Today was a pretty great day. We got to sleep in, but unfortunately had to say good-bye to one participant who left early (much love Mira!). A few of us decided to walk around, get some coffee and buy some comics. Early in the semester, we met with an artist, Laura Burns, who told us a lot about her experience in Juarez, but also told us about these comics. It's really interesting to the covers because a lot of them have very violent images of women. We were drawn to these and wanted to learn more, so a couple of us bought some. Mine was kind of crazy. It's an image of a naked woman, who might I add is very voluptuously, is covered in blood and has a giant needle covering her. The tag line is "Agarras lana o tragas plomo asi reza el narco", which means money or lead, a common phrase among narcos as a threat to people they end up getting on their side sometimes.
After that, we made a little bit of lunch and headed over to ACORN. We had planning from 1-3 on how we would teach the citizenship classes with a few women in the classes and in charge of organizing the classes. One woman, Sophia, had her test that morning and didn't pass. She had only begun the English proficiency part and got lost when the officer asked her to raise her hand and then explain why. Something was lost in translation, but when she asked him what he meant he simply said you don't understand enough and the test was over.
It's amazing how lucky some of us are that just by chance we were born here and just by chance our parents were born here or they were able to get citizenship. The test is so hard, which we went over in the class today. There were two classes, one in Spanish for those over 50 that get to take the test in Spanish, and one in English for everyone else.
In the English class, we split up into pairs and practiced speaking English. We first started with conversational stuff like "how are you?", "where are you from?", "how long have you been here?" And then broke off into the exam questions. A lot of these questions I would not know how to answer when on the spot at an interview that determined by citizenship. Stuff like what is the economic system of the U.S.? Looking at the answers I'm like duh it's market based/capitalism, but when I asked that I had no idea at first. The questions are things that you really have the reach back into your mind for the information. I obviously know these things, but the fact is that I take it for granted and don't really think about it ever.
My partner, Alejandro, was an amazing guy. He's been in the U.S. since 1992 and only became a resident in 1995, but his wife came over in 1986. What an amazing man! He has three kids, one boy and two girls. His son is being deployed for the second time in February. His older daughter goes to UTEP, while his younger daughter is still in high school. We spoke about his ride to work, an army base, which is 100 miles from his home where he's a carpenter, finisher, and is basically a renaissance man. After doing all of the real work, I began asking him questions about what he thought about ASARCO, since we had just worked with ACORN on that, and the violence in Juarez. It shocked me how articulate he was during this conversation. I told him after that it seems like he connects with the language a lot more when he was passionate about the issues, which as Jackie just pointed out is very unusual. This man was amazing.
ACORN gave us such amazing opportunities within the community and seeing how community organizing really works.
Off to bed now since we have to get up at 4:30 to hike with Elliot Shapleigh in the morning, go into New Mexico to visit a reservation, and then meet with our final organization before going out for dinner, listening to music and eating fried ice cream.
(We're also going to go bowling, but don't tell anybody!!!!)
This trip has been so amazing. I can't imagine a better group of girls. While I searched for boys to add to the trip, having all girls has made it an amazing experience. I love these girls. We all just clicked on the second day and ever since we've just been rolling along like best friends. I'm really happy on this trip and returning home is scary since we won't be together 24/7, but knowing more amazing girls and having even more people I can confide in really makes UMD feel like the place for me.
I LOVE THESE TRIPS!!!
ciao!
Mara
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