Exploring Culture

This semester, in large part due to my professor, Prof. Maria Roy, I was able to expand my Spanish horizons far beyond what they were before. Through her understanding of the Latin American cultures and regional differences, my views about Spanish both as a language and as a global influence have been broadened to greater lengths than originally thought possible.

My family is made up of three main cultures: Puerto Rican, Spanish, and White American. This interesting dichotomy gave me a good look into the Spanish world but limited me to two small parts of the greater whole. Prof. Roy, both with the Lingro-Learning curriculum and without, introduced me to different cultures and their interactions with food and religion, their historical roots, and the extremely diverse aspects which are both Spanish-centered and indigenous-centered of everything mentioned before. I did not think that the Latin American world was nearly as diverse as it truly is prior to this class, and i really thank Prof. Roy for this amazing trip into a whole new Latin American world.

Engaging in Communities

Engaging in both my immediate community and the global community is extremely important due to the social nature of our society. On the immediate level, America is a melting pot of cultures both Latino and not, and so effective communication across the board better unifies us as a nation. On the global scale, we are all human, and all offer much to humanity, not communicating with the global community hinders human development and understanding.

Interpersonal Communication

While better in the long term, the removal of Talk-Abroad has made my communication with Spanish speakers far less frequent in terms of consistent Spanish dialogue. What has helped me overcome this, is working with a Peruvian woman extensively at my job. Both this class and my 201 class have helped me grasp some of the more subtle nuances of my coworker’s understanding of language, and her manner of performing work tasks. While we dialogue mostly in English, my understanding of Spanish has helped when she needs assistance with finding the correct thing to say in some contexts, as Spanish is often times clearer and more direct than English. An example is while she was trying to find the right word to describe an incident that occurred while working with another person, she asked me in Spanish what the phrase she wanted to say would be in English, and I helped her.

Presentational Speaking

The only presentation that I did was about a life-changing event that happened in my past. Specifically, the moment that I decided to completely turn my life upside-down and pursue trade school rather than college teaching. The presentation was not recorded, as it relied upon spontaneous dialogue with some preparation. I feel I did somewhat well, though I do not ordinarily perform well with presentations in English due to personal anxiety, so I cannot imagine how I truly did with a Spanish presentation.

Presentational Writing

The only non-exam composition we did in class was about social media influencers, and who our favorites were. My presentation was on a Catholic apologist called the Voice of Reason, and how his theological perspectives and points often reinforce my own personal convictions for my religion. Attached is the final draft that we turned in to Prof. Roy following some edits and input from her on our handwritten originals.

Interpretive Reading

The one activity we did in class I consider to be a part of this topic is the Hispanic Poetry assignment Prof. Roy had us do early on in the semester. We were tasked with finding a poem, in Spanish of course, which was both by a Hispanic author and which meant something to us or contained a message which we resonated with. Following our selection, we were to read it in front of the class and give a small statement about why we chose the poem we did.

I chose “The Death of Antoñito the Camborio,” by Federico Garcia Lorca. Lorca was a famous poet in Spain during the early years of Franco’s regime, and was executed for his political views and homosexuality. This poem in particular resonated with me, due to the intense feelings of melancholy it gave me throughout the course of the poem. I didn’t take much away from the reading besides an appreciation for the beauty and vibrant descriptions Lorca made throughout the poem, but I gained a new insight into the history of Spanish politics through my research on the poem.