Hispanic Cultures and Identities

This Hispanic Cultures & Identities course has proven to be the most impactful class I’ve taken thus far in my curriculum. Because of this course, I feel that I am much more cognizant of the complexity of Hispanic cultures and identities and able to appreciate all that I may encounter. I owe this mainly due to the lectures which were very engaging and interactive, characterized by concepts being compared to already familiar and interesting information for the ease of learning. Besides lectures this course utilized journals which were to be done after every class, homeworks for most classes, and some video presentations. In this e-Portfolio, I have included some examples of each with a brief explanation and their effect. 

I would like to touch more upon what this course has instilled in me. Before taking this course, I would say that I could regurgitate information at will if someone required me to. There was no emotional connection with what I knew, and therefore I had little respect for what I learned (not to imply I ever disrespected the content of my classes). The specific gift I was given from this course was the ability to connect what I learned with my own life, with the realization that every culture and identity is as complex as my own. This may not seem like a riveting realization, or may even seem like the ramblings of a self-entitled kid, but I believe that recognizing the complexity and the agency of other people is something easier said than done. With this realization, it becomes much easier to learn about other cultures and identities because the chief guide for this learning is a sense of curiosity and child-like wonder that is intrinsically fulfilling in the quest for answers. For example, most times I did a homework assignment I would have to google a term or word I wasn’t familiar with, which would lead me to discovering the depth of things I already knew about. For example, I had learned about Argentina’s Dirty War, but I was not aware of the ongoing effects of that war. The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo is an organization which seeks to find the stolen and illegally adopted children of the war, almost 40 years later. To learn about an event is one thing, but to be able to witness the on-going consequences and effects is another. This ability to connect events with the present and with individuals is what makes it easier to connect the information with one’s own life.

But why is it even important to be able to connect this information at all? There are multiple answers, including our possession of a duty to be aware and respectful of those we share our space with, or even just the necessity to take advantage of our ability to learn. I think, however, that the single greatest reason for connecting this information and learning about other cultures at all is because it gives a perspective with which to reflect upon our own society, culture, identity, etc. One of the biggest perspective shifts I’ve had wasn’t even in regards to a Hispanic culture, but I still feel the need to use it as an example. When I took French, my teacher made a wonderful point of learning French culture with the language. I learned that French people value their free time much more than Americans do–simple enough, right? Well, I’ll give two examples to show the stark difference. Firstly, a whole law was passed which gives French citizens the “right to disconnect”, meaning that they do not have to respond to emails and other online workstuffs after they leave work. In other words, they legally can leave work at work. Secondly, there are a number of public holidays that French people may get work off; a phenomenon exists in which when a holiday falls on either the second or penultimate day of the week, the day in between the holiday and the weekend will also be taken off. This is so prevalent, it has been affectionately referred to as “faire le point” (to make the bridge). Now, obviously not every Frenchman is constantly on vacation, but this example serves to not just display the differences between two cultures, but rather show that learning about other cultures can give us ideas of what we may want to change about our own cultures, societies, governments, etc.

This is at the core of what I have been trying to say. When we learn about people with different life experiences, cultures with different values or taboos, or new identities that are being created from ongoing conflicts in the world, what we may really be trying to do is come to terms with our understandings of ourselves–to try and find how we fit into the world. Without knowledge of other cultures, we can’t fit into anything because we aren’t aware of anything outside of ourselves, like a puzzle piece lost in a couch cushion. When we learn about the world around us, we slowly begin to find the puzzle pieces that give us a sense of what the big picture is. As a teacher, I will educate my students on hispanic cultures and identities, but this information will be relayed through sparking their own curiosity and wonder, just as mine has been sparked. At the core of this is the hope that even if they lose all their Spanish abilities, they are left with the sense that that scope of the world is much bigger than what they experience around them.