One-and-a-half-lingual?

Sorry for the double post. I have limited Internet access, and as such, I decided that it would be easier to just post two entries that I'd already written at once. I have several more ideas for posts, that I hope I'll be able to post next week. However, since I don't have the most reliable access, that's hardly a guarantee.
This is something that I’d have never thought I would say: expressing even my most basic thoughts is extremely difficult. I’ve always identified myself as articulate, well-spoken, and, on occasion, perhaps even eloquent. I might be quieter than most, but that’s because I’ve always tried to choose my words well. That way, when I do speak, and when I do I usually speak for a long time, what I say has more weight. The words I use, and the thoughts that they’re conveying are stronger that way. While I might on occasion complain about my articulateness, I’ve always known that I am capable of explaining any of my thoughts or beliefs in English, and that my explanation will be understood. In fact, any problems that I might have in self-expression stem not from linguistic inability, but rather from the fact that I don’t understand what I’m trying to say. The language itself isn’t the problem.

Or so I thought. Until I came here I don’t think I understood exactly how difficult learning another language actually is. Granted, I knew that I wasn’t fluent in Spanish, but I think I thought that I was close enough that I would be able to get by, and that I would be able to express myself and make myself understood. I assumed that I wouldn’t need to be fluent, exactly, but fluent enough. And to be fair, this was a somewhat logical assumption. After all, I’ve been taking Spanish classes since my freshman year of high school. All of those years must have taught me something, right? Well, they did, but I don’t think that they taught me enough. I can usually understand what somebody says to me, and I can usually answer them back, but there are so many more things that I want to be able to say, so many ideas that I want to be able to explain. Whenever I’m in a situation where I need to discuss a complex idea, I find myself stricken mute because I don’t have the words for it. Or, when I do have the vocabulary I need, I begin to obsess about the different grammatical structure and I stumble over conjugations that I learned years ago, and so I still can’t express myself at all.

I suppose my choice to live on the border was particularly apt. In addition to living 5 minutes from the steel wall that separates México and the U.S., I’m also living in two languages. I still think in English, and thankfully, all but one of my classes are in English, but my family doesn’t speak any English at all. With my family, and with random people on the street, I speak Spanish. I watch Spanish TV, unless I’m feeling extremely homesick, in which case I watch American movies with Spanish subtitles. I cross the international border every Monday through Friday, but I cross the language barrier every five minutes. While I’m living a bilingual life in a bilingual world, I am not bilingual at all. At best, I’m one-and-a-half-lingual. (I don’t know what the prefix for one-and-a-half would be.) I can express basic ideas in Spanish, but my English is still light-years ahead of my Spanish. If I’m being completely honest with myself, it probably always will be. It’s extremely frustrating and exhausting to not be able to be as articulate as I normally am. Little misunderstandings are depressing, if only because I thought that I was beyond them. The most amusing part of this language struggle, at least to me, is that my host family seems to be pretty much oblivious to it. They’ll say things like “Ella se habla muchísimo Español.” Or, “Tu Español es muy bien. Entiendes casi todos.” I just don’t have the words to make them understand. Hasta luego, Kat.

Ugly American Tourists and Hostels Galore

First of all, I need to apologize for going so long without posting. My only real excuse is that I’ve been extremely busy. I spent the past few weeks preparing to leave Tucson, which of course meant that I only had time to write papers and do all of my reading. I barely had any time to spend with my absolutely wonderful Tucson host family. And after Tucson, I spent the past week in Mexico City, and I was in no position to post anything there. I did have access to the internet, but I had to pay for it. And more importantly, I was definitely still trying to process everything that I had seen and experienced.

Of course, to be entirely fair, I still haven’t processed everything that I saw while I was in Mexico City. To some extent, I’m not even sure what I should think about the trip. On the one hand, it was a program-based excursion, complete with fascinating talks about the student rebellions in Mexico in 1968(and the massacre on October 2) and 1999, internal migration in Mexico and the legal and economic ramifications of NAFTA. (Ok, so the economic discussion wasn’t as fascinating: I find numbers boring in my first language, but in my second, they’re impossible.) This part I loved, and, what’s more, I don’t feel bad about loving it. While we did do some touristy things, like going to the Torre Latino and the Frida Kahlo museum, we weren’t there solely to be tourists. That changed the dynamics of the trip, at least for me, because in a sense, it allowed me to feel a small sense of superiority, especially when I compared myself to the other people staying in my hostel. For the most part, they did not speak any Spanish, and were only in Mexico City to shop and go clubbing. (Granted, I did both of the last two things as well: the former quite a bit, the latter only once.) During the programmed part of the week, I felt different from those tourists, because I was there to learn more about complicated problems that some of them had probably never even heard of. I’ll admit it was a really nice feeling.

If you think I sound extremely arrogant, you’re right. However, that sense of superiority quickly disappeared once the programmed part of the week ended and my fall break began. I didn’t have a better reason to be in Mexico City anymore. I quickly began to feel like the epitome of the ugly American tourist, hated the world over. Now, I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t enjoyed all of the time that I spent in Mexico City, because I really did have a lot of fun and I managed to learn a lot, even during my break. I loved going to Bellas Artes, the Palacio Nacional, and the Mueso de Antropología. I will even admit to loving the tour that my hostel gave that took us to the Basilica de la Virgen de Guadalupe and Teotihuacán. That was an incredible experience, and not just because we went to two absolutely awe-inspiring places. The group that went on the tour was a mix of different nationalities, and while English was a second language for quite a few people, Spanish was spoken by very few. That was ok, however, because our tour guide spoke English. The places we went to were beautiful and absolutely sublime. As a lapsed Catholic, I was especially affected by the Basilica. Seeing the tilma with the Virgin’s image on it, affected me in ways that I wouldn’t have expected. A few days after going to the Basilica, I found myself praying in my head, which is something I hadn’t done in years. I don’t really know what I should make of that development, other than that I was less lapsed than I’d thought. But Teotihuacán was something else entirely. Walking through the reconstructed ruins is something left me speechless for the entire day. I still am unable to describe it in a way that is even remotely comprehensible. I also am struggling to write about the place without romanticizing it. I am a horrible romantic, but I know that if I describe Teotihuacán the way I want to, as the ruins of an extinct civilization, then I am not describing it as it is today. If I write about the glory of the Teotihuacános, and the Aztecs who only later inhabited the city, then I’m ignoring all of the people who still make a living there. While Teotihuacán is frequently seen as a reconstructed, it is still alive. Granted, it is not as alive as it once was, and it isn’t the same, but it is still very much alive. The streets are no longer filled with Aztecs, but rather tourists, tour guides, and the thousands of vendors who sell at the feet of pyramids that used to be the site of human sacrifices.

I’m sorry; I’m not being very articulate. I suppose I still don’t know exactly what I should say about this past week. I still feel overwhelmed by the entire experience, and I’m having difficulty sticking with only one topic, when there are hundreds of things that I could be saying. However, I do have some good news for the very few readers of this blog: I have several ideas for more posts, so keep an eye out. Hasta luego, Kat.

The Line Has Not Held

I’m not entirely sure how I want to begin this entry. I feel like there’s so many things that I need to address here, and I don’t know where to begin. This leaves me feeling slightly hesitant and anxious about the whole concept behind this post, and I know enough to know that that probably isn’t a good thing. I’m having trouble expressing myself in a way that isn’t completely self-centered, because what I have to say is beyond myself, and is more important than I am. It’s far more important than anyone person, really, and I’m at a point where I’m struggling to reconcile my personal emotions with what actually needs to be said.

I’ve come to realize that my own emotions won’t change anything. All of my anger at this situation, and all of my grief cannot fix this. If anything, that knowledge only seems to make me even more frustrated. I’m going to try as hard as possibly can to not be preachy about this, but I feel very strongly about this issue, so I can’t make any guarantees. I apologize ahead of time if what I say offends anyone, because I’m about to discuss a very controversial topic, and I understand that many people are going to disagree with what I’m about to say. I understand that, but I’m saying this anyway, because it needs to be said, and I feel that I need to say it.

Illegal immigration is a hugely controversial issue, with both sides having very strong arguments. I’m going to skirt around the “legal” question as much as I can for now, although I may feel up to addressing that issue later on in the year. The fact is, many people are coming into the United States via Mexico, regardless of whether one believes they should be able to legally or not. Ignoring the legality of this issue, there is a larger problem at stake: people are dying in their attempts to cross the desert. Why? Well, back in 1994, the Border Patrol decided that it would increase its efforts to crack down on illegal immigration. Knowing that the vast majority of migrants crossed in the urban areas on the border (because that’s where it’s easiest and safest to cross), the Border Patrol began to close up the border in those areas. This operation had different names in different cities: in San Diego, it was Operation Gatekeeper, here in Tucson it was Operation Safe Guard, and in El Paso, it was Operation Hold the Line. Operation Hold the Line is what all three are most commonly referred to. The Operation was a success, in that the number of apprehensions in urban areas has plummeted in the 14 years since. However, Operation Hold the Line has not reduced the number of people crossing into the United States. Instead, it has made a “funnel effect”; it has funneled people into crossing at the only available point now: the desert between Arizona and Sonora. Operation Hold the Line did not decrease the number of migrants, because it did not address the root causes of why migrants are crossing, and as a result, the line has not held. Increased militarization of the border is not the solution.

What the solution is depends on your point of view, I suppose. I certainly don’t have any real answers, other than dealing with the immediate humanitarian crisis here in the desert. According to Coalición de Derechos Humanos, since October 1, 2007, 148 bodies of migrants have been recovered in the desert. (Nobody knows how many bodies have not been recovered, but given the extreme conditions of the desert, it’s likely that the actual body count from this year is much, much higher.) This is why I’m so angry and depressed and guilty and frustrated. People are suffering and dying and there’s absolutely nothing that I can do about it, except to tell more people about this horrible situation. I suppose one of the reasons that I’m writing this is that I hope that maybe one of the two regular readers of this blog (well, besides me), will be able to help me in what I feel just might be the most important thing I’ve ever done. (Ok, that was extremely preachy, and I appologize for it.)

La Frontera

So it seems that moving half-way across the country can cause a person to become slightly neglectful of previous responsibilities. I'm really sorry. In my defense, I have been pretty busy these past few weeks. I've also been thinking about what exactly I want to write about, because I can think of several experiences that would all make excellent posts. However, seeing as how decision-making is not my greatest skill, I think what I'll do instead is take bits and pieces from all of that and put it into one post. If my thoughts seem disjointed, it's because they are.

I suppose one of the first things that I noticed about Tucson, was, obviously the climate. For a girl from Michigan, moving to the desert is quite difficult. It’s very hot here, and I find myself missing the humidity. Now, tanner than ever, and slightly sunburned, I feel that I’m starting to become adjusted to the intense (for me) heat. The desert is surreal and sublime. I can look out my window and see cacti. It’s very odd…I wouldn’t have thought that it could be so beautiful here. I always thought that a desert was lifeless, but that was before I saw the flowers and the fruit of the cacti. Before I got here, I hadn’t ever seen the sun set over the mountains, or for that matter, even seen mountains up close. Tucson is so different from everything I know and love, and at times I feel as if I were living on a different planet. A different, but very beautiful planet where everything is strange and weird and wonderful. Of course, I have more than just the physical environment to adjust to. There is the social environment as well. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that the large size of the University of Arizona’s campus didn’t terrify me when I first saw it. As a student of a tiny college, I’m not used to be surrounded by so many people. Standing alone in a crowd of thousands of people, staring at a map, desperately trying to figure out how to get to the library, I have never missed my home campus so much. I took for granted the tiny campus of Albion, where a five minute walk could take me from one end of campus to the opposite. So I’ve been adjusting. I’ve been puzzling over a bus map, trying to figure out how to get around.

But I haven’t only been in Tucson; I’ve been on the border, learning about the policies that have made it into what it is today. It’s very hard for me not to go into a very long, very angry political rant right now. I probably will go into one at some point, but I’d like to avoid it for the time being, at least until I feel like I know enough that I can actually be eloquent instead of just angry. For now, however, I will just say that seeing that long green wall for the first time was one of the hardest and most emotional experiences of my life. It was one of the many times that I’ve realized that my perception of reality, and actual reality were different. And just like all of those other times, I’ve learned from the discomfort and I’ve grown from it. I promise that I will write much, much more about the Border, and about immigration policy, and about the all of the people that I’ve already met who are suffering because of it. But before I can do that, I need some time to process what I’ve seen and experienced. But look for that sometime soon.

Border Studies, 2008

Hi, everybody! This isn't really going to be an actual post. This is pretty much just me saying that I"m not going to be able to post for a while. I'm not entirely sure when I'll be able to post again, because I'm going to spend my semester on the U.S./Mexican border, and I'm very busy with getting ready for Tucson, Arizona. I'm going to try to write somewhat frequently, but I can't make that guarantee, because I don't know my schedule yet. At this point, all I know is that I leave on Saturday. I'm sorry.

Study Abroad!

So I got this in my inbox about half an hour ago:
"Congratulations Kat! You've been selected to participate in the Fall 2008 Border Studies Program! More information will be coming your way very soon. You will be receiving a formal acceptance letter in the mail very soon, as well as a packet of various forms to be filled out and returned to our office at EC and on the border! So stay tuned for
that!
I just wanted to say "Congratulations" and "Welcome to the Border
Studies Program!"
Talk to you soon!
Felicidades,
Cheryl"
I suppose jumping up and down and screaming might be a bit immature. So I'll settle for doing it in text: WOOOOOOO! Considering how awful my phone interview went, I'm shocked that I got in. Now all I have to do is worry about whether or not I have the money to go. All those hours "flipping" burgers and being yelled at (and hit on) by creepy old men are finally worth something! It still isn't entirely definite, but I'm going to celebrate anyway. Voy a viajar a Mexico! (y Texas.)
Mexico (and Texas) here I come!