No Compromise -- Reflective Essay

My first thought when we walked into the large conference room was that my grandpa must have misunderstood the information. The twelve or so men, who were smartly decorated in name brand suits, silenced themselves and turned to us, with beaming smiles. I quickly turned to my abuelo, grandpa, and quickly observed his large silver belt buckle, dusty cowboy boots, and a suit that was strangely reminiscent of the seventies and wondered how we would survive this situation. Before I knew it, the men were on their feet and candidly shaking hands with my grandpa. It took me a couple of seconds to realize that my grandpa wasn’t speaking English and that these men were making short one- liner jokes in broken Spanish that made my grandpa laugh. He had mentioned earlier that he would need my help during this meeting and all of sudden it became clear what I was needed for. I forced a smile and shook hands with the men. Over the chatter in the room I heard someone say, “And this is Reyes’s granddaughter; she will be translating for us this morning.”


There is no other way to describe my grandpa other than a vaquero mexicano loco, a crazy Mexican cowboy. He exudes everything typical of a Mexican man: good work ethic, pride, an insufferable machismo- like attitude, and of course, a healthy love for tequila. Born in Chihuahua, Mexico, my grandpa lived the first half of his life in poverty. When he immigrated to the United States of America, my grandpa knew that he wanted a different life for himself and his family. From the ground up, my grandpa single-handedly built a multimillion dollar company that manufactures specialized machine parts that go up in Space. He has the opportunity to work with clients like NASA and Lockheed Martin on projects like the 2001 Mars Odyssey, Galileo, and the Spitzer Space Telescope. The thing that makes my grandpa’s success unique is that my grandpa, though he is able to fluently, refuses to speak English unless absolutely necessary.

I grew up speaking Spanish with my grandparents because my grandpa insisted that “I needed to know where I come from.” I was never sure as child why it was so important to know Spanish especially because my grandpa needed to speak English to some family members, like my mom. It used to be a family joke how my grandpa spoke such eloquent English yet was stubborn as a “burro perezoso”, lazy donkey. The last thing I expected was that my grandpa’s stubbornness transferred into the work arena as well. It was excruciatingly overwhelming to walk into that board room, not knowing ahead of time that I was there to translate a business deal. A million thoughts ran through my head as I prepared for a task that I had never done before in my life. Translating is complicated and takes a lot of skill; most translators have a lot of bilingual experience before taking jobs such as that which my grandpa was expecting from me. The meeting went on for a couple of hours, testing every bit of knowledge that I had.

At one point in the meeting, there was something that my grandpa said and I mistranslated it. He corrected me loudly and more importantly, in English. I quickly looked from face to face of the business men to see their reactions. I was sure that there would be a reaction of surprise, or maybe even an out cry. Perhaps one of them would be upset and feel deceived. To my shock, a couple of the men slightly chuckled but business carried on. No one said anything, not one word about what had happened. I was sure that maybe the men were being polite and would address what happened after the meeting had concluded. I waited for a confrontation that never came. On the ride home I asked my grandfather about what had happened and why he didn’t just conduct his business meetings in English. “It would be a lot easier for everyone,” I asserted, “and would save a lot of time.” My grandpa sat in silence for a few moments. I was nervous that I had said something wrong, or worse, insulted his ego. When he answered his words were slow and calculated. “I am Mexican. I speak Spanish. I am not ashamed.” His words echoed in my head the rest of that silent car ride. There was something about those three simple statements that will forever stick with me.

Since that meeting, I have taken great care to understand why my grandpa does what he does. Maybe it is partly his impossible pride or his fear of making mistakes but my grandpa speaks Spanish simply because it is his native tongue. I think that my grandpa in his own way is rebelling against the push to culturally assimilate. Every time he walks into a board room, it is a reminder to himself that he did not have to compromise his past to provide a successful future for his family. Assimilation is something that is hard for me to relate to. Perhaps that is because at first glance I look as “white” as they come and I have no accent when I speak. I can only imagine the pressure my grandpa has felt and maybe continues to feel on an every day basis to maintain respect as a successful minority. The most important thing that I have learned from my grandpa is how important it is to be true to yourself. You might have to work just a little bit harder but there should be nothing that can make you compromise who you are. My grandpa is thoroughbred Mexican; hard working, proud, uncompromising and completely unashamed.

Bitter Frosting

Having your cake and eating it, too. I can’t help but think of my mother’s voice echoing through my head as a child, in her attempt to somehow make me understand the realm of choices and expectations. It wasn’t until recently that I really stopped and think about what it really means, you know- to eat it and have it all at the same time.

Recently, I had an ex-boyfriend fly in from out of town to spend a long weekend with me. It had been approximately two years since I had seen this guy but we had been able to maintain a pretty candid friendship via phone. Of course, my fiancé wasn’t so thrilled at the idea of me spending a weekend with someone other than him, let alone a Mr. from my past. Despite the concerns, the trip was planned and in came “Guy” for an unexpected weekend of horror.

An unfortunate detail of my life is that my best friend has been unofficially dubbed “God’s gift to men.” (Not my phrase but that of the countless pursuers that had been turned away). There is something about having a gorgeous best friend that seems to alter any hope of having a healthy self esteem and opens a doorway of all those unnecessary emotions and feelings that I wish I didn’t have.

Long story short- he comes out; he ignores me while spending all five days trying to desperately get it my friend’s pants; and proceeds to make the situation overall awkward. My feelings got hurt and I really tried to identify why. I have a man who loves me but for some reason here I felt no better than the first runner up for Ms. America. In the end, I decided I wanted to have my cake and eat it, too. That is a dangerous position to be in and as a girl, has proven to be more complicated that I could have every imagined. I guess I will still never understand why people still want to have their cake and eat it, too.

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Poetic Pain

Using the fluidity of water to shape a single account of love being discovered and lost, "Gotas" combines a range of themes and elements to create a story that shares an intrinsic universality with its message to its audience. Love is an emotion that seems inherent to human nature and therefore something that every one can relate to in some way whether it be finding true love or spanning to the opposite spectrum: the absence of love. Here we are introduced to Isabella and Davi, a couple who has experienced the joy of falling in love and the pain of finding that their love has not led them to the same destination but instead to a place of complication and resentment. As an audience, we experience their relationship in different stages and are able to see a story of the genesis of love spanning to the break up and why it happens.

Both Isabella and Davi are in love. They discuss it at length, and even in the midst of their break up, there is a presence of pain because they realize that they are still very much in love but can not be together. As implied by the dialogue, Davi has created an issue for Isabella through the course of their relationship. The more time they spent together the more expectations Davi had of Isabella. The pressure of feeling inadequate became like the breaking of a dam for Isabella and the flood of resentment overcame the relationship. In the final scene when they are actually breaking up, they both realize that they fell in love with idea of love and they realized, perhaps almost too late, that they were not meant for each other. The audience is left with a painful ending as the two walk away from each other.

The beauty of the film is the subjectiveness it allows for its audience to take. "Gotas" shows a couple in three different perspectives: what she says, what he says, and what the camera shows. As stated by Andre Felipe Cara de Mederios, producer and director of the film, "There is no message that we were trying to convey. Presenting a film with no agenda or personal messages allows a beautiful thing to happen: people use their ability to freely interpret what they see therefore allowing them to critically apply that message to their own lives." After watching the film, some people may choose sides in the break up, others may reflect on their own relationships and their own experiences of ending a relationship.

It is nice that there is a forum such as YouTube for people worldwide to present and their videos. For people like Andre Felipe who are just starting comissioned projects like this, it is a good opportunity to showcase his work. Personally, I think that if a film like this would be received better if presented in a different media. Frequently people stereotype sites like this to provide a certain kind of entertainment so often beautiful pieces of work get overlooked.

Pirate Extraodinaire

Boldly boasting "The Best Page In The Universe", Maddox of maddox.xmission.com represents a new generation of cultural satire that has created a controversial phenomenon worldwide. Taking inspiration from random current events, Maddox has created a blogging forum that sports attitude, sarcasm, and condescending retort that becomes addicting after just one visit to his site. The hilarious yet somewhat deluded entries have brought hours of personal entertainment that keep me checking back often to read the next saga of strange dimension.

Using a limited color scheme and simple hyperlinks, Maddox has provided a plain and easy to use page minus any frills or any conventional format that comes complete with tabs and spaces filled with nonessential information. I think it is refreshing to have a site that can be easily navigated and not polluted with unnecessary graphics that take too long to load.

There is a certain ingenious to Maddox, evident by the "hate mail" link and hit statistics (proudly posted on the front page), that gives himself further reason to boast his piratical ego. Maddox's rantings provide an almost convivial relationship between his readers and himself. While it is generally assumed that the website is for the readers, I think that Maddox gets more out it for himself then the thousands of people who visit the site on a daily basis. The focus seems more on catalyzing controversy then actually contributing worthwhile information. It has to be humorous for Maddox when people take the time to dispute his opinions while making themselves look like the idiots. There have been several entries that have been so radical that maddox.xmission.com has been banned in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, let alone several servers that refuse access on work computers. When the bans were first implemented, there was a surge of hits to his site, proving how much influence Maddox has.

Maddox's website has been so successful that he recently published a book (The Alphabet of Manliness) that follows the same genre of his website, series of short essays that promote his fantastically funny rhetoric. There is something refreshing about reading things that are unapologetic radical and things that you have thought yourself without having the guts to say it yourself.

With the expansion of the Internet, it seems that traditional print is becoming more unconventional. Having such an open forum as the Internet has allowed for people like Maddox to spread their own personal propaganda despite having no other qualifications other than thinking they are right. Thank goodness, or I would be one source less of entertainment.