Of Conquistadores and Time Shares

Of Conquistadores and Time Shares

San Diego is a wonderful piece of the world, and I journey to that sun-embraced part of California every January to attend a conference called Partners in Science.  I began this tradition eight years ago when I did a research project with Seattle Biomedical, but that’s a bit of a long story.  Suffice it to say that I’m grandfathered into the system, and now get to enjoy a few complementary nights at the Mission Bay Hilton Hotel where the conference takes place.  Lori La Güera and my son Benji came along this year, but occupied themselves elsewhere while I attended the conference. For example, on the first full day of the conference, I joined a group of teachers and scientists that toured the facilities of Scripps Oceanographic Institute.  During this time, my significant others joined some friends and went to LegoLand®. 

While there, Lori was given an opportunity for a $100 gift certificate for Lego® merchandise. The only catch was that the “gift” required a promise to attend an hour long presentation at the Hilton LegoLand Resort—an opportunity to become “part owners” in the Hilton franchise.  For merely thousands of dollars, we could have access to glamorous vacation facilities and discounts on theme parks, plus have the chance to be somehow connected to Paris Hilton.  Who could say no? Someone who always feels two paychecks from poverty, that’s who. Excited, Lori called to get my consent. I said absolutamente no.  Six hours later they came back to the hotel with plastic bags filled with a hundred dollars worth of Lego items, evidence of a blatant disregard for the words of el jefe.

The second day of the conference was for viewing poster presentations of new participants, giving them the chance to illuminate people on their arcane scientific research.  There were also teacher workshops with offerings ranging from the use of nanotechnology in science classes to ways to motivate students toward STEM careers (STEM is currently the word of the day for science teachers. It’s an acronym for Science Technology Engineering and Math, and if you’re writing a grant, be sure to include it in your proposal.)  The evenings were filled with classy dining and stimulating talks.  In a nutshell, this conference recharges my intellectual baterías each year, and makes me truly feel like a professional.

On the Sunday morning following the end of the conference, we headed for SeaWorld, that colorful mezcla of science and entertainment—a theme park that tries to educate the general public who, for the most part, are satisfied with a superficial glimpse into the titillating realm of the fang-bearing sharks, or an anthropomorphically amusing sea lion show.  I’ve been to SeaWorld numerous times before, but wasn’t prepared for the spectacle that greeted us as we neared the entrance: a quarter-mile gauntlet of sign-wielding protestors lining the road.

The messages ranged from the straight-forward “BOYCOTT SEAWORLD” to the informative “WILD ORCAS SWIM 40-100 MILES A DAY IN THE OCEAN” to the play on words “THEY’RE DYING TO ENTERTAIN YOU.”  The protestors were passionate, and I am mostly on their side.  It’s a quandary for a marine educator like me.  I used to work with marine mammals at Marineland, and I felt empatía for our confined pair of Orcas (Orky and Corky) as they swam in their monotonous circles.  I even helped hold a baby Orca as the other trainers slid a lubricated tube down her gullet to feed her (Corky refused to nurse her.)  So I’m intimately familiar with the conditions being protested against.  But I also know that my ten year old son is much more amazed by beautiful large sea mammals now that he’s actually seen them up close and has gotten splashed by them (we sat in the Soak Zone of the Killer Whale show.)  One of the signs had the admonition to “WATCH BLACKFISH” which is a documentary currently on Netflix®.  I haven’t seen it yet, but I know I should.

On Monday we spent a glorious sunny morning…indoors. It was time to visit the LegoLand Resort and fulfill our part of the aforementioned $100 deal.  But what was originally billed as an hour-long presentation stretched into a two-and-a-half hour ordeal would have strained the patience of a tortuga.  We knew from the beginning that we weren’t going to buy, but felt a little obliged to endure the nice young lady’s enthusiastic sales talk as a way of saying “thank you for the $100 dollar gift certificate that I told Lori La Güera not to get.”  After traversing three layers of sales personnel with ever more affordable options, we escaped the LegoLand Resort and headed for the nearest Subway®. 

After lunch we drove to Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve where we hiked the trails over the cliffs, admired the unique Mediterranean-like flora, and played on the beach.  This was Benji’s first time wading into Southern California surf, and despite the fact that it was January, he took to the water like a natural dude.  I couldn’t have been prouder.  Dinner was in Old Town where I traditionally have a post-conference Mexican meal with some new form of margarita.  The choice this year was a refreshing cucumber & jalapeño concoction at Miguel’s Cocina—a delicious way to end an almost perfect day.

Tuesday was our final day, and I drove Lori and Benji to the airport early in the morning.  We had separate flights, and I wasn’t leaving until late in the afternoon. So I had time for one more aventura.  I had read about the intriguing sandstone formations of Point Loma and made that my destination. This is a place where waves crash angrily into rugged cliff walls at high tide, but expose tremendous tide pools at low tide. As it were, I got there during high tide, so got to see and hear the dramatic water show that is such a contrast to the comparatively nonmoving water of Puget Sound. This area, the cliffs and surrounding 600 acres of now-rare coastal sage scrub habitat, are part of the Cabrillo National Monument. I’ve known of this name and its association with Southern California since childhood, but didn’t know anything about Señor Cabrillo himself. So it was off to the visitor’s center for a quick look-see.    

 

The visitor’s center overlooks the city of San Diego and the bay. A godlike statue of Cabrillo surveys the spectacular view, rigid with its sandstone composition as well as its erect posture—accentuated by the cross-bearing column attached to his back. The proudness of this escultura reminds me of all the times Europeans are depicted as semi-deities discovering new lands and bringing enlightenment and civilization to the savages of the “New World.” But Cabrillo wasn’t quite the destroyer of native civilizations that Cortés was (although he did launch his career as the captain of crossbowmen under Cortés, and one has to wonder how many Aztec foes he fell.)

As I gazed at the armor-clad mannequin in the mini-museum (depicted in my dibujo above) I couldn’t quite hate him too much. Like SeaWorld, the Spanish conquistador (quick point of clarification: Cabrillo was neither Spanish nor a conquistador; he was Portuguese, and the term “conquistador” wasn’t coined until a hundred years after he died) presents a quandary. Sure he and his ilk, with their smallpox and their Catholicism, wiped away the indigenous peoples and their ways of life. But I, and millions of other Americans pocho and otherwise, are a product of his arrival. If Cabrillo hadn’t found the excellent bay that is now San Diego, we wouldn’t have the Mission Bay Hilton or SeaWorld. If his fleet hadn’t explored further up the California coast, we simply wouldn’t have the country we all enjoy. Ultimately all the organizations and landmarks mentioned above: Scripps Oceanographic Institute; Seattle Biomedical; Marineland; and even LegoLand® all exist because adventurous and greedy marineros along with their proselytizing monks and friars, invaded and settled this part of the world.

I’ve grown to accept the uglier parts of our common history out of necessity. Besides, one of the interesting legacies of Spanish colonialism is the pervasive use of español in west coast geography. In fact, next time you visit LegoLand, drive 0.8 mile northwest. There, overlooking the beautiful Pacific Ocean, you’ll find a lovely upper-class residential area. Read the street names and you’ll find Los Robles Drive.     

Your Perro pooped on our Césped

Perro pooped on our Césped

The time has come to introduce Skippy. He’s reclining with his back against my thigh as I sit on the couch typing this. Yes, Skippy is the family perro, a long-haired Chihuahua. He’s of the deer-face variety, a much more handsome animal than the apple-head breed—the freaky little shivering wimps typically portrayed in entertainment venues such as the Ren and Stimpy cartoons. That’s my personal opinion, por supuesto, but I bet most real hombres would agree. 

Both varieties of Chihuahuas, however, share the characteristic lightbulb round forehead. This is a textbook example of neoteny—the retention of physical or behavioral traits reminiscent of infancy. In the case of the selective breeding of domestic dogs, neoteny shouts out from the large round forehead, bulging eyes, and reduced snout of the Chihuahua—all bringing this descendent of a timber wolf closer, in appearance, to a human bebé. These qualities, along with a constant need for contact and affection, allow Chihuahuas to fill the void felt by nurturing ladies bereft of actual children. Happy and spoiled is the Chihuahua owned by such a woman. Sigh.

Anyway, it wasn’t my idea to get a dog, much less a wee parody of a dog that demonstrates the humorous side of artificial selection.  And this is ironic because Skippy has adopted me as his human of choice. When I come home and plop down, he is immediately on my lap. And I’ve begrudgingly grown fond of him, and not just to connect to my heritage through Mexico’s famous dog. Yes, Chihuahuas truly are from the state of Chihuahua. In fact, as a child I thought they were a species of wild animal caught in the Mexican desert, like a kit fox or a jackalope.

So one day, about six years ago, I came home from work and there he was, purchased off of Craigslist-Seattle by my wife and daughter sin permisso. For years I maintained, as the hombre of the house, that I didn’t want a dog— not even a cute Mexican one with a diminutive body that entices rodent-hunting owls to swoop closely overhead  (true story.) I just didn’t need another pet, even if his ancestors once warmed the laps of Mayan royalty.

But Lori La Guëra was trying to do something special for our daughter Summerlyn.  As a young teen, Summerlyn really wanted a Chihuahua. Not because she was trying to connect to her one quarter Latina heritage, but because high-profile celebrities were making tiny dogs quite appealing, like little canine accessories. Paris Hilton had Tinkerbell, Britney Spears had BitBit, Hilary Duff had Chiquita, and by golly, Summerlyn was going to have…Skippy. $400 later and our family grew by one undeniably cute young Chihuahua.

Within a year it became apparent that Skippy was an alpha male—or so he thinks. Whenever he’s on a walk, he asserts his dominance over any dog that listens. GUAU GUAU! But he reserves most of his verbal venom for Hunter, the big German shepherd across the street. Owned by a family of Mexicanos, he is black and massive and apparently understands Spanish. I have heard Regino, the hombre of the house, bark orders (sic) at him in Spanish and Hunter dutifully complies. Regino speaks English perfectly, but his wife Alicia does not. Her English is as bad as my Spanish, so she and I can only communicate on a perfunctory level.

Anyway, Hunter spends his days behind a sturdy wood fence. Whenever Skippy gets loose in the front yard, he immediately charges across the street and barks through the bottom of the fence at Hunter, who is maybe twenty times more massive, but is safely confined. Their shouting match exudes great enthusiasm on both sides, and after a few seconds Skippy proudly strides back home with his chest puffed out. The neighbors, thankfully, don’t seem to mind at all.

The only problem with doggy communication is that it is sometimes accompanied with the exchange of bodily excretions. Often when Skippy finishes his barking performance, he accents it by raising a hind leg and anointing the neighbors’ grass with his urine. This is undoubtedly enraging to Hunter who can smell the puny interloper’s deposit. “How dare that little runt to mark his territory on my turf,” he thinks. What’s worse is that dogs, when possible, leave feces rather than urine. I have witnessed Skippy squat in sight of Hunter for just that reason. It’s usually followed by a gesture whereby Skippy kicks his hind legs forcefully behind him, scratching up fragments of grass to rain down on his droppings.

All this is turf war using chemical tools we short-muzzled humans just don’t get. Scent glands near the anus add chemical signals to the doggy poop that are meaningful in a canine sort of way. Glands are also present in the paws, so when Skippy scratches grass behind him in that insulting manner, he’s releasing pheromones into the area that proclaim his presence. These are identification markers, attempts at social dominance.

Fortunately our neighbors are better at keeping their perro where it belongs than we are. But once in a while Hunter does get out. When he does, he understandably rushes to give Skippy a taste of his own medicine. I don’t mind—Skippy deserves it. The only problem is that if Hunter decides to leave a solid calling card in the yard, his deposits are pretty much as big as Skippy himself. This happened the other day, and luckily I saw the land mine before anyone stepped in it. Regino told me that if Hunter ever does this to let him know—a neighborly gesture I appreciate—but as I gazed across the street I could tell he wasn’t home. I could see Alicia, along with Regino’s padres who were visiting from the old country, so I knew that if I were to go over there I would have to communicate in Spanish.

But how do you say “your dog pooped on our lawn”? I decided to march over before I chickened out and just say the first thing that popped into my little Pocho cabeza. I started with a Buenos días to the anciano, to which he replied in kind. This was followed by a “¿Regino no está aqui?” (to which I already knew the answer.) The old man responded with a sentence I didn’t really understand. And then I delivered the finale to Alicia, “su perro usó nuestro césped como un baño.”  Everyone laughed, and that’s always a relief. Alicia came over with plastic bags on her hands saying “where’s the poopy”, an cross-lingual effort as glorious as my own. Amazing how a little doggy doo can be the catalyst of both foreign language practice and neighborly communication. 

Say ADIÓS to the Summer

Say ADIÓS to the Summer

As another summer comes to a close, we in the Pacific Northwest are painfully aware that it's time to say goodbye to our life-giving globe of warmth and light. This inspired me to republish a review I once wrote of a children's book called: 

La Lagartija y el Sol (the Lizard and the Sun)

By Alma Flor Ada 

Illustrated by Felipe Dávalos

This beautifully illustrated children’s book delivers a Mexican folktale in English and in Spanish.  The story takes place in the pre-colonial days of the Aztec empire.  It begins with a crisis: El sol no salía y todo estaba en tinieblas.  It’s not really explained why the sun doesn’t want to wake up (he’s bored with his job?), but all of Monteczuma’s  horses and all Monteczuma’s men couldn’t get a rise out of ‘ol Sol.  Actually there were no horses in Mesoamerica in those days, but el emperadodoes employ a woodpecker with a rock-hard beak and a tenacious little emerald lizard to help resurrect the sun and end the darkness.  I won’t give away their trick, but I will say the book ends (spoiler alert) like a Rudyard Kipling “just so” story—Y desde ese día, a todas las lagartijas les encanta dormir al sol—which explains why it is that lizards love to bask in the sun (of course, we could consider reptilian ectothermy, but that would diminish the story’s charm.)

The colorful paintings of this book are very captivating.  They are based on the Aztec style of picture writing, the 2D glyphs seen on ancient ceramic vessels and ritual codices painted on deer skin.  I first saw these stylistic images, where all the figures are seemingly drawn in profile, in my sixth grade history book.  Growing up in Southern California, we learned an appreciable amount about Mexican history.  I recall the Aztec soldiers in jaguar and eagle suits wielding their ornate battle clubs bravely, but futilely, against the firepower of the Conquistadores.  I’ve since seen the stylistic art of the Aztecs in countless Mexican restaurantes, especially the famous Aztec calendar stone (that amazing disk-shaped sculpture comprised of a series of intricately detailed concentric rings that draw your attention to the sun god Tonatiuh, who sticks his tongue out at you from the center.*) But the paintings of this book are rendered in a fully 3D fashion, as if Quetzalcoatl pulled his creations out from the world of flat glyphs and into the 3D world.

There are floating chinampas, oversized headdresses, plazas and pyramids, and authentically gargantuan ear piercings (but no obsidian lip plugs thankfully).  And despite the focus on an Aztec style, a little Diego Rivera influence makes its way into the art—making it a truly Mexican production.

*Actually, what appears to simply be a tongue dangling from the god's mouth is an obsidian knife--a reminder of the god's thirst for human sacrifice. I thought I'd leave that little detail out of a children's book review.

Palabras Profundas

resplandecer – to glow

resplandeciente - glowing

trono – thorn

descubrimiento – discovery

pájaro carpintero – woodpecker

despiértate – wake up!

florecer– to bloom

alumbrar – to light up

Linkos

http://almaflorada.com/the-lizard-and-the-sun-la-lagartija-y-el-sol/

If you're a fan of wonderful Mexican art (mucho más mejor que mío), then check out:

http://felipedavalos.com/

¡AH! La Serpiente se Escapó

¡AH!  La Serpiente se Escapó

Part of my high school Spanish experience required the listening to and repeating of dialogues performed by enthusiastic, if goofy-sounding, actores. Usually we considered them to be a little corny. I remember part of one in particular, where a concerned mom (la Señora Gómez) wonders what her little boy is carrying in a bag. The 40 second exchange ends with:

Sra. Gomez: ¿Qué tienes en esa bolsa?

Roberto: Una culebra.

Sra. Gomez: (GASPS loudly)

Roberta: ¿Por qué haces esa cara mamá?

Of course, the attempted humor of this dialogue is based on what is, unfortunately, a pervasive and seemingly instinctual fear of snakes. It’s the same sentiment that allowed Indiana Jones to growl “I hate snakes” without creating much of a social backlash (imagine if he said “I hate dogs” and then doused a room full of cute puppies with gasoline before sending them to a fiery end.)  Last week I got to see this fear put into action in a big way.

My classroom is the biology class with all the critters. I have two little tortugas (red-eared sliders to be precise) named Pedro and Rosadelia, two fancy-tailed goldfish that belonged to my son until he lost interest in them, a golden axolotl (a strange salamander naturally found in only two lakes in Mexico) and, up until four days ago, a ball python named Hamilton. Unfortunately, my three foot long snake decided to test his boundaries and successfully pushed his way out of his tank. Apparently the screen cover was no longer heavy enough to resist him.

When students and I discovered that he was missing, I felt obligated to tell the other teachers on my floor. There was a slim possibility (pardon the pun) that he squeezed under a door and, in the middle of the night, entered a different classroom. My fear was that someone would discover a serpent under their chair and launch into an explosive panic. A few emails later word spread como un reguero de pólvora. By lunchtime I had two assistant principals, a security guard, the dean of students, and an animal control guy all in my room helping me search high and low. The atmosphere was a mix of giddiness and a nervous case of the willies. By the late afternoon, my cluttered room had been thoroughly inspected. I had even removed countertops to search in hidden spaces. Alas, Hamilton was nowhere to be found.

On the next day, my principal popped her head in and asked if I’d like to be interviewed for the news. I declined without hesitation. Nonetheless, by lunch time a news crew from Seattle’s channel 13 arrived to create a story. This was followed, an hour later, by two other news crews that simultaneously interrupted my 5^th period biology class. The cameraman roamed my room taking shots of stuffed specimens and live critters while my giddy pupils tried to get into the camera’s view. Others took cell phone pictures with the reporters they must have recognized from T.V. I still refused to go on camera and further embarrass myself. The whole thing was mortifying. Was this really a news-worthy event? And it wouldn’t end. Even an hour after school was out I got a surprise visit from a reporter of a local newspaper. It was truly a media circus.

I was embarrassed by my own potential negligence and felt exploited by the media. I told them I preferred to remain anonymous, and yet one reporter filmed his animated commentary right outside my door with my name plate clearly in view (and balancing out the rule of thirds as one observant student pointed out.) Students were accosted after school as they left the campus and were asked for comments. One of my kids told me her car was stopped as it was leaving the parking lot by a reporter darting in front of vehicles asking for students who had Mr. Robles.

By the end of the week I was emotionally exhausted. I couldn’t walk down a hall without having to field questions from concerned colleagues. A running email exchange throughout the school took a humorous life of its own. The story reached across the state and into Oregon and, as of this afternoon, a Google search for “python in Issaquah” brought up 25 separate news stories over the reach of five pages. All the while, my students are mystified as to why this made the news in the first place. It’s just a pet snake for crying out loud.

The best part of this story is this. After almost six days of worrying, searching, gossiping, and the whole media circus, I returned to my room after making copies at 6:20 in the evening and, lo and behold, guess who’s lying on the floor right inside my room.  That’s right, El Señor Hamilton. He had emerged from his hiding place, seemingly tired of the ordeal, and was waiting by the door like a faithful dog awaiting his master’s return. I could have kissed him. I settled for letting him wrap around my arm to absorb my mammalian warmth as we reclined in my teacher chair and reunited. I’ve never been so glad to see that stupid snake.

But here’s the kicker. Three television stations and over a dozen newspapers covered the story of Hamilton’s escape, addressing the incident with the same earnestness required of a true natural disaster. But now that he’s returned, how much news will that generate? What reporters will pop into my room to see Hamilton safe and sound?  Is good news newsworthy? 

Palabras profundas

La serpiente

La culebra

El pitón

Linkos

Here’s just a taste of the story:

http://www.king5.com/news/local/Pet-python-on-the-loose-inside-Issaquah-High-School-223558331.html

Trying not to get discouraged

How did you spend your verano?  Part of mine (three weeks of it) was spent at Seattle University teaching a class called Introduction to the Biomedical Sciences.  The class was offered through a nonprofit organization called CTY (Center for Talented Youth) which is based at Johns Hopkins University.  It was a very intense class; three hour morning sessions, two hour afternoon labs, and two hour evening study sessions.  My 18 students, coming from all over the country and two from other countries, were either aspiring doctors or children of pharmacists or surgeons who were more or less coerced into this expensive course. So while my Issaquah High School colleagues were traveling, fishing, and sleeping 'till noon, I was leading future medical professionals through dissections of cow eyes and fetal pigs.

During the week I actually stayed in the dorms (Bellarmine Hall to be exact.)  I was on the seventh floor, barraged by the incessant hum of nearby freeway traffic and the sweltering heat of the afternoon sun. Bursts of laughter would sporadically echo down the long corridor. It dredged up decades-old memories of my communal coexistence in the barracks-like dorms of Humboldt State.  

What’s all this got to do with being Pocho and speaking Spanish?

The classes offered through CTY were not all science classes.  There were literature, history, and engineering también.  And the instructors, almost all of which were in their twenties, came from all over just like the students.  I was the ONLY local guy in the dorm.  Four young gentlemen on my floor, mostly engineering instructors and T.A.s, were bilingual caballeros.  Their names, and points of origin, were: John from the Dominican Republic (they say Dominica); Juan from Honduras; Ramón from Puerto Rico; and Lalo (Eduardo) from good ‘ol México.  They were a handsome quartet of amigos that moved effortlessly from English to español and back again.  They could chat with the kitchen help in their native tongue, and instantly switch to yak with their Anglo colleagues.

Now I’ve been studying Spanish, to some degree, for almost FORTY YEARS and am still not bilingüe. Well, I should clarify and say that I first started those many years ago, but haven’t really seriously been studying it all along.  Still, I thought I was getting pretty good, but when those four caballeros started chatting in high gear, I had no idea what they were talking about.  How sad, it made me say “ I’ll never really learn Spanish.” So, my challenge now is to not get discouraged by those four Latino gentlemen who, at half my age, were twice as literate.

By the way, the above cartoon is purely a reflection of my own self-consciousness, not a depiction of something that actually happened.  Juan et al were the nicest of gentlemen and never made fun of anyone.

Palabras profundas

Pocho: this word literally means spoiled fruit, and was used by farmers to describe discolored fruit that was no longer any good.  Somehow it became adopted as a derogatory moniker for people of Mexican descent that, intentionally or not, became “less Mexican.” This was usually manifest in the lack Spanish speaking ability, or the adoption of American ways.

Ese tipo es un pocho; no puede hablar nada de español y siempre actúa como un gringo.

With the increasingly mixed population in the U.S., however, the term pocho is becoming more and more embraced as more of us happily accept the role of someone straddling two heritages.  I can’t help the fact that my Mexican-born father married a lovely güera who didn’t speak a lick of Spanish and, consequently, made our home into an English-only institution. Nevertheless, we still made tamales on Christmas, menudo on Saturdays, and had many many tíos y tías.

Linkos

I’ve never met Texan Ed Cantú, but he’s a fellow pocho who has reflected and written mucho on the phenomenon of pochoism.  Check out his blog:

http://pochoyproud.blogspot.com/

...and if you’re already proud of your mixed heritage and want the world to know it:
http://pochowear.com/