Ihum 260

I took this class because my wife is from Mexico City and I thought that it would be a good opportunity to learn more about her culture. I have really enjoyed everything, and feel that I have learned a lot throughout the semester. My favorite material would be Bless Me, Ultima and Latin paintings section.

The main thing that I liked about Bless Me, Ultima was that it reminded me of my childhood. There were a lot of scenes from the book that brought back fond memories of things that my friends and I did. I almost died laughing during the play, when all the kids were out of control. I especially remember a part when one of the kids swears in Spanish and the teacher asked him what that meant and he said something like (I don’t remember the exact words) it means lets go. Even more important than the memories that the book reminded me of was the lessons learned from it. Personally, one of the biggest takeaways from the book is tolerance of others people and their beliefs. I cringed at the part that the little kids were saying that Florence was going to go to hell because he wasn’t Catholic. Those scenes made his death very powerful. Can you imagine what the kids must have felt like after his death? It is also obvious that they would not act that way if they hadn’t learned it from their parents. Living in a Mormon community it was a good reminder of the example that I should set and how we all should treat everyone, whether we have the same beliefs or not.

I really enjoyed the paintings that we studied because I could see the progression of how Latin American artists created their own genre. I feel like they started doing what was being done in other parts of the world but then strayed from that and created their own style that screams Mexican Culture with every fiber and paint stroke.