Quinones - Blog #2

I didn't know a lot about velvet painting before reading this chapter and really haven't seen many in my lifetime. Quinones is so detailed in his descriptions of events that it makes me feel like I'm in the story. He's a good reporter/writer. Looking at some of these paintings on www.velveteria.com, they make me think of the 60s and 70s decades. This is the only black velvet painting museum in the world and they have over 2,000 paintings there, according to their website. There is a video of this museum and the TV show Biazrre Foods has a new series called "Appetite for Life," and this video clip gives an overview of it. Something that I found interesting was that he talked about how the main painters would recruit kids who showed a little artistic talent, and even their siblings because artistic ability was supposed to "run in the family." The velvet paintings I've seen before and on the Internet are very detailed and seem like they'd take a lot of talent to produce. I'm sure now there are ways to mass produce them which don't even include humans, but back in the 60s and 70s when these were the rage, how did they teach so many of these people how to paint so well?

This story relates most to the current economic condition of the housing market. Way to many loans were given to people who never should have been approved. Many lenders knew the loans couldn't be paid back and the borrowers could never afford them. They were allowed to give loans to these people, but they focused on the "right now" money and chose to worry about the rest later, sometimes voluntarily, sometimes involuntarily. Well, just like Morán lost his fortune because of foolish living, thousands of American homeowners, lenders and the like have either lost their homes, jobs, or are in a worse situation than they could have been, had the right thing been done.

It's always been a goal of mine, coming from a small town and a "country" family, to make people aware of the world around them. I fell in love with Hispanics, their culture and their language over 10 years ago and ever since I've always tried to help others see that there are other countries in the world than the United States, and that, yes, they do actually have running water and real houses in South America. Even real malls! (I love people's reaction to this one) :) The culture of the United States is all about self and I think that's one reason why only an average of 26% of Americans speak another language (see Gallup reference below). This leads to a more centralized view of our own culture, making it and in turn ourselves, the center of our lives. Other people can "learn our culture and langauge" as I've heard it said countless times before. This ignorance is so often the source of such ridicule I'm about to refer to.

So to answer the question, if I were to have an ELL be ridiculed when he was sharing about family in his culture, what would my response be? First I would have to give myself a few seconds to repeat the verse, "Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification, according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear," which is fond in Ephesians 4:29. (The most difficult thing for me to witness is of someone being embarrassed, ridiculed, made fun of, etc. so a situation like this would be hard for me. I have ESL pull-out classes so I haven't dealt with this in an ELL situation before, but I'm sure I will. And for some reason I am even more sympathetic to ELLs, which would make it even more difficult.)

I'd call a lot of attention to the person who ridiculed my ELL and make him the focus of attention for a while on purpose. I would find out why the information that Guillermo gave to the class was funny to him and how did they do things different at his house? Who's to say that you're not the different one? I would try to make the students understand that just because a person from a different culture does things differently than they do in their cultures, doesn't mean they are "wierd." It means that we have a lot to learn about other people and they have a lot to learn about us. I would also try to create a situation for the student that ridiculed and try to get him to imagine himself in a foreign country where he didn't speak the language or understand the culture, or even have many friends for that matter. If he were there, who might be the one being ridiculed then? If it was himself, would he like that much? Depending on the situation and what was said, I might even partner up the mainstream student and the ELL so they could get to know each other. Many times we are just scared of the unknown because it's ufamiliar and if they were to be partners and best case scenario, friends, who knows what cultural doors that might open up for them to learn about each other and the world. Isn't one of our goals to create an awareness of the world around us and a desire to get to know it? I think this might be an effective way to turn a bad situation into a good learning experience.

Gallup Poll: http://www.gallup.com/poll/1825/About-One-Four-Americans-Can-Hold-Conversation-Second-Language.aspx