May 25, 2012
Bracero Narratives Introduction
The Bracero Program started in 1942 and ended in 1964. It was a program designed to get Mexican workers into the United States to help with agriculture work. This was mainly because during the Great Depression, the government urged all Mexican workers to leave, but once World War II started and many men went to fight in that war, the workers were needed once more. (For more information, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracero_Program .)
My Bracero Poem
A poem about the journey and life of a family that comes to the United States to work in the Bracero Program and the friendship that blossoms between the young daughter, Josephina, and a young Californian girl, Gloria.
Josephina:
Llegamos a un pueblo fronterizo en la oscuro, constantemente deteniendo y escuchando para la patrulla fronteriza. Estamos ratones pequeñas, fácilmente asustemos y temblando.
Encontramos trabajos recogiendo los limones. Usamos escaleras para llegar los más altos. El aire cerca las arboledas esta vivo con la fragancia de limones y flores.
Cruzamos la frontera hace muchos años.
El sollozando de nuestras tías y primas estuve insoportable. La larga noche de caminando apareció durar para siempre.
Cuando llegamos a una casa en la mañana temprano, preguntar para agua, un hombre venir con una pistola.
No sabemos lo que dijo, pero alejamos y continuamos caminando, nuestra sed punzante en la parte de atrás de la garganta.
Con el primer pago, nosotros todos fuimos a la tienda Busby’s y compramos nuestra primera comida en los EEUU:
La harina de maíz. El hombre en el mostrador no habló en español, pero él señaló la cantidad correcta de dinero en la mano de Papá.
Sentí los ojos de otras personas mientras caminamos por la calle.
Comimos tortillas y el zumo de los limones no deseados y chupamos en las pieles amarillas.
Un día, vi una niña jugando un juego con canicas rojos y azules. Me saludó y enseñó me como jugar. Ella es mi primera y única amiga aquí. No hablamos, pero ella me mostró cómo jugar.
Cuando salimos el pueblo ir más norte en California recolectar calabazas por el otoño, ella dio me sus canicas y su dirección. Lo perdí, pero recordé su nombre: Gloria Daily, y años luego, nos conocimos usando Facebook.
Word Bank:
Pueblo fronterizo- border town
encontrar- find
calabazas- pumpkins
polvo- dust
glacial- cold
pistola- gun
alejamos- back up
harina- flour
arboledas- groves
mostrador- counter
señala- points
cantidad- amount
canicas- marbles
saludó- greeted
la patrulla fronteriza- border patrol
Gloria:
I can’t believe it when I get a “Friend” request from her. She looks familiar, but I can’t place her face. Then I read something she writes to me: “Hello, to an old friend. I am Josephina, the girl you met in early 1960s or late 1950s. When I was young, I only speak spanish, but now I speak english, also.” I remember her.
The first time I saw her and her family was when they were walking into Busby’s. I was glad they had chosen that store, because Bean Busby was a good man, and wouldn’t make them go out the back door like other store owners I knew.
My father had lost his job the year before, my brother went to Vietnam, we had to move into a smaller home across town, and I had to go to a different school. It had been a rough year. There were a lot of kids there whose parents were braceros, or Mexican workers. My mother didn’t want me “mixing” with them, she thought they might be “dangerous” or something. I may as well have been born 16, for all the trouble I went to in disobeying my mother at the age of 10. But when I saw the little girl with the scared eyes and a long, black braid down her back, I saw an opportunity.
I knew she lived in a little village of ramshackle houses with tin roofs. I also knew that Sundays were payday, and that’s when she and her family would go to Busby’s, just on the corner. So I waited around playing with my marbles until they walked by. I waved the girl over, and she hestitantly came over. She smelled like the sweet, spicy fragrance only lemons can bestow. It became a Sunday ritual for us. The weeks of spring and summer passed and me and my friend, my lemon girl I called her just to myself, would scribble on the sidewalk with my new chalk, my only birthday present. But I was happy to share. I realized that she only knew how to write her name: Josephina Gallegos. So we drew pictures instead.
One Sunday she came and drew a picture of a pink girl with blue tears and lemons around her with an arrow pointing to some far-off place. I understood. When she left, we embraced, the first time we had ever done so. I gave her my little sack of marbles and my name and address. As I watched her walk away, her shoulders slumped, her head bent down, I found myself crying, too. It was the first time that I realized how important my lemon girl was to me. And the only words she said to me that I understood were, “Josephina Gallegos.”
Frida Quotes
“I paint myself because I am so often alone, because I am the subject I know best.”
“I suffered two grave accidents in my life. One in which a streetcar knocked me down, and the other accident is Diego. Diego was by far the worst.”
“I tried to drown my sorrows, but the bastards learned how to swim, and now I am overwhelmed by this decent and good feeling.”
“Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?”
“I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it’s true I’m here, and I’m just as strange as you.”
“Nothing is worth more than laughter. It is strength to laugh and to abandon oneself, to be light. Tragedy is the most ridiculous thing.”
Diego: “Thank you.”
Frida: “For what?”
Diego: “For making a fat, old, crazy Communist a happy man.”
“I am not sick. I am broken. But I am happy as long as I can paint.”
April 05, 2012
arte y lengua
Descripció del trabajo: For this project, each student decided which Spanish- speaking artist they would like to study the most. Then, we did lots of research on that person, including when and where they lived, their family, thier work, and their lives. Finally, we chose one piece of work done by this person and decided how to replicate it in some way. It didn't have to be exactly how the artist originally made it, but just your take on the piece of work. That piece of art and our artist's statement, which described how we made our version of the art and why we chose to do it that way, was the final product of this project.
La Declaración de la Artista
Mi mentora es Frida Kahlo, una pintora quién vivió en México. Yo escogí estudiar Frida Kahlo porque ella es muy famosa y sus pinturas son muy famosas. También, pensaba que su vida era muy interesante. Frida fue una artista surrealista. Ella usaba pinturas de muchos colores y sus obras a menudo representan dolor y tristeza. Uno puede reconocer sus obras fácilmente. Por buscar a Frida o a su esposo, Diego Rivera, porque ella frecuentemente pintaba misma y a su esposo en su arte. Me gusta el estilo de arte de Frida, porque las imágenes tienen muchos mensajes de Frida y su vida. También, sus obras tienen la cultura de México y de la cultura indígena.
Mi cuadro es sobre “las dos Carlitas.” Es similar al cuadro de Frida Kahlo, “Las Dos Fridas.” Me gusta este cuadro porque muestra dos Fridas que son ambas Frida, pero son diferentes lados de Frida. Tengo dos Carlitas, una al lado de la otra, también. Las figuras en mi pintura son más como surrealismo, porque ellas tienen piernas muy largas, y sus vestidos son muy largos también. Mi cuadro no tiene profundidad como las pinturas de Frida.
Las dos Carlitas son muy diferentes, la una de la otra. Una tiene un vestido de amarilla y café y tiene una cruz. La otra tiene un vestido de azul y verde y morado. Las dos Carlitas representan muchas cosas. La figura quién tiene la cruz representa a una Carlita quién es fuerte en su mente y es descarada o misma y sus creencias. Ella no tiene miedo de lo que otras personas pensaba de ella. La otra Carlita es más frágil emocionalmente y es más cohibido de sus creencias. “Las Dos Fridas” es un símbolo del amor de Diego Rivera, pero “Las Dos Carlitas” es una símbolo de mi personalidad y mi vida. Siento por Frida y su vida dolorosa. También, admiro su valor y la sinceridad de sus obras. Ella usa muchos colores brillantes, y ella pinta a si misma y a su vida hermosamente. Ella vivaba en su arte para siempre.
YYo aprende mucho gramatica de espanol durante este trabajo. Mi mentora, Frida Kahlo, este una pintadora muy famosa. Estoy orgullosa de este trabajo porque aprende mucho de Frida y su arte, y hago un trabajo de mismo usando todo la informacion. Cambiario mi trabajo ir Frida, nada mi. Hago pinta Las Dos Fridas, pero las dos Fridas vio durante mi aprendiendo de Frida. Me gusta todo de la trabajo.
December, 2011
*Por ejemplo, aprendemos vocabulario, pronombres de objecto directo y objecto indirecto,verbos de gustar, verbos reflexivos, verbos irregular, y mas.
*Tambien, tengo dias para hablando en espanol, solo, y trabajamos en traducciones. En las dias para hablando en espanol, solo, hablamos de acontecimiento actual, por ejemplo, Facebook, o sujectos pertinente a nuestro vidas.
En englis:
This is the class of Spanish 3. Our teacher is Ms. Becca
talk-spanish.net Katz. She helps us to learn many things in Spanish.
*For example, we learn vocabulary, direct object and indirect object pronouns, gustar verbs, reflexive verbs, irregular verbs, and more.*Also, we have days of speaking in Spanish, only, and we work on translations. On days of only speaking in Spanish, we talk about current events, such as Facebook, or subjects that are relevant to our lives.
cafepress.com
Trabajo de Tracuccion
123teachme.com
With this project, I had translated Al-Anon pamphlet from a local urgent care center that was an earlier part of the project. Taking that pamphlet, my group and I went through it several more times to double-check that the Al-Anon pamphlet was properly translated to Spanish. Then, our group created a pamphlet to mimic the original in Photoshop. We plan on placing these pamphlets in the local urgent care center, as well as other health centers and places that would make it easy for Spanish-speakers to attain. We are also going to contact Al-Anon to ask if they would like to put our Spanish copy of their pamphlet on their website, so it would be available for Spanish speakers.
al-anon-alateen-dcmd.org soarwithafg.org serenitybookstore.hanleycenter.org
My Reflection About the Project (Mi Reflexion del Trabajo)
I choose the Al-Anon pamphlet because alcoholism is a reality that is very present in our world. The more people who have the ability to access information about it, the more people Al-Anon has the potential to help with dealing with a family member or close person who has alcoholism. I think that this project that I did with Cayton and Ashley has a lot of potential. We even talked about it the other day, we could contact Al-Anon and propose to have them put our pamphlet on their website. Think about how cool that would be, to have something of ours on a national website! I think my groupmates and I have put an adequate amount of worktime into the project, as well. We have finished everything so far on time, and have corresponded over googledocs, helping each other and asking each other questions, such as, "How do you conjegate this?" and so on.
I have learned that, to ask questions in Spanish, you have to follow some rules. First of all--and this is the most easy-- is, if you're writing a question out, put an upside-down question mark at the beginning of the sentence, then put a regular question mark at the end. Also, whether you're writing or asking your question, say it in the 'usted' form, because it is 1) the polite thing to do, and 2) you don't know who may be reading your writing. In addition, do not start a question with the word 'do', as we do here. Just go on with the sentence. For example, if you were to say, "Do you have a dog?" in Spanish, you would say, (upside-down question mark first, of couse,) "Usted tiene un perro?" See how it just skips to 'usted'? So, in reality, you are asking, "You have a dog?", which, if you think about it, is quite similar to English slang. I ask questions like that all the time, I realize: "You got it?" or "You need help?" or "You gonna study for that Spanish test today at lunch?" So, with this pamphlet, I have learned some and I hope my group and I can help others learn more about Al-Anon.
I would give myself a 45 - 47.5 on this project, because I believe that I have personally worked hard on it and tried to as well as I could. An example of this is, when I was first translating it, I had to replace some words that make sense in English, but would probably be mixed up or confusing in Spanish, as well as making several revisons to the pamphlet. I worked and communicated effectively with my groupmates on this project, too. In addition, our final piece, the folleto itself, looks almost exactly like the original I picked up at the emergency clinic in Durango. We even got it to the exact same shade of turqoise as the original pamphlet, and we think it could be good enough to propose to Al-Anon to have the pamphlet on thier website for Spanish speakers. It certainly looks professional enough.
En español: Yo escojo (escoger) el folleto de Al-Anon porque alcoholismo es un realidad este común en nuestro mundo. Si mas personas saben (saber) de Al-Anon, después Al-Anon puede (poder) ayudar mas personas quién su resistencia de alcohólico. Pienso el projecto de Cayton, Ashley, y yo, tiene mucho posibilidades. Nos podríamos contacto Al-Anon y sugereremos ellos poden nuestra folleto en el sitio web. Pienso mi grupo trabajamos mucho en el projecto, y tenemos terminar todos en el tiempo correcto. Tambien, tenemos hablar en googledocs, ayudando y nos preguntamos y nos ayudamos.
Aprendo mucho en este projecto. Aprendo preguntar preguntas en Español. Necesita obedecer las reglas. Prima, si usted esta escribir una pregunta, puede un signo de interrogación al revés prima, entonces, a la fin de la escribiendo, puede otro signo de interrogación. Tambien, uso la forma de ‘usted’, porque es educado cortés, y usted no sabe quién esta leyendo su papel. Además, si habla, “Do you have a dog?” en Español, habla, ¿Usted tiene un perro? ¿Ve cómo el “do” en englis no esta aquí? En realidad, usted esta preguntando, en englis, “You have a dog?” Jerga de englis esta similares. Pregunto preguntas todos las días sin “do.” Por ejemplo: “You got it?” “You need help?” “You gonna study for the Spanish test during lunch?” Con este folleto, aprendí muchas y esperanza mi grupo y yo puedo ayudar otro personas aprender mas de Al-Anon. También, aprendí muchas de la comunidad de Español en Durango. Muchas personas quién habla español no desea cosas similares a un Rec Center folleto en español --ellos no necesitan este, pero ellos necesitan folletos y papel de salud tradujo. Ellos necesitan cosas para la necesita, y no la desea.
Tengo orgullo de mi proyecto, porque el folleto tiene el posibilidad ayudar personas, y ir en el sitio web de Al-Anon. También, el folleto mirada muy bueno, y profesional, y muy similar a el Al-Anon folleto real.
Un hábito de corazón y mente yo uso está refinamiento, porque yo refinamiento los tradduciónes mucho, y miro a este otra vez y otra vez hacer este mejora. También, nosotros hacemos nuestro folleto perfecto de refinamiento. I would give myself a 45 - 47.5 on this project, because I believe that I have personally worked hard on it and tried to as well as I could. An example of this is, when I was first translating it, I had to replace some words that make sense in English, but would probably be mixed up or confusing in Spanish, as well as making several revisons to the pamphlet. I worked and communicated effectively with my groupmates on this project, too. In addition, our final piece, the folleto itself, looks almost exactly like the original I picked up at the emergency clinic in Durango. We even got it to the exact same shade of turqoise as the original pamphlet, and we think it could be good enough to propose to Al-Anon to have the pamphlet on thier website for Spanish speakers. It certainly looks professional enough.
Examples of How I Understand Concepts in Spanish
I know how to work with Indirect and Direct Objects in a sentence, from answering a question in a simpler manner, to repeating a sentence in a simpler manner. Here's an example in English of what I mean, answering a question in a simpler way. "Did you talk to Chelsea today?"
"Yes, I talked to her." (Used the 'her' instead of 'Chelsea.')
OR
"Did you go to the Four Corners Folk Festival last summer?"
"Yeah, I went to it." (Used 'it' instead of FCFF.)
It's much easier using pronouns instead of repeating the whole sentence over, isn't it?
Now, here are some 'ejemplos' in Spanish:
"Elliott trae galletas para Becca?" (Elliot brings cookies to Becca?)
"Si, Elliott se las trae."
"Llamas a tus abuelos frecuentemente?" (Do you call your grandparents often?)
"Si, los llamo."
Escribo una carta a mi amiga. (I write a letter to my friend.)
Yo se la escriba. (I write it to her.)
Los estudientes dan muchos reglos a sus maestros para la navidad. (The students give many gifts to thier teachers for Christmas.)
Ellos se los dan. (They give them gifts.)
Las victimas reciben la ayuda de la cruz roja. (The victims recieve help from the Red Cross.)
Ellas la reciben. (They recieve it.)
Wondering how this works? Well, you have to find the direct object and indirect object in each sentence. Then, you change them.
Direct Object: me/ te/ lo or la/ nos/ los or las
Indirect Object: me/ te/ le/ nos/ les
In a sentence, always put the Direct Object first.
"Yes, I talked to her." (Used the 'her' instead of 'Chelsea.')
OR
"Did you go to the Four Corners Folk Festival last summer?"
"Yeah, I went to it." (Used 'it' instead of FCFF.)
It's much easier using pronouns instead of repeating the whole sentence over, isn't it?
Now, here are some 'ejemplos' in Spanish:
"Elliott trae galletas para Becca?" (Elliot brings cookies to Becca?)
"Si, Elliott se las trae."
"Llamas a tus abuelos frecuentemente?" (Do you call your grandparents often?)
"Si, los llamo."
Escribo una carta a mi amiga. (I write a letter to my friend.)
Yo se la escriba. (I write it to her.)
Los estudientes dan muchos reglos a sus maestros para la navidad. (The students give many gifts to thier teachers for Christmas.)
Ellos se los dan. (They give them gifts.)
Las victimas reciben la ayuda de la cruz roja. (The victims recieve help from the Red Cross.)
Ellas la reciben. (They recieve it.)
Wondering how this works? Well, you have to find the direct object and indirect object in each sentence. Then, you change them.
Direct Object: me/ te/ lo or la/ nos/ los or las
Indirect Object: me/ te/ le/ nos/ les
In a sentence, always put the Direct Object first.
A goal (or two, perhaps?) for next semester Spanish:
Mi meta esta estudiar mas antes de pruebas, porque las pruebas son muy importante para buenas notas en la clase de espanol. Si estudio mas, mi nota esta mas buena.Tambien, necessito ir preparo para las pruebas y se cuando las pruebas estan.
My goal is to study more before quizzes, because the quizzes are very important for good grades in Spanish class. If I study more, my grade will be better. I will also need to be more prepared to study for the quizzes and make sure I know when they are.
Dun-dun-duuuun! This is the Al-Anon pamphlet me and my group made. (For some wierd internet reason, I could only get the back side of the pamphlet on here--my apologies.)
Grammar and Vocabulary Concepts Form
1. Cual es un concepto de gramatic que aprendiste por hacer tu traduccion?
Un concepto de gramatica que aprende con mi traduccion esta preguntas, porque muchos a el papel de Alcoholicos Anonemous esta preguntas.
2. En ingles, explica este concepto. Cuales son las reglas que gobiernan este concepto de gramatica? Provee por lo menos 3 ejemplos de este concepto en contexto.
When asking a question in English, we often star with 'do' or 'does'. This is not the case in Spanish. Instead, you just skip it. So, "Do you look for...?" in English changes to "You look for...?" in Spanish.
Also, make sure to congugate using usted, because you don't know who your audience will be, and you want to be respectful.
Make sure you have an upside-down question mark at the beginning of each question, too. That is the way they do it in Spanish. (It kind of makes sense, if you think about it. Like the upside-down exclamation point. It tells you what the sentence will be, so it's not a surprise at the end. You could be asking a question without saying it properly, and then it would be a little awkward. Or even more awkward, is if you are reading a sentence in a very drab way, only to discover at the end an exclamation point! See what I mean? Then you realize you should've been reading it in a much more excited, enthusiastic way.)
(Please note that I do not use upside-down exclamation points here because I cannot insert them because the computer I am using doesn't have the ability to make one that I can copy and paste to here. My apologies.)
