DULAP Spanish Blog

“Very Very Chinese.” This was the title of a section of the menu in one of my favorite restaurants in a recent trip to Chicago’s Chinatown. This title, and the menu choices I made, prompted me to finally write about this very culturally ingrained topic: the eating of organ meats and extremities. The story begins in Colombia where eating all parts of the animal – muscle meat, organ meat, and extremities such as heads and feet – is a cultural norm. As a child, I enjoyed my mom’s cured pork sausages stuffed in the casings of pork intestines, a recipe no doubt handed down for generations from my Spanish great-grandmothers. For New Year’s celebration, my entire extended family got together to prepare and enjoy eating fritanga y chicharrón (fried pork intestines and rind) and morcillas (blood sausages). Beyond the pork department, we also enjoyed chunchurria (boiled, chopped and fried beef intestine) for breakfast, mondongo (beef stomach stew) for lunch, and jalea de pata (dark brown sweet gelatin made from cow hooves) as a sweet treat. There were also stuffed chicken necks, available as a roadside snack in those famous Bogotá piqueteaderos, and chicken feet served in many respectable restaurants that serve “consomé con menudencias.” I know that Latin Americans are far from alone in the enjoyment of these delicacies, as Chinese, Germans, and French also join us in this supposedly “acquired taste” feast.
On this topic, I recently saw a travel documentary about Spain that infuriated me because the hostesses in the show (Shilpa Mehta and Christina Chang) on two occasions literally barfed in front of the waiters in two Spanish tapas bars. Just for shock value, the two women in the documentary ordered pig ears and bull testicles. They both knew, regardless of their ethnic background, they didn’t have these lived experiences in their repertoire of eating habits, and had no intention of eating these foods, and yet they ordered them. What an insult, and what a twisted way of attracting tourism to Spain, and by extension to Latin America where similar eating customs are shared.
So, the question of the day is, what would you do if your Venezuelan host family invited you to their house and served you a hot steaming bowl of the very best mondongo for you to enjoy?

Easter is a very important festivity in the Spanish tradition, and for that it is widely celebrated in Spain. There  are many different forms of celebrating Easter, or Semana Santa as it is called and known, throughout Spain. However, there are some commonalities in the way it is celebrated. 

Processions start on Palm Sunday and continue until Easter Sunday with the most dramatic and solemn on Thursday and Good Friday. Images from Christ’s Passion on huge “tronos” (thrones), some weighting more than 12,000 pounds and carried by more than 250 people, form the processions that go for the streets with penitents dressed in long purple robes, often with pointed hats, followed by women in black carrying candles. Drums and trumpets play solemn music and occasionally someone spontaneously sings a mournful “saeta” dedicated to the floats as they make their way slowly round the streets.

Even though Semana Santa is a religious celebration, due to the solemnity of some of these processions, even non religious people go out to admire such representations. As I mentioned before, Semana Santa is celebrated all over Spain, but the most famous representations take place in the South of Spain, specially in Malaga and Seville.

I was recently asking why was it that the first trip that Barack Obama made abroad as President was to Canada, and not to Mexico. Instead, the Obama plan for official visits to Mexico was to send Secretary of State Clinton. I was trying to interpret this sequence of trips as a “Mexico is not a priority.” I watched on TV the coverage of these two trips and saw President Obama receiving the welcome of Canadians and Canada’s Prime Minister, and signing the book of distinguished guests. In contrast, Secretary Clinton’s trip to Mexico was surrounded by her visit to the Virgin of Guadalupe’s Basilica and a staged military hostage rescue operation by Mexican “federales.” But then, my early interpretation of the Obama’s policy to Mexico changed when I read the following editorial from the Des Moines Register:

U.S. must confront its role in drug trade (March 27, 2009)

Please read the editorial and answer the following question:
If you were to advise your Congress person, what would you tell him/her about the direction that the U.S. policy should take in regards to U.S.- Mexican relations?

Museums are an important aspect of any city’s culture. Thus, Guggenheim Museum, which is considered one of the best modern art museums around the world, made a huge impact in Bilbao’s development.
Bilbao is an industrial city located in a northern Spanish region called the Basque Country. A decade ago, Bilbao was a city known for its metallurgical industry that had been very important during the 20th century, but had also made of it a very dirty city.
In 1997 the construction of the Guggenheim Museum designed by the well known architect Frank O. Gehry was completed. Mr. Gehry designed an astonishing building made out of titanium that merges with the city’s skyline, and helped to clean up the face of Bilbao.
Besides the important art that is displayed in the museum, the building itself is considered a work of art. Located alongside the Ria de Bilbao, the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum resembles the form of a ship when it is observed from the ground; however, if you have the opportunity to look at it from the sky, the shape of the Museum seems to switch from a ship to a rose. Moreover, because of the material used to build the museum, the color of the sky influences the look of the building; thus, depending on the season of the year you will discover a different building before you.
For all these reasons, the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum has changed the city from a dirty industrial one to a modern European tourist attraction.

Carnival is a popular celebration in contemporary Latin America that dates back to colonial times. From Rio de Janeiro to Riosucio in South America, cities and towns celebrate at least one major carnival. Carnivals can be celebrated at any time of the year, but usually they follow Christian festivities taking place between Epiphany and Easter. But carnival is not exclusive to Latin America – other cities like New Orleans in the U.S. and Valencia and Tenerife in Spain have their own carnivals. Carnival at times signifies “fiesta,” and popular celebrations such as “fiestas patronales” (patron saint days) can be understood as carnival. Historically, carnival represented the last time to eat meat (carne = meat) before Lent, a time for fasting and atoning for sins.

Other festivities related to carnival may also include the circus coming to town, or taking a ride and eating cotton candy at the local city park, or even attending the State Fair. But is this the true meaning of carnival? Carnivals include street dances and musical performances, parades with large and imaginative floats, people wearing mask and costumes, and even bullfighting. As a festival, carnival has an embedded syncretism sometimes difficult to perceive without a critical cultural approach in our observations. The events of carnival occur around religious celebrations, but they do not necessarily imply or have a religious connotation. Anthropology, semiotics, political and social sciences all lend a lens through which to interpret rituals, philosophies, religions, and cultural practices that once were circumscribed by race and ethnicity; they are now performed not by “others” but by “us,” in performances which Umberto Eco described as “authorized transgressions” (Eco: Carnival, 1984; p. 6).

Here are some some examples of carnivals around the world:

1. Carnaval de Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

2. Carnaval de Veracruz, Mexico 2007

3. Carnaval de Riosucio, Colombia: a.k.a Carnaval del Diablo

4. Carnaval Dominicano: República Dominicana

5. Carnaval en Ponce y Loiza Aldea, Puerto Rico

6. Fiestas de Las Fallas, Valencia, España

7. Carnaval de Barranquilla, Colombia

8. Mardi Gras, New Orleans, USA

Fire, scantily dressed women, and all sorts of unauthorized behaviors are part of carnival. However, we take and are given license to turn things upside down, at least for a day or two, and the consequences are not always as happy, as seen in the tragic comedy of most popular celebration.

In Spanish there are three different ways to say You. They are: ‘Usted’, ‘Tú’, and ‘Vos’, and even though they have the same meaning, you should use one or the other depending on two factors. The first one is the geographical factor. For those of you that are thinking about going to Spain, you will not need to learn the form ‘Vos’, because it is only used in some Latin-American countries, such as Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and parts of Colombia and Guatemala. In Spain we only use the forms ‘Usted’ and ‘Tú’.
The second factor that you must take into account is the person you are talking to. Hence, ‘Usted’ is more formal than ‘Tú’, so you will use ‘Usted’ if you are talking to an elderly person, a professor, or somebody you do not know. However, when you are talking to a friend or a family member you should use the ‘Tú’ form.
If this does not seem complicated enough, people will use ‘Usted’ instead of ‘Tú’ depending on the region of Spain you are in. Therefore, in most parts of Spain people will use ‘Tú’ on a daily basis, but in Andalucía and the Canary Islands people use ‘Usted’ even when they talk to friends, or family.  It seems very messy, but if you are planning to go to Spain you should use ‘Usted’ when the situation requires more formality, and when it is a friendlier conversation you should use ‘Tú’.

If you plan to go to Latin America, the ‘vos’ form is the norm in the “Southern Cone.” Here is a link to the Spanish dictionary of the “Real Academia Española” that you can use to conjugate verbs and learn the ‘vos’ forms. You can also start by listening to Juanes‘ music, and identify his use of the ‘vos’ form in songs like “Para tu amor“, and “A Dios le pido.” If you are not sure what form to use depending on geography or familiarity, I suggest you to use the ‘Usted’ form.  ‘Usted’ is also a sign of politeness, and you should wait for your interlocutor to signal his/her preferance for ‘tú’ or ‘vos’ in the conversation, as in “trátame de tú“, or “hablemos de tú a tú.”

For many years I have wondered about how democratic is music and art education in Latin America. Last year during trip to Colombia, I was pleased to see that entrance to the new Botero Museum in Bogotá is free and open to the general public. Unlike the Louvre in Paris or the Prado in Madrid, this is similar to the National Gallery in Washington D.C., where entrance is free of charge. One might think that one way of democratizing art is to have world-class museums open to the public at no cost, and keep to the slogan “Art is for everybody”. However, music and art education in public schools, both in Latin America and the U.S., do not get the support and funding from government, and the study of these subjects — and foreign languages— by young learners becomes the privilege of a few: those who can afford art and music education, or those who have “talent”. Not long ago, it used to be that only the children of the elites would learn to speak a foreign language, and mainly French: the language of diplomacy.

Take a look at this video clip from 2007 in San Antonio, TX where Mexican-American children performed in a mall and asked for donations so that they could supplement their family income. We know that teaching and learning mariachi music is not part of the public school curriculum, but this band’s performance illustrates the issue of where children are supposed to get their music education. Is it at home, or at the public schools? Should parents have to pay for private lessons for music, art, and foreign language education?

Venezuela has provided an alternative to music education for young learners that serves as a model for the rest of the world. The Venezuelans created what is known as “el Sistema” (short for “Sistema Nacional de Orquestas Juveniles e Infantiles de Venezuela”) that is funded by public and private moneys to ensure that all Venezuelan children receive education in classical music beginning at an early age. You might have recently noticed Gabriela Montero, a graduate from the Sistema program, who last month performed playing the piano along with Yoyo Ma at President Obama’s inauguration. Or you might have heard of another graduate from “el Sistema”, Gustavo Dudamel, the Venezuelan conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. Venezuela is taking the classical music world by surprise. The point is that early music and art education should not only be the concern of developing countries but the world at large.

By Veronica Cuesta

When do you decide on the idea of going abroad? Maybe you don’t make a choice, the ideas just come one day when you are sitting at the airport ready to start a new adventure. It is in that moment when you think, what is next?

Spain is ahead on the list of countries to visit for study abroad, according to statistics from the Erasmus program, a European student exchange program. In contrast, Spaniards are not the highest population on getting away from home.

How important is learning a foreign language? Is it obligatory to do it outside of your own country? It has been demonstrated that getting into the culture of the language you want to learn is the best way to do it. When you don’t have anyone around you who speaks your native language, you must make an extra effort to be able to communicate, and with time, getting fluent in that language. When you go back home, you bring with you new experiences, new language skills, and a new person. You have learned to be more independent, to be more adventurous. The experience gives you more than you could have ever imagined. Many corporations are looking for people who are able to work in groups, who have an international background, who are imaginative, adventurous, and sociable, and definitely those who are open-minded. Studying abroad helps with all these.

Choosing the destination is the first thing to do. “I chose Spain, because I wanted to get into the Spanish culture, which I had been studying since high school,” said an American student living in Madrid. And he is not the only one. Many universities in Madrid offer courses taught in Spanish and English, for those who are not sure of their Spanish level. I am not going to lie; it is hard getting into the Spanish culture, and the schedule of meals is the worst part. I agree that eating at 3 PM can be a little frustrating sometimes.

Taking the metro, going to class, having fun during the weekends, going shopping, visiting the museums, living your life “abroad”… When you look back and realize that it’s over, you will miss it. You will see how important this is to you. Spanish people are as friendly as Americans, so don’t be shy to say hi to someone the first day of class, because sometimes we don’t realize how important the first week is for an international student.

Young people nowadays are looking for the best ways to enter the labor market and develop a professional career, under the best conditions. Studying abroad is like a bridge that helps you achieve these objectives and more.

Hola a todos, Kaixo denorik, Hola a tots, Hoa a todos.  It may seem like these sentences are wrong, but these are the same expression in four different languages that are spoken in several regions of Spain.
As you all have guessed, the first sentence is written in Spanish, the official language of Spain, the second sentence is written in Euskera ; and as you can see, it is totally different from Spanish. The reason for such difference is because unlike languages like Spanish or French, Euskera does not come from Latin.  Euskera is even older than Latin, and that is why there are no similarities. Euskera is only spoken in the Basque Country, the north of Navarre, and what it is known as the French Basque Country (southwestern of France). The third phrase is written in Catalán. You can see that it is much more similar to Castilian Spanish, because Catalan unlike Euskera, traces its origins to Latin. We could say that Catalan is a mixture of Castilian, French, and Italian. This language is spoken in Catalonia, the Valencian Community, the Balearic Islands, and even in Andorra. The last sentence is written in Gallego, whose roots are traced back to Latin, and it is a language similar to Portuguese. Gallego is only spoken in Galicia.
Besides these four different languages, there are dialects spoken in other regions like Andalusia, Canary Islands, Aragon, or Asturias among others. Now you know that in Spain, apart from the Castilian Spanish, there are other languages that are spoken in Spain.  Hasta luego, Gero arte, Fins ara, Ata logo.

La semana pasada fue el aniversario 156 del nacimiento del poeta, periodista, abogado, maestro, diplomático, y patriota cubano José Martí.

José Martí nació en La Habana, Cuba el 28 de enero de 1853 de padres inmigrantes españoles, y se le conoce como “el Apóstol de la Independencia de Cuba” por su trabajo en favor de la independencia cubana de España. También, a Martí se le conoce por su prolífica obra literaria (74 volúmenes) entre los cuales se encuentran sus “Versos Sencillos” publicados en 1891, y por cuyas coplas se le ha inmortalizado a través de la popular canción “Guantanamera.”

Martí vivió en España, México, Guatemala, Francia, Cuba, y los Estados Unidos, en donde trabajó en Nueva York para el diario en inglés “The Sun.” Su exilio voluntario de 15 años en los Estados Unidos terminó cuando el 31 de enero de 1895 partió con destino a Cuba como líder de una sublemación de independencia. Cuatro meses después muere en una batalla contra las fuerzas españolas el 19 de mayo.

En 1894, talvez como una premonición, publicó el poema “A morir”, en el que escribió:

“No me entierren en lo oscuro
A morir como un traidor
Yo soy bueno y como bueno
Moriré de cara al sol.”

En hispanoamérica, José Martí es reconocido como uno de los escritores y líderes más importantes de la independencia de España. En Estados Unidos, se le recuerda con una estatua ecuestre en Nueva York a la entrada del Parque Central en la entrada de la Avenida de las Américas.

Sources
Image: The Latino American Experience.
Text: Iván Castro 2007. “100 Hispanics you Should Know”.