Que fue primero, el huevo o la gallina?

Siempre me he preguntado quien decide lo que se transmite por televisión. Será que la televisión refleja la forma de ser, ideas y gustos del ciudadano promedio? o Será que la televisión pone ejemplos de comportamiento inventados y de alguna forma estos llegan a influenciar nuestros gustos, ideas y la forma en la que nos vemos a nosotros mismos? Lo ideal seria que nosotros como audiencia fuésemos los que decidimos el contenido de los medios de comunicación y no que ellos decidan lo que nosotros vamos a ver. A fin de cuentas sus patrocinadores están ahí con un solo motivo y es el llegar a nosotros como consumidores. El problema esta cuando empezamos a ver que nosotros como audiencia, empezamos a imitar lo que vemos en la televisión y lo vemos como "correcto" simplemente por el hecho de que es transmitido por televisión. Desde cuando respetamos tanto a los medios? Muchas veces vemos a la sociedad en general imitando comportamientos que van completamente en contra de lo que alguna vez fueron sus principios, simple y sencillamente porque lo vieron por televisión. Esto es súper peligroso!

La televisión siempre a estado llena de gente bella, pero últimamente ha sido algo casi "no humano", con la idea de que los 40's son los nuevos 30's, y los 30's lo nuevos 20's, las hermosas mujeres maduras que antes sin problema se dejaban las canas, mostraban arrugas como símbolo de experiencia y madurez, ahora se ven casi obligadas a tener un cuerpo de niña de 20 con cara de joven de 30. Hasta donde va a llegar eso? Una reciente estadística mostró que de un par de años a la fecha, la edad de las mujeres con problemas de trastornos alimenticios incremento al rango de los 40-50 siendo que las que antes sufrían de estos trastornos eran adolescentes y jóvenes 20-30. Me pregunto si series como "Sex and the city" o "Desperate House Wifes" tendrán algo que ver con este fenómeno? Y que hay acerca de los tantos de casos donde niños o adolescentes han matado porque lo han visto por televisión?

El punto de todo esto no es culpar a los medios de comunicación por su contenido, sino analizar que estamos haciendo mal como consumidores de estos mensajes y nosotros regular dentro de nuestros hogares lo que vemos y lo que no. Analizar como padres si están cometiendo el error de dejar la educación de sus hijos a la televisión, analizarnos a nosotros mismos y honestamente reconocer si en momentos hemos empezado a imitar comportamientos impuestos por los medios de comunicación. A fin de cuentas todos y cada uno de nosotros tenemos poder de decisión para saber que nos conviene y que no. Hay que dejar de ser borregos y como dice una amiga mía "seguir a las masas." Si no te gusta lo que ves por la televisión, tienes cuatro opciones; verlo aunque no te guste, cambiar de canal, apagar la tele y abrir un libro o expresar tu descontento y tratar de hacer algo para regular lo que los medios nos dan. A fin de cuentas ellos están para servirnos a nosotros y no nosotros a ellos.

Latinoamericanos en Estados Unidos

Sin lugar a dudas, este es un tema con el cual todos los latinos que vivimos en Estados Unidos estamos familiarizados, pero después de haber vivido en ambas costas del país, seis años en Los Ángeles, CA y cuatro en Miami, FL me considero toda una experta en el tema. La realidad es que a fin de cuentas todos somos latinos y tenemos muchas cosas en común, pero al mismo tiempo tenemos muchas diferentes costumbres y culturas que aunque algunas veces complican un poco la convivencia, también nos enriquecen como una cultura unificada. Mi experiencia viviendo en California me mostró que en la costa oeste del país hay un fuerte sentido de identidad. Muchas veces era como nunca haber salido de América Latina, la riqueza culinaria es exquisita y se mantiene intacta. Lo mismo se puede encontrar unas ricas cemitas Poblanas que una rica parrillada Jaliciense o unas quesadillas típicas chilangas. Nada como los ricos tamales navideños guatemaltecos, únicos por esa rica costumbre de ponerles limón y como no hablar de las deliciosas pupusas salvadoreñas con loroco. No he probado crema mas rica que la hondureña la cual simplemente combina con cualquier tipo de comida y básicamente todos la usamos lo mismo con sopes mexicanos que con casamiento salvadoreño. Como olvidar el mercado Buenos Aires en Van Nuys donde el pintoresco dueño “Pocho” saludaba de beso a todo el que entraba, nunca he vuelto a probar un chimichurri como el de ahí. En cuanto a costumbre y adaptación, el latino de Los Ángeles tiene un poco de mas “colmillo” se adapta mas rápido a la cultura de este país y la hace propia, aprende ingles y en un par de meses se mueve solo y busca trabajo, en resumidas cuentas el no contar con una estadía legal en el país no los limita para cumplir el sueño por el cual dejaron su país. Una de las grandes similitudes que encuentro entre ambas costas, es que como en Los Ángeles, estar en Miami es también como nunca haber salido del Latinoamérica. La gente conduce exactamente igual, ir a una discoteca es ver el mismo tipo de gente y la forma de pensar es muy parecida. Es tal vez por esto que aquí nos sentimos como en casa! A diferencia de California, el inmigrante de Florida tiende a ser un poco mas cuidadoso con el cuidado de su estatus migratorio y hacen malabares para conseguir visas, permisos de trabajo etc… Tal como en Los Ángeles, en Miami hay un claro y fuerte sentido de identidad, pero con la gran cantidad de representación que existe de diversos países de América Latina es difícil encontrar una dominante. Con la excepción de algunas nacionalidades, la gente se mueve más en grupos de diversos países. Es muy común estar sentado en una mesa con gente de cinco o seis países distintos intercambiando el “chamo” “parce” “guey” “che” “pata” entre otros. No hay mesa de viernes en la noche donde no se hable de política y el reciente bloque de izquierda de América Latina, nunca falta el tema de la desigualdad social de nuestros países y de la inseguridad en las calles. En cuanto cae la ultima gota de la botella de vino, es probable que ya hayamos arreglado al mundo una vez mas. Yo les llamo las pequeñas ONU. Después de diez años de vivir en Estados Unidos, me doy cuenta que cada uno de nosotros nos hemos convertido en pequeños embajadores de nuestro país. Es cierto que todos hemos sido victimas de etiquetas y en muchos momentos de estereotipos erróneos, pero la realidad es que los Latinos de Estados Unidos somos muy privilegiados al poder convivir con nuestros hermanos de otras nacionalidades, a fin de cuentas nos hemos ido convirtiendo en un solo cuerpo que va de la mano hacia una misma meta. A fin de cuentas todos somos Latinoamericanos en Estados Unidos.

Immigration Reform

An immigration reform is really necessary in the USA and there is no other way around it. Lately everyone has been talking about this subject and some people touch on it just for the sake of doing it and in a very lightly way. It is necessary to understand that people don’t migrate to this country just because the want to. No one likes to leave their home country and family behind, but the truth is that a lot of other countries don’t offer their citizens the means to survive and the opportunity to live a life of dignity where their children can grow safe and healthy.

The USA has become the place where people come in search of a better life and they come to work and achieve all the things that would be very hard if not impossible to obtain in their own countries. It is estimated that there are 11 million of illegal immigrants in the country. These 11 million are living in the shadows, studying, working and living, wouldn’t it be better for the country to legalize all these people so they know exactly who lives inside their borders?

I could go on for hours describing the kind of immigrants that I know and describing the great achievements they have accomplished in a very short period of time; however, the point that I want to make is that immigrants come here in search of a better life and to work for the benefit of this country. Even though they are proud of their countries of origin, they love the USA as this has been the country that has given them the opportunity to live a safe life and life of dignity. If they've already done so much without all the resources, can you imagine how much more they could do if they are given a better chance and a path towards legalization?

My idea of love

Every single person has their own personal idea of what love is, it may seem similar but is really not, everyone has different expectations of it. But what is really love? Is it a feeling? A concept? Or an illusion? If love is such a strong word, why can we say “I love my mom” and “I love hot dogs” using the same expression? Does it mean that both are in the same category or at the same level? Does it mean that we don’t have enough words in the English vocabulary to categorize the levels that express a fond for something? Or does it mean that we don’t know how to use this statement correctly? Personally I think that a lot of times we don’t know how to use the expression correctly, we don’t realize the importance of this sentiment. I believe that love is the most intense feeling that exists. Love is the center of our existence and is also a huge responsibility and a big commitment, to me the best way to describe the idea of love is how the bible describes it 1rst Corinthians 13 “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails...” Wow! Amazing isn’t it? It doesn’t miss anything! It shows us that love is more than a warm, cozy feeling; it shows that love requires forgiveness, commitment, and is never selfish. Doesn’t sound easy, right? In fact it seems very hard. We all think that we know how to love and that we clearly understand the concept and what it conveys but the truth is that many times we don’t. Love is one of the first feelings we learn since we are children, we love our parents, we love our siblings, we love our pets etc…. When we are children we are more honest and truthful but when we grow up it becomes harder to leave our interest at side for those of the people that we love. Is not that I have lost faith in love or that I have a cynical concept of it, but I am realist enough to realize that we rarely can achieve the kind of love that 1rst Corinthians describes.

Why is it easier to have confrontations with those that we love than with strangers? Personally, I’ve been in this situation many times with relatives and friends alike, it seems more likely that a quarrel with arise between some one I have feelings for versus a complete stranger. I believe this concept takes us to the deeper side of love, the side that is not romanticized or commercialized, true love or just the feeling of connection with someone will make you want to point out their mistakes or whatever they did to hurt us or harm us, we don’t usually take this stance with strangers, it’s harder to stand up to a bully or to a harassing stranger. We believe that love gives us the right to point out our loved one’s mistakes, which is more a side of the egotistical nature that goes hand in hand with love. Love is said to be egoistic because we want to keep those dear to us closer to ourselves and tailored to our feelings-way of living, for example, no mother wants their son/daughter to leave the city of town where they have all resided as a family, while common knowledge tells us that it’s normal and sane for sons and daughters to leave the paternal home in order for them to venture into the real world and make a place for themselves. The hardest truth of love is that of loving someone so much that their opinions, dreams and quirks are not only respected but revered. I believe humans are social animals; we need companionship and social order in order to live happy and satisfying lives, but at the same time we feel confronted with selfish feelings, so it’s usually a very thin line between correcting someone from a mistake or harming habit and between being meddlesome.
Types of love or why do we love it’s also a topic worthwhile mentioning while we are at it. Do we love our family just because they are family or do they have to posses certain characteristics for us to love them? We usually love our parents because their loved is one of the most pure and unselfish, but not everybody experiences such love. Do we learn to love? Or is it an instinct, love is usually learned from our parents when we are very young, we have archetypes for what love should do and how should we behave and what should we sacrifice if we truly love someone. As far as friends and relationships goes, sometimes we love because we have an innate need of acceptance, which we usually find with peers, other behaviors such as the way we feel with a particular person may lead us to love. Romantic love is usually sparked by a physical attraction which is then fed with mutual feelings or personality types that we find appealing. On romantic relationships I where we usually find love’s dark side having our own interests being placed first before the other person, selfishness sets in and since we already have pretty defined individual archetypes of what love should be we find conflict with different ideas and definitions of love, some people believe that true love swipes you off your feet and sets you to follow blindly your object of desire, while some other people merely see it as a compliment to life completely separate from you and therefore the main rule is “don’t mess with my life as I wouldn’t with yours”.

In conclusion love is a deep concept subject to individual’s perception and learned behaviors on what and how love should behave, the true is that real love is not conditional and is not a consumer novelty, love should be able to withstand many trivial issues such as personality quirks and phases where romantic love may not be possible for whatever reason (economic problems, sickness, etc.)

Dry Mango With Chili Powder

I still remember our routine of going shopping on Sunday afternoons. I was probably eight or nine years old and as soon as Sunday would come around I would know that it was our day to go shopping to Liverpool. Liverpool is a big and beautiful department store in Mexico City; the equivalent to a Macy’s or Neiman Marcus here in the USA. I would always go with my mom and my dad, usually around 4:00pm right after church and our Sunday family lunch. Even though this was a Sunday routine, to me it was really exciting as a little girl because I would usually end up convincing my mom or my dad to buy me something that according to me “I really, really needed!”. We would arrive to the mall and it would usually take us about 10 to 15 minutes to find a parking spot. Even though that parking lot was huge it’s always like that when you live on a city along with other 20 million people. The name of the mall was Perisur and it had 3 main department stores; Palacio de Hierro, Liverpool and Sears. Liverpool being my favorite from all three because of it’s huge candy and toys section on the first level. As we would enter the mall the first thing we would do was go right into “Nutrisa” a naturist chain store where they sold all kinds of vitamins, natural products and the most delicious yogurt ice creams. My mom and my dad would always get an ice cream, I even remember the toppings. My mom would get a small ice cream with strawberries and pistachios topping and my dad would get a large one with pineapple and raisings topping. I really liked those ice creams too but I wouldn’t get one because I would always want to save enough room for my dry mangos with chili powder from Liverpool. Those where the highlight of my day! Our next stop after “Nutrisa” was Liverpool. As soon as we would walk in I could feel the warm and sweet smell from the caramelized apples, the unforgettable aroma of chocolate truffles, and of course the delicious smell of dried fruit covered with chili powder. The crystal stands were full of all kinds of candy such as huge round and colorful lollypops, all kinds of gummies from gummy bears to gummy worms covered with sugar, chocolate raisins, jelly beans, nuts covered with caramel etc… The halls were filled with excited kids running around trying to convince their parents to buy them as much candy as they could and parents going crazy running after their kids trying to keep them under control. The scene was pretty colorful and overall cheerful! Being at that place represented no worries, it was pure happiness! I think that my only concern was getting to the dried fruit section and realizing that they had ran out of my favorite fruit. I would walk in holding my parent’s hands and quickly drag them to where the dried fruit crystal containers were. I would let go of their hands and rush to grab two little clear plastic bags, I would then grab a scoop, right away I would open the crystal container and feel the smell of the delicious dry mangoes covered with red chili powder, as soon as I would open the container I could smell the spicy chili mixed with the tangy dried mangoes. By this moment my mouth was already watering and I could hardly wait to start eating them. I would start scooping as many mangoes as I could inside one of little clear candy bag. I had been waiting for this moment most of the day so as you may understand I didn’t care about the long line of annoyed kids standing behind me waiting for me to finish using the scoop for the fruit. After I was done scooping mangoes, I would then start serving some dried apples and peaches covered with chili inside the second candy bag. The apples were for my mom and the peaches for my dad. I didn’t like these as much as the mangoes because the apple slices were too little to enjoy and the peaches were too hard on my teeth. I would get these for them because I knew they liked them but secretly I would also do it so they wouldn’t ask me to share my mangoes with them, I was always taught to share everything but when it came to my spicy mangoes that rule just didn’t apply. Once I was done serving my portions of fruits I would walk to the line at the cash register with my dad, once I was standing in line I would hand the bag with the apples and the peaches to my mom so I could have a free hand to start enjoying my mangoes while we waited in line. I would open my bag and smell the content of the bag, I remember my mom would give me a hard time for doing this as she would said that the chili powder could get inside my nose and I could start sneezing and my eyes would water. At this point I wasn’t really paying attention to what was happening around me, including my mom’s advice. I would pause and grab the first mango slice, my mouth was watering, I would take the first bite and I could hear a soft crunchy sound, by this moment my taste buds were having a major party as I would start savoring the tangy taste of the dried mangoes mixed with the spicy chili powder and a little hint of sour lime. The were so good and so chewy but not as hard to bite as the peaches, the size of each slice was perfect, not too small to enjoy but not big enough for me to eat just one. Just like the first I would eat the second, the third, the fourth and the fifth. I would eat as many as the wait at the cash register would allow me. When my dad would turn around and see my fingers and my mouth tinted with red for the chili powder, he would right away realize that I had been eating the mangoes before paying and he would discreetly give me the “you are in trouble look” and take the bag away from me. As soon as we would get to the cash register, he would put the bag on top of the weight machine and with a soft embarrassed smile he would kindly ask the cashier to charge a little extra because his impatient little daughter had already eaten some of the chili powder covered mangoes.