Our Readers First!

John Diaz, the San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial page editor stopped by my opinion writing class at San Francisco State on Sept. 24 and gave his thoughts and suggestions when it comes to write Op-Ed pieces or first-person pieces.

Although Diaz counts with a long journalism career, I liked his humbleness. When he got to the class he explained why he was some minutes late. He said he was at a meeting with Mayor Gavin Newsom. Diaz also read us parts of some of his writings to show us the importance of putting our personality and voices in our pieces.

Picking the right topic, think of ourselves as readers and doing enough research prevailed among the thoughts of Diaz. However, one suggestion that really got my attention because it is something I deal with a lot when I write first-person pieces is to avoid foreign language terms unless really necessary. He said he deals with writers who do this all the time and some of them drive him “crazy.”

I really like to write pieces that have to do with my culture--immigration, cultural events (Day of the Dead, Cinco de Mayo, Latino Heritage Month), about my country, profiles of Latinos and so on. Some times when I write first-person pieces I tend to write things in Spanish or throw terms that only the Latino community or people who understand Spanish would relate to. I am sure I am not the only one!

When I asked Diaz about his thoughts on a piece I am working on for this same class, which is about the terms Hispanic and Latinos; he said in this case it’s fine to throw some words in Spanish, but he emphasized that if we do use cultural terms in our pieces we have to explain them so they can reach out to a larger audience. However, he said that it also has to do with the publication one is writing the piece for. For example, if we are writing a piece for newspapers like La Opinión, then it’s fine because its readers are mostly Latinos.

The overall point here is that even when we write a piece in which we bring our own experiences we have to think beyond that. At the end of the day, it’s not about us, but who will read our piece.

I just want to thank John Diaz for taking the time to come to my class and share his expertise and experiences as a column writer as well as providing his thoughts on first-person pieces. We will definitely have them in mind, at least I will.

"Desinformación Internacional"

El siguiente enlace que aparece abajo es del periódico La Tribuna de Honduras. Es un editorial que me pareció muy interesante porque hace énfasis en que hay una "desinformación internacional" acerca de lo que realmente es y representa Honduras. Y esto según el artículo hace que los turistas lleguen al país con prejuicios y una idea equivocada.

Básicamente el editorial habla de que algunas enciclopedias internacionales e inclusive algunos analistas dan una información limitada de Honduras que no necesariamente refleja la verdad de este país.

He aquí el enlace: http://www.latribuna.hn/web2.0/?cat=10

Copan Mayan Ruins in Honduras

Please take a look at this beauty from my country, Honduras. It is one of my favorite places there and I want to share it with you all. There are two videos that I found on YouTube: one in Spanish, which I thought was interesting and it shows all those little corners of the ruins; and a shorter one in English (a friend recommended to me) so you can sort of figure out what's been talked about in the first one. That's one of my long-term goals--Capture the beauty of my country as a journalist.

¡Ya Era Hora!

Ya era hora de que la gente se tomara las calles para protestar en contra de las intervenciones en otros países del presidente de Venezuela Hugo Chávez.

Ver imágenes en muchas ciudades de Europa, pero sobre todo en ciudades de Latinoamérica de tanta gente disgustada, manifestando su repudio contra Chávez y gritando, "No más Chávez" es seña de que la gente no quiere más estas intromisiones del mandatario y han decidido tomar la justicia por sus manos o en este caso, tomar las calles para hacer escuchar sus voces de descontento.

Sin duda alguna, las intervenciones de Chávez ya sea por medio de comentarios o acciones mal intencionadas han colmado la paciencia de muchos sobre todo al ver que nadie se toma la molestia de ponerle un alto al señor Chávez. La verdad personalmente ya estaba cansada de escuchar a Chávez opinar y juzgar, pero sobre todo amenazar a otros países interveniendo en asustos que no le competen.

En Latinoamérica por ejemplo, Chavez ha hecho casi lo que le ha dado la gana. Ha logrado atraer a mandatarios como Daniel Ortega de Nicaragua, Rafael Correa de Ecuador y Evo Morales de Bolivia, entre otros, creando así un grupo izquierdista que pretende asumir roles que no le corresponde. De Chávez y los hermanos Castro de Cuba pues ya se sabe que siempre han unido fuerzas para doblegar a sus propios países. El presidente depuesto de Honduras, Manuel Zelaya pretendía seguir estos pasos, pero gracias a las intervenciones de otros poderes en Honduras que lograron parar su cometido, el país sigue manteniendose alejado de Chávez.

No obstante, Honduras que también se sumó a las protestas, ha sufrido de cerca las intervenciones de Chávez en los ultimos días. Después de que el ejército hondureño sacó del país a Zelaya el pasado 28 de junio en un hecho también condenado llamado, "Golpe de Estado" por querer éste cambiar la Constitución de la República de Honduras, Chávez hizo sentir su poder de intervención cuando amenazaba en enviar sus tropas para según él obligar a las nuevas autoridades de Honduras a restituir a Zelaya. Ese era el miedo de muchos dentro y fuera del país. Si esto hubiera sucedido, el resultado pudiera haber sido lamentable.

Y así como en Honduras, Chávez ha manifestado su interes en querer inmiscuirse en asustos internacionales buscando lo que él no tiene en su propio país: libertad y democracia.

Estas noticias en Estados Unidos han sido transmitidas y divulgadas en su mayoría por los medios de comunicación en español. Qué lástima que no todos los medios de comunicación, sobre todo los periódicos de alto rango en Estados Unidos como The New York Times le brinden tanta importancia a esta noticia de tan gran mérito.

Ahora no queda más que darles un A+ a los organizadores de estas protestas de descontento contra Chávez esperando que este mensaje le llegue al mandatario para lograr de una vez por todas que no intervenga más en asustos de no le conciernen.

When I speak in "English"

Whenever a person listens to me speaking in English whether in a classroom setting or on the bus I feel the need to explain them why I speak English "different" or at least I feel like I do.

It's not about explaning them why I have an accent, it's more about answering the questions that I think they have about the way I speak: in a "broken" English. You might probably say, who cares? Well the reality is that I do. I am the one who feels bad when I know I said a word wrong and that feeling will keep on hunting me until the end of that day.

Somehow I feel like I am that weird person in the classroom or that newly-arrived Latina immigrant on the bus. And I feel like that especially in a classroom in which the majority of the students are from a "I speak English perfectly" background or even in a classroom full of Latino students like the Raza Studies classes where the majority are Latinos, but were born here.

I am from Honduras, Central America. All my family is. I came to this country six years ago with no English at all and really frightened to start a life in a new country, a new culture, a new language. When I was in Honduras I never worried about learning to speak another language and neither I had the opportunity to do it so. My father came here when I was two years old and my mother when I was eight. I basically grew up with my grandparents on my father's side. So yeah, this is also what I feel like explaining or telling people for them to somehow understand me. And again, who cares, right? I do.

My years in school here have passed by very quick. I graduated from high school in two years. I didn't go straight to a four-year institution because I didn't have the four years of English or math and other requirements. ESL didn't count. I went to City College and stayed there almost three years and I transfered here at SF State last fall. So I feel like my stay in school is being like in a rush. It's like, I have to take these so many classes that weren't necessarily grammar/spelling English classes.

Well, now that I am at SF State let me tell you about journalism. When somebody asked me what's your major, I go "uh...journalism," as if they would critique me because they know that if you want to be a journalist in this country, you must know English. And I mean good English. Sometimes I said to myself that I think I am majoring in journalism not only because it has always being my dream, but because I think that when it comes to English I am better in writing than speaking. Feel free to disagree! In Spanish I think I am good in both. However, when I read these great articles whether in a newspaper, the Internet or some of them even written by some of my own classmates, I go like wait a minute, do I really know how to write? And this question keeps popping on and on.

Journalism means "periodismo" in Spanish. And it was this word I grew up with. When you speak about periodismo you don't really differentiate broadcast and print journalism. It's the same. So I was like I want to be a "periodista" (journalist). First, I wanted to go to broadcasting, which I still do. I would spend hours in front of the computer reading my favorite newspaper Website's articles in Spanish called La Tribuna from my country Honduras like it is a teleprompter preteding that I am a news anchor or something . Yeah laugh! In other words, maybe I think I would probably do a better job in any Spanish-speaking media. My ultimate goal is to be a correspondent from Honduras to here or vice versa for whether a Spanish-speaking newspaper or a news channel.

Again, maybe people don't really care about me speaking good or bad English, but the true is, I feel the need to explain. At least that way I wouldn't go home thinking about that wrong word I said in the class or that sentence with grammatical errors I said on the bus.