As I have stated before, I have traveled thru a cultural metamorphosis since I can recall. The a fore mentioned quandary has meandered in my mind and soul throughout my journey – to quote a modern philosopher, I believe the answer is “still crazy after all this years!” for how can I proclaim whether is either or, or that maybe it is both! Without stepping on someone’s toes???
Truly I strive to be ‘a man for all seasons’, ‘think outside the box’, and very willing ‘to learn from other views’, but still am bewildered by the subject and its intricacies and for the moment choosing to subscribe to the concept of - Click to select language or Selecciona un Idioma. The following address various issues in Spanish language and hispanophone cultures that makes me go HMMMMMMM!
- Please feel free to scan about but before you decide this is not worth your time, scroll all the way down and - Click to select language or Selecciona un Idioma. - On the link CREER ES CREAR. Un mensaje de los Mayas Galacticos.
Enjoy!
Ahora. - Does it mean "now" or doesn't it?
Saber and conocer - both can be translated by the English verb to know.
In Spanish, many verbs must be followed by a preposition.
Author Gabriela Madera explains some differences in Argentinian Spanish:
The pronunciation of yo and the use of vos in place of tú.
Vos has its own set of verb conjugations. Let us see some examples.
Tú tienes would be Vos tenés.
Tú eres would be Vos sos.
Tú te llamas would be Vos te llamás.
“…Chicanos simply do not have the necessary imaginative space in Anglo-American culture to do their work”. Of course, Chicano scholars and activists have long taken this critical line. Bruce-Novoa argues in the opening sentence of “Charting the Space of Chicano Literature” that “Chicano literature is an ordering response to the chaos which threatens to devastate the descendants of Mexicans who now reside in the U.S.A.” (114). Gloria Anzaldua's description of this chaos is even more riveting: “ ‘The U.S-Mexican border is una herida abierta where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds” (3). Implicit in both Bruce-Novoa's and Anzaldua's claims is the agonizing assertion of cultural difference, the “open wound” of a cultural war that can never heal because the dominant culture seeks to extirpate or colonize the sub dominant strains within it. In Anzaldua's view, the colonizing grip of Anglo-American culture strangles competing subcultures even as they emerge because these cultural competitors are either eliminated or, even more likely, co-opted. To survive, as Bruce-Novoa suggests, Chicano literature must chart an imaginative course that permits its Mexican-American readers to negotiate between the cultural space they physically inhabit and the imaginative spaces that they need and desire.”
[A White Man’s Fantasies: Orientalism in Rudolfo Anaya's A Chicano in China]
“The perceived need to stick together and evince a united front in the face of opposition engendered a defensive orthodoxy. Ethnic and political identities became almost indistinguishable. A "real Chicano" was expected to think, believe and behave in ways preordained by the Movement Strays were stripped of their ethnic credentials. Even as it promoted positive community involvement and ethnic pride, Chicanismo's ideological inflexibility predetermined its eventual obsolescence. As time passed, fewer and fewer of even the most strident Chicano activists could continue to adhere to the constricting demands of Chicanismo.
A few days before last month's 25th anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium and Salazar's slaying, California Plaza in Downtown Los Angeles presented a play by Alfredo Ramos about a group of middle-aged Chicanos mourning the low of a friend as when as their own youthful idealism and passion. Ramos, a 30-year-old East LA. Playwright, was only 5 when he watched moratorium protesters clash with sheriff’s deputies from his porch across the street from what is now Ruben Salazar Park. The characters in his play, "The Last Angry Brown Hat," were young activists 25 years ago, but have since traded their picket signs and slogans for careers, wives, mortgages and, in one case, addictions. They speak nostalgically of the days when they and others were true Chicanos”
[David E. Hayes-Bautista and Gregory Rodriquez, associate editors at Pacific News Service are, respectively, executive director and senior fellow at the Alta California Research Center.]
"Everyone has an opinion about language – parents about the speech of their children, teachers about their pupils, monolingual speakers about bilingual speakers – and most of these opinions are negative," she says. "Under labels such as ‘Spanglish’ or ‘Pocho,’ the Spanish spoken by bilingual speakers in New Mexico is often criticized as corrupt and inferior." Such criticism, she adds, "is destructive, since it leads to stigmatization not only of the linguistic forms, but also of the speakers who use them." - But is this wrong? Is this incorrect usage of one or both languages? Not in Nuevo Mexíco, says Rena Cacoullos, University of New Mexico Assistant Professor of Spanish and Portuguese.
"I am not a Shaman, I am not a Guru, much less a Saint! I am only a Messenger and the important thing here is 'The Message.'- I come from the side of Disobedience, from the side of those who decided to follow their Heart - It is a way of the Warriors, Poets, and the 'Crazy'- A work of Art in Eternal Movement!
They call me 'Crazy' because I Believe!"
CREER ES CREAR. Un mensaje de los Mayas Galacticos.
http://www.creerescrear.co
