Where the Water Meets the Sky..*

An extraordinary story about women from Zambia who were taught how to make a film. This new knowledge worked as a way to speak about their lives and their problems and how they challenge their own cultural traditions.

I think is a great opportunity for this women so that they can share with the world the reality where they use to live daily and how they take care of their problems without anyone's help. Their lives have been very hard, most of them grew up with aunts and grandmothers and others just grew up orphans because most of their parents had AIDS.

It really hurt how hard is to explain us each of their lives stories, because is something that they have lived and I'm pretty sure that having to remember this is not a good thing but all of these women were trying to pick the best story to make a film about it.

Finally they decide to film Penelope's story which is based on an 18 year orphan and her struggle to provide for herself and her siblings in the wake of her parents’ deaths. This was the story which had like all the other women story in it, so that's why they chose this one.

And obviously all this women were proud to be helped and to be filming this type of movies which had made them become popular and better known around the world. Sometimes we think we know everything but when we start really opening our eyes to different cultural traditions, we can be sure that we never stop learning from other people or other things.

I really liked this story, although i slept in a part of the movie, the settings and the same background of the story really made me think that sometimes we think we have the biggest problem, and we don't. Outside there is other people who really is needed, and we need to be happy with what we have and use all the resources we have too.

Mi Familia/My Family by Gregory Nava

This story chronicles three generations of a Mexican family's emigrating to the East of Los Angeles. The story starts when Jose Gonzales, the Dad of the family, wants to find a job to get money for living. He travels to los Angeles to meet with "El Californio, who was born in the city when it was still part of Mexico. This men offered him work with the corn crops and they became friends.

Jose meets Maria, the mother of Chucho, Isabel,Paco, Toni, Jimmy and Memo, who was an American citizen. During the time she was pregnant of her first baby, she went to the groceries store and that she was caught and deported to Mexico by the U.S. Federal Government in a mass roundup. Two years later, she makes it back to Los Angeles with Chucho to meet with his husband.

In this parts i can identify the first two borders in the movie, when Jose walks to Los Angeles and then when Maria finds the way to go back home with her son.

Right in the middle between Mexico and California were the family Sanchez settled. In the beginning, this situation wasn't a big deal. The eldest daughter Irene gets married. Chucho and Paco, the narrator of the story, were grown up. Memo and Jimmy were the new additions in the family.

The outstanding moment starts right in the wedding of Irene, were Chucho and his "crew" face with Butch Mejia and his men who start to bother him. Chucho had the look of the angel of the family, because he was the first son and his father Jose loved him a lot. What their parents didn't know was that he was involved in marihuana business and they received the call from the police station to alert that Chucho was doing this kind of things. This day was the start of Chucho's wildness. After he fought with his dad at home, he left the house. He preferred to leave, than regret from his mistake in front of his little brothers. Mr. Jose was disappointed, heartbroken and very sad. Later Chucho involved in other big problem during a dance when his rival Butch came to bother him and his girlfriend. In the middle of the fight a knife appeared on the scene and Chucho killed this guy accidentally. After this event, Chucho became a fugitive by the police. Later the police was chasing him and he got shot by them in front of his brother Jimmy, who was playing nearby.

So many years passed and Jimmy became in the biggest hard-heart person in this world, he went to jail because he became an angry man following in his brother step's becoming a fugitive like him. Jimmy was very upset and mad with all this problems, because he never knew the reason but he felt that the police men did it in purpose. Jimmy had a big trauma for 20 years after this accident until he gets in love with Isabel who felt the same way as his. He felt a relief when he shared the anger he had to Isabel who also confronted the scene when her dad was killed in front of her face. He had a baby with Isabela but sadly she died right after she gave birth and Jimmy enraged attacked the doctor who helped Isabela during the surgery and full of this anger he assaulted a jewerly and the police caught him and he went to jail again.

Later, when he came out of prison he wanted to meet his little baby. The little kid was very crazy, because he grew up only with his grandparents who represented nothing for him! His mother died and his that just came out of prison and this kid didn't pay attention to his dad at all.

This movie has a lot of borders . We talked about the bridges when Jose crossed and then when Jimmy was on his way to work. Other one is the border between Toni and the Priest she wanted to marry after all, because in our religion that's not normal neither allowed. Also there was a border between the friends of Memo and his family because they thought "William" lived in other conditions, so they were feeling uncomfortable in his house, the way they looked to their crops was not the best and to the dog in the middle of the way, everything!.. Memo was trying to hide his childhood stories and his family background too.

Borrowed words from other languages

All the countries in the world use in their language words that aren't on their same language because the words can't be translated to their language. Probably there are differents reasons for each of the countries but this is one of the important ones.

In the United States people has adopted different languages expresions and words that can't be translated in English, and one of this translations are types of food, clothes and some others. For example Patio.. Patio is known in spanish as a yard but a specific type of yard; Some houses have these yards and they are like around the house and in the back part of the house decorated with some plants and flowers that makes the greenyard atractive. But here, people use this word"Patio" to refer just to a plain part of the house for example: with some chairs and tables, with and outdoor view and that's not what it really means.

In Panama, we use the word "OK" because it means like "everything is fine" or "esta bien" and its like shorter than all this spanish words. Also, we use "Jeans" for jeans ..haha, as simple as that, I think that it's because it was an american invention so it doesnt has any other way to call them. I meant, we have changed our language so much, as Dr. PG said, we don't speak the same way people used to some decades ago! We have fixed it and changed it a way so that words are not complicated anymore. For example

Some years ago--------Now
Chiflar-------------------Silbar ( to whistle)
Camiseta---------------Suéter (sweater or shirt)
Libreta------------------Cuaderno (notebook)

These are only some changes we have made on our language and we can't leave behind the Panamenian sayings or well the panamenian words that can't be translated and that is so bad because when you want to use that specific word there is not any word that can replace it.

And about the book chapters we have read "pendejo" there is no translation for that word. It's kind of fun because the word is unique but at the same time is not fair because there is no way to use it in other language:(

I really miss my native language because I can't express myself fluently in English. English is not my native language but I can express myself whenever I have to.

Borders between people

Last week on Monday, we spoke about people who feels inside and outside their region or country border. In this case Dr. PG used Obama and Mcain who were running for Presidential position on 2008.

Obama was born on Honolulu, Hawaii which is part of the US and where he grew up too. He graduated from Columbia University and the prestigious School of Law of the Harvard Law School. This man had been living on many different places in the US so that we can say he is fully grown on American grounds.

John McCain III was born on the Canal Zone, Rwpublic of Panama. From this point the problem starts; he is not fully "American", well that's what some people said. He went to 20 different schools, one of them was Episcopal HighSchool on Alexandria,VA; he graduated from the Naval Academy, US. and worked as a naval aviator. After all this, he moved to Arizona where he started with the political studies.

The American people though that not being born in US was a big thing because if someone wants to be the president of the US, the person should be born and live in the US so people can trust you, because you are supossed to know all the problems and all the things the country had and has, so the person will help to fix all the problems. I really think this is not a problem, because people have the right to learn new things everyday and if McCain didnt grow up in US well he did learn about the country history and problems after moving and settling to his new home in the US, but in the other hand, Obama grew up in American ground, he lived as a american teenager and enjoyed all the american traditions during his chilhood and all his family did too so this made his image look atractive to the US citizen because they felt this man had the tools needed for doing a good job as a president.

In other case, we can use Dr. PG's story. He was born on North Carolina but then his Mother is Mexican and his Dad from Ohio! so he is a mix of races, languages and different cultures. He considers hiself half-and-half so he will be located in the middle between US and Mexico.

In these examples we can see that Obama is situated in the US with all the knowledge required, but McCain would be probably in the border between Panama and US because he has this panamenian heritage which didnt help him much during his campaign. and finally Dr. PG will be situated in the border between Mexico and US, because he has family in both countries.

In my case I can say that I'm 100% Panamanian but there is a feeling that i don't have the knowledge and needs of the country sides. It's weird how this feelings come to my mind when I start thinking about it.. Viva Panama =) i love my country!

Going Global First Seminar Year

Q.E.P 101-124 Going Global

Border Identities

Professor: Bryan Pearce-Gonzalez

Mentor: Brittany Lewis

Student: Blanca Navarro
ID# : 227330