son italianos?...
    - Porque nacieron en Italia.

5. Se encuentran dos amigos y uno le dice a otro. 

    - Qué alegría... tanto tiempo sin verte! Me dicen que te haz convertido en un fanático de la computacion... ¿cierto?
    - Sí... mouse o menos.

6. Hola, ¿el doctor Mata? 

   - Si, ¿que desea?
   - Cancelar una cita.

7. ‎-Un turista norteamericano pide un sopa en el restaurant, y con su fuerte acento se queja:
    -¡Camarero! ¡Hay UN mosca en mi sopa!
    -No es UN mosca, es UNA mosca
    -¡Caramba! ¡Que buena vista tiene!

8. Jaimito le pregunta a su papá:
    -Papi, ¿cómo se siente tener un hijo tan guapo?
    -No lo sé hijo, pregúntale a tu abuelo…

9. Llegan 2 niños a la kasa d su amigo y empiezan a Gritar! "Anzina!! anzina!! anzina!!"
Y sale la mamá muy enojada.. "Ya les dije k mijo no se llama Anzina! Se llama Jelipe!! Y Anzina kero que le digan."

10. ¿Cuál es el objeto más gracioso que existe? ......La escoba.
     ¿Por qué? .......Porque siempre Va-Riendo…

11. ¿Que es una bodega? .......La mamá de los bodeguitos

12. Paciente - "Doctor, soy asmático, ¿es grave?"

      Doctor - "No amigo, es esdrújula."

              Y mi favorito de todo tiempo.....

13. El borreguito le pregunta a su mamá... "¿Mamá, puedo ir al cine?"

      La mamá le contesta.... "Behehehe"

¡Q'Viva! The Chosen... language maintenance??

I have been reading all the blogs these past few days and feeling sad for not having participated the way I should have. It has happened in other classes where a blog was used...I somehow allow the whole semester to go by before facing my fears and realizing that its not hard at all and actually could have been an awesome way to connect, share, and communicate.  I dont feel good at these online type formats and always feel nervous to post stuff...  my opinions. Although I feel fine voicing my opinions in person, somehow when its in writing it feels more scary...like its stuck in stone and you cant go back and alter things or explain things or have that instant response and discussion like in face to face communication. But now, reading through the blogs... I am surprised (pleasantly) to see so much dialogue between the students.  ANYWAY, throughout the semester I have had things I wanted/meant to blog about, and this was one of them,,,

One random night while I was doing homework and my boyfriend was watching TV he flipped to a reality show that had Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez. He stayed watching it and what ended up distracting me and drawing me away from HW and into the show was the fact that I heard a lot of Spanish being spoken. The show is ¡Q'viva! The CHosen, and shows J-Lo & her ex traveling around Latin American finding local talent and giving the CHosen airplane tickets to LA for a big competition. I guess the winner gets their own show in Las Vegas (Not exactly the artistic capital of the world..more of a spectacle or something...oh well). Anyway, what was interesting to me was the bilingual nature of the show. You have Marc Anthony & Jennifer talking in both Spanish & English, while all of the contestants speak Spanish. Instead of over dubbing which is the norm in American media, subtitles are used. Also, its interesting to hear Jennifer's Spanish which is different from Marc's or the contestants. She is a heritage speaker and I was happy that she actually used Spanish instead of English, even though Ive read in an interview with her that growing up she felt bad that her Spanish wasn't good.

I was surprised. Could this be a sign of moving toward maintenance in mainstream media?? ALthough the show premiered on Univision, it is now on air in 21 countries across major tv networks in North South & Central America.  We were watching it on FOX, which apparently is the English version of the show. Still, the voices speaking spanish way outnumbered those in English, and, like I said, subtitles were used...

Although Marc Anthony & JLo may be from the world of commercialized mass media and entertainment, I still thought it was cool to see and hear Spanish on this show... so theres that.

I PROMISE... THIS IS THE LAST ONE!!!

Ok.... so yesterday SB1070 was brought before the Supreme Court, and being that the majority of the "viejitos" are conservative, they actually sided with Arizona's Law.....   OK... so if we look at the law itself, then it is very cut and dry... HOWEVER... no one was talking about what is actually happening.
I happened to come across this article about How SB1070 is being used and implemented.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/24/arizona-immigration-law-hispanic-communities?newsfeed=true

The most that was mentioned yesterday was that it can take up to 70 minutes to detain someone to investigate legal status.  WHY WASN'T THIS BROUGHT UP?????     WTH is happening here?!?!

You all know how I feel about this nastiness, and I'm so worried about my family over there, all of my cousins, aunts and uncles that are legal and they have to watch their backs just because of what they look like..... NASTY!!!

********I officially digress. My next post will be a nice fluffy and feel-good posting **********

-Ruben.

Café-con-leche public space?

Carrie and I were revisiting the idea of "white public space" for our project and began to wonder if we were encountering "brown public space" or even "café con leche" public space. I suppose these would be defined by the dominant language--Spanish only, or Spanglish only? Do you guys feel that you encounter spaces where it would be rude to approach a stranger and speak English? Or spaces where to really know what's going on, you have to be bilingual? Would that be enough to constitute a different space, or does the overarching hegemonic power of English override all other spaces? Personally, I think there are pockets all over the nation of other kinds of space--South Valley, Chinatowns in various cities, Miami to name a few big ones. Any thoughts?

Also, at a soccer game this weekend, I really enjoyed noticing the strong bilingualism of many players and the revelation of bilingual spectators when, for example, the keeper yelled at one of his players "juega con la cabeza!" and the reply came from the sideline, "No buey, con los pies!" Everyone who laughed was bilingual!

Identity labels

Before this class I don't think I ever really thought about why I label myself a particular way. I've always said I'm Hispanic and Anglo, una coyota. But what does Hispanic mean? Why don't I say I'm Chicana, or Latina? I've been thinking about these labels, and they all mean something different to me. I say I'm Hispanic because (to me) that means I have Spanish ancestry. It's almost like it's specific to New Mexico. I have Mexican ancestry tambien, but I wouldn't say I'm Mexican-American because that would mean my parents or grandparents were born in Mexico. How I came to this conclusion, I really couldn't tell you. I wouldn't say I'm Chicana because for some reason that would mean I'm involved in some way with the Chicano Movement. And to say Latina would mean that I'm a native Spanish speaker. Is this weird?? These are all perceptions I have of certain labels, and I'm sure I've developed them based on my experiences with them. I don't think any of them are more positive than others; they just  have different connotations. Do you all have different definitions of Hispanic, Latino, Chicano, etc.?

Cambios en RAE

Este video me parece interesante porque creo que se puede relacionar con lo que estuvimos hablando después de clase el jueves. A pesar de que la RAE se ha dedicado a promover el español prescriptivo, hoy en día ya se están aceptando palabras como “marketing.” Como lo dije en clase, creo que es interesante que defendamos los diferentes registros en los que nos podemos comunicar. Quién tiene que decidir lo que es correcto o incorrecto. Todo es cuestión de estár más abiertos a otras ideas y comenzar a valorarlas. 

Aqui está una parte del video, se que está completo y es muy interesante http://youtu.be/7FtxMceDILI

España tiene STOP signs no señales de ALTO

En clase hemos visto algunos artículos que nos dicen que el español y el ingles no se están afectando tanto hasta el punto que uno u el otro van a desaparecer. Aunque aprendimos que nuestros lenguajes no están en peligro de extinción sabemos que si  se están afectando uno al otro ya que las personas tienen la tendencia de usar prestamos. Estaba pensando en esto cuando escuche a mi abuelito decir que mi abuelita había “parkeado” mal la toca. Tal vez esto no suene como algo fuera de lo normal para nosotros porque estamos acostumbrados al spanglish pero mi abuelito nació y ha vivido toda su vida en México. Pienso que la cultura americana ha tenido mucha influencia en los estados fronterizos. En el estado de Chihuahua, palabras como wila (bicicleta, se parece a “Wheel”), troca (truck), raite (ride), y chirrak (sheetrock) son comunes en la platica diaria. Yo recuerdo haber escuchado todas estas palabras cuando era niño y no fue hasta que aprendí ingles que hice una conexión a sus orígenes. Estas palabras no solo son parte de la cultura popular, algunas como toca han logrado formalizarse y se encuentran en varios documentos oficiales. Estas palabras se han colado al español de la misma manera que palabras como siesta, salsa y tortilla se han pasado al ingles. Aun mas interesante es que algunas palabras están pasando a ser usadas por el gobierno. Mi amiga me comentaba que en España los señalamientos de alto no dicen “alto”, sino “stop”. Ella estudió en la parte sur de España y dice que ahí también es muy común escuchar prestamos del ingles como “flatmeit” (flatmate, o roommate). Me lo hubiera esperado de las partes del norte de España  que tienen proximidad a Inglaterra pero no la parte sur. Se me hace interesante que nuestras lenguas alcancen lugares tan alejados y tengan un efecto tan permanente.

"Private" Language Use in the classroom

After our discussion about different bilingual levels and the various types on bilinguals (circumstantial, etc.), it made a lot of sense to me that one reason heritage students may not feel comfortable speaking the spanish they grew up with is because that language is a "private" language, one that's only heard and spoken at home.  I feel this way all the time.  I like to be able to use the Spanish I hear from my grandmother, but at the same time, it's something so close to me that I am not always that comfortable using it and sharing it.

Last semester when I did a project for Prof. Lamadrid's class, it was a little hard for me to open up and share my grandmother's story to the class.  Growing up, her story was always just between us, and maybe my mom and my aunt.  Being that she didn't and doesn't share the story with many people, I thought it was something just between us and therefore, I kept it to myself.  Her story is just so fascinating, the way she tells it and everything that I thought it might be something worthwhile to investigate, find the symbolic meaning of the different elements within her story and to learn about the bigger meaning and messages of her story, so I decided that would be my project for Lamadrid's class.  I recorded her story, analyzed the story, shared her story with the class and to my surprise, everyone loved it and my grandmother was happy that I was sharing her story.  So, after having this experience I realized her story is worthy to share and even though other people know about it, it will always be something special to me and now, I'm happy I'm able to share it with others and so is she.

My point through all this, is that this is probably how many students in SHL feel.  They are probably unaware that they have so many rich cultural ties that they take it for granted.  With my future classes, I think I will start off the semester by reminding them just that, and to not be ashamed feel withdrawn from their "private" language.  Maybe I can even use my grandmother's story as an introduction to an activity in which they have to find a story or something unique about their family that only their grandparents or someone special has told them...hmmm.

Teaching SHL material

Damián asked a very good question at the end of our last class which I have been thinking about for quite some time now.  He asked us how to get his TA's to teach the heritage language class if we do not necessarily speak the traditional NM Spanish.  Although I didn't necessarily learn to speak the traditional NM Spanish, I highly value it and try to incorporate it more and more and I'm always thinking of ways to implement it in class.  Even though some TA's may not speak the traditional NM spanish, there are definitely ways for students to utilize their heritage background to learn from it and to appreciate it.

For me, I believe I need to implement more activities in which they do just that.  Utilize their heritage backgrounds.  This could be in the form of a weekly homework assignment in which they have to find specific words, phrases that their family/friends use that is unique to NM. They could then do an assignment incorporating those words/phrases.  This would be something I would need to think more about.  We also have them work on verbs of the day, which they have to form sentences and work on their verb usage each week.  Rather than us giving them the verbs, it may be better to have them find some that their family/friends utilize.

I think, the more cultural activities, the better.  Dichos, recipes, small villages stories, unique family stories that have been passed down; these are all some ideas to start off with.  Fun activities to incorporate dichos, recipes and stories are something I might need to think about unless anyone has any suggestions :)

Most importantly, I think interacting and utilizing their heritage backgrounds could prove a beneficial learning experience for the students.  Then, they could share with others and it would hopefully be a learning experience for everyone involved, including me.  This doesn't go to say that I would only incorporate NM Spanish, but I would like to get a better grasp on implementing more activities which do so.  So if you have any suggestions, ideas, comments, feel free to let me know!

Spanglish t-shirt

Just so we don't think all t-shirts are against us!! I saw this and really liked it. Although, the first part seems like perfect Spanglish, but is the "24 horas al day"? I don't think so, but maybe I'm not completely fluent in Spanglish yet. :)

Here is the link to the website.
Voxy.com
Check it out. It puts code-switching in very simple language for all to see.