Author: aorozco

Posted on

Sie/Usted and du/tu

One thing about the German language that struck me from the time I began learning it is that, like Spanish, the language contains within itself and grammatical structure, the capacity to differentiate the level of respect for the person you are speaking to. In Spanish, “usted” is formal and “tú” is informal. In German, it is “du” and “Sie.” However, what is most surprising about this to me is that, unlike Spanish, the “Sie” is almost never used. Our German teachers have always made that clear to us. While perhaps in extremely formal settings, there is the need, in the classroom or even amongst family members, the formal will not be used. The formal is retained, really, as a way of speaking to God (or the Divine) as well as in settings where there are strangers or the person being spoken about is unknown. This lines up with the category of Power Distance, which Germany ranks a 37 on, while Mexico an 81. Mexico is an extremely hierarchical country and respect for elders is of utmost importance.

When comparing this to the category labeled “Indulgence,” I also feel there is fruitful analysis. Mexico ranks high here (97), the USA (68), and Germany (40.) Taken in congruence with understandings of hierarchy, between Spanish/Mexico and Germany/Germany, the German people seem to be much more self-regulated. The idea of discipline is passed on not through hierarchical systems, but cultural norms and understandings of what it means to be a member of society. That is fascinating to me and especially in that my first introduction to German culture has been Berlin, which is a city known for its indulgence, but more than that, an indulgence that is “underground,” away from the scene of the more mainstream German. From techno clubs to sex clubs where (I have been told) folks dance completely naked, Berlin is what I might call a “crack” in the system of low indulgence and low “respect” for hierarchy.

Something I have been impressed and intrigued by is the way that the German people remember their history in the architecture of this city. From the parliament building to an exhibit called the “Topography of Terror,” which sits on the old grounds of the Nazi’s Secret Police (Gestapo), Berlin remembers the horrors of fascism and the subsequent Cold War. The parts of the wall that still stand are now painted by artists from many different countries with images of peace. Even in my host family, whose father was a Nazi and had to flee from what is today Poland to West Germany, the imprints of the rise of the Nazi’s to 1989 when the wall fell are clear on these people’s minds. This analysis of a culture which is lower in Power Difference and on Indulgence further complexifies the narrative of the German people and their relationship to their own history. They know the horrors of overly hierarchical structures of government, which results in a decentralized system. Yet, it is clear that it is still in the “cultural water” sort of speak, that there might be control and order.

Posted on

Keine Sitzplatz

I was taking a train a while ago (about 2 months ago now) from Krakow to Berlin. I had visited Auschwitz, which had been something I had wanted to do for a while. I bought a train ticket that did not have a seat number on it so I took a seat that was not mine. The train ride is fairly long, 9 hours total I think. As I sat down, I asked the woman across from me if I could sit there. She replied “If you have a ticket to sit there.” I showed her my ticket and said “Keine sitzplatz” (which means “No seat.”) She looked at me and just said “Then sit.” The train was mostly empty so I thought it would not be a problem. A few hours later, a man came and said that was his seat. I moved to another seat, thinking the same thing—that man was an exception, the train is mostly empty, I will not be asked to move again. I was wrong. I was asked to move about 5 more times, despite the fact that every time there were seats right by me. My first thought was Polish and Germans are overly strict with their rules, yet sell tickets without seat numbers to some of us. I was frustrated and felt that the folks who had asked me to move were blinded by their own individualistic ideas of what it meant to ride a train. Using the D.I.V.E model allowed me to see something slightly different. Instead of overly stubborn Germans and Poles, I evaluated that perhaps they followed the rules for fear of themselves being pushed out of their seats.

            The description was 6 different people asking me to move seats because they had bought tickets with the seat number corresponding to theirs. I moved each time and, mostly because of the language barrier, rather than emotions, I moved without a fight, without pointing out that there were other seats around us. I cannot verify because I was alone. My evaluation is that perhaps if there was more fluid communication, I could have explained better that there were other seats and that my ticket did not have a seat number. I also think that there was perhaps a fear that if they sat in the wrong seat, they would be taken out of their seat. Since I had presumably bought a cheaper ticket (I guess that is why I did not have an official seat number), there is maybe a sense that if you pay more, your seat is guaranteed.

Posted on

Do Cheerleaders Really Exist?

I interviewed my friend Sara, who is from Spain, but now lives in France. Sara and I get along well in part because we are both Spanish speakers and also because she, like many people who are language teachers, is fascinated by my ability to speak English and Spanish in a way that feels natural. Our teacher on one of our first days even pointed out how she has visited my hometown and it was the first time, even as a European, she had seen people who were equally comfortable in both languages. As Sara puts it: “Your body language is the same! It’s so strange!”

         When I told her about this assignment, she was excited to talk about it because she wanted to ask me questions that she says she would have otherwise withheld. Sara’s number 1 question about Notre Dame was “Do the cheerleaders really exist?” She had seen them on movies and TV but could not actually believe that there were, as she put it, “women who wore short skirts and cheered men on.” I of course slightly corrected the idea that cheerleading was just a supporting sport and not, in its own right, a sport and an art, but that was not relevant to her question because she had only seen cheerleaders on TV at football games. Her number 1 stereotype of American universities, and in fact, in particular Notre Dame, was that all men play football and all women are cheerleaders. Of course, cheerleaders do exist, I explained, but the vast majority of people are only spectators in these sporting events.

         Sara also explained that she has the idea or perhaps stereotype that people who get to go as far as I have in the American academy are wealthy. She is from Spain but went to France to do a second Master’s in language acquisition and fell in love with the city and stayed. As she saw it, the American system was difficult and only the wealthy could crack into it. This she had from her own personal experience where she said that it was not the most intelligent, but the wealthiest of her classmates who went on to study at Harvard, MIT, and Duke. For her, the American university system is based more on wealth than on merit. As someone who has come to the PhD on full rides since beginning college, I know this is not fair to say about everyone. However, I cannot fault her for thinking this and I myself share the sentiment that elite schools in the US are run by economics more than genuine search for truth and the common good.

Posted on

Our Little Sombreros

I want to be clear that I feel as what I am about to describe is an act of racism and cannot be only brushed up to a non-judgmental stance on culture. However, I also think, as we have spoken about in the past, it is important to also process the way culture has something to do with the incident.

I am in a German class where there are other students from several other countries. One, who we will call Daniel for now, is from Spain. I am Mexican-American and have always described myself as such to the class. One day, while eating lunch, one of the British students began asking me about the “identity politics” of the US and my thoughts. Amongst other things, I told him that I felt identity was an important motivator for many important social movements in the US. I then described the Chicano Movement, a 1960s movement for the rights of Mexican farmworkers. Daniel did not appear to be listening, but he turned around and said, imitating a Mexican accent in Spanish and said “I can imagine you all saying ‘We want our rights.’ in your little sombreros.” I replied back that if they were wearing sombreros, it was to protect them from the sun from picking grapes all day to be shipped throughout the US and Europe.

Later in the conversation, the issue of the British Museum came up. The British student spoke to his opinion that the British Museum should simply give back the objects which belonged to African peoples. For him, he did not think it was too complicated of an issue. Daniel piped in once again saying that “Mexicans” and signaled to me take the issue of colonization “too seriously.” He claimed that our current president was “belligerently asking for objects back which were gifted to Spain.” I granted him that colonization was more complicated than simply a Spanish conquest and that there were many things wrong with any single story of history. However, the idea that colonization is taken too seriously felt off to me.

Culture can be thought of as a camera lens in that it determines how we look at the world. As I spoke about this incident with another Spanish woman in our class, she explained to me that Spanish culture, especially for the wealthiest people in society, of which Daniel is a part of, the idea that Spain somehow did something to gain riches is hard to understand. Spain is currently one of the countries in the EU that has the lowest GDP. Therefore, there is a sense that colonization could not have been that bad since look how poorly Spain is doing.

Through my own camera lens, having spent considerable time throughout Latin America, colonization seems complicated only in the sense that the single narrative telling of the story ignores resistance movements from indigenous people. It was not simply a Spanish conquistador with 50 men who destroyed the Aztec Empire. There were resistances and there were other people on the American continent who aided Europeans in taking down these great empires.

For each of us, the epistemological (or way of knowing things) is considerably different. For him, he lives in a post-modern Spain that does not continue to enjoy the lasting effects of its once great colonial Empire. For me, I live in a post-modern Latin American culture which understands itself as continent which is depleted of resources because of colonization.