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April, 2005

  1. Bienvenidos a Miami

    April 12, 2005 by elenamary

    I’ve been stressing out the last few days about going to Miami. I have a lot of homework right now, and midterms are coming up. But I finally decided this afternoon that I will go to Miami tomorrow morning for the NACCS conference. I originally only wanted to go because I wanted to make sure Seyd went. I wanted Seyd to meet other super Chicano Jotos actively involved in their communities and doing amazing work. Seyd has bailed on me. Seyd has bailed on me, I have midterms, I haven’t done laundry since January and I ran out of clean underwear this week so I have been “going commando” (as Preston put it).

    Miami is an interesting place for Latinos. Miami is, as I understand it, (and these are generalities) a hotbed for Cubans who are for the most part Republican. Especially, the first wave of Cubans. The first wave of Cubans tended to be white, wealthy and well educated. The next weave weren’t as wealthy and were black, they are referred to as Los Marielitos because of the port they left. I had thought that this second wave was less educated but according to the site Cultural Orientation that is a myth.

    I am getting sidetracked. I think this going to be interesting I’ve often heard that Cubans really don’t like other Latinos. That they have this view of better than thou. From a webpage on Little Havana created by students at University of Miami:

    “Cubans greatly differ from other Hispanic groups in terms of why they migrated to the United States. Mexicans and Puerto Ricans came to the United States is search of greater economic opportunities. Cubans on the other hand were forced to leave Cuba due to their political beliefs and viewpoints.”

    BULLSHIT. This quote is awful. MANY Mexicans did not come to the United States. As the saying goes “We didn’t cross the border, The border crossed us” and to imply that Mexicans did not come for political reasons is also off base.
    Puerto Ricans? Where do I start? Puerto Rico has been a colony of the United States since 1898. Puerto Ricans didn’t come to the United States, the United States colonized Puerto Rico.

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments

  2. Living Will

    April 11, 2005 by elenamary

    A friend of mine sent me this today:

    Living Will Form

    I, ______________________, (fill in name) being of sound mind and body, do not wish to be kept alive indefinitely by artificial means.

    Under no circumstances should my fate be put in the hands of politicians who couldn’t pass ninth-grade biology if their lives depended on it.

    If a reasonable amount of time passes and I fail to sit up and ask for a cold beer or glass of wine, it should be presumed that I won’t ever get better. When such a determination is reached, I hereby instruct my spouse, children and attending physicians to pull the plug, reel in the tubes, and call it a day.

    Under no circumstances shall the members of the Congress or the Legislature enact a special law to keep me on life-support machinery. It is my wish that these boneheads mind their own damn
    business, and pay attention instead to the health, education and future of the millions of Americans who aren’t in a permanent coma.

    Under no circumstances shall any politicians butt into this case. I don’t care how many fundamentalist votes they’re trying to scrounge for their run in the next presidential election, it is my wish that they play politics with someone else’s life and leave me alone to die in peace.

    I couldn’t care less if thousands of religious zealots send e-mails to legislators in which they pretend to care about me. I don’t know these people, and I certainly haven’t authorized them to preach and crusade on my behalf. They should mind their own business.

    If any of my family goes against my wishes and turns my case into a
    political cause, I strike them from inheriting from my estate and hereby promise to come back from the grave and make his or
    her existence a living hell.

    Category personal | Tags: | No Comments

  3. elenamary/teacher conference

    April 11, 2005 by elenamary

    Saturday afternoon I took four girls and my two dogs to the park. The four girls, were Olga 4, Lili 5, Jenny 9, and Rosa 13. I took them to the playground at the elementary school I attended during 5th grade. All four of these girls are Zapotec and speak Zapoteco as their first language. They speak to each other in Zapoteco and to me in Spanish, none of them speak English. The neighborhood they live in, is in the city of Columbus. They don’t have big open grassy areas, they don’t have nice big safe parks they can walk to. I drove them to my neighborhood, to my childhood park. When we got to the park, parents pulled their children off the playground, some took their children to the other side of the park, where we weren’t playing. I hoped the girls didn’t notice. But I know that when I was there age, I noticed such things. I noticed how people would look at me when they heard me speak in Spanish.

    Tomorrow I am going to pick up Rosa at 630am! Yes, 630am! I am going to take her to school and talk with her teacher. It seems to me that Rosa has improved very slowly in school. She still doesn’t know her alphabet very well. She knows it but she easily confuses things like ‘C’ and ‘S’. Which is understandable when you are learning a language. So, I am going to meet with her teacher tomorrow and ask her what she recommends I do with Rosa in order to help her out. We’ve been using phonetic flash cards to practice the alphabet, sounds, and reading. We’ve been doing puzzles together that have words on them in English. I’ve been trying to read to her. I wish she would tell me what her school work is so that I could help with that but she doesn’t. At least she is finally letting me to go to her school and talk to her teacher. I just wish I knew what to ask.

    BTW check out the Bridgeton, New Jersey entry in wikipedia.

    Category Latinos, Ohio | Tags: , | No Comments

  4. Geek

    April 10, 2005 by elenamary

    How did I spend my Saturday morning? Why looking at Gay porn of course. Don’t blame me, blame Seyd. He posted a link to a Gay Porn Blog tattoo contest. I of course went to the site and started clicking on all kinds of stuff and before you know it I had spent a good part of my Saturday checking out pics of gay porn stars. At least, unlike Seyd, I wasn’t able to identify the porn stars just by their tattoos.
    How did I spend my Sunday? I spent it trying to get Skype to work. I thought my audio card was messed up, so I changed audio cards from a different computer and that didn’t work. I did get it to work on my mother’s computer but her speakers are built into the monitor and well, they suck ass.
    Can I get some kind of geek award for spending my weekend taking apart my computer and looking at porn?

    Category personal | Tags: | No Comments

  5. Skype

    April 10, 2005 by elenamary

    I am now skype-d my handle there is “elena_mary”. Someone already has elenamary, we should hunt them down. I used to use something very similar to this in 1999 to make long distance calls, but this sounds a lot better now.

    I am swiping Oso‘s definition of Skype:

    “Skype is a Voice over IP service which is free as long as you call another computer and pretty cheap if you call an actual phone line. I tried it out before leaving San Diego and was really impressed by its quality. Just as good as any conversation between two cell phones. Anyway, my skype name is “elosopecoso” so add me to your contact list and ring me up if you see me online.”

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  6. Latinas want to go to College

    April 9, 2005 by elenamary

    For those of you who haven’t ever heard This American Life, now is the time. I encourage you to go listen to this 7 minute interview.

    My Big Break

    “…the story of Marisela and Yadira, who were honors students in high school. They wanted to go to the best colleges, but they couldn’t get federally-funded scholarships because they weren’t U.S. citizens; they had come from Mexico when they were little. Through a series of fortunate breaks, they manage to scrape together enough money to go to college. Still, because of their illegal status, they have no idea if their education will get them anywhere in America. Helen Thorpe, a reporter in Denver, interviewed the students.”

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments

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