nccotus

as a Brit I run amok with Spanish-speaking America.

There must be a hundred different ways to speak Spanish in America and I don’t know a single one of them. Just as there is no history of slavery in England, neither is there any connection to New World Spanish cultures.

at my high school there was a niche for the sons of wealthy and powerful South Americans, but it was the oppisite of an education in that regard. I remember being on a bus in the city of Reading and hearing two men conversing in Spanish and feeling so dismayed.

So, I loved the book “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Marcia Marquez. My best friend at that time, a woman who spoke Spanish and loved to visit Brazil, gave it to me to read when I was in high school.

Recently, I learned a lesson about high courtesy towards people of Spanish-speaking cultures. I learned to be very wary in this regard. I can’t really help that I grew up in worlds bereft of such culture. And it feels eo difficult and dangerous to address my ignorance in this regard. But I am slowly learning how to ask questions.

And, I have begun to lift up the families at the Mexican border in prayer, something I didn’t see to do before.

It’s a start.