Señorita Ruth

Things have been pretty busy, but SenoritaRuth.com has been on my mind, and I want to make sure that I keep up with it, even if it has to be with small, off-topic posts like this one. I mean, I have a million great ideas that I eventually plan on finishing up or starting, but there’s something to be said about being a little spontaneous and honest too. I mean, in the sense of writing for the sake of actual communication with readers. I have a hard time with you, reader, because I don’t know who you are, or if you even exist. I mean, I don’t know what it means to have readers. But whatever, you’re only part of the reason why I write.
While I won’t go on and on here about writing, because I don’t do nearly enough of it to warrant me having a public opinion, I will say that I have a lot or writing to do for school. I’m enjoying the challenge but feeling some intense pressure. This is all self-inflicted, have no doubt, and that helps me keep my whining to a dull roar (quit yer bitchin’!).
I’m also trying to remain keenly aware of the real world around me. Spring is such a redeeming season, and it’s very easy to take from the new growth and impetus in the form of metaphor to do the same. This year I’m battling a huge amount of inertia; more, it feels like, than ever before. However, regardless of how far back I feel set, I’m pretty sure things are gonna end up okay. Having said that, a couple of quick points.
If you want to hire me, I’m looking for a job. Writing, editing, teaching, I’m open to a number of different options. Don’t get me wrong, I’m applying and officially job-searching, but I don’t suppose there’s a reason to not mention it here as well. I’m down to do off-beat, quirky projects, tackle big organizational tasks, or strike out on a research adventure. The only difference between now and then is that I’d like to get paid now too.
Secondly, I’m really in need of a frisbee partner. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I’ve started the Frisbee Lovin Fixers on the Duke City Fix in hopes of starting up some sort of interest group. I’m thinking Sunday afternoons are gonna be a good time to get out of the house for an hour or two. I wish I was fast enough to be able to run and catch my own throw, but as it stands, I’m definitely gonna need frisbee playmates.
Well, it’s back to the grind. Glad I decided to do this. I have some awesome sunset pics to post from my favorite pirate, Ms. Bridgette.
Also, I quizzed some of my friends for your benefit. If you’ve ever had questions about school, work, and growing up, then keep an eye out on how some of my colleagues are makin it after high school, college, or grad school. The paths are many, all filled with challenges and the unexpected twists and turns of life. Suffering from sometimes-intense bouts of panic about life post-grad school, it’s nice to remember that I’m not the first or the only questioning my role in life and society. Forward movement and excellence in effort are bound to land me where I need to be.

Last minute thoughts: still pondering the offer to do some sort of political right wing vs. left piece of weblishing. Not sure how I feel about it yet. Part of me twitches with anticipation, but another part of me is wary of contributing, on however small a scale, to combative or confrontational political discourse. Maybe it sounds like I’m pussyfooting, but at the same time I see limited benefits in framing information like that. Sean, you’re gonna have to do me some convincing if you want to do this thing. Like I said, I like the idea but it has to be constructive dialog.

Mr. Draven and I are gonna get together to make some music. I’ve decided. It should be fun. This is a backburner project but I fully intend to post what, if anything, we record.

Okay, now really back to important work. Peace out.

I’m getting tired of tossing stuff in the trash. Especially as I raise a child, the guilt I feel when I toss out another plastic container or glass bottle is getting pretty unbearable. So, what to do? There are several options to change your Carbon Footprint, even if solar panels are still outside your price bracket. In addition, there’s a slew of websites and books out there with valuable insight into the little things (and big!) that we can do to change our impact from negative to positive. Following are some of the most accessible ways to alleviate waste and guilt.

Recycling: The City of Albuquerque will pick up your recyclables road-side provided you have them separated and bagged appropriately. Alternatively, they also offer 22 drop-off points throughout the metro area. As the years have gone by, the city has expanded their recycling repertoire, now accepting all plastic bottles regardless of number, as well as plastics #s 1 and 2. This is in addition to corrugated cardboard, not chipboard (i.e. cereal boxes), aluminum, and any and all household paper, including the godawful obnoxious shiny paper of junk mailings. They won’t pick up glass for safety reasons, but you can drop that off at the recycling point nearest you. Overall, recycling around here can be pretty effortless, provided you’re willing to build into your routine the extra several minutes a week it would take to make sure waste is separated from reusable material. Like any good habit, this can be hard to incorporate into our already packed lives, but as a matter of priority, it’s certainly worth the effort to get the recyclable materials to the curb by 7 a.m. on trash day. A way to do this easily is to sort trash from the get-go. You can re-purpose several trashcans to do the dirty work, or you can find a solution like this one to keep all your cans and bottles out of sight. Or hell, you can build it if you’re carpentry inclined. A cheap and handy can crusher can be wall-mounted and kept out of sight in the laundry room or garage. This will help you save space and effort, as you’ll have to put out your aluminum recycling less often. If you use a sturdy cardboard box to keep all your old newspapers & junk mailings in, you can cut deep slits down the middle of each side, lay out the twine ahead of time, and viola! An easy way to keep paper tidy and mess-free when tying it up for the recycling man!

I was talking to a fellow grad student here at UNM who also works in Operations. He broke the news to me that UNM recycles only 30% of its paper and metal. Having worked in Administration here, I know that even with our extensive online systems, students, faculty and staff still generate MASSIVE amounts of paper waste. When I think of all the Daily Lobos discarded throughout campus, used up napkins from the Mercado, and the paper that paper reams come wrapped in (very meta), even 30% is a lot. Additionally, he mentioned to me that aside from recycling copper, UNM actually loses money by recycling. It costs .12 more cents to recycle paper and most metals than it does to toss all our trash in the local dumps. I find this statistic worrisome and a little confounding. As he pointed out however, the social cost we must pay for recycling will last for a long time before we start seeing the benefits (as in, lesser cost to recycle than dump) of our actions. This, however, should not discourage us from doing our share. In fact, it should light fire under our asses to get on the ball and keep using the systems in place to recycle, as the only way to bring down these costs is to standardize and mechanize these streams of material. Interestingly, I also learned today that a lot of our recycling goes to China as raw material, to be returned to our country later on as all the “Made in China” products that litter our homes and lives. Interesting stuff! So, keep recycling, or start if you haven’t already.

Reuse stuff at home: Coming from a family with a crafty mother, I’ve learned to look around and re-purpose stuff within my home. Like my mom, I’ve stopped throwing away Bueno Chile plastic containers because they’re the perfect size for a leftover side dish or extra grated cheese. The glass jars from my yummy Maranatha peanut butter are now used to store bulk raisins and nuts, which are better to buy because you’re not paying (or wasting) new packaging. You’re saving money & material. It’s a no-lose situation! How rare are those? Egg shells and coffee grounds have stopped going in the trash. Since I rent I’m reluctant to start the type of compost pile my dad has been working on for years. However, grinding up eggshells and mixing them and coffee grounds into the soil of your house plants is an eggcellent (awww!) way to reuse materials, giving directly back to the earth, and you’re able to enjoy the results directly. Receptacles, containers, and tubs with lids are things we use every day in our lives. It shouldn’t matter from whence they came, as long as they’re living out their working lives serving and saving extra food, buttons, or other small items.

Change your car habits: I know, I know. Easier said than done, right? And here is where I confess a dirty, nasty secret. I live 5 minutes away from UNM. I haven’t timed it walking, but since I can get there in less time than it takes to play one of my favorite songs on my favorite driving CD, I’m pretty sure that the walking is less of a hardship and more of the good exercise I need anyway. My excuses include: I’m always late, I have a kid that needs a car seat, it’s cold, it’s hot, etc, etc. I have perfectly good, rational ways to overcome each one of these obstacles, and yet here I am, typing this at school and accumulating a massive parking structure fee for the day. I read in a recent issue of the Alibi that Albuquerque was voted one of the cities best suited for biking. It’s true! Our bike paths are extensive and fairly rider-friendly. My next big purchase will be a good, dependable bicycle. Our transit system needs some work before some of us can depend on it regularly (ever try to get from Westgate to Tramway?), but it already serves many Albuquerqueans well (my neighbor included, his car sits quietly in the yard most of the time, unmoved), and the Red and Blue Lines have done wonders to expedite one’s journey down Central Avenue.

In short, there are a million different tiny things to do in our everyday lives that can cumulatively help shift the tide of wasteful existence we’ve been born into. It’s not gonna happen overnight, and being from a culture that’s used to instant gratification and immediate results, this may be a little frustrating. However, we’re all responsible for ourselves and each other, as well as the land we use for our benefit. While my intention is not to sound the Holier-hippie-than-thou horn of green judgment, I want to encourage everyone to take a bit of time to reflect on their use and usage. It’s a journey, not an instant achievement, which means we all have room for improvement.

Happy Earth Day!

Live stream of the Democratic Primary debate can be found here: ABC Channel 6.

Don’t let the typical short attention span and cynicism we use as an excuse for our anti-intellectualism deter you from engaging these topics again and again. It’s not comfortable, it’s not fun, but it’s important, and it’s the way to change things.

Engage. Involve. Develop an opinion and follow through with your vote in November.

GO OBAMA!

I’m sorry, but the recipe will have to wait. I just attended a performance of the James & Ernie Show in the UNM Ballroom. I offered my students extra credit to attend, and I’m so glad to have seen some of them there. It was brilliant! I won’t do the show an injustice by trying to recapture it, but I will say this: if you get the chance to attend, do not pass it up. It’s a great way to capture some of the nuances we may or may not be exposed to in the rest of our lives. Their take on the multiculturalism we experience daily.

Check them out online:

James and Ernie

And if you’re on Myspace, request to be their friend because they’re “tired of Tom being our only friend”:

Jame and Ernie Myspace

Today’s blog post will be a recipe from Mamá’s Kitchen, just in time for dinner later on.

For now I just wanted to point you in the direction of Duke City Fix.

When I started this blog (this last weekend), I wasn’t sure what the state of blogging was in our oasis of technology. Now I know! Get your profile there and come say hi!

A warm welcome by the creator reminds me that this is a local, community-based effort, a social network worlds apart from Tom being your first friend on Myspace (I have one of those too, but you’ll have to work to find it if we’re not acquainted). I’m keen on jumping headlong into this effort.

Now, off to teach and learn. Stay tuned for Green Chile Stew later!

Tales from the Old Country

Every Monday I will regale you with stories from the old country, my beloved Mexico. This weekly effort was motivated by my reflections on the historical figures I learned about in my short time in the Mexican educational system. Since coming to the U.S. I’ve become isolated with many parts of my own history and background, and I hope to reestablish some connection for myself and others who may also feel there are certain aspects of their self-identity that are murky or missing. For the rest of you, this is a lesson in international history and context.

O~o~O

Benito Juárez: Zapotec lawyer and President of Mexico, 1858 -1872

I imagine that the name Juárez conjures up amongst my southwestern brothers and sisters assorted sordid tales of a border city where all your carnal desires (and some not so desired) can come true. Tales of lost weekends and lost freedom in Mexican jails have come my way since I was in high school. Not that I’m thinking of any set in particular *ahem NMSU*, but en masse migrations south of the border to Ciudad Juárez during weekends and breaks are not uncommon, and also not recommended, but we’ll save that for a future College Survival in the Southwest 101 entry. I myself have spent time in and traveling through Juárez. Every trip to the U.S. when I was a little girl required hazarding the crazy traffic, and I went to summer camp at Vino Nuevo Church when I was fifteen. My family has long-standing relationship ties there, and its significance as a landmark on the border is long-established.

Yet, this initial link between name and city has hidden in its folds one of the gems of Mexican history. Indeed, Cd. Juárez, along with dozens of other cities throughout Mexico, is named after one of the country’s most honored leaders, Benito Juárez. He was a statesman and a president, famous for his staunch defense of human rights and his perseverance in the face of many adversaries and ideological opponents.

Benito Juárez rose from indigenous poverty to the zenith of the Mexican political system in his life. A Zapotec orphaned by age three, he struck out from his home in the village of San Pablo Guelatao in the state of Oaxaca at age 12 to fulfill what at the time was a vague yearning for greater learner and what later would become a legacy. Involved in a political system that experienced a tumultuous 19th century, his career stretched from defending landholding rights for indigenous peoples as a lawyer at the local and state levels beginning in 1834 to federal judge position (1842), governor of Oaxaca (1846-1852) and eventually as the leader of the Mexican nation from 1858 to 1872, the year he died.

While in each of these positions he championed and was the voice for the people in rural areas. He was responsible for stripping the Catholic Church of its extensive land holdings, building roads and creating schools. He worked in official capacities under both Conservative and Liberal administrations, turned down positions offered to him as Mexico faced the threat of becoming part of the French Empire between 1864 and 1867 (more about this on the Cinco de Mayo edition of Tales from the Old Country), and expelled an emissary sent by the Confederacy in 1861, since supporting an entity that kept almost half of its population in bondage directly contradicted his philosophy and work. He established reforms and a constitution that guaranteed rights of free speech and press, among others.

Like any person, much less a national leader, his ideological stance was complicated and has since been heavily scrutinized. Some historians condemn him of abusing executive power by remaining president for nearly twenty years. However, his dedication can be understood as a reaction to the many leaders, including Porfirio Díaz and Antonio López de Santa Anna, whose ideas of Mexico were less democratic and more dictatorial. He has been recognized across the Americas and across the world as a champion for causes that resonate across ethic and national boundaries. His relationship with the U.S. was multi-faceted, as he spent time in New Orleans as an exile under Santa Anna’s rule.

Overall, he was a man of intelligence and foresight, with staunch beliefs by which he stood and acted. It is impossible to unravel him from the modern incarnation of Mexico, which owes him many advancements and landmark turns for the better. An example of the determined human spirit, he persevered and returned to his battles, even where others might have called it quits. A legacy deserving of the honor to have streets and cities named after him. Some which might do well to look to his life for inspiration and direction.

References and further reading:
http://www.elbalero.gob.mx/kids/history/html/sxix/biojuarez.html
http://www.mexonline.com/benitojuarez.htm
http://www.notablebiographies.com/Jo-Ki/Ju-rez-Benito.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Juarez

Are They Talking About Me?
What are the ideological implications of choosing an official language? What kind of underlying belief system does it betray? A major marker of culture and identity, language separates worlds of experience. And when it’s not your own, it’s often uncomfortable to have to deal with. Basic questions that seem both ludicrous and startlingly worrisome express thoughts and assumptions that begin to surface along the lines of “Are they talking about me?” This may appear paranoid and self-centered, but is also a reflection of the linguistic isolation monolingual American English speakers experience on a daily basis. The unique geographical position, along with the desires of the founders of the country, have combined to create an insular environment for English, much more so than in other parts of the world. In addition, American citizens speak one of the world’s most influential languages, affording them little motivation to learn a second language beyond the cursory high school or college curriculum experience. As any bilingual speaker will tell you, that’s not really speaking two languages at all.

So we have a naturally protected environment for “one nation, one language” to function as the ideological as well as the policy-based modus operandi. Our forefathers did not feel it was the role of government to dictate to the people what languages they should speak. Furthermore, it was not uncommon in the early days of this country, as it is now, for legal documents, pamphlets, and other official or quasi-official communications to be published in the myriad of languages that represent our multi-cultural roots. Spanish, German, French, and Dutch are a few of the first languages immigrants brought with them to add to the cultural and linguistic landscape of a country made up of transplants. From a healthy linguistic competition, English emerged as the early winner, the language to bind speakers of many languages together. To that effect, it is the de facto, conventional and fully accepted primary language.

Nested within our overtly anglophonic culture we have a long-standing tradition of multi-lingualism. Vestiges of true bilingualism exist in our efforts to expose children at every level of education to other Western European languages. Even in the face of this tradition and ideological motivations behind creating a country without an official language, however, there is a voice that in the form of legislation has asked both federal and state-level governments to adopt English as the official language of the United States. The current efforts by organizations such as U.S. English would see English adopted as the official language, and in such a capacity displace languages spoken in families and minority communities more than ever before.

What has English done for you?
Regardless of its (lack of) official status, English is the language of the people. Overwhelmingly used as the primary language in all walks of life, English is transmitted successfully to the kids of every generation, and of every cultural background. The American public school systems guarantee transmission by using English both in the classroom and in the playground. It’s the language of formal education as well as of informal communication. It’s present in every form of media, and is highly sought as a second language around the world and by non-native speakers in the U.S. Studies show that even those with no formal second language education, simply by being immersed in the culture, acquire a functional grasp of the language. Its far-reaching global status is recognized in Africa as well as Europe and Asia. It’s very apparent to the world that speaking English is associated with socioeconomic opportunities not available in many people’s first language, therefore it is desired. Most important to realize is that, even if not every person speaks English in the U.S., those person’s children will. Removing the ability of non-fluent citizens and visitors the ability to interact with the government and within their own communities by enforcing English Only doesn’t change the actualities of language use: People have different capacities to learn and retain a second language, but as long as that language is being taught as a first language, the status quo is naturally maintained by the majority language.

English Only policy seeks to reaffirm a status that it has no right to either create or uphold. A language becomes widely used and influential through use. Awarding it a legal status changes little in the way it propagates through the greater culture and society. Education, the media, and the variety of social exchanges that occur in English are responsible for English being the majority language. When understood in this light, the English Only movement is hollow and meaningless, a misplaced effort that could and should be used to attend to other, more pressing matters regarding the status of language and languages in this country.

Furthermore, there are the ramifications of legalizing a human cognitive facility. Like many other efforts in the past to regulate human behavior and categorize people according to ethnic or genetic markers, this effort will only work to strengthen the boundaries of an artifice upon our culture that we would do better without. Giving English legal status directly works against the social mechanisms we have in place by which to identify ourselves and each other. Governing people’s spoken lives will incur costs both financial and cultural that we should not be prepared to shoulder, and will doom yet another generation to a purgatory of self-identity as the same words echo as have in the past: “I don’t know my mother tongue.” We as a society are still dealing with the after-effects of the Native Americans who forsook Navajo and other languages after suffering through boarding schools and the rural elementary school children who suffered physical punishment for speaking Spanish in the classrooms of old Texas and the Southwest. These people kept their own children from learning their mother tongue to the detriment of their family and cultural identity, and encouraged them to only speak English. The fallacy in these efforts is that the children of immigrants become so quickly acculturated that any overt effort to do so by preventing the learning of another language is redundant and effectively irrelevant. It should be the ideal of a progressive, diverse society to encourage a healthy linguistic home environment. Bilingualism should not have a negative value when it comes to citizenship, participation and integration within the greater society.

English Only policies will cast a reign of shadows over minority language speakers. Legal immigrants and Native Americans alike who use the same services and interact with the same government as native English speakers stand to lose opportunities in official capacities. The time, effort, and money it takes to translate official U.S. documents into other languages has always been devoted to the same task since the 1700s, and in no way eclipses other government spending figures which may or may not be as significant. Beyond the bureaucratic consequences, by accepting this policy the country runs the threat of expediting the rate at which some languages become extinct.

Ethics and Progress
Beyond the questions of legality, which on their own are substantial, we also deal with the more abstract but just as crucial concepts that influenced the original decision to do without an official language. It’s been pointed out that the forefathers couldn’t have predicted how many languages we have to deal with. Yet I wonder how sympathetic they would be to our plight if they compared their technology to ours. We benefit from digital media that have brought the world closer together, standardizing and making available more languages to more people. It would stand to reason that we utilize these advantages to benefit all. However, even these flimsy arguments sidestep the underlying sentiment that drives policy efforts such a English Only. Claiming patriotism, these efforts eclipse more fundamental memberships that we should also feel a strong responsibility toward: American multi-cultural and multi-lingual culture, and the human race, wherein everyone has an equal right to speak the language they were taught to express themselves in.

Nations & Language
It’s easy to trace and understand the connection between the ideas of “one nation” and “one language.” These simple associations have outlined the language policies of western European countries from the middle of the 19th century forward. Even before that, conquering powers have understood the fundamental need to establish a common tongue amongst the newly conquered, often wildly different peoples they controlled. While effective in building a nation, these policies have also negatively affected countless languages and cultures across the world. It’s true that the motivations for the expansion of any given nation or empire are usually money, trade, and commerce. However, the underlying structure of such endeavors is language. In order to successfully interact with other cultures, even in the role of conquering or colonizing power, the language “issue” must be addressed.

It would be difficult to enumerate all the instances of languages being abandoned, by either will or force, for another as a result of cultural and social pressure. However, I don’t have to stray far from the Southwest to find evidence of multiple efforts throughout history to establish, through force, the use of the European language of power. First it was Spanish, and then it was English. The first established a trans-continental identity for a large number of inhabitants of the Americas, and the second redefined that identity as political borders changed and nations exchanged land for peace. As an example, New Mexico has belonged to the Spanish Empire, the Mexican nation, and of course the United States.

In this history, we have instances of Native Americans being forcefully acculturated into both Spanish and English speaking roles. A direct result of this forced acculturation is the loss of Native American languages. Across the country and the Americas, the status of native tongues is dire as they are constantly decreasing in usage. This situation is detrimental to those that study the world’s languages, but is more immediately a blow to the cultural and self-identity of the speakers. The punitive nature of forced acculturation becomes a deterrent when people that have suffered punishment are unwilling to pass on a minority tongue to their children for fear of similar repercussions on them.

Native Americans were introduced to Spanish in the 1600s, and it’s effected a notable difference in their respective languages from that time forward. Resistance to learn Spanish helped preserve Navajo, Apache, the Pueblo languages and others for 400 years. Yet it was impossible to successfully fend off the Spanish and later English language influences. There exist records, as they do all across the Americas, of priests and other workers collecting the words and meanings of these unfamiliar, radically different languages. These records are invaluable as linguists try to piece together languages that are no longer fully realized in conversation. Words and meaning have been lost beneath the wheels of progress in the majority language of the day, and eventually century.

Currently, in the same geographical area, English plays that role, surrounding communities that speak Native American languages, as well as Spanish, Vietnamese, and other immigrant languages. What are the effects of having English as a non-official majority language surrounding Native American languages that are on the decline in speakers? What are the effects of having linguistic and cultural contact with other major languages of the world where English is the majority and Spanish, Hindi, Farsi, German or Korean are the minority? These interactions breed consternation and worry in some, interest and research questions in linguists. For the sake of both, these issues must be addressed.

While the U.S. has never had an official language, a rarity in the day and age of the modern nation-state, the question whether to adopt English as the official language seems to remain uneasily unanswered.

This blog post is to officially claim my space on Technorati. This means I must copy and paste this:

Technorati Profile

and be done with it. So, here it is. Now I’m officially part of the Technorati.

Well, it’s Friday and things are quiet in the archives. Not because I don’t have anything to do, but because I don’t have that much to do, I’ve started my links page. Go check it out!

What are your favorite websites?

I’m generally not a big forum person, but I’m definitely a fan of Twitter, Flickr, and ThisNext. In fact, I freelance for the last one.

I’d go on and on about how I love to waste time on the internet, but I’ve already wasted all my time and now it’s time for class.

Check back later today for the first in a two part series on English Only policies in the U.S.

I hope everyone is having a beautiful sunny day today!