Journal #4

At the CESL building I was given the opportunity to meet two international students. Before Wednesday, I was completely unaware of the program at the U of A for these students. It was such an eye-opening experience to hear about what they think of the United States and also to learn a little bit about their cultures. I was so amazed to hear about one student's story-- he was from China but had gone to an American high school in Africa for four years. He then came to Arizona as a freshman here at the U of A before he joined the CESL program this year. Another thing that happened that day is really going to stick with me. I had asked one student why he decided to come to Arizona all the way from Saudi Arabia and he looked at me, confused and said "to study!". It was then that I realized how unimportant education really has become in American culture-- even to adults! It was so inspiring to meet these young people so invested in their education-- something I feel is lost here.

When I read, "In the United States, it is very easy for me to forget that the people around me are my people. It is easy, with all our divisions, to think of myself as an outsider in my own country." in the text, I immediately saw a relation to the thoughts I had during class in the CESL. However, I wasn't thinking in terms of America, I was thinking in terms of my Mexican background. Where I grew up, the schools have a 98% Mexican/ Mexican-American population. I was never taught spanish in my household (a long story) and I had never really embraced my family's history. So, on Fridays when most guys would wear cowboy boots with the matching belt and hats and the folklorico and mariachi groups would be practicing for the annual 'Noche De Las Estrellas', I felt no connection to those people or the events that were so special to them. Or on "special occasions" when the student council would hire a 'Banda' band to play during lunch and students would crowd the mall area of the school so severely that you needed to go through buildings to get to the other side of campus, I never felt the enjoyment so many others felt and simply walked by. 

I had always thought of myself as different than the students I spent 13 years of my life with. However, when I was talking to Bader from Saudi Arabia, asking him questions about his culture at home, he would ask the same questions about me and I found myself answering in the same way I would imagine a girl in the crown at the Banda 'concerts' in the mall would have answered.